US Prepares For Possible Strikes, Midterm Early Voting, Trump BBC Deposition

The U.S. is sending a third aircraft carrier to the Middle East. Oil prices are climbing back up as signs point to a possible military attack on Iran. What could another round of fighting accomplish? I'm Leila Fadil, that's A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News. Almost 21 million people have already voted. Turnout is way up in key battleground states compared to the last midterms. What can we learn from the data? And President Trump will have to testify in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC. A judge said if he wants to sue, he has to play by the court's rules. What could the BBC ask the president under oath? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day. There are tangible moves that point to the possibility of more heavy fighting in Iran in the next few weeks. Military reinforcements are moving in, and some U.S. personnel are moving out of the region. To break this all down, we're joined by NPR National Security Correspondent Greg Myrie. So, Greg, we heard yesterday about the potential plans between the U.S. and Israel maybe to launch a major strike or major strikes from someone who has briefed on them and talked to NPR on the condition of anonymity. What more do we know today? Yeah, a few bits and pieces, but perhaps the only person who knows for sure what will happen is President Trump. And he's been in the military for a long time. credulity that there were not more records that were needed to be given over that were responsive for the BBC's case. Tell us about the case. So back in October of 2024, just a few weeks before the presidential elections, the BBC show Panorama broadcast documentary in which it spliced together parts of the January 6th speech, 2021, that made it seem as though Trump at that pivotal day when there was a siege of Congress made it seem like he was bluntly calling for violence to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as the winner of that race. Trump said this was false, deceptive and defamatory under Florida law is seeking $10 billion. He's tweaked a little bit the grounds on which he's doing it, putting aside the claim that he made initially that this damaged his business and future financial prospects. Now he's talking mostly about his reputational injury. But as the BBC argues, his reputation is bound up in business and politics. I want to point out to listeners, Panorama was not aired in Florida or on U.S. channels or on the BBC's streaming partners here in the U.S. And the other thing the BBC points out is Trump not only won the 2024 race, he won Florida handily, too. What's the BBC hope to learn from Trump's testimony? The BBC did apologize for the splicing. It did. In fact, there was a fallout for some of its officials, but it's now trying to determine what his mindset was. Maybe they can show that he did want to encourage violence. They noted that a lot of defendants said Trump's speech had urged them on. Last thing, David, I mean, President Trump has sued lots of news organizations. What's the significance of this one? So, at the outset of President Trump's term, media outlets were settling. That is, you saw ABC and CBS settle lawsuits that President Trump had filed as a private citizen, trying to just kind of resolve it and get through. And it doesn't seem to have stopped his onslaught of lawsuits against other news outlets or him sometimes having government agencies investigate them or go after them and their parent companies nonetheless. So you've seen here the BBC fighting back legally. It's really going after details of January 6th. The judges have made clear they don't want this to be completely relitigated, the question of what happened January 6th, 2021. And yet it's a key core element of this case. They're looking at ways to show that Trump has actually profited since retaking the White House, not been damaged, undermining that $10 billion claim. Also, potentially going after another vulnerability of the president. He doesn't really want his financial details public, and they are securing information about both the level of interest in people joining Mar-a-Lago, his resort, and the court as members, and what costs he has charged them over the years. There's, in addition, at the court question, if there's evidence that President Trump or people around him wanted to encourage violence on January 6th, the president wouldn't want that public either. So you're seeing the BBC fight, and you're also seeing others battle back as well, particularly if you look at ABC's case against the Federal Communications Commission over its TV licenses it holds, and CNN, MSNOW, and Politico are suing the White House as well over the questions of access. Trump right now, in his lawsuit, has to decide how willing he is to play by the rules. Is he willing to submit to the rule of law in federal court in a lawsuit that he voluntarily brought? And if not, it looks very likely that this case will be dismissed. That's NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. David, thanks. You bet. That's Up First for Friday, October 23rd. I'm E. Martinez. And I'm Leila Faldin. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Andrew Sussman, Megan Pratt, Malikov, Mohamed El-Berdisi, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Iman Maani and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hainas. Our technical director is Zach Coleman, and our executive producer is Jay Shaler. Join us again on Monday. Up First is a production of Nia Dumas and Nia Folkenflik.