6.3.26 Assessing Trump’s two presidencies, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s political leverage, and digitizing Greek manuscripts

**Nick Eicher** (0:00)
Before we start today, every story that you hear today represents hundreds of large and small decisions, what to cover, what to verify, and how to tell the truth with fairness and clarity.

**Myrna Brown** (0:11)
During our June Giving Drive, we're inviting listeners who value that work to help sustain it. If WORLD has become part of your daily routine, I hope you consider a gift today. W-N-G dot org slash donate.
Good morning. Will Canada's prime minister block the expansion of doctor-assisted suicide?

**Brian Dachema** (0:36)
It would be a step in the direction of a government that actually protects the vulnerable, rather than sees them as something to kill.

**Nick Eicher** (0:42)
Also today, Washington Wednesday, Hunter Baker on the good and the bad of the two Trump presidencies. Later, a biblical scholar on a mission to digitize thousands of Greek New Testament manuscripts.

**Dan Wallace** (0:54)
The Bible is the only religious book of any major religion that says, you want to see if I'm true? Test it.

**Nick Eicher** (1:02)
And World Commentator Cal Thomas on the LA.

**Myrna Brown** (1:13)
It's Wednesday, June 3rd. This is The World and Everything In It. From listener-supported World Radio, I'm Myrna Brown.

**Nick Eicher** (1:19)
And I'm Nick Eicher. Good morning.

**Myrna Brown** (1:23)
Up next, Kent Covington with Today's News.

**Kent Covington** (1:28)
On Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the Trump administration's Iran strategy on Tuesday.
In his first testimony since the war began, the Secretary clashed with Democrats. Senator Cory Booker asserted that Iran is now in a stronger negotiating position than before the war.

**Cory Booker** (1:45)
We are the strongest nation on the planet Earth, and we're in a stalemate with Iran. And now we're begging to get back into a deal that you all trashed in the first place.

**Kent Covington** (1:55)
Rubio countered that if anyone is begging, it is Iran whose military has been devastated and whose economy is in shambles, pointing to protests in Iran even before the war.

**Marco Rubio** (2:05)
The economic factors in Iran are far worse today than they were six months ago when those protests were happening. They have hyperinflation, their currency is completely devalued, they're struggling to make payroll for their government workers.

**Kent Covington** (2:16)
He added that US negotiators see Iran's new supreme leader, Moshe Deba Khamenei, as increasingly engaged in talks through writing and intermediaries. He added that Tehran has agreed to negotiate parts of its nuclear program that it once refused to talk about. And he also once again defended the decision to strike Iran. He said if anyone thinks Tehran has leveraged now by choking the Strait of Hormuz, Imagine what nuclear weapons would give them leverage to do.

**Marco Rubio** (2:42)
At that point, they wouldn't even have to announce that we're controlling this. They would just say, we control the Straits. There's nothing you can do about it because our nuclear weapon will allow us to do it. You will have to pay us a toll for using an international waterway from now on. And you can't do anything to us militarily because we'll blow you up with a nuclear weapon.

**Kent Covington** (2:57)
Democrats largely reject the argument that the action was necessary, calling it a war of choice.
President Trump has picked a temporary replacement for Tulsi Gabbard to oversee America's spy agencies, at least for now. Bill Pulte will be the interim director of National Intelligence. Iran's the Federal Housing Finance Agency and chairs mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The 38-year-old has no known national security background, and he will keep his housing jobs amid the interim role. Trump pointed to Pulte's experience safeguarding sensitive financial markets, and allies also vouch for him, Trump health official Dr. Mehmet Oz.

**Mehmet Oz** (3:35)
He is a very sharp, quick study of people, their emotional abilities and their ability to persevere in the face of hardship.

**Kent Covington** (3:44)
But the pick is drawing criticism from some lawmakers. The director of national intelligence oversees 18 spy agencies, and critics question whether Pulte is equipped to lead them. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused the president of simply picking a loyalist.

**Chuck Schumer** (3:59)
Americans need an intelligence chief loyal to the facts, the intelligence, the security of the nation, not the political interests of one man.

**Kent Covington** (4:08)
Tulsi Gabbard announced last month that she was stepping down at the end of June to care for her husband recently diagnosed with a rare cancer. America's job market continues to show resilience. World's Benjamin Eicher explains.

**Benjamin Eicher** (4:21)
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that US employers advertised 7.6 million open jobs in April, the most in nearly two years, and far more than economists had expected. That despite some economic pressure from the Iran War.