美国国家公共电台 NPR News Brief: Trump Invites Putin To Washington, Comic-Con Preview

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It was a pretty riveting¹ final act to a head-spinning week. Three of the Trump² administration's most senior officials separately and publicly outlined concerns or actions that diverged³ from their boss.

NOEL KING, HOST:

Yep. And then the president had another surprise. Trump's director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, learned about it while Coats was on stage at a security forum⁴ in Colorado. Here's the moderator, Andrea Mitchell, telling Coats the news, and his reaction.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ANDREA MITCHELL: I do want to say we have some breaking news. The White House has announced on Twitter that Vladimir Putin is coming to the White House in the fall.

DAN COATS: Say that again?

(LAUGHTER)

COATS: (Laughter).

MITCHELL: You - Vladimir Putin coming to the...

COATS: Did I hear you? Did I hear you?

MITCHELL: Yeah. Yeah.

COATS: OK.

MITCHELL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

COATS: That's going to be special.

(LAUGHTER)

KING: Coats and other top officials are still trying to figure out exactly what happened at this week's meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki.

GREENE: Yeah, but I just can't get over that - I mean, working in the White House and getting news about the White House that he didn't know about. Wow. OK. A lot to cover here. We're double teaming this morning with NPR White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe and also NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, who is in Aspen. Good morning to you both.

AYESHA RASCOE, BYLINE⁵: Good morning.

RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Good morning.

GREENE: Ayesha, can I start with you? So it sounds like we're going to get a sequel here. Tell me about this invitation that President Trump has made to Putin.

RASCOE: Yeah. So the White House says Trump has asked his National Security Adviser⁶ John Bolton to invite Putin to D.C. this fall. Basically, other than walking back his statement and in Helsinki that kind of questioned Russian interference in the election, Trump has been saying the meeting with Putin was this huge success. And so the idea of this second meeting seems to be a way to kind of promote that idea further.

GREENE: Suggesting that this went well so we'll have another one.

RASCOE: Yes.

GREENE: Ryan, as we heard in that extraordinary tape, this invitation came as a surprise to the president's own director of national intelligence. And it wasn't the only moment as Dan Coats was sitting on stage in Aspen where it sounds like he really saw some space between him and the president.

LUCAS: On the question of Russia, no. It certainly was not. And I do have to say that hearing the top intelligence official say that he hasn't been informed that the president has invited a foreign adversary⁷ to Washington really is a stunning⁸ thing to hear.

GREENE: He's an intelligence official. That makes this even more extraordinary. Yeah.

LUCAS: Right. Right. But there were a few other things all related to Russia and the Helsinki meeting. Coats made clear again that he stands by the U.S. intelligence agency's assessment⁹ about Russian interference in the 2016 election. He said Russia is still trying to undermine U.S. democracy, and on Helsinki specifically, he said he wouldn't have conducted a one-on-one meeting with Putin as President Trump did. And he said he still doesn't know everything that the two leaders discussed. Here's a bit of what Coats had to say about that.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

COATS: That is the president's prerogative¹⁰. If had asked me how that ought to be conducted, I would have suggested a different way. But that's not my role. That's not my job.

LUCAS: Coats did say that his job, however, is to present the president with non-politicized intelligence, and that may sometimes mean telling the president things he doesn't want to hear.

GREENE: Well, we were also hearing some noteworthy things from other people in the administration. President Trump's FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, both making news. Tell us about them.

LUCAS: Well, because of Helsinki, there's been a huge focus here in Aspen on Russia and its influence campaign and efforts to use cyberattacks, social media to undermine the United States. So Wray, like Coats, really rang the alarm bell about Russian influence campaigns. He said it's something that the U.S. needs to take seriously, particularly going into the midterm elections this fall. He also defended special counsel Robert Mueller and the Russia investigation¹¹. Here's a bit of what Wray had to say about that.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CHRISTOPHER WRAY: I think it's a professional investigation conducted by a man that I've known to be a straight shooter. So I don't think it's a witch hunt.

LUCAS: And then not to be left out, the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he showed up last night. He announced that the Justice Department is going to inform companies and individuals and organizations that are being targeted by a foreign-influenced campaign like the Russians carried out during the 2016 election. The hope with that is that exposing these operations will help counter them. And he said the American public has a right to know if they're being targeted by foreign government propaganda.

GREENE: So this is a setting in Aspen, the security conference, where these administration officials away from Washington there, among a lot of colleagues who, you know, have the same expertise¹². It sounds like they're just being very honest about their own views, even if they're different from the White House.

LUCAS: They are, although, you know, we've heard a lot of this from senior national security officials before. They've really tried to say that, look, Russia is a threat. What Russia is doing on social media is something that we need to pay attention to.

GREENE: Ayesha, let me turn back to you. We had White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders doing, it sounds like, even ***

GREENE: more backtracking now when it comes to some of the ideas that the president talked about that came up at this Helsinki summit.

RASCOE: Yes. So basically, Putin had floated this idea that his government would be able to interrogate¹³ former U.S. officials in exchange for the special counsel getting access to the 12 Russians indicted¹⁴ for election interference. But Trump called the idea, quote, "incredible" during a news conference, but on Thursday - during the news conference with Putin - but on Thursday, the White House said that Trump did not agree with the proposal. And that's probably a good thing because the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution that opposed making any former U.S. official available to Russia, 98-0. So that was a strong bipartisan rebuke¹⁵ of that idea.

GREENE: Can I just ask you both? I mean, what a whirlwind week this has been. I mean, in just a sentence or two, I mean, how do you see the importance of everything we've seen in the last four or five days? Ayesha, I'll start with you.

RASCOE: Well, it seems that Trump is getting to a point where he is a bit at odds¹⁶ with the rest of the administration when it comes to Russia, and he seems to be taking his own advice, going his own way. The question is, at what point does something have to give when it comes to these differences?

GREENE: Ryan?

LUCAS: For me in Aspen here, just, it's been remarkable¹⁷ how significant of a disconnect there is on Russia between the president, who really does seem to want to cozy¹⁸ up to the Kremlin despite its nefarious¹⁹ activities against the U.S., and Trump's top national security officials, who clearly view Russia as a serious threat that needs to be confronted.

GREENE: All right. You both have been doing a lot of traveling. Aspen, Colo. Helsinki. Thank you both for all your work on this story. That's NPR White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe and NPR's justice correspondent Ryan Lucas.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GREENE: OK. So we are going to head into the weekend with a little bit of relief from the real world.

KING: Yes. More than 130,000 people are in San Diego right now for Comic-Con. That's the annual pop culture convention that's become kind of a summer ritual. Comic-Con has gotten so big over the years that there's now a kind of carnival²⁰ that's spilling out of the convention center and into the surrounding areas.

GREENE: And, you want to talk about ritual, NPR arts editor Nina Gregory always goes to this wonderful event. Hi, Nina.

NINA GREGORY, BYLINE: Hi, David.

GREENE: Really hard assignment, as usual.

GREGORY: It's the worst.

GREENE: I really want you to tell me that none of these supervillains and superheroes here have anything to do with, like, Russian spies and all the news we've been following this week. So tell me...

GREGORY: I cannot make that promise, David.

GREENE: Great.

GREGORY: I'm sorry.

GREENE: Well, that's fine.

GREGORY: This is NPR, after all. We're going to have a CIA analyst²¹ make an appearance.

GREENE: All right. Well, go through the list for me. What are people lining²² up to see?

GREGORY: You know, people line up for a lot of things. Like, most things. Like, everything at Comic-Con they line up for. But especially the star-studded panels in Hall H, which is a big theater that seats about 6,500 people and generally where the biggest news is broken. What's noteworthy this year is who's not here - Marvel²³, Lucasfilm, "Westworld," "Game Of Thrones."

GREENE: Wow.

GREGORY: All fan favorites. Yeah. But taking over the iron throne might just be Jodie Whittaker, the first female Doctor Who. "Riverdale" is going to be in Hall H - that would be of the Archie Comics - which is finally making it on the big stage at Comic-Con.

GREENE: Nice.

GREGORY: Stephen King has a new show, called, "Castlerock," and Amazon's new show, "Jack²⁴ Ryan" - our CIA analyst makes an appearance. And I spoke²⁵ to Carlton Cuse, the co-creator, and, you know, asked him about Tom Clancy's character, who's quite relevant in this moment.

CARLTON CUSE: The spy genre²⁶ had been sort of overrun with anti-heroes. You know, if you think about Jack Bauer in "24," Carrie Mathison in "Homeland" or Jason Bourne. And we all hope that there is a guy like Jack Ryan, an unsung hero that is standing²⁷ between us and the chaos²⁸ in the world.

GREENE: OK. I'll take one spy. So I just - "Game Of Thrones" not there? Is it possible to have this convention without something from, you know, the famous creator George R.R. Martin?

GREGORY: David, it's not.

GREENE: OK.

GREGORY: So the cable channel SyFy has a panel for its new show, "Nightflyers." It's based on a George R.R. Martin novella, and it's not, like, a big sword and sandals epic²⁹. It's a horror sci-fi that kind of looks like Ridley Scott's "Alien." Despite this, like, mashup genre, you know, that might be surprising for fans of HBO's "Game Of Thrones," "Nightflyers" does have the potential to draw similarly broad audiences. I spoke to showrunner Jeff Buhler, who hopes for just that.

JEFF BUHLER: Horror or science fiction speaks to something universal. When it's the fear of losing your home, when it's the fear of our world dying, when it's our humanity that's at question, when our place in the universe is at - those are things anyone can identify with.

GREENE: That sounds like cool stuff. Nina, have a good time covering this. I wish I could be there with you, as I always do.

GREGORY: I wish you were here, too.

GREENE: All right. Nina Gregory, NPR's arts editor who is toughing it out at the Comic-Con convention, which is partly on a beach in San Diego, Calif.

(SOUNDBITE OF VINCE GUARALDI TRIO'S "LINUS & LUCY")

1 riveting   

adj.动听的，令人着迷的，完全吸引某人注意力的；n.铆接（法）

参考例句：

• I find snooker riveting though I don't play myself.虽然我自己不打斯诺克，但是我觉得它挺令人着迷。
• To my amazement,I found it riveting.但令我惊讶的是，我发现它的吸引人处。

2 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

3 diverged   

分开( diverge的过去式和过去分词 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳

参考例句：

• Who knows when we'll meet again? 不知几时咱们能再见面！
• At what time do you get up? 你几时起床？

4 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

7 adversary   

adj.敌手，对手

参考例句：

• He saw her as his main adversary within the company.他将她视为公司中主要的对手。
• They will do anything to undermine their adversary's reputation.他们会不择手段地去损害对手的名誉。

8 stunning   

adj.极好的；使人晕倒的

参考例句：

• His plays are distinguished only by their stunning mediocrity.他的戏剧与众不同之处就是平凡得出奇。
• The finished effect was absolutely stunning.完工后的效果非常美。

9 assessment   

n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何？

10 prerogative   

n.特权

参考例句：

• It is within his prerogative to do so.他是有权这样做的。
• Making such decisions is not the sole prerogative of managers.作这类决定并不是管理者的专有特权。

11 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

12 expertise   

n.专门知识(或技能等)，专长

参考例句：

• We were amazed at his expertise on the ski slopes.他斜坡滑雪的技能使我们赞叹不已。
• You really have the technical expertise in a new breakthrough.让你真正在专业技术上有一个全新的突破。

13 interrogate   

vt.讯问，审问，盘问

参考例句：

• The lawyer took a long time to interrogate the witness fully.律师花了很长时间仔细询问目击者。
• We will interrogate the two suspects separately.我们要对这两个嫌疑人单独进行审讯。

14 indicted   

控告，起诉( indict的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The senator was indicted for murder. 那位参议员被控犯谋杀罪。
• He was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of murder. 他被大陪审团以两项谋杀罪名起诉。

15 rebuke   

v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise

参考例句：

• He had to put up with a smart rebuke from the teacher.他不得不忍受老师的严厉指责。
• Even one minute's lateness would earn a stern rebuke.哪怕迟到一分钟也将受到严厉的斥责。

16 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

17 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

18 cozy   

adj.亲如手足的，密切的，暖和舒服的

参考例句：

• I like blankets because they are cozy.我喜欢毛毯，因为他们是舒适的。
• We spent a cozy evening chatting by the fire.我们在炉火旁聊天度过了一个舒适的晚上。

19 nefarious   

adj.恶毒的，极坏的

参考例句：

• My father believes you all have a nefarious purpose here.我父亲认为你们都有邪恶的目的。
• He was universally feared because of his many nefarious deeds.因为他干了许多罪恶的勾当，所以人人都惧怕他。

20 carnival   

n.嘉年华会，狂欢，狂欢节，巡回表演

参考例句：

• I got some good shots of the carnival.我有几个狂欢节的精彩镜头。
• Our street puts on a carnival every year.我们街的居民每年举行一次嘉年华会。

21 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

22 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

23 marvel   

vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事

参考例句：

• The robot is a marvel of modern engineering.机器人是现代工程技术的奇迹。
• The operation was a marvel of medical skill.这次手术是医术上的一个奇迹。

24 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

25 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

26 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

27 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

28 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

29 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。