The World and Everything in It: July 24, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. Hi, my name is Carolyne Nielson. I'm a financial planner living in Dallas with my husband, a concert pianist. I know you'll enjoy today's broadcast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! It’s official.

CHUCK SCHUMER: We are here today to throw our support behind Vice President Kamala Harris! [clap, clap] I’m clapping. You don’t have to.

Harris has it all sewn up. How’d it happen so fast?

NICK EICHER, HOST: The answer on Washington Wednesday. Also, World Tour. And later, life on the front lines of the opioid crisis

WALKER: If someone would have given me an easy, free, clean place to cook meth and shoot it in my arm, I would be dead today.

And what history says about our strange political days.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, July 24th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Party lining up behind Kamala » The Democratic presidential primary is over, again. Party leaders say Vice President Kamala Harris will be the nominee, replacing President Biden atop the ticket.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer declared on Tuesday:

SCHUMER: Last night, Vice President Harris secured a majority of delegates.

Joining him for the announcement was the top House Democrat, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

The leaders wanted to make two things clear:

First, the party could not be more excited to have Kamala Harris as their nominee.

SCHUMER:  We are here today to throw our support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. I'm clapping. You don't have to. 

JEFFRIES: And her candidacy has excited and energized the House Democratic Caucus, the Democratic party. 

SCHUMER: And boy oh boy, are we enthusiastic!

And second, that Harris “earned” this nomination …

JEFFRIES:  … from the grassroots up and not the top down.

But one reporter noted that Democratic voters were never given a chance to weigh in, and there was no competition for the nomination after President Biden bowed out …

REPORTER: This is going to be selected by party delegates, insiders, essentially. How, what's your case to the American people and to the Democratic voters that this isn't a coronation?

SCHUMER:  The bottom line, it was a bottom up process. People just rallied right to her side. The enthusiasm in this big, diverse, representative party was amazing. You could, you could, it was palpable. You could cut it with a knife.

Biden speech today » President Biden has also thrown his support behind his vice president, vowing to hit the campaign trail on her behalf.

He said the name at the top of the ticket has changed, but the mission has not, and he will continue to work hard …

BIDEN: Both as the sitting president, getting legislation passed, as well as campaigning.

Tonight, the president will address the nation from the Oval Office to explain his decision to withdraw from the race after running and securing the party’s nomination.

He announced his decision over the weekend via social media without explanation.

Netanyahu address » Another world leader is planning a major address in Washington today. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak to a joint session of Congress.

He’s also meeting privately with President Biden this week. The prime minister says it will be an opportunity to discuss ….

NETANYAHU: How to advance in the critical months ahead … the goals that are important for both our countries, achieving the release of all our hostages, defeating Hamas …

And keeping Iran in check.

Netanyahu hopes to close a divide within the Democratic party in Washington over ongoing U.S. support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.

SOUND: [Shooting]

Secret Service director resigns » Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle announced her resignation 11 days after a would-be assassin nearly murdered former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.

Cheatle’s announcement came just one day after she testified on Capitol Hill about the security failures at the Trump event.

House Speaker Mike Johnson:

JOHNSON: I'm happy to see that she has heeded the call of both Republicans and Democrats. Now we have to pick up the pieces. We have to rebuild the American people's faith and trust in the Secret Service as an agency.

Democratic Congressman Pete Aguilar agreed.

AGUILAR: I think members on both sides of the aisle, were, were shocked by the events and the assassination attempt, obviously. It's important that the Secret Service accept some responsibility.

Congress, the FBI, and the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general are all investigating the shooting which killed one person at the rally and critically wounded two others.

Delta » U.S. airline regulators are investigating Delta Airlines which is still struggling to restore operations several days after a faulty software update caused a computer systems meltdown that disrupted air travel around the world.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg:

BUTTIGIEG:  Part of why we're opening this investigation is the scale of the problem. Over 6,000 flights have been canceled since Friday. And we estimate that more than half a million passengers have been impacted by this.

Officials say one of the aims of the investigation is “to ensure the airline is following the law and taking care of its passengers.”

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Congressional support for Kamala Harris on Washington Wednesday. Plus, World Tour.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 24th of July. This is WORLD Radio and we’re happy you’ve joined us today. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday.

What a turn of events! After President Biden quit the race on Sunday, some key Democrats hesitated to embrace his VP. By Monday, Kamala Harris had broken a single-day fundraising record, and by Tuesday she’d amassed the support of a majority of delegates to power her unorthodox rise to the top of the ticket.

REICHARD: How did party leaders go from mixed feelings to broad support so quickly? Here now is WORLD’s Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno.

LEO BRICENO: When Craig Ellis watched last month’s presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, he remembers feeling worried, then angry.

CRAIG ELLIS: At first I was mostly mad at the people around him that they let it get this bad, that they didn’t let us—because obviously this isn’t just, this has been happening for some time. Then I got mad at Joe when he refused to step down.

But that feeling turned to relief when Biden announced his decision to step aside. As a California Democrat, Ellis isn’t sure if Kamala Harris could defeat Donald Trump, but…

ELLIS: I don’t think she can be worse than Joe—at least that. I did say that to somebody the other day, that she might not win either, but at least I think she would do better than Joe would.

In the aftermath of Biden’s announcement, several high-profile Democrats withheld their support from Vice President Harris, including former President Barack Obama. But congressional democrats have largely rallied to Harris’ side. If considerations for an alternative still exist, they aren’t letting it show.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries both endorsed Harris on Tuesday afternoon.

JEFFRIES: Vice President Harris has earned the nomination. 

SCHUMER: And now begins the next chapter in our quest to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president.

Schumer framed Harris’ rise as a “grassroots” change in the party—not a predetermined outcome from leadership. But almost immediately after Biden announced his decision, many Democrats snapped in line behind Harris. Others, that had originally called for an open convention like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also threw their support behind Vice President Harris.

Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas used to be one of Biden’s campaign co-chairs. Here’s Escobar, walking into the Capitol on Monday.

ESCOBAR: I found out when everyone else did. I was actually sitting on a plane, heading to D.C. and thankfully had wifi on the plane so I was able to read his letter. And you know my view was immediately like I had to get a statement out ASAP to support the vice president.

Members described a sense of renewed energy with the change in ticket—and not just in the Capitol. Here’s Michigan Rep. Dan Kildee, walking into a leadership meeting.

KILDEE: Hundreds of new volunteers walking into our headquarters across the state of Michigan, people who are suddenly really excited, enthused. I love Joe Biden, but I think it’s a fact we were having a difficult time activating our base. We have that problem solved.

Same goes for the fundraising side of things. Harris’ campaign claims it raised 100 million dollars in less than 36 hours—an eye-popping sum.

Despite Harris’ momentum, some notable members have stopped short of outright backing the vice president. Minnesota Congressman and former presidential candidate Dean Phillips says he won’t formally endorse her.

PHILLIPS: My focus was always the principle of competition and defeating a culture of silence. Those were my objectives and I believe competition generates better outcomes and better policies and better candidates and the absence of it is problematic.

Phillips says that he “supports” Harris but objects to how quickly the party dubbed her the presumptive nominee without a real conversation.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, the first Democrat lawmaker who called on Biden to step aside after last month’s debate, also wanted the party to debate the matter at the convention but thinks that window has closed now.

DOGGETT: I called for a fair, open, and democratic process to select a new nominee, but all of those various people that were mentioned as possible nominees within 24 hours, in fact within much less than that, endorsed Vice President Harris. So I think we’re now ready to move forward to the convention, especially since delegations, including mine from Texas, of convention delegates have endorsed her.

I asked Doggett if he expects Harris to significantly change the direction of the party’s platform.

DOGGETT: “I don’t know” is the honest answer. I think she will have a hand in shaping the platform and whether there will be any significant adjustments from last time remains to be seen. But I think as our almost certain nominee she should be helping to write the platform.

Harris has yet to articulate how or if she will shift away from Biden’s policy priorities. Harris ran for president in 2020 on a platform of universal healthcare coverage, environmental policy, and a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants—a platform more to the left of Biden who, at the time, was pitching himself as a moderate.

While Democrats have a sense of momentum, onlooking Republicans see a party still trying to figure out basic questions less than 4 months before a presidential election.

My colleague Carolina Lumetta spoke with Wisconsin Republican delegate Pam Van Handel at last week’s Republican National Convention.

HANDEL: I think that the last eight to ten days have been very crazy starting with that debate and I thought things are really going south. They went even souther after the shooting, but I feel like everybody's really come together. I think the Democratic Party is in total chaos, but I feel like we've all come together, especially at the convention.

The Democratic National Convention begins on August 19, but the Rules Committee meets today to formalize plans for a virtual roll call to nominate Harris as early as next week. This would ensure she is on the ballot in Ohio and Washington, which have earlier deadlines. As of Tuesday, Harris has already secured more than 3,000 delegates as state parties re-vote for the ticket. This essentially secures her position as the presumptive nominee. But as Harris told campaign staff in Delaware yesterday, the race is far from over.

HARRIS: So in the next 106 days, we have work to do. We have doors to knock on, we have people to talk to, we have phone calls to make, and we have an election to win. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno in Washington, D.C.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD Tour with our reporter in Africa, Onize Ohikere.

AUDIO: [Street sound]

Bangladesh quota unrest — We begin today on the now calmer streets of Bangladesh after student-led protests against a government job quota system turned deadly last week.

The country’s top court on Sunday scaled back the quota system in response to the protests that began earlier this month. That’s after more than 100 people died during the demonstrations in the past week, according to local reports.

AUDIO: [Protesters chanting]

Demonstrators argued that the system that reserves 30 percent of government jobs for relatives of veterans is discriminatory.

Shah Monjurul Hoque is the lawyer representing the students.

HOQUE: [Speaking Bengali]

He explains that the Supreme Court has now ordered the quota to be slashed to five percent. Ninety-three percent of government jobs will be earned on merit while the final two percent will be reserved for minorities.

AUDIO: [Chanting]

Venezuela election prep — Over in Venezuela, opposition leaders and their supporters chanted and prayed together ahead of elections on Sunday.

Millions of Venezuelans will choose between President Nicolás Maduro and opposition candidate Edmundo González.

González replaced opposition leader María Corina Machado after government officials barred her from contesting.

GONZALEZ: [Speaking Spanish]

González calls here for reconciliation among Venezuelans ahead of the vote.

In a separate rally, Maduro pledged to build a society of equals if he wins a third term.

GONZALEZ: [Speaking Spanish]

He says here that voters will decide whether they want a Venezuela of peace or war.

The National Electoral Council said it has distributed all voting equipment nationwide.

AUDIO: [Sound from meeting]

Libya-EU migration — Next to Libya, where African and European Union leaders are trying again to tackle illegal migration.

The participating countries will form a working group to identify and launch development projects in African countries that could stem migration.

Walid Ellafi is the Libyan state minister for communications.

ELLAFI: [Speaking Arabic]

He says European nations are now clearly seeking viable partnerships on the continent.

Libya is a major transit point for migrants leaving African countries for Europe across the dangerous Mediterranean Sea.

Libyan authorities have said that four out of every five foreigners in the country are undocumented.

AUDIO: [Cheering]

Eritrea sprinter — We wrap up with crowds cheering for Eritrean rider Biniam Girmay at the Tour de France.

Girmay won three categories of the road cycling contest and clinched the overall best Sprinter award.

He competed with the Belgian-based Intermarché–Wanty team, but is the first African rider to win those titles.

Girmay says his victory marks a much larger win.

GIRMAY: We must be proud because this time is our time. We need to enjoy, because it’s not only about me. It can describe Eritrea and all of Africans. So I'm proud.

Cycling is one of the most popular sports in Eritrea.

AUDIO: [Fans chanting]

The Tour de France wrapped up on Sunday.

That’s it for today’s WORLD Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: You know, technology is supposed to help. Over the weekend soccer fans in Norway said, “Stop helping!”

That’s my rough translation. They actually kicked up such a fuss they were able to stop a game.

SOUND: [Foreign language announcer] 

It was a protest against VAR, Video Assistant Referee. Multiple cameras set up around the field to allow review of close or controversial plays.

But fans complain that it’s time-consuming and disrupts the natural ebb and flow of a game.

So they returned the favor, eventually getting the game suspended by raining down fish cakes on the pitch, and tennis balls, and smoke bombs, pretty much whatever they could get their hands on.

Fans vow to keep interrupting to protest the interruptions … so they can watch without interruption.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, July 24th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: preventing deaths from overdose.

For decades, a deadly opioid crisis has ravaged the United States—ever since the drug company Purdue Pharma started to aggressively market its addictive, but government-approved painkiller in the 1990s. Since then, more than 800,000 Americans have died from overdose.

EICHER: As the crisis rolls on, some advocate so-called harm reduction. That’s what the Biden administration named as a goal of federal drug policy two years ago.

But does harm reduction do more harm than reduction? Here’s WORLD’s Grace Snell.

SOUND: [Rushing cars]

GRACE SNELL: Joe Solomon stands in a sun-baked parking lot behind the Unitarian Universalist Church in Charleston, West Virginia. Not long ago, it was a hub for drug users. The church invited them here.

JOE SOLOMON: In the height of COVID, we actually threw grassroots harm reduction health fairs in this parking lot that had their own line of about up to 240 people…

Solomon is a local city councilor and co-director of the harm reduction group SOAR West Virginia. The lot is empty now—but it’s alive with memories for Solomon.

SOLOMON: Over here is where we would give out the mountain of naloxone, syringes, and down the line, you know, tourniquets or cookers or band aids or what have you…

Here, organizers handed out clean needles and naloxone—a drug that reverses opioid overdoses. Also sandwiches and clothes, medical students provided wound care and recovery coaches offered life advice.

Their message for drug users was simple: Just. Don’t. Die.

It’s a philosophy known as “harm reduction.” And it’s a very different approach than the traditional emphasis on quitting drugs. Harm reduction assumes some people are just going to use drugs, so the best thing to do in the face of the staggering death toll is to help them do it safely.

It’s a controversial tack, and some treatment providers say it feeds the cycle of addiction. Solomon says city leaders weren’t thrilled about his team’s efforts.

SOLOMON: This was actually the place of one of the last stands to actually show how it could be done.

Charleston may not be embracing harm reduction with open arms…but other cities and regions are. States ranging from Indiana to California have officially named harm reduction as part of their vision for fighting the opioid crisis.

New York City has gone a step further—creating the nation’s first “safe injection sites” in 2021. Drug users can shoot up there without fear of prosecution.

That’s a trend Haley Walker finds pretty alarming. Walker also lives in Charleston, where she directs an abstinence based recovery program for women. We spoke remotely after my visit.

HALEY WALKER: How could you not support harm reduction? Well, it’s not that I don’t support harm reduction. What I don’t support is I don’t support enabling active addicts to continue on their destructive pathway with taxpayer dollars.

Government agencies like the CDC say these programs effectively reduce overdose deaths, stop the spread of infectious diseases, and connect users to treatment options. And a collection of scientific studies appear to support their claim.

But—not all of them. One nationwide study from the Journal of Public Economics found that communities recorded an increase in deaths. And a psychiatry professor at Stanford University says it’s hard to scientifically study harm reduction strategies and there are no randomized trials proving it works.

Sarah Stone is SOAR’s board president. And she’s also in recovery. That gives her a lot of compassion for people struggling with drug addiction.

SARAH STONE: The first time I used them was when I was 18, which was in 1998, and the last time I used them was when I was 34 years old, which is in 2014.

Stone tried to kick the habit. But she could never get past day three of the agonizing withdrawal.

Then—one day—she heard a voice.

STONE: I was literally disassociating because of my drug use. And I thought to myself, ‘Who is saying that?’ I’m looking around and it’s me, and I don’t recognize my voice, I don’t recognize the words I’m saying. And I was like, ‘Okay, I gotta, I gotta do something different.’

She went straight to her mom’s house and spent the next few days sleeping and shivering in the basement. After that, she headed straight to a twelve-step recovery meeting and never looked back. Five years later, she and her friends launched SOAR.

Stone found recovery by quitting cold turkey. But she doesn’t think that’s for everyone.

STONE: My end goal would be that everyone feel respected, everyone feel like they’re empowered to take care of themselves and to, if they are going to use, to use drugs safely and to not worry that they’re going to catch HIV or die of an overdose alone.

One of the ways Stone does this is by stocking dropboxes with overdose-reversing naloxone kits.

STONE: Yeah, I can’t keep up with it, and I live here…

They built this box just over a year ago. In that time, about 300 kits have passed through its glass door.

SOLOMON: And we wish we could put syringes in this box, you know, like, we would love to spend that money on political courage, too, you know.

Haley Walker also battled years of drug addiction. She came to some very different conclusions than Stone.

WALKER: It took me being held accountable for my actions and feeling the consequences of my actions to make me find myself in a position where I was, the pain was greater than the pain of change.

Walker is onboard with naloxone distribution. But strongly opposes giving people needles and syringes.

WALKER: Is it because I don’t have compassion for the active alcoholic and addict? No, I was one. I’m the first one to say, of course, I have compassion for them, but I’m the second one to say that if someone would have given me an easy, free, clean place to cook meth and shoot it in my arm, I would be dead today.

Back in Charleston, Stone stands in her kitchen flipping through a book.

STONE: This is a list of our friends who are not with us anymore. And it is long. My list starts right here and ends right here.

Stone’s list has the names of 60 people—friends who have died. She says that’s the reason she keeps doing what she’s doing. It’s also why Walker sometimes calls Stone for help handing out naloxone.

At the end of the day, they both want to save lives.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Grace Snell in Charleston, West Virginia.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, July 24th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. WORLD Opinions commentator John Wilsey on finding some precedent for “unprecedented” history.

JOHN WILSEY: Well, it finally happened. After weeks of vowing to stay in the race as the Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden bowed to rising pressure from those calling on him to quit. He threw his hat into the ring in 1988, 2008, 2020, and, for a while, in 2024. Now he’s thrown in the towel.

In the wake of Biden’s exit from the race and the attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life on July 13, we continue to hear a cacophony of apocalyptic diagnoses of the state of our union. We are in unprecedented times; our democracy is under threat; civil war is imminent. Considering the context of post–World War II politics, it is easy to become dismayed by the dramatic events of the summer of 2024.

Still, we should take the long view of things. The American republic will celebrate its semiquincentennial anniversary in 2026. That’s a mouthful, but in our 250-year history, Americans have weathered all manner of internal and external threats. Witnessing the unprecedented is a lot more ordinary for Americans than it is for other civilizations that have longer histories, like the British, French, or Chinese.

Many of us are familiar with the contentious election of 1800 between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. The election of 1860 also comes to mind as calamitous, the year that the Democratic Party split in two and Abraham Lincoln defeated three candidates that November, precipitating secession and the Civil War. Despite these and many other crises, our constitutional system has endured.

The last time Americans saw a sitting president withdraw from a reelection bid was on March 31, 1968. President Lyndon Johnson went on television from the Oval Office to announce: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.” Four years after winning the largest plurality of the popular vote since 1820, Johnson’s political capital was spent after the failure of his policies at home and in Vietnam. His departure from the race sent the Democratic Party scrambling to secure a nominee who could win in November. Momentum was with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Johnson’s bitter enemy, until he was cut down by an assassin on June 5, 1968.

The Democratic National Convention in Chicago that year devolved into chaos over divisions in the party resulting from controversies over American policy in Vietnam, and civil rights. The nation was also reeling from the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. in April, and Kennedy just weeks earlier. The party settled on Vice President Hubert Humphrey as its nominee, who lost to Richard Nixon in a closely contested race that November. Even then, the American constitutional system endured.

The summer of 2024 is a difficult time, to be sure. But Americans have faced difficult times before. Our federal constitutional system has proven its resiliency in times of civil war, depression, world war, and a host of other crises.

Republican and Democratic candidates this year will compete and the votes will be counted after Nov. 5, all according to constitutional norms. There is always the chance that some unforeseen event will forestall what we have come to expect. But up to this point, our constitutional system is running along just fine. For that, we should be thankful.

I’m John Wilsey.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow, the Israeli prime minister’s trip to the U.S. We’ll have analysis. And, the Paris Games are set to begin Friday. Tomorrow you’ll Olympic rock climber. That and much more.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible records the disciples indignant with the woman who poured expensive ointment on Jesus. But Jesus said: “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial.” —Matthew 26:10-12

Go now in grace and peace.

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