GOP Pushback On Trump, DNC 2024 Election Autopsy Report, Trump's Interest In Cuba

Summary

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Up First (NPR)

Episode Title: GOP Pushback On Trump, DNC 2024 Election Autopsy Report, Trump's Interest In Cuba
Date: May 22, 2026
Hosts: Steve Inskeep, Layla Fadel
Reporters/Guests: Barbara Sprunt, Stephen Fowler, Franco Ordonez

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Episode Overview

This episode spotlights three major stories shaping U.S. politics and foreign policy: the mounting resistance within the GOP to President Trump's legislative priorities, the Democratic National Committee’s contentious and inconclusive autopsy report on their 2024 election defeat, and renewed U.S. aggression toward Cuba with hints at military action. Through concise interviews and political analysis, the NPR team unpacks deepening party divides, Democratic soul-searching, and America’s evolving posture in the Caribbean.

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1. GOP Discord: Republican Pushback On Trump’s Agenda

(Key Discussion: 02:45–06:23)

Congressional Inaction and Internal Strains

• Recent Events:

  • House Republicans canceled a vote on a resolution to restrain the president’s war powers.
  • Speaker Mike Johnson failed to garner enough GOP support to defeat the measure, so he prevented a vote.
  • Congress adjourned for recess without meeting President Trump’s June 1st deadline for new immigration enforcement funding.

• Why the Hold-Up?

  • Barbara Sprunt (03:36): "Reconciliation is complicated... that's not what's causing the drama this time. Senate Republicans seemed poised to pass that funding. And then President Trump made some new demands. And a critical mass of GOP senators just couldn't stomach some of them."

• Trump’s Controversial Demands:

  • A billion-dollar “ballroom” project, initially pitched as privately funded but now a security priority he wants taxpayer support for.
  • Nearly $2 billion for an “anti-weaponization fund” to compensate people who claim government persecution—potentially including January 6 defendants.
    • Barbara Sprunt (03:56): "This has been a priority for the president... it has since ballooned to about a billion dollar project... number two is a nearly $2 billion anti weaponization fund."

• GOP Backlash:

  • Some Republicans blindsided; several senators demanded changes.
  • The president’s primary endorsements against sitting GOP senators (like John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy) have deepened divisions.
  • Barbara Sprunt (05:03): "To say like tension is brewing, that's an understatement."

• Looking Ahead:

  • A bipartisan effort in the House is aiming to kill the anti-weaponization fund.
  • The future of reconciliation negotiations is uncertain; focus will be on whether Trump moderates demands.

Notable Quote

"This last week alone, the president endorsed primary challenger Ken Paxton... He's also worked to oust other Republican incumbents like Senator Bill Cassidy... So what I'm curious about is does this mark a new chapter and not just a few pages of an emboldened group of Senate Republicans..."
— Barbara Sprunt (05:03)

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2. Democrats’ 2024 Election Autopsy: “More Questions Than Answers”

(Key Discussion: 06:32–10:11)

The Autopsy Report’s Troubled Birth

• Delayed Release & DNC Disavowal

  • DNC Chair Ken Martin commissioned a postmortem after 2024’s defeat but shelved it, arguing that special election wins showed Democrats were “on the right track.”
  • Upon its late release, the DNC criticized its accuracy and methodology:
    • Stephen Fowler (07:55): "The report as delivered was incomplete, full of incorrect claims that were also impossible to verify... each one stamped with a disclaimer that the DNC was not provided with, quote, the underlying sourcing, interviews or supporting data..."

• What’s Missing?

  • Nearly 200 pages long, the report barely addresses key voter concerns: cost of living, Gaza, or President Biden’s age.
  • Biden is mentioned only a handful of times; the economy just six times; “affordability” once.
  • Instead, focuses on paid media strategies and contains errors (e.g., about the North Carolina governor’s race).
  • Stephen Fowler (08:43): "If you were looking for any sort of discussion about key issues... you're not going to find very much there."

• Significance & the Bigger Picture

  • Deep frustration exists among some Democrats over Martin’s leadership and the party’s national brand.
  • Local Democratic candidates are popular, but the national party is viewed as weak—a challenge heading toward 2028.
  • Stephen Fowler (09:21): "There's a disconnect where people don't like the national party brand... but love their local Democrat. That dynamic means the national party is probably going to be pretty weak heading into the 2028 presidential nominating process..."

Notable Quote

"There literally is no conclusion included."
— Stephen Fowler (08:36)

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3. Trump’s Escalation on Cuba: Rhetoric and Risk

(Key Discussion: 10:20–13:45)

U.S. Moves Toward Military Action?

• Recent Developments:

  • A U.S. aircraft carrier arrived in the Caribbean.
  • The Justice Department indicted former Cuban President Raul Castro for murder.
  • President Trump signaled intent to “open Cuba for Cuban Americans,” drawing parallels with the recent U.S. military action in Venezuela.

• Expert Analysis & Historical Context:

  • Franco Ordonez: “Ever since U.S. forces captured the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Trump has been threatening military action against Cuba...”
  • Emily Mendrala (former State Department official) compared the timing and rationale of the indictments for Maduro and Castro, noting they served as “predicate” for military engagement.
    • Emily Mandrela (11:24): "It's hard to understand exactly what the consequence of this indictment could be unless you look to Venezuela and the predicate for US Military action..."

• Cuba vs. Venezuela – Crucial Differences:

  • Cuba lacks Venezuela’s petroleum reserves; its governing model differs.
  • John Bolton (former National Security Advisor): regime change in Cuba is more complex and riskier; U.S. hasn't adequately planned or coordinated with those who’d take charge post-Castro.
    • John Bolton as cited by Ordonez (12:31): “We need to know we've got the capability to do that and have thought through how to do it.”

• Trump's Motives:

  • Political benefits are dubious but making historic moves appeals to Trump’s sense of legacy and his Cuban American base in Florida.
  • Secretary of State Marco Rubio, son of Cuban immigrants, is a key policy driver.

Notable Quote

"He likes to say that he's done things that his predecessors were unable to do, and it's something his friends and allies are very interested in, including his Cuban American supporters and some aides." — Franco Ordonez (13:02)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• GOP Pushback & Capitol Tensions: 02:45–06:23
• Democratic Election Autopsy: 06:32–10:11
• Trump’s Cuba Policy: 10:20–13:45

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On GOP divides:
  "Tension is brewing, that's an understatement."
  — Barbara Sprunt (05:03)
• On the DNC report’s value:
  "There literally is no conclusion included."
  — Stephen Fowler (08:36)
• On the potential perils in Cuba policy:
  "Have we really communicated with people in Cuba who would be responsible as the Castro regime collapses?"
  — John Bolton (as cited by Ordonez, 12:36)
• On Trump’s motivation:
  "He likes to say that he's done things that his predecessors were unable to do..."
  — Franco Ordonez (13:02)

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Takeaways

• A New Republican Rift: Significant, public GOP resistance to Trump’s demands signals a new era of party tension that may affect major legislative priorities.
• Democratic Uncertainty: The DNC’s problematic postmortem deepens questions about the party’s self-awareness and strategic coherence, even as it fares well locally.
• U.S.-Cuba Relations in Flux: The administration’s aggressive posture and legal maneuvers set a confrontational tone, but experts warn of risks, planning gaps, and unclear objectives.

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For more detailed reporting and future updates, subscribe and listen to NPR’s Up First.

Transcript

[Steve Inskeep]

Congress left Washington without meeting the president's deadline to pass immigration funding money for

[Layla Fadel]

his ballroom was blocked and even some Republicans are questioning his anti weaponization fund. Is a new chapter of GOP pushback beginning?

[Steve Inskeep]

I'm Steve Inskeep with Layla Fadel. And this is up first from NPR News. Democrats released a long delayed report on their 2024 election defeat. Their data is inconclusive and the economy is only mentioned a few times in the whole report. Are Democrats learning the right lessons?

[Layla Fadel]

And President Trump is hinting at military action in Cuba.

[Barbara Sprunt]

Other presidents have looked at this for

[Steve Inskeep]

50, 60 years doing something, and it

[Barbara Sprunt]

looks like I'll be the one that does it.

[Layla Fadel]

The US Charged former Cuban President Raul Castro with murder and it's drawing comparisons to the capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

[Franco Ordonez]

Foreign.

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[Barbara Sprunt]

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[Layla Fadel]

ends with what appears to be growing discord within the gop.

[Steve Inskeep]

House Republicans called off a vote Thursday night on a resolution that would have restrained the president's war powers. House Speaker Mike Johnson wanted Republicans to defeat that measure, but he couldn't round up enough support to do so, so he didn't allow them to vote at all. Both the House and Senate left for a week long recess, also without meeting President Trump's June 1st deadline to pass. His his top priority that was funding immigration enforcement for the next three years through what's called a reconciliation bill.

[Layla Fadel]

Why the impasse? And what does it say about the state of congressional Republicans relationship with Trump? Here to help us answer those questions is NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt. Hi, Barbara.

[Barbara Sprunt]

Hi. Good morning.

[Layla Fadel]

Was the immigration enforcement funding pushed back because of anything related to immigration?

[Stephen Fowler]

No.

[Barbara Sprunt]

I mean, reconciliation is complicated. It's a delicate process, but that's not what's actually causing the drama. This time. Senate Republicans seemed poised to pass that funding. And then President Trump made some new demands. And a critical mass of GOP senators just couldn't stomach some of them.

[Layla Fadel]

Was the ballroom one of the demands?

[Barbara Sprunt]

Yes, one of them. This has been a priority for the president for some time. Originally, he said it would be funded through private donations. After the shooting at the correspondence dinner, the framing around ballroom shifted into making it a secure facility. And it has since ballooned to about a billion dollar project. And the president wanted Congress to pay for its additional security. That portion did not adhere to strict reconciliation rules and had to be taken out. And then number two is a nearly $2 billion anti weaponization fund, which basically is aimed at giving money to people who claim that they've been wronged by the government. And that could include funding the people who ransacked the Capitol and attacked police. On January, there were a number of Republican senators who right out of the gate said they were blindsided by this. Of course, this is money that hasn't been appropriated by Congress. And enough Senate Republicans were alarmed over the plan and wanted to address it before they passed this immigration funding.

[Layla Fadel]

What do you think this says about the state of the relationship between the president and senators in his own party?

[Barbara Sprunt]

You know, I think to say like tension is brewing, that's an understatement. This last week alone, the president endorsed primary challenger Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, against sitting Republican Senator John Cornyn, who the president likely needs to get his agenda items passed. He's also worked to oust other Republican incumbents like Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who ultimately lost his primary election. And what happened after that? Cassidy came out publicly against the ballroom funding. He gave the key vote to advance a stalled war powers resolution that would compel the Trump administration to pull back from the conflict with Iran. And he criticized this anti weaponization fund. So what I'm curious about is does this mark a new chapter and not just a few pages of an emboldened group of Senate Republicans who up till now have been much more hesitant to push back on the president.

[Layla Fadel]

Now Congress is out next week for the Memorial Day holiday. What happens when they come back?

[Barbara Sprunt]

Well, one interesting thing is a bipartisan effort in the House to kill that anti weaponization fund led by Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi and Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick. And we expect reconciliation will still be dealt with in some way or that I'm thinking about. And what I'll be watching to see is does the president reconsider what he's

[Layla Fadel]

pushing for here as NPR's Barbara Sprun. Thank you, Barbara.

[Barbara Sprunt]

Thank you.

[Layla Fadel]

Democrats have been trying to understand what went wrong for them in 2024, although

[Steve Inskeep]

apparently some aren't really sure they want to look. The Democratic National Committee commissioned a review of the 2024 election to see what lessons they could learn. That review has been ready for months, but was not released until Thursday.

[Layla Fadel]

The autopsy, though, raises more questions than it does answers. NPR's Stephen Fowler covers the future of the Democratic Party and is here to answer our questions. Good morning, Stephen.

[Stephen Fowler]

Good morning.

[Layla Fadel]

So political parties often seek out those introspective reviews after major defeats. What's different about this one?

[Stephen Fowler]

Well, for starters, the fact it wasn't actually published at first. To recap things, DNC Chair Ken Martin commissioned this autopsy. It was delivered in December 2025, and he shelled it, saying at the time that basically we've learned we're winning in special elections. We just had the successful November general election. Let's focus on the plan. That plan centers around year round organizing, investing more in state parties and finding a message beyond just being anti Trump, which is included in this report. However, Martin said that while he disavows this report, he apologized for not releasing it at the time and for not being more transparent about that decision.

[Layla Fadel]

If a lot of what's in the report is the same as Martin's current plan, why does he disavow it?

[Stephen Fowler]

Well, the report as delivered was incomplete, full of incorrect claims that were also impossible to verify. But the DNC said that they would put it out anyway, and put it out they did, or all 192 pages, each one stamped with a disclaimer that the DNC was not provided with, quote, the underlying sourcing, interviews or supporting data for many of the assertions contained herein. The tentative title for the report, Build to Win, Build to Last, was constructed on shaky foundational information the DNC asserts in numerous red line annotations throughout this document. And in what is a fitting metaphor, there literally is no conclusion included.

[Layla Fadel]

Oh my gosh. So there's so much that's not in here, but it's almost 200 pages. What is in the document?

[Stephen Fowler]

Well, if you were looking for any sort of discussion about key issues voters said were important, like the cost of living, Gaza, Biden's age, you're not going to find very much there. Biden's name is mentioned only a small number of times. The White House is blamed for not preparing former Vice President Kamala Harris enough. There's a lot of talk about paid media strategies and advertising, random, factually inaccurate things about the North Carolina governor's race. The economy's mentioned just six times, the word affordability just once.

[Layla Fadel]

Okay, so that election was 2024. This report was done in 2025, and now it's 2026. I mean, how much does this matter?

[Stephen Fowler]

It depends on who you ask. There's a contingent of folks who have not been happy with the leadership of Ken Martin as DNC chair the last year and a half. They want the party to raise more money, do more to push back against the Trump agenda. To the average voter, they know why they did or didn't vote for Democrats in 2024. We know that Democrats have been overperforming in 2025 and are poised to have massive victories in 2026. But the average voter could not tell you what the DNC does or notice anything different with how it's run. Here's where it does matter, though. It points to this disconnect where people don't like the national party brand and party leaders but love their local Democrat. That dynamic means the national party is probably going to be pretty weak heading into the 2028 presidential nominating process where it actually does matter and have a lot of sway.

[Layla Fadel]

That's NPR's Stephen Fowler in Atlanta. Thank you, Stephen.

[Stephen Fowler]

Thank you.

[Layla Fadel]

The Trump administration's words and deeds about Cuba have drawn comparisons to this year's strike on Venezuela.

[Steve Inskeep]

A US Aircraft carrier has arrived in the Caribbean Sea. The Justice Department, which acts on the president's preferences, obtained an indictment of former Cuban President Raul Castro. And the president says he wants to, quote, open Cuba for Cuban Americans.

[Barbara Sprunt]

Other presidents have looked at this for

[Steve Inskeep]

50, 60 years doing something, and it

[Barbara Sprunt]

looks like I'll be the one that does it.

[Layla Fadel]

NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez is here. Good morning.

[Franco Ordonez]

Good morning.

[Layla Fadel]

So tell us more about why this indictment might be a prelude to a military operation.

[Barbara Sprunt]

Yeah.

[Franco Ordonez]

Ever since U.S. forces captured the Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, I mean, Trump has been threatening military action against Cuba. I mean, he's gone as far as saying, saying he can do, quote, anything he wants with the country. And Emily Mandrela, a former deputy assistant secretary of state covering Cuba, told me that the indictment fits into a pattern of events that really have echoes of that operation against Maduro.

[Barbara Sprunt]

It's hard to understand exactly what the consequence of this indictment could be unless you look to Venezuela and the predicate for US Military action in early January, where there was an indictment of Nicolas Maduro that the US Government used as its justification for engaging in that military action.

[Franco Ordonez]

And she says the comparisons also include increased surveillance, high level meetings between the two countries, and a buildup of military assets. Steve, of course, mentioned the aircraft carrier.

[Layla Fadel]

How different is the situation with Cuba from Venezuela?

[Franco Ordonez]

Well, I mean, it's very different. Cuba does not have the same petroleum reserves that Venezuela does. It doesn't have petroleum reserves. The governing model is different. I spoke to John Bolton, who served as a national security advisor in the first Trump administration, and he says it's certainly in America's interest and the interest of the Cuban people to see the regime removed from power, but he says the Venezuela model just won't work in Cuba. And he questions whether the U.S. is prepared for actual regime change in Cuba and what that would really involve.

[Barbara Sprunt]

And we need to know we've got the capability to do that and have

[Stephen Fowler]

thought through how to do it.

[Barbara Sprunt]

In particular, have we really communicated with people in Cuba who would be responsible as the Castro regime collapses?

[Franco Ordonez]

I mean, he's concerned that the US hasn't adequately coordinated with dissidents who would really bear the greatest part of the risk if this does go forward, including the brunt of repression if it doesn't work out.

[Layla Fadel]

Does Trump's interest in Cuba make sense?

[Franco Ordonez]

I mean, maybe not politically, because it's another example of foreign intervention. In this case, there's no oil to obtain or a nuclear weapon to stop. But it does make sense for from Trump's lens of a personal legacy, as we heard at the top, he likes to say that he's done things that his predecessors were unable to do, and it's something his friends and allies are very interested in including his Cuban American supporters and some aides. I mean, he lives in Florida and is surrounded by staff who are passionate about this issue. And of course, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been a driving force in this effort. He's the son of Cuban immigrants and has spent a good part of his career pushing for regime change in Cuba.

[Layla Fadel]

That's White House correspondent Franco Ordonez. Thanks, Franco.

[Franco Ordonez]

Thank you, Layla.

[Layla Fadel]

And that's up first for Friday, may 22nd. I'm layla falden.

[Steve Inskeep]

And I'm steve inskeep. Today's up first was edited by kelsey snell, megan pratz, luis clemens, mohamed el bardisi and john stolnas. It was produced by ziad bach and nia dumas. Our director is christopher thomas. He points, we talk, we get engineering support from stacy abbott. And our technical director is carly strange. Our executive producer is jay shaler. Join us.

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