Minnesota Prosecutors Quit, Trump in Detroit, Inflation Report

Summary

Up First Podcast Summary – January 14, 2026

Episode Title: Minnesota Prosecutors Quit, Trump in Detroit, Inflation Report
Hosts: Steve Inskeep, A Martinez
Reporters/Guests: Matt Sepik (Minnesota Public Radio), Tamara Keith (NPR), Scott Horsley (NPR)
Duration: ~13 minutes of core content

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Episode Overview

This episode covers three major national news stories:

1. The resignation of six federal prosecutors in Minnesota amidst controversy over an investigation into the shooting of Renee Macklin Good by an ICE agent.
2. President Trump's efforts to promote his economic record during an event in Detroit, including his sometimes off-script and combative style.
3. The newest inflation report from the Department of Labor, what it actually means for American households, and how the administration is responding.

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1. Minnesota Federal Prosecutors Resign Under Political Pressure

Timestamps: 02:24 – 06:07
Key Points:

• At least six longtime federal prosecutors in Minnesota have resigned due to Justice Department pressure to redirect investigations following the fatal shooting of Renee Macklin Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
• Political leaders have pushed for scrutiny of Good’s widow, Becca Good, for alleged activist ties (which aren’t illegal), rather than focus on the agent who fired the shot.
• These resignations have disrupted other ongoing federal probes, most significantly large-scale fraud investigations like the "Feeding our Future" case.
  • Prosecutor Joe Thompson led a probe involving $300 million in stolen federal child nutrition funds during the pandemic; 58 have been convicted so far.
  • Massive Medicaid fraud was also uncovered, estimated last month at $9 billion.

Notable Quotes:

• “Taxpayers deserve to know the truth of the fraud. The fraud is not small. It isn’t isolated. The magnitude cannot be overstated.” – Matt Sepik (04:37)
• “The people pushing to prosecute Renee's widow are monsters.” – Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, quoted by Matt Sepik (05:11)
• “The first way they did it was cutting out the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. That was such a bad sign that there was more bad to come...” – Sen. Amy Klobuchar (05:28)
• DOJ claims there is currently “no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation” and that ICE is handling its own parallel probe, a claim disputed by local sources.

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2. President Trump in Detroit: Economic Messaging and Off-the-Cuff Moments

Timestamps: 06:16 – 09:56
Key Points:

• President Trump visited the Detroit Economic Club, focusing his speech on the economy, but frequently veered off-topic, including personal boasts and political insults.
  • Trump claims: grocery prices "starting to go rapidly down," even as government data shows a spike.
  • He attributes high prices to actions of Democrats, repeatedly calling "affordability" a "fake word."
• Policy Teasers:
  • Promised to unveil plans to “bring back affordability,” mentioning potential initiatives to curb home prices by removing private equity from the housing market and capping credit card interest rates at 10% (as voluntary actions).
  • Trump reportedly called Sen. Elizabeth Warren to discuss these ideas, which echo some Democratic proposals.

Notable Moments:

• Trump interrupted himself for an impersonation of his predecessor, Joe Biden, including mock coughing and facial expressions:
  “Remember the speeches Joe would make? First of all, they'd last a matter of seconds. You know, thank you very much. You ever noticed Joe would always cough before a speech...” – Donald Trump (07:16)
• At a Ford plant tour, Trump responded to hecklers (who shouted "pedophile protector") by giving the middle finger, captured on TMZ.
  “In response, Trump appeared to mouth an expletive, then gave the middle finger to the person who was shouting.” – Tamara Keith (09:27)
  • The White House called it “an appropriate and unambiguous response.”

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3. Inflation Report Deep Dive: The Real Story Behind the Numbers

Timestamps: 09:57 – 13:23
Key Points:

• Department of Labor's latest report: Inflation was unchanged from November to December; overall cost of living up 2.7% year-over-year.
  • Gasoline prices fell, but utility costs (natural gas) and grocery prices continue to climb.
  • Many families, including working-class households, are struggling to afford utility payments; one in six households is behind on utility bills.
• President Trump touts strong GDP growth and claims “almost no inflation,” a view that contradicts lived reality for many Americans.
  • Manufacturing jobs are down: the auto industry lost 28,000 jobs last year; manufacturing overall lost 75,000.
• Federal Reserve Update:
  • The Fed is under pressure from the Trump administration to lower interest rates, but with inflation still high, a rate cut is unlikely in the next meeting.
  • DOJ has launched a criminal investigation into the Fed, seen as an intimidation tactic—Fed Chair Jerome Powell and banker Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase) have both warned of the dangers to Fed independence.

Notable Quotes:

• “We're hearing from families that we helped last year that need more help because the bill isn't going up then. Secondly, we're hearing from working class families who earn too much money to qualify for help but are now finding these bills unaffordable.” – Scott Horsley (10:52)
• “We have quickly achieved the exact opposite of stagflation. Almost no inflation and super high growth.” – Donald Trump (11:35)
• “Dimon warned the White House pressure campaign could actually backfire if people start to think the Fed’s independence is in jeopardy. It could ultimately lead to higher inflation and higher interest rates.” – Scott Horsley (13:09)

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Key Segment Timestamps

• Minnesota Prosecutors: Background and Implications — 02:24–06:07
• Trump’s Detroit Economic Speech — 06:16–09:56
• Trump’s Ford Plant Incident — 09:19–09:54
• Inflation Data and Economic Outlook — 09:57–13:23
• Federal Reserve and Interest Rates — 12:10–13:20

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Tone & Style

• The episode balances clear news reporting with conversational banter, especially in segment transitions and in discussing Trump’s off-script moments.
• The tone moves between urgency (prosecutor resignations), skepticism (president’s economic claims), and dry wit (Trump’s speech antics, middle finger incident).

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Summary

This “Up First” episode offers a snapshot of the day’s most consequential news: political fallout and resignations in Minnesota’s federal prosecution office linked to a controversial shooting and pressure from the Trump Justice Department; President Trump's Detroit economic pitch, replete with partisan rhetoric, unique policy teasers, and a highly publicized profane gesture; and a fact-check on claims about inflation, with expert context and data showing ongoing challenges faced by American households. The episode wraps up with a look ahead at Federal Reserve decisions, highlighting growing political pressure and its risks to economic stability.

Transcript

[Steve Inskeep]

It's great to see a Martinez. Normally I don't see a Martinez.

[A Martinez]

No, I normally you're well lit. I turn off all the lights here at NPR West.

[Steve Inskeep]

Well, it just kind of has that somewhere between cinema verite and film noir. I'm not sure which French.

[A Martinez]

I'm more cartoon than those other options you've mentioned. I'm more like an animated short. That's me.

[Steve Inskeep]

Federal prosecutors in Minnesota are resigning. They faced pressure to investigate the widow of Renee Macklin Good, the woman killed by an ICE agent.

[A Martinez]

How are partisan politics shaping a criminal investigation?

[Steve Inskeep]

I'm Steve Inskeep with a Martinez and this is up first from NPR News. President Trump is selling his economic record.

[Donald Trump]

In the coming weeks, I will be laying out even more plans to help bring back affordability. And again, remember, that's a fake word by Democrats.

[Steve Inskeep]

How is the president promising to fix the problem that he says does not exist?

[A Martinez]

And we'll hear about what the Department of Labor's inflation numbers actually show about affordability. Nationally, gas is cheap, but grocery prices and other bills keep climbing. The president says there's almost no inflation, but does it add up? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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[A Martinez]

At least 6 federal prosecutors in Minnesota have quit.

[Steve Inskeep]

The six have one big reason. Justice Department officials pressured them to twist the investigation of a shooting in Minneapolis rather than focus on the federal agent who shot Renee Macklin Good in the head. Political leaders wanted an investigation to find dirt on Good's widow. The resignations have disrupted other federal probes, such as an investigation of social service fraud. The Trump administration says it cares about.

[A Martinez]

Minnesota Public Radio's Matt Sepik has been covering both the fraud cases and the shooting death. Matt, why did the six attorneys resign?

[Matt Sepik]

The attorneys aren't speaking publicly. There are several reasons. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, that person asked that we not use their name because they're not authorized to talk to the media. One of those reasons is tied to last week's fatal shooting of 37 year old Renee Macklin good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. Trump administration officials say the agent fired in self defense. But many state and local officials are pointing to video taken from multiple angles that contradicts claims that Good posed any threat. The person with knowledge of the situation I spoke with says there's pressure from DoD leaders to investigate Good's widow, Becca Good, for ties to activist groups, which is not illegal. The group also objects to the DOJ's reluctance to investigate Agent Ross and to exclude state police from the investigation. And the same source tells me that the veteran prosecutors are concerned that Trump's focus on immigration has drawn resources away from the fraud investigations.

[A Martinez]

Yeah, you mentioned their veteran prosecutor's been around while. What's significant about their decision?

[Matt Sepik]

Well, it's a loss of big talent. The attorneys spent their careers with the Justice Department and prosecuted many major cases. One of them is Melinda Williams, an assistant U.S. attorney who led the criminal division here. Another is Joe Thompson. He's been key in the government's prosecution of fraud, particularly the infamous Feeding Our Future case. Thompson charged 78 people with stealing around $300 million from federal child nutrition programs during the pandemic. 58 have been convict. Investigators also uncovered massive Medicaid fraud. Last month, Thompson estimated that around $9 billion may have been stolen. Taxpayers deserve to know the truth of the fraud. The fraud is not small. It isn't isolated. The magnitude cannot be overstated. The convicted food fraud ringleader is white, but nearly all of the other defendants are Somali American, even though the majority are US Citizens. President Trump is using the fraud as a pretext for his immigration crackdown.

[A Martinez]

I would imagine leaders of Minnesota have a lot to say about these resignations.

[Matt Sepik]

Yeah, they do. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry, a Democrat, is calling the prosecutors heroes. In a statement, he adds, quote, the people pushing to prosecute Renee's widow are monsters. And US Senator Amy Klobuchar, also a Democrat and a former prosecutor herself, says DOJ is politicizing the investigation into Good's killing.

[Scott Horsley]

The first way they did it was cutting out the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. That was such a bad sign that there was more bad to come because our Minnesota bureau has seasoned professionals. They've always worked together, and they cut them out.

[A Martinez]

What about the Justice Department, Matt? What are they saying?

[Matt Sepik]

Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche says in a short statement, quote, there is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation. The DOJ tells me ICE is running its own investigation. That's parallel to, quote, any FBI investigation. But the same source, not authorized to speak on the record, calls that a lie and says ICE is not investigating the shooting.

[A Martinez]

That's Matt Sepik of Minnesota Public Radio. Thanks.

[Matt Sepik]

You're welcome.

[A Martinez]

Voters say affordability is a top concern. So it makes sense that the economy is expected to be one of the main issues in this year's midterm elections.

[Steve Inskeep]

President Trump has started traveling around the country giving speeches about the economy. He was at the Detroit Economic Club yesterday, although he did not exactly stay on topic.

[Donald Trump]

And now, after less than 12 months in office, this is the easiest speech to make. I have great people, and all I'm doing is spewing off what the hell we've done. Even Venezuela wasn't too bad, was it?

[Scott Horsley]

Huh?

[A Martinez]

NPR's senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith is here to break it all down. Tam, the president is kind of proud of what he calls the weave. Is that what we just heard here?

[Tamara Keith]

Yes. Yes, it is. He was really all over the place in this speech, changing topics mid sentence and boasting about being off the teleprompter 80% of the time. The speech included insults from more than half a dozen politicians, Republicans and Democrats alike. And then there was his impression of his predecessor.

[Donald Trump]

Remember the speeches Joe would make? First of all, they'd last a matter of seconds. You know, thank you very much. You ever noticed Joe would always cough before a speech, State of the Union gets hanging.

[Tamara Keith]

And picture the president making contorted facial expressions to go along with the sound effects.

[A Martinez]

Okay, so beyond the impersonations, what did the president actually say about the economy?

[Tamara Keith]

First off, he said it is great. He boasted that grocery prices are, quote, starting to go rapidly down. That was on the same day that the government announced that in December, grocery prices had their biggest spike since 2022. He went into some detail about his view that when gas prices come down, other prices will come down as well. Of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, he said, that jerk will be gone soon. And then he teased new proposals.

[Donald Trump]

In the coming weeks, I will be laying out even more plans to help bring back affordability. And again, remember, that's a fake word by Democrats. Prices were too high. They caused the high price.

[Tamara Keith]

And these regular riffs about affordability being a con job or a fake word really risk undercutting his message and are also out of line with the pain that people say they're feeling.

[A Martinez]

Trump mentioned laying out even more plans. Any idea what those plans are?

[Tamara Keith]

He said he's going to outline a proposal at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week to bring down home prices by getting private equity companies out of the US Housing market. And Trump has started talking about a plan to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for a year. Thus far, he is just talking about asking the companies to voluntarily make that change. And yes, these absolutely sound like ideas you've heard before from Democrats, not Republicans. Trump even called Senator Elizabeth Warren this week to talk ideas. But the response from Republicans on the Hill has been pretty tepid so far.

[A Martinez]

Okay. Now one other thing happened at the Ford truck plant that Trump toured before the speech and involved the president giving the middle finger.

[Tamara Keith]

Yet TMZ posted a video of the incident. Someone shouted what sounded like pedophile protector, presumably about the Epstein files. In response, Trump appeared to mouth an expletive, then gave the middle finger to the person who was shouting. In a statement, White House Communications Director Stephen Chung said, quote, a lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage. And the president gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.

[Steve Inskeep]

Okay.

[A Martinez]

NPR's Tamara Keith, thanks a lot.

[Tamara Keith]

You're welcome.

[A Martinez]

As President Trump talks about ways to lower prices, we have new data on how high they actually are.

[Steve Inskeep]

The Department of Labor's latest inflation report was out on Tuesday, and it shows inflation overall neither improving nor getting worse from November to December.

[A Martinez]

NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now. Scott. So let's start with one section of the report. Nationally, gas, gasoline might be getting cheaper at the pump, but what did the report say about other energy costs?

[Scott Horsley]

Well, they're generally going up. The Labor Department said yesterday natural gas prices are up more than 10% over the last year. Nearly half the country heats with natural gas, so that's driving up winter heating bills. We also use lots of natural gas to generate electricity. So those prices are climbing, too. Mark Wolf heads a group of state agencies that help low income families cover their energy costs. And he says about one out of six households is now falling behind on its utility bills. We're hearing from families that we helped.

[Steve Inskeep]

Last year that need more help because the bill isn't going up then.

[Scott Horsley]

Secondly, we're hearing from families who are working class families who earn too much money to qualify for help but are now finding these bills unaffordable Grocery prices were also up sharply last month, along with airfares and the price of clothing. Overall, the cost of living in December was up 2.7% from a year ago, the same annual inflation rate we saw in November. So we're kind of in a holding pattern.

[A Martinez]

Okay. Now we know the high cost of living is a big concern for a lot of families, legitimately so. So how is the Trump administration handling that?

[Scott Horsley]

Well, the president generally downplayed concerns about affordability when he was in Michigan. Instead, he boasted about the strong GDP growth we saw this summer.

[Donald Trump]

We have quickly achieved the exact opposite of stagflation. Almost no inflation and super high growth.

[Scott Horsley]

Now, to be sure, GDP growth was strong in the third quarter, but it's not the case. We have almost no inflation. Prices are still going faster than most people would like. What's more, that GDP growth has not come with a lot of new jobs. You know, the president toured a Ford motor plant yesterday, but US auto manufacturers lost 28,000 jobs last year. Manufacturing overall lost 75,000 jobs. So the economic picture is not quite as rosy as the president would like us to think.

[A Martinez]

Now, in a couple of weeks, the Federal Reserve is going to meet to talk about interest rates. The central bank has been getting a lot of pressure from the president to lower those rates. How is that working?

[Scott Horsley]

Yeah, the Fed is cutting interest rates, but not as quickly as Trump would like. Most forecasters think the Fed's going to hold rates steady when policymakers meet later this month because inflation is still too high. And yesterday's Cost of Living report just cemented that expectation. Trump wants much lower interest rates, and his administration's gone to extraordinary lengths to push the Fed in that direction. An ominous example came over the weekend with news the Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation of the central bank, the which Fed Chairman Jerome Powell dismissed as an effort to intimidate him and his colleagues. Since then, a number of lawmakers and business people have come to Powell's defense, including the nation's top banker, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase. I just want to say that I don't agree with everything the Fed has done. I do have enormous respect for Jay Powell.

[Matt Sepik]

Demand.

[Scott Horsley]

Dimon warned the White House pressure campaign could actually backfire if people start to think the Fed's independence is in jeopardy. It could ultimately lead to higher inflation and higher interest rates.

[A Martinez]

All right, that's npr, Scott Horsley. Scott, thank you.

[Scott Horsley]

You're welcome.

[A Martinez]

And that's up first for Wednesday, January 14th.

[Steve Inskeep]

I'm a Martinez, and I'M Steve Inskeep. Up first gives you the three big stories of the day. Our colleagues at consider this take a different approach. One big story in less than 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcast.

[A Martinez]

Today's episode of up first was edited by Rebecca Metzler, Gigi Dubon, Christian Dev Kalimor, Mohamed El Bardisi and Alice Wolfley, was produced by Theat Butch, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hynes, and our technical director is Carly Strange. Our supervising producer is Michael Lipkin. Join us again tomorrow.

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[Tamara Keith]

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[A Martinez]

There is a lot of fear these days that AI could be a bubble. So, Nick, is it? I don't know, right? It is hard to tell, but there.

[Matt Sepik]

Are some clues that economists say might.

[A Martinez]

Kind of sort of help us predict.

[Matt Sepik]

Bubbles on the Planet Money podcast, the dark art of bubble detection. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.