Shutdown Economics, U.S.- Colombia Tensions, Louvre Heist Fallout

Summary

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Up First from NPR

Episode: Shutdown Economics, U.S.-Colombia Tensions, Louvre Heist Fallout
Date: October 21, 2025
Hosts: Layla Fadel, Michelle Martin
Episode Overview:
On this episode, NPR’s Up First brings listeners the three biggest stories of the day: the mounting economic impact of the U.S. government shutdown, growing diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and Colombia, and fallout from the audacious daylight jewel heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

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1. The Economic Impact of the U.S. Government Shutdown

Segment starts: [02:38]

Key Points & Insights

• Unpaid Federal Employees:
  • Many federal employees will miss their first full paycheck due to the ongoing shutdown.
  • While some economic effects have been limited, analysts warn that continued non-payment can ripple through the broader economy.
• Broader Costs:
  • Scott Horsley summarizes: “There is a price to be paid for all this. There’s work that is not getting done. Some of that work will have to be made up later.” [03:05]
  • Uncertainty about whether back pay will be delivered has led federal workers to reduce spending, impacting local businesses.
• Government Contractors and Small Businesses:
  • Federal contracts worth $800 million per workday have been halted.
  • Bernard Yaros (Oxford Economics): “About half those contracts would typically go to small businesses, and they may be getting impatient.” [04:04]
  • Small businesses with thin cash buffers risk layoffs and reduced pay.
• Disrupted Services:
  • Critical functions, such as air traffic control, are strained, causing flight delays and cancellations.
• Major Upcoming Concerns:
  • A key “speed bump” looms: if the shutdown continues, SNAP benefits (food stamps) for over 40 million people could be stopped in November.
  • “That would be a shock, you know, a hit. … you would be very concerned about the effects of people really pulling back on their consumption if those SNAP benefits go away.” – Bernard Yaros [05:15]
  • The impact would especially hit families in the South and West.

Notable Quotes

• “We really don’t [have a total price tag]. Experience shows that past shutdowns have been costly, both for the government and for the broader economy. But part of the challenge here is the government. Economists who ordinarily tally that price tag have themselves been idled by the shutdown.” – Scott Horsley [05:37]

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2. U.S.–Colombia Diplomatic Blowup

Segment starts: [06:25]

Key Points & Insights

• Tensions Escalate:
  • President Trump publicly called Colombian President Gustavo Petro an “illegal drug leader” and threatened direct intervention to curb the flow of cocaine.
  • In response, Colombia is recalling its ambassador to the U.S. [06:36]
• Reason for Escalation:
  • Tensions sparked after lethal U.S. military strikes on alleged drug boats out of Venezuela. Colombian President Petro accused the U.S. of murder after a Colombian fisherman with no drug ties was killed.
  • Trump retaliated by making incendiary accusations and threatening aid cuts and tariffs.
• Evidence and Context:
  • Trump has not provided evidence for his accusations against Petro. On the contrary, Petro built his political reputation confronting drug trafficking.
  • John Otis: “It’s actually synthetic opioids like fentanyl that are causing most of the overdose deaths in the US. And Colombia is not a major exporter of fentanyl.” [07:47]
• Clash of Politics:
  • The feud is also ideological. Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, openly opposes Trump and his policies.
  • Petro’s US visa was revoked after he urged US soldiers to disobey Trump at a recent rally.
  • Quote: ‘Here we do not accept kings, period.’ – President Gustavo Petro (to Univision) [09:12]
• Aid Implications:
  • U.S. aid to Colombia is down to about $230 million / year. This funding largely supports anti-cartel operations.
  • Cutting off aid could be counterproductive, potentially undermining the fight against drug cartels.

Notable Quotes

• “Petro’s saying here that Trump is not the king of Colombia. Here we do not accept kings, period.” – John Otis, translating Petro [09:12]

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3. Louvre Heist Fallout

Segment starts: [10:06]

Key Points & Insights

• The Heist:
  • In a Hollywood-like scene, two thieves disguised as maintenance workers entered the Louvre at 9:30 a.m., cut open glass cases with an electric saw, and stole millions in royal jewels in under eight minutes.
  • They exited through a window and escaped on scooters.
• Security Failures Spark Outrage:
  • The thieves were caught on video by a Louvre worker, but many museum wings lack surveillance.
  • More than half the rooms in some wings have no video cameras; the security alarm only tripped as the thieves were leaving. [11:54]
  • Collector Pierre Jean Chalonson: “No security, no policeman, no camera. It’s a joke. … I think the director and the people in charge of the Louvre Museum should get out of the job.” [12:33]
• Aftermath and Response:
  • The Louvre is closed, with the break-in site boarded up and the public expressing anger at inadequate security.
  • The French Senate's Culture Commission will question the museum’s director; upgrades aren't planned until 2031.
  • The fear is that the jewels will be dismantled and lost forever—a blow to French heritage.
  • Recent employee strikes over working conditions and a planned security modernization add pressure to reform.

Notable Quotes

• “No security, no policeman, no camera. It’s a joke.” – Pierre Jean Chalonson [12:33]
• “There’s growing anger in France because people feel violated. These jewels belong to all the French people.” – Eleanor Beardsley [12:12]

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Memorable Moments

• Economic Worry:
  • “You know, [federal employees] have mortgage payments… credit card payments… they got kids’ tuition. Like everybody’s got bills to pay.” – Bernard Yaros [03:24]
• French Outrage:
  • The description of security as “a joke,” echoed widely in French media and by listeners.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:38] Government Shutdown: Economic Impact
• [06:25] U.S.–Colombia Diplomatic Crisis
• [10:06] Louvre Museum Jewel Heist

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Episode Tone: Direct, urgent, and analytical—balancing clear reporting with expert commentary and on-the-ground perspectives.

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For listeners:
This episode captures deepening economic concerns of the U.S. shutdown, the escalating U.S.–Colombia feud under Trump’s second term, and the widespread shock in France following the Louvre heist—a potent blend of domestic and international headlines, each with far-reaching consequences and a human impact.

Transcript

[Layla Falden]

With paychecks and contracts frozen, the government shutdown will hit the broader economy.

[Bernard Yaros]

The risk is that you start to put some of these small businesses into financial stress.

[Michelle Martin]

What are the costs of not running the government?

[Layla Falden]

I'm Layla Falden. That's Michelle Martin, and this is up first from NPR News. Colombia is recalling its ambassador to the US After President Trump called the country's president, quote, an illegal drug leader. That was in response to Colombia's president accusing of murder over US Boat attacks in the Caribbean and in France.

[Michelle Martin]

Outrageous. Growing after the Louvre museum was robbed in broad daylight.

[Pierre Jean Chalonson]

No security, no policeman, no camera. It's a joke.

[Michelle Martin]

An international search for the thieves is underway. Stay with us. We'll give you news you need to start your day.

[Judy Abrams]

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Fisher Investments SVP Judy Abrams shares how their fiduciary duty comes to life while helping clients plan for retirement.

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Fisher Investments is a fiduciary and I think one of the very important roles we have here as a fiduciary is to help expand people's thinking about what this money is needed to do for them.

[Judy Abrams]

Learn [e-mail] Investing in securities involves the risk of loss. This message comes from the Natural Resources Defense Council. Remember seeing plentiful bees buzzing around gardens and fields, chasing monarch butterflies through the park, building snowmen after the first snowstorm? These are the moments of wonder NRDC is fighting to preserve for future generations. Donate to Support [e-mail] first and your gift will be matched five times. This message comes from Dell Technologies. Your new Dell PC with Intel Core Ultra helps you handle a lot when your holiday to DOS get to be a lot. Luckily, the Dell PC helps you get it all done. Get [e-mail] holiday this message comes from Grammarly. From emails to reports and project proposals, it's hard to meet the demands of today's competing priorities without some help. Grammarly is the essential AI communication assistant that boosts your productivity at work so you can get more of what you need done faster. Just a few clicks can tailor your tone and writing so you come across exactly as you intend to get time back to focus on your high impact work. Download Grammarly for [e-mail] podcast that's Grammarly.com podcast.

[Layla Falden]

A lot of federal employees won't be getting paid this Friday.

[Michelle Martin]

That is the first full paycheck they will miss as a result of a government shutdown. So far, the economic fallout from the shutdown, which began three weeks ago, has been limited but analysts say the longer it drags on, the bigger the dent it may leave.

[Layla Falden]

NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now to talk about this.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

Good morning, Scott.

[Scott Horsley]

Good morning, Lyman.

[Layla Falden]

Okay, so we know it costs money to run the federal government, but what does it cost not to run it?

[Scott Horsley]

Yeah, there is a price to be paid for all this. There's work that is not getting done. Some of that work will have to be made up later. You've got hundreds of thousands of federal employees who are either furloughed or in some cases, working without pay. Economist Brett Ryan of Deutsche bank says most people can go a little while without a paycheck, but, you know, not indefinitely.

[Bernard Yaros]

You know, they have mortgage payments to make.

[Scott Horsley]

They have credit card payments.

[Bernard Yaros]

They got kids tuition. Like everybody's got bills to pay.

[Scott Horsley]

By law, federal workers are supposed to get back pay once the shutdown ends. But, you know, the White House has tried to cast doubt on whether that's going to happen. So it wouldn't be surprising if some federal workers dial back their spending. And of course, that affects all the businesses those workers typically patronize.

[Judy Abrams]

Yeah.

[Layla Falden]

Who else is paying a price for the shutdown so far?

[Scott Horsley]

Well, a lot of government contracting has been halted, and unlike federal employees, contractors are not guaranteed to be made whole once the shutdown ends. Bernard Yaros is with the global advisory firm Oxford Economics. He estimates that every workday the shutdown goes on, some $800 million worth of contracts are not being awarded. Now, again, a lot of that work is merely postponed, not scrapped. But Yarrow says about half those contracts would typically go to small businesses, and they may be getting impatient.

[Bernard Yaros]

What we know about small businesses is that they tend to have relatively thin cash buffers. So the risk is that you start to put some of these small businesses into financial stress, and as a result, they have to furlough workers themselves, cut pay or even layoff workers outright.

[Scott Horsley]

And of course, the shutdown is also affecting government functions that typically help the economy run smoothly, like air traffic controllers. You know, we've seen flights delayed and even canceled because controllers who were already short shorthanded are now even more so.

[Layla Falden]

Are there any big speed bumps to watch for?

[Scott Horsley]

Yeah, a big one could come at the beginning of next month. You know, if Congress doesn't resolve this by then, the food stamp program, which helps to feed more than 40 million people, may not be able to pay SNAP benefits in November. And Yarrow says that would have an immediate effect not only on those families but on the whole U.S. food chain.

[Bernard Yaros]

That would be a shock, you know, a hit. And if that goes away, that's where you would be very concerned about the effects of people really pulling back on their consumption if those snap benefits go away.

[Scott Horsley]

Narrow says that would be felt most acutely in the south and in the west, where families are most heavily reliant on food stamps.

[Layla Falden]

Do we have a good idea of what the total price tag of the shutdown is so far?

[Scott Horsley]

You know, we really don't. Experience shows that past shutdowns have been costly, both for the government and for the broader economy. But part of the challenge here is the government. Economists who ordinarily tally that price tag have themselves been idled by the shutdown. You know, we didn't get the usual jobs report earlier this month. A lot of other economic snapshots have been delayed. The one exception is the September inflation report that is going to come out on Friday, albeit nine days late. Some government number crunchers were actually called back from furlough just to finish that report because Social Security needs it to calculate next year's cost of living increase.

[Layla Falden]

NPR's Scott Horsley. Thank you, Scott.

[Scott Horsley]

You're welcome.

[Michelle Martin]

Colombia used to be the top US Ally in Latin America and a key partner in the war on drugs. But since President Trump was sworn in for his second term, relations with Colombia have deteriorated.

[Layla Falden]

Things are so bad that Trump is now openly calling Colombia's president a, quote, illegal drug leader. He's also threatening to directly intervene in Colombia to stop the flow of cocaine. In response, Colombia announced Monday that it will withdraw its ambassador to Washington.

[Michelle Martin]

For more on the dispute, we go to reporter John Otis in Bogota. Good morning, John.

[John Otis]

Good morning, Michelle.

[Michelle Martin]

What do we know about why Trump is doing this?

[John Otis]

Well, a lot of this has to do with Trump's policy of ordering lethal military strikes on alleged drug boats coming out of Venezuela. It's unclear whether these strikes are legal, and they've killed more than two dozen people. Colombian President Gustavo Petro says that one of these attacks last month destroyed the boat of a stranded Colombian fisherman who had no ties to drug smuggling. He then accused the Trump administration of murder. That angered Trump, who on Sunday said on social media that Petro was, quote, an illegal drug leader strongly encouraging the massive production of drugs. Trump also threatened to cut off US Aid and to raise tariffs on Colombia.

[Michelle Martin]

Has Trump provided any evidence that Petro is tied to drug trafficking?

[John Otis]

No, he hasn't. And Petro has actually has strongly denied these accusations. In fact, Petro's political rise was partly due to his time in the Colombian Senate, where he was A vocal critic of drug trafficking groups. Now, the fact remains that Colombia is the world's number one supplier of cocaine. But we should also remember that US Drug users are helping to fuel the cocaine trade here. And besides, it's actually synthetic opioids like fentanyl that are causing most of the overdose deaths in the US And Colombia is not a major exporter of fentanyl.

[Michelle Martin]

But you have been reporting that Petro and Trump have been feuding for months. So I take it this goes beyond the drug issue.

[John Otis]

Yes, it does. Petro is a leftist. He's Colombia's first ever left wing president. He disagrees with Trump on almost everything. And unlike other world leaders, Petro is not afraid to say so. For example, Petro initially rejected US Military flights of deported Colombian migrants. At a street rally last month in New York, Petro urged US Soldiers to disobey President Trump. That prompted the State Department to cancel Petro's US Visa. But Petro doesn't seem to care about the consequences. Over the weekend, he expressed support for the no Kings rallies in the US and he also had more harsh words for Trump Monday in this interview with Univision tv. No, no. Petro's saying here that Trump is not the king of Colombia. Here we do not accept kings, period.

[Michelle Martin]

So if Trump does make good on his threats to cut off aid, how would that affect Colombia?

[John Otis]

Well, aid to Colombia has drastically fallen in recent years, but it still receives about $230 million per year in U.S. aid. But a lot of that money actually goes to towards helping Colombians fight the drug cartels. So, you know, shutting down USAID could end up backfiring. It could really end up hurting the effort to fight against the drug cartels here in Colombia.

[Michelle Martin]

That is John Otis. He's reporting from Bogota, the capital of Colombia. John, thank you.

[John Otis]

Thank you very much.

[Michelle Martin]

French police are still looking for the culprits. Two days after thieves stole millions of dollars worth of jewels in a brazen daytime, he at the world's most visited art museum.

[Layla Falden]

Meanwhile, shock is turning to anger as the French discover the huge gaps in security at their beloved Louvre museum.

[Michelle Martin]

We go now to NPR's Eleanor Beardsley to hear more. Eleanor, good morning.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

Good morning, Michelle.

[Michelle Martin]

Would you just remind us of what happened? I mean, this. Geez, it sounds like a movie.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

Yeah, it does. Sunday morning at 9:30am in broad daylight, a moving truck with a ladder on the back pulled up to a sidewalk next to a wing of the museum to Two men climbed up to the second floor balcony and pried open the window to enter the gallery. Now, they were not wearing masks and catsuits. They had on yellow reflective vests. They were disguised to look like ordinary maintenance workers. And once inside, a Louvre worker actually filmed the back of one of the men, and he was cutting open one of the glass cases with a round electric saw. The men stole the royal jewels, crowns, tiaras, necklaces, mostly from the 19th century era of Emperor Napoleon III. The they came out the same window and sped away on scooters, driven by their accomplices who were waiting for them.

[Michelle Martin]

Do the police, do the authorities have any idea who this might be?

[Scott Horsley]

No.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

No idea who did it. Last night, the prosecutor put out a statement and said nothing is being ruled out. They do think it was a well organized gang. There could be foreign interference. Possibly someone very rich could have ordered the heist. Likely not, because these jewels cannot be displayed or resold in their original form. They're too recognizable. But time is of the because the thieves will likely dismantle them, melt down the gold, and sell everything separately. And a part of French history and culture will be lost forever.

[Michelle Martin]

So what do we know about how this happened? I mean, about the security at the museum?

[Eleanor Beardsley]

Well, we're finding out just how lacking the security is at the world's most visited art museum. According to a French government internal report out last year, the museum was way behind on things like video surveillance. For example, more than half the rooms in some of the most visited wings have no video surveillance at all. Also, there was a question about the alarm of the wing broken into. It went off, but not when they broke in. It was as they were leaving. And by the way, the job took less than eight minutes. And there's growing anger in France because people feel violated. These jewels belong to all the French people. And here is Pierre Jean Chalonson. He's a top Napoleonic era collector himself who knew these jewels well.

[Pierre Jean Chalonson]

No security, no policeman, no camera. It's a joke. It's really a joke. And I think the director and the people in charge of the Louvre Museum should get out of the job.

[Michelle Martin]

So I take it the museum is closed. Any idea when it will reopen?

[Layla Falden]

It is closed.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

I was out there yesterday, and there were still hundreds of people trying to, like, look around and see, looking at that window and everything, which is boarded up. It's likely to open tomorrow. And that's also when the head of the Louvre will be grilled by a Senate Commission on culture presided by Centra Center Laurent Lafond. And here he is speaking on the radio this morning. He said we need explanations on what happened. Did the alarm go off? Were there video cameras? How long did it take Louver personnel to react? You know, there's a lot of scrutiny about Louver security guards and personnel, though. Their first job is to protect the public and get them out of harm's way, which they did. The employees actually went on strike last year over poor working conditions. And and this year, in January, Macron announced a huge upgrade of the Louvre to make it, you know, modern, in line with security and, you know, international tourism and to give the Mona Lisa its own room. But that won't begin that work until 2031. How do we protect these precious artworks until then?

[Michelle Martin]

That is NPR's Eleanor Beardsley. Eleanor, thank you.

[Eleanor Beardsley]

Thank you, Michelle.

[Michelle Martin]

And that's up first for Tuesday, October 21st. I'm Michelle Martin.

[Layla Falden]

And I'm Layla Falden. Up first is Made Possible by listeners like you. If you enjoy starting your day with up first in our radio program Morning Edition, please consider donating to your local NPR station. Your money goes to supporting reporters on the ground in your community and many other communities. Keep the NPR network strong. Visit donate.npr.org upfirst to contribute.

[Michelle Martin]

Today's episode of Up first was edited by Rafael Naming, Tara Neal, Miguel Macias, Mohamed El Bardisi, and Martha Ann Overland. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Ben Abrams and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Carly Strange. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow.

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