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- [00:00]
Leila Fadel
Michelle good morning good morning laila only two more days left in twenty twenty five which means i'm eating everything in.
- [00:07]
Michelle Martin
Sight same like it's our job like it's kind of our job yeah but okay so that means there's two more days to stand up for public media before the end of the year yes.
- [00:16]
Leila Fadel
This is the last week of the year and the last week of the year is a critical fundraising period for npr and your donation today will help public radio as we enter our first full year without federal funding and thank.
- [00:31]
Michelle Martin
You so much if you are an npr supporter or if you have already made your year end gift yeah because.
- [00:37]
Leila Fadel
That is how we continue to do this work and bring you this podcast every day and people who support us include listeners like tim in washington who says we're in this together and need to support each other and make sure knowledge is spread programs like up first help me get through my commute and keep me informed each day tim you.
- [00:56]
Michelle Martin
Know what thank you that's what it's all about thank you tim yeah thank.
- [01:00]
Leila Fadel
You tim and you can join the community of public radio supporters today by.
- [01:04]
Michelle Martin
Signing up for npr signing up unlocks a bunch of perks like bonus episodes and more from across npr's podcast plus you get to feel good about supporting public media while you listen join us.
- [01:15]
Leila Fadel
At plus dot npr dot org.
- [01:20]
Michelle Martin
Israel'S prime minister met with president trump again trump brushed off israeli attacks in gaza and demanded that hamas disarm if they.
- [01:27]
Donald Trump
Don'T disarm as they agreed to do they agree to it and then they'll be held to pay so does the.
- [01:33]
Leila Fadel
Peace plan finally move out of phase.
- [01:35]
Michelle Martin
One i'm michele martin with leila fado and this is up first from npr news the kremlin says ukraine tried to hit one of vladimir putin's homes but ukraine's president said the accusation is a lie to kill peace talks and continue russia's war will it undermine already flailing negotiations to end the violence president trump.
- [01:54]
Leila Fadel
And elon musk promised to save a trillion dollars in federal spending they didn't and now doge is disbanded we look back at doge and how the effort to lay off workers continues stay with us we'll give you the news you need to start your day.
- [02:14]
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This message comes from capital one with the venture x card earn unlimited double miles a dollar three hundred annual capital one travel credit and access to airport lounges capital one what's in your wallet terms apply details at capitalone dot com this message comes from amnesty international when the world is breaking apart but you refuse to look away amnesty international is the place to start donate today to defend human rights and your gift will be matched at amnestyusa dot org podcast this message.
- [02:47]
Mint Mobile Announcer
Comes from mint mobile at mint mobile their favorite word is no no contracts no monthly bills no hidden fees plans start at fifteen doll month make the switch at mintmobile dot com switch that's mintmobile dot com switch upfront payment of forty five dollars for three month five gigabyte plan required equivalent to fifteen dollars a month new customer offer for first three months only then full price plan options available taxes and fees extra see mint mobile for details israel's prime minister.
- [03:17]
Leila Fadel
Benjamin netanyahu met in mar a lago on monday with president trump their sixth meeting since trump returned to office this.
- [03:24]
Michelle Martin
Year the two men discussed how to move trump's gaza cease plan into the next phase and sent a stern warning to iran to not attempt to rebuild its nuclear or missile capacity npr's michelle.
- [03:35]
Leila Fadel
Kellerman has been following all this from jerusalem and joins me now good morning michelle good morning leila so michelle there had been a lot of speculation that the two men could be at odds over moving on to phase two of the gaza ceasefire plan critics accused netanyahu and his government of dragging their feet on that was there any friction that we could see in the meeting well.
- [03:55]
Michelle Kellerman
It was quite the opposite in public at least you know the two men were really praising each other netanyahu said that trump is getting the israel prize which is usually only given to israelis and trump said that israel probably wouldn't still exist if it hadn't been for netanyahu's wartime leadership he again said that he thinks that netanyahu should be pardoned rather than face a corruption trial and the other thing the two men agreed on was the need for hamas to give up its power and weapons in.
- [04:24]
Donald Trump
Gaza here's trump if they don't disarm as they agreed to do they agreed to it then they'll be held to pay for them and we don't want that we're not looking for that but they have to disarm within a fairly short period of time and then on.
- [04:40]
Michelle Kellerman
The other hand trump said that he's not concerned at all about the frequent israeli airstrikes that have killed hundreds of people in gaza since the ceasefire came into effect more than two months ago he said that israel has lived up to the plan quote unquote one hundred.
- [04:53]
Leila Fadel
Percent now a ceasefire in which hundreds of people have been killed and it's still in phase one i mean is there any progress on that next step.
- [05:02]
Michelle Kellerman
Of this trump plan well trump still has not appointed his board of peace or said who's going to run gaza it's also not clear when an international force is going to be in place you know he even suggested that such a force could disarm hamas though countries that are thinking about sending troops have very different views on that so here's where things are stuck i mean hamas shows no signs of giving up power or weapons without negotiations on a palestinian state israel shows no interest in pulling back in gaza or getting on a path toward a palestinian state and inside gaza leila things are really pretty dire still it's been rainy and cold here and we're hearing reports of children dying because of the cold weather and floods and much of gaza remains in ruins.
- [05:51]
Leila Fadel
The two leaders seem to be in broad agreement on another issue iran what did they say about that yeah i.
- [05:58]
Michelle Kellerman
Mean remember trump joined israel's brief war with iran last summer sending b two bombers which he said obliterated iran's nuclear program but israel says that iran is now building up its ballistic missile stockpile and it's worried about that when trump was asked about that he said if we're going to have to go knock them down again we're going to do it but he also said he's open to a deal with iran so it was a bit of a confusing message what israeli analysts say they heard in trump's comments was that if iran reconstitutes its nuclear program the us is going to act and that he's giving israel a green light to take action against iran's ballistic missile program at least that's how people here in israel are interpreting the president's comments on iran so was.
- [06:43]
Leila Fadel
There anything they didn't agree on well.
- [06:46]
Michelle Kellerman
There are definitely tensions over syria and turkey but trump kept saying that he thinks everything will work out because he has good relations with all those leaders he also said he didn't agree with netanyahu one hundred percent on the west bank some far right ministers in netanyahu's government want to annex the west bank something trump has said he opposes but he didn't really air his grievances about that in public he said he thinks that netanyahu will make the right decisions.
- [07:13]
Leila Fadel
On the west bank that's npr's michelle kellerman in jerusalem thank you michelle thank you russia is threatening to harden its position in negotiations to end its war.
- [07:33]
Michelle Martin
On ukraine the kremlin accused ukraine of an attempted drone attack on one of russian president vladimir putin's residences ukraine says russia is fabricating the incident so it can continue waging war joining us now.
- [07:45]
Leila Fadel
Is npr's ukraine correspondent joanna kakis who is in kyiv good morning joanna good morning leila so let's start with this alleged attack on one of putin's homes.
- [07:54]
Joanna Kakis
What happened so leila russia's longtime foreign minister sergei lavrov brought it up yesterday in an interview with interfax russia's state owned news agency and he claimed without evidence that ukraine had launched ninety one drones at a putin residence in novgorod in the northwest and that russia's air defense had shot down these drones now we should say lavrov is not trusted by western leaders and ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy immediately denied lavrov's charge and said russia was inventing this incident to undermine peace talks and expand attacks on ukraine here's zelenskyy speaking to reporters he's saying i'm sure the russians are preparing to launch strikes here probably on the capitol and probably on our government buildings everyone.
- [08:41]
Leila Fadel
Must be on alert now now zelenskyy was in flor weekend for talks with president trump how has trump responded to.
- [08:48]
Joanna Kakis
This charge well president trump said putin told him about the alleged attack on monday and that trump was quote very angry about it although he also acknowledged that no one had independently confirmed it now speaking to reporters trump also seemed to suggest that he stopped sales of tomahawk missiles to ukraine to prevent such strikes now back in twenty twenty three let me bring up russia did accuse ukraine of trying to attack the kremlin with two drone strikes and ukraine also denied this russia though has hit ukraine ukrainian government buildings didn't trump say that.
- [09:18]
Leila Fadel
Putin told him he wants peace yes.
- [09:21]
Joanna Kakis
Trump did say this during his press conference in mar a lago with zelensky trump also said putin wants to help ukraine but zelensky said later putin is not sincere about peace zelensky is saying putin tells the president of the united states that he wants to end the war but then he tells the media that he is ready to continue the war striking ukrainian cities with drones and missiles and i should add putin has ordered his generals to capture the southeastern ukrainian city of zaporizhzhia and russia is also still demanding that ukraine cede the twenty five percent of the eastern donbas region that the ukrainians still control okay.
- [10:00]
Leila Fadel
If peace talks move forward what are the next steps well you know the.
- [10:05]
Joanna Kakis
Ukrainians are organizing meetings with us and european representatives to work further on this peace plan and if russia rejects it the ukrainian ukrainians want to keep their allies engaged especially the trump administration zelenskyy says he and trump want to end this war through diplomacy so zelenskyy is saying and if this war does drag on the americans will continue to help ukraine along with the europeans because he said we are defending ourselves we are.
- [10:36]
Leila Fadel
Not the aggressors that's npr's joanna kakis in kyiv thank you joanna you're welcome the department of government efficiency effort was one of the most consequential changes the trump administration made to the federal government.
- [10:55]
Michelle Martin
In twenty twenty five many of doge's promises to increase efficiency and slash spending never fully materialized but the trump administration has not given up on those goals.
- [11:06]
Leila Fadel
Npr'S stephen fowler is part of a team of reporters tracking all things government restructuring and joins us now for a look at the year in doge good morning good morning okay so it's been months since the high profile departure of elon musk as the leader of this doge effort i guess the first question is does doge still exist yes and.
- [11:27]
Stephen Fowler
No when musk left at the end of may so did a lot of attention on doge's work but the people who join federal agencies to do things like fire federal workers cancel contracts and cut spending just became official ingrained parts of those agencies think of it this way doge is a mindset that started first as an outside group but quickly manifested itself as an official policy and way of doing things for what it's worth musk did speak on the katie miller podcast earlier this month and he said he wouldn't do doge again if given the chance and offered a mixed.
- [12:01]
Mint Mobile Announcer
Review we're a little bit successful we were somewhat successful i mean we we stopped a lot of funding that really just made no sense okay it doesn't.
- [12:11]
Leila Fadel
Sound so convinced there let's talk about what he called somewhat successful amidst those cuts doge claimed it would save over a trillion dollars in federal spending how much progress actually happened on that front.
- [12:23]
Stephen Fowler
Not very much in fact if you look at the start of the new fiscal year in october through the end of november the government has spent a half trillion dollars more than it brought in that's because more than ninety percent of federal spending goes towards popular entitlement programs like social security medicare plus spending on defense and interest payments on more than thirty eight trillion dollars in debt doge didn't touch those programs congress would have to be the ones to take action and this year they did the one big beautiful bill act saw tax cuts and new spending on president trump's priorities it's actually expected to increase the federal deficit by at least three tr additional dollars over the next decade okay.
- [13:08]
Leila Fadel
Kind of the opposite of the goal another signature doge push was to drastically reduce the size of the federal workforce.
- [13:15]
Michelle Martin
Where does that stand so layla usually.
- [13:18]
Stephen Fowler
We expect to see between one hundred to one hundred fifty thousand federal employees retire resign or otherwise leave the government each year that's estimated to be double for twenty twenty five more than three hundred seventeen thousand people gone there are federal agencies and programs like the us agency for corporation for public broadcasting and much of the education department that have been effectively eliminated but we have also reported that some of the doge cuts were being undone with agencies hiring back hundreds of workers in recent weeks okay.
- [13:53]
Leila Fadel
So it sounds like you're saying doge itself wasn't the most successful but that mentality has become administration policy what does that look like moving forward well the.
- [14:03]
Stephen Fowler
Trump administration is still trying to lay off federal workers and cut spending from policies trump disagrees with it just looks different from how doge did it the thing i am watching is what continues to happen with this unprecedented data access doge was given sensitive personal data on millions of americans and how they keep using it like for immigration enforcement purposes.
- [14:25]
Leila Fadel
That'S npr's stephen fowler thank you stephen.
- [14:28]
Stephen Fowler
Thank you.
- [14:33]
Leila Fadel
And that's up first for tuesday december thirtieth i'm layla faulded and.
- [14:37]
Michelle Martin
I'M michelle martin up first gets you caught up and morning edition takes you deeper we're live every morning on your local npr station with reporting interviews and the context behind the headlines and if you want to listen in the afternoon you can do that too download the npr app where you can find all of npr's most popular shows and listen.
- [14:55]
Leila Fadel
Anytime today's episode of upverse was edited by ruth sherlock anna yukonanov mohamed elbridisi and and alice wolfley it was produced by ziad buch nia dumas and christopher thomas we get engineering support from stacey abbott and our technical director is carly strange our supervising senior producer is vince pearson join us again tomorrow.
- [15:18]
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- [15:50]
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