Democrat In-Fighting; Conservative Media on Trump; Mahmoud Khalil's Wife Speaks

0:01No government shutdown, for now. One key Democratic vote from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer helped the Republican bill advance. And some of his fellow Democrats view that as wrong. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I'm Scott Simon, and this is Up First from NPR News. The Republican spending bill narrowly passed the Senate last night with help from a few Democratic lawmakers. That move led to infighting in a party already in turmoil. We'll have more of that. Plus, conservative media usually puts a positive spin on President Trump's policies. But how are they covering the economic fallout? And we'll hear from the wife of a Palestinian graduate student and activist who faces deportation.

0:47Stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend.

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1:40Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it. This message comes from Rinse, who knows that mastering the perfect house party table spread takes time. But so does laundry. So Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned. And you can take the time once spent sorting and waiting, folding, and queuing to finally pursue your real passion. Rolling delicate roses of capicola alongside meandering ribbons of Amon Serrano, transforming a humble plank of weathered barnwood into a show-stopping charcuterie spread. Rinse. It's time to be great. Another spending cycle, another barely-avoided government shutdown after the Senate just managed to pass a partisan stopgap spending bill.

2:28But that was only possible with help from a few Democratic lawmakers, which has riled up their congressional colleagues. And our congressional correspondent, Barbara Sprint joins us. Barbara, thanks for being with us. Hey, thanks for having me. This was an abrupt shift from the minority leader, Chuck Schumer. What happened? That's right. Schumer had said Republicans didn't get input from Democrats when drafting this bill, and so they wouldn't get the Democratic votes they'd need to advance it. Instead, he wanted to pass a one-month funding bill to give them more time to negotiate a deal. But on Thursday, he made a U-turn and he said he was going to vote to advance the bill.

3:07Schumer and the nine other Democrats who ultimately voted alongside him argued the bill was bad, yes, but a government shutdown would be worse. They said it would enable President Trump and his top advisor, Elon Musk, to further gut federal agencies. and their support enabled Republicans to ultimately pass the bill largely along party lines. Barbara, would it be fair to say that Senator Schumer's colleagues just didn't see this coming? It would be fair. I was at a conference in Virginia with House Democrats when Schumer made this announcement. I saw jaws drop. I saw heads shake. Members were really upset.

3:42They said they felt betrayed because they had voted on the same bill earlier this week and all but one voted against it. It was a tough vote for a lot of members, particularly those in vulnerable districts. But the caucus banded together to present a united front and make a strong show of opposition. They said that the bill was essentially a blank check for Trump because it doesn't rein in the administration's efforts to cut spending that was previously approved by Congress. Here's New York Congressman Joe Morelli reacting to Schumer's comments. I think they're going to rue the day they make this decision.

4:18I think this just gives, you know, license to Republicans continue to dismantle the government. They now have the acquiescence of Senate Democrats. Members told me they were calling and texting their senators, imploring them not to vote alongside Schumer. So a lot of frustration and anger among House Democrats. And Barbara, what's the implication of this rift among Democrats at a time when, after all, Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House? House Democrats felt that they finally had some momentum, you know, as the opposition party. The vote over the shutdown was a rare and big piece of leverage for them.

4:58To have unity in the House and then have the Senate Democrats shift course at this late stage is a breakdown in strategy. and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that it has implications in her view far beyond this one vote. There will be a day where the Senate will need the House to move on something and if there is an erosion of trust and a breach of trust such as what is being considered right now, it will make cooperation difficult. After the vote, she posted that the Democratic votes in the Senate were a, quote, fear-based, inexplicable abdication and that the Senate owns what happens next.

5:37You know, I talked to Democratic strategists about this yesterday, and they said that Senate leadership really misread what constituents want, for Democrats to hold the line, even if it means a shutdown. There's concern that this emboldens the GOP, makes it harder for Democrats to present a unified message. Now, Congress is on recess next week. I expect Democrats will be getting an earful from constituents. NPR's Barbara Sprint, thanks so much. Thank you.

6:12President Trump can ordinarily count on the support of more conservative news outlets. But it's been tough to sugarcoat nosediving stocks and consumer confidence, trade wars, and a looming recession. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik joins us now to tell us more. Good to have you, David. Thanks. Where are we starting to see some of this pushback? Well, let's set aside the never-Trumper right. Let's start with the most important part of the conservative press, and that's the Murdoch media. There are really four big parts of that. There's the Wall Street Journal news section, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and of course, biggest of all, Fox News.

6:50all in various ways, some of it quite gentle, some of it less so, are pushing back on Trump on this, reflecting in the terms of the Wall Street Journal's, I think, rigorously reported news pages, reflecting their own coverage, but also in the other elements, fulfilling their brand promise to various constituencies they're trying to take care of and also reflecting what Rupert Murdoch really wants, which is to kind of gently ease Trump into what he thinks is the right thing, predictable, stable markets and not trade wars. So what are they saying? Well, you've seen these big headlines in Wall Street Journal reporting, you know, particularly on fears about chief executives and finance chiefs and real concerns about how consumers are hurting up and down the household income levels and how they're accelerating fears about what they can do.

7:37Take the New York Post's front page last week. You saw this huge cartoon of Trump plunging straight down the incline of a roller coaster headline, Buckle Up, Markets Plunge. You saw The Wall Street Journal's editorial page talking about tariffs. They called his moves on Canada and Mexico the dumbest trade war in history a few weeks ago and sort of doubled up a few days ago, repeating the line again. And then there's a very gentle explainer by Fox News anchor Brett Baier explaining why tariffs don't really work the way the president claims that they actually end up really hitting the American consumer.

8:06And even Fox host Maria Bartiromo, a true Trump loyalist. Here's what it sounded like when she mixed it up recently with Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. I know you said you're not expecting a recession, but investors are on edge over the possibility of a recession this year after the Atlanta Federal Reserve said that it's predicting a 2.4 percent contraction in the first quarter. And of course, President Trump would not. Wait, wait, wait. Say it again. A what? A what? The Atlanta Federal Reserve. 2.4 percent contraction? Correct. And that's somebody who goes out of her way to frame things in the best possible way for Trump most of the time.

8:41She just got an appointment from Trump to the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. And how have other pro-Trump outlets covered this moment? I think you look at the four Ds, defend, deflect, deny, disregard. You've seen that in a bunch of right-wing pro-Trump outlets. Take Newsmax's Rob Finnerty. He recently debated Ontario Premier Doug Ford about Canada's reaction to Trump's tariff moves. How is that fair? I think that Donald Trump just wants to get the best deal for the American consumer, even if that means some pain in the short term. There are other right wing and pro Trump sites that simply are focusing the blame on former President Joe Biden for whatever is going wrong now or might in the future.

9:23Well, what do you think the impact of this coverage will be? Well, I think these things are both a leading and a lagging indicator. They tell you where these outlets think their audiences are. And in the case of Fox, where they hope to get the president to because they know few people are watching Fox and the media more closely than he does. That's NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. David, thanks so much for joining us. You bet.

9:51The Israeli government denies that its campaign against Hamas and Gaza amounts to genocide. South Africa is arguing in the International Court of Justice that it does. The case is yet to be decided. It's an accusation that rang across the campus of Columbia University last year. Mahmoud Khalil was a prominent part of those protests as a student there. And for his role in those protests, Khalil has been taken into custody by immigration agents and is now facing deportation. His wife, Noor Abdallah, who is pregnant, gave her first broadcast interview to our colleague, Morning Edition co-host, Leila Fadl.

10:30Thanks for having me, Scott. Tell us about the scene. Noor Abdallah was with her husband when he was detained last weekend. That's right, she was. And she said they were coming home from dinner, and as they unlocked the door of their apartment building, a man held it open behind them and asked her husband, are you Mahmoud Khalil? And I'll just play you a bit of what she says happened next. We were both like, what is happening, you know? And he says, I'm with the police. You have to come with us. I think at that point, like, honestly, like my heart sank. Like, I want to say Mahmoud tried to prepare me like two days before.

11:09He told me like, do you know your rights if ICE comes to your door? And I like brushed it off. I was like, what are you saying? Like, that's not going to happen, you know? But he was like, no, like you need to know. And so at this point, your heart is sinking. And what is happening in front of you? So Mahmoud is trying to ask the officer. Well, first he asked him, like, who are you with? He said Department of Homeland Security. And then he asked him, can I see a warrant? The officer said he has one. He's like, it's on my phone, but never really showed it to us. And then Mahmoud was holding the keys that he had just used to open our apartment.

11:46And the officer was like, give the keys to your wife, basically. And I turned to the officer. I was like, I'm not leaving him. And the officer goes, I'll arrest you, too. But she's a U.S. citizen, right? Yeah. I mean, that's part of the reason she didn't take Mahmoud's warnings that he might be deported seriously. She was born here. He's a lawful permanent resident. He has a green card. And she says, as most Americans do, she believed they had the right to say whatever they wanted. And he was using that right to speak up about the treatment of his own people. He's Palestinian. And now Nora's in this position.

12:18she never could have imagined, facing the possibility that she's going to have this baby while her husband is detained in Louisiana or possibly deported. The government is accusing him of supporting Hamas, which could amount to a violation of U.S. law. What does she say about those accusations? Well, she says they've provided no evidence of that accusation because there isn't evidence. He's also never been charged with an actual crime. That would be a crime if you provided support to Hamas. Here's more of what Noor said. I just want to be clear that the smears against Mahmoud are exactly that.

12:50They're smears. He has and always will stand up for what's right. And the way that he was taken from his family was not right. The government's actually arguing they can take his green card under a rarely used immigration provision, not because of a crime. I also asked her if her husband were allowed to return home tomorrow, let's say. Would she feel safe in the U.S. after what's happened? And here's what she said. I love this apartment, and I love the place that we live. But I think, unfortunately, they kind of took away that sense of security and that sense of safety, at least for me. And I wasn't sure if she'd lost her sense of safety in the apartment or the country, so I asked, and she said both.

13:32And Pyrrha de la Fadl, thanks so much for being with us. Thanks for having me, Scott.

13:40And that's up first for Saturday, March 15th, 2025. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon. Martin Patience produced today's episode with help from Ryan Bank and Phil Harrell. Our editors are Dee Purvez, Shannon Rhodes, Ed McNulty, Kelsey Snell, and Arizu Rezvani. Andrew Craig is our director with support from technical director Andy Huther. And the engineers who help us out, David Greenberg, Zach Coleman, and Arthur Halliday-Lorent. Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor, and Sarah Lucy Oliver is our executive producer. Jim Kane is our deputy managing editor. Tomorrow on the Sunday Story with Ayesha.

14:21What's it like to report on a war in a place that is also your home? We'll hear from NPR producer Anas Baba, who has been covering the war in Gaza and covering events that Israel has banned foreign journalists from seeing firsthand. And for more news, interviews, sports and music, you can tune in to Weekend Edition on your radio. Go to stations.npr.org to find your local NPR station. Please, we're here waiting for you.

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