Moscow On Trump, Supreme Court On Education Department, Epstein Files

0:02President Trump threatened Russia with big tariffs if they can't make a peace deal with Ukraine in 50 days. He also promised Ukraine military equipment. It's a stark turnaround in the president's approach, but is it permanent? I'm Steve Inskeep with Sarah McCammon, and this is Up First from NPR News. Around 1 ,400 people at the Department of Education are losing their jobs. The Supreme Court says it will allow the administration to lay off half the department employees. The president says he wants to return the functions of the DOE back to the states, but how did we get here? And President Trump is facing backlash from his supporters for how he's handled the release of evidence surrounding the death of financier and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

0:45Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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2:15He must be on to something big. FX's The Lowdown, all new Tuesdays on FX, stream on Hulu. President Trump is changing his tone and his policy toward Russia. The president has endorsed a new way to provide weapons to Ukraine. Americans come up with the military hardware and NATO allies in Europe pay for it. Trump also made a warning of future penalties for Russia if they don't make the peace deal that Trump once promised to make on his first day in office. Joining us now to talk about it is NPR's Charles Maines, who's on the line from Moscow. Hi, Charles. Morning, Sarah. So let's dig in a bit on Trump's announcement from yesterday.

2:53What did he have to say? Well, the headline was one that Trump telegraphed in advance, that the U.S. had reached a deal to sell billions of dollars in weapons to NATO member countries in Europe, who would then provide those arms to Ukraine at no expense to U.S. taxpayers. That includes but may not be limited to Patriot missile systems to help Ukraine defend against this recent spate of drone and missile attacks by Russia. Also intriguing here was a threat by Trump to impose biting secondary sanctions and tariffs on countries trading with Russia. Really, we're talking energy exports. But with a caveat, Trump gave a 50-day grace period until early September for Moscow to come around to a peace deal.

3:31And that's quite a shift from Trump's approach these past few months when he's been openly critical of Ukraine, even blaming Kiev for provoking Russia's full-scale invasion. It's a big change, isn't it? It is, and all the more so because Trump spoke in glowing terms about Ukraine and its bravery and resilience in the face of Russian attacks. But bedriving this clearly is frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which Trump addressed in strikingly personal terms. My conversations with him are always very pleasant. I say, isn't that a very lovely conversation? And then the missiles go off that night.

4:04I go home, I tell the first lady, you know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation. She said, oh, really? another city was just hit. So there's almost a sense of betrayal here. You know, Trump said he thought he had a peace deal with Putin on four separate occasions, only to see the Russian attacks continue. And what is the reaction in Moscow? Well, the Kremlin has painted these U.S. arms deliveries now via NATO as Biden-era policies rebranded. You know, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, was quick to point out that the U.S. military aid to Ukraine had, in fact, never ended.

4:37We also heard from the Kremlin's point man for negotiations with the U.S., Kirill Dmitriev, who said pressure on Moscow was doomed to fail but insisted dialogue with the U.S. continue. And in fact, some saw this 50-day grace period as a sign Trump isn't ready to give up on Russia. You know, Moscow's main market index jumped several percentage points upon hearing the news. And so there are these fair questions about Trump's commitment to sanctions. He certainly has backed away from threats to impose them before. This obviously would seem like welcome news for Ukraine. I mean, what are you hearing in terms of reaction there?

5:07Yeah, exactly. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was in a good mood yesterday. These U.S. missile defense systems are something he's desperately wanted. But the delayed sanction issue is trickier, as Salomea Bobrovska, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament's Defense and Security Committee, explained to NPR. Fifty days is too long. So many things can be changed on the front line in capital. It's because Russia now feels itself stronger. And like, come on, 50 days, it will be September. No one can predict how Trump can act in these 50 days. You know, and I have to say, Sarah, that nationalists in Russia are already portraying this 50-day deadline, this kind of grace period, as a challenge, really a race to victory or at least a chance to grab as much territory as possible.

5:50That's NPR's Charles Maines in Moscow. Thanks, Charles. Thank you.

6:02The Supreme Court says it will allow the Trump administration to resume its dismantling of the Department of Education. This is all a little complicated, but the court's conservative majority overrule the lower court. The lower court had temporarily blocked the administration from firing people. Congress created the Department of Education by law, and the president had promised to shut it down without any change in that law. that is why opponents sued. The Supreme Court order allows the administration to act as it wants while the underlying lawsuit works through the courts. NPR education correspondent Corey Turner has been following all of this and joins us now.

6:37Good morning, Corey. Good morning, Sarah. So tell us about this ruling. What did the justices say? Well, they didn't say much. It was an unsigned ruling. It came with no explanation, which is common with the court's shadow docket. What we know is the conservative justices agreed to lift a lower court's injunction, thereby allowing the Trump administration to resume big staffing cuts at the department. Now, we did hear from one of the liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote a scathing dissent. She called the majority's decision indefensible, and she wrote, quote, when the executive publicly announces its intent to break the law and then executes on that promise, it is the judiciary's duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it.

7:21On the other hand, President Trump cheered the ruling in a post on True Social last night, writing, quote, the court has handed a major victory to parents and students across the country by declaring the Trump administration may proceed on returning the functions of the Department of Education back to the states. And Corey, I just want to step back for a second. Can you remind us quickly how we got here? Yeah, you probably remember in March, Trump issued an executive order calling for the closure of the U.S. Department of Education. The department had already been offering buyouts and early retirement, and also in March announced a huge reduction in force, laying off roughly 1 ,400 employees.

8:03We're talking about the department being cut roughly in half. And it was in response to these dramatic cuts that two lawsuits were filed. They were eventually merged into one because they both argued that Congress, as we said in the intro, created the department. Only Congress can dismantle it. And the department is required by law to do a bunch of pretty important things that it cannot do with only half its staff. In May, a federal judge agreed, issuing a preliminary injunction forcing the administration to pause its cutting and reinstate those 1 ,400 employees it had laid off. That order infuriated the Trump administration, which has argued forcefully the president absolutely has the power to make these cuts.

8:47So they asked the Supreme Court to step in at the last minute and lift this injunction as part of its shadow docket. Right. So lots of twists and turns. But for now, the Supreme Court has agreed with the administration. What does this mean for the education department now? Well, practically, it means those roughly 1 ,400 department workers will officially be losing their jobs. It will also mean the work they did may not get done, from helping local schools best support kids with disabilities and children living in poverty, to enforcing civil rights laws, to making sure the federal student loan program functions for borrowers.

9:21Meanwhile, we have to keep in mind this case is still technically working its way through the lower courts. And what the Supreme Court has done is to step in in the middle of things and allow the dismantling of the department to continue, even though the lower courts are still deciding if that dismantling is legal. NPR education correspondent Corey Turner, thank you so much. You're welcome.

9:50Many of President Trump's supporters are reluctant to move on from the Epstein files. The president is urging them to drop the subject now that the administration has said there's nothing more to see here. The Justice Department said Jeffrey Epstein really did kill himself in jail in 2019 and that he left behind no secret client list. That surprised Trump supporters, given that Attorney General Pam Bondi previously had been asked on TV about a client list and said it was on her desk. Epstein was a financier, you'll recall, accused of sex trafficking minors. He'd been seen over many years with many powerful men, including the likes of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

10:27Those two and many others have said they were unaware of Epstein's crimes at the time. NPR's Stephen Fowler has been following this story and is here to explain. Good morning, Stephen. Good morning. So how did Trump talk about the Epstein files, first of all, in the past? Well, a key tenet of Trump's MAGA ideology heading into this last election cycle is that there's this deep state cabal of shadowy figures protecting pedophiles and unsavory people running the government and hindering Trump's policy goals. People who use their power to cover up misconduct and tell the public not to worry. There's been a lot of conspiracy theories around Epstein that he blackmailed people, that he was murdered, that there was a cover up.

11:06And so Trump and some other top officials fed into those rumors, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Cash Patel, Deputy Director Dan Bongino. On the campaign trail, Trump hinted that he would release the Epstein files. Now that the Justice Department says there's no more evidence, those same officials have been attacked by some of the MAGA base, who now talk of an even bigger cover-up of things. So a bit of a reversal there. What is Trump saying about all of this now? There was a lengthy post on Trump's Truth Social website over the weekend that covered a lot of bases. He defended the attorney general, told his supporters to, quote, not waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.

11:48He also put forth his own theory about the Epstein files, baselessly suggesting that Democrats created the files to go after him. I mean, Trump campaigned on the idea that he would dismantle the deep state and root out conspiracies, but now he said he would like for supporters to focus on the other things his administration has accomplished, like his immigration plan and investigating the 2020 election that he falsely claims was stolen. This is creating a bit of a split in Trump's base, but it's not the first time. I'm thinking about tariffs, Iran policy, so forth. Every time they eventually seem to come around to his position.

12:25Stephen, is that happening here? I mean, we have already seen that shift play out in the pro-Trump influencer space and right-wing media spaces after a few days where there was a little bit of panic talking about messaging failures. Last weekend, Turning Point USA held a student action summit where this was a big topic. People like Tucker Carlson bash the administration's handling, though not Trump specifically. And yesterday, there was a new consensus forming online from people who either said they were moving on and trusting the White House or hinting that there were going to be more shoes to drop sometime in the future.

12:59We don't really know if this does anything to hurt Trump's favorability, but it does reiterate the stranglehold Trump has on the shape and direction of the GOP and how hard that'll be to replicate in the future. That's NPR's Stephen Fowler. Thank you. Thank you.

13:17And that's Up First for Tuesday, July 15th. I'm Sarah McCammon. And I'm Stephen Skeep. Thanks for joining us on NPR News. Your next listen can be Consider This. Up First gives you three important stories to start your day. Consider This drills down on one. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Ryland Barton, Lauren McGocky, Megan Pratz, Jenea Williams, and Ali Schweitzer. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Damian Herring, and our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow.

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