New Epstein Documents, SCOTUS National Guard, GDP Growth

0:00Happy Christmas Eve. Happy Christmas Eve. Yeah. For those who celebrate, for those who get a day off. That's not me this year. You know what? For those who work. For those who work. We're still here. I can think of somebody who's working on Christmas. You're working on Christmas. I'm working on Christmas. Thank you for working on Christmas. Oh, that's fine. 30 ,000 additional pages show evidence the U.S. gathered about Jeffrey Epstein. The latest documents name famous people, including President Trump, who spoke again about guilt by association. I'm Steve Inskeep with Layla Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News.

0:39The Supreme Court blocked the deployment of National Guard troops to the Chicago area. The interim ruling said the president failed to cite any law to justify its action. It's difficult to see how any lower courts would be able to uphold a deployment under this law in the future. Also, how does the U.S. economy keep on growing? Never bet against the American consumer. We're always willing to spend money we don't have on things we don't need. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

1:38Hi, I'm Zach Mack. You might have heard my series Alternate Realities on Embedded. In it, my dad bet me$10 ,000 on 10 conspiracy theories. He lost. but it turns out he wasn't done trying. I can't believe you want to do this again. Hey, I got to win my money back, right? This time things went very differently. Listen to alternate realities on the Embedded Podcast from NPR. Are you thinking about making any changes in the new year? The Life Kit Podcast is here to help. In each episode, we have research-backed strategies and expert advice on everything from meal prep to strengthening relationships to paying down your credit card debt.

2:18Make your resolutions stick. Listen to the Life Kit podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

2:30Days after a legal deadline, the Justice Department is still releasing files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, the Trump administration is responding to an act of Congress that required it to make public every possible document about the sex offender who died in 2019. The latest batch includes 30 ,000 pages, including references to famous people and also a letter that the government says is fake. We're going to talk it through with NPR political correspondent Sarah McCammon. Sarah, good morning. Good morning, Steve. Okay, so there's some questionable documents here, but what in this batch appears to be true?

3:06These documents continue to reveal just how well-connected Epstein was to people from President Trump to former President Bill Clinton. For example, there are flight logs from the 1990s showing Trump and some members of his family taking several trips on Epstein's plane along with other high-profile people. Now, it was already well established that Trump knew Epstein, and we should say Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing here, nor has Clinton for that matter. But these documents do highlight the relationship between the president and Epstein, and they raise questions about what Trump might have known about Epstein's behavior.

3:40Okay. There's also a letter in this batch of documents that, I mean, it was a real letter. Somebody seems to have actually mailed it, but people have questions about who really wrote it. What is it? Right. Well, I should say it's pretty disturbing, and the Justice Department says it is not real. But the letter was purportedly written in 2019 by Epstein to Dr. Larry Nassar, who was accused of molesting hundreds of gymnasts and convicted on multiple charges. Epstein supposedly wrote, quote, Our president shares our love of young, nubile girls. Now, the DOJ addressed this letter in a couple of posts on X yesterday, first saying they were looking into it.

4:18And then less than two hours later, the DOJ announced that, quote, the FBI has confirmed this alleged letter from Jeffrey Epstein to Larry Nassar is fake. Now, the FBI declined to comment to NPR. And that post from DOJ also pointed out several apparent inconsistencies in this letter, including the fact that it was postmarked three days after Epstein's death in Virginia, even though he'd been jailed in New York. So, you know, these documents were collected by the DOJ over several years. It's not clear what's real and what's not. And I will note there are multiple items the DOJ says are fake, like a video that purports to show Epstein killing himself.

4:55It wound up in the files because someone submitted it to the FBI to see if it was real. Now, you mentioned that in some of the more genuine-seeming documents, Trump's name comes up again. And what is the White House saying about all this? Well, you know, Trump has been trying to distance himself from all of this and complaining about the sense of guilt by association that has hung over some of the people mentioned in these files. Here's Trump speaking to reporters on Monday, hours before these latest files were released. Bill Clinton's a big boy. He can handle it. But you probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago, many years ago.

5:32And they're, you know, highly respected bankers and lawyers and others. And in a statement on X, the Department of Justice defended Trump and said these files, quote, contain untrue and sensationalist claims against him. Sarah, how did the Justice Department disclosures so far compare with their legal requirement to release all the files? Well, DOJ has been under a lot of pressure, at least from some members of both parties, to disclose more information. They had a deadline to release all of their files on Friday, and they only released an initial batch, which further angered the White House's critics.

6:05More documents have been trickling out since then, and there's still a lot to sort through, but the contents of the files appear to be, if nothing else, embarrassing for the president and potentially a lot of other people. And Professor Sarah McCammon, thanks so much. Thank you.

6:27All right, the Supreme Court ruled that National Guard troops need to stay out of Chicago for now. It was an interim ruling, the sort of preliminary case in which the court majority has deferred to the Trump administration again and again. This time, the court said the president failed to cite any law that would justify using the Guard under federal control to enforce the law. NPR's Kent Lonsdorff is covering this story. Kat, good morning. Hey, good morning. What did the decision say? So the court ruled 6-3 against Trump, which is rare. It's one of only a handful of times the conservative court has ruled against the president in the emergency docket this term.

7:05It was an unsigned opinion, and it was really technical. But basically, the court wrote that the president failed to explain why the situation in Chicago warranted an exception to what's called the Posse Comitatus Act. That's the law that prohibits using the military for domestic law enforcement. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch dissented, writing that they, quote, strongly disagreed with the way the court handled this case. They said the court should have remained focused on the narrow question in the administration's appeal, which they said was specifically around using troops to protect federal officers and facilities and not domestic law enforcement more generally.

7:41I guess we should remember the basic principle here is that federal troops shouldn't be used on civilians to enforce civilian laws, except in certain cases. So how did this particular case end up before the court? Right, so this case stems from back in September when President Trump federalized the National Guard against Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker's wishes and sent them into Chicago for what Trump said was protection of federal immigration officers and facilities. Remember, Steve, this all happened as the administration launched a new and increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the city, and there were protests.

8:14But two lower courts blocked that deployment. So in October, the administration issued an emergency appeal up to the Supreme Court. And the court is now ruled at least for now. What is the White House saying? Well, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson reiterated to NPR that the president activated the Guard to protect federal law enforcement officers and property. And she said nothing in the ruling, quote, detracts from that core agenda. But this was another in a recent series of legal setbacks for the administration against these deployments. Governor Pritzker called it, quote, a big win for Illinois and American democracy.

8:48I'll also note, Steve, minutes after the ruling, Louisiana's Governor Jeff Landry, who's a Republican, announced that he'll be sending hundreds of National Guard troops into New Orleans soon. And this follows a pattern of Republican governors embracing these deployments like we've seen in Tennessee. And it's legally different if the governor is on board and goes for this. So what does this emergency or interim ruling mean for Trump's other National Guard deployments? Well, because this is an emergency decision, it's not precedent setting, meaning it only applies to this specific case in Illinois at this specific time, not to the other deployments around the country.

9:21But all of those are caught up in litigation now, and lower courts do tend to look at least look at these emergency decisions for guidance. I talked to Elizabeth Goitin. She directs the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. She told me she thinks this decision will impact lower courts wrestling with these cases. It's difficult to see how any lower courts would be able to uphold a deployment of federalized National Guard forces under this law in the future. And just to be clear, this might not be the last we hear from the Supreme Court on this issue, but at least for now, the president cannot send National Guard troops to Illinois without the governor's permission.

10:01And Pierce Kat Lonsdorf, thanks for your reporting today. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

10:12In July through September, the U.S. economy grew faster than economists had predicted. That's according to a delayed report from the Commerce Department on GDP, the gross domestic product. The report is nearly two months late because of the government shutdown. But NPR's Alina Seljuk is here, regardless of when it comes out, to tell us what's going on. She's here in Studio 31. Good morning. Good morning. What stood out to you? So the U.S. economy is chugging along. That was the takeaway. It grew at an annual rate of 4.3%, which is some of the fastest growth we've seen in a couple of years. And, you know, the GDP report takes a bird's eye view of the economy.

10:49It's got exports, imports, business investment. But this time, two factors really gave it a boost. One of them was the term of the year, which is AI. People and companies spending on computer hardware and other techie things. All of which gives me a sense of defying gravity because we've seen all of this anxiety about an overvalued stock market, about continued inflation, about tariffs, and even consumers feeling really bad about things. But the consumers are the perpetual motion machine and they are driving this GDP report. In spite of a new consumer sentiment survey showing that confidence was down.

11:26So they're continuing to spend is what's happening here? Yes, you're referring to the conference board, which has a survey showing confidence down for the fifth month in a row. But, you know, I talked to Michael Zdenik. He's an economist with S &P Global Market Intelligence, and he has this line. Never bet against the American consumer. We're always willing to spend money we don't have on things we don't need. Ow. It's tough love. But historically, it's true. People will keep spending until things really turn. And right now, we're sort of in this suspended state. And for many people, things have started to turn, but not for everyone.

12:01Yeah, because there's this divide between, it's almost like two economies, people with higher incomes, people with lower incomes. Exactly. Increasingly, people who are doing most of the spending are wealthier folks. And here's what Zdenik says. The fact that real spending has outpaced real income so much means that people are drawing down on savings. And the people who can do that are the people who have those savings. You know, they're enjoying past wage gains or past wealth gains. Or, you know, buying things on credit. But either way, what he's saying is our spending is growing faster than our incomes, which obviously cannot go on forever.

12:31So there are big questions about what happens to wages and jobs in the new year. OK, what are you watching in the new year when it comes to those? Well, you know, our spending is fully based on what we are now, what we think we'll earn in the future. Right. So one thing, earnings currently, generally speaking, wages are still growing. But prices? So are prices. They're also growing. And even though inflation has cooled, wages and prices have sort of met in the middle, with new government data showing that personal disposable income, after inflation and taxes, was stagnant mid-year, not growing much.

13:05And then on future earnings, the latest jobs report from November saw a softening market, which has many people worried about getting a new job if they lose the one they have. And the soft labor market also chips away at workers' power to demand higher wages. Yeah, I suppose that's true. Unemployment is going up. Although historically, it's still a relatively low level. And it sounds like people are just getting out there and spending anyway. That is correct. People are spending more and more, but they are feeling increasingly uneasy about it. NPR's Lena Selye, thanks for coming by. Thank you.

13:38And that's up first for this Wednesday, December 24th. I'm Steve Enskeep. And I'm Leila Faudel. For your next listen, consider this from NPR. What? I just said, okay. You said, tell me to consider it. So I'll consider it. I'll consider it. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Please continue. I thought, okay, okay. We here at Up First give you the three big stories of the day are Consider This Colleagues Take a Different Approach. They dive into a single news story and what it means to you in less than 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's Up First was edited by Anna Yukoninov, Alina Hartunian, Rafael Nam, Lisa Thompson, and Arzu Rezvani.

14:16It was produced by Ziad Bach, Nia Dimas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from David Greenberg, and our technical director comes from the equally supportive Carly Strange. Our supervising producer is Michael Lipkin. Join us tomorrow. AI data centers use a lot of electricity, and you may be paying for it. I think it's almost inevitable that ordinary people are going to end up subsidizing the wealthiest industry in the world. On the latest Planet Money podcast, how data centers might be hijacking your electric bill. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. AI expert Alvin Graylin has worked in Silicon Valley and China's tech scene for over three decades.

15:01Talk of an AI arms race, he thinks it's a big mistake. When I hear this from people who are very influential in the decision making in America, it feels a little bit ignorant and very scary. Ideas about AI in 2026 and beyond. Listen to the TED Radio Hour on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.