Partial Drawdown In Minnesota, NPR Poll: Trump and ICE, Nuclear Treaty Expires

0:01700 federal agents are leaving Minnesota. The agents who remain want more access to a local jail. Does the administration have a plan for immigration enforcement with less chaos? I'm Leila Faudel, that's Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News.

0:21Surveys used to show that border enforcement was the president's strongest issue. Now that Americans see how the administration is operating, two-thirds disapprove. Even the president said, briefly, that he learned from the public response. I learned that maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch, but you still have to be tough. Also, the last major nuclear arms treaty between the U.S. and Russia expires today. What happens now? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

1:15Thank you. White House border czar Tom Homan says 700 federal agents will be leaving Minnesota. It's the beginning of a retreat from a state where federal agents confronted protesters and killed two Americans. But most agents that were brought in are still there, and Homan says any further drawdown would depend on state and local cooperation. Let's talk about that with NPR's Meg Anderson, who's in Minneapolis. Meg, good morning. Good morning. How much is really changing? Yeah, so the numbers don't point to a big change. It still leaves around 2 ,300 federal agents here. That's still more than the combined Twin Cities Police Force.

1:58It's more than the number they originally brought in before Renee Macklin Good was killed by an ICE agent. Holman did say he wants to see the presence of ICE officers in the state go back to what it was before the surge began. And he said he wants that partly because ICE has plans for operations in other parts of the country. You've got agents here from L.A., New York, and Portland. There's problems there, too. So we want to get people back to their home stations and force immigration laws in those areas. Helman specifically zeroed in on the cooperation of sheriffs. That makes sense. Sheriffs run county jails and around the country they've played a key role in holding undocumented immigrants for ICE.

2:33Okay, so he wants more state and local cooperation, but I feel we have to talk about this. Federal authorities have complained that state and local officials do not turn over people with deportation orders who turn up in jails or who are convicted of something and are in prison. State authorities say that's not true. Actually, they do cooperate and the feds pretend they don't. The state's turning over people from prison and from many jails. But there was one big jail that limited its cooperation up to now. What do you hear from them? So I spoke with that jail system. I spoke with Hennepin County Sheriff Dewana Witt.

3:08That's the county that includes Minneapolis. And she said she has had, quote, healthy conversations with Homan. She expects them to continue. And she stressed that, you know, if ICE has a signed judicial warrant for someone in her jail, her officers do already honor those, like you said. But often ICE does not have that. And so WIT is required by law to release those people. Jail is pretrial detention, right? You can't hold those people indefinitely. She also said her office does not honor administrative detainers. That's when ICE asks a jail to hold someone but doesn't have that warrant signed by a judge.

3:42But Sheriff Witt told me she's considering changing that policy. If that were to change, and that's an if, right? You're going to have to show me how it's going to make Hennepin County residents safer. And you're going to have to actually act good on what you say. You know, she said these are ongoing negotiations and no one is going to get everything they want. Okay, so she says she is open to a change in course. How are other local leaders responding to the new leadership, at least in Minnesota, from immigration authorities? Right. So the consensus so far is that this drawdown is progress, but it's not enough.

4:18Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called it a step in the right direction, but that the surge needs to end. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry also called for it to end, saying it's been catastrophic for residents and businesses. A coalition of Minnesota Faith, Labor, and other community groups dismissed the announcement. In a statement, they said there are still thousands of, quote, masked, unaccountable agents terrorizing the community. And, you know, it is very much still an emergency here for many people. People who are not white are carrying their passports around. Immigrants are sheltering in place.

4:51Children are not going to school. And P.R.S. Meg Anderson in Minneapolis, thanks for the update. Really appreciate it. You're welcome. 65 % of Americans, 65 % say Immigration and Customs Enforcement has gone too far. That is according to a poll released today by NPR, PBS News and Marist. This increased concern about ICE comes on the heels of the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota at the hands of federal immigration agents. NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro takes us through the numbers very often and once again this morning. Domenico, good morning. Hey there.

5:28Two-thirds of Americans disagree with the administration. That sounds like a lot. Yeah, I mean, that's jumped double digits from last summer, you know, on something that really used to be Trump's strongest issue here, immigration. So, you know, no surprise we've seen changes from the Trump administration. Trump reassigned Greg Bovino, who was in charge of operations in Minnesota. The administration is now pulling 700 agents from the state as well. And there's been a different tone. I mean, here's Trump yesterday with a decidedly different tone in an interview with NBC News after being asked what he'd learned from Minneapolis.

6:00I learned that maybe we can use a little bit of a softer touch, but you still have to be tough. We're dealing with really hard criminals. So he's not completely backing down there from the tough rhetoric. I mean, despite neither American who has killed, Renee Macklin Good or Alex Preddy, meeting Trump's description of criminals. And his vice president, J.D. Vance, yesterday refused to apologize to Preddy's family for amplifying claims, countered by video that Preddy was a, quote, would-be assassin. But Trump's tone is a definite adjustment, and it's pretty rare to hear him reflect and even give an iota of admitting a mistake.

6:36Even if he effectively took it back in the next phrase, yeah. How are people viewing the president's job overall? It's really low. I mean, his approval overall is just 39 percent, with 30 percent of independents approving, and they're always key in those swing districts. His approval rating has now been below 40 % in the Marist poll since November. On the economy, which is what got Trump reelected in the first place, 6 in 10 disapprove. Trump's tariffs are playing a big part in that. A majority think that they're hurting the economy. And far and away, people say Trump's top priority should be lowering prices.

7:10And yet what's gotten the most buzz and dominated the news and headlines over the past month, ICE, military action in Venezuela, and Trump's threats to take over Greenland. Oh, I'm glad you mentioned that. How are people viewing the president's foreign policy threats on Greenland and everything else. Only 37 % are approving of his handling of foreign policy. You know, when it comes to Venezuela and Greenland, a solid majority say the president should have to go to Congress before taking military action. Almost seven in 10 oppose the idea of taking over Greenland. And that repeated threat was upsetting NATO allies and led to a decline in the stock market.

7:43Overall, when it comes to NATO, two thirds in this poll say that the U.S. has benefited from that alliance. So, you know, with all of that, you can see maybe why Trump backed off from those Greenland threats. The president backed off, but also said that taking over Greenland was a popular idea. Do they know something we don't? You know, I like to say that you don't have to believe the polls. Watch what politicians do. And for someone like Trump, who usually caters to his base and rarely dials things back, these shifts are pretty significant. And it shows the reality that aside from Republicans who've steadfastly stood by Trump, These policies and actions over the past month have been wildly unpopular.

8:19And what has been revealed here is that underneath all the lies and boasts and threats to sue the pollsters, the president's actions tell us that he and the White House see that he's in a real vulnerable position here. NPR's Domenico Montanaro, thanks so much. You're welcome.

8:40The last nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia expires today. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, put limits on the nuclear arsenals of the former Cold War superpowers, and its demise has raised fears of a new global arms race. NPR's Russia correspondent Charles Maines is on the line from Moscow. Hey there, Charles. Good morning. What did START actually do? Well, you know, New START was signed in 2010 by President Obama at a time when his message of hope and change included resetting relations with Moscow. You know, this was also a period when Vladimir Putin had at least nominally given up the Russian presidency to his prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, who was then seen as something of a liberal modernizer.

9:26And the treaty itself, you know, it capped nuclear warheads for both Russia and the U.S. at 1 ,550 apiece. It also critically allowed for each country to carry out regular on-site inspections of each other's nuclear facilities. So it really was built on the same trust-but-verify formula that was baked into earlier arms control agreements with Russia and the USSR, none of which now exist. The new start was the last. Okay, so each country still had enough weapons ready to incinerate the planet if necessary, but they were trying to make things regular, trying to make things transparent, a little bit more calm.

9:59How are people responding where you are in Moscow to this treaty going away? Well, officially, Russia was trying to keep the treaty alive until the last minute. Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to de facto continue to observe the limits of the treaty for a year. That was if Washington agreed to do the same. The idea being that it would allow negotiators to work out a new agreement. But President Trump didn't seem all that interested. A White House official told NPR Trump had his own timeline when it came to nuclear security. The Kremlin, meanwhile, is warning that without New START, we're entering into a more dangerous world.

10:31and many arms control experts agree. Dmitry Stefanovic of the Primakov Institute here in Moscow tells me that an arms race won't start tomorrow, but without New Start, it's coming. Both countries will plan for the worst-case scenario. And the worst-case scenario is always your adversary is capable of magic tricks and you need tenfold of what you have right now to somehow hedge against such a possibility. And this is where we are heading. Other than hearing that the president of the United States was not that interested in the treaty, I don't understand where things went wrong here. Well, you know, there were always accusations that one side or the other wasn't living by the letter of the agreement, particularly as both the U.S.

11:10and Russia developed next generation conventional weapons that could be retrofitted as nuclear capable. The COVID pandemic, frankly, didn't help. It saw the suspension of inspections. But, Steve, the real nail in the coffin was Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine. With the clock ticking on New START, Russia refused to engage the then-Biden administration on arms control negotiations because the U.S. was supporting Ukraine militarily. In fact, Putin suspended Russia's participation in the treaty as a result in 2023. Oh, that's helpful context. So what is the U.S. proposing now? Well, Trump says he wants limits on nuclear weapons, but that New START is just outdated, particularly in a world where you have new emerging nuclear powers like China.

11:50So Trump's looking for a better deal, in his words. But even there, Moscow's view is, well, then, OK, let's talk about caps on the arsenals of other nuclear powers like the U.K. or France. Meanwhile, we have Pakistan, India and North Korea. So this gets unwieldy very quickly. And meanwhile, the fact is that Russia and the U.S. have close to 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. So their leadership, or lack thereof on this issue, really matters. Charles Maines in Moscow, thanks so much. Thank you.

12:21And that's Up First for this Thursday, February 5th. I'm Steve Inskeep. And I'm Leila Faudil. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Eric Westervelt, Dana Farrington, Robbie Griffiths, Mohamed El-Bardisi, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Butch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carly Strange. Our deputy executive producer is Kelly Dickens. Join us again tomorrow. Are you on tomorrow, Leila? I am. Are you on? Then I will join you. Okay, good, good, good, good.

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