Shutdown Deadline, Gaza Deal Reaction, Top Military Leaders Meeting

0:02The government runs out of money tonight. Still no deal in sight with health care provisions a key sticking point. I think we're headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won't do the right thing. Who feels it first and how long could this standoff last? Ami Martinez, that's Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. President Trump unveiled a new plan to end the war in Gaza. It calls for all hostages to be released and for more aid to be allowed in. Israeli troops would still be in most of Gaza for now. Israel's prime minister says he is on board. I support your plan to end the war in Gaza, which achieves our war aims.

0:39And hundreds of U.S. military leaders from around the world are gathering behind closed doors today, with Trump expected to address them directly. The Pentagon is not saying exactly why the meeting is happening. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

1:18Thank you. Learn more about the technology, insights, and support available at amazonbusiness.com. This message comes from Rince, who knows that mastering the perfect house party table spread takes time, but so does laundry. So Rince 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.

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2:39And at midnight tonight, federal agencies run out of money. Vice President J.D. Vance made it clear that the GOP would not agree to Democrats' demands to attach health care provisions to a spending bill. You don't put a gun to the American people's head and say, unless you do exactly what Senate and House Democrats want you to do, we're going to shut down your government. Vance also said he thinks we are heading toward a shutdown. NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh is watching all this. So any way that you see to avoid a shutdown? I don't. I talked to lawmakers from both parties last night in the Capitol.

3:12And they say there are still big differences and positions really just hardened after that White House meeting. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to bring up two bills for votes later today, a House-passed bill that extends current funding levels through November 21st, and Democrats' alternative that attaches those health care changes. Both failed once before and are expected to fail again. Adding to this really polarized dynamic, the president taunted Democrats last night by posting a racist AI-generated video on his social media platform. It showed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero, and it included this vulgar, deep-faked voiceover of the top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer.

3:54All right. Now, Democrats are making this fight about health care, even though in the past they have been the ones supporting stopgap bills. So what are they specifically looking for? Democrats want to extend the subsidies that are part of the Affordable Care Act that are expiring at the end of the year. They say people who are relying on those tax credits to help buy health care coverage aren't going to be able to afford it if those tax credits expire. I talked to Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, who said Republicans say they're not going to talk about this issue until after a funding bill passes or just ignoring the problem.

4:27They must not be talking to the people I'm talking to in Georgia who are hurting and who cannot afford this astronomical hike that we're going to see in their health care premiums. People can't afford that. Dieter, what are Republicans saying about Democrats' posture here? You know, Leader Thune called this effort to link health care to this short-term funding bill as hostage-taking and hijacking. Some Senate Republicans I talked to last night said there are talks going on about legislation to deal with the health care subsidy issue. And they believe Congress can do that later this fall. But there is a split inside the Republican Party.

5:04One Senate Republican pointed out that although all Republicans voted against the Affordable Care Act when it was passed in 2010, a lot of their constituents rely on it now. So they believe they do need to find some kind of solution. All right. So let's say a shutdown does begin tonight at midnight. What could the immediate impacts be? Well, programs like Social Security and Medicare are going to continue. Those are deemed essential. Same for the key national security functions. But some federal workers are going to be furloughed and are not going to get paid during a shutdown. This time around, President Trump's Office of Management and Budget's chief is signaling the administration is going to fire some federal workers instead of furloughing.

5:44Some programs aren't going to operate at all, like one distributing food aid. And we saw back in the last shutdown some TSA workers who weren't getting paid didn't show up for work, and that caused airport delays. It's also clear if there's a shutdown, there's really not a plan to get out of one, and it could last a while. All right. That's NPR's Deirdre Walsh. Thanks a lot. Thanks, A.

6:12President Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday. He announced a plan to end the war in Gaza, but Trump says the plan goes beyond ending that war. And I'm not just talking about Gaza. Gaza is one thing, but we're talking about much beyond Gaza. the whole deal, everything getting solved. It's called peace in the Middle East. So today is a historic day for peace. It is the first time Trump has laid out both an end to Israel's war in Gaza and what the day after will look like for the territory's two million Palestinians nearly two years after the Hamas-led October 7th attack on Israel.

6:51Joining us now to explain the plan is NPR's international correspondent, Aya Bertrawi, who's in Dubai. Aya, good morning. Thanks for joining us. Good morning, Michelle. So could you just start with the most important points of this plan? What are they? So this plan would kick off with the release of all Israeli hostages held in Gaza, the 20 who are believed to be alive, and the bodies of those killed. And that would happen in the first 72 hours of a ceasefire. Then hundreds of trucks of humanitarian aid, food, medicine, tents would start flooding Gaza daily, reversing a man-made famine that's been declared by experts because of Israeli restrictions.

7:22And also Israel would release around 2 ,000 male Palestinian detainees and all women and children held in Israeli prisons since October 7th. Israel would also release several hundred bodies of Palestinians that it holds. What's been the reaction from Israel and Hamas? Well, this is not the ultimate victory over Hamas that Netanyahu and his far-right coalition want because it doesn't allow for the full occupation of Gaza and the continuation of the war. But Netanyahu is trying to sell this as a major win for Israel. Listen to him speaking alongside Trump at the White House yesterday. I support your plan to end the war in Gaza, which achieves our war aims.

8:00It will bring back to Israel all our hostages, dismantle Hamas's military capabilities, end its political rule, and ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel. And this plan, Michelle, lets Israel keep boots on the ground in much of Gaza for the foreseeable future. And that's where it's unclear how Hamas will respond. Hamas would have to release all the hostages up front in one go without a clear timeline for Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza. Hamas would also have to, quote, decommission its weapons under this plan. But Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza insist it's the right of Palestinians to armed resistance under occupation.

8:37The plan also calls for Arab forces on the ground to maintain security and to train Palestinian police. How have these countries reacted to the plan? Well, Arab states and Turkey put out a joint statement welcoming Trump's plan, and this does put pressure on Hamas. You know, this war has been deeply destabilizing for the region, Michelle. It has left Gaza in ruins with more than 66 ,000 people killed by Israeli fire there, a third of them children, according to Gaza's health ministry. It was also just this month that Israel bombed Qatar, and reportedly yesterday Netanyahu did have to call the Qatari prime minister and express his regret and apologize for that attack.

9:12Now, the Trump plan has some unanswered questions. It would see Trump chairing a board of international experts that oversees a transitional body for Gaza, but we don't know who those experts would be and how they'll be chosen. And the main question is how will Palestinians be involved in governing Gaza? This plan doesn't say. It also leaves unanswered the question of a future Palestinian state, which Arab states and many Western countries now are demanding and which Israel opposes. Look, there were no celebrations in Gaza yesterday when this was announced. And the plan states clearly, though, that no one will be forced to leave Gaza and Israel will not annex the territory.

9:44But ultimately, Trump made clear yesterday that if Hamas does not accept his deal, Israel would have his backing to do what it wants in Gaza. That is NPR's Aya Barchawi in Dubai. Aya, thank you. Thanks, Michelle.

10:02Secretary of Defense Pete Hengst, this meeting of generals and admirals already raised questions. That's because there wasn't any public explanation why hundreds of them came from all over the world to meet in Quantico, Virginia today. And then President Trump announced he'll attend. Trump told NBC News that it will be a, quote, very nice meeting talking about how well we're doing militarily, talking about being in great shape. Here to talk about what might be on the agenda today is Quill Lawrence from NPR's national security team. Good morning, Quill. Good morning. So why is this so unusual? I got to be honest, I can't remember anything like this.

10:39No, me neither. I mean, these are people who ostensibly have important jobs all over the world, from Japan to Europe to the Caribbean. The logistics of getting them all to Virginia, the expense, the security. Any soldier knows that you spread out so that the whole squad can't get taken out by one single mortar. So having everyone and the president in one place like this is a security nightmare. And it's previously just not been U.S. military style. I can't recall any time like this where all these generals were summoned before a president or the secretary of defense for this sort of display that generals are supposed to be – well, they swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president.

11:23And it's just last minute, too. It's like calling the NBL All-Star Game and the royal wedding, like, let's do it next weekend in Virginia. So given all that and given everything involved in getting everybody together, do we know why Secretary Hegseth called this meeting? There's been almost nothing official. I mean, the remarks that President Trump made about it being some sort of a pep talk is about the most official explanation we've heard, although Trump didn't seem to know about it. the meeting when he was asked about it just days ago. There's this idea that it's a speech about the warrior ethos, but that has made some former officers just apoplectic because these are flag officers who are being told about war by a secretary of defense who has decades less military experience than most of them.

12:08The most extreme theory I've heard is posed by a retired general, Ben Hodges, who's mentioned on social media about an infamous meeting in 1935 when, And yes, Hitler called all of Germany's generals to come take a loyalty pledge. And I only mention this because Hegseth reposted it on social media with the comment, cool story, general. It's possible that Hegseth wants to reduce the number of generals and admirals. He's talked about there being too many. There are 800 of them, even with the country not in any major hot wars around the world. So some of these generals might think that they're being called in to get fired.

12:42And Hegseth has relieved a lot of senior officers that served under the previous administration. Do we have any sense of why he did that? Well, several of the prominent officers who were removed have been black or female. Hegseth and the Trump administration have made sort of a boogeyman about DEI and woke. And without saying explicitly, they implied, for example, that a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General C.Q. Brown, must have been a diversity hire. He's black. So they replaced him. Hexeth has also spoken about banning women from combat roles where they've served for decades. But we don't know why they're meeting today.

13:17That is NPR's Quill Lawrence. Quill, thank you. Thank you.

13:24And that's Up First for Tuesday, September 30th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Amy Martinez. The NPR Network includes the work we do here at NPR and the work of reporters at stations around the country. Support that reporting at donate.npr.org slash Up First. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Miguel Macias, Krishna Dev Kalamor, Mohamed El Bardisi, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziyad Bunch, Nia Dumas, and Lindsay Taddy. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Carly Strange. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow.

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