Trump At The Superbowl, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Turmoil, Air Aid To Gaza

0:01The Eagles dominated Kansas City to win Super Bowl LVIX in New Orleans. President Trump was in the audience and did a wide-ranging interview that aired during the pregame show. What did he say about his plans for tariffs, Gaza, and other issues? I'm Michelle Martin. That's A. Martinez. And this is Up First from NPR News.

0:21Employees at a U.S. agency set up to protect consumers from financial fraud have been told to stop doing any work. They're shutting down literally the cops on the beat. What will it mean for Americans if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cannot function? And the country of Jordan has started sending humanitarian helicopter flights into Gaza. Our NPR reporter took one of the flights to get a rare look inside a territory few foreign journalists have been allowed to see. Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.

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1:42Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it. 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. It's time to be great. President Trump took a trip to New Orleans last night to watch the Super Bowl.

2:24And the fans there had some mixed reaction to that.

2:30Some cheered, some booed. The game kept a whirlwind last few days for Trump, and he told reporters to expect another busy week. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez always gets cheered wherever he goes. He was traveling with the president, joins us now. So, Franco, before we get to the heavier news, let's talk about the game for a second. Tell us more about Trump taking it in. Thanks, A. Yeah, Trump took the field about an hour ahead of the game to meet with first responders and victims of the terror attack in New Orleans on New Year's Day. And he got largely a positive reception from people who saw him that first time.

3:03But later, when they flashed a picture on the Jumbotron in his box during the national anthem, he really did get a strong mix of cheers and jeers. Now, Trump is the first sitting president to attend the title game. ahead of the game. He said he thought Kansas City would win. That obviously did not happen. It was a very one-sided game. And I don't know about UA, but I was pretty surprised by that. No one expected what we saw in the actual game. Yeah, not even Vegas on the line. Now, Trump did an interview that aired during the pregame show. What are the highlights there? Yeah, he says he's going to send Elon Musk to check out the Department of Education this week, and he expects more cuts like we've seen at USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

3:46But there was more questions that he took yesterday. He actually also brought us to the cabin on his plane on Air Force One, flying to the game. This really doesn't happen very often. And the reason was he wanted to highlight kind of the body of water that was below us. Right now, we're flying over a thing called the Gulf of America. He was actually underscoring that executive order that he signed a couple of weeks ago, renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Now, next to him was Doug Burgum, the Interior Secretary. And Burgum added that the team is now calling mapmakers like Google Maps and Apple Maps to kind of put the name change into effect.

4:24All right. So what else did he talk about? Yeah, he promised to slap new 25 % tariffs on all imports of steel and aluminum. That's going to happen today. On Tuesday or Wednesday, he's planning to announce reciprocal tariffs. He didn't say on what countries, but did promise that they would take effect almost immediately. Reciprocal tariffs. And very simply, it's if they charge us, we charge them. He also addressed the war in Ukraine. He confirmed that he's been speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the war, but he didn't want to give any details about what they discussed. Now, OK, new tariffs this week.

5:00There always seems to be a lot, though, in any given Trump week. So what else are you watching for? Yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of focus on foreign policy this week. Now, Trump's expected to meet with the King of Jordan on Tuesday. That's important because he's calling for Jordan and other regional leaders to allow Palestinians from Gaza to live there. It's a plan that the Jordanians have so far rejected. Now on the plane, he doubled down on his commitment to buy and own Gaza. Now he didn't outright deny the possibility of Palestinians coming to the U.S., but he did emphasize that it would be better if they stayed in the region.

5:34During those years, it would take to rebuild Gaza. And just one other thing, A, Trump is also meeting with the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi this week. The two leaders are expected to talk trade and illegal immigration. That's White House correspondent Franco Ordonez. Thanks a lot. Thanks, A.

5:58The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ground to a halt over the weekend. Under President Biden, the agency issued and enforced rules to cap overdraft fees and to remove medical bills from credit reports. Now employees have been told to stay home this week. NPR personal finance correspondent Laurel Wamsley has been following this. Laurel, if the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cannot do its work, what does that mean for Americans? Well, it's quite troubling because the bureau is the country's consumer finance watchdog, and it's an enforcement agency. I've talked with several CFPB staff and former staff in recent days, and they named a few big concerns.

6:33One is that a new stop work order from its new acting director halts the agency's supervision work. They said the agency has hundreds and hundreds of employees who go across the country, who go into companies and make sure they're following important consumer protections. As Julie Margetta Morgan, who is CFPB's associate director of research and monitoring until she left the agency last month, put it, they're shutting down literally the cops on the beat. They make sure your student loan company is actually processing your payments and that mortgage companies follow the rules put in place after the Great Recession.

7:03And there's a second big concern, which is that all of this is happening under Elon Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and has talked about wanting his ex-company to be a whole commerce and payments platform. And now it looks like he has access to all of CFPB's records, including companies' proprietary information. That'd be a huge competitive advantage to someone like Musk. And, of course, there are worries that that sensitive information will be mishandled. I mean, it's been a mile a minute with news out of the CFPB. What's the latest? Yeah, it's been a tumultuous few days. On Friday, staff from Elon Musk's government efficiency team were seen at CFPB headquarters, and they've gained access to those key internal systems.

7:43Then over the weekend, Trump tapped Russell Vogt as the new acting director. Vogt was an architect of the conservative policy agenda, Project 2025, and he sent an all-staff email ordering a halt to virtually all of their work. Shortly thereafter, Vogt posted on X that he would not be drawing the agency's next round of funding from the Federal Reserve. And then just yesterday, an email was sent to all staff and contractors, saying that CFPB's D.C. headquarters would be closed for the week and that they have to work remotely. All this kind of sounds like what we've been seeing happening with USAID.

8:14Totally. It appears to be the same playbook. I mean, both are independent agencies that this current administration appears to be trying to dismantle. Republicans have targeted the Consumer Protection Agency for years, though. They've often accused its regulators of overreach. And then on Friday, Musk tweeted CFPB RIP. Yeah, I saw that tweet. All right, Right. So what happens now? Well, staffers are just bracing themselves for whatever comes next. One told me that they went to the D.C. headquarters yesterday just to grab some personal items before the building closed for the week, and they weren't allowed in.

8:44And, you know, at USAID, the vast majority of staff were put on administrative leave before a federal judge put a hold on that. And last night, CFPB's union filed a lawsuit against Vote, the agency's new head. In terms of that funding being slashed at CFPB, we actually saw the same thing happen during Trump's first term, but then later on they went back to taking the money. And the thing is that if this whole thing is being done for government efficiency, CFPB isn't really where you'd start. It has a relatively small budget, and since its launch in 2011, it's delivered more than $20 billion back to Americans.

9:18That's NPR's Laurel Wamsley. Thanks a lot. You're welcome.

9:27Israel and Hamas are maintaining a fragile ceasefire in Gaza. That has allowed more food and medicine to enter the Palestinian territory that's been devastated by more than a year of war. It's still not enough, according to aid officials. Jordan has begun helping out, delivering medical supplies via what it refers to as an air bridge, flying helicopters to land inside Gaza. NPR's Jane Araf went on a recent flight. She joins us from Amman. Jane, so Jordan has carried out a lot of aid airdrops throughout the war in Gaza. What's different about these latest efforts? Well, those were part of multinational efforts that dropped aid from the air on pallets with parachutes.

10:05Some of them ended up in the sea, and there was always the danger of those heavy pallets landing on people. So these flights, 16 a day over 18 days, have actually landed in Gaza, although on the outskirts, which makes the aid much more targeted. Okay, now tell us about the flight you took. I mean, what were the aircrafts carrying? They were Black Hawk helicopters, and they were loaded with cardboard boxes containing anesthesia drugs, antibiotics, and other medications. They also contained things like disposable diapers and infant formula. So the helicopters can carry only a fraction of the capacity of a truck, and they are much more expensive.

10:49These airlifts are still subject to Israeli regulations, but Jordanian aid officials say they can get medicine into Gaza this way much more reliably and much faster. Okay. What else did you see? Well, we took off from an airbase about an hour from Amman and flew along the Dead Sea then into Israel. In Israel, you can see built-up communities and green fields, And then it's a very stark difference when you cross over into Gaza. From the air, we could see skeletons of buildings hit by Israeli airstrikes and others in rubble. And in the distance, there was that Mediterranean coastline. So we landed just within Israel's buffer zone in Gaza, not far from the city of Darabala.

11:34And it was a very rare glimpse of Gaza, even that limited view, because Gaza journalists have been reporting from there at great risk from the start, but Israel, for the most part, bans foreign organizations, news organizations from Gaza. Jane, before we get to President Trump and who he's going to meet this week, I mean, how was it just to see everything from the air? I mean, it's one thing to have a grounds-eye view, but then to have this overview like you had, what was that like? It was really surreal because you don't see anything living in that part of it, Daryl Bewah, which has been heavily hit.

12:15I mean, really, from what we were seeing, it was just rubble. And it's important to note that Israel prevented us, according to the Jordanian authorities, from taking photographs on the ground of what we were seeing. The only thing we could take photos of once we landed were the buffer zone and the helicopter. But to actually see it real in real life was really unreal. Now, President Trump last week announced that he wanted to relocate Palestinians in Gaza to Jordan, Egypt. Jordan's King Abdullah is arriving in the United States for talks with President Trump tomorrow. How are those talks expected to go?

12:54Those are going to be tough. that coveted coastline that Trump officials have their eye on is Palestinian territory, and Jordan sees the plan as an existential threat. So Jordan is a key ally and security partner, and it's made clear it would see Israel trying to relocate more Palestinians here as a breach of their peace treaty and a declaration of war. That's NPR's Jane Araf. In Amman, Jane, thank you. Thank you.

13:30The Kansas City Chiefs' attempt at a Super Bowl III-peat was picked apart by the Philadelphia Eagles in a 40-22 blowout. Yeah, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was sacked six times and threw a pair of interceptions as Philly had a 24-zip halftime lead. At least Kendrick DeMar's halftime show featuring SZA, Samuel L. Jackson, and a dancing Serena Williams brought some life back into New Orleans Superdome. And Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts was the Super Bowl's most valuable player after running for a touchdown and throwing for two more, as all of Philly today will likely be saying, fly, Eagles, fly.

14:08And that's up first for Monday, February 10th. I'm E. Martinez. And I'm Michelle Martin. Make your next listen consider this. The team behind NPR's All Things Considered goes deep into a single news story in just 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Roberta Rampton, Emily Kopp, Nishant Dehia, Jeneo Williams, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Monsi Karana, Katie Kline, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent, and our technical director is David Greenberg. Join us again tomorrow.

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