Trump In China, Hegseth Requests Wartime Budget, FDA Commissioner Resigns

0:02President Trump arrives in Beijing for a summit with China's Xi Jinping. Our co-host Steve Inskeep is there with NPR's Jennifer Peck. They visit the Great Hall where the leaders will meet and talk about what's at stake for the world's two largest economies. I'm Leila Faldil, that's Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. A Pentagon official told lawmakers the war in Iran has cost$29 billion so far. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is asking Congress for$1.5 trillion for next year's budget. This is admittedly a historic budget. It is a fiscally responsible budget, and it is a warfighting budget.

0:40Some Republicans are joining Democrats in pushing back. And FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty McCary is out after 13 months on the job. Stay with us. We'll give you news you need to start your day.

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2:20Air Force One lands in Beijing soon. President Trump is there to talk with China's President Xi Jinping. Their summit will be brief. Expectations are low, but much is at stake in the trade war. And the president is bringing along many of the biggest corporate chief executives in the United States. Our colleague Steve Inskeep is in Beijing for the summit. Hey there. Hi there, Michelle. I'm in the center of this gigantic city, and I'm with NPR's Jennifer Pack, who's based in China, and we're going to talk through the events of this summit that begins shortly. Jennifer, Layla mentioned CEOs. Who's the president bringing here?

2:55Well, he's bringing a bunch of CEOs from Boeing, Cargill, even NVIDIA, basically companies that want to sell more to China because many of their sales were stalled because President Trump launched a trade war last year. Trump had launched tariffs on Chinese exports, and he had imposed export controls on American high tech. China struck back. So they reached a kind of pause last year, but it's really fragile. So the two leaders are meeting to stabilize the relationship. Trump wants a deal. China understands that about him and might find that easier to deal with. Well, I want people to know that you and I are just a few miles from this enormous building where Trump will be welcomed on Thursday.

3:34And we went to see it. the easiest way to do that was by renting bikes, which you can do on any street in Beijing. And as we biked through traffic, we discussed what is at stake at the summit. Here's what it sounded like. Okay, so on our right is the Forbidden City, and on the left is the Great Hall of the People. And that, am I right, is where President Trump will be officially welcomed. Absolutely. On Thursday. You've been in that building. What's it like in there? It's huge. Yeah, it's like full of red, plush carpet, chandeliers, marble walls. It's just massive. There's a policy argument about a summit, but there's also the symbolism of it.

4:14Yes, it's about face and the importance of this relationship. That's a massive thing for Chinese officials, that they need to be seen as a peer to be respected. A bit of traffic here. And I suppose we should note, we are still approaching the Great Hall of the People that the Trump administration's point of view is that it has been not getting that kind of respect. He now comes here wanting the Chinese to increase or in some cases resume purchases of American products. That's one of the things we think the United States wants out of this. Absolutely, and China also wants to buy from the U.S. You know, one of the Chinese officials' argument is if you want to rebalance the trade deficit, then let us, China, buy more top-notch semiconductors to run our AI.

5:06Let us buy our jet engines that we need. Which is exactly what we should note the Biden administration, as well as the Trump administration, has not been willing to do in recent years. The United States trying to maintain its lead in artificial intelligence. Absolutely. But guess what China's leverage is? What? It has the crucial key minerals that America needs. Rare Earths. Well, that's the reason why a lot of analysts say that China is coming into this summit much stronger than they did almost 10 years ago when they last had Trump coming to China. Jennifer, I know we were just passing one building, but it feels like we took several minutes to do so.

5:49It's a big one. It's a big one. And NPR's Jennifer Pack is pretty confident on that yellow bike in Beijing traffic. Thanks so much. Thank you.

6:04The Pentagon estimates the cost of the war with Iran is about$29 billion. Top defense officials answered questions from Congress on Tuesday. That price tag was one of few specifics in the day of testimony. NPR congressional correspondent Claudia Cresales was watching, and she's with us now. Good morning, Claudia. Good morning, Michelle. So two weeks ago, Pentagon leaders told lawmakers that the cost of the war was$25 billion. Now it's$29 billion. Are we any closer to a final estimate? No, and even that figure does not paint a full picture. Pentagon officials admitted that it doesn't include repairs to U.S.

6:40facilities that have been hit by Iran. We heard Senate Democrat Jack Reed press Pentagon Comptroller Jay Hurst on this exact question. So you do not consider installations that have been damaged in the conflict, correct? We just don't have a good estimate at this time. So I talked to Mark Kansian. He's senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and he's been tracking the costs of the war. CSIS estimates that these repairs alone could add at least another$4 billion to the final price tag. And getting that full picture is key because the Pentagon expects to ask for supplemental funding on top of all of this to pay for the war.

7:21Right, and this hearing was supposed to focus on the administration's request for$1.5 trillion for next year's budget. What did we learn about that? Right. And it's a big increase from last year's defense budget of$1 trillion. It's the largest such ask in history. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argues that it's part of a plan to reverse years of underinvestment in the military. We're submitting a$1.5 trillion budget that will remake the department and ensure that every warfighter in the future has exactly what they need. But lawmakers in both parties say they need to know how all that money is going to be spent before they can sign off.

7:56Take a listen to House Democratic Appropriator Betty McCollum raising this. I'm deeply concerned that the department can't seem to manage$1 trillion that Congress provided last year. So, gentlemen, we need information. Did we learn anything new about when the Strait of Hormuz could reopen? No, not really. Hexth couldn't give an estimate when that could happen. He said the U.S. controls the Strait and U.S. military pressure is a key point of leverage against Iran. but many Democrats question that claim. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy argued there's essentially no military mechanism to reopen the strait.

8:34And he said the administration's strategy to use economic pressure is high risk. When there's plenty of evidence from military history to show that countries that are being attacked or invaded or occupied are actually willing to put up with a whole lot of economic misery in order to preserve national pride. OK, well, what about Republicans? Did any Republicans push back against Hegseth and other officials. Yes, they took officials to task quite a few times. We saw Maine Senator Susan Collins raise concerns that there seemingly is a shifting plan to reopen the strait. And South Carolina's Lindsey Graham questioned Pakistan's role as a mediator in talks with Iran.

9:12And we also saw Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski raise concerns about the ceasefire that does not look like a ceasefire. And it's clear we're more than two months into this war and we're seeing increasing GOP frustration about a lack of information from the White House. And this is creating political headwinds for Republicans as to get ready to face voters this fall who are unhappy with the war and seeing daily reminders of it at the gas pump and elsewhere in the economy. That is NPR's Claudia Grisales. Claudia, thank you. Thank you.

9:50The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration is gone. Yeah, Dr. Marty McCary resigned Tuesday after 13 tumultuous months on the job. NPR pharmaceuticals correspondent Sidney Lovekin is here to talk about the change. Good morning, Sidney. Good morning. So why is this happening? Well, I'm told the final straw for McCary was White House pressure to OK flavored vape, something he did not agree with. That's according to a federal health official familiar with management of the agency, but who wasn't authorized to speak publicly. The pressure has been building for a while. He had survived a series of controversies.

10:23McCary was definitely disrupting the agency, which is really in line with what the rest of the Trump administration has been trying to do to the federal government. And he made a lot of people mad. At times, McCary angered the Make America Healthy Again movement for not pushing the Maha agenda fast enough or hard enough. And he upset people wanting a more predictable approach to regulation at the FDA. Can you give us some examples? Oh, sure. For example, people who support the Maha movement were upset when the agency approved updated COVID-19 vaccines last year. He also disappointed people who oppose abortion by approving a second generic version of Mifepristone.

11:00Drug makers and patient groups who won a consistent and predictable FDA were unhappy with the agency's reversals on experimental drugs and vaccines. McCary made some policy changes without convening the typical FDA advisory committees of outside experts. These committees have a lot of rules around them to make sure they're not biased, and they're typically convened before big agency decisions. It's a way to build public trust. And McCary didn't do that before changing the safety warnings on hormone replacement therapies. At the time, he called the committees bureaucratic, conflicted, and expensive.

11:34So even though medical groups had long wanted those safety labels changed, they didn't like the way McCary did it. So what are people saying now that McCary is out? Mm-hmm. In a post on Truth Social, President Trump thanked McCary for doing a great job. But Dr. Ben Rome, a physician and health policy researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, says he's glad to see McCary go. I think the last year has been an unmitigated disaster for the FDA. So there has been a lot of changes to regulatory processes that have totally undermined the FDA's independent abilities and have introduced political interference into the process.

12:10There's also been a big exodus of career staff that's in addition to the mass firings that took place just after McCary was confirmed last year. Rome says he hopes the next person will right the ship, but he's worried. So speaking of that, who is the next person that we think will lead the FDA? That would be Kyle Diamantis. Trump announced that he'll be the acting commissioner. Diamantis had been the deputy commissioner for food, overseeing nutrition and human food safety. He's a lawyer, not a medical doctor. But the administration has struggled to get some of its health picks confirmed by the Senate.

12:42So it may be a while before there's a permanent commissioner. That is NPR's pharmaceuticals correspondent, Sydney Luckin. Sydney, thank you. You bet.

12:54And that's Up First for Wednesday, May 13th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Leila Faldin. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Jason Breslow, Chris Husted, Ziyad, Mohamed El-Bardisi, and John Stolness. It was produced by Ziyad Batch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hainas. Our technical director is Carly Strange. And our supervising producer is Michael Lipkin. Join us again tomorrow.

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