Trump's Defense Pick, United Healthcare CEO Killed, Mass Deportations And Jobs

0:01The embattled nominee for Secretary of Defense quotes President-elect Trump is offering support. It's a fight. They're coming after you. Get after it. So how is Pete Hexeth answering claims about his conduct over the years? I'm Michelle Martin. That's Steve Inskeep. And this is Up First from NPR News.

0:20New York City police are searching for the person who killed the head of America's largest health insurer. This was a premeditated, preplanned, targeted attack. What do we know so far about the shooting? Also, we look at some of the side effects of mass deportations. When there is an increase in deportations in a county, that does not lead to more job opportunities or higher wages for U.S.-born workers. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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2:14President-elect Trump's pick for defense secretary is fighting to save his nomination. Pete Hegseth is defending himself against allegations of heavy drinking, mistreatment of women, and the financial mismanagement of two veterans' charities. The former Fox News host sat yesterday for an interview with another former host at that network, Megyn Kelly, for her show on Sirius XM. He insisted that Trump pledged his support in these words. Hey, Pete, I got your back. It's a fight. They're coming after you. Get after it. I think he'll be delighted that we're talking today. And we're going to do more talking.

2:46Hank Seth is a veteran who wrote in books about purging woke culture from the Pentagon. Now he's the latest of Trump's nominees to run into trouble. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith is covering all this. Tam, good morning. Good morning. How is Hegseth defending himself when he steps out in public? He's saying that all of these allegations are part of a smear campaign from anonymous sources who don't like what he would do with the Defense Department. He also said he doesn't have a drinking problem, but he did promise to stop drinking if he's confirmed. Okay. He's meeting privately with the senators who will decide his fate, and he's also doing something very unusual for a nominee.

3:24He's posting on social media, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, and did that Megyn Kelly interview. Even his mom sat for an interview on Fox & Friends yesterday to make a direct appeal to female senators, saying her son is a changed man. My colleagues on the Hill are reporting that while no Republican senators have said that they are a no vote, enough have expressed reservations to potentially sink his nomination. Well, now the question is, I guess, how far Trump wants to push this fight. We heard Hegseth quote Trump as purportedly offering support in private. What's he saying in public?

4:00Trump hasn't said anything in public. He hasn't weighed in. But yesterday, he did announce more than a dozen other picks for administration jobs, continuing what has been just this incredibly fast pace of making these announcements. Hegseth isn't the only headache, though. Trump's pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration withdrew this week. And then, of course, there was Matt Gaetz for attorney general who had to withdraw because he didn't have the votes to be confirmed. How does that record compare with past presidents? You know, it's almost expected that at least one of a president's initial nominees will fail before getting to a Senate vote.

4:36It happened with Trump. It happened to Biden, Bush, Clinton. Obama actually had three picks withdraw. But this is really, really early for two picks to be out already. Part of the reason is Trump has bypassed some of the typical vetting procedures. Max Steyer heads the Partnership for Public Service, which has long worked to improve presidential transitions. Haste makes waste. There's been some attention paid to the speed of the intended appointments, but you don't actually go fast if you don't do the necessary preparation work to make sure you're going well. And there is no prior incoming administration that has seen intended nominees blow up at the speed at which we've seen so far.

5:21You know, the Trump transition only just agreed to FBI background checks earlier this week, more than a month late. Usually this sort of vetting is done quietly before picks are named to avoid embarrassment. And this time you have a cloud of self-inflicted chaos around the Trump transition because of the way they chose to do it. I'm interested in hearing that they've agreed to the FBI background checks. They initially seem not interested at all. And then senators quietly said, we will be hearing from nominees who have been vetted only, and I guess they changed their minds. Yep. NPR's Tamara Keith in West Palm Beach.

5:56Thanks so much. You're welcome.

6:05Police in New York City are searching for the person who killed the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Brian Thompson led the largest health insurer in the United States, and he was shot the morning of his employer's annual investors conference. Authorities said he was targeted and the shooting was planned. NPR's Maria Aspen is covering this story. Maria, good morning. Good morning, Steve. What have you learned? So this was shocking. Yesterday morning, just before 7 a.m., Brian Thompson was shot as he approached a hotel in Midtown Manhattan. And I have to say, a lot of companies use this place for big meetings.

6:39I've been there for these sorts of events many times. Police say this wasn't a random act of gun violence. The person who shot Thompson was waiting outside specifically for him. This is NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tish. Every indication is that this was a premeditated, preplanned, targeted attack. Police released surveillance footage and pictures of the alleged gunman. He was wearing dark clothing and a mask, and he used a pistol that appeared to have a silencer. Police say the gunman was waiting on the sidewalk for Thompson and shot him several times from behind as he walked by. Thanks for the detail about the silencer.

7:18I looked at that weapon on the video and thought, wow, that's a long barrel and wondered if that's what that was. So thank you for that. Now, as far as the victim, who was Thompson? So he was 50 years old. He lived outside Minneapolis with his wife and two kids, and he was a longtime executive at United Health Group. He joined that company two decades ago and worked his way up as the company grew bigger and more powerful. Three years ago, Thompson took over the unit called UnitedHealthcare, which is the largest health insurer in the United States. It has tens of millions of customers, and it made almost$300 billion in revenue last year.

7:56But it's important to point out that as big as this insurance business is, it's just part of the larger UnitedHealth parent company, which isn't a household name necessarily, but it's one of the largest companies in the United States. Yeah, and of course, we're asking these questions because Because we don't know who the gunman was. We don't know what the motive was. But of course, you look into the affairs of this person who was shot. So what else does UnitedHealth own? It touches pretty much every part of the U.S. health care experience, Steve. Another big business it owns is Optum, which manages pharmacy benefits.

8:28Or you might remember the Change Healthcare hack earlier this year. That's also owned by UnitedHealth. Okay. United is also the largest employer of doctors in the entire country. It said last year that it employs or is affiliated with 90 ,000 physicians. That's one out of every 10 doctors in the country. So with this size and scale, UnitedHealth has drawn a lot of criticism and scrutiny from consumers and regulators and lawmakers, sometimes over how it wields its power. Just last month, we saw the Justice Department file an antitrust lawsuit trying to block UnitedHealth from buying yet another business for$3 billion.

9:05Health insurance companies make a lot of people angry. They reject claims. They do a lot of things that enrage people. Don't they get a lot of threats? Yes, health care executives receive a ton of threats. And part of that, Steve, as you said, is the general anger and frustration so many feel over health care in the United States. The country has the most expensive health care in the developed world and some of the worst health outcomes. And since UnitedHealth is the biggest health care company, it's a key part of that system. So it gets blamed by a lot of people when the system doesn't work. And Bias Maria Aspin in New York City, thanks so much.

9:38Thank you.

9:44Okay, if President-elect Trump succeeds in deporting millions of people from the United States, his administration will not be the first. Yes, in fact, the U.S. has deported millions of people in the past, and that gives us a chance to answer a question. When you deport a lot of workers who are not citizens, does that improve the job market for people who are? and other people in the U.S. legally. NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garst has been studying that. Hi there, Jazz. Hi. What does the history show here about this idea, which is one of the reasons that the new administration gives for a mass deportation?

10:18Yeah, so the Obama administration did a historic number of deportations, more than three million removals. I spoke to economist Chloe East at the University of Colorado in Denver. she studied the effects of many of those deportations. So we see really clearly that when there is an increase in deportations in a county, that does not lead to more job opportunities or higher wages for U.S.-born workers. Her work also focused on something we rarely hear about, which is immigration as a way to create new jobs for American-born workers. How could immigrants, whether they're here legally or illegally, create jobs for American workers?

11:03Yeah, so let me give you an example. Earlier this year, I was interviewing business owners in Florida. And the owner of one roofing company told me, if I could hire more immigrant workers to do the roofing, then I could take on more jobs, which means I would need to hire a manager. I would need to hire and expand my accounting team. And all those jobs would go to U.S. citizens. So we don't talk about this a lot, but economists do talk about this trickle-down effect. Okay, so that doesn't mean that it is right or proper that you have to agree with people coming here illegally or through asylum or anything else.

11:43But in any case, it doesn't seem to cost Americans jobs. It may actually add American jobs if there are more people here and working. Exactly. So what Professor East says is that for every half a million people deported, she estimates there were 44 ,000 fewer jobs for American-born workers. The presidential campaign also touched on the idea that people here illegally are using resources, taking up housing, that this affects citizens. Are there findings about that? So we don't know what mass deportations are going to look like, right? But I wanted to bring it down to the day-to-day. We know immigrant labor is inextricably linked to our food supply.

12:29So consider farm workers in California, where a lot of U.S. vegetables come from. Now, over 90 % of those workers are foreign-born, mostly undocumented. I asked Professor East what could happen to, for example, the price of tomatoes, most of which come from California. Mass deportations in the Central Valley in California would reduce the number of people who are able and willing to pick tomatoes and also reduce the number of people who will drive the trucks from the tomato farms to the grocery stores. And when there are fewer of both types of workers, there will be fewer tomatoes at the grocery store at all, which will make the price of tomatoes go up.

13:17So basically what she's saying is if you're worried about the price of food now, you should be worried about mass deportations. NPR's Jasmine Garst, thanks so much. Thank you.

13:33And that's Up First for this Thursday, December 5th. I'm Steve Inske. And I'm Michelle Martin. For your next listen, why not Consider This from NPR? We hear it up first, give you the three big stories of the day, or Consider This. colleagues take a different approach. They dive into a single news story and what it means to you in just 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's Up First was edited by Roberta Rampton, Russell Lewis, Alfredo Carvajal, Lisa Thompson, and H.J. Mai. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Katie Kline. We get engineering support from Misha Hines, and our technical director is Carly Strange.

14:09Join us tomorrow.

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