Truth Social Paid Access, Colorado River Cuts, FIFA's Faceplant

0:02President Trump's social media company will charge people to see posts first. He is the biggest user on Truth Social and his posts certainly move markets. So will people pay for early access? I'm Ayesha Rascoe. And I'm Scott Simon and this is Up First from NPR News. Wall Street trading firms can make money from an edge of just milliseconds in information about the economy and global affairs. President Trump wants a cut. In Arizona, California, and Nevada, farms and communities will see steep cuts to their water from the Colorado River over the next decade. And global soccer gets a red card. FIFA's plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors is gone just days after it was revealed.

0:48So please stay with us. We got the news you need to start your weekend.

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1:37It's an account co-owned by you and your teen, so you can monitor and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. This message comes from Odoo. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. Start managing your business with one unified system. Odoo is the all-in-one business management software. Try for free today at odoo.com slash upfirst. President Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, begins selling a new service today. For a fee of up to$100 ,000 a month, Truth Social offers early access to posts from prominent users, including the president.

2:21And if your correspondent Bobby Allen joins us, Bobby, thanks for being with us. Hey, Scott. First, give us just some of the details about what the service is. Sure. Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, is calling this Truth API, and it's being offered to banks and other institutional investors as a way to get a jump on what Trump and others post on Truth Social. Now, Trump's announcements about government policy, conflicts in the Middle East and other developments can send company share prices up or down. So, you know, getting Trump's post even a few moments faster could make a difference with stock trading.

2:57And I got to say, Scott, this is just a very unusual product for a president to be selling his social media posts. And it's led to a fair amount of concern in Washington and on Wall Street. What are those concerns? Yeah, I talked to lawyers who formerly worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and they said this service looks like it violates insider trading laws against misusing public information to give certain investors an upper hand. Say, the president posts about the Strait of Hormuz, and a trader uses that to make money on oil futures. Democrats, too, have taken notice. They've been criticizing this.

3:29Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff wrote a letter to the SEC demanding an investigation. Are Wall Street traders biting? You know, this service is being pitched to big banks and institutions. We're talking about a price tag of over a million dollars a year. This isn't cheap. I reached out to a dozen brokers, hedge fund managers and other investors, and nearly all of them declined to be interviewed. But one high-profile Wall Street executive did talk to me on the condition that he not be named since this person feared retaliation from the Trump administration. And this person called the service, quote, insane and said there's no way, quote, myself and 200 of my friends in finance will get anywhere near the service since in another administration it would be viewed as criminal.

4:10How does Trump's media company respond to these criticisms? Yeah, a spokeswoman for Trump's media company said Truth API gives customers faster access to public information and said that critics, including law professors and Democrats, have invented new theories of insider trading to attack the president. Bobby, how does this Truth Social Service fit into the larger picture of how the president's been able to profit during his time in office? Yeah, you know, recent government disclosures show how Trump earned more than$2 billion last year, mostly from cryptocurrency ventures. And according to legal scholars and historians, that scale of profit while being in the White House is record-breaking.

4:48And he has been sharply criticized for, whether it's his Trump meme coin or visits to Mar-a-Lago and his golf courses or this latest Truth Social offering, the president is just finding new and unusual ways of growing his family's wealth while governing the country. Now, in response, a spokeswoman for Trump's media company said, quote, certain politicians accuse us of anti-free market behavior while pressuring businesses into boycotting a product, all in a coordinated effort to harm a publicly traded company. So, Scott, for now, all this pushback isn't keeping the Trump Media and Technology Group from shopping around its latest service.

5:23NPR correspondent Bobby Allen, thanks so much. Thanks, Scott.

5:35There's a new federal plan for sharing the limited water of the Colorado River. The Interior Department's proposal released yesterday calls for potentially huge cuts in water for California, Arizona, and Nevada. The Colorado River provides water for more than 40 million people in seven U.S. states and dozens of tribal communities. It's facing severe drought conditions fueled by climate change and heavy demand. Alex Hager, who covers water issues at member station KJZZ in Phoenix, joins us. Thanks for being with us, Alex. Thank you for having me. I gather this federal plan's a 10-year framework.

6:14What are the biggest changes? The river is vital for big cities, small towns, and a huge farming industry across the Southwest. And this new plan offers a very wide range for how much water could be cut from them. Under the worst-case scenario, the federal government could cut water by up to 40 percent for Arizona, California, and Nevada. That would be massive. The plan forces states to come together every two years and adjust the rules. Some experts say that's not the kind of long-term stability these cities and farms need. I talked about it with Elizabeth Cobley, who researches water policy at the University of Nevada, Reno.

6:50I'm not very confident that there's a lot in here that would get us beyond the challenges we've seen over the last couple of years. And this pattern of managing crisis to crisis that the basin has really been in lately. The Interior Department is expected to announce the exact size of cuts for the next two years in the coming days or weeks. And of course, the Colorado River Basin is facing some of the most severe drought conditions on record. How are the states most affected, Arizona, California, and Nevada, preparing for the potential cuts? Yeah, we expect the hardest hits will come for Arizona, specifically the millions of people in the Phoenix area.

7:28But taps are not going to go dry anytime soon. That's because local utilities have been preparing for this day for years. The Colorado River is not their only source of water. So when they get less from the Colorado, they can lean a little harder on a different source like groundwater or a different nearby river. But shifting to new sources and planning for the long term future, that will be difficult and expensive. Alex, what's the reaction been from these three states? There's some disappointment so far. In Arizona, leaders say the worst cuts proposed under this plan are unacceptable and that they would devastate Arizona's economy.

8:04Arizona's U.S. senators, both Democrats, they said the cuts put a really unfair burden on the state. But Arizona officials do not expect that those big 40 percent cuts will become a reality, at least for the next two years. They have a counterproposal that they hope the federal government will implement. They are volunteering big cutbacks, you know, about 20 percent less water. It's still a big deal, but they would deal a little less pain to the Phoenix area. And what's ahead for this plan? Is it already done? Water managers say this new plan leaves the door open for states to come back to the negotiating table and finally agree.

8:39Tensions are still really high, but John Berggren with the conservation group Western Resource Advocate says this new plan could make a difference. Clearly, the last two and a half years of negotiations hasn't worked. So let's change that up. Let's use this as an opportunity, as a pivot point to start something new and get to that seven state agreement. But there are still some deep fundamental disagreements between the states in these negotiations. The upstream states, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico, they argue they shouldn't have to take mandatory cuts at all because they already get less water due to drought and climate change.

9:13So the states are still far apart and some of them haven't ruled out suing each other or the federal government. Reporter Alex Hager with member station KJZZ in Phoenix. Thanks so much. Thank you.

9:32Global soccer's wild summer took another turn this week. FIFA wanted to let private investors own stakes in the World Cup, a sell-off of the tournament that has been built over generations by players and teams all over the world. A revolt from those players and teams killed it. Reporter Michelle Steele joins us now. She's the writer of the Steele Cut Substack on sports and markets. Michelle, thanks for being with us. Good morning, Scott. Let me try and put this in order. Tuesday, the Times of London reported that FIFA president Gianni Infantino planned to allow private investors to get a 20 % stake in its most popular tournaments, including the World Cup.

10:15Thursday, European teams threatened to boycott. More teams threatened to join that boycott. And last night, FIFA announced it was pulling back on the plan. It lasted about as long as a hydration break. Why did it collapse so quickly? Yeah, a hydration break might be generous, Scott. This didn't even survive a normal work week. I think this was like half a Scaramucci or something. And credit where it's due, Martin Ziegler at The Times with this massive story breaking on Tuesday, Infantino's plan to sell up to 20 % of a new$20 billion entity bundling all the commercial rights to the World Cup. And you mentioned the Kushner family involved.

11:03Jared Kushner's brother Joshua was expected to lead the investor group. And then UEFA, which is the biggest, most powerful confederation in the sport of soccer, objected. And they didn't just object. They voted to boycott every FIFA competition, including the World Cup, until the plan was dead. You had the COO of FIFA saying his own staff had been deceived. And by last night, Infantino announcing the project will not proceed. Scott breaking literally this morning, UEFA coming out and sort of doubling down, saying they've lost confidence in Infantino entirely. So this story is fast moving and not over by any means.

11:48Why all the criticism? I mean, it would have meant a lot more money. Sure. I mean, that was the selling point to some of the poorer confederations in the sport that they would get sort of this upfront payment. Well, you know, there were a couple of reasons why the criticism was so harsh. One was the head of the German Federation said he found out by reading media reports. So when you don't have a communication strategy to your principles, that's going to be a problem. The other part of it is very existential. And UEFA said it outright, quote, the World Cup is not for sale. They said that in their statement.

12:23The fear is when you bring in outside investors and you allow them to have a stake and make decisions about the calendar and format, That, hey, you know, let's figure out what maximizes returns is going to be your guiding light instead of what's good for the sport. You can see easily a world where the World Cup has to be in the United States every time or another rich country because that's where you're going to be able to maximize prices on everything. And that's how you have a full-blown crisis on your hands for Infantino and for FIFA. And I have to ask, because before this week, Gianni Infantino looked to be, you know, coming off a very successful World Cup, looked to be cruising to re-election for another four-year term as FIFA president.

13:11The election's now going to be held next March. He doesn't have such a lock on the job anymore? I don't think so. We'll see if he even lasts until March because UEFA is certainly not standing down, saying that they not only lost confidence in Infantino, but many other members of the football family. They called the whole scheme a shabby, backroom, opaque deal. them fighting words. Whether Infantino survives as president is now a real question because UEFA says they will work in the coming, quote, days and weeks to devise a plan so that this never happens again. It shows the power of coalitions here, Scott, because other football associations are coming forward and backing UEFA on this.

14:05Michelle Steele, thanks so much. Talk to you soon. Talk to you next time.

14:38Simon Laszlo Jansen, Zilvan Kenhoven, and Nisha Hines. Our senior supervising editor is Shannon Rhodes. Evie Stone is our executive producer. And Catherine Laidlaw is our deputy managing editor. Tomorrow on the Sunday Story, Republicans keep warning us that the communists are coming for America. It's a midterm strategy that has nothing to do with communist China and everything to do with the Democratic Socialists who have surged on the left flank of the Democratic Party. Thank you for listening and for supporting your local NPR station. If you need to find yours, and we all do, to have a happier life, you can go to stations.npr.org and we hope you will.

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