Ukraine-EU Meeting, National Guard Deployment Cases, Pentagon Press Corps

0:02European leaders came up with a plan to hand Russian assets to Ukraine. They meet Ukraine's president to decide on that proposal after U.S. peace efforts went nowhere. President Trump's administration is adding some sanctions of its own. I'm E. Martinez, that's Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News. The president's bid to send National Guard troops to Portland and Chicago amounts to a test. Opponents went to court to challenge the president's authority. This week, a federal judge hears one case while the administration appealed another to the Supreme Court. Also, the Pentagon welcomed a friendlier press corps.

0:38News outlets ranging from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal to Fox News to NPR walked out rather than sign a new policy. Right-wing outlets and influencers signed up. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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1:54Odoo, exactly what a business needs. Sign up at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels. They're deciding how much more pressure to put on Russia. President Trump, you may recall, has been showing frustration in his own efforts to end Russia's war in Ukraine. He told reporters yesterday he has had good conversations with Russia's Vladimir Putin that don't go anywhere. And the U.S. announced sanctions on two Russian oil companies. The Europeans are discussing a much larger move that would send Russian money to the Ukrainian government of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

2:31Reporter Terri Schultz will be at the summit, too. She joins us now to tell us some more. All right. So tell us about this plan that, to me, sounds like Russia would have a big problem with. That's right. And it's controversial also among EU leaders. So we're talking about a sum of about 140 billion euros. That's a little over 160 billion dollars that belongs to the Russian Central Bank. But it's been held in Europe, mostly in Belgium, and has been immobilized due to Russia's full-scale war on Ukraine. Now, boiled down, the European Commission, the EU's executive branch, would like to give Ukraine a loan guaranteed by this Russian money.

3:06The reasoning is that Moscow will owe at least that much to Ukraine in an eventual peace settlement. Now, the commission says if Russia pays Ukraine this amount after the war, Ukraine can then pay the loan back and Russia can have its frozen assets back. And many EU leaders think this is a great idea. Others, particularly Belgium, which is worried about repercussions from Russia, don't necessarily want it to go ahead. But what's likely from this meeting is that the European Commission is given the green light to draw up at least the plan for creating this loan to Ukraine. So it seems like a very creative way to get a lot of money to Kiev without it coming out of European taxpayers' pockets.

3:42Yeah, that's what its advocates say. And Ukrainian President Zelensky will be making that case fervently to the 27 EU heads of state and government. Here's how he put it yesterday in Sweden. We need the decision on frozen assets, difficult decisions. We understand that it's not a simple decision. Russia will do everything not to give us possibility to have such a decision. is to use money because they understand that they need to decrease financing of Ukraine during the war. Now, Zelensky suggests it's Russian pressure creating division over this idea. But in the case of Belgium, which again hosts the institution holding most of these assets, the Belgians fear that at some point Russia would have the right to demand this money back and it would all be on the Belgians.

4:28So they want each of the other EU countries to sign a pledge sharing in backing this loan. And interestingly, these other EU member states are hesitant to do that so far. Now, there are ways, there are other ways to put pressure on Moscow. The U.S. just imposed sanctions on Russia's two biggest oil companies. And I understand an EU sanctions package is also on the table at the summit. That's right. And EU leaders and President Zelensky will very much welcome those U.S. sanctions. And the EU's 19th package of sanctions will also go through today. It was approved just last night. So we know this is going to happen.

5:01It includes a gradual ban on imports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which has been in the works for months. But Slovakia refused to let this package pass until it got some assurances the EU will help it out into other areas on high energy prices and on the impact of EU climate targets on Slovakian car makers. It's not clear exactly what was promised to Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, but apparently it was enough. And the next package, the 20th, is already in the works. All right, Terry Schultz in Brussels. Terry, thank you very much. Thank you.

5:39We are finding out how much leeway the courts will allow President Trump as he tries to deploy the National Guard into American cities. Two cases this week involve Chicago and Portland. The administration has also sent extra federal agents to San Francisco amid talk that troops would go there next. NPR's Kat Lonsdorf is following all this. Kat, good morning. Hey, good morning. What's the central issue here? Well, at the heart of both of these cases is whose facts to believe about the situation on the ground in these cities, the president's or local officials and law enforcement. Experts tell me how the court's rule will at least start to set the bar for that and help define what constitutes a situation where the military can be deployed at the president's will domestically, even against local officials' wishes.

6:24There will still be a lot left to be decided, likely well into next year. So all of this is just the beginning of what will surely be a long and winding road through the U.S. court system. Yeah, I guess we should just remember the Constitution would seem to forbid the deployment of troops in this way, along with various laws. But the question is, when can the president decide to do this? And who gets to decide if the conditions are sufficient? That's a crucial thing as well. Well, what are the details of the specific cases? Yeah, let's start with Portland. So on Monday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a temporary restraining order put in place by a judge in Portland, basically siding with the Trump administration saying troops could be deployed in Portland.

7:01But there's still another temporary restraining order by that same federal judge in place. And so there are no troops in the streets yet. Got it. The federal government has asked that judge to remove that second temporary order. A court hearing has been scheduled for that tomorrow. And at the same time, the Ninth Circuit is also deciding whether or not to revisit the case with a larger group of judges, basically challenging that ruling. The ruling was a big win for the Trump administration. Trump told reporters that he felt empowered by it to send National Guard troops wherever he deems necessary.

7:32Meanwhile, a lot of legal experts I talked to were worried by it, saying basically it allows for Trump to claim whatever he wants about the situation on the ground in these places and courts should believe him. Here's Justin Levitt. He's an expert in constitutional law at Loyola Law School. It authorized blindness to facts. It said you can decide that there's a war when there's nothing but bluebirds. He said he's confident a larger review by the Ninth Circuit would disagree with that. OK, so that is the set of cases around Portland. What's going on with Chicago? Right. Last Friday, the Trump administration filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on whether or not National Guard troops can be deployed in Chicago after losing an appeal to a lower court.

8:15Steve, as you know, there have been a flurry of court cases around these National Guard deployments, and this is the first one to make it to the Supreme Court. So that's one reason why people are really watching it. We don't know when or if the Supreme Court will issue an emergency decision, although it will likely be quick. If one is issued, it won't set precedent. It will only apply to Chicago. But it will provide some clarity on how the Supreme Court is thinking about all of this. Only to a point, though, these emergency decisions are usually short, just a few sentences, and don't provide a lot of reasoning from the judges.

8:49And while lower courts don't have to follow the decision, they will look to it. And it may not provide a whole lot of direction beyond a simple yes or no. That's been the case in a bunch of Supreme Court rulings, emergency docket rulings this year. They have generally deferred to the president and generally not said why. So I guess we wait to find out what happens in this case. Exactly. NPR's Kat Lonsdorff, thanks so much. Thank you.

9:21The Pentagon Press Corps has gotten a right-wing makeover. The defense secretary rolled out a new policy for covering the military a few weeks ago and told news organizations they had to sign off by the middle of last week, Nearly all the journalists, including NPR, chose to turn in their media credentials instead. And now there are new reporters in their places. Here to tell us more about that is NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. David, good morning. Good morning, Steve. OK, so the Pentagon had this announcement. We are announcing a new press corps. The military announced this group of people.

9:54So who are they? Well, for some of the president's, you know, strongest fans, these might be familiar names and people to whom they attune for information. For others, they may know them only through headlines and lawsuits. If you take a couple of them, think of Gateway Pundit or Lindell TV founded by the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell. Both Lindell and Gateway Pundit were successfully sued for defamation over claims they made supporting President Trump's lies about the 2020 race. Tim Poole is a podcaster, his outlet is among those credentialed. He was found to have, he said, unknowingly, but nonetheless accepted money on behalf of Russian state media.

10:31These aren't paragons of independent, hard-hitting journalism from at least a conventional standpoint. Others include The Federalist, Just the News, One America News Network, resolute supporters of the president and what they put out. I pay attention to The Federalist. They put out some statements essentially saying this press policy is fine. It doesn't limit us at all. We love this press policy. We're in. But a lot of news outlets, including NPR News, that have had Pentagon credentials for decades chose to give them up last week rather than sign on to this new policy. And I want to pause to note that is across the political spectrum, whatever you think of the politics of the Wall Street Journal or Fox News or the New York Times or the Washington Post, all the way across, they walked out.

11:14These are people who've covered the Pentagon for decades. What did they find so troublesome about the new policy? Well, you've heard Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Sean Parnell, his top press aide, say the Pentagon reporters are wandering all over the Pentagon, and now they'll be required to wear badges. They were always required to wear badges, and they were always quite limited in where they could go, although slightly more restricted in recent months. In reality, news outlets and reporters were asked to sign something that said essentially they were not entitled to broadcast, print, or even ask for information that the Pentagon hasn't authorized for release.

11:46And I want to stress that's information. That's not simply classified or national security information. It's anything the Pentagon hasn't authorized for release. Now, news outlets publish national security secrets all the time after weighing it with due care. But nonetheless, here's the Pentagon essentially saying we have to have a rubber stamp of yes or no what you can publish. That's prior restraint that conventional news outlets aren't willing to go for. I guess I should note I've covered the Pentagon in the past. You could walk the halls, but you couldn't go everywhere. And sometimes, of course, the military is hiding information from you because they're the military.

12:18That's right. But other times they could be very open and it was very useful for citizens who are paying for the military. So what does this mean for Americans' access to news and information? Well, I think the way to think about it is that what we're going to hear from folks at the Pentagon is what Hegseth and his crew want you to know and a little more. The press corps will trade the privilege of being in the Pentagon for that access to be able to beam out what the president's people want. You know, others, including Pete Hegseth's former network, Fox News, say that's not reporting. That's just transcription.

12:47They're not willing to accept that. The so-called independent journalists touted by the Pentagon right now don't feel that independent at all. It's interesting. Pete Hegseth berated the Fox News Pentagon correspondent at a press briefing earlier this year. This is not about some kind of conservative ideology. It's about who gets information and who controls it. That's right. David, thanks so much. You bet. That's NPR's David Falkenflick.

13:12And that's Up First for this Thursday, October 23rd. I'm Steve Inskeep. Hey, I'm A. Martinez. Did you know Up First is powered by listeners just like you? When you give to your local NPR station, you're supporting the reporters who bring the news from your community and also from around the world. Now, to support this work, head on over to donate.npr.org slash Up First. And if you want more reporting, and I know that you do, listen to our radio show, Morning Edition, on your local NPR station or at npr.org. Today's Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Alina Hartunian, Emily Kopp, Mohamed El-Bardisi, sorry, Moe is laughing in the back, Mohamed El-Bardisi, and Martha Ann Overland.

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