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--:-- Steve Inskeep: Canada's new prime minister says he's ready for conflict with its neighbor and, up to now, closest ally.
--:-- A Martinez: We didn't ask for this fight. The Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What does Mark Carney plan to do?
--:-- A Martinez: I'm Steve Inskeep with A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Immigration authorities arrested a Columbia graduate student who led protests over Gaza.
--:-- A Martinez: His lawyer says agents gave no reason.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I demanded to see a warrant and the agent hung up the phone on me.
--:-- A Martinez: What due process, if any, does the government owe a legal permanent resident?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Also, Congress has just days to avoid our government shutdown.
--:-- A Martinez: House Speaker Mike Johnson wants to do it without negotiating with Democrats.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What would it take for almost every Republican to agree?
--:-- A Martinez: Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: People gathered in an arena in Canada's capital and heard the results of a vote for the leader of the governing party.
--:-- A Martinez: In first place, the next Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, with 131,674 votes resulting in...
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Mark Carney won a kind of mini-election among Liberal Party members, and his landslide win means he will now replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who's leaving office just as Canada faces a confrontation with the United States.
--:-- Jackie Northam: NPR's international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam has been following the story. So a new chapter in Canadian politics. What can you tell us about Mark Carney?
--:-- Jackie Northam: Well, up until a few months ago, not a lot of Canadians knew who Mark Carney was. He was considered a political outsider.
--:-- Jackie Northam: It was only after Justin Trudeau announced that he was stepping aside in January that Carney threw his hat into the ring for the Liberal Party's leadership race.
--:-- Jackie Northam: But Carney, who's 59 years old, does have a reputation internationally. He comes from the world of finance and has spent time on Wall Street and was a head of the Bank of England, where he helped navigate the post-Brexit turbulence.
--:-- Jackie Northam: And he also headed up the Bank of Canada. So that experience could be critical as he becomes prime minister, both to tackle Canada's economic challenges right now, but certainly to deal with President Trump trade policies towards Canada which frankly are seen by many in Canada as economic warfare
--:-- Jackie Northam: Yeah relations between the two have grown contentious since Donald Trump returned to office
--:-- Jackie Northam: So is there any sense of how Carney will approach President Trump and his policies?
--:-- Jackie Northam: Well, I suspect it'll be a much different dynamic between Carney and Trump than it was with the president and Prime Minister Trudeau.
--:-- Jackie Northam: They didn't get along. And in fact, over the past few weeks, relations between the two men were really fraying.
--:-- Jackie Northam: Trump calling Trudeau governor and Trudeau calling the president Donald and quoting an editorial saying the tariffs were a very dumb idea.
--:-- Jackie Northam: So Carney could represent a fresh start, but he has warned that he would be very tough on Trump, which is something he indicated in his acceptance speech on Sunday.
--:-- Jackie Northam: We didn't ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.
--:-- Jackie Northam: So the Americans, they should make no mistake, in trade as in hockey, Canada will win.
--:-- Jackie Northam: And A, if President Trump goes ahead with these steep tariffs on Canadian products, and that's expected in April, it could drive Canada's economy into a recession.
--:-- Jackie Northam: And here's the thing, I mean, Carney might not even be Prime Minister that long.
--:-- Jackie Northam: I mean, there are general elections coming up this year, so when are those?
--:-- Jackie Northam: Well, they need to be held by the end of October.
--:-- Jackie Northam: You know, the Liberals have bounced back in a big way in the polls, thanks largely to Trump and his treatment of Canada has created this wave of enthusiasm, you know, both for the Liberal Party, you know, and just sort of nationalism.
--:-- Jackie Northam: And Carney could grab on to that enthusiasm and call an election soon.
--:-- Jackie Northam: The opposition could also launch a non-confidence vote when Parliament resumes later this month.
--:-- Jackie Northam: That too could trigger an early election.
--:-- Jackie Northam: But, you know, as it stands right now, once Carney is sworn in as Canada's new prime minister, and that could happen later this week.
--:-- Jackie Northam: He'll lead the country.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: All right, that's NPR's international affairs correspondent, Jackie Northam. Jackie, thanks.
--:-- Jackie Northam: Thanks very much.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Immigration agents have arrested an activist who helped lead pro-Palestinian student protests at Columbia University.
--:-- A Martinez: His name is Mahmoud Khalil. His lawyer tells NPR that officers from ICE, that's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, picked him up at his university apartment.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: They told him his green card had been revoked. Green card. He was a lawful permanent resident.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: President Trump had promised to deport students who protested against Israel during the war in Gaza.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: NPR's Adrian Florido is here with us now. So tell us who Mahmoud Khalil is and what happened to him.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Well, Khalil A. was one of the Palestinian students who last year negotiated on behalf of the campus protesters who were pressing Colombia to divest from Israel over the Gaza war.
--:-- Adrian Florido: He was outspoken, very involved. He recently graduated.
--:-- Adrian Florido: I spoke with his lawyer and she told me that on Saturday night, Khalil and his wife were arriving at their university apartment and that ICE agents were in the lobby.
--:-- Adrian Florido: They told Khalil his student visa had been canceled, but Khalil is not on a visa. He is a legal permanent resident.
--:-- Adrian Florido: When his wife went to get his green card out of the apartment, agents said that it had been revoked.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Revoked. Did they give a reason?
--:-- Adrian Florido: Well, his lawyer Amy Greer says she spoke with one of the agents on the phone during the arrest and he didn't give her a reason.
--:-- Adrian Florido: And I demanded to see a warrant or have a warrant shown to me or Mr Khalil before they removed him and the agent hung up the phone on me.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Greer said that she was shocked the government had declared his green card revoked without due process.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Mr. Khalil was under the impression that as a lawful permanent resident that he had some modicum of protection that may not exist for people, you know, who do have student visas or who are undocumented.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Instead, agents drove Khalil to a detention center, she said, while his pregnant wife, a U.S. citizen, stayed behind.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay. Now, what are you learning about what's behind all this, possibly?
--:-- Adrian Florido: Well, I got a statement last night from DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.
--:-- Adrian Florido: She said Khalil had been arrested in support of a recent executive order that President Trump signed on anti-Semitism.
--:-- Adrian Florido: She said Khalil had, quote, led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Separately, in a post on X, Secretary of State Marco Rubio linked to a news story about Khalil's arrest and wrote that the administration would be revoking the visas or green cards of Hamas supporters so they can be deported.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Can you give us just maybe a little more context about the government's motives here?
--:-- Adrian Florido: Well, conservative lawmakers have really tried to label pro-Palestinian protesters as pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist, or anti-Semitic.
--:-- Adrian Florido: In late January, President Trump signed an executive order that he said would be used to go after students who participated in, in his words, the pro-jihadist protests.
--:-- Adrian Florido: It directed federal agencies to work toward deporting international students who participated.
--:-- Adrian Florido: The order cited federal law that allows deporting foreign nationals who express support for terrorism.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Students have always rejected, A, the claim that their protests were pro-terrorists or that they supported Hamas's 2023 attack on Israel.
--:-- Adrian Florido: They say the protests were for peace in Gaza.
--:-- Adrian Florido: How are people responding to this arrest?
--:-- Adrian Florido: Well, student activists are denouncing it as a chilling attempt to use deportation to stifle free speech and to repress pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Khalil's attorney, Amy Greer, told me that she's angry the government was attempting to tar Khalil as anything other than the kind and loving person that he is.
--:-- Adrian Florido: She has a legal team that is trying to find out where he's being held and that plans to defend him and to ensure that he gets due process.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: All right, that's NPR's Adrian Florido. Thanks a lot.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Thanks, A.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Over the weekend, House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a plan to keep the federal government running through September.
--:-- A Martinez: They're doing what lawmakers have done again and again and again and again in recent years.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Instead of passing the annual 12 spending bills in what's called regular order with a lot of choices and compromises, Republicans want to largely keep the government running on autopilot under last year's budget numbers for a while while they discuss all this.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Congress needs to approve something by Friday or face another government shutdown.
--:-- Susan Davis: NPR political correspondent Susan Davis is here now. So Republicans control Congress and the White House. So, Sue, why couldn't they come up with a plan to pass the annual spending bills instead of this stopgap?
--:-- Susan Davis: You know, for Republicans, that would have been like choosing the path of most resistance. Passing all 12 of those bills usually requires an incredible amount of party unity and would also have likely required bipartisan negotiations with Democrats.
--:-- Susan Davis: Republicans aren't all that interested in that path right now. They really don't want to burn all of this political capital on spending bills because the party is way more focused on passing a separate budget bill to extend President Trump tax cuts.
--:-- Susan Davis: That is the priority focus for the Republican Party over the next several months because they expire at the end of the year.
--:-- Susan Davis: But even the stopgap path is going to test party unity.
--:-- Susan Davis: Speaker Johnson has never been able to pass these spending bills or stopgaps without some Democratic support, and it's unclear if he's going to be able to do it this week either.
--:-- Susan Davis: Yeah, Democrats were purposefully cut from this process. Are they going to support it?
--:-- Susan Davis: Well, the top House Democratic leaders over the weekend came out and said they're going to oppose it.
--:-- Susan Davis: This is unlike past deals where Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has helped deliver the votes to avoid these shutdowns.
--:-- Susan Davis: If House Democrats remain unified against it, the Speaker is essentially going to need unanimous support from within his own party, and that's going to be tough.
--:-- Susan Davis: That sounds like a place where the President could step in, though.
--:-- Susan Davis: Yeah, I mean, President Trump is certainly trying to keep pressure on the Republican rank and file.
--:-- Susan Davis: Well, in a social media post over the weekend, he was asking for, quote, no dissent on this.
--:-- Susan Davis: And there's a sign he might get it.
--:-- Susan Davis: One of those traditional hardline conservatives who likes to vote against these types of spending bills. That's Texas Congressman Chip Roy.
--:-- Susan Davis: He's also a member of the Freedom Caucus. He's indicated that he will support it, which is a good sign for the speaker.
--:-- Susan Davis: So considering all this, Sue, I mean, how likely is a shutdown on Friday?
--:-- Susan Davis: You know, I think it's going to be pretty clear early in the week.
--:-- Susan Davis: The House is expected to vote on Tuesday.
--:-- Susan Davis: And if they can't pass a bill, the shutdown becomes exponentially more likely by Friday.
--:-- Susan Davis: If they can pass that hurdle, a handful of Democrats are still going to be necessary to get it through the Senate.
--:-- Susan Davis: At least one of those Democrats, Pennsylvania's John Fetterman, has indicated he'll be on board.
--:-- Susan Davis: It's unclear if others will be.
--:-- Susan Davis: And Trump is already trying to put the blame on Democrats if there is a shutdown.
--:-- Susan Davis: But I think that's going to be a bit of a hard sell when it's his party that controls all the levers here and have also made clear that Democrats didn't have a seat at the table.
--:-- Susan Davis: For Democrats, though, what might they want in this deal?
--:-- Susan Davis: I mean, Democrats are trying to get language into any deal that is going to make it harder for the Trump administration to cut off funding for things that Congress has already appropriated money for, obviously in response to things like cutting off funding for USAID.
--:-- Susan Davis: They wanted to tie the hands of this ongoing doge effort, and that was obviously going to be a nonstarter for this White House.
--:-- Susan Davis: I also think it tells you that as long as Republicans are in control of Congress, they're not going to be putting up much of a fight over the Trump administration's push to play a bigger role here in deciding what money gets spent and what gets cut.
--:-- Susan Davis: Which, as Steve noted at the top, this is a power that traditionally is supposed to be decided by Congress.
--:-- Susan Davis: And they're willing to cede much of that power in this moment more to the White House and President Trump.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: All right. That's NPR political correspondent Susan Davis. Susan, thank you.
--:-- Susan Davis: You're welcome.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And that's Up First for Monday, March 10th.
--:-- A Martinez: I'm A. Martinez. And I'm Steve Inskeep. Thanks for joining us for Up First.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You can find more in-depth coverage of the stories we discussed and more on NPR's Morning Edition, the radio show that A. Martinez co-hosts with Michelle Martin, Leila Fathol, and myself, me.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Find Morning Edition on your local NPR station at stations.npr.org.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Tara Neal, Kevin Drew, Krishnadev Kallamur, Alice Wolfley, and Mohamed El-Bardisi.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It was produced by Ziad Batch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent, and our technical director is David Greenberg.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Join us again tomorrow.
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