--:-- Aisha Rosca: Welcome to Up First from NPR News. I'm Aisha Rosca. And I'm Scott Simon.
--:-- Scott Simon: The Russian campaign comes as Zelensky also confronts a corruption scandal in the Capitol. We have details. Also, President Trump targets the British Broadcasting Corporation. We'll look at what's at issue. And House lawmakers may vote to release the government's Epstein files as soon as this coming week. Where the story goes from there in this podcast. So please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend.
--:-- [Upbeat music fades out]
--:-- Aisha Rosca: This message comes from LPL Financial. What if you could have more control over your future? LPL Financial removes the things holding you back and provides the services to push you forward. Because when it comes to your finances, your business, your future, LPL Financial believes the only question should be, what if you could? LPL Financial, member FINRA SIPC. No strategy assures success or protects against loss. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principle.
--:-- Scott Simon: Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dataiku. Enterprises are under pressure to launch hundreds of AI applications when data teams are stretched thin, leaving potential value trapped in spreadsheets, siloed systems, and slow development cycles. That's where Dataiku comes in, the universal AI platform that makes building AI apps accessible to anyone with low-code tools that drive real-world impact from data. Visit Dataiku.com slash NPR. D-A-T-A-I-K-U dot com slash NPR.
--:-- Aisha Rosca: First up, a reopened federal government after a Capitol Hill showdown resulting in a 43-day shutdown. Central to that showdown were the expiring health care subsidies causing sticker shock to Affordable Care Act enrollees across the country. But the deal that ended the shutdown didn't address those subsidies, and Congress is staring down that impasse and more divisive issues, including the Epstein files. NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Waltz joins us.
--:-- Deirdre Waltz: Thanks, Scott.
--:-- Scott Simon: House came in and voted for one day after they'd been gone for more than 50, but Speaker Mike Johnson says they're coming back full force. What does that mean?
--:-- Deirdre Waltz: Well, the speaker says they're going to be long days and long nights ahead. The big thing they have to deal with is the rest of the spending bills to fund federal agencies. Since the bill the president signed this week was just a stopgap measure, Congress faces another deadline at the end of January to fund federal agencies, or we could be looking at another shutdown. So Congress hasn't shown an ability to pass many year-long funding bills so we could see another stopgap bill at the end of January.
--:-- Scott Simon: Of course, Republicans promised to vote on health care by mid-December. What exactly are they going to vote on?
--:-- Deirdre Waltz: Well, it's worth noting that Senate Republicans promised this vote. There were some informal bipartisan talks in the Senate during the shutdown about how to deal with these Affordable Care Act tax credits that are expiring at the end of this year. One framework this Senate group is talking about would potentially extend these credits for one year and then phase in some reforms, maybe limit who's eligible for the tax credits, put in some provisions to crack down on waste, fraud and abuse.
--:-- Scott Simon: I mean, that's legitimate. Bipartisanship in the Senate's one thing, but the politics for House Republicans certainly are different. Is Speaker Johnson planning a vote on health care?
--:-- Deirdre Waltz: Well, he certainly faces pressure from some of his swing district Republicans who want some kind of extension maybe one year on these tax credits. But the vast majority of House conservatives campaign to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and they don't want to help extend any part of it. Speaker Johnson is blaming Democrats for the rising cost of health care. He says when they put the system into place, he claims that House Republicans have what He says volumes of ideas on reducing costs, but we haven't seen any actual details.
--:-- Scott Simon: And based on what he said this week, he doesn't sound like this is something the House is going to move quickly on. The Republicans would demand a lot of reforms before anything like that was ever possible. And we have to go through that deliberative process.
--:-- Deirdre Waltz: And, of course, the speaker has other things to deal with. Preeminently right now, a vote to force the release of documents in the Jeffrey Epstein case. How do we expect that to play out?
--:-- Scott Simon: Right. This issue was forced on the speaker. and we expected a vote in the House in early December. But with increasing calls from Republicans to get these files out, the Speaker decided to move that up, and there's going to be a vote this week.
--:-- Deirdre Waltz: The politics on this are really bad for the Speaker and the Republican Party in the White House. The party's divided, and this bill is even picking up more and more Republican votes each day, even as top Trump officials were pressuring Republican lawmakers to even block a bill from coming up in the House. The Speaker argues the House Oversight Committee has already been investigating Epstein. And we should say that the documents the committee released are from the Epstein estate. The legislation on the floor this week is requiring the release of the Justice Department's files.
--:-- Scott Simon: We expect this bill to pass easily. The big question is how big of a vote will it get in the House? And is that going to put pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune to take up this issue?
--:-- Deirdre Waltz: And Pierce Deidre Walsh, thanks so much.
--:-- Deirdre Waltz: Thank you.
--:-- Scott Simon: Now Trump v. the BBC. President Trump says he will sue the British broadcaster for up to $5 billion, even after a formal apology for a misleading edit of the speech he gave on January 6. The dispute is already printed the resignation of two top executives at the BBC, including its head of news. Willem Marks has been following this story, joins us now from London.
--:-- Willem Marks: Thanks for having me on.
--:-- Scott Simon: What exactly did the BBC admit to?
--:-- Willem Marks: Well, they acknowledged that during a documentary broadcast as part of its flagship Panorama series, that January 6th speech by President Trump was edited in a way that it spliced together remarks made nearly an hour apart. That created the impression he made a continuous call to fight like hell and march to the Capitol. In a statement, the BBC said that it accepted that the edit, quote, unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech. And they acknowledged this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.
--:-- Scott Simon: The documentary was broadcast a short time ahead of the U.S. 2024 presidential election. And the chairman of the board of the BBC governor, Samir Shah, said it would not be broadcast again. And what was President Trump's response?
--:-- Willem Marks: Well, in short, he said the apology from the BBC wasn't enough. A week ago, his team had issued an initial threat that demanded a retraction and apology and a financial settlement. In that first letter, his attorney suggested he was willing to file a billion dollar lawsuit. But last night, Trump told reporters on Air Force One en route to Florida, he and his attorneys would now sue the BBC for anywhere between $1 billion and $5 billion sometime next week.
--:-- Scott Simon: The broadcaster had, he said, admitted that they cheated and, quote, changed the words coming out of my mouth. Trump also said the UK government, in the form of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, was embarrassed by what had happened, and he planned to call Starmer over the weekend.
--:-- Willem Marks: Now, the BBC says it doesn't believe there's a legal basis for defamation. Why?
--:-- Willem Marks: Well, the BBC says that while it sincerely regrets the manner of the edit, and it's refused so far to offer a financial settlement, legal experts I've been speaking to say that's likely because the documentary in question didn't air extensively in the United States. So if Trump were to file suit in Florida as expected, he'd have to prove Americans watched it and it harmed or damaged his reputation in some way. While here in the UK though legal statutes of limitations for defamation they already passed
--:-- Scott Simon: What are the consequences for the BBC so far?
--:-- Willem Marks: Well the head of news and the director general the BBC top executive they both stepped down over the past week The government's felt forced to back the BBC in Parliament with the UK's culture minister, a woman called Lisa Nandy, defending the broadcaster at a time of political polarisation and widespread misinformation. It is by far the most widely used and trusted source of news in the United Kingdom. At a time when the lines are being dangerously blurred between fact and opinion, news and polemic, the BBC stands apart.
--:-- Scott Simon: And listeners and viewers have been expressing their anger at the idea that their money, which funds the BBC through what's known as a licence fee, could be used to pay a settlement or indeed legal damages to a foreign leader.
--:-- Willem Marks: I spoke to Stuart Purvis, who previously ran ITN. It's the major commercial news broadcaster in Britain, and it's thus the BBC's main rival on TV. And he told me this criticism of the BBC was unprecedented. The BBC has faced many complaints over the years which have gone to court. Sometimes it's settled, sometimes it hasn't and is lost. but there's absolutely nothing compared with the scale either in monetary terms by President Trump or indeed the publicity is getting.
--:-- Scott Simon: Now there are other pressures the BBC is facing for sure, Scott, in particular around its coverage of the war in Gaza but this is by far the biggest challenge it faces right now.
--:-- Willem Marks: Journalist Willem Marks in London, thanks so much for being with us.
--:-- Willem Marks: Thank you.
--:-- Scott Simon: There are widespread blackouts in Ukraine as Russia strikes the country's energy system and its capital, Kyiv. Kyiv and the Ukrainian energy sector are also dealing with what could be the most harmful corruption probe in the five years Volodymyr Zelensky has been president. Ukraine's independent anti-corruption agencies say that associates close to Zelensky plotted to skim some $100 billion from the country's nuclear energy producer. And for Joanna Kikisos joins us now from Kiev.
--:-- Joanna Kikisos: Thanks for having me on the show, Scott.
--:-- Scott Simon: And please tell us what's going on in this investigation.
--:-- Joanna Kikisos: So, Scott, this investigation was conducted by two agencies that monitor the Ukrainian state for graft. They're the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. And this probe is extensive. It took 15 months, used about 1,000 hours of wiretaps. There were seven alleged participants, including Timur Mindich. He's a close business associate of Zelensky's. Investigators say this group manipulated contracts at Enerho Atom, which is Ukraine's state nuclear energy company. And they got kickbacks laundering roughly $100 million, like you mentioned earlier.
--:-- Scott Simon: The scandal has forced the resignation of two ministers in Zelensky's government so far, but Zelensky has not been implicated in this probe, and he is calling for the prosecution of those accused of committing crimes.
--:-- Joanna Kikisos: And, Joanna, what do you hear from Ukrainians?
--:-- Joanna Kikisos: Well, Scott, we've spoken to several Ukrainians in Kiev about this corruption probe, and they are enraged, for lack of a better word. Aleksandra Pokidko, she's 28 and works in marketing, and she told us this scandal is especially galling as Ukraine struggles to protect its power plants from constant Russian attacks. It hits very hard when Ukrainians are sitting here without electricity and that our energy workers are working hard to restore it. When corruption happens on such a large scale, I have a very negative reaction. And it's also very painful because I love Ukraine very much.
--:-- Scott Simon: Has corruption been an issue in Ukraine?
--:-- Joanna Kikisos: Yeah, corruption used to be a big problem here, especially on the government level. But in the last decade, Ukraine has made great strides in improving transparency and accountability and appointing these independent agencies that investigate corruption. The European Union is considering Ukraine membership right now partly because of all this progress in fighting corruption So Ukrainians want to make sure there is no backsliding
--:-- Scott Simon: We spoke with He an investigative journalist at Ukrainska Правда, a prominent news outlet here. He reports on corruption and he points out that there were mass protests this summer when Parliament and Zelensky tried to take away the independence of Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies and bring them under a prosecutor general appointed by Zelensky. Tkach is saying if they had managed to destroy this independence, then the current investigation might not have happened, because how independent can a prosecutor general appointed by the president's office be?
--:-- Joanna Kikisos: Now, Scott, Ukrainians also associate corruption with Russia. Activists have told me that Russia used to use corrupted Ukrainian politicians in the past to control Ukraine. And Scott, I should also say that Ukrainians say corruption during wartime is something like murder, that soldiers die if resources that could go to the front line are stolen. And of course, the war rages on.
--:-- Scott Simon: What's the latest from the front lines?
--:-- Joanna Kikisos: Well, Ukrainian troops are in a very difficult battle right now to defend Pukrovsk, a city in eastern Ukraine. Russian troops have been trying to occupy the city for nearly two years and have now infiltrated it. We spoke by phone to soldiers in four brigades defending Pokrovs, including Vladimir Polovyi of the 7th Rapid Response Corps. The brigades are really exhausted. The enemy has changed its tactic. We have the infiltration of infantry groups, and they are covered by the swarms of drone. Another soldier we talked to described looking up at the sky and seeing so many drones that they are literally crashing into each other. Soldiers are saying, we need more resources to hold on.
--:-- Scott Simon: And Joanna Kikisis and Keeve, thanks so much.
--:-- Joanna Kikisos: You're welcome.
--:-- Scott Simon: And that's up first for November 15th, 2025. I'm Aisha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon.
--:-- Elena Twork: Produced today's podcast with Fernando Naro and Ryan Bank.
--:-- Scott Simon: Our editor was Ed McNulty, along with Melissa Gray, Hadil Alshouchi, Kelsey Snell, and Miguel Macias. Andy Craig directed. Our technical director has been David Greenberg with engineering support from Zach Coleman, Valentina Rodriguez-Sanchez, and Damian Herring. Our senior supervising editor is Shannon Rhodes. E.B. Stone is our executive producer and Jim Cain is our deputy managing editor.
--:-- Scott Simon: Tomorrow on the Sunday Story, Why Trump's Peace Plan Between Israel and Hamas is Faltering, we'll take you inside Gaza. And for more stories, features, hard reporting, and sometimes just fun, you can tune in to Weekend Edition on the radio. Find your local NPR station at stations.npr.org. We're not hard to find. Like, just look. Yeah, yeah. Dot, dot, dot.
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