Trudeau Resigns, Guantanamo Prisoner Release, Minneapolis Police Reform

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Michelle Martin: Welcome to Up First. I'm Michelle Martin.

Amy Martinez: And I'm Amy Martinez.

Michelle Martin: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is resigning after facing mounting calls to step down. After a landslide victory during his first run as Prime Minister, how did he become so unpopular?

Amy Martinez: That's right. We'll get into that in a minute. But first, nearly half of the detainees have been released from the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While only 15 men remain, what led to the dramatic transfers in the final weeks of the Biden administration?

Michelle Martin: And major changes are coming to the Minneapolis Police Department almost five years after the murder of George Floyd. We now have a roadmap for reform that will help this community heal while strengthening trust between law enforcement and the people they serve. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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Michelle Martin: Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced he's resigning, capping almost a decade in power. The 53-year-old faced calls from all corners of the country to step down over his handling of the economy, immigration, and other issues. Now, it's a far cry from 2015 when he was first elected in a landslide. NPR international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam has been following Trudeau's rise and fall over the years. And she's with us now to tell us more about it.

Jackie Northam: Good morning, Michelle.

Michelle Martin: Morning, Jackie. Jackie, there have been calls for months now for Trudeau to resign, even from members of his own liberal party. What happened?

Jackie Northam: Momentum had been building for some time for him to step aside. His poll numbers and the parties are in the low 20s. A couple of weeks ago, Chrystia Freeland, who was both his deputy prime minister and finance minister, resigned. And she had been a key, steadfast ally for Trudeau. And frankly, he faced a no-confidence vote. And it was pretty clear he was going to lose that. And he likely wanted to get ahead of it. So he announced his resignation.

Michelle Martin: This is quite a fall for somebody who, you know, more than nine years ago, had a landslide victory during his first run as prime minister. Just tell us more about him.

Jackie Northam: You're right. I mean, he won by a landslide. You know, he had or has matinee idol looks. He was tall, athletic. His face graced the covers of magazines around the world. And he just energized the 2015 elections. And he had broad appeal for voters, especially young voters. It was the same type of popularity that his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, had. And he was twice prime minister. And he was also a charismatic figure.

Michelle Martin: Justin Trudeau also promoted social causes such as gender equality and there was an equal number of women and men in his first cabinet. Also more taxes on the wealthy, more effort to protect the environment. So a progressive agenda that the public seemed to embrace at the time that he was elected, and seemed warmly to embrace it. What happened? Why has he become so unpopular?

Jackie Northam: Within a few years of first being elected, it was pretty clear that the honeymoon was over. There were scandals, resignations in his cabinet. Now, he did get good marks for his handling of the COVID pandemic, but the country never really seemed to rebound. And Canada now is experiencing many of the issues that we see here in the U.S., high inflation, housing shortages. I spoke with Nick Nanos with Nanos Research, which is a leading polling firm based in Ottawa. And he said that there was also a backlash against immigration. Although Canadians are supportive of immigrants, they were not supportive of the level of immigration that the government had. And this created a significant stress on the housing market. It put significant stress on the health care, education. All of these issues came together and affected Trudeau's popularity.

Michelle Martin: And this decision to resign comes just as President-elect Donald Trump is due to head back to the White House in the U.S. The two leaders have not had the best relationship. So what is the next Canadian leader going to have to deal with?

Jackie Northam: It's never been an easy relationship between the two leaders. And since the presidential election, Trump has been needling Trudeau, suggesting Canada become the 51st state and calling Trudeau a governor rather than a prime minister. And more importantly, Trump is threatening to impose 25% tariffs on many Canadian products. Now, Trudeau will still have to deal with Trump as he's staying on as prime minister until the Liberal Party chooses a new leader. But it's quite likely that Trump will be dealing with someone from the Conservative Party after that.

Michelle Martin: That is NPR's Jackie Northam. Jackie, thank you.

Jackie Northam: Thank you.

Michelle Martin: The number of people being held at the U.S. military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been cut nearly in half. That's after the Biden administration transferred 11 detainees to Oman yesterday. It's part of Joe Biden's final push to try and close the detention facility before leaving office. NPR's Sasha Pfeiffer has been covering Guantanamo for years, and she's with us now to tell us more about it.

Sasha Pfeiffer: Good morning, Michelle.

Michelle Martin: Good morning, Sasha. Who are these 11 people?

Sasha Pfeiffer: All of them are men. All are from Yemen. All were captured after the 9-11 attacks. And all are former al-Qaeda, according to the Pentagon. All had also been held for more than two decades without charge or trial. Now, eventually they were approved for transfer after national security officials said they weren't dangerous enough to keep holding. And they had been approved for transfer for at least two years, sometimes much longer, once since 2010. But they had stayed behind bars due to diplomatic and political challenges like resistance to releasing them. And the really difficult, slow process of finding countries to take them. The problem is they could not go back to their home country of Yemen because it's unstable. So the U.S. had to negotiate with another country to take them. Finally, Oman agreed to do that. It says it will give them jobs, housing, other supports. Some of them will be monitored for security reasons and also face travel restrictions. And for Guantanamo, the end result is just 15 prisoners are held there now.

Michelle Martin: You know, Democrats have been trying to close this facility for years. And the Biden administration had four years to do this. Tell us about this last-minute flurry of transfers weeks before leaving office. How did this all come together?

Sasha Pfeiffer: It really has been a flurry. You know, in recent weeks, four other Guantanamo prisoners were released. We know of at least one more transfer in the works. This is partly Biden racing to fulfill his goal of closing Guantanamo. A less charitable view is that it would have taken more political courage to do this when he was not a lame duck. But now that he's on his way out, it's easier to do hard and controversial things. I do want to note that yesterday's 11 prisoner transfer almost happened in October 2023, but it was called off after the October 7th Hamas attack because some members of Congress were worried about Mideast stability. So finally, in these final weeks, that plan got resurrected. It's also motivated by Trump returning. Trump has said he wants to keep Guantanamo open. So the assumption is that once Trump is back in the White House, there may be no more Guantanamo transfers under him. And Michelle, at some level, it's also Biden acknowledging that Guantanamo has been a failed legal system. As you know, there's still been no 9-11 trial more than two decades after the September 11th, 2001 attacks. There's worldwide criticism of Guantanamo as a human rights embarrassment because of the unlawful detention happening there. It's also really expensive, $15 million per year per prisoner. That is way more than a federal supermax.

Michelle Martin: Well, as you've been reporting for all this time, a very complicated kind of moral, political, and legal issue. So what's been the reaction to this?

Sasha Pfeiffer: It tends to be predictable along party lines. Republicans claim this is like releasing terrorists. Democrats say this should have happened a long time ago. It's a moral stain on America, they say. This is complicated by the new fresh upheaval in the Middle East, because there's some concern these men could end up back on a battlefield somewhere. But remember, national security officials have made the decision these men no longer pose a significant threat.

Michelle Martin: I got a more hybrid or nuanced view from Scott Rehm of the Center for Victims of Torture. He's glad the men were released, but he says it could and should have happened sooner. And he says because it didn't happen sooner, time is now running out on transferring others before Trump comes into office. Releasing this many men in just a few weeks makes clear what could have been done over the rest of the last four years had the administration acted then with the same urgency and commitment that it's acting now.

Sasha Pfeiffer: Before we let you go, could you remind us of the history of the Guantanamo prison and how many people have been held there over the years?

Sasha Pfeiffer: The prison and the military court were set up to prosecute suspected foreign terrorists after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The first prisoners arrived in January 2002. Over the years, a little under 800 people have passed through there. Most were never charged yet held for years. The majority were eventually repatriated to their home countries or resettled in other countries. There are now 15 left, all of them racing the clock as Trump is about to get into office.

Michelle Martin: That is NPR's Sasha Pfeiffer. Sasha, thank you.

Sasha Pfeiffer: Thank you.

Michelle Martin: The Minneapolis City Council has voted unanimously to enter an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to reform the city's police department. The consent decree is intended to address decades of discriminatory policing. Nearly five years ago, George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, which sparked protests around the country and around the world. Minnesota Public Radio Estelle Timar Wilcox is with us now to talk about the agreement and what it proposes to do.

Estelle Timar Wilcox: Good morning, Michelle.

Michelle Martin: Good morning, Estelle. So the Justice Department began its scrutiny of the Minneapolis Police Department just after George Floyd was killed. What did they find that led to this consent decree?

Estelle Timar Wilcox: They found a pattern of racial discrimination and excessive use of force, particularly against Black and Native American people. They also noted inappropriate responses when people were experiencing a behavioral health crisis. City officials have been in talks with the Department of Justice since then to try to reach this consent agreement. And the state at the same time reached a separate settlement with the city about a year ago, also mandating several reforms, which the department is now working towards.

Michelle Martin: Yeah, the mayor, Jacob Fry, said the agreement set a clear path forward for police in the community. What's in it?

Estelle Timar Wilcox: The department will have to draft a new use of force policy. It bans chokeholds and neck restraints and limits the use of pepper spray. One of the big concerns centered around investigations into a complaint against an officer, those will now continue even if an officer quits or retires. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark called the settlement a critical step for constitutional policing. George Floyd's death was not just a tragedy. It was a galvanizing force for the city and for the nation. All eyes remain on Minneapolis. And with this consent decree, we now have a roadmap for reform that will help this community heal while strengthening trust between law enforcement and the people they serve.

Michelle Martin: You know, I want to mention here that this agreement is the 16th policing settlement that the Justice Department is currently enforcing. That's according to the Assistant Attorney General, Kristen Clark. Do these agreements work?

Estelle Timar Wilcox: Clark says they do, and she noted success stories in other cities that have consent decrees, like Seattle, which she said drastically reduced the use of force, and New Orleans, which reached its lowest rate of critical incidents in 2023. And here in Minneapolis, lots of police accountability activists were actually pushing for a consent decree. Michelle Gross was one of them. We have to have this agreement. Even if it isn't ideal, even if it isn't perfect, we need this agreement to go forward.

Michelle Martin: Even so, activists say it's not an end-all solution to police brutality. And the city council, as you were noting, voted unanimously to enact this consent decree. And what happens now?

Estelle Timar Wilcox: Well, once a federal judge signs it, it'll go into effect. And advocates are hoping that will happen before Donald Trump's inauguration, because Trump's last administration opposed using consent decrees. Once it's enacted, a federal judge and an independent monitor will oversee progress on it. And it'll stay in effect until the federal courts decide that all the conditions have been met, which could be years from now.

Michelle Martin: That is Minnesota Public Radio's Estelle Timar Wilcox. Estelle, thank you so much for joining us.

Estelle Timar Wilcox: You're welcome.

Michelle Martin: And that's Up First for Tuesday, January 7th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Amy Martinez. Remember, you can listen to this podcast sponsor-free while financially supporting public media with Up First Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

Amy Martinez: And that's a wrap for today. Thanks for listening.

Michelle Martin: Thanks for listening.

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