--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Good morning, I'm Steve Inskeep.
Michelle Martin: And I'm Michelle Martin. This is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The Trump administration offered millions of federal employees an opportunity to resign. The administration offered the equivalent of several months' pay.
--:-- Michelle Martin: How are courts answering another administration move to pause federal spending?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Michelle Martin, that's Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Confirmation hearings begin today for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He is President Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What are senators thinking about his views of medicine and vaccines?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Also, the nation's report card is out, which shows how American students are doing in math and reading five years after the start of the pandemic.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: These results are sobering. They're not where we need to be or where we want to be at this point.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from BetterHelp. It's only human to ask others for advice, like turning to your barista, hairdresser, or a taxi driver for life advice.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But when you're looking for help about relationships, anxiety, depression, or other clinical issues, they may not have all the right answers.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Instead, get guidance from a licensed therapist online with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: This message comes from Doctors Without Borders. People are living through a moment defined by unrelenting crises and need.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Civilians are caught in the crossfire of violence and war. Malnutrition threatens the lives of children.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Communities depend on life-saving humanitarian aid. Doctors Without Borders is meeting this moment of overwhelming need with action.
--:-- Michelle Martin: But they can't do it alone. Help provide life-saving care around the world. Learn how to donate today at doctorswithoutborders.org slash NPR.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: This message comes from Mint Mobile. If you're tired of spending hundreds on big wireless bills, bogus fees, and free perks.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Mint Mobile might be right for you with plans starting from $15 a month.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Shop plans today at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for a three-month 5-gigabyte plan required.
--:-- Michelle Martin: New customer offer for first three months only. Then full-price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Two actions this week show the scope of President Trump's bid to reshape the federal government.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The president issued a sweeping order to pause trillions of dollars in payments.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Just as that was supposed to go into effect, a federal judge temporarily blocked it.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And the administration added another proposal offering millions of federal employees a chance to quit.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: In a moment, we'll hear from a former top budget official in the George W. Bush administration.
--:-- Michelle Martin: First, NPR White House correspondent Esma Hollett is here to talk about it all.
--:-- Esma Hollett: Good morning, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Good morning, Esma. OK, so the memo was going out to workers last night, I heard. What exactly is the federal government offering its employees?
--:-- Esma Hollett: The administration says it's giving employees the option to resign, be put on leave and continue to be paid through September.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It's a big move with the goal to shrink the government.
--:-- Esma Hollett: The union that represents many federal workers described this effort as a purge of dedicated civil servants, and it does not consider the move voluntary.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Under this new Trump administration, people in the federal workforce feel like they are being seen as the enemy in a way that they have never been viewed by prior administrations, either Republican or Democrat.
--:-- Esma Hollett: And Steve, you know, being a government worker was once seen as a steady, secure job.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But right now, federal workers feel like their jobs are very precarious.
--:-- Esma Hollett: And that is indeed the intention.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Trump wants government workers in line with his vision.
--:-- Esma Hollett: He campaigned on remaking federal government. He campaigned on reshaping government as a whole.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: He telegraphed a lot of his decisions, and now he is following through just perhaps more swiftly than expected.
--:-- Esma Hollett: Now, this email to federal workers, I guess it'll be played out. Maybe it'll go to court.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We'll find out what happens in the hours and days to come.
--:-- Esma Hollett: But then there this other memo pausing payments trillions of dollars worth of payments it said yesterday.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What exactly was the federal government trying to do with that?
--:-- Esma Hollett: It was a memo Steve that sparked utter chaos and confusion when it was issued by the Office of Management and Budget.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It called for a temporary freeze in federal funds, grants, loans, other forms of assistance.
--:-- Esma Hollett: It was a sweeping directive with little clarity.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And Trump's press secretary, Caroline Levitt, spent a bulk of the White House press briefing yesterday defending the freeze.
--:-- Esma Hollett: And the reason for this is to ensure that every penny that is going out the door is not conflicting with the executive orders and actions that this president has taken.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What she's referring to there are programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as climate and just general overspending.
--:-- Esma Hollett: But the memo was so broad that it was not clear what programs would be affected.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The White House clarified that direct services like Medicaid, Social Security and food stamps would not be impacted.
--:-- Esma Hollett: But also did not articulate if financial assistance that comes through nonprofits.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You know, think, for example, of food banks, whether those might be affected.
--:-- Esma Hollett: What was the response to all of this?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, Democrats raised alarm bells and accused Trump of violating the Constitution.
--:-- Esma Hollett: Nonprofits expressed concern about cuts to services they provide.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Diane Yentl is the CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, which represents a network of some 33,000 nonprofits.
--:-- Esma Hollett: She says this freeze could lead to catastrophic consequences.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We're talking about potentially shutting down shelters for survivors of domestic violence or shelters for people experiencing homelessness.
--:-- Esma Hollett: And so she was amongst a group that filed a legal challenge over Trump's move.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And just as this directive was about to go into effect at 5 p.m. yesterday, a federal judge intervened.
--:-- Esma Hollett: The charge being here that Congress, not the president, set spending.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So what's the ruling mean?
--:-- Esma Hollett: You know, it just allows sort of a bit of breathing room, at least until Monday.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That is when a follow-up hearing is planned with more fulsome arguments on the merits of the case.
--:-- Esma Hollett: Steve, I will say the courts seem to be really the arena where the fights around Trump's changes will play out.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You know, for example, you're also seeing legal challenges to the birthright citizenship executive order as well.
--:-- Esma Hollett: NPR, White House correspondent Asma Khaled, thanks so much. Good to speak with you.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now, reporters are putting questions to the administration today about another story that emerged overnight.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The Pentagon is moving to remove the security detail for retired Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley, who is under threat from Iran.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The military is also revoking Milley's security clearance.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And the defense secretary is directing the Pentagon's inspector general to conduct an inquiry into General Milley's conduct that could lead to a reduction in rank.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That is one of the first actions under Trump's newly confirmed Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
--:-- Michelle Martin: General Milley repeatedly criticized Trump and also worked behind the scenes to ensure a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election or as peaceful as possible.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Former President Biden issued a preemptive pardon of Milley before leaving office.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Today, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. takes questions from senators about his bid to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It is a consequential job.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It oversees all of America's health agencies, including Medicare, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and more.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It has an annual budget of $1.7 trillion, which is about the size of Australia's GDP.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And Kennedy has offered a lot of opinions on health over the years.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: NPR's Selena Simmons Duffin is here.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: Good morning.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, so what has Kennedy said and done that lawmakers may have questions about?
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: Well, first of all, he spent decades as an anti-vaccine activist leading a group called Children's Health Defense, and he believes a thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I am sure we'll hear a lot about that since this job has broad powers over federal vaccine policy.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: He has made millions of dollars over the years suing vaccine makers, and he could profit off of lawsuits against Merck while in this job that regulates drug makers.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: He also denies that HIV causes AIDS That is an established scientific fact
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: And he frequently compared COVID public health measures to Hitler Germany
--:-- Steve Inskeep: In this role he would be in charge of the response if there another pandemic crisis.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: So there is just so much to talk about.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It's really hard to predict how the hearing will play out, but it will definitely be interesting.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: What is the case that a supporter is making for RFK Jr. in this role?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: They portray him as a changemaker who will direct scientific research towards the root causes of chronic diseases.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: He's talked a lot about the importance of healthy food and getting additives out of the food supply.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I reached a White House spokesperson last week who told me Kennedy has met with more than 60 senators and he's prepared and excited for this process.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: And I guess we should note here and there there's been a Democrat who said, listen, I agree with Kennedy about this one thing here and there, but then there are efforts to block his confirmation because of all those other opinions you just mentioned.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What's going on?
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: Yeah, so this is definitely a strange bedfellows situation.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You have Protect Our Care, which is a left-leaning advocacy organization running ads targeting Republican senators, saying he's an anti-vaccine extremist.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: They point to an incident in Samoa, which is a Pacific island that Kennedy visited in 2019, just before a measles outbreak that killed 83 people.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Thousands of doctors have been speaking out, saying infectious diseases like measles, also polio, meningitis could make a comeback if the federal government stops supporting routine vaccinations.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: And then you have Kennedy detractors on the right as well.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Oh, that's interesting because so many people on the right have felt they need to support everything the president does.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: Who's resisting?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, former Vice President Mike Pence objects to the fact that Kennedy has been supportive of abortion rights.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: Now Kennedy says he'll go along with Trump's opposition to abortion rights, but Pence does not buy that.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And his group, Advancing American Freedom, has been running its own ads against Kennedy.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: Also this week, two conservative media outlets, the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, ran editorials against his confirmation.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm beginning to wonder, Selena, if just one confirmation hearing is going to be sufficient for all the questions that senators have.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: Well, actually, he has two. So today is the hearing in the Senate Finance Committee, and tomorrow is the hearing in the Help Committee.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The Finance Committee will actually vote on his nomination, and after that, it will be voted on by the full Senate.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: Okay. Help Committee. Health, Education, Labor. What's the P?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Do we know the P?
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: Pensions. Oh, pensions.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: NPR's Selena Simmons-Depin, thanks so much.
--:-- Selena Simmons Duffin: Okay. Thank you.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Every two years, we get a rare glimpse of how the nation's students are doing in math and reading.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It comes from the nation's report card, that's what it's called.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The latest results are out today and have a lot to say nearly five years after the pandemic first closed schools.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR's Corey Turner has been looking at the data.
--:-- Corey Turner: Good morning, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, so how are our students doing?
--:-- Corey Turner: Well, this is not the report card we were hoping for.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: These results come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. which was created by Congress.
--:-- Corey Turner: It's been around for decades. Every other year, the country tests a sample of fourth and eighth graders, and we're talking reading and math.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And the last time we got results in 2022, they showed steep learning losses from the pandemic.
--:-- Corey Turner: So the hope was when students took these tests again in 2024, we might see them doing better.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, here's Peggy Carr. She is commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics.
--:-- Corey Turner: These results are sobering. We're not where we need to be or where we want to be at this point.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now, Steve, as bleak as that sounds, I actually want to start with one glimmer of hope in those sobering results.
--:-- Corey Turner: Fourth graders who took the math test in 2024 actually did a little better than the fourth graders who took it in 2022.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And that's really important because it ends a pandemic slide in fourth grade.
--:-- Corey Turner: Okay. So that bit of good news amid some not so good news, I guess.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yeah, a lot of not so good news.
--:-- Corey Turner: Because even in fourth grade math, kids still aren't back to the scores we saw before the pandemic
--:-- Steve Inskeep: In fact when you break the data down in only one state Steve Alabama are fourth graders doing better in math than fourth graders were doing before the pandemic One state
--:-- Corey Turner: And in eighth grade, there's a really worrying achievement gap that's been widening between top and lower performers.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, this is disturbing at a time when education is so closely linked to people's success later in life.
--:-- Corey Turner: How are kids doing in reading?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, that may be the toughest news of all.
--:-- Corey Turner: In fourth and eighth grade, both reading scores continued to fall from 2022 to 2024.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And keep in mind, they'd already been falling from 2019 to 2022.
--:-- Corey Turner: The lowest performers in reading are actually scoring worse now than the lowest performers who took the test 30 years ago.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And remember how I said only one state had surpassed its pre-pandemic math scores?
--:-- Corey Turner: Well, it is the same in reading. In only one state are fourth graders doing better than they were in 2019, and that is Louisiana.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What happened to all the money that the federal government spent since the peak of the pandemic to try to make up for some of the pandemic educational losses?
--:-- Corey Turner: Yeah, so $190 billion. That is a lot of money.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You're right. But several researchers told me, look, that money helped, just not enough.
--:-- Corey Turner: And part of the reason why is because Congress sent most of it directly to districts.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: They had a lot of freedom in spending it, And they were only required to spend a small fraction of it on learning loss.
--:-- Corey Turner: I also want to say, though, these declines in math and reading, Steve, when you look big picture, they were made worse by the pandemic.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But they actually started before COVID, around a decade ago.
--:-- Corey Turner: And researchers told me understanding why is going to be key to getting kids back on track.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: This big report card, it's great for understanding where kids are struggling, but not why or what we can do about it.
--:-- Corey Turner: I really appreciate that insight that this slide would have started before the pandemic, something bigger going on.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Corey, thanks so much.
--:-- Corey Turner: You're welcome, Steve.
--:-- [Music transitions to the end of the show]
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's NPR's Corey Turner.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And that's it for this Wednesday, January 29th.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Remember, you can listen to this podcast sponsor-free while financially supporting public media with Up First Plus.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Learn more at plus.npr.org.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's plus.npr.org.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Today's Up First was edited by Dana Farrington, Diane Weber, Nicole Cohen, Jenea Williams, and Alice Wolfley.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, Claire Murashima, and Chris Thomas.
--:-- Michelle Martin: We get engineering support from Nisha Hines, and our technical director is Carly Strange.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Join us tomorrow.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from NetSuite.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What does the future hold for business?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Can someone invent a crystal ball?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Until then, over 42,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one AI cloud ERP.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash story.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: This message comes from Lisa.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Lisa mattresses are meticulously designed and assembled in the USA for exceptional quality.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's Lifetime Membership to 25 different languages for 50% off.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Learn more at rosettastone.com slash NPR.
