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--:-- Michelle Martin: President Trump is headed to Texas today to meet with families affected by the floods. We're grateful for the support he's given us, along with other organizations. Hundreds of volunteers have also shown up to help with the relief effort there.
--:-- A. Martinez: That's right, Michelle. I'm A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The cozy relationship between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin may be coming to an end. Trump's been increasingly critical of Putin recently. He publicly criticized Russia's conduct in the war with Ukraine and social media and lobbed some personal attacks at Putin. So what changed?
--:-- A. Martinez: So what changed? And an NPR investigation discovered that a single DOGE staffer at the Department of Agriculture has the power to control government loans and payments to American farmers. Stay with us. We've got all 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. But when you're looking for help about relationships, anxiety, depression, or other clinical issues, they may not have all the right answers. Instead, get guidance from a licensed therapist online with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.
--:-- A. Martinez: This message comes from Lisa. Lisa mattresses are meticulously designed and assembled in the USA for exceptional quality, and each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. Plus, they back it all up with free shipping, easy returns, and a 100-night sleep trial. Visit lisa.com for 25% off mattresses, plus get an extra $50 off with promo code NPR. That's L-E-E-S-A dot com, promo code NPR.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase.
--:-- A. Martinez: It was just about this time, exactly one week ago, that the magnitude of the flooding in Central Texas began to come into focus. At least 120 people have died, and more than 170 others are listed as missing. President Trump is heading to Kerr County, Texas today to see some of the worst damage firsthand.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR's Frank Morris has been in Kerr County. Frank, what will the president be seeing and doing during his visit today? He's going to have a pretty busy afternoon here, eh?
--:-- Frank Morris: He'll be meeting with first responders who've been working nonstop for a week. Also get a briefing from local elected officials, then hold a roundtable discussion. And President Trump's also planning to meet with family members who are directly affected by this terrible flood.
--:-- A. Martinez: What do the people who live around there think about the president's visit?
--:-- Frank Morris: You know, I think most people directly affected by the flood have been too busy to really think about it. In Hunt, where some of the worst damage is, lots of people don't have internet. They do have a ton of immediate pressing problems.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The government response has been forceful. FEMA's in town, though the agency's acting director, David Richardson, has been absent. The secretary of Homeland Security's been here, with other federal responders.
--:-- Frank Morris: The main road along the Guadalupe River is just chock-a-block with police and fire personnel, Texas game wardens and others.
--:-- A. Martinez: Adi Fell, who lives in Hunt, says she's delighted that Trump is coming. You know, we're grateful. We're grateful for the support he's given us, you know, along with other organizations, the governor.
--:-- Frank Morris: I feel like from what I've seen just being here, they've done an excellent job with response and help. Of course, there have been some complaints from residents who feel the response has been spotty That pretty common after these disasters It easy for a victim to feel ignored if they don't personally see a first responder.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Still though it is a major relief effort happening there. So people whose homes are damaged, how are they faring?
--:-- Frank Morris: Well, you know, they're getting by with lots and lots of volunteers. I'm talking about hundreds of people making food, teams of volunteers searching for victims still, volunteers cutting trees, volunteers operating shovels, and volunteers running heavy equipment.
--:-- A. Martinez: Bryce Flowers from Kerrville has been out here in the heat running his skid steer loader for 10 hours a day since the flooding, scooping up debris from people's homes.
--:-- Frank Morris: He says that hundreds of people from all over Texas and several other states are working just as hard. We've got groups that have made contact with us that we don't even know who they are. They've been down here for three or four days. We still haven't even seen their faces. We've just communicated and directed them to the spot that needs the most help, and they've just jumped right in and gone.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So it's a huge, huge thing for people to come together, not just from our community, but from those around us. And of course, it's a huge, huge job ahead of them too. The destruction along miles and miles of the Guadalupe river is just breathtaking.
--:-- Frank Morris: And for a lot of those people, I mean, they're right there in the front lines trying to clean things up and doing their best to search for bodies. I mean, the psychological toll for them also has to be pretty enormous.
--:-- A. Martinez: Oh, absolutely. Volunteers are out there looking for bodies. Sometimes they find one and they're not in good shape. I saw a community leader yesterday break down just looking at the river. You see people shoveling out houses with tears in their eyes.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And all the deaths, at least 36 children, primarily little girls, washed away from Camp Mystic, that hits people.
--:-- Frank Morris: Alicia Strader is eight months pregnant with a girl. And Strader says she and her husband have been in a kind of limbo. We've been having a really hard week, you know, kind of coming to terms with hearing the little girls' names and then trying to be excited, too, about, you know, having a baby next month.
--:-- A. Martinez: She says it's been really heavy for them. And, of course, the psychological damage from a catastrophe like this can just linger on for years.
--:-- Michelle Martin: NPR's Frank Morris in Central Texas. Frank, thanks.
--:-- Frank Morris: You bet, eh?
--:-- Michelle Martin: From his first presidential campaign until today, President Trump has been more closely tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin than any other foreign leader. But Trump has been sharply critical of Putin in recent days. Has the relationship of the two leaders, some people have called it a bromance, now turned cold?
--:-- A. Martinez: For more, we're joined by NPR national security correspondent Greg Myrie. So Greg, what do you make the president's shift in tone toward Vladimir Putin?
--:-- Greg Myrie: Trump's relationship with Putin has clearly gone downhill since Trump came into office six months ago and has tried to do business with the Russian leader. Trump proposed a ceasefire in Ukraine. Ukraine agreed. But Putin keeps setting all sorts of conditions and has ratcheted up airstrikes on Ukraine to the highest level ever.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Trump went from complimenting Putin to pleading with him on social media about the airstrikes. He wrote at one point, Vladimir, stop. And now Trump has moved on to harsh criticism this week, using some salty language about Putin and saying he's very nice to us all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.
--:-- Greg Myrie: Yeah, but what does that mean then? I mean, is Trump going to start taking some concrete steps against Russia in support of Ukraine?
--:-- A. Martinez: Well, Trump hasn't committed to substantive actions, and he's always prone to changing his mind. He says he's considering sanctions. And in the Senate, Republican Lindsey Graham says he has more than 80 co-sponsors to sanction Russian oil sales.
--:-- Greg Myrie: But what's more critical is the U.S. weapons pipeline to Ukraine which is running low The Pentagon appeared to be pausing weapons shipments to Ukraine last week but then Trump said there was no pause Here what he said earlier this week about Ukraine They have to be able to defend themselves. They're getting hit very hard now. They're getting hit very hard. We're going to have to send more weapons, defensive weapons, primarily.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So Trump hasn't provided specifics, though NBC News says it spoke with the president by phone on Thursday and that he plans to sell U.S. weapons to NATO countries, which would then give them to Ukraine.
--:-- Greg Myrie: This Trump-Putin relationship goes back a number of years. Can you take us through the history a little bit?
--:-- A. Martinez: Yeah, many people, of course, recall the controversy surrounding the 2016 presidential election and Trump's largely friendly relations with Putin during his first term. I actually go back to the late 1990s when I was based in Moscow and thinking about both of these men.
--:-- Greg Myrie: There was periodic talk of Trump building a Trump Tower in Moscow, though that never happened. And Putin, meanwhile, became the Russian prime minister in 1999 and very shortly afterward launched a war in Chechnya.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So Putin and Trump weren't linked to each other then, but those developments a quarter century ago do seem relevant today.
--:-- Greg Myrie: Well, Trump then and now was looking to make a high profile deal with leaders in Russia, and he's seen Putin as a leader that will eventually come around and accept his offer, in this case, a ceasefire deal. And Putin, meanwhile, remains fully committed to a military objective, taking Chechnya then and taking Ukraine now.
--:-- A. Martinez: There's a strong perception that Putin has been stringing Trump along, pushing him as hard as he can in Ukraine and waiting to see if Trump will push back.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So, Greg, if the Trump-Putin relationship has indeed soured, then what can we say about Trump's relationship with Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelensky?
--:-- Greg Myrie: Well, that relationship has stabilized, at least for now, over the course of recent meetings and phone calls. In his first term, Trump didn't get along with Zelensky. Trump's first impeachment was linked to withholding military aid to Ukraine.
--:-- A. Martinez: And of course, Trump basically kicked Zelensky out of the White House back in February after an argument over how to handle the war in Ukraine.
--:-- Greg Myrie: Now, Trump's criticism, at least this week, is directed at Putin, not Zelensky. I want to stress this is a change in tone for now. We'll have to see if it plays out as a change in policy.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That is NPR's Greg Myrie. Greg, thank you.
--:-- Greg Myrie: Sure thing, eh?
--:-- Michelle Martin: The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is still hard at work burrowing into U.S. federal agencies despite the departure of Elon Musk. At the Department of Agriculture, one DOGE staffer recently got a lot of power. He can now review and cancel tens of billions of dollars in government payments and loans for American farmers and ranchers. That's a group that makes up a big chunk of President Trump's political base.
--:-- A. Martinez: NPR's Jenna McLaughlin has the exclusive reporting. So Jenna, tell us a little bit more about what you found about what DOGE is up to.
--:-- Jenna McLaughlin: Sure, A. So NPR has a team covering government restructuring, and we've been tracking DOGE since February. After seeing some of our other reporting, a source at the U.S. Department of Agriculture reached out to me. They told me that Jordan Wick, who's a young software engineer, he used to work for the self-driving car company Waymo, he got high-level access to this government system that controls billions of dollars in subsidies and loans for millions of U.S. farmers and ranchers.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Where does that government system live?
--:-- Jenna McLaughlin: So it's at a part of the USDA called the Farm Service Agency. Think of it kind of like the agency's bank. They do loans, but they also dole out money for disaster relief, like if there's a big storm or during the COVID-19 pandemic. Basically, it's a lot of sensitive data, and that's part of why the source asked to be anonymous.
--:-- A. Martinez: Okay, now you found out that Jordan Wick is in that system. So what can he do with all that access?
--:-- Jenna McLaughlin: Turns out a lot. He can see all the sensitive personal and financial data, but he can also write onto the system. That means he can change information. He can basically cancel loans if he wants. That's in line with a memo that went out to USDA staffers announcing that DOGE would be reviewing a big chunk of loans to farmers. Basically, it's a really powerful level of access.
--:-- Michelle Martin: My source says no other individual at USDA has it. It goes against access control policies for employees. That same level of access for DOGE at agencies like Social Security and the Treasury Department, it's been challenged in the courts a couple times.
--:-- A. Martinez: A USDA spokesperson confirmed to us that Wick and others on the so-called efficiency team are now full-time USDA employees. The spokesperson continued to say that they're working to fulfill President Trump's executive order to find fraud. Canceling loans, is DOGE really doing that or messing with this database?
--:-- Jenna McLaughlin: It's a really hard question to answer, but not yet. I spoke to Scott Marlowe. He used to run FSA programs under President Biden. He said that unless the farmers are keeping a very close eye on their files with USDA, it might actually be really hard to figure out what went wrong or why they aren't being paid.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Actually, some payments are seasonal, so they aren't even issued very often. Meanwhile, the source says there aren't really any safeguards or controls that would keep track of what Wick and DOGE are up to in the system.
--:-- A. Martinez: Wow, that could sound problematic.
--:-- Jenna McLaughlin: Jenna, do we know how farmers and ranchers are feeling about all this?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Honestly, it's a tough time to be a farmer in general. There's tariffs, cuts to government programs, ongoing climate-related disasters, and so much more. But specifically related to some of this news, I spoke to Zach Duchesnel. He's the former head of the FSA under President Biden. He's also a rancher from South Dakota. His family has had a ranch on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation for decades.
--:-- A. Martinez: He summed it up pretty succinctly. The challenge that our producers are facing is uncertainty.
--:-- Jenna McLaughlin: He tells me that having inexperienced people come in and hold up or threaten farmers' loans, that only adds to the uncertainty and could disrupt entire growing seasons or wipe out small farms.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That's NPR's Jenna McLaughlin. Jenna, thank you.
--:-- Jenna McLaughlin: Thanks, Dave.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And that's a first for Friday, July 11th. I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- A. Martinez: And I'm A. Martinez.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The Trump administration is pushing to bring manufacturing back to America. But what happens when one multinational company actually tries to set up shop in small town USA? Nobody in their right mind ever thought that it would get this bad.
--:-- A. Martinez: This week on Up First, how a battery factory ignited a political firestorm and what happens when the global economy meets small town democracy. Tune in to the Sunday story right here in the Up First podcast.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Russell Lewis, Andrew Sussman, Jenea Williams, and Adriana Gallardo. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. Our technical director is Zach Coleman, and our executive producer is Jay Shaler.
--:-- A. Martinez: Have a great weekend.
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--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from NPR sponsor, Capella University. Interested in a quality online education? Capella is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu.
--:-- A. Martinez: This message comes from the Nature Conservancy. Nature is common ground for everyone, and uniting to protect nature can help solve today's challenges and create a thriving tomorrow for future generations. Discover why at nature.org slash npr.
--:-- Michelle Martin: This message comes from Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash bank for details. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC.
