--:-- [Up First theme music plays]
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Welcome to Up First. I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- A Martinez: And I'm A Martinez.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: President Trump was on the verge of losing a vote over the Epstein files. Then he flipped to say he favors the vote to release information about the convicted sex offender. He didn't say the Justice Department will release the files, so why the flip-flop?
--:-- A Martinez: That's a good question. I'm Steve Inskeep with A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The U.S. military presence in the Caribbean got much larger over the weekend. We may be having some discussions with Maduro. The president says Venezuela's president would like to talk, even as the U.S. sends its largest warships toward its coast.
--:-- A Martinez: And border agents spread across Charlotte, North Carolina this weekend. Residents say they were picking people at random. You really need to go outside for an emergency. If you try to stay, just stay home. Be safe.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The raids caught local officials off guard. We'll hear how the community is responding. Stay with us.
--:-- [Up First theme music continues]
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: President Trump abruptly reversed his opinion about a vote on the Epstein files. Trump now says he is in favor of a vote to release information about the convicted sex offender who was his friend for years.
--:-- A Martinez: The president and his allies in Congress resisted this vote for months. It now seems that many Republicans will join Democrats in voting against the president, so last night the president raced to get in front of that defeat, saying he approves of the vote and, quote, we have nothing to hide.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Notably, the House is voting for the Justice Department that Trump controls to release whatever information it has, which Trump's attorney general previously declined to do.
--:-- A Martinez: NPR's Luke Garrett is with us.
--:-- Luke Garrett: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Trump is now telling Republicans they should vote to tell him to act, Luke, while he changed now. And we need to go back a few days to better understand this move and this moment.
--:-- Luke Garrett: Yeah, that's right. Last week, Representatives Thomas Massey of Kentucky, a Republican, and Ro Khanna of California, a Democrat, gathered 218 signatures. That's enough to force a vote on the release of the DOJ documents regarding the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And a source familiar but not authorized to share the House schedule publicly confirmed that Speaker Johnson would bring this vote up on Tuesday.
--:-- Luke Garrett: This teed up a really difficult vote for Republicans who had to decide whether to vote with Trump and against the bill or vote to release the Epstein files. And this was also tough for Trump himself, who faced dozens of potential defectors.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So if the vote is on Tuesday, why did Trump make this Sunday late-night announcement?
--:-- Luke Garrett: Well, in a social media post last night Trump said he wanted the GOP to move on from what he called the Democratic hoax and distraction.
--:-- A Martinez: And notably on the Sunday morning news shows two House Republicans publicly and loudly rebuked Trump over the Epstein files.
--:-- Luke Garrett: On ABC News, Massey took a warning shot against Trump's legacy and any GOP member willing to vote against this bill. In 2030, he's not going to be the president and you will have voted to protect pedophiles if you don't vote to release these files and the president can't protect you.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Massey then said he believed 100 or more House Republicans would vote for the Epstein file bill, even though only a handful signed on to force the ballot.
--:-- Luke Garrett: Yeah, that's right. And Trump recently called her a traitor and revoked his political endorsement from her after she became more critical of his policies.
--:-- A Martinez: When asked why she and Trump had this falling out, Greene told CNN. Unfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files, and that is shocking.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now, both Massey and Greene said they don't believe Trump himself will be implicated in the files.
--:-- Luke Garrett: But these public breaks with the president represented a growing and powerful fissure in the party.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So now that Trump is telling all Republicans to vote for the Epstein file bill, what happens now?
--:-- Luke Garrett: Well, my sources say the House vote is still set for Tuesday. And with Trump giving Republicans permission to support it and every Democrat signing the discharge petition, this bill has a really good chance of advancing.
--:-- A Martinez: In the Senate, it remains unclear if and when Majority Leader John Thune will bring this up for a vote.
--:-- Luke Garrett: But again, Trump's endorsement of the bill does not hurt. And Thune has said in the last few weeks he likes this idea of greater transparency.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But even if it passes through Congress and the White House, lawmakers Massey and Kanna were warning yesterday that the files might still be kept from the public.
--:-- Luke Garrett: So after all that, how could that be possible? Well, Massey and Kanna raised alarm over the new Justice Department investigation into the Epstein case, something it declined to do a few months back.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Trump referenced this in his post last night. He said his DOJ is, quote, looking at various Democrat operatives, Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, etc., and their relationships to Epstein, end quote.
--:-- Luke Garrett: Massey told ABC News that these investigations could mask the documents further. If they have ongoing investigations in certain areas, those documents can't be released.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So this might be a big smokescreen.
--:-- Luke Garrett: The Justice Department has not yet responded to my request for comment on whether an investigation would in fact bar them from releasing these documents, even if a law told them to do so.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's NPR's Luke Garrett. Luke, thanks a lot.
--:-- Luke Garrett: You bet.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The Trump administration is putting more pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Over the weekend, the U.S.'s most advanced aircraft carrier arrived in the Caribbean, joining nearly a dozen other naval warships that are already there.
--:-- A Martinez: The president has been weighing military options against Venezuela, and he told reporters last night that Maduro appears ready to talk.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we'll see how that turns out. They would like to talk.
--:-- A Martinez: The U.S. has been blowing up small boats, leaving Venezuela and other South American countries claiming they are transporting drugs.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The open question is what else the U.S. means to do.
--:-- A Martinez: For more, we go to NPR's Kerry Kahn, who is in Bogotá, Colombia.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So, Kerry, what has Maduro said about the buildup off the coast of Venezuela?
--:-- Kerry Kahn: Over the weekend, he gathered supporters and he announced this plan to rally civilians to defend Venezuela against attack. But listen to this. He told the crowd he just wants peace, peace, peace. Peace, peace, peace. Hacer todo por la paz. Everything for peace, he says, like the John Lennon song, Imagine, which he then began to sing in English.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yesterday the U.S. said it will designate the Cartel de los Soles which they claim Maduro leads as a foreign terrorist organization Maduro denies he's a trafficker.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: That designation would allow the U.S. military to target Maduro's assets in Venezuela.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So what are people in Venezuela saying about any imminent U.S. strike?
--:-- Kerry Kahn: Well, the thing is, I can't get into the country. We've been asking for a visa for months, and I'm waiting here in neighboring Colombia with our latest ask.
--:-- A Martinez: The country's opposition leader, though, Maria Corina Machado, she put out quite an interesting message yesterday urging Maduro's security apparatus to defy his orders.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: She says, lower your arms, don't attack your people. She says the decisive hour in Venezuela's liberation is coming, and she urged people to be heroes.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Machado has been living in hiding since last year's elections that were widely condemned, and many, including the USA, were stolen by Maduro.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: But there's a lot of talk now that she actually left the country and is on her way to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize next month.
--:-- A Martinez: It's unclear if she will be allowed back in the country.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now, you were just in Ecuador yesterday. That's neighboring Venezuela and Colombia, where voters there rejected a referendum that would have let the U.S. set up a military basis to fight against drug traffickers.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: Why the no vote?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It was really a bit of a surprise given just the surge in drug gang-related violence there. It's just overtaken that country.
--:-- A Martinez: And multiple Trump officials have been visiting Ecuador recently. They've been backing the young conservative president there, who is a staunch Trump ally.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: The measure included rewriting the Constitution. And for many, like this no voter, Rosita Guchemillo, a 48-year-old homemaker in Quito, this was really a no-confidence vote for President Daniel Novoa.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: She says we just don't trust him anymore. She says he'll rewrite the Constitution to favor himself. And she didn't want to give the U.S. what she said would have been a blank check.
--:-- A Martinez: That's NPR's Kerry Kahn in Bogotá, Colombia. Carrie, thanks.
--:-- Kerry Kahn: You're welcome.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Border Patrol agents fanned out across Charlotte, North Carolina over the weekend, detaining people outside supermarkets, laundromats, auto shops, even a church.
--:-- A Martinez: It's the latest city to see a federal immigration crackdown. Similar operations came in Chicago and Los Angeles.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What's it like to be around Charlotte right now?
--:-- Nick De La Canal: Well, we started to see this crackdown Saturday morning when the city woke up to dozens of Border Patrol agents driving through Charlotte in unmarked vans, especially along the city's major immigrant corridors.
--:-- A Martinez: And very quickly videos started circulating online of agents chasing people down sidewalks, breaking the car window of a man who later said he was a U.S. citizen.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: Agents were also filmed questioning landscapers who were putting up Christmas lights in the front yard.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And, you know, it created a lot of chaos.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: One of the people I spoke with was Jessica Arias, who owns an auto shop in East Charlotte. And she says one of her employees was detained after agents pulled up and chased him.
--:-- A Martinez: They just came at random. They are picking people at random. They are not here for delinquents. They are here for working people.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And then that sense of chaos really continued on into Sunday when a man was hospitalized for a medical episode as agents were trying to detain him outside of church.
--:-- A Martinez: Very interested by those details, questioning people who are working, breaking the window of someone who says he's a U.S. citizen.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: But what is Customs and Border Protection saying about all this?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino said agents arrested 81 people on Saturday.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: We still waiting on numbers from Sunday.
--:-- A Martinez: What we don't know is who these people are. The agency hasn't released names or charges.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Bovino has shared photos on social media of some of the people arrested, saying they had DUIs or criminal histories.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: But he hasn't identified them, so we really can't say for sure.
--:-- A Martinez: Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security put out a statement saying it surged agents to Charlotte to, quote, ensure Americans are safe and safety threats are removed.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Ensuring Americans are safe.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: So when you talk to residents, are they feeling safe?
--:-- A Martinez: Well, the residents I spoke with, especially in immigrant communities, say they are very fearful right now.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You know, I was walking down Central Avenue on Saturday, which is lined with Hispanic businesses.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: I saw restaurants lock their doors with customers inside. Other shops closed early and sent workers home.
--:-- A Martinez: Some people told me that they're essentially going into hiding.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I talked with a construction worker, Lopez Nunez, outside of Walmart on Sunday.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: He said he's keeping his undocumented wife and newborn home for the week.
--:-- A Martinez: You really need to go outside for an emergency. If you try to stay, just stay home. Be safe.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And don't open the door for eyes.
--:-- A Martinez: And in a joint statement, Charlotte Mayor Villalos said agents were causing unnecessary fear and that she stands with residents who want to simply go about their lives.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: So what is the broader plan of immigration authorities here as far as you know?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We don't really know. We don't know how long this operation will last.
--:-- A Martinez: DHS hasn't said.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: We are seeing some community pushback. You know, there was a big protest in Uptown on Saturday and advocacy groups are recruiting volunteers to monitor agents.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We've already seen some tense confrontations between activists and agents.
--:-- A Martinez: And so I think what we can expect is for the tension to grow for as long as this operation continues.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: Nick De La Canal of member station WFAE, thanks for the update.
--:-- Nick De La Canal: Thank you.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's Up First for Monday, November 17th. I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- A Martinez: And I'm A Martinez.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The news you hear on Up First is possible because of the people who use it. People like you.
--:-- A Martinez: When you give to your local NPR station, you help to keep journalists on the ground here at home and around the world.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: You can make a donation by going to donate.npr.org slash upfirst.
--:-- A Martinez: And for more news and conversations, listen to the radio.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Morning Edition is hosted by the same people as this program.
--:-- A Martinez: You can find it on your local NPR station or at npr.org.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Dana Farrington, Tara Neal, Kevin Drew, Muhammad El-Bardisi, and Martha Ann Overland.
--:-- A Martinez: It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Lindsay Totti.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: We've got engineering support from Damian Herring, and our technical director is Carly Strange.
--:-- A Martinez: Join us again tomorrow.
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