NPR News Now - NPR News: 03-04-2025 1PM EST

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

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JANENE HIRST Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janene Hurst. President Trump will get a celebratory reception from Republicans when he addresses Congress tonight. NPR's Claudia Grisales reports Democrats, though, are planning ways to rebuke his aggressive agenda. CLAUDIA GRISALES For the president's speech, Democrats will bring guests who up until a few weeks ago were federal workers, including the former inspector general for the Veterans Affairs Department. The guests also include several military veterans who worked for the IRS, the Defense Department,

and Homeland Security. With thousands of federal worker jobs cut, veterans have been swept up in the Trump administration's dismantling of large sections of the federal government. Democrats say they want to highlight those job cuts as one part of a larger protest message expected tonight. Claudia Grisales, NPR News. President Trump's move to impose and raise tariffs on some imported goods has businesses bracing for change in manufacturing- manufacturing dependent Tupelo, Mississippi. And Pierce Debbie Elliott reports,

it's also Trump country, so expectations are high. With one in five jobs in manufacturing, the question is whether higher tariffs will shake things up in Tupelo, says local business recruiter David Rumbarger with the Community Development Foundation. You know, business likes a stable environment. So, uncertainty does cause a little bit of pain.

That has businesses like Hawkeye Industries, a sheet metal fabricator, bracing for higher prices. CEO Brian Hawkins thinks it will be worth the pain. As investment in new plant and equipment comes into the United States, which is what the intent is, I think we'll all be fine. And in the long run, we're going to be a lot better off. Hawkins says he has confidence in President Trump's plan.

Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Tupelo, Mississippi. Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee are questioning the Trump administration's pick for top State Department jobs. And Pierce Michelle Kellerman has more. Democratic Senator Chris Coons had one simple question for Trump's pick to be the next NATO ambassador, Matthew Whitaker. Does it serve our national interest to abandon Ukraine?

Well, what's in our national interest, obviously, is a broad question. We need... Oh, Mr. Whitaker, I have three minutes, not time for broad questions. Kuhn says the NATO alliance should be pulling in the same direction, unlike what Trump is doing. Democrats are also raising alarms about the way the Trump administration canceled contracts and dismantled the lead U.S. aid agency

as they questioned the nominees to be the deputy secretary of state and the deputy for management issues, Secretary of State and the Deputy for Management Issues, Christopher Landau and Michael Regis. Michelle Kelleyman, NPR News, the State Department. Wall Street, Sharply Lower. The Dow is down 619 points and Azekdam 117. You're listening to NPR News from Washington.

International aid groups are a warning of dire repercussions for Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has blocked all aid into the enclave after Hamas rebuffed a new Israeli plan for a ceasefire extension. UNICEF says more than 2 million people are in severe need and that the aid was a critical lifeline, especially for children. Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have condemned the move as well. The militant group Hamas calls the aid blockade cheap blackmail in an attempt to get it to agree to the extension instead of negotiating a second phase of the ceasefire deal. A majority of LGBTQ Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated,

and that's nearly twice the rate of the general U.S. population. And here's Jason DeRose has more. According to PRRI's American Values Atlas, 52% of LGBTQ Americans don't consider themselves part of any religion. The survey found 28% of all U.S. adults to be religiously unaffiliated. Other findings, a small increase in the share of people from more conservative religious backgrounds who favor marriage equality. Nearly 4 in 10 white evangelical Protestants now support same-sex marriage rights. That's up from about 3 in 10 a decade ago. The survey of more than 22,000 U.S. adults found the country much more evenly divided on transgender rights, including gender affirming care for minors.

Jason DeRose, NPR News. On Wall Street, the Dow is down 608 points, NASDAQ down 104, the S&P 500 down 67. I'm Janene Herbst, NPR News in Washington.