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Episode Date: March 16, 2025

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Hey, I'm Scott Schaeffer. And I'm Marisa Lagos. We host Political Breakdown. With the 2024 election over and President Trump in the White House, there's going to be a lot to keep up with this year. Political Breakdown has got you covered. We'll bring smart analysis, a wide range of voices, and even some laughs. Join us for Political Breakdown every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from KQED, part of the

NPR Network. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Noor Rahm. A federal judge has blocked President Trump from deporting migrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the U.S. to quickly remove foreigners during a war. Despite the order, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said hundreds of gang members have been sent to El Salvador, and he posted a video today. It's not clear if the plane landed after the judge's order. Rubio says airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen

will continue as long as necessary. President Trump said he ordered the strikes yesterday to stop the Houthis from attacking ships in the Red Sea. Rubio says the U.S. must deny the Houthis the ability to constrict and control shipping. He says it's also important that the U.S. must deny the Houthis the ability to constrict and control shipping. He says it's also important that the U.S. warned Iran to stop supporting the group. What we can't ignore, and the reason why the president mentioned Iran, is because the Iranians have supported the Houthis.

They provided them intelligence. They provided them guidance. They provided them weaponry. I mean, there's no way the Houthis, okay, the Houthis would have the ability to do this kind of thing unless they had support from Iran. He appeared on CBS's Face the Nation. President Trump and Elon Musk are continuing their efforts to shrink the federal workforce. NPR's Mara Liason reports.

Seven more agencies were targeted in an executive order Friday night, including the Agency for Global Media, which funds Voice of America, often the only nonpartisan source of news for people living under authoritarian regimes. The deep cuts continue despite pushback from federal judges and from Republicans, including Vice President Vance, who told NBC News that there are, quote, a lot of good people who work in the government. Vance also said that Musk had made mistakes with the mass firings. But Musk is sticking with his chainsaw approach. He disparages and even savages federal workers,

calling them corrupt and incompetent. He recently posted on X, his social media platform, that quote, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Tse-Tung didn't murder millions of people, their public sector employees did. That post was later deleted. Mara Liason, NPR News. A widespread weekend storm has left more than 30 people dead from the Midwest to the deep

South. Officials are blaming dust storms and tornadoes for the fatality. Pat Duggan's of Alabama Public Radio has more on the story. Alabama declared an emergency ahead of the storm's arrival but appears to have been spared some of the worst. Nevertheless tornado sightings were reported northwest of Tuscaloosa and southeast of the state capital of Montgomery and damage was widespread. Near Birmingham a school bus was tossed onto a local high school. Elsewhere a gas station was flipped onto its roof. Roads remained impassable Sunday due to downed trees and power lines, and thousands of outages

were reported. Investigators with the National Weather Service are working to establish the intensity of tornadoes reported across the southern U.S. For NPR News, I'm Pat Duggan in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. You're listening to NPR News in Washington. A London-based charity says eight staff members were killed in Gaza yesterday by Israeli airstrikes. The group says it was providing humanitarian aid for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The area had been designated as a free movement zone by the Israeli military.

Israeli officials say the strikes killed members of what they called a terrorist cell. The charity denies that. The Syrian civil defense said today that ordnance from its 13-year conflict exploded yesterday, killing at least 16 people and injuring 18 others. The explosion brought down a four-story building. At the International Space Station early this morning, Dragon SpaceX on the big loop. Docking sequence complete. Ground will be enabling a hardline power and comm connections shortly. A SpaceX capsule carrying a new crew docked at the orbiting outpost as part of a mission to bring home two astronauts who've been there for nine months. The

BBC's Rebecca Morrell reports. Crew 10 welcome aboard the International Space Station. The arrival of this replacement crew marks the beginning of the end for Butch, Wilmore and Sunny Williams' extended mission. The NASA astronauts have been on the space station since June and were only supposed to stay for just over a week. But the spacecraft they arrived on, made by aerospace company Boeing, suffered technical problems, so NASA had to find another way to get the astronauts home. They opted for the next scheduled SpaceX flight, extending Butch and Sunny's mission until now. The pair will now spend the next few days handing over to the new crew before

they can finally begin their journey back. The BBC's Rebecca Morell. I'm Nora Rahm. NPR News. This message comes from NYU Langone. The NYU Langone Health app gives you access to your I'm Nora Rahm, NPR News.