NPR News Now - NPR News: 08-23-2025 7AM EDT

Episode Date: August 23, 2025

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These days, there's so much news. It can be hard to keep up with what it all means for you, your family, and your community. The Consider This Podcast from NPR features our award-winning journalism. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a news story and provide the context and analysis that helps you make sense of the news. We get behind the headlines. We get to the truth. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR. Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Giles Snyder. The Justice Department has released audio of the interview of Galane Maxwell, the former girlfriend of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She's serving a 20-year prison sentence,

and she denies witnessing President Trump doing anything inappropriate. I never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects. Maxwell is seeking a pardon from President Trump and has been accused of lying to federal officials. The interview was conducted by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blant shortly after she was moved to a less restrictive federal prison in Texas. Texas's congressional redistricting plan is now in the hands of Governor Greg Abbott.

Abbott is expected to sign off on the bill after final passage of the state Senate overnight. The new congressional map demanded by President Trump, Trump is meant to help Republicans add five seats to their slim majority in the U.S. House. Texas Democrats are promising a legal fight. The battle over the president's new budget law has moved from Congress to congressional districts across the country as Democrats focus on cuts to Medicaid, as Pierre's Don Gondier reports. There's a reason Democrats are focusing on the Medicaid cuts included in the law that Republicans call the big, beautiful bill. Take the state of Michigan, where more than 25 percent,

of the population is on Medicaid, according to the State Health Department. Brian Peters is the CEO of the Michigan Health and Hospitals Association. The state of Michigan has estimated that as many as 700,000 Michiganders could lose coverage. Democrats are highlighting such cuts as early campaigning for next year's midterm elections gets underway. Republicans argue that the new law only targets waste and fraud. Don Gagne and BR News. Detroit. A U.S. official is told NPR the defense secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, lays in a series of firings of senior military and national security officials, as NPR-McLaughlin reports. Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth has removed Lieutenant

General Jeffrey Cruz as the head of the military intelligence and combat support agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, or the DIA. It wasn't immediately clear why Cruz was fired. However, the dismissal comes just months after the DIA made an assessment, concluding that a missile strike launched by the Trump administration likely failed to completely destroy Iran's nuclear sites. The White House has insisted the strike obliterated those facilities. Members of President Trump's cabinet, including Hegsef and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, have recently pushed to revoke security clearances or fire many senior national security officials, particularly after pressure from right-wing activists like Laura Lumer.

Jenna McLaughlin, NPR News. This is NPR News. The man who's become a symbol of President Trump's immigration policies is back in Maryland. Kilmar-Abrego-Garcio was ordered released on bail from custody in Tennessee after he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador. He's now on home detention awaiting trial on criminal charges. His case raises questions about due process under President Trump's crackdown on immigrants in the country illegally. A federal judge in California, meanwhile, says the Trump administration cannot deny federal funding to dozens of cities and counties over their so-called sanctuary policies. The cities include Los Angeles, Baltimore, Boston, and Chicago, all of which have limited their cooperation with the president's immigration crackdown.

Federal tax credits for electric vehicle purchases expiring at the end of September. This week, the IRS issued some guidance, clarifying that cars don't have to be delivered by the deadline to qualify. NPR's Camilla Dominovsky reports. President Trump's big domestic spending package eliminated federal EV tax credits as of September 30. Now the IRS has clarified that as long as you have a binding contract and put some money down by the deadline, it's okay if you don't get the keys in time. Andy Phillips is with H&R Block and says that'll help people who can do the paperwork but can't get the car delivered until later. It could be as simple as maybe you know the vehicle you want, but it's in another part.

of the country. Or it may need to be manufactured. Those federal tax credits are worth up to $7,500 on a new car and up to $4,000 on a used one. Camila Dominooski, NPR News. And I'm Giles Snyder. This is NPR News from Washington.