NPR News Now - NPR News: 11-19-2025 3PM EST

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

NPR News: 11-19-2025 3PM ESTLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Herbst. Ten months into his second term, Donald Trump appears to be in a critical moment in his presidency. A new NPR-PBS News Marist poll finds President Trump's approval at a new low, as he and his party get most of the blame for the shutdown and overwhelmingly people say he needs to focus on lowering prices, and Democrats are benefiting. And Pierce Domenico Montanaro has more. The most eye-opening thing is on the question of who would you vote for if the 26 midterm elections took place today, a Democrat or a Republican.

Democrats have a 14-point advantage, and I can't underscore enough how massive a number that is. I mean, the last time the gap was this wide was eight years ago during Trump's first term. A year later, Democrats won 40 seats. And their lead on this question back then ranged from six to 12 points, not 14. And Pierre Domenico Montanaro reporting. President Trump says that the Saudi Crown Prince has convinced him to get more involved in solving the war in Sudan. Imperus Michelle Kellerman reports the U.S. is already leading a group called the Quad to try

to reach a humanitarian truce between the Sudanese armed forces and a paramilitary group accused of genocide. President Trump says it wasn't on his charts to try to solve the conflict in Sudan, but he told an audience at a business conference that the president. the Saudi crown prince explained to him how horrible the conflict is. And you know we've already started working on that, okay? He said that would be the greatest thing you can do. That would be greater than what you've already done. That was your expression. Is that a correct expression? Pretty good. The Saudis have been encouraging Trump to try to stop the flow of weapons to the RSF, which is accused of

widespread atrocities. The United Arab Emirates is accused of backing the paramilitary, and many observers want to see Trump use his influence with the Emirates to stop that. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is stepping down from the Board of OpenAI after the release of email showing him maintaining a friendly relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. And here's Bobby Allen reports. Summers joined the board of the chat GPT maker after a brief drama at the company when its CEO Sam Altman was ousted before he ultimately rejoined.

New board members were appointed to Open AI, including Summers, to try to stabilize the AI firm following the Altman saga. But newly released Epstein emails show Summers soliciting advice from the late sex offender and also speaking disparagingly about the intelligence of women. It's the latest fallout over the tranche of emails released by the House, showcasing a broad range of academics, executives, political players, and others bantering with Epstein. While Summer says he intends to step back from a number of public roles, he said in a statement he plans to continue working as a professor at Harvard.

Bobby Allen, NPR News. This is NPR News. A North Carolina biotech company says surgeons have, for the first time, implanted a 3D-printed human cornea into a patient. NPR's Rob Stein has more. Precise Bio says the procedure was performed in Israel at the end of October to replace a cornea of a patient considered legally blind. The company created the issue.

implant with a 3D printer that uses human cornea cells grown in the lab to fabricate functional corneas. The hope is that mass-produced human corneas could help solve the shortage of corneas. Damaged corneas are a major cause of blindness. The company isn't saying how well the cornea is working, other than that the results so far are encouraging. The company plans to implant 3D-printed corneas into at least nine more patients as part of an early study. Rob Stein, NPR News. The Labor Department says it won't release a full jobs report for October because of the federal government shutdown, which meant it couldn't calculate the unemployment rate, along with some other key numbers. Instead, it says it will release some of the jobs data, most importantly, the number of jobs that employers created last month, along with the full November jobs report, which will be released a couple of weeks late on December 16th.

Meanwhile, the government's monthly jobs report for September comes out tomorrow. Wall Street is trading in mixed territory. The Dow is down 57 points. The NASDAQ is up 91, S&P 500, up 14. I'm Janine Herbst, NPR News, in Washington.