Up First from NPR - Antisemitic Attacks In Amsterdam, Musk And Trump, Federal Judiciary Future

Episode Date: November 9, 2024

Dutch authorities ban demonstrations for 3 days after attacks on Israeli soccer fans following a game in Amsterdam. President-elect Donald Trump benefited from his relationship with billionaire Elon Musk during his campaign - how could Musk benefit once Trump returns to office? And with Republicans controlling the Senate next congress, what could this mean for the federal judiciary?Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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If you're not, go to donate.mpr.org to give, donate.mpr.org. And now here's today's podcast. And now here's today's podcast. Amsterdam has banned demonstrations for three days and tightened security following attacks on Israeli soccer fans after a game. The city's mayor blamed anti-Semitic hit-and-run squads. I'm Scott Simon. I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is Up First from NPR News. President-elect Donald Trump has certainly benefited from his relationship with billionaire Elon Musk. Musk donated millions of dollars to his campaign.

He also posted lots of pro-Trump messages on X. How could Musk benefit once Trump returns to the White House? Also with the Senate under Republican control in the next Congress, what could that mean for the shape of the federal judiciary? Stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally

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Split Screen Thrillseekers is a new six-part series that exposes how a TV show left contestants struggling to trust what's actually real. Listen now. On the Embedded Podcast, every Marine takes an oath to protect the Constitution. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This is the story of a Marine in the Capitol on January 6. Did he break his oath? And what does that mean for all of us? Listen to A Good Guy on the embedded podcast from NPR, both episodes available now. The violence in Amsterdam broke out after a soccer match between Israel's Maccabee Tel Aviv team and

Ajax Amsterdam Thursday night. Israel's foreign affairs minister is in the Netherlands today to discuss a situation with his Dutch counterpart. Terry Schultz is in Amsterdam and joins us now. Thanks for being with us, Terry. Hi, Scott. Amsterdam's mayor called Thursday a dark night. What is it like there now? Well, it's calm on the outside, but there's still plenty of tension under the surface.

Right now I'm outside the Amsterdam Modern Orthodox Synagogue, and the city said it was putting extra security in place around locations like this, which they feared could be targets. They're determined to prevent more incidents like we're seeing overnight Thursday, where supporters of the Israeli soccer team were, in the words of Dutch authorities themselves, hunted down and brutally beaten for being Jewish. All demonstrations have been banned in Amsterdam through the weekend, and there are reports police are conducting home searches of people suspected in taking part in the attacks. The Israeli fans were given security and special transport to the airport Friday, and extra

flights were added to get them back to Tel Aviv quickly. Members of the Dutch government, and even the king, I gather, have spoken out. What have they said? And that's right. There's been a lot of outrage from abroad and domestically. Here's Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schauff. The terrible anti-Semitic attack and we will not tolerate and we will prosecute perpetrators and I'm deeply ashamed that it could happen in the Netherlands in 2024.

And of course there's ugly history here here isn't there? That's right Israeli President Yisach Herzog said Dutch King Willem Alexander called him Friday and said quote we failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War two and last night we failed again. That's referring to the fact as you mentioned that the Netherlands is one of the countries which had the highest percentage of its Jewish population over 70% killed during the Holocaust. And beyond that, Scott, tonight will be the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht,

when Nazis and their supporters rampaged through Jewish synagogues and businesses and arrested tens of thousands of Jews. Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema even referred to this tragic history in a press conference about the soccer incident. The survivors of the Holocaust, their children and grandchildren, she said, conference about the soccer incident. The survivors of the Holocaust, their children and grandchildren, she said, have admirably rebuilt their own communities after the war and made their city, which had failed them terribly during the war, flourish again. Halsema says she's ashamed of her city and furious.

Terry, Dutch officials have confirmed reports that some Israeli soccer fans ripped up a Palestinian flag and shouted praise, sometimes using graphic language, for the destruction of Gaza. Is that being discussed? Well, it is a bit on the authority side. They've really focused on condemning the anti-Semitic attacks for now. But on social media, and when talking to people in the streets, as I have, they also criticize the actions of the Israeli fans and soccer hooligans.

What's seen as this imbalanced response is being called out by pro-Palestinian activists like Nadia Slemi, a 28-year-old woman who was present Thursday night at a planned protest that was kept away from the soccer stadium. The way that they treat us, the Palestinian protesters, with so much violence and we do not get escorts to our houses, we get escorts to jail or we get escorts to far outside of the city. Slemy told us she doesn't feel safe in Amsterdam and she's urging her parents to stay at home for fear they'll be attacked. So as I said at the beginning, on the surface things are calm here, but underneath there's

a lot of fear and anger on all sides. Reporter Terry Schultz in Amsterdam. Terry, thanks so much for being with us. You're welcome. President-elect Donald Trump gave a special shout out during his victory speech this week to the billionaire with companies that make electric cars and shoot for the stars, Elon Musk.

Do we have a new star? A star is born, Elon. Elon Musk is the richest man in the world and he owns several companies that could benefit from Trump's presidency. NPR's tech reporter, Dara Kerr, joins us. Dara, thanks for being with us. Of course, nice to be here. We've seen this relationship grow right in front of our eyes. How did it get started? Elon Musk has been a supporter of Trump for a while, but it was really in July when things got revved up, right after that first assassination attempt on Trump. Almost immediately, Musk posted

on his social media platform, X, I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery. And that's when the bromance between the two of them really took off. Musk started deeply fundraising for Trump and posting more and more pro-Trump content on X. At the same time, he was criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris. And in the last few weeks, Musk hit the campaign trail, speaking at Trump's rallies. And all Musk has donated more than $100 million of his personal money to the campaign. And this has really earned him what seems to be a very close relationship with the president-elect. In addition to the benefits of friendship, what else could flow from this relationship?

It really boils down to all of the companies that Musk owns. Besides X, he has Tesla and SpaceX, the rocket company. He has Starlink, which is a satellite internet company, and even more. And many of these companies rely on government grants and subsidies. Tesla, for example, has gotten millions in government funding to install EV charging stations, and SpaceX has been awarded billion-dollar contracts from NASA for missions to the moon. And so now there's some fears that he can get more contracts or that he may face less government scrutiny. I spoke to Geeta Johar. She's a professor at the Columbia Business School.

I think the government contracts would be given without much oversight to Musk, whether it's for SpaceX or whether it is for his satellite links. And that's lack of regulation, lack of oversight, all of which will serve to benefit Musk. I should say the Trump campaign representatives from SpaceX and X and Musk himself did not respond to our requests for comment.

Just yesterday, Trump had a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and several major news outlets have reported that Musk was also on the call, though NPR has not independently confirmed those reports. Musk's satellite company Starlink has played a big role in providing internet access to Ukraine during the war. And of course, didn't Donald Trump mention that he might put Elon Musk on some government commission? Yes, yes he did. This first came up in August when Musk interviewed Trump during a livestream

conversation on X. Musk told Trump that he should create a quote government efficiency commission. Shortly after that, Trump announced that he would create the commission and put Musk in charge, which is something that experts are saying could create a conflict of interest because Musk could have some sort of influence over the agencies that are tasked with policing his companies. And a lot of Musk's companies are under some sort of federal investigation. We're talking inquiries by the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the

Environmental Protection Agency, and so on. And with this quote unquote efficiency commission, both Musk and Trump have said they want to slash federal budgets. At rallies, Trump has hailed Musk as the quote, secretary of cost cutting and Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. That's nearly a third of the budget. Something that has puzzled me because of course, Elon Musk has a huge investment in electric vehicles. Right.

Donald Trump, you say, hate EVs, didn't he? Yes, yes. But now he really seems to be on board with them. And Trump has been giving Tesla real shout outs in his rallies. In August, Trump said that he was all in for electric cars. And then he said, quote, I have to be, you know, because Elon endorsed me very strongly. So Scott, it's really hard to tell what's going to happen come January. But there's no doubt that we are going to keep hearing about this very public relationship

between the president of the United States and the world's richest man. And Piers Jerichur, thanks so much. Thank you. Former President Donald Trump appointed more than 200 judges the first time he was in office. Now he's set to return next year and with a Republican controlled Senate overseeing the appointment process for federal judges. How could this further shape the federal judiciary? Stephen Vladeck is a professor of law at Georgetown University and he joins us now.

Welcome to the program. Thanks, Ayesha, great to be with you. So how different are federal courts today compared to when president-elect Trump first assumed office eight years ago? Yeah, I mean, I think they're really quite different. And, you know, one of the things that was a real hallmark of the judicial appointments during the first Trump administration, wasn't just that they

were Republican judges, Ayesha, it was that they were a particular kind, judges who were more willing to entertain novel constitutional arguments, judges who might feel less beholden to precedent. We saw a number of appointments like that across the Trump administration. Now with President Trump coming back into office next January, he'll have those four years of appointments plus dozens, if not hundreds, of judges who will be able to appoint in his second term. But many of his policies during his first administration were stopped or delayed by federal judges.

I'm thinking of the travel ban from majority Muslim countries, his effort to end DACA and others. Can we expect that this time around or is he more likely to face less resistance? I think what we'll see is democratic states and left-leaning interest groups trying to challenge Trump policies in those parts of the country where there might be a higher ratio of more sympathetic judges. I think the difference is that even if Democrats and other critics of President Trump find some success in the lower courts, President Trump was able to put three justices on the Supreme Court, including Justice Barrett, right at the very end of his first term.

That's a different majority for these policies than the five to four court that Trump had to deal with for almost all of his first term. I don't think he'll lose as many cases in the Supreme Court. And I think that's going to be a really interesting and important litmus test for just how much he's able to do in the second term. Well, talk to me about the Supreme Court, you know, during a second Trump administration. As you mentioned, he'll have a six to three conservative majority. First, like, what's your assessment of how truly independent those six justices have been?

Yeah, I mean, I think they've all been, I should, independent in the sense that I don't think any of them feel especially beholden to President Trump. I think that the trickier question is, you know, how much do we expect any or all of those six justices to actually stand up to President Trump if he really does something crazy? If he carries through, for example, on his campaign promise to try to end birthright citizenship. I think the most likely scenarios is that we see a bit of a split among the six Republican

appointees. I think, at least with regard to the current composition of the court the two most important figures in a second Trump term are Absolutely going to be Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett and exactly where they're going to draw the lines in Cases where you know the Trump administration really tries to reach out and set new precedents Let's turn to the future of the Supreme Court. The two most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are in their mid 70s. If Trump does get to more appointments,

how far reaching would the effects of that be? I think what's interesting, Ayesha, is if that were to come to pass, overnight it wouldn't change that much on the Supreme Court. The difference is it'll entrench that perspective and it'll entrench those viewpoints. If you replace a justice who's in their late 70s with a justice who's in their mid 40s, that's another maybe 25 to 30 years of having one of the nine seats on the Supreme Court, you know,

occupied by someone whose views are so far out of kilter, right? From sort of most mainstream American thought. That's the real impact, right? That it'll be the decades long effect of those appointments, not the overnight effects. President Biden does still have two months left in office, over two months left in office and a Senate majority to go with it. What do you expect from him and the Democrats in the Senate? So, you know, there's already a whole bunch of pending nominees that are in the Senate

as we speak for lower court judgeships. And I think there's going to be a real effort by the Democrats to push as many of those through before January 3rd, when the Senate turns over. But I think for all of the talk that we've seen on social media about whether someone like a Justice Sotomayor should retire so that President Biden could fill that seat in the next six or seven weeks, I think that's a bit, I don't know, extreme in the sense that one, Justice Sotomayor knows better than we do what kind of shape she's in and how her health is. And two, you know, it's not clear to me that the Democrats would even be able to get a new nominee through in that period of time.

It's quite a risk to run if you are the Democrats and you're worried about the possibility of actually having a Justice Sotomayor retirement create a vacancy that a President Trump could fill. That's Professor Steven Vladeck of Georgetown University. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. And that's up first for Saturday, November 9th. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon. Michael Ratcliffe produced today's podcast with help from Fernando Naro and Martin Patience. Our director is Danny Hensel. Our editors are Nick Spicer, Donald Clyde,

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