Up First from NPR - Defense Department Leak, Mourning Francis, SCOTUS Considers Opting Out

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continues to find himself mired in controversy. Also — tributes have poured in from around the world remembering Pope Francis as a leader who advocated for the poor and the dispossessed, and the Supreme Court considers a case brought by parents who want to pull their kids out of public school classes because of objections to some learning materials. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Andrew Sussman, Ryland Barton, Krishnadev Calamur, Arezou Rezvani and Janaya Williams.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Good morning. Good morning. How you doing? I'm okay, how are you? I'm okay. You're doing better when I have a little more coffee. Isn't that a good sound? That's a great sound.

President Trump praised his defense secretary even as an official talked of a search for a replacement. Pete Hexas shared details of a forthcoming attack in a second group chat. Also, why did an official in his office quit and why were others fired? I'm Leila Faldon, that's Steven Schaep, and this is Up First from NPR News. Some people were in tears at St. Peter's Square. They put into words their appreciation

for the late Pope Francis. His concern for others and the world and trying to set an example. Also, some parents seek the right to pick what their kids are exposed to in school. It's just very heartbreaking to me how many parents feel like they have to choose between educating their child and raising their children in their faith. A Supreme Court case tests the power to opt out of some lessons. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day. Imagine if you will, a show from NPR that's not like NPR.

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power, aging, and evangelicalism. Time travel with us every week on the Throughline podcast from NPR. We are waiting to see how, if at all, President Trump addresses the leadership of the Defense Department. One US official tells NPR that the search is underway to replace Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Publicly, the president is standing behind him after a tumultuous week.

Hegseth's office fired some of his aides. Then came revelations that the secretary shared details of impending airstrikes in Yemen again. NPR confirmed this second chat on the messaging app Signal, which included Hexette's wife, his brother, and his personal lawyer. The first chat was with top officials and a journalist who was inadvertently included.

NPR's Quill Lawrence is here to tell us more. Quill, good morning. Hey, good morning. So we'll note that you're reporting this story with our colleague, Tom Bowman. What are you guys hearing? Yeah, a U.S. official told us that the search has begun after this second round of headlines about Hegseth. I should add that the White House has said our anonymous source doesn't know what they're talking about, but at a Rose Garden event yesterday, the president stood firmly by Hegseth,

at least publicly. No, he's doing a great job. It's just fake news. It just brings up stories. I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. You know, he was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people, and that's what he's doing. Quill, that phrase, disgruntled employees, I think Hegseth used a similar phrase in his public remarks about this and referred to people who were fired in his office. What's he talking about? Yeah, there were four senior advisors to Hegseth who left in just the past week. Former Defense Department spokesman John Elliott resigned last week and then published a quite extraordinary opinion piece calling the past month at the Pentagon a quote full-blown meltdown and saying that this infighting

is hurting President Trump. He served in Trump's first administration. It appears to want to continue to serve. Three other Pentagon advisors, Colin Carroll, Dan Caldwell and Darren Selnick were escorted out of the Pentagon and accused of leaking information to the press. They then put out as a trio, the three of them put out

a joint statement on X saying that their dismissal was unconscionable and that they haven't even been told what they stand accused of leaking. All three of them served in uniform. They say they understand the importance of information security. Caldwell and Selnik notably are longtime associates of Hegseth. They've worked with him over a decade back to when he was at Concern Veterans for America policy group. So I'm trying to figure out what all of this adds up to. The White House does appear to be backing Hegseth but he's been revealed, NPR has confirmed the original New York Times report, that there was a second chat group on Signal where he was sharing

information about an impending attack. Yeah, I mean with the second chat group on Signal where he was sharing information about an impending attack. Yeah, I mean, with the first chat group, it was against Pentagon policy to use Signal for that. There were a lot of security issues with it discussing details of an attack hours before the bombs hit in Yemen. But the people in that chat were the vice president, the secretary of state, people who would need to know.

This second group, it appears that Hegseth was just cut and pasting this actionable intelligence about US strikes to his wife. People who just, I can't think of any conceivable need they would have to know this information. And military sources, veterans I talked to were just outraged about this. They say that it really did put US lives at risk and American security at risk and They're concerned that this example being set, you know The military really drills into troops that they have to take responsibility for their actions own up And so far Hegseth has not done that yet for either of these signal chats

Yeah And I guess we should emphasize Hegseth side has insisted no classified information was shared leaning on how they define classified information, but it was information about an impending attack, which is always considered sensitive. Quill, thanks so much. Thank you, Steve. That's NPR's Quill Lawrence. And since we mentioned Signal, we will also mention that NPR's CEO chairs the board of the nonprofit Signal Foundation, which we cover like any other entity.

Church bells tolled from Notre Dame in Paris to the Philippines for the death of Pope Francis. He died on Monday at 88 years old after leading the Catholic Church's 1.4 billion followers. Tributes have poured in from around the world remembering Jorge Mario Bargolio, the first pope from Latin America, as a leader who advocated for the poor and the dispossessed. ["Glory to the Father and Son"] In Rome, the faithful gathered for rosary prayers for Francis and preparations are underway

for his funeral. NPR's Ruth Sherlock is in Rome. Hi there, Ruth. Hi, good morning. What are you hearing from people in St. Peter's Square? There's real emotion and a sense of loss. Many were in tears at the rosary prayers last night, but Steve, people are also talking about Francis's legacy, about what he stood for in his 12 years as Pope. This is Ruth Angeletti from Montana.

His concern for others and the world, the environment, the concern for other people and trying to set an example. Part of that example was to his own church. Francis famously derided the wealth and the lace and the frills that come with the papacy. He'd wear simpler outfits, he kept his plastic watch, travelled in a small Fiat car, promoting this idea of a less ornate, gold-laden church. And then he was also an advocate for migrants and the environment and seen as being friendlier to the LGBTQ faithful.

He's been accused though of not making substantial enough changes to the church. Here's Ian Kilroy from Ireland. I think Francis was too radical for the conservatives in the church and not radical enough for the reformers in the church. But certainly his impulse was towards reform within Catholicism and he will be remembered for that. So even among regular people you can kind of see the debates taking shape on what his future legacy might be. Yeah, it's been fascinating to reflect

on how much he changed the tone of the church without changing the underlying rules of the church. Yeah, exactly. And now we go on to the funeral and a selection. What are you hearing about the next few days? His body will be moved to St. Peter's Basilica where people could come to see him from Wednesday. Previous popes were placed in these three nested coffins standing

on an elevated beer for the public viewing but Francis has ordered that he'll be put in a single wooden coffin and it's going to be positioned facing the church pews. His funeral will be Saturday of course many people come from all around the world including President Trump. And then what about the conclave that comes after? Well, it's the largest conclave in history. Pope Francis has appointed 108 of the 135 cardinals who can vote in the conclave. Here's Austin Ivory, Pope Francis' biographer. He's appointed so many cardinals who are from far-flung places, often with very small Catholic populations,

who are on the frontier of inter-religious dialogue or war or suffering, or anyway, the realities of the world, so that they bring those realities into the room. So even if Francis chooses cardinals with a similar outlook, experts say, many will still differ and view on some of the huge range of issues, and there's really no guarantee that the conclave will choose a more liberal pope like Francis. Pete Yeah, it is a fascinating choice to be watching. NPR's Ruth Sherlock, thanks so much. Ruth Sherlock Thank you. Pete Today, the US Supreme Court considers a question about public schools. Right.

That question is whether and when parents should be allowed to pull their kids out of class over religious objections. Can parents pick and choose different bits of the curriculum taking education a la carte? NPR legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg, is covering this case. Hi, Nina. Hi there, Steve. So what are the basics of the case before the court? At the center of the case is the school system in our own nearby Montgomery County, Maryland.

And it's the most religiously diverse county in the United States of America. It has 160,000 students of almost all faiths. And on one side are parents who want to opt their elementary and middle school children out of classes when those classes include storybooks with LGBTQ characters and themes. And the parents contend that the books expose their children to ideas that contradict their religious values. I talked to Grace Morrison, who's one of the parents who's suing the school system. Her daughter was 10 when the LGBTQ books were introduced in their curriculum. Okay.

So rather than risk exposure to the unwanted ideas, Morrison is homeschooling her daughter and here she is. It's just very heartbreaking to me how many parents feel like they have to choose between educating their child and raising their children in their faith. And what she really wants to do is to have her kid in the public school and be able to say that when certain material is discussed at all, the kid will be opted out of class and go to a different classroom.

Has the school board made any effort to accommodate that point of view? Well, the board initially did allow opt-outs, but it says it became just unmanageable. Unlike a sex ed class, for example, where the school system does allow opt-outs, the board says it became a logistical nightmare to take children out of a classroom when a single storybook that features some same-sex parent or gay and lesbian kids could come up at any time. And then there's the question of where do you draw the line? Could parents opt their kids out of a science class where Darwin's theory of evolution is being taught or a history class where there's a section on how women got out of the kitchen

and into the workforce? These are things that are against some people's religious views. Nat. Paul Well, what does the law set up to now before this case? Danielle Pletka Well, I talked to Yale Law Professor Justin Driver who's written extensively about the history of public schools. And he says that generally these curriculum decisions are left to local school boards unless there's some effort to coerce students into accepting a religious belief. He

defends the way the Montgomery County system has handled this issue. It seems to me that the process is working as it should rather than empowering individual parents or students to be able to control it. People have raised objections, the school district has heard those objections and modified their practice. So we've heard the facts of this case. We've heard a little bit of the history. What happens when you take those facts and that history

and put it before these particular nine justices? Well, answering that question is dangerous. My guess is that a majority of the justices will side with the objectors who won an opt-out, but that's not a certainty. I draw that conclusion mainly because a majority of the court has had little exposure to attending a public school themselves. I don't know where they sent their kids to school, but only three of the justices went

to public schools. The other six all attended private Catholic schools. Nina, thanks so much. Thank you, Steve. That's NPR's Nia Totenberg. Today we're also following a lawsuit filed by Harvard University, the nation's wealthiest school is challenging President Trump's administration, which froze more than two billion dollars in grants for research. The administration asserts that it wants to crack down on antisemitism.

It made wide ranging demands on Harvard, for example, learning the political views of students and professors, and screening international students for those who are, quote, hostile to American values. Harvard argues there's no rational connection between antisemitism concerns that grew out of protests in the last couple of years and the scientific and technological research funds that were

frozen. The university frames the government's demands as a threat to its independence. And that's a first for this Tuesday, April 22nd. I'm Steve Inskeep. And I'm Leila Fadl. The NPR app lets you keep public radio right in your pocket. You'll find a mix of local, national, and international news,

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