Up First from NPR - Democrats' Shutdown Pressure, SNAP Deadline, Nuclear Testing

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

Democrats are facing growing pressure to end the government shutdown as millions brace to lose food aid and health care costs surge. A federal judge weighs whether to force the Trump administration to keep SNAP benefits flowing for 42 million Americans as funding runs out. And President Trump says the U.S. should resume nuclear weapons testing for the first time in decades, a move experts warn could reignite a global arms race.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 Catherine Laidlaw, Kelsey Snell, Brett Neely, Mohamad ElBardicy and Ally Schweitzer.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher ThomasWe get engineering support from David Greenberg. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Our executive producer is Jay Shaylor.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

There's mounting pressure on lawmakers to get the government open. It's not just Democrats. Republicans are suffering, too. We ought to come together and negotiate. Several unions are calling on the Democrats to give in, will they? I mean, Martinez, that's Leila Faddle, and this is up first from NPR News. Millions of Americans could lose snap food benefits tomorrow. The Trump administration says it cannot legally dip into emergency funds. That claim, though, is now in court, will a judge force the White House to refund the program?

And President Trump says he wants the U.S. to test nuclear weapons again for the first time in decades. If we were to start explosively testing nuclear weapons again, so would Russia and China, and they would be able to close the technical gap with the United States. So why now? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. This message comes from Wise. The app for you. for using money around the globe. When you manage your money with Wise, you'll always get the mid-market exchange rate

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created and funded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt to work toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theshmit.org. Tomorrow, things are going to get a lot worse for many Americans in the midst of this shutdown. Snap food benefits will run out for about 42 million people. Saturday is also when open enrollment begins on federal insurance exchanges and premiums are expected to more than double on average. Democrats want to extend health care. subsidies to keep those costs down. But Thursday, major airlines asked Congress to pass Republican stopgap funding plan. Here's United Airlines CEO, Scott Kirby. It's been 30 days. And, well,

I don't have a position on which partisan side and how things should be settled with health care. It has been 30 days. I also think it is time to pass a clean CR. The largest union for federal employees already made a similar call. So how long can Democrats continue to hold out? NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt went to a town. hall in Maryland last night to hear what Democratic Senator Angela also Brooks and her constituents had to say. Good morning, Barbara. Good morning. First, I just want to know our Democratic lawmakers is the only ones feeling pressure right now. Well, you know, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are talking a lot about the consequences of this shutdown. People going without pay,

the impending loss of some nutrition assistance. But that hasn't translated to any concrete action. Both sides remain incredibly dug in. And so at this town, hall last night, I asked the senator, so how does this end? I think that the pain that has been allowed to grow impacts all of us. It's not just Democrats. Republicans are suffering too. And I think some of my colleagues will soon find out that their constituents are suffering as well and that we ought to come together and negotiate. So you just asked me about pressure. It seems like Democrats are banking on Republican constituents applying pressure to Republican lawmakers. Okay. So you're at this town hall. We heard unions already calling on

Democrats to pass the continuing resolution from the Republicans and get it over with. Is that also the sentiment you heard from voters? No. I mean, in fact, the people that I spoke with at this event told me they want Senate Democrats to hold that line when it comes to withholding their votes, hoping to get negotiations on health care. Here's Christina Thompson, one of the attendees. I think they should hold out as long as possible.

It's clear who's shutdown this is. You know, the Republicans hold all the leverage and all the cards. And if we back out now, then, you know, we're just showing, again, that the party has no backbone. Now, this is on track to become the longest running government shutdown. The last long one was in 2019 for 34 days. What are some of the ways that make this shutdown feel different? Well, Democrats have traditionally been hesitant to shut the government down. And we don't even have to cast too far back down on memory lane here.

Back in March, there was a sense that Democrats may hold out on supporting a bill that would fund the government. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ended up voting alongside Republicans. A shutdown was avoided. And I was with a lot of House Democrats at a retreat when he made that announcement signaling his support. And they were very upset about it. And their thinking was, as the party in the minority, they have very few opportunities to force a negotiation. And they viewed the shutdown as one of the only, not the only, ways to influence the process. So that brings us to today, and since the shutdown began, we have seen Democrats really united.

They are exerting this one leverage point, as they've called it. They don't appear to be backing down, and they seem to think that Republicans will take the blame, not them. And what about Republicans? What's their response? Their message has been, hey, we are holding votes to fund the government. Democrats aren't voting with us. If they care about things like funding nutrition aid and paying air traffic controllers, then they should vote with us. Here's Senate Majority Leader John Thune earlier this week. This isn't a political game.

These are real people's lives that we're talking about. And you all have just figured out 29 days in that, oh, there might be some consequences. And we should say the Senate has quite literally left the building. They've left for the weekend. That's NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Sprunt. Thank you, Barbara. Thank you. As we just heard, 42 million people will start to get cut off from SNAP benefits tomorrow

as the shutdown drags on. That's never happened before. A federal judge is deciding whether to order the Trump administration to find other ways to get people money to buy food. Here to tell us more about all this and what's at stake is NPR's Jennifer Ludden. Hi, Jennifer. Hi, Jennifer. Hi there.

Okay, so remind us why the administration said it had to cut off SNAP benefits. And what's the legal challenge to that? Well, a week ago, the Agriculture Department posted on its website that the well has run dry. In a memo, the agency said, because of the shutdown, it doesn't have enough money for SNAP benefits for November, and it said it cannot legally use what's in a contingency fund. It argued that is meant for emergencies like natural disasters. Democratic governors and attorneys general from about two dozen states sued. They said SNAP is an entitlement. It can't just be cut off. And doing so would cause irreparable harm. Judge Indra Talwani in Boston seemed to agree with the states. She put it bluntly, Congress put money in an emergency fund, and it is hard for me to understand how this is not an emergency. The judge said lawmakers clearly wanted to protect the American people in the event of something like a shutdown.

And their intent, she said, I'm quoting here, we're not going to make everyone drop dead because it's a political game someplace else. So a not really veiled reference there to the blame game between Republicans and Democrats over this shutdown. Yeah. So millions of people who depend on SNAP food aid, won't get it tomorrow. Assuming the judge does rule in favor of the states, when will people actually get the money they need? It's a good question. Even if the ruling comes today or very soon, there will still be some delay. Normally, the federal government sends this funding to states well before the first of the month, and then it takes days to get onto the debit like cards people use at stores. But there's an added complication. Full snap funding for November is about

$9 billion. There's only $5.5 billion in the contingency fund, according to the administration, and it has said recalculating for partial payments would be a logistical nightmare, could take weeks. So, you know, people will have to wait. We don't know for sure how long, and they'll get less money. Meanwhile, I should add, there's a second lawsuit filed yesterday over cutting off SNAP payments. Oh, what's that one about? So this is a federal suit in Rhode Island by eight cities around the country, also non-profits and business groups. They say ending SNAP payments would harm not only people, but also local economies, and that includes small businesses who really rely on grocery sales from shoppers using SNAP.

In the meantime, states and cities have been scrambling to try and fill the gap, or at least help fill the gap during this delay. Can you give us a sense of what they're doing? Yeah, they've got states like Virginia and Vermont who shifted money to actually pay people directly, at least temporarily. others are stepping up donations to food banks or looking to help people who may fall behind on their bills. And, you know, people in these places really say they're dealing with a cascade of cutbacks, not just the shutdown, but, you know, mass federal layoffs and funding guts that have been happening all this year. NPR's Jennifer Ludden. Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you. President Trump said on Thursday that, President Trump said on Thursday, that, he wants to test a nuclear weapon. The decision could have huge ramifications. The U.S. hasn't conducted such a test in decades. So how would a test like that be done? Let's ask NPR Science and Security Correspondent, Jeff Brumfield. So, Jeff, where first would these tests be?

Well, there's only one place these tests can be done, and that's in the desert outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, at a place called the Nevada National Security Site. It's this big sprawling complex. It's bigger than the... state of Rhode Island, actually. Scientists would drill a shaft, probably thousands of feet into the ground. They'd drop a nuke down there, then they'd fill it up with dirt and rock and hit the button. So why has it been so long since the U.S. tested a nuke? The world's major nuclear

powers have observed a moratorium on testing since the 1990s. That was the end of the Cold War, of course. And it was kind of a goodwill gesture, also helped to ensure stability that there wasn't an arms race. The U.S. embarked on a program that uses science at that time. And so the idea was to make sure the weapons work without testing. And a lot of that science has been done in the very same tunnels in Nevada where they used to test. And I had a very, very unusual opportunity to go underground last year, a thousand feet. I saw these sophisticated experiments the U.S. was doing down there instead of nuclear testing. And while I was there, I met Don Haynes, a physicist from Los Alibos National Laboratory. That's, of course, the lab that made the first bomb. At the time,

Haynes told me there was no need for a systems test of a nuke. Our assessment is that there are no system questions that would be answered by a test. That would be worth the expense and the effort and the time. But Haynes was very quick to add that, you know, a decision on testing was above his pay grade, as he put it. And it was down to people like President Trump to make that choice. Yeah, so why does President Trump want to test now? We're not actually sure. But earlier this week, Russia said it had tested some very controversial systems. One was a nuclear-powered cruise missile. The other was a nuclear-powered underwater torpedo that could be used to attack U.S. cities. Both of these weapons could evade Trump's proposed Golden Dome missile defense systems.

And many experts thought that could be the reason why Trump wants to test. Now, I should to point out, they're nuclear power. Those weren't nuclear weapons tests, but still. So if the U.S. does indeed resume nuclear test, Amy, what could the possible consequences be? Many experts basically said the consequences would be bad. For one thing, the U.S. did way more nuclear tests during the Cold War than Russia and China. So John Wolfsol at the Federation of American Scientists told me this. We have a huge technical advantage over both those countries. And if we were to start explosively testing nuclear weapons again. So would Russia and China, and they would be able to close the technical gap with the United States. And there are environmental consequences as well.

You know, Las Vegas has expanded massively in the past 30 years. Even if the radiation is contained underground, as scientists expect, the shaking from a bomb, even all that way away, could be enough to damage buildings near the site. That's NPR's Jeff Brumfield. Jeff, thanks. Thank you. And that's up first for Friday, October 31st. Happy Halloween. I'm Leila Faldon. And I mean, Martinez, families around the world are not having as many kids as they used to. Researchers say women are having half as many children now than they did in the 1970s. I don't need another one. I don't want another one. I love having only one child. This weekend on the Sunday story, why are so many families making this choice?

And what exactly does it mean for our future? That's this Sunday right here in the Up First podcast. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Catherine Laidlaw, Kelsey Snell, Brett Neely, Mohamed al-Bardisi, and Ali Schweitzer. It was produced by Ziyadh, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from David Greenberg, and our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again on this feed. Support for this podcast comes from Dignity Memorial. For many families, remembering loved ones means honoring the details that made them unique.

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