Up First from NPR - Epstein Files Fallout, Charlotte Immigration Patrols, Economic Impact Of Shutdown

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

The White House is calling the recent trove of Epstein documents a "distraction" as both Democratic and Republican lawmakers call for the full release of the Epstein files. In Charlotte, North Carolina, city leaders and residents are scrambling after last-minute notice that Border Patrol agents could arrive within days. And economists warn the government shutdown left lasting scars on the U.S. economy, from lost wages to missing federal data that may never be recovered.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 Dana Farrington, Susanna Capelouto, Rafael Nam, Mohamad ElBardicy and HJ Mai.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Lindsay TottyWe get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Our Executive Producer is Jay ShaylorLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Trump ends the week in conflict with the House of Representatives. A meeting in the White House situation room was just one of the tactics used in response to a new eruption of questions about Jeffrey Epstein. How does this end? I'm Steve Inskeep with Laila Faddle, and this is up first from NPR News. Border Patrol agents are packing up in Chicago. Charlotte, North Carolina is preparing for their arrival. City leaders say they got almost no details. The public has the right to know what's happening and why it's happening.

What's driving this sudden move and why Charlotte? And economists are tallying the costs of the longest government shutdown in American history. Our estimate of the White House is that each week that we were shut down is worth about $15 million off of GDP. Is some of that money lost forever? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. There is so much happening in politics in any given week. You might need help putting it all in perspective.

As your week draws to a close, join the NPR Politics Podcast team for our weekly roundup. Here are best political reporters zoom into the biggest stories of the week. Not just what they mean, but what they mean for you, all in under 30 minutes. Listen to the weekly roundup every Friday on the NPR Politics podcast. President Trump is finishing this week in conflict with a majority. of the House of Representatives. That conflict emerged just as the House returned to work and reopened the government. Some Republicans joined Democrats to revive discussions of Jeffrey Epstein.

As we have reported, a House committee released 23,000 documents about the convicted sex offender. The more than 1,000 mentions of Trump in those documents include an email saying Trump spent hours at Epstein's house with a victim and another in which Epstein says Trump, quote, knew about the girls. To discuss the White House's response, we have NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shipper and with us. Good morning. Hey, Leah. Hey, so the release of these documents has been a key demand of the president's supporters.

What's the reaction been to this latest release of files? Well, Republican political strategist Alex Conan said the news around these documents isn't necessarily changing people's minds in the next election, say, but it doesn't exactly add up to a good week for Trump. And I don't know that it is damaging, but it's very distracting. You know, with the government reopening, Trump arguably had a great week, but instead, everyone's talking about this obscene story that just won't go away. The White House says these documents don't prove anything.

They say that Trump did nothing wrong, and the White House and the president are trying to frame the release of these documents as a distraction. They're saying that Democrats who released some of these files ahead of the House Oversight Committee's release are trying to take attention away from the government shutdown ending. Trump on truth social called it the Jeffrey Epstein. hoax, and said Democrats are trying to use it to, quote, deflect from their massive failures. Right. But it was also Republicans who wanted these release some Republicans. Well, the other thing that happened this week is the House reached enough signatures for a discharge petition

to force the release of more documents from the Department of Justice. Does the White House feel any added pressure from this petition? Right. So this petition that we're talking about requires 218 votes. That's, of course, a majority of the House members. And what it does is force a vote on any issue, even if House leadership doesn't want it. It's really rare that a petition would come together in the first place and even more rare in this political environment when we don't really see any level of bipartisanship. And one of the Republicans that's working with Democrats on this is Colorado Representative Lauren Bobert. She's been an ally of Trump's, but she signed on to this petition and she was called into the White House for a meeting in the situation room where

the Epstein files and this petition were discussed. It was kind of seen as this potential pressure campaign from the White House. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt was asked about this meeting in the briefing earlier this week. And she said that the White House was just being transparent with members of Congress. And Bober herself spoke to Colorado Public Radio about it. There was no pressure. And I mean, everybody was great and worked just well with me. So it's not fully clear what happened inside the situation room. But the thing with this petition to keep in mind is that it probably isn't going to go anywhere after this House vote. The Senate is controlled by Republicans, they're probably not going to take up this vote. And even if they did

and it passed, Trump himself is the one who'd have to sign it into law, which is even less likely to happen. Okay, so if this petition is likely to die, is the White House hoping then this just all goes away after that? Yeah, you know, I talked to Conan about that too, and he says the White House should have handled this Epstein story very differently by putting out all the information that they have. Now, the White House says that they've been transparent, but at the same time, Trump uncharacteristically doesn't seem to want to answer questions about it. And keep in mind, there's been a lot of public interest in Epstein, in Trump's relationship with him, what these documents from the DOJ might say.

And, you know, Trump has survived many political scandals before, right? But Conan says that Trump's strategy typically has been deflect, deflect, attack, attack, and then try to change the story. But because of the slow drip of this Epstein story, because this was a campaign promise that Trump made to release these documents, he just can't shake this story and he's really been unable to move beyond it. I'm Piers-Dipa-Shevroom.

Thank you, Deepa. Thanks. The sheriff in Charlotte, North Carolina, says the Trump administration has selected that city for its next immigration crackdown. Now, Charlotte is in Mecklenburg County, and the county sheriff there says federal officials have told,

him that agents could arrive as soon as tomorrow, and that's all he knows. This is happening as some Border Patrol agents are leaving Chicago after weeks of aggressive raids. Nick Dilla Canal, with member station WFAE in Charlotte, has been following developments and joins us. Now, Nick, what do we know so far about agents coming to Charlotte? Well, we first started hearing reports a few days ago that this could be happening, but city officials said they were completely in the dark. And then yesterday, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff, Gary McFadden, said he was contacted by two federal officials who told him, border patrol agents will be arriving, possibly Saturday or early next week. Now, there's still a lot that we don't know, like how many agents are coming,

how long they plan to stay, what their assignment is, although perhaps we could look to Chicago as a precedent. The sheriff, who is a Democrat, said he's not getting involved in any possible operation and Charlotte police put out a statement saying they don't participate with federal immigration enforcement. We did reach out to the Department of Homeland Security and they told us they don't comment on potential operations. Okay, so very little detail. How is the community reacting? Well, there's definitely fear, even though advocacy groups have been urging calm. I spoke with Daniela Andrade with the Carolina Migrant Network and she says that their ice hotline has been ringing off the hook over the last few days, mostly with false report.

People have been calling, reporting, anything they see on the street, which sometimes might be just CMPD or something completely different. Most of these cases right now are not ICE, but it's just that fear in general that's already in our community. And CMPD is the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, by the way. Also, some Latino businesses shared photos on social media yesterday of empty parking lots in what are normally bustling immigrant shopping centers. And what are local officials telling people? Charlotte Mayor Vile Isles has released a statement saying that the city is committed to following the law while protecting civil rights. Some city council members are also speaking up, including a councilman-elect J.D. Masuera Arias, who himself is an immigrant. He told his community to take a deep breath, not to keep kids home from school or skip work out of fear.

And he says customs and border protection need to be transparent with residents and law enforcement. Our community deserves clarity. The sheriff's department deserves clear. clarity. If there is an operation or presence in Charlotte, the public has the right to know what's happening and why it's happening. So that question of why, do you have any idea why border patrol agents are heading to Charlotte or appear to be heading there? Yeah, we really don't have any idea. We have seen ice arrest in Charlotte, like in other cities. There was a workplace raid this summer and some isolated arrests, but never border patrol agents, as far as we know. Now, the city did draw national attention earlier this fall

following the fatal stabbing of a Ukrainian woman on the light rail. The suspect was not an immigrant, however. Republicans and the White House directed a lot of criticism at the city's Democratic mayor for that, and there have been calls for the National Guard, even though violent crime is down 20% over last year.

Nick Dilla Canal with member station WFAE. Thank you, Nick. Thank you. Now that the government shutdown is over, the damage assessments have begun. Federal workers missed paychecks. Many people missed flights. Millions missed payments to help them buy food. Gradually, all that is now being corrected, but what are the lasting economic costs? And Pierre Scott Horsley joins us now to help tally it up. Good morning, Scott. Good morning.

Okay, so this was the longest government shutdown on record. Is it also the most costly? Almost certainly. Kevin Hassett, who directs the National Economic Council, told that Economic Club of Washington this week, the bill will likely be in the neighborhood of $90 billion. Our estimate of the White House is that each week that we were shut down is worth about $15 billion off of GDP. I think the golden guys have added all that up and guessed that it's between one and one and a half percent reduction in the growth rate of GDP this quarter. Now, some of that economic activity is not really lost. It's just postponed, government workers who put off a big purchase during the shutdown might go out and spend that money once they

get their back pay. But some of it won't be made up. You know, if you skipped a haircut during the shutdown, you're probably not going to get two haircuts to make up for it. Airlines are not going to recover all the money they lost. So while some of the drop in GDP is merely a timing shift, some of it is gone for good. And what about jobs? What's been the effect? Well, we don't have a good read on that. The government's monthly jobs tally was delayed by the shutdown, along with a lot other government economic data. We should get the September jobs report pretty soon. That was almost finished when the shutdown began. But when it comes to the October report on both jobs and inflation, the government's really starting from scratch, and so it could take some time to

reconstruct those. In fact, White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt suggested this week the reports may never come out. The Democrats may have permanently damaged the federal statistical system with October CPI and jobs reports likely never being released. And all of that economic data release will be permanently impaired, leaving our policymakers at the Fed flying blind at a critical period. Now, after previous government shutdowns, a lot of economic reports were late coming out, but the government has never skipped issuing a major economic report altogether. And most of the experts I talk to think the number crunchers will try very hard to avoid that this time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles both the jobs and inflation reports, put a note

on its website yesterday, saying it's assessing the situation and we'll issue an updated release schedule soon. And the Bureau also thank people for their patience. Is the Fed, though, really flying blind here? No, although certainly its visibility is not as good as policymakers would like. During the shutdown, the Fed and others looked to other sources of information about the job market and prices. And while that's not as good as the missing government data, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says he thinks he and his colleagues would know if there were a sudden shift in the economy. The Fed holds its next interest rate meeting in a little less than

four weeks, and by that time, we may have some additional government data. But, you know, unless the numbers are really clear cut one way or another, it could still be a close call. Right now, markets think it's pretty much a coin toss, whether the Fed keeps cutting interest rates by another quarter point in December, or takes a break and holds rate steady. NPR Scott Horsley, thank you, Scott. You're welcome. And that's up first for Friday, November 14th. I'm Leila Faldin. And I'm Steve Inskeep. This Sunday will follow up on a big story. President Trump promised a Gaza peace plan would bring an end to the war between Hamas and Israel.

Can you believe it? And it's going to hold up, too. It's going to hold up. Okay. It's been a little over a month since the ceasefire went into effect and forward progress has stalled. Until all of the bodies of the hostages are returned from Israel's point of view, the next phase doesn't move forward. Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violations, but it is really President Trump who's holding it together. This weekend on the Sunday story, what will it take to keep a peace process on track? Listen to the Sunday story right here on NPR's Up First podcast. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Dana Farrington, Susanna Capuluto, Rafael Namm, Mohammed al-Berdisi, and H.J. Mai. It was produced by Ziyadh-Butch, Nia Dumas, and Lindsay Toddy.

We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Carly Strange. Executive producer is Jay Shaler. Join us again tomorrow. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Up First sponsor-free through Amazon music. Or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Upfirst Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.