Up First from NPR - McMahon Ed Secretary, FEMA Chief Testifies, X-odus Fuels Bluesky, Gaza Sniper Drones

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump taps WWE executive Linda McMahon to lead the Department of Education, sparking questions about her qualifications and Trump's promise to close the agency. Republicans accuse FEMA of political bias in disaster response as its chief testifies before Congress amid a funding request for the agency. Dissatisfaction with Elon Musk's platform X fuels the rise of Bluesky as a social media alternative. And, Eyewitness accounts allege the Israeli military is using sniper drones to target civilians in Gaza, raising questions about the human toll of advanced warfare. 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 Nicole Cohen, Russell Lewis, Kara Platoni, Lauren Migaki, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Ally Schweitzer.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Milton Guevara.We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent. And our technical director is Zac Coleman.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President-elect Donald Trump picks the co-founder of the WWE to run the Department of Education. Linda McMahon ran the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term but has little experience in education and it's a department that many conservatives want to shut down. I'm Michelle Martin, that's A. Martinez and this is Up First from NPR News. FEMA is under fire. Some Republicans accuse the agency of playing politics with disaster aid. FEMA essentially treats the homes of President Trump supporters as if they were homes of people with vicious dogs. Could this jeopardize future funding for disaster relief?

And a large number of people have left the social media platform X since Donald Trump won the election. And now a smaller platform called Blue Sky is seeing a surge in users. Can it become the next Twitter? Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day. President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet nominations continue to roll in and we got one more late yesterday. Trump has tapped Linda McMahon to run the U S department of education. And that's an agency that conservatives have wanted to shut down for years. She is probably best known as a co-founder of the WWE, the

professional wrestling company. For more on this, we're joined by MPR's Corey Turner. So Corey, tell us about Linda McMahon. Yeah, she is a surprise in so far as there were a handful of education candidates out there, a with real conservative credentials as there were a handful of education candidates out there with real conservative credentials and McMahon is not one of them. She is co-founder and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, better known as WWE as you said.

She's been friends with Donald Trump for many years, going back to those early wrestling days. She's also twice run as Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut, but she lost both times. During Trump's first term, he picked McMahon to run the small business administration. In fact, when she spoke at the RNC before this past election, she talked mostly about taxes and tariffs. President Trump is a job creator and the best friend American workers have ever had in the

White House. You know, I think it's clear President-elect Trump really trusts Linda McMahon. She has also been co-chairing his transition team. So she is on tap to be his education secretary. What experiences Linda McMahon have in education or education policy? Yeah, not a lot that's obvious a she did serve briefly on the Connecticut State Board of Education In fact, I found her testimony after she was nominated. She told the committee she had gone to college with plans to become a teacher She also mentioned several initiatives that she had pushed while she was running WWE including a program to encourage kids to read

had pushed while she was running WWE, including a program to encourage kids to read. But she resigned from the state board after about a year to mount her first Senate bid. More recently, she has chaired the board for the America First Policy Institute, which supports school choice across the country. And that includes letting parents spend public dollars in private schools. But it's hard to know how involved she was in that part of their pretty broad portfolio. What is clear is that she is a very successful, no-nonsense business woman who has a ton of experience dealing with some pretty big personalities.

Yeah, that she does, which might come in handy if she's confirmed. So then let's talk about Trump's big promise to close the education department. How is she gonna do that? Yeah, look, a bipartisan group of experts have told me over the past week, closing the department is one wrestling match that McMahon probably cannot win, or really any secretary. And that's because the department was created by Congress

and only Congress can abolish it. And doing that will require 60 votes in the Senate to overcome the filibuster. But here's the thing in in Trump's statement announcing man's nomination. He said he expects her to be a champion for school choice and it would be hard for her to do that without an education department. Trump's first education secretary Bets Betsy DeVos, was also an outspoken advocate for school choice. She kind of struggled to get much done nationally, and that's because school choice policies tend to happen at the state level,

and they vary pretty wildly. One thing McMahon could try to do is use the department to incentivize more states and communities to embrace some kind of school choice. Republicans in the Senate have also been pushing this new tax credit that would fund scholarships to students to help pay for private school tuition. But again, A, it's early and it is hard to know

how feasible these ideas will be, even with Republicans controlling Congress. MPRs, Corey Turner, thanks Corey. You're welcome. The Biden administration wants more money for disaster recovery, but the agency that responds to natural disasters, FEMA, is fending off a tax in Congress. Yes, the administration is seeking nearly $100 billion in additional funds after this year's onslaught of hurricanes,

flash floods, and wildfires. Meanwhile, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill. She had to defend against accusations that the agency responded slowly to disasters and discriminated against some hurricane victims for political reasons. NPR's Debbie Elliott is covering the story. Debbie Criswell testified before two House committees. So what did members of Congress press her on? Well, specifically, this was about FEMA's response to hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Catastrophic storms, you'll remember, that struck the southeast in late September and then early October back to back. More than 200 people were killed and the storms caused billions of dollars in damage. But there's one particular incident that prompted this scrutiny. An outfired FEMA supervisor directed workers who were doing door-to-door canvassing in Lake Placid, Florida to skip over houses that had Trump campaign signs in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton. Now that former crew lead is what she was, Marnie Washington, has since claimed she was following standard protocol to avoid hostility in the field, something workers did face after disinformation spread in the wake of Hurricane Helene. So the focus of these hearings

is whether there's a wider cultural problem at FEMA. Here's House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky. This same employee alleged on TV that this was not an isolated event and that FEMA essentially treats the homes of President Trump supporters as if they were homes of people with vicious dogs. This is unacceptable. Americans demand accountability. He says this incident amounts to the weaponization of This is unacceptable Americans demand accountability He says this incident amounts to the weaponization of government Comer also entered into the record another reported incident of a household in Georgia Being told by a FEMA contractor that they should remove any Trump campaign material now That's something in PR has not verified. So how did the FEMA chief respond a

Now that's something NPR has not verified. So how did the FEMA chief respond? A, in both the house oversight committee and then earlier before the transportation and infrastructure panel, Dan Criswell repeatedly denied any wider issue in the way that FEMA doles out disaster aid. She says, um, Marnie Washington's instruction to disaster assistance teams to avoid homes, quote, advertising Trump was reprehensible and at odds with the agency's mission. Here's part of her testimony before the House Oversight Committee.

This type of behavior and action will not be tolerated at FEMA. And we will hold all people accountable if they violate our standards of conduct. I do not believe that this employees actions are indicative of any widespread cultural problems at FEMA. Now Democrats on the panel like ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland tried to point out that President-elect Trump and his allies had pushed conspiracy theories about the hurricane response. FEMA aid workers have been forced to work under a cloud of propaganda and lies concocted to erode public trust in FEMA. Because of this disinformation, many victims of hurricanes have rejected federal assistance

and others have even harassed and threatened FEMA workers. So we know one FEMA supervisor has been fired for ordering workers to skip over homes with Trump signs. Could there maybe be more fallout from this incident? Well, that's a good question. Chris Wells says an internal investigation is underway, and she's also asked for an independent probe by the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security to determine whether this was an isolated incident or whether others at the agency are also at fault. In the meantime, she says, they've identified about 20 homes that were skipped over

and have since sent workers to help them register for aid if they qualify. We should also note that Chris was also named in a federal discrimination lawsuit that was filed by Florida's attorney general. That's NPR's Debbie Elliott. Debbie, thanks. You're welcome.

It's become known as the Exodus. Since Donald Trump won the election, at least 100,000 people have left X, the social media site owned by Elon Musk. Musk, of course, was a vocal Trump surrogate and a major donor, and now one of Trump's key advisors. And lately, X has become overrun with posts about Musk and Trump. Many looking for an alternative have turned to a site called Blue Sky. We're joined by MPR Tech correspondent

Bobby Allen to hear all about it. So we know by now that Elon Musk has made many changes at the site, formerly known as Twitter. But why are so many people leaving now? Yeah, you know the election might have something to do with it, right? After Trump won, many on X noted an uptick in pro-Trump content leading up to the election. Musk tinkered with the algorithm to give his own posts a boost, and Musk was posting a lot about Trump.

But to those who are, you know, not fans of Trump, X became too flooded with Trump backers. There have always been conservatives on the app back when it was Twitter, but users said this time around, it just stopped being a mix of views and just started being posts about Trump and posts about Musk. For some people that was a turnoff,

so they went to Blue Sky. And I'll admit it, when I first heard about it, Bobby, I wanted to call it Blue Ski, but I know it is Blue Sky. I know it is Blue Sky, very chipper name. And I'll admit, when I first heard about it Bobby I wanted to call it BlueSky but I know it is BlueSky I know it is BlueSky very chipper name. I'll admit when I log on to it Bobby it kind of looks like X so what's different? It does it looks a lot like X when you log on there's a feed of text posts from people you follow so the look and feel reminds you of X slash Twitter but the difference is BlueSky users have more choice about what they see and who they talk to. If you don't like what you see on the app,

you can actually build your own feed or search a database of feeds. There are more than 50,000 to choose from. Say a feed full of cat and dog photos or a feed full of news only about the Los Angeles Lakers, whatever you want. I talked to the CEO of Blue Sky, her name is Jay Graber, and she says this choose your own adventure quality of the app really puts the power in the hands of the average user. My concern with the internet is it's just become too controlled by a few powerful interests

and people don't have enough ability to control their own fate. And so we wanted to build social that's built by the people for the people. Right, by the people for the people. So how many people have actually gone to blue skies so far? Yeah, well so far it's pretty tiny. Graeber says since the election, they've added a million people a day, which is a remarkable number, but overall they have about 20 million users, which is quite small compared to Meta's X competitor threads, which has hundreds of millions and X itself, which also has hundreds of millions. But Blue Sky A is really where all the energy is right now.

I mean celebrities, politicians, influencers, you name it, are opening accounts on Blue Sky. It is too early to say that it is the new Twitter, but Blue Sky fans are sure hoping so. So then what, if anything, is standing in the way of Blue Sky becoming the new Twitter? Well, right now, their staff and infrastructure are just quite limited. And they will need money to support growing. And they haven't shared a long-term business plan.

They have said that Blue Sky will never display advertisements, that it won't harvest users' data. Those two are usually how social media companies make money, but Blue Sky is not going to do either. Right now, Blue Sky is just operating off of investor money. And when I talked to Graeber, she told me that they hope to do a subscription model to generate some revenue. But as it stands, A, that is the big question facing the future of Blue Sky. How in the world will it ever make money? That's NPR's Bobby Allen. Bobby, thanks. Thanks, A, that is the big question facing the future of blue sky. How in the world will it ever make money? That's NPR's Bobby Allen.

Bobby, thanks. Thanks, A. I witnesses tell NPR that the Israeli military is using a new type of drone in its war against Hamas in Gaza, a sniper drone. Vermont's NPR has collected more than a dozen accounts from people who have seen these sniper drones being used in Gaza.

And many say they have seen them used to shoot and sometimes kill civilians. For more on this, we're joined by NPR's Kat Lonsdorf. Kat, so why did you start looking into this? Yeah, well, I first heard about these drones this summer. We interviewed a man named Adib Shakha who was in Gaza. He was telling us about an incident at the end of May when he was walking on a quiet day with his 32 year old son and a small drone appeared and shot his son in

the head. He told us two men rushed in to help his son and the drone shot them too. One of those men was killed along with Shakha's son. You know, we know that drones are used in Gaza for surveillance and even to drop bombs by the Israeli military. But when I first heard this, my editor and I had this moment like, wait, a drone shot them? We thought maybe we didn't understand correctly.

So I started looking into it. So what did you find? So I pretty quickly figured out that this technology does exist. It's been on the market for several years and there are a few different companies making it. Many of them are based in Israel or have ties to Israel or the Israeli military. And just so you can picture it, you know, these are small drones with multiple rotors on the top. They kind of look like the drones that anyone could buy at like an electronics store, but a little bit bigger.

And then they've got a camera attached to them so that whoever's operating the drone can see what's in front of them, in front of the drone, and then there's a long rifle barrel attached and that gun can be fired remotely and the drone is designed to compensate for the recoil of the weapon while it's hovering. I should say that NPR repeatedly asked the Israeli military if it was using this sniper drone technology in Gaza. It didn't respond to our question but it's very common that a military won't disclose what weapons they're using, military if it was using the sniper drone technology in Gaza. It didn't respond to our question, but it's very common that a military won't disclose what weapons they're using, especially in active warfare. And like I said, several of the companies we found have ties to Israel, and the Israeli Defense Ministry has touted the technology in the past.

What did you hear from people in Gaza about how this sniper drone is being used? Well, we heard a lot of pretty disturbing stories, you know, that these drones appear quickly and quietly, that they come in after airstrikes and shoot people trying to pull people out of the rubble. They come near hospitals. They come to camps of displaced people. And many people told us stories about them

being used to shoot civilians, sometimes children. I talked with Dr. Mimi Syed. She's an American emergency trauma doctor who worked in Gaza recently. And she told me that she would see multiple patients a day, many in pediatrics with single gunshot wounds to the head. Every time someone would come in, they would be brought by family. But it was my routine practice to ask what happened. And every time it would be a drone quadcopter shot,

quadcopter drone shot. So she said she saw this day after day, people coming in from different parts of Gaza and talking about a quadcopter drone shooting from different incidents. People in Gaza talk about these drones all the time. We started noticing it after interview, after interview, and it seems like they become really, really common. We asked the Israeli military

about several of the individual incidents we heard about, including the first one I told you about. It said it was unaware of the incidents and said that any suggestion that Israel intends to harm civilians is, quote, unfounded and baseless. All right. That's NPR's Kat Lonsdorf. Kat, thank you very much. Thank you. Kat Lonsdorf. Kat, thank you very much. Thank you. And that's Up First for Wednesday, November 20th. I'm E. Martinez. And I'm Michelle Martin. Your next listen is Consider This from NPR. Here at Up First, we give you the three big stories of the day. Our Consider This colleagues take a different

approach. They dive into a single news story and what it means to you in just 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcast. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Russell Lewis, Kara Plattoni, Nicole Cohen, Mohamed El-Bardisi and Ali Schweitzer. It was produced by Zia Butch, Mia Dumas and Milton Guevara. We get engineering support from Carly Strange and our technical director is Zach Coleman. Join us again tomorrow.