Up First from NPR - National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism

Episode Date: May 24, 2025

Another major shakeup at the White House National Security Council. Officials tell NPR that dozens of staff were fired yesterday. Also, Sunday marks five years since George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer. His death triggered a reckoning with racism. But we explore how Floyd's murder also fueled conspiracies and political extremism.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Another major shakeup at the White House National Security Council. Officials tell NPR that dozens of staff were fired yesterday afternoon. I'm Ayesha Rasca. And I'm Scott Simon and this is Up First from NPR News. The National Security Council provides advice to the president on the biggest diplomatic and security decisions. But these firings are seeing as a way to eliminate bureaucracy and duplication. What might be the impact on national security? And tomorrow marks five years since George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police

officer. His death triggered large-scale protests across the country and a reckoning with racism in the U.S. But how did a moment of apparent national unity generate a backlash? We'll have reporting on how George Floyd's death fueled conspiracies and political extremism. So please stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend. Conductor Robert Fron says a good melody captures our attention. And then it moves you through time.

Music is architecture in time. If you engage in the moment with what you're listening to, you do lose a sense of the time around you. How we experience time. That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR. President Trump revamped his national security team at the start of this month when he named Marco Rubio as his national security advisor. Now the National Security Council, which Rubio oversees, in addition to remaining Secretary

of State, is undergoing a dramatic restructure and PRS Greg Meyer rejoins us. Greg, thanks for being with us. Hi, Scott. Now, the Trump administration hasn't made any announcement, but NPR has been reporting this story. What do we know? So dozens of staffers at the National Security Council were abruptly dismissed on Friday

afternoon. They were informed at 4.30 p.m. and told to leave by 5. This comes from sources who spoke with our NPR colleagues Tom Bowman and Franco Ardoñez. Now the White House has not commented so we don't have details or know the precise motive, but attention is certainly focused on Marco Rubio. He was and is Secretary of State. Then at the beginning of this month, as you noted, Trump dismissed his national security advisor Mike Waltz and gave Rubio that job as well. This means Rubio is responsible for this National

Security Council and we're seeing the shake-up just three weeks after he was put in charge. And Greg, remind us of the role of the National Security Council. Yeah, so the NSC works out of the White House. It has 200 to 300 staffers, depending on the presidential administration. It plays a key role in developing and implementing the president's foreign policy, even though we don't hear a lot about it. Many of these staffers are on loan from other departments, the Pentagon, the State Department, the CIA. The NSC has grown over the years. There are

periodic calls to scale it back. One of Trump's national security advisors in his first term, Robert O'Brien, recently wrote this in an op-ed. One source, for example, told NPR that the Middle East section at the NSC is being reduced from 10 staffers to five, so it appears to be an attempt to streamline the national security process, though again we don't know precisely because it was done without notice or explanation. Now there was a lot of reshuffling among the national security team during President Trump's first term. Is this that all over again?

Well, Scott, I think at this point we can say what we're seeing is very unusual arrangements on the national security team. Marco Rubio has these dual roles, which is very rare. His stock seems to be on the rise with Trump. Yet some of the biggest foreign policy matters, Trump has turned to Steve Witkoff, his longtime friend from his New York real estate days. Witkoff had no national security experience and yet he's the point man on the Iran nuclear negotiations. He's also the main negotiator in the U.S. efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

So at this point, the Trump administration still feels like it's working out some of these arrangements on the fly. Also Friday, Defense Secretary Hegseth announced new restrictions for reporters who cover the Pentagon. What can you tell us about that? Yeah, Hegseth said reporters must now be escorted by Pentagon officials when they leave the area inside the Pentagon designated for the media. This reverses decades of policy where reporters could move about in the non-classified parts of the Pentagon and generally had pretty good

access to officials. Hegseth has taken a number of moves to limit contact between journalists and military officials. The Pentagon Press Association, which represents journalists covering the Pentagon, said it, quote, appears to be a direct attack on the freedom of the press and America's right to know what its military is doing I'll note the Pentagon has had only one formal press briefing in four months under this new administration and Hegseth didn't take part in that one and for your national security correspondent Greg Myrie. Thanks so much, Greg. Sure thing, Scott. It was a moment that changed the course of U.S. history, a video showing George Floyd being murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, went viral, and triggered massive demonstrations across the country. Say his name!

George Floyd! Who'd they kill? George Floyd! Who'd they kill? But now, five years later, the country is deeply divided on issues of race and policing. NPR's domestic extremism correspondent, Odette Youssef, is here to talk about how such a dramatic change has happened. Good morning. Good morning.

It's kind of amazing to think about where we are now and that Floyd was killed five years ago. When you look back, how do you see that time? It's interesting, Ayesha, because, you know, the size of the protests, their reach into places across the country, I think it felt like a rare moment of broad consensus. At that time, the Pew Research Center found that two thirds of US adults supported the Black Lives Matter movement.

They found that almost 70% of Americans were talking about racial justice issues with their families and friends, and 70% were recognizing general tensions between police and black Americans. And so it felt like these difficult issues were finally out in the open and people were ready to discuss change to address them. But what I think what we didn't see clearly at that time was that deeply radicalizing forces were also organizing and in many respects, I think it's fair to say that they won.

Well, say more about that. What was brewing at that time that you say helped lead to the divisions that we see today? Well, the pandemic. I was in Minneapolis about six months ago, meeting with a local named Kimi Hull. One morning, Kimi and I were at what's now called George Floyd Square where he died and she said she thinks the movement wouldn't have launched if the country hadn't been sheltering in place.

Everybody's at home. Everybody can't leave anything. People are getting a lot of feelings just from being locked, you know, locked in your own home and stuff. And then this happens in your community and it's happened so often. But now you have a large group of people that are like, you know what, we got nothing to do. We're coming out here, dude. We're going to protest because we're sick of this. We're in quarantine and you're still killing us. The thing that gets Kimmy and many others is the earliest days of protest were peaceful

when it was largely locals, many who lived in and were invested in the neighborhood. But two days after Floyd's death, there was a change. It was the proud boys that came in here we needed help from and protection from. Kimmy's uncle, Bobby Hull, lives down the street and around the corner. The community was safe until they started coming in here. Until all these racist Ku Klux Klans and Aryan nations and Proud Boys, whoever you want to call them, they're racist people that don't belong here. One of the gaping holes that remains five years after Floyd's murder is the AutoZone Auto Parts store arson.

This was the very first structure in the area to burn. It's been cited as the trigger event that turned peaceful protests into lawlessness. The police named a suspect from a suburb of Minneapolis. An arson investigator's affidavit identified him as an affiliate of organized white supremacist groups, including the Hell's Angels and a prison gang called the Aryan Cowboys. To this day, there has been no arrest. The details of it all have faded for some locals. What hasn't faded is the conviction nurtured

among many Americans that summer that actually the violence came only from the left, the side that, in this case, did not set off the chaos. The memory of George Floyd is being dishonored by rioters, looters, and anarchists. The violence and vandalism is being led by Antifa and other radical left-wing groups. Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project find that at least 27 people were killed during the demonstrations across the nation. Most of them were not tied to any obvious ideological motivation.

Instead, they appear to have just been criminal in nature. But of those where the perpetrators had an identifiable ideology, only one was a self-identified anti-fascist. Six by comparison were far-right actors. Still, an internal report from the Department of Homeland Security suggests top officials were interested in a single predetermined narrative. Focusing on the drawn-out rioting in Portland, Oregon, the head of intelligence gathering, quote, stated that the violent protesters in Portland were connected to or motivated by Antifa.

This, even though his analysts had no evidence of that. But it wasn't just Trump and some administration officials who manipulated public perceptions of the unrest that summer. There was a lot of talk on places like Telegram, where some of the more far right extreme fringe were talking about the protests as a real opportunity to radicalize the MAGA folks. Pete Seamey is a sociology professor at Chapman University. He says extremists did what they always do. They clocked the high level of uncertainty among the public and swooped in.

CME says the movement for racial justice also created its own problems in retrospect. The defund the police slogan ultimately wasn't helpful. And experiments with so-called autonomous zones, areas with no police, produced troubling stories, including a 16-year- old fatally shot in Seattle's. You know, it was something else the right could point to and say, look, this is ultimately when they talk about police reform, they don't really mean just a little bit of change here. What they really mean is, you know, having this kind of lawless no control. They really mean something far more dark or sinister. And that, the argument that these protesters were part of a larger sinister plot, has endured.

We need to treat Antifa and BLM like terrorist organizations. The claim that Black Lives Matter is a Marxist or terrorist organization is now common on the right. It was expressed in a podcast three years ago by Joe Kent, a man who is now Trump's pick to direct the National Counterterrorism Center. Oh, Deb, we've also heard from the Trump administration and others who feel like the fixation on diversity, equity, and inclusion was divisive in and of itself and that if Americans focus less on issues like the country's history

of slavery and Jim Crow, that people would relate better to each other. Yes, and survey numbers suggest that many Americans may agree. A Pew survey this month finds that support for the Black Lives Matter movement has fallen 15 percentage points from where it was five years ago and on policing the pendulum has swung as well. You know, just last week the Department of Justice announced that it was ending consent decrees and investigations of police misconduct in multiple cities, including Minneapolis. But this assertion that maybe racism will go away if we stop talking about race, you know, it could be very dangerous. Well, talk to me about that.

People see social inequity. You know, people observe the differences that we live with, with health outcomes, educational opportunities, income attainment. And if we're not talking about the history and current factors, Pete Seamey says that this just leaves explanations that are pseudoscientific, disproven, and racist. Well, wait a second. Maybe there's something about their individual behavior that's different, right? Maybe there's something biologically that's different about different racial groups. Maybe they have certain kind of cultural traits that make them more prone to criminality. And this isn't just a theoretical concern, Aisha.

We've seen the White House issue an executive order aimed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum that posits race is not a social construct, but a biological reality. This is the stuff of eugenics, and it goes against decades of scientific consensus. That's NPR's Odette Youssef. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. And that's Up First for Saturday, May 24th, 2025. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon. But wait, wait! We've got one more thing for you today, here at Up First. We take keeping you informed very seriously.

Meanwhile, our friends at NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me take making fun of the news very seriously. Each week they create a news quiz, and we want to give Up First listeners the chance to play along. Test your knowledge of the week's news against the show's panelists by listening every weekend and here is this week's Lightning Fill in the Blank News Quiz. Now onto our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many Fill in the Blank questions as they can. Each correct answer is worth two points. Bill, can you give us this score? Hardy and Tom each have three.

Dulce has two. All right. That means, Dulce, you are in second place. You're going to go first. Dulce, the clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to pass President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Blank.

Mega Bill. Right. Voting 4 to 4, the Supreme Court declined to allow state funding for a religious blank in Oklahoma. Charter school? Exactly. Right.

This week, the FDA hinted they would soon crack down on off-brand versions of blank and other GLP-1s. Oh, the semi-glutides? Oh, yeah. Ozempic? Yeah, Ozempic. Yeah, that's right. This week, a teenager in Oklahoma who was caught cashing $500,000 in fraudulent checks

said he was doing it to pay for blank. Roblox. No, his lawyer in another fraud case. Come on, young man. On Tuesday, Kid Cudi took the stand at the trial of disgraced hip-hop mogul Blank. He did it. Yes. After 46 days, a blank match between Grandmaster Magnus Carlson and 150,000 online opponents

working together ended in a draw. Chess? Yes, chess match. days a blank match between Grandmaster Magnus Carlson and 150,000 online opponents working together ended in a draw. Chess? Yes, chess match. This week, visitors to an amusement park in Louisiana are suing after their kids were injured by blank. Alligators? No, by a prosthetic leg that flew off someone during a ride.

According to the parents, the prosthetic leg came flying off one of the roller coasters way up there, hit two of their kids, kids bounced off the ground and then hit a third they're fine but this is why they always tell you to keep your arms and legs inside the ride Bill how did Dulce do on our quiz? Five right ten more points total of 12 puts her in the lead right all right All right. Very well done. Let's arbitrarily pick Hari Kandabolu to go next. So Hari, fill in the blank. On Sunday, blank revealed he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Joe Biden. Right. During a meeting at the White House, President Trump ambushed the president of blank with false claims about white genocide in his country. South Africa. Right. On Wednesday, the blank dropped 800 points. Dow.

Yes. This week, Louisiana authorities said they're searching for 10 inmates who escaped through a hole and left a note that said blank. See ya. No, it said... That would have been good. What they actually said was, too easy, LOL. After being banned in 2020, hit game Fortnite has been returned to blank's app store. Uh, iPhone.

Uh, yeah, yeah, Apple. Very good. Best known for playing Norm Peterson on Cheers, actor Blank passed away at the age of six. George Wentz. Yes, Chicago Zone. For the second time in two years, a man in Texas is suing a fast food chain for a million dollars because they blanked. Um, they got his order wrong.

I'm going to give it to you because they put onions on his burger. The man is suing Wadaburger after he asked for no onions on his burger and got onions. He claims the mix-up caused him personal injuries. Meanwhile, the employee responsible for cutting the onions is like, if he's the one with injuries, why am I the one crying? Bill, how did Harry do in our quiz? Six right, 12 more points. Total of 15 puts him in the lead. Six right, twelve more points. A total of fifteen puts him in the lead.

How many then does Tom Papa need to win? Six to tie and seven to win, Tom. Okay. Here we go Tom. This is for the game. Citing their continued military offensive in Gaza, the UK paused trade negotiations with blank. Israel. On Tuesday the White House announced plans for a new $175 billion blank defense system. Dome. Yeah, nuclear dome. Yeah, nuclear dome to guard against missiles. Golden dome.

On Thursday, the Treasury Department announced it would phase out the blank by next year. The penny. Right. On Tuesday, scientists warned that melting ice could lead blanks to rise by 12 inches every decade. Seas. Yes. This week, the Indy Motor Speedway held a race between six souped up blanks.

Uh, souped up, oh, I knew this one. Uh, pass, I don't know. Souped up wienermobiles. Oh, it was wienermobiles. It was wienermobiles. On Thursday, the first blood test to diagnose blank was approved. Cancer. Alzheimer's.

On Tuesday, the NFL decided against banning the controversial blank play. Statue of Liberty. No, the controversial, the controversial tush-push play. Oh. After being reunited with the class ring he lost on a trip to Spain over 50 years ago, a man in Georgia blanked. Uh, lost it? Yes, he immediately lost it again, Tom.

It just proves the old saying, if you love someone, let it go. If it comes back, immediately let it go again. Bill, did Tom do well enough to win? Well, Tom got close, five right, 10 more points, total of 13, means he's in second place. And guess who is the winner today? I'm right, 10 more points, total of 13 means he's in second place. And guess who is the winner today? Ari!

See how closely you follow the week's news and have some fun by listening to the podcast, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz every Saturday. It's available in the NPR app and wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Up First Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.