Up First from NPR - President Biden's Legacy, Trump Campaign Focus, Ukrainian Buffer Zone

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

President Biden is scheduled to speak on the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Former President Donald Trump is visiting swing states and focusing his attacks on Harris' economic policies, and for the first time Ukraine's President has clearly stated the objective of Ukraine's military incursion into Russia.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 Krishnadev Calamur, Jan Johnson, Janaya Williams and Alice Woelfle. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Nina Kravinsky. 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

Good morning, eh? Hello. You sound so excited about Monday. I don't say good morning to anyone. Why? Because I don't assume that someone is having a good morning. What if they're not having a good morning and I'm just saying, Good morning!

And they're like, ugh. There are plenty of reasons why someone would roll their eyes at me, Layla. I don't want to give them an extra one. It's the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and President Biden gives the keynote speech tonight. It's not going to be a farewell speech, in my opinion. What's he expected to say and what else is on the agenda? I'm Layla Faldin. That's A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News.

The Trump campaign is on a whirlwind tour of swing states this week. They're visiting five battleground states to try to counter Democrats' recent surge in the polls. What's their message? And Ukraine continued its push across the Russian border in several directions, destroying two key bridges, making it harder for Moscow to replenish forces and evacuate civilians. Ukraine's president said the plan is to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks. Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day. You care about what's happening in the world.

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every day. Here at NPR, independence means journalism that's never influenced by politics, power, or popularity. It's reporting for you every day from NPR. This was supposed to be President Biden's convention. But now he's a supporting player at the Democratic Party's coronation of Vice President Harris. Biden will deliver the keynote address at the opening night of the Democratic National Convention later today in Chicago. First Lady Jill Biden will introduce him. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith has covered Biden throughout his presidency, joins us now from Chicago.

Tam, you're going to be in the arena tonight. What kind of speech do you expect Joe Biden to deliver? Based on what aides have told me, in some ways, this sounds a lot like a speech I could have imagined him giving if he was still the nominee, drawing contrast with Trump, saying democracy is on the line this election and talking about the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration. But with one big exception, instead of advocating for his own reelection, he'll be urging voters to support his partner in the White House, Kamala Harris. So Biden is going to say that these weren't just his accomplishments, they were Vice President

Harris's accomplishments too. Aides say the president plans to make a strong case for the Harris-Walls ticket and then, quote, hand off the convention to them. But while he's speaking, Tam, I gotta admit, I'll be wondering how Biden is feeling about all of this, this dramatic turn of events over the last couple of months. I've been wondering that, too. I spoke with longtime Biden friend Ted Kaufman, and he wanted to make very clear that this is not a swan song for Biden. It's not going to be a farewell speech, in my opinion. It's going to be a, okay, guys, this is really, really, really important. It's really, really, really important that we elect President Harris in election day. I asked him if this is going to be hard for Biden,

and he said that Biden has lived through many hard things in his life, and this isn't hard. He said the president is excited about Harris's candidacy and really believes that if Democrats pull together, she will win. All right. There are still a few months left in President Biden's term. Any sense of what his legacy will be? Well, I can tell you he is going to get a hero's welcome at this convention for stepping aside and endorsing Harris, which really paved the way for her to walk into the nomination unchallenged. How Biden's story is written in the history books is going to have to wait until November, though. Already, he has done something that few presidents have done before, which is step aside when he had one more race to run, though it took three weeks of battering from within his own party after his disastrous debate performance for him to see that he should step aside. All right, so aside from tonight, what else can we expect for the rest of the convention? There's still a few more nights

after tonight. There will be speeches from former presidents and first ladies, you know, a stark contrast from the Republican convention where there were no former presidents or party nominees or even former Vice President Mike Pence on hand. In Chicago, there will be musicians, there will be celebrities, there will be the traditional roll call to tally the votes of delegates from around the country. Organizers are hyping it as fun and innovative. There will be lots of video elements and everyday Americans telling their stories about what's at stake in the election. And the overall theme of this convention is for the people, for our future, which is an echo of Harris's 2020 presidential campaign slogan for the people and a nod to her history as a prosecutor. So even though she's been the nominee for less than a month, this is very much a convention transformed in her image. Harris is running a much more optimistic, joyful, and forward-looking campaign than Biden was.

She's making the case that if voters want change, and they almost always do, then she's the change candidate. And this convention reflects that shift in tone. That's NPR's Tamara Keith. Tam, thanks. You're welcome. All right. While the DNC in Chicago will draw tens of millions of viewers this week, former President Donald Trump will be trying to get his own share of attention. Yeah, Trump has put together a packed week of events in swing states to try to counter Vice President Harris's recent polling search.

For more on what Trump has planned, NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben joins us from Chicago. Danielle, the Democrats are getting their week in the spotlight in Chicago. So what will Donald Trump be doing this week? He'll be doing a run of swing state events along with his running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. So today they both hit Pennsylvania. Tuesday, Trump is in Michigan. Vance is in Wisconsin. Wednesday, they go to North Carolina.

After that, Trump goes to Arizona and Nevada. So really a lot of travel, trying to talk to a lot of crowds. Now the goal is to define Harrison Walls as they've been trying to do for weeks. And it's to really hit them on areas that the Trump team believes they're weak on. They have themes for each of these days that Trump and Vance are out. For example, economy, crime, immigration areas they've been attacking Harris on. Really, the Trump team is just trying to go on offense and end the Harris Walls honeymoon that Democrats are having. Now, Donald Trump held a rally in Wilkes-Barre,

Pennsylvania over the weekend. You were there. What was there to learn from that one? You know, it was a lot like a lot of other Trump rallies. It was pretty full. The crowd's enthusiastic. He meandered quite a bit. He said a lot of outlandish things. He made a lot of other Trump rallies. It was pretty full. The crowd's enthusiastic. He meandered quite a bit. He said a lot of outlandish things. He made a lot of personal attacks. At one point, he argued that he's better looking than Kamala Harris. That was new. But I think it's important to pull out how Trump talks about policy as he's making these more pointed attacks on Harris's economic plans. So at this rally, he defended the tariffs that he wants to impose on goods from abroad. Here he is. A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. That's the way it is, whether you like it or not. A lot of people like to say, oh, it's a tax on us. No, no, no. It's a

tax on a foreign country. It's a tax on a country that's ripping us off and stealing our jobs. Now, to hear him describe it there, you'd think that the Chinese government, for example, in a country that's ripping us off and stealing our jobs. Now, to hear him describe it there, you'd think that the Chinese government, for example, might shell out money to the U.S. Treasury because of U.S. tariffs, but that is not at all how it works. U.S. businesses, U.S. importers pay those tariffs, and the costs are passed on to U.S. consumers in the form of higher prices, or potentially they might affect foreign businesses who have to, for example, lower prices or sell elsewhere. Now, I tell you all this because this is important while we look at their economic plans. While it's true Harris hasn't laid out specifics on a lot of her agenda and she's getting dinged for that, it's also true that Trump has some of these policies that he has talked about for a while. And these policies not only could have real economic consequences, but

he's also on these tariffs, for example, either unclear on or lying about how they'd work. Now, the Harris-Walls campaign just wrapped up a bus tour in Pennsylvania. Trump is going to do another rally in Pennsylvania on Monday in York, and Trump has promised to go back to Butler. That's where he was nearly assassinated. So remind us why Pennsylvania is so crucial. Why are we talking about Pennsylvania so much? It's a tightly matched state with a lot of electoral votes. It has 19 of those votes.

It's tied with Illinois as a state with the fifth most. And really, when you look at scenarios of how this election might go, which states are solidly blue, solidly red, Pennsylvania is just crucial for anyone to win. That's NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben in Chicago. Thank you, Danielle. Thank you. For the first time, Ukraine's president has clearly stated the objective of Ukraine's military incursion into Russia. Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address yesterday that Ukraine's surprise attack on the Kursk region of Russia earlier this month was intended to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow across the border. Russian forces appear to be struggling

so far to fend off the new counteroffensive. Two and a half years after Russia's full-scale invasion began, Ukrainian forces are now fighting on three fronts, in eastern Ukraine, in the Black Sea, and on Russian territory in Kursk. Christopher Miller is the Ukraine correspondent for the Financial Times, and he's been traveling near the border with Ukrainian troops. Joins us from Kiev, Chris. So what have you seen about how Ukraine is consolidating its position in Kursk? Well, it's clear that this is a big operation and everything indicates that Ukraine is still pressing ahead with it.

Ukrainian soldiers and heavy weapons are still streaming into Russia's Kursk region and they're digging trenches, blowing up bridges, working to strengthen their grip on the Russian region, while Russia is really struggling to respond. You mentioned strengthening their grip. How strong is the Ukrainian position on this new front? Well, Ukraine's committed upwards of 10,000 soldiers to this Kursk operation, including many from its most elite and experienced airborne and mechanized brigades. Many of these were meant to be a part of Ukraine's strategic reserves and were kitted out for the potential operations to shore up defenses in eastern Ukraine. So this is not just a distraction. They have taken control of Russian territory, and this is the first time a foreign army has done so since the Second World War.

So what do you think about the overall objective here that has been laid out? Yeah, this is a big issue. There are several objectives, I think. Zelensky outlined one key aim overnight, saying it's meant to create a buffer zone to defend against Russian attacks inside Ukraine. Another is taking territory as leverage in future peace negotiations with Moscow that might take place. Then Ukraine also wants to draw Russian forces from other flashpoint areas in eastern Ukraine. But unfortunately for Ukraine, we haven't seen many Russian units pulled from those areas yet. And then yet another goal is to boost morale of Ukraine and its war-weary troops. And this operation certainly has accomplished that. I'd say finally that another major goal that Zelensky has himself spoken about is Ukraine

capturing thousands of prisoners of war to replenish what he calls an exchange fund, or to capture as many Russian POWs as possible to swap for thousands of Ukrainians held by Moscow. Now, all this, though, Christopher, sounds like a gamble. So what exactly is Ukraine gambling here? It is a gamble. A lot is at stake, particularly territory and resources, and maybe even the outcome of the war. Soldiers I've spoken with are optimistic at the moment, but they also have concerns. The front line before this operation was already more than 600 miles long, and Ukraine was outmanned and outgunned by Russia at that

stage still. So now Ukraine has stretched that front line and its resources further, so they could have a hard time the longer this operation goes on and as Russian forces continue their own advances inside Ukraine. And something to note here is that Ukraine is almost completely reliant on Western partners for military support, especially the U.S. So they're using up a lot of valuable equipment here that might not be immediately replenished. And one more thing, Christopher, mentioned how you're in Kiev. How are people there feeling? What's the feeling there? The mood is upbeat. You know, this is the first time Ukraine has been on the offensive for more than a year now, and they would like to see their troops march further if possible. But

again, there are some concerns about what this means overall in the eastern part of the country here as Russians advance there. Christopher Miller is the Ukraine correspondent for the Financial Times. He's also author of the book, The War Came to Us, Life and Death in Ukraine. Christopher, thanks. Yeah, thank you guys. And that's up first for Monday, August 19th. I'm A. Martinez. And I'm Leila Faldin. Join us tonight for NPR's live special coverage from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The team from the NPR Politics Podcast will be live tonight with coverage and analysis starting at 9 Eastern, 6 Pacific. That's on your local NPR station, in the NPR app, npr.org, or on your smart speaker.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kristen Dev-Calamore, Jan Johnson, Janaya Williams, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Nina Kravinsky. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent, and our technical director is Zach Coleman. Join us again tomorrow. Trials in multiple states, state and federal charges, plea deals, witness testimony, gag orders. The trials of former President Trump are really hard to keep straight.

And that's why we created Trump's Trials, a weekly podcast where we break down the biggest news from each of his legal cases and what it all means for democracy in about 15 minutes. I'm Scott Detrow. Listen to Trump's Trials from NPR. A little automation is nice, but when it comes to the news, you need it to come from real humans like us. That's why we've got the brand new Up First newsletter. You'll catch the latest on what you need to know in a casual, straightforward way. Offbeat stories, serious world affairs, and perspectives to pass around the group chat all in one at npr.org slash upfirstnewsletter.