Up First from NPR - President Trump's 2026 Budget, Gloomy Economic Outlook, Secretary of State's New Role

Episode Date: May 3, 2025

President Trump proposes major cuts to several federal agencies in next year's budget, but he wants defense and border security spending to increase. The budget plan comes after the economy shrank during the first three months of this year. We'll have the latest on the state of the economy. Plus, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has added the title of national security adviser to his growing roster of roles. But will he have the bandwidth to do both jobs?Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Trump proposes major cuts to federal spending. Part of the White House's budget plan for next year. But any spending will have to be approved by Congress. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon and this is Up First from NPR News. The budget plan was announced after the economy shrank during the first three months of this year. But job figures announced this week were better than expected. What do these mixed signals tell us about the state of the economy? We'll have the latest.

And Secretary of State Marco Rubio has added a new role to his portfolio. He's now the National Security Advisor after Mike Walz was moved aside. How could one official holding two top posts affect foreign policy? Please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend. Does the idea of listening to political news freak you out? Well, don't sweat it. The NPR Politics Podcast makes politics a breeze. Every episode will break down the day's headlines into totally normal language and make sure that you walk away understanding what the day's news might mean for you.

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of new music from all songs considered only from NPR. President Trump has issued his first budget proposal since returning to the White House. He wants to slash spending for many federal agencies but increase spending for defense and border security. The president's spending plans are expected to run into strong opposition in Congress which will need to approve any budget. The president's spending plans are expected to run into strong opposition in Congress, which will need to approve any budget. And Piers, Daniel Kurtzleben joins us. Daniel, thanks for being with us. Thank you, Scott. What do you see standing out in this budget? Well, first off, it would make some big cuts to non-defense spending. It would cut those by nearly one quarter. Now, that is a big category. It includes education, transportation, scientific

research. So it's a deep and broad swath of cuts. And then in turn, there are some big spending additions. Trump wants to boost defense spending by 13% to a trillion dollars per year. And not only that, but he's proposing a 65% boost to Homeland Security spending, and that would go in part to mass deportations and completing the border wall, his signature issues. I should add though that this is not a full budget, it's an outline, and it doesn't include mandatory spending. That's those big social safety net programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

A more detailed full budget, that's coming in the coming months. Tell us please more about those cuts to non-defense spending, specifically what? Well, Trump is proposing some really deep cuts to a few agencies. He proposes cuts of more than 50% at the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation. He also proposes cuts at the Internal Revenue Service, at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. I mean, really, if it's an agency that doesn't do immigration or defense,

there's a good chance that Trump wants to cut it. He also proposes some cuts to education, although the administration did take care to specify that they don't propose cutting head start funding. Why does the administration want to cut spending at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration or spending for scientific research. Well that's because there's a lot of culture war in this budget and a lot of programs are argued against on those grounds. Now in this short document the phrase DEI for example shows up 31 times, woke shows up 12 times and so on. Cuts from NOAA are justified because of that agency's climate work. The budget says that some programs quote,

radicalized students against markets. So in that way, the budget is very Trumpy. But that said, there are some traditionally fiscal conservative moves in here. For example, the budget proposes moving a bunch of federal programs like rental assistance out of the federal government and to the state and local level. I talked to Jessica Riedel, she's a budget expert at the Right-Leaning

Manhattan Institute. And as a fiscal conservative, she likes some parts of this budget, but she said the cuts should be going to deficit reduction and instead, they're going toward defense. There's no deficit reduction here. And if one accounts for the revenue losses from cutting IRS staff, one could argue that the net effect of this proposal would be to increase budget deficits. Danielle, it's Congress that ultimately makes spending decisions. How much attention should we pay to this document? You're right. This is just the starting point of a conversation with Congress, and presidents don't usually get to call the budget shots.

But the fact that Trump keeps trying to cut spending on his own changes things. I talked to Brendan Duke at the left leaning center for budget and policy priorities. Here's how he put it. I certainly think that they're shooting with live ammo with their budget in a way that is not true of most budgets because they have shown their willingness to try to do these sorts of cuts without congressional sign-off. There have been some court challenges that Trump's attempted cuts so far, but congressional Republicans, they haven't really pushed back on those moves. So this budget could be a

roadmap for things to come from the Trump White House. And there's Daniel Kirtzleben. Thanks so much. Thanks, Scott. President Trump's tariff policy has generated enormous economic uncertainty at home and abroad. The U.S. economy is shrinking, consumer confidence is faltering, and yet the job market still appears to be strong. We're joined now by NPR's Scott Horsley. Thanks for being with us, Scott.

Good morning. Good to be with you. Let's begin with this positive note because even with the backdrop of the President's trade war, employers continued to add a lot of jobs last month. This sounds encouraging. Yes, that's right. Employers added 177,000 jobs in April. Not quite as many as the month before, but more than forecasters had expected. And the unemployment rate

held steady at a low 4.2%. That suggests that even with all the tariff chaos of the recent weeks, employers are still hiring. Wages are also still going up. So with more people working and paychecks getting bigger, that should provide some juice to keep the economy moving forward. But we also learned this week that the economy went backwards a little bit, January through March. What do those numbers disclose? Right, gross domestic product, which is the broadest measure of the economy, contracted in the first three months of the year after fairly strong growth in the waning months of the Biden administration. In particular, consumer spending slowed down. And it's really a two-speed economy here. Wealthy people are still spending pretty freely, but the rest of the country

is tightening its belt. One example is McDonald's. A lot of customers there are budget conscious, lower middle income people. This week the chief financial officer Ian Borden said McDonald's US sales had dropped more than three and a half percent in the early months this year. The big thing is people are just visiting less and that speaks to I think the pressure on consumers, consumer sentiment obviously that the things that we've been talking about for a while now, inflationary pressures, interest rates that are weighing obviously particularly on lower consumers and that's spilling over into middle-income consumers right now. McDonald's is expanding its

discount menu to try to bring more customers through the doors, but you know as an economic indicator that drop in sales at my old employer McDonald's is not such a happy meal. Well and they miss you still. But as an economic indicator, that drop in sales at my old employer McDonald's is not such a happy meal. Well, and they miss you still. General Motors, another iconic U.S. company, also had some sobering economic news this week. What did they say?

GM projected that the president's tariffs could cost the company as much as $5 billion this year. The company hopes to mitigate some of that by ramping up production at a truck plant in Indiana, shifting where some of its parts come from. But this is a reminder that a lot of domestic manufacturers rely on imports for parts and for raw materials and they are struggling with Trump's tariffs. Auto makers cut almost 5,000 jobs in the US last month. Factories overall are in a slump right now. Tim Fiore conducts a monthly survey of factory managers

for the Institute for Supply Management, and he's hearing a lot of complaints about how the trade war is driving prices up and driving business away. This is not good. This is just another confirmation that tariffs are probably taking us in the wrong direction. We could be on a growth profile here, if not for the administration trying to change the

way the entire world does business. As the trade war heated up last month, we saw factory orders, factory output, and factory employment all come down. Yet, the stock market ended the week on a high note. What are investors figuring? This is one of those weeks when you can see the economic glass as half full or half empty, depending on which of the indicator numbers you look at and where you think the trade war is going. For the moment, investors are drinking from the half full glass, but that

could easily change next week. And Peter Scott Horsley, thanks so much. You're welcome. President Trump's former National Security Advisor, Mike Walz, lasted barely a hundred days in his post. He was widely criticized for accidentally adding a journalist to a chat group that was discussing military strikes on Yemen. He's been replaced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will now add the title of National Security Advisor to his growing roster of roles. But in a time of global tensions,

will he have the ability to do both jobs? Ampere's national security correspondent Greg Myrie joins us. Greg, thanks for being with us. Good to be here, Scott. Let's start with the latest national security news. The latest national news is that the U.S. military has been in a state of emergency. to do both jobs. Amperes National Security correspondent Greg Myhre joins us. Greg, thanks for being with us. Good to be here, Scott.

Let's start with the latest. National Security Advisor Mike Walz was removed, or should we say relocated from his role. What was the stated reason? Where did he go? So Trump plans to nominate Walz to become the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Now Vice President J.D. Vance tried to downplay any sense of turmoil. In an interview on Fox News he said Waltz was being given a new position for which he seemed better suited. The media wants to frame this as a firing. Donald Trump has

fired a lot of people. He doesn't give them Senate confirmed appointments afterwards. So still Trump wouldn't be doing this if he wasn't unhappy with Waltz's performance in some way, and this UN job is seen as a bit of a consolation prize. Now, Waltz took responsibility for accidentally adding a journalist to that now-infamous Signal group chat back in March, and that was probably one contributing factor to his move. And yet did he make the same misstep this week? At Tuesday's cabinet meeting, a Reuters photographer was there. He took a photo sort of over the shoulder of Waltz, and it showed Waltz using signal

on his phone. And in addition to this, Waltz has had some policy positions that seem a bit out of sync with Trump. Before he joined Trump's team, he was very tough on Russia and supportive of Ukraine in contrast to Trump. So this was probably a factor as well. The president is replacing Waltz, at least temporarily, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who will also keep his job as Secretary of State. This is a lot of work, isn't it? Yeah. I think the first thing Rubio is going to need to do is clone himself because he's

going to have to be in two places at once. The Secretary of State is in constant motion, traveling from one foreign capital to the next. In contrast, the National Security Advisor is usually quite close to the President. His natural habitat is the White House and the Situation Room in particular. His job is to work with various agencies, the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department, and help the president sort through policy options. So it's not a natural fit to do both jobs simultaneously. This is likely

a temporary arrangement, and it does suggest Trump is putting a lot of trust in Rubio for now. One other note, the last time this happened was under President Nixon when he put Henry Kissinger in both those roles. Rubio seems to have Kissinger beat. He has two other jobs as well, the acting head of USAID and the acting head of the National Archives. Before the shakeup, it seemed that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, might be the cabinet member most likely to lose his job. Does Secretary Hegseth seem be the cabinet member most likely to lose his job. Does Secretary Hegseth seem safe for now?

Well, given Trump's unpredictability, nothing is certain, but Hegseth looks to be safe for the moment. He's still facing a lot of criticism. His hand-picked advisors have been dismissed, so it seems there's still some turmoil at the Pentagon. And as you noted, Scott, there's unprecedented churn in Trump's national security team in his first term. He had four separate national security advisors.

The first one, Mike Flynn, lasted less than a month. He also had four defense secretaries and four directors of national intelligence. Of course, all of this is occurring at a moment when there are a number of conflicts and challenges abroad. Bring us up to date. So Trump still wants a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war. That's proving elusive. He's been more supportive of Russia in general.

But this week, the U.S. signed an agreement with Ukraine on natural resources. So this may keep Trump a bit more engaged with Ukraine. Trump came into office just as the Israel Hamas truce was taking effect. That's now collapsed, the war in Gaza grinds on amid a major humanitarian crisis, and today marks seven weeks since the US launched a bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen. And we're still getting minimal information. We do know the US has lost at least a half dozen drones at 30 million dollars apiece, and a jet fighter which cost more than 60

million fell off the deck of an aircraft carrier this week and sank in the Red Sea. And Piers Grigmyrie thanks so much. Sure thing Scott. And that's Up First for Saturday May 3rd 2025. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon. Ha! Hold up! One more thing for you today, here at Up First, we take keeping you informed 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. 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 now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores?

Joyell and Hari each have three. Peter has two. All right. So Peter, you are in second place. That means that you are going to go first. Here we go. Fill in the blank. In response to the signal texting scandal, Trump announced he was reassigning National

Security Advisor blank. Whoever that guy is yes His name is Mike waltz and he is going to be UN ambassador at the end of April both the S&P 500 and the blank closed in the red The other one the Dow yes the Dow Jones this week Canada and Mexico reported outbreaks of blank Oh, are we exporting measles? Yes? We are Trade continues on Tuesday lawmakers in Florida signed a bill to ban blank in the state's drinking water.

Fluoride? Fluoride, yes. This week, a highway in Texas was shut down for 12 hours after a truck spilled $800,000 worth of blank. Oh, I heard about this. Dimes. Yes, dimes. On Wednesday.

Not dime bags, dimes. Dimes. On Wednesday, it was revealed that Martin Scorsese filmed one of the blanks final interviews. One of the blanks? Yes. That is a clue. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, in Beyonce. This week a priest in Pennsylvania was sentenced to community service after he stole $40,000 from his parish and spent it on blank. Cowboy Carter ticket.

One ticket. Power-ups in Mario Kart. $40,000? $40,000. The 52-year-old priest used the parish credit card to buy thousands of dollars in video game power-ups for Mario Kart tour God can you imagine going to the confession booth saying bless me father for I have sinned in hearing. It's a me Bill how did Peter do in our quiz very well six right twelve more points fourteen is his total all right Joyale yes, I am arbitrarily choosing you to go next here 14 is total. All right. Joyell? Yes?

I am arbitrarily choosing you to go next. Here we go. Fill in the blank. On Tuesday, to commemorate his first 100 days in office, Blank held a rally in Michigan. Trump. On Monday, Spain and Portugal were hit with a massive 12-hour blank. Blackout? Yeah, power outage.

This week, severe blanks tore through 12 states. Tornado. And storms. Yes. On Wednesday, a judge suggested opening a criminal case against blank for their App Store policies. Oh, Apple? Right. After the Lakers lost their spot in the postseason,

blank hinted he may retire from the NBA. Lebron? Lebron James. On Thursday, George Clooney, Bob Odenkirk, and Sarah Snook were all nominated for blank awards. Tony! Yes. This week, the US Navy lost a $60 million F-18 fighter jet after the aircraft carrier

it was on blanked. Crashed into the ocean? No, the aircraft carrier turned too quickly and the jet slid off and into the water. The Navy confirmed that a quick turn caused the plane to slide off the ship and into the ocean which is a real, you know, you had one job aircraft carrier. Also, they are famously the slowest things to turn. Yes, I know. It's like, it's a cliché, right?

Well, you know, getting the government to change is like turning an aircraft carrier. Turns out turning aircraft carrier just jerked the wheel really hard. Bill, how did Joyell do on our quiz? Six right. 12 more points, slipping by Peter with a 15. There you are. So. You didn't even need it. You didn't even need it.

So Hari is left to play. How many does he need to win? Well, six to tie and seven to win. All right, here we go, Hari. This is for the game, fill in the blank. Months after tense negotiations began, the US signed a rare minerals deal with blank. Ukraine. Right. On Monday, the White House fired all the scientists working on a massive study of blanks effect on the United States. Were fruity pebbles?

Climate change. Climate change. In her first major speech since leaving office, blank sharply criticized Trump's policies. Kamala Harris. Right, during an interview this week, Ben Affleck said he thought that blank was the best work of his career. What are his children? No. What is, you think this is Jeopardy? Let me, let me have dreams here. No, no, he said the best work of his career

was the DVD commentary track for Armageddon. On Thursday, department store Blank fired their CEO for funneling business to his romantic partner. Macy's? No, Cole's. On Wednesday, officials in Nepal drafted a law requiring anyone who wants to climb Blank to be an experienced climber.

Mount Everest. Right. Last week, a woman in South Carolina sued a local restaurant after she took a bite of her sandwich and cracked her tooth on blank. What is a gold nugget? She cracked her tooth on another person's tooth. Apparently the woman bit into her sandwich, cracked her molar on something hard and then discovered it was a tooth. She's understandably traumatized, as I believe you are now, but this is why you have to be

specific when you order a burger with everything on it. Bill did Harry do well enough to win. How dare you! Well, we gotta read them anyway! Three right, six more points. Nine means Joyelle is the champ! Well done! Oh, perfect! 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. These days, there's a lot of news. It can be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family, and your community. Consider this from NPR as a podcast that helps you make sense of the news. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and provide the context, backstory, and analysis you need to understand our rapidly changing world. Listen to the Consider This Podcast from NPR.

Starting in the 1950s, there was a push to get meat onto Americans' plates at every meal. So you would have breakfast with maybe perhaps sausage offered. You'd have lunch where it would be deli meat sandwiches. And you'd have dinner that would center over a large cut of meat. The hidden forces behind our everyday decisions. That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR.