Up First from NPR - Trump and Zelenskyy Feud, DOGE Savings Claims, Hamas Releases Four Hostage Bodies

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

A look at the roots of the difficult relationship between President Trump and President Zelenskyy. DOGE says its saved taxpayers billions of dollars. How do these claims stack up against the evidence? And Hamas returns the bodies of four Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack.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, Padmananda Rama, Didi Schanche, Reena Advani and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott and our technical director is Carleigh Strange. Our Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I finally got a good night's sleep. Really? How come? How? How'd you do it? Well, I mean, it wasn't enough hours. Whatever you can tell me. No, I slept. I slept. Well, what you do is you sleep badly for several nights in a row. And then you're so tired. You're so tired. You crash. It has to, yeah. Exactly. It works every time. Well, I get that. Not quite every time. President Trump is pressuring Ukraine's president with personal attacks. Trump called Zelensky a dictator.

Zelensky accused Trump of spreading misinformation. They both agree the war in Ukraine should end, so why are they so far apart on how to get there? I'm Steve Inskeep with Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. Elon Musk's Department of Government efficiency claims to have trimmed billions of dollars from the federal budget. What Musk and Doge are doing is more cosmetic symbolic changes that won't save money but might sound good.

Our correspondent added up the receipts and found a different number. What's the real bottom line? And Hamas released the bodies of four Israeli hostages today. What's known about them and the circumstances in which they died? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. Whatever your job is, wherever you're from, NPR is a resource for all Americans. Our mission is to create a more informed public. We do that by providing free access to independent, rigorous journalism that's accountable to

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President Trump is escalating his personal attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling him a dictator. Trump is pressuring the Ukrainian to submit to peace talks that so far have not included Ukraine. The US also pressed Zelensky to sign an agreement that would share Ukraine's mineral rights with the United States.

Zelensky has said Ukraine needs to be included in any negotiations, and it's in this context that the American president made a stream of remarks about the Ukrainian leader. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez is here to tell us more about this. Good morning, Franco. Good morning, Michelle. So tell us more about these dictator comments. What's the backstory here? Yeah, I mean, what Trump called Zelensky a dictator without elections, basically echoing Russian talking points that Zelensky is an illegitimate leader and that Ukraine needs

new elections. Now, in that same social media post, Trump also mocks Zelensky as a, quote, modestly successful comedian who basically tricked the US into spending billions and billions of dollars on the war. Trump also appeared to blame Zelensky for the Russian invasion. All this as Zelensky has raised concerns about, as Steve said, Ukraine being excluded from US negotiations with Russia over ending the war. Here's Trump talking about it on Tuesday.

Today, I heard, oh, well, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. Now just to be very, very clear, Ukraine did not start the war. Russia did. But Trump also suggested that Zelensky's popularity had fallen as low as 4%.

It's actually over 40%, 50%. So okay, it's over 50%. Okay. I think it would be helpful here to go back into the history dating back to the first Trump administration that we're talking about the history between these two men. Remind us of that. And how does this play into what's happening now? Yeah, I mean, it was that first call with Zelensky

back in 2019 where Trump asked for a favor to dig up dirt on Vice President Biden that kicked off Trump's first impeachment. I did speak with Andrea Kendall Taylor at the Center for New American Security, and she says Trump never really respected Zelensky and continues to carry a lot of negative baggage about him and Ukraine. That definitely colors the lens through which he is approaching these negotiations with Russia and his sidelining of Zelensky in the process.

Now, of course, it's a complex relationship. And like many of Trump's relationships with foreign leaders, it can really be hot or cold, depending on the circumstances. How is Zelensky responding to these latest attacks? I mean, very carefully. He's long used flattery to try to win favor with Trump. But he's been pushing back more recently You know after Trump questions Olenski's poll numbers Olenski told reporters that as much as he respects Trump the US president Appears to be amplifying Russian disinformation. What's next? What are we looking for? Well, the French president Manuel Macron will be in Washington next week to meet with Trump Also British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is also expected to visit.

Now like many leaders, Macron and others are concerned about Europe not being part of these negotiations with Russia. The big worry across Europe is that even if a deal is reached, it won't be lasting and that Russia will likely invade again. As he has before, the worry across Europe is that even if a deal is reached, it won't be lasting and Russia will likely invade again and possibly another European nation.

That is NPR's Franco Ordonez. Franco, thank you. Thank you, Michelle. The Trump administration has posted a new online tracker The Trump administration has posted a new online tracker that lists what it describes as the dollars saved by the Department of Government Efficiency. That is the cost-cutting effort championed by Elon Musk and President Trump. Musk made a stream of claims on social media in recent weeks about big savings. A Doge website kept promising receipts, and this week the website published some,

but those receipts add up to far less in savings than claimed. NPR's Stephen Fowler did the math. He is here with us now to tell us what he found. Good morning, Stephen. Good morning. Okay, so what does this online Doge document claim to track?

So Monday, a savings page on doge.gov went live. It says there's been savings so far of $55 billion. What's included in that? Doge says things like quote fraud detection, deletion, workforce reductions, programmatic changes, and regulatory savings. Exactly how those changes fit into the overall savings estimate is still TBD. They promise to keep adding more information. What we do have shared for now is a list of some of the government contracts Doge says were canceled in recent days, what they call a wall of receipts that adds up to about $16 billion in alleged savings. It's important to note here that Elon Musk, the tech mogul, and also I want to point out

a government contractor who heads up this group, insists that the work is transparent. So two questions here. Is it transparent? And now that you've been reviewing these contracts, how do their numbers stack up with what you have found? The Doge website, Michelle, is actually less transparent about these contracts than other public government data sources. So I had to search through 130,000 plus contracts that have been changed from January 20th to Monday to see if I could match them up with what Doge shared. But the claims went off by just a little bit, but rather overstated by billions.

Half of the savings claimed in these receipts comes from what Doge said was actually a typo entered into the federal contract database a few years ago that made a listing worth up to $8 million look like $8 billion. That typo was fixed in the system a few weeks ago, but only fixed on the Doge website yesterday. I will note here, Doge has not responded to multiple requests from NPR to get clarity about their process. Okay, well that's a pretty big typo, Stephen. Okay, so what about the rest of the claims?

Here's three big things I found. One, more than half of the contracts listed haven't actually been canceled yet. Two, a third of the entries don't actually result in any savings by Doge's own accounting. These are contracts that were already maxed out and couldn't see any more spending in the future. Three, the terminations I could verify only add up to about $2 billion saved, mainly through cuts that accompany the attempted dismantling of the Education Department, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and USAID.

Okay, so a purported $55 billion in savings shrinks to $16 billion, which upon further examination you found is just $2 billion. Well, one could argue that's still a lot of money though. Well for you or me or even a nice business, yes, but the federal government spent more than $6.7 trillion with a T and a lot more zeros in the last fiscal year. Here's Jessica Riedel with the Manhattan Institute. She studied ways to cut wasteful spending from the budget from a conservative policy perspective.

It has to be done legally through Congress, and it has to be done competently by people who understand federal budget and accounting. And what Musk and Doge are doing is more cosmetic symbolic changes that won't save money, but might sound good. Basically, Riedel says any meaningful cuts to federal spending has to come from Congress having hard debates over how to do it. Quickly, Stephen, if meaningful savings have to be achieved through difficult conversations in Congress and the Doge effort isn't actually saving much money, what is the point? Well, it's not about pinching pennies. It's about a manifestation of President Trump's

overarching vision to remake the federal government by making it a lot smaller and a lot more aligned with his worldview. That is NPR Stephen Fowler. Stephen, thank you. Thank you. you. Danielle Pletka That is NPR's Stephen Fowler. Stephen, thank you. Stephen Fowler Thank you. Danielle Pletka Hamas has released the bodies of what it says are four Israeli hostages back to Israel, including the body of a mother and her two young sons. Stephen Fowler They will undergo forensic testing in Israel

to confirm their identity. This is the first time that Hamas has released the bodies of hostages under the current ceasefire. For more, we're joined by NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Tel Aviv. Good morning, Kat. It must be a difficult day there. Yeah, yeah, it is. It's pretty somber here. So what can you tell us about the remains that were released? Who were they? So Hamas says that they are the bodies of Shiri Bibus and her two young sons, Ariel and Kephir, as well as the body of 84-year-old Oden Lifshitz. All four of them were taken hostage in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel. Shiri's husband Yarden was also taken hostage with the rest of the family on that day.

The Bibus family had become a symbol here in Israel of the plight of the hostages in Gaza. The two children, ages four and nine months when they were captured, were the youngest hostages taken. So, Bebis had become this household name here. Posters of their faces were plastered on sidewalks and commemorations had been held in the children's birthdays. Then the dad was released alive earlier this month. Oded Lifshitz, the other body released today, was a retired journalist and peace activist. His wife had alsoitz, the other body released today, was a retired journalist and peace activist. His wife had also been taken hostage,

but was released earlier in the war. Do we know how they died? Well, Hamas says all four were killed by Israeli strikes during their time in captivity in Gaza. Israel says it will take the bodies to an Israeli forensic institute here in Tel Aviv, which will examine them and provide official identification and also seek to determine the cause of death.

Danielle Pletka This is the first time that Hamas has handed over bodies during this war. The previous releases have been of hostages who were alive. So would you mind just describing the scene? What was it like both in Gaza and in Israel? Was it different? Danielle Pletka Yeah, it was definitely more somber and much less celebratory on both sides.

In Gaza, large crowds gathered in Chanyunis in the south. Masq Tamas Gunman presided over a ceremony on a stage with four coffins draped in black. There were large posters on both sides of the stage in Hebrew and English. One depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a fanged vampire. Another said that if Israel resumed the war, more hostages would come home in coffins.

In Israel, unlike previous releases, the Hamas ceremony was not broadcast on Israeli TV and Israeli media outlets did not publish images from it out of respect for the families. Once the caskets were in Israeli custody, they were then draped with Israeli flags and then they were driven from Gaza to Tel Aviv and large crowds gathered along the route to show solidarity and respect. So you've obviously been following the ceasefire deal very closely. What's expected to happen next in the coming days and in the ceasefire deal? Yeah, so Saturday is going to be a big day.

The remaining six live hostages that Hamas has committed to releasing in this first phase will be released, including two have been held for around a decade, and they'll be released in exchange for more than 600 Palestinians released from Israeli jails. This first phase of the deal ends on March 2nd, and so far talks for the next phase haven't started yet. They were supposed to start weeks ago. So we're really just waiting to see what happens with that. You know, meanwhile, there still will be dozens of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Around half of them are believed to be alive. That is NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Kat.

Thank you. And that's up first for Thursday, February 20th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Steve Hintzke. Listen, make your next listen. Consider this, or at least consider it. The team behind NPR's All Things Considered goes deep into a single news story and gets you deep in 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Dana Farrington, Padmananda Rama, Didi Skanki,

Rina Advani and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Ziad Baj, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott and our technical director is Carly Strange. We hope you'll 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 Up First Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.