Up First from NPR - Ukraine Talks, U.S. Health Agency Cuts, NYC Mayor Eric Adams Fallout

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

American and Russian officials meet in Saudi Arabia for talks on negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. The Trump administration has started making broad cuts to federal health agencies. Days after the Justice Department moved to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, four of his top aides and deputy mayors announced their resignations. 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 Ryland Barton, Jane Greenhalgh, Denice Rios, Reena Advani and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent and our technical director is Carleigh Strange. Our Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Top foreign policy officials from the US and Russia meet in Saudi Arabia today. Yeah, Ukraine isn't invited, but ending the war is a primary focus. What's on the bargaining table without Ukraine present? I'm Amartinez, that's Leila Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News. The country's health agencies have not been spared from federal job cuts. Regardless of whether they were filling an important role or how they were performing in that role. We'll hear what people were told about why they were let go.

And the governor of New York may try to remove New York City Mayor Eric Adams from office. Controversy surrounding the mayor has deepened since four of his top aides and deputy mayors announced that they will resign. What Mayor Adams is saying about his own future. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Lumen. When your metabolism is working properly, you will feel the benefits. With the Lumen device, you can measure your metabolism through your breath. And on the app, it lets you know if you're burning fat or carbs and gives you tailored guidance to improve your nutrition, workouts, sleep, and even stress management.

Take the next step to improving your health. Go to lumen.me slash first to get 20% off your lumen. High-stakes negotiations aimed at ending the war in Ukraine began today in Saudi Arabia. Senior Trump administration officials will meet with their Russian counterparts. Joining us to talk about this is NPR's Charles Maines, who's been covering the war from Russia. Good morning. Good morning, Leila. So Charles, set this up for us. What can we expect from these talks? Well, you know, this meeting is a direct outcome

of the Trump-Putin phone call from last week, during which the two leaders agreed to pursue a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine. Secretary of State Marco Rubio heads the US delegation with Moscow's top diplomat, that's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, leading the Russian mission. The teams also include foreign policy, national security, and economic advisors,

and notably White House Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff, who met with Russian officials in Moscow last week to negotiate that prisoner exchange, the freed American schoolteacher Mark Fogel. Now, talks are already underway this morning, and it's the only thing they've got on the schedule, so they really should have some time to suss each other out. So these negotiations are about Ukraine and yet I haven't heard you mention Ukrainian officials.

Will they be there? Yeah, that's right. Ukraine is not invited, although both Trump and the Kremlin say Ukraine will be involved in some way at some point. We'll have to see. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is however already warning that Kiev won't recognize any negotiated outcomes here that are about Ukraine without Ukraine. Now that's a message we've also heard a lot recently from European leaders. Where are

they in this process? Well, Europe is completely sidelined here, which of course rankles them because they see the war in Ukraine as fundamentally a European security issue. Last week, Trump's envoy to Ukraine was very upfront. He said to European leaders their diplomatic efforts in the past had failed miserably in Ukraine and the US wasn't looking to repeat. Moreover, Russia agrees. In comments yesterday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovrov poured scorn on Europe saying, quote, he didn't know what they would even do at the negotiating table, arguing they were only

interested in freezing the conflict to help Ukraine rearm to fight another day. Okay, given that Moscow and Washington seem to be cutting everyone out of these negotiations, is this a reset between the US and Russia or are we witnessing something more here? Well, it certainly feels like a reset. In his remarks yesterday, Lavrov reminded that Trump and Putin in their phone call had agreed to end what he called this not normal period when Moscow and Washington basically refused to talk to one another. And let's remember Trump and Putin have now agreed to meet face to face, including possibly visits in Moscow or Washington. So from that perspective, Russia's isolation over its actions in Ukraine appear over

and frankly it suits Moscow, which has always preferred the Cold War optics of big powers making big chessboard decisions and leaving everyone else on the sidelines. So as these negotiations get underway, do we have any sense of what the outlines of a deal might look like? Well, these are obviously complex negotiations,

but the US team comes in with President Trump on record, agreeing that Ukraine must give up its NATO ambitions and territory to Moscow. Those are two key Russian demands. The US is already ceded. Now there are all sorts of questions about where borders are drawn and whether there could be a peacekeeping contingent

and who that might involve. But fundamentally, the concern in Europe and certainly in Kiev is that while they want what they call a just peace, Trump just wants peace. And that's the apparent difference here. And it suits Russia just fine, I might add, because Moscow appears to hold the upper hand both on the battlefield and around the negotiating table. And PR's Russia correspondent, Charles Maynes, thanks for your reporting.

Thank you. The Trump administration has begun making broad cuts to federal health agencies. More than a thousand employees got letters terminating their employment at the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. NPR's Ping Wong joins us now to discuss. Good morning, Ping. Good morning, Leila. So what will staffers of these agencies find as they get back to work from the three-day weekend?

You know, they're not really clear. They're going back to the office today and they don't really know who to expect or who they're going to see. That's because over the weekend, around 1,000 people got fired from NIH, around 750 from CDC. Some people are also let go from FDA, though we're not sure how many at this point.

And I do wanna note that those numbers are quite a bit lower than what was expected. We heard some people that told us that they had been told on Friday they were gonna lose their jobs but haven't gotten a letter yet. And we heard that some of those jobs were saved at the last minute because they were considered essential, but people in leadership say they're really

not clear what the criteria was. Do we know who was cut? So we know some were people that were working to ensure medical devices are safe at FDA. Others were diagnosing the causes of outbreaks at CDC and there were many, many others. What they seemed to have in common was that they were mostly probationary employees, so people who are new to the agency or just moved to a different job. They were serving one, a one or two year trial period and they have fewer worker protections. He spoke with Steve Monroe, a senior official who retired from CDC in 2021. He says it seems short-sighted to just ask the people that are easier to fire.

Regardless of whether they were filling an important role in the organization or how they were performing in that role, we're just gonna fire everybody who's been here for less than a year. He says it's also bad for development and for morale. Well, on that point of performance, how much do we know about why they were fired? Well, the letters that they received,

and we've seen a few of them, they're all very similar. They came from the Department of Health and Human Services, which is the agency that oversees all the health agencies, now led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And the letters do say, quote, you are not fit for continued employment with the agency, end quote, your performance has not been adequate. It ends their employment on March 14th and says they're going to be put on an administrative

leave until then. But we know for a fact that many of the people who got this letter had recently received stellar performance reviews from their workplace. One from CDC had recently received an award of excellence for their work preventing animals with infectious diseases like rabies from entering the country. It's not clear why these employees were told their performance was inadequate, but many have responded with documentation of their high performance. So where does this lead the agencies?

Well, it's been a really confusing and chaotic time. Workers say that they feel demoralized, vilified, characterized as lazy by some in the Trump administration when they and their colleagues say that they work really hard to serve and protect the public. And they see this as just the first wave. They're expecting more cuts, deeper restructuring to come. Even workers with full protections think they could be next. You know, they've been canceling their Netflix accounts, reducing retirement contributions to save a little money in case they find themselves fired too. And Piers Ping Wong, thank you Ping. You're welcome. New York Governor Kathy Hochul says she may use her authority to force New York

City Mayor Eric Adams from office. That announcement came after four of Adams' most trusted aides, including the city's first deputy mayor, announced yesterday they're quitting. Turmoil in New York escalated after the U.S. Department of Justice dropped corruption charges against Adams, and critics say that move was part of the deal to secure Adams' help with President Trump's deportation policies. NPR's Brian Mann has been following all of this and joins me now. Hi, Brian.

Hi, Laila. So what did Governor Hockel say? Well, in a statement, Hockel said she spoke with Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, one of Adams' top aides who's resigning. And that conversation left Hockel with, and I'm quoting here, serious questions about the long-term future

of this mayoral administration. Hockel acknowledged no governor in the last 235 years has used their authority to oust an elected mayor of New York City. But Hockel then pointed to the crisis in City Hall, which she said is troubling and cannot be ignored. So Hockel now says she'll meet with key leaders in Manhattan later today for what she describes as a conversation about the path forward. Now, four top Adams aides are quitting. How big a deal is that?

Yeah, it's huge. It's a wipeout of Mayor Adams' top leadership, and this clearly got Hockel's attention. New York City is a complicated place to govern under the best of circumstances, and those departing hold key roles, dealing with everything from the city's infrastructure to the ongoing challenges from migrants arriving from the city's infrastructure to the ongoing challenges from migrants arriving in the city. These were really the people keeping things on track. While Adams faced those DOJ criminal charges, now they're headed out the door. It's important to remember too, Laila, this isn't the first wave of departures. Other key city leaders have also gone.

Yeah. I mean, and this case has been mired in controversy, Brian. We saw a slew of resignations at the Department of Justice over its decision to drop the charges against Mayor Eric Adams. Just remind us what Adams was accused of and why the DOJ suspended the case. Yeah. In September, the DOJ laid out a sweeping case against Adams, alleging he used the power of various city offices over nearly a decade to solicit lavish vacations and improper campaign contributions. Some of the bribes allegedly came from foreign agents working for Turkey. Adams has denied any wrongdoing and said the charges were political retribution for his criticism of the Biden administration's immigration policies. He never offered any evidence

to support those claims. This month the DOJ moved to shelve this case saying a criminal trial would prevent Adams from helping the Trump administration deal with migrants in the city who don't have legal status. As you say, that decision by the Justice Department was so controversial, at least seven top federal attorneys have resigned. Any sign that Adams plans to step down? You know, he's facing intense pressure to go. Hokel's statement and these latest resignations raise the temperature even more. But speaking on Sunday at a Baptist church, the mayor was defiant. And I want you to be clear.

You want to hear so many rumors and so many things. You're going to read so much. I am going nowhere. Nowhere. And in a statement Layla sent to NPR, Adam said he's disappointed by these latest departures, but the city will keep functioning. The situation, of course, moving very quickly. We'll see what moves Governor Hokel makes later today. NPR's Brian Mann following developments in New York City. I'm sure we'll have you back on soon. NPR's Brian Mann following developments in New York City. I'm

sure we'll have you back on soon. Thank you, Brian. Thank you. And that's Up First for Tuesday, February 18th. I'm Leila Faldon. And I'm A. Martinez. How about giving Consider This a try? The team behind NPR's All Things Considered goes deep into a single news story in just 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get those podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Rylan Barton, Jane Greenhall, Denise Rios, Rina Advani, and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent and our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow.

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