Up First from NPR - UN General Assembly Week, Trump's Triumphal Arch, Air Traffic Control AI

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

World leaders gather in New York for the U.N. General Assembly with the war between the U.S. and Iran dominating the agenda and questions about whether diplomacy can gain traction with Iran's president in attendance.President Trump says his planned "triumphal arch" memorial near Arlington National Cemetery will also house drones, snipers and ammunition, after a judge ordered the administration to give notice before work begins.CNN, MS Now and Politico are suing the Trump administration for banning them from the White House.Want more analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Tara Neill, Dana Farrington, Jennifer Portman, Mohamad ElBardicy and HJ Mai.It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas.Our director is Christopher Thomas.We get engineering support from Zac Coleman.Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.(0:00) Introduction(01:56) UN General Assembly Week(05:38) Trump's Triumphal Arch(09:23) Trump Bans MediaSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

World leaders gather in New York for the UN General Assembly this week. Wars in Ukraine and Iran hang over the meeting. President Trump and Iran's president will attend. So what does that mean for a world body that has not been relevant to their war? I'm Michelle Martin. That's Steven Skeep. And this is up first from NPR News. President Trump has a new rationale for one of his construction projects that faces legal problems. He wants to build a giant arch between Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial. First, he said the nation's capital needs one. Now he says it will be a base for drone, snipers, and ammunition.

Does that make it easier to keep going without asking Congress? Also, three news organizations are suing the Trump administration. President Trump banned CNN, MS now, and Politico because he didn't like their coverage. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day. It's the time of year when world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. This meeting is the last for UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez.

For me, this is not a moment to look back. It is a time to look ahead. Which makes sense, since the World Body cannot look back on much relevance lately, world powers are fractured over climate change, AI, and wars in Ukraine and the Persian Gulf. NPR's Michelle Kellelman is in New York all week and joins us. Michelle, good morning. Good morning, Steve. What are you going to be watching for?

Well, first will be President Trump's address to the World Body. That's tomorrow morning. And while he's been trying to pitch himself to the world as a peacemaker, the war he launched against Iran really overshadows this gathering. President Trump promised it wouldn't take long. But here we are many months in, and there's no sign the conflict is ending. And you know, Steve, it's really disrupted not just energy markets, but also the supply of fertilizers. And that has a big impact around the globe. So many countries are looking to the U.S., they're looking to Gulf countries, to Iran, to find some ways to restore those sheds.

shipping routes. Iran's president will be here, so that's another big thing I'm watching. He'll be speaking a day after Trump. It's not clear if there'll be any kind of interaction between lower-level U.S. and Iranian officials, but U.S. officials haven't ruled that out. Okay, I don't know. They'll be in this giant building that is designed for diplomacy at a meeting that is supposed to be about diplomacy. Is there any chance of any diplomacy? Well, there could be on their sideline meetings, but, you know, the U.N. itself has really been sidelined. It's offered to set up a system to monitor civilian shipping through the Strait of Hermuz, for instance, and that didn't gain much traction. I talked to one UN watcher, Richard Gowan, of the International

Crisis Group, and he says while Secretary General Antonio Guterres really is trying to find solutions, the world is just too fractured. Take a listen. In some ways, he has been defending the idea of international cooperation almost after it's too late. Leaders like Vladimir Putin, perhaps President Trump don't take this talk of global solidarity all that seriously. And there'll be some key players missing, including China, Xi Jinping, who's meeting with Trump later in the week in Washington. Gowan says it's going to be kind of a split-screen moment where you have the U.S. and China at the White House, while smaller powers are speaking at an increasingly empty UN General Assembly Hall. And that just shows where power lies these days.

So is the UN also irrelevant to Ukraine? Well, Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council with veto powers, so the Council hasn't been able to do anything on Ukraine. But Ukraine's president will be back here this year. He says he's meeting with Trump. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to meet with Russia's foreign minister. And European officials are definitely trying to keep attention focused on this to help Ukraine get through another winter.

What are diplomats the United Nations also trying to focus attention on if they can? Well, climate change and AI are going to be big topics, though, you know, President Trump last year called climate change a hoax, and he tried to downplay all this latest concerns about AI, too. It'll also be interesting to see what Venezuela is interim leader, Delci Rodriguez, has to say. She was vice president to Nicholas Maduro before the U.S. military swept into arrest him earlier this year. And while she's here at the United Nations, Maduro remains in custody just a few miles away. And P.R. Michelle Kellerman will be listening to you all week. Really appreciate it. Thank you. The president altered the stated purpose of a planned triumphal arch in Washington.

He first proposed it as a monument to America's 250th anniversary, but it's also a monument to his effort to reshape the Capitol. But in the face of legal difficulty, the president came up with a social media post. He says the arch will now be a military base for drones, snipers, and ammunition. NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez is covering this latest development. Franco, good morning. Good morning, Steve. Okay, so what is the context for the president's sudden change of plans for this arch? I mean, the context is court action. I mean, at the beginning of the month, the administration announced that construction would actually begin within two weeks. And then a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to give 48 hours notice before engaging in any activity on the site.

So that slowed things down. So the new plan, as Trump laid out in a social media post, is to quote, house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones plus snipers on both the roof and plaza areas. Okay, so this arch is a national security move now, according to the True Social Post, which sounds like claims that Trump made about his ballroom complex when it was blocked in court. Yeah, I mean, it's a very similar argument. The president claimed that the military actually called for this for the arch, but he's provided no details. I spoke with Mark Kansian. He's a retired mayor. Corps colonel and military expert at the Center for Strategic International Studies. He's really

questioning the reasoning for this, pointing out that joint-based Meyer Henderson Hall is just a mile away. The Pentagon is close by, and he says the national security considerations for the Arch and the White House are just not the same. The ballroom has a bunker, a large facility for the president underneath it. The difference is that the bunker reflects a widely accepted need to protect the president. It's bipartisan. There already was a bunker. This would be more elaborate. It doesn't seem to be any need. There certainly hasn't been any need articulated beforehand about why this facility would need drones and snipers. Franco, as you know, the construction of the arch is also part of a lawsuit brought by veterans.

And one of their arguments is that it disrupts the sight line. You have this symbolic view in Washington from the Lincoln Memorial across the river to the former home of Confederate General Robert Lee. It speaks symbolically to the reunion of this country after the Civil War. But are the veterans the only ones concerned here? No, actually a lot of people are concerned, and that's partially because it's so big, and it's just one of several projects that could change the Washington landscape. I mean, polls show most voters don't want this. I mean, we've already spoken about the ballroom, which is going to be a massive structure. that changes the dynamics of the White House.

Trump's also paved over the Rose Garden. He's installing a granite helipad on the south lawn. And he's threatening to rip down the Kennedy Center. Well, how does all of that fit into his effort to expand executive power? Well, I mean, in this case, he's essentially ignoring many of the traditional processes in place, you know, skipping Congress and taking what is a very liberal interpretation of his own executive authority. And frankly, daring those opposed to him to try to stop him. and like the ballroom, many fear that he will move too quickly, much more quickly than the courts can

respond to the point where it just gets very, very hard to kind of turn the clock back or stop or slow the project to make a difference. NPR White House correspondent, Franco Ordonez. Pleasure to hear from you, sir. Thank you, Steve. CNN, MS now, and Politico are suing the Trump administration over the president's efforts to keep them out of the White House. On Friday, Trump said he was banning them because he didn't like what they were saying about him. wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories. Now, if they want to write them, that's fine, but I don't have to let them into the people's house.

On Saturday, reporters from all three outlets said they were prevented from entering the White House grounds and had their access passes revoked. Let's hear from NPRMedia correspondent, David Fulkenflick. David, good morning. Good morning, Michelle. So you've got a chance to look over these legal documents. What argument are the outlets making? So the case is not yet been filed, but it is being filed this morning. They're making the case on pretty fundamental constitutional grounds. They say they're basing it on First Amendment grounds that the president is trying to punish these outlets for their speech, their free speech, which is to say their coverage and due process. That's the Fifth Amendment protection, given that this kind of came out of nowhere

by the president, clearly seems to be pretty arbitrary. And there's no chance for them to intercede and say, hey, hold on, slow it this down. Let us talk this through first. And is there, a formal process through which we can appeal this decision. Sure, didn't happen. So can you share anything else about how all this unfolded? Sure. So there was a social media post a little past three Eastern time on Friday on President Trump's true social account saying he was banning the three news organizations you mentioned, that CNN, MS now, and Politico. He said that this was unfair. He said that this was, you know, that basically these organizations were biased against him and it shouldn't be allowed. And that,

other news organizations would happen soon. This has immediate implications over the weekend. Each of these outlets reported that their reporters and journalists had been barred from entering the White House. I believe CNN, for example, has 40 journalists who are credentialed to be there on a permanent basis. And CNN was also scheduled today to be what's called the TV pool outlet from the White House and to follow the president go to the United Nations General Assembly meetings in New York City. What is the TV pool? Well, basically, Basically, it's expensive and logistically complicated to cover live the president's actions, something that the networks have pooled for years. CNN is one of five outlets that does this.

CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox News are the others. The White House sends out daily guidance about who's going to be covering things from the White House, the press. They just skipped over who the pool is going to be for the TV feed, which is shared broadly, you know, with other outlets, of course, without charge because that cost is being borne by those five major networks. works. And there's sort of these secondary outlets that is Hearst TV, Real America's voice, which is a right-wing outlet, are listed as the secondary TV pool. But no primary TV pool is being listed at all. And the belief is, you know, there's a frenzy of communications among networks over the weekends. They're going to support one another. They're not going to step in if the president is barring CNN. They're saying, no, that's an attack on us all.

I will say we reached out to the White House for comment, haven't received in response yet. So the basic question here, David, is can the president really just decide unilaterally that he's going to bar news organizations because he doesn't like them? So, you know, the short answer is we're going to find out in court on this case. But more broadly, it would seem on its face absolutely not that this violates constitutional protections. And there's a lot of case law on this over the years in which, you know, you don't have to admit someone. You don't have to let Dave Fulkinflick come to the White House.

But if you don't like his coverage, you can't then on the basis of how he's done that, bar him from being there. That's called viewpoint discrimination. It's seen under previous rulings as a violation of the First Amendment. Only 30 seconds left here, but do you have any sense of why now? You know, he hasn't said that's the most amazing thing. He hasn't pointed to anything other than say he's been upset over the last two years, you know, presumably leading up to his presidency and during his return to the White House. But let's be honest, there's a lot of things for him not to like because there are a lot of things going south for him right now. Coverage of the war in Iran, very unpopular, coverage of the elections coming up, coverage of the economy. You know, I don't think he likes what he sees on the air and reads in the paper. That is. NPR's David, full conflict. David, thank you.

You bet. Now this week, the Sunday story features one of the biggest missing persons cases of our time. 14 years ago, the American journalist Austin Tice vanished in Syria. A series from NPR and the BBC searches for evidence of what happened to him. Here are a list with GPS coordinates of every location that Austin is possibly known to have been held up. On the Sunday story, NPR and the BBC investigate the case of Austin Tice. Listen here on NPR's Up First podcast. And that's up first for this Monday, September 21st.

I'm Steve Hinske. And I'm Michelle Martin. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Tara Neal, Dana Farrington, Jennifer Portman, Mohamed Elmer, D.C., and H.J. Mai. It was produced by Zad Butch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Highness. Our technical director is Carly Strange,

and we hope you'll join us again tomorrow. Thank you.