Up First from NPR - U.S. Strikes ISIS In Nigeria, The Year In Congress, Holiday Spending

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

President Trump has announced the U.S. launched a number of strikes against Islamic State militants in northwestern Nigeria. Congress started 2025 with an ambitious legislative agenda, but 12 months later has ceded much of its power to President Trump and has passed a record low number of bills. And, shoppers spent a record amount of money this holiday season even as polling finds Americans are feeling glum about the economy.Want more 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 Gerry Holmes, Jason Breslow, Emily Kopp, Lisa Thomson and Alice Woelfle. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from David Greenberg. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.And our Executive Producer is Jay Shaylor.(00:00) Introduction(02:00) U.S. Strikes ISIS In Nigeria(05:40) The Year In Congress(09:28) Holiday SpendingLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The U.S. says its military struck Islamic State militants in northwestern Nigeria. The president says the strikes on Christmas Day were aimed at stopping the killing of Christians, and this is just the beginning. Why is the president focused on Nigeria? I'm Lila Faldon, and this is up first from NPR News. When Speaker Mike Johnson convened Congress in January, he made a bold declaration. Working together, we have the potential to be one. one of the most consequential Congresses in the history of this great nation.

Twelve months later, has Congress lived up to that potential? And holiday spending broke records this year in the U.S. It honestly blew my mind. Sales just exceeded all my expectations. With polls reporting people feeling glum about the economy, what's driving spending. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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Like for this guy, David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant turn. And it did take me a while to realize it's basically because the monkey pressed the button. That's right, because the monkey pressed the button. Sprising stories every week, wherever you get your podcast. On Christmas Day, the president announced the U.S. military struck ISIS militants in Nigeria. The attacks come a month after President Trump threatened on social media to go into Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, quote, guns ablazing, unless it did more to protect Christians, who he continually asserts are being targeted and slaughtered. Nigerian authorities say allegations of Christian genocide are unfounded and that a mishmash of violent armed groups across the country kill as many Muslims. as Christians in the country.

Joining us now from Nigeria is NPR Africa correspondent Emmanuel Ekenwatu. Good morning. Good morning, Lidav. Emmanuel, this feels like these strikes kind of came out of nowhere. What can you tell us about them? Well, in a post on Truth Social,

President Trump said he ordered, quote, a deadly strike against ISIS terrorist scum in northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing primarily innocent Christians. And he said that this was just, the beginning. The U.S. Africa Command, who are in charge of military operations on the continent, they put it differently. In a statement, they said, initially the strikes were requested by the

Nigerian government, and then they amended that statement to say it was done in coordination with them. But in any case, this is clearly a really significant intervention and an inflection point in U.S. military involvement in Nigeria. And it also comes with the religious symbolism of launching these strikes on Christmas Day. Okay, so the U.S. hasn't really released many details about the strikes. What can you tell us about who they were targeting? Well, the US strikes targeted ISIS militants in northwest Nigeria along the border with Niger, and it's a region where a faction called IS Sahel province is active. They're known locally as Lukarawa. And they've spread south from the Sahel region in West Africa, and really they've

been a growing threat over the last eight years. Broadly, ISIS has become a major concern in Nigeria, they've become a kind of governing force in rural areas, attacking and enforcing this extreme version of Islam. And they're one actor among several militant groups at large, and they're all behind really a worsening security crisis in the country. But what's curious about this is that President Trump says this ISIS group has targeted Christians, but according to most experts, this group is not one of the main groups accused of killing Christians. And in fact, the bigger security threat in the region are militants known as bandits who've terrorized local communities made up of Christians and Muslims.

But zooming out, a few key questions really are whether these strikes are about defending Christians, as President Trump says, or really about degrading ISIS in the region. And experts have spoken to question whether airstrikes can even achieve that in a region where armed groups are so deeply entrenched in rural areas and difficult to eliminate from the air. How has the Nigerian government responded to this military operation and more generally to this growing pressure from President Trump? Well, the government have been really keen to reframe the way that this is being seen, calling it a joint operation that they approved.

But the challenge for the government is that this is not really the impression many people will take from President Trump's post, which announced the attacks hours before any statement from Nigerian government officials. And there are already critics in Nigeria reacting to this who are concerned about whether this is now a new military front for the US going forward, and whether Nigeria is strong enough to shape or could tell US aims in the country. That's Emmanuel Akenwato reporting from Lagos. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Leila. Congress started 2025 with a big legislative agenda.

House Speaker Mike Johnson put it this way in his first address to his chamber this year. And in spite of our great challenges and even our disagreements and our healthy debates, this extraordinary institution, the people's house. House will still be standing to Trump. But 12 months later, Congress has ceded much of its power to President Trump and has passed a record low number of bills. And our congressional correspondent, Claudio Chrysides, has been following this and joins us now. Hi, Claudia. Hey, Leila.

Okay, so congressional Republicans started the year with these ambitious plans to pass bills to strengthen the economy, address the border crisis, boosts the military. Did any of that happen? not exactly unless you look at their marquee tax and spending plan they called the one big beautiful bill which became law they would argue that is the key legislation that passed but the jury still out if this is going to have the advertised impact on the economy and it was the exception of the rule congress ceded a lot of its power to the president this year that included dismantling large sections of the federal government taking over the power of the purse during the government shut down by directing spending that was prohibited at that time and triggering the

clawback of billions of spending that had been approved by Congress. And as you mentioned, we heard from Public Affairs Network C-SPAN. They reported the number of laws enacted this year are at that all-time low. Now, Republicans are the majority in both the House and Senate, but that is very narrow. How did leaders fare in 2025? Yeah, it definitely made it more difficult for them. In the House, we saw Speaker Mike Johnson lose more control of his conference. By year end, He faced a rare series of successful discharge petitions. These are bipartisan efforts by rank and file members to bypass the speaker and pass law. And none was more noteworthy than the one securing the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. He also saw Republican pushback when he virtually closed the House down during the 43-day government shutdown. He's facing a record number of House retirements. That includes nearly 30 Republicans. Okay, so some division within his own party. What about the Senate? How did Majority Leader John Thune fare in comparison? Well, he didn't end the year with the same level of animosity, but he saw challenges, too. I asked him about lessons learned. Here's what he told me.

You know, I mean, sometimes you get frustrated that you don't get the things done. You want to get done. But you got to keep your island. Ultimately, the Senate approved a majority of Trump's nominees for the administration and federal courts. But not until recently did we see more Senate. Republicans pushed back publicly on the president with some issues such as the strikes unalleged drug traffickers at sea. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told me these challenges and the chaos we've seen with the federal government, the economy, Trump's tariff policies have all created an opening for Democrats. Now, Congress will face even greater challenges next year with the midterms on tap. What do you expect to see? Well, lawmakers have their eye on exactly those midterms in November. Even with Republicans redistricted,

to add seats in the House. It's still not clear they're going to keep their majority. They face the prospect of another government shutdown threat in January, and that's in addition to calls for Washington to address an affordability crisis that we expect will dominate on the campaign trail. And there's also those spiking premiums for health insurance after Congress failed to extend subsidies for Obamacare plans. This is going to likely add fuel to the fire that Congress is not addressing a lot of urgent issues for American families come November. That's NPR's Claudia. Gersales, thank you, Claudia.

Thank you. We're officially on the other side of the biggest holiday in terms of spending. Shoppers have been expected to drop a record amount of money, even as polling finds Americans are feeling glum about the economy. NPR's retail correspondent, Alina Selyuk, is here to explain. Good morning. Alina? Hello, hello.

So what do we know about holiday spending this year? So we don't have total numbers. Those will come in January, but all signs seem to point to a surprisingly big year. You know, for how much we've talked about tariffs, with all the delays and changes, they did not disrupt the holiday season as much as feared. We saw Black Friday set a record, then Cyber Monday said a spending record. Adobe Analytics, which tracks online shopping, saw people spending over $10 million every minute on the evening. of Cyber Monday. MasterCard, which tracks spending online and in stores, estimates that spending grew nearly 4% in November and December.

4%. Well, that's a bit higher than inflation. So it seems like people aren't just spending more because they're paying higher prices. No, people seem to be buying more. I'll give you another example. I talked to Alfred Mai. His company, ASM Games, sells card games. Think like family trivia or date night ideas. And usually you cannot get him on the phone one week before Christmas. the busiest time of year for him. And last week, he was like, yeah, call me now. I'm, I'm free. It honestly blew my mind because we just sold out of inventory like a few days ago. Sales just exceeded all my expectations. And I had this question, like, did sales exceed his expectations because his expectations were too low?

Or because people spent with abandon? And he said, it's probably both. He had worried about people's tighter budgets when setting estimates, but also... It's hard for me to say whether, you know, consumers have this straight, amount of cash or if it's because they don't have that kind of great amount of cash where they're just spending it on games. Because a $20 game is a cheap way to entertain a whole family. And this split that he's put his finger on is actually the big story now in the economy. So tell us more about this because I'm trying to square this holiday shopping exuberance with the fact that people regularly tell pollsters they're feeling down on the economy and about their own finances. You know, more

and more, it's the wealthy that are doing much of the spending. Like, we're seeing more people switch to cheaper stores than what they used to shop before, maybe Walmart or TGMax or Thrift shop, but we also see luxury brands doing well, like Ralph Lauren. The most stark example I've seen of this was last week on a forecast about auto sales from Cox Automotive. It's a big data firm that owns Kelly Bluebuck. And their executive analyst Aaron Keating called out this paradox. There are a lot of cars for sale under $40,000 that are just sitting. So it looks like people don't want them. Maybe they're not nice enough. But it's actually because their usual buyers cannot afford them. This isn't everyone suddenly preferring SUVs. The people who can still afford new vehicles are

buying what they want, larger premium vehicles. Everyone else, they didn't downgrade to a compact car. They left the new market entirely. And this is starting to happen with more things and to people with higher incomes. So what does this mean for the new year? Overall, economists and companies are not too gloomy about next year. So far, it's been the growing wages fueling much of our shopping. And so one big thing to watch in the new year is the job market. That's Alina Selyuk. Thank you so much. Thank you. And that's up first for Friday, December 26th. I'm Leila Faudil. Around the end of the year, About this time, many of us like to look back on how far we've come and ask,

what would I like to change in the new year? But for a growing number of Americans who have reached retirement age, the question is a bit different. You know, you get at a point where you start asking, what did you do in your life that was, you know, significant. This week, on the Sunday story, a look at the transformative power of human passion and finding your purpose later in life. Listen to the Sunday story right here on NPR's Up First podcast. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Jerry Holmes, Jason Breslow, Emily Kopp, Alice Wolfley, and Lisa Thompson, who is leaving us today, even though we don't want her to. Good luck on her next adventure. It was produced by Zad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas.

We get engineering support from David Greenberg. Our technical director is Carly Strange, and our executive producer is Jay Shaley. Join us again on Monday. On Wait Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, famous actors remember their days of obscurity, like when Pedro Pascal remembered the stress of being a waiter. The logistical labor of meeting everyone's needs in the right manner. You know, the act one, the water, act through the drink.

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