Up First from NPR - Zelenskyy-Vance-Trump Blow Up, DOJ Demotions, Feds Plan for Bird Flu

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

Ukrainians react to the stunning events in the Oval Office that ended not with a signed minerals deal, but with shouting. Trump's Department of Justice demotes career lawyers who were involved in prosecutions of Trump allies and January 6th rioters. The Department of Agriculture announces plans to fight bird flu and high egg prices.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Don't tell us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you. Because you're in no position to dictate that. A heated exchange in the Oval Office in front of reporters and a minerals deal left unsigned. I'm Ayesha Rostow. And I'm Scott Simon. This is Up First from NPR News. The meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky began smoothly, with President Donald

Trump touting his role as a peacemaker between Ukraine and Russia. But it ended in shouting. We'll have the details and the reaction from Kiev. Demotions at the Department of Justice, including lawyers who worked on the January 6 cases. Also, the Department of Agriculture's plan to fight bird flu and high egg prices. Stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend. It's Oscar season and we watched the nominated movies

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There is shock and dismay in Ukraine after President Zelensky was berated in the Oval Office by both Vice President J.D. Vance and President Trump. You're gambling with World War III and what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country, that's back to you far more than a lot of people said they should have. After the meeting, the White House canceled a joint news conference and the Ukrainian delegation canceled plans to sign a treaty with the United States on sharing Ukraine's mineral resources. Trump had said this deal was key to organizing a ceasefire with Russia and Pairs Joanna Kokissus joins us now from Kyiv. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me, Scott.

How would you describe the reaction you're experiencing there? Well Scott, I would describe this that the reaction is outrage laced with panic The u.s. Is Ukraine's most important single ally and Zelensky himself has said repeatedly that it will be very hard for Ukraine to keep Defending itself against Russia without us support. I got several text messages from Ukrainians I know saying, oh no, it's over. And they wondered with the Trump administration embracing Russia, what will happen to Ukraine? And now this is the panic talking, but what's been louder than the panic has been the anger. Ukrainians are rallying around Zelensky, recording TikTok videos supporting him and writing on social media, likening

President Trump and Vice President Vance to schoolyard bullies who set out to humiliate and browbeat Zelensky. One prominent Ukrainian politician, Mustafa Nayim, posted a Godfather meme and wrote, quote, this administration doesn't just dislike us, they despise us, not just Zelensky, but us as a country, as a problem, as an annoying obstacle in their cozy world of backroom deals. Have you heard from Ukrainians specifically about the vice president's claim that President Zelensky hasn't shown gratitude to the US? We spoke to Ukrainians about this last night at the Kiev food market.

They brought it up and this idea that Vance thinks Zelensky isn't grateful. And they pointed out that Zelensky has literally thanked the US almost every single time he speaks publicly. They found it baffling that Vance would claim this since it's easy to check. A Ukrainian soldier, Denis Sokolov, he told us that Ukraine and the Trump administration have two different goals. I think the main difference is that Ukraine wants peace, but Trump won't make a deal. That's a huge difference in our politics, in our vision, to how we want to end the war. So Scott making peace versus making a deal.

Joanna, based on your conversations, what do Ukrainians seem to hope what will happen next? Well, I hear many Ukrainians saying, look, let's work more closely with Europe or ties are already strong. Zelensky is now in London and is preparing to join a European conference on Sunday. European union leaders have publicly defended Zelensky, including the EU's top diplomat, Kaya Khalis. She wrote on social media that the free world needs a new leader now, and it's up to us, the Europeans, to take this challenge. Here in Ukraine, political analysts say Zelensky is in a terrible spot since Trump seems to dislike Zelensky and seems to openly favor Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Here's Oleksandr Kryov, the North America director for the Ukrainian Pryzm Foreign Policy Council in Kiev. Putin does what Trump wants. He praises him, he complements him, he speaks about the reestablishing economic ties, and Zelensky speaks about justice, Zelensky speaks about weapons, Zelensky speaks about defending Ukraine. So everything that Trump doesn't want to hear and doesn't want to do. But Kriav did say he expects Zelensky to keep trying to get through to President Trump. And here's Joanna Kokissis in Keefe. Thanks so much. You're welcome.

Friday, the acting U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., demoted several senior lawyers in the office, including lawyers who oversaw cases against President Trump's political allies and the January 6 rioters. It is the latest punitive action taken by the Trump Justice Department against career prosecutors. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas joins us. Ryan, thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. What can you tell us about these demotions?

Well, sources tell me and our colleague Kerry Johnson Johnson, that the acting U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., Ed Martin, demoted at least seven top prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office here. One of them is John Crabb. He was a supervisor in the office. He was involved in the cases against Trump allies, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro. He also oversaw January 6 cases. Another prosecutor is Greg

Rosen. He led the Capitol siege unit. That's the unit that prosecuted January 6 cases. And then two of the other attorneys who were demoted worked on two of the most high profile cases to come out of the Capitol riot investigation. One of the attorneys helped lead the prosecution against Stuart Rhodes. He's the leader of the far right Oath Keepers Extremist Group. Rhodes was convicted at trial of seditious conspiracy. One of the other attorneys helped spearhead the case against Enrique Tario, the former head of the Proud Boys extremist group. Tario as well was convicted of seditious conspiracy at trial. So the bottom line here is all of the attorneys who were demoted were senior prosecutors with a lot of experience

and now they're being reassigned to basically entry-level jobs. What is the reason given? Well, one source tells me that Martin notified these individuals by email. And at least one of the emails, Martin said that every U.S. attorney has to assess the needs of their office as set forth by the president and the attorney general, and in essence, their priorities. And therefore, these senior prosecutors were being reassigned. Effective immediately, at least one of the emails ended by saying, this change is not temporary.

Now, I'm told that some of the senior prosecutors were assigned to misdemeanors, which is where brand new prosecutors in the office are usually assigned. Others were demoted to what's known as the intake section, which is also for junior folks in the office. One person I spoke with described these demotions as pure political retribution for working on cases that the Trump administration does not like. Now, I contacted the U.S. Attorney's Office about these actions for comment. It did not respond.

But this is not the first time that Ed Martin, the acting U.S. Attorney here, has taken what appear to be retaliatory action against the office he leads. He previously fired more than a dozen prosecutors in his office who were January 6 cases. So this is just the latest turmoil to hit the U.S. Attorney's Office here in D.C., which is one of the most important in the country. And what could this mean ahead for the Justice Department? Well, first off, these demotions and firings of career prosecutors for what appear to be retaliatory reasons are all being undertaken by an administration that says it is ending the politicization of the Justice Department.

That's something that we hear quite often from Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondi. But Justice Department veterans say the DOJ under the Trump administration has cut breaks for Trump's political allies. For example, moving to drop the case against former Republican Congressman Jeff Fortenberry. You can also point to prosecutors withdrawing from an investigation against sitting Republican Congressman Andy Ogles. And then of course, there's the department's decision to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

Adams has pledged to cooperate with the Trump administration's immigration enforcement. The decision to drop that case set off an uproar. More than a half dozen veteran Justice Department prosecutors resigned in protest that includes the acting US attorney in Manhattan who said that there was no good faith basis for dropping the Adams prosecution. So all of these things have really rattled the Justice

Department and the apolitical career folks who work there. So this is undoubtedly a very, very turbulent time for the Justice Department. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. Thanks so much. Thank you, Scott. Think the cost of eggs is high right now? The Department of Agriculture says that prices could rise more than 40% this year. Since 2022 poultry farmers have culled more than 166 million chickens to prevent the spread of bird flu. This week, the USDA announced it will spend up to $1 billion to fight the virus. And to help ease the egg shortage, the US is importing 15,000 tons of eggs from Turkey. Leah Douglas covers agriculture and energy policy for Reuters and has been closely following

this outbreak. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. So can you give us a sense of just how serious the spread of bird flu is? Well for poultry farmers it's really a significant issue. We've actually seen some of the biggest flocks and some significant outbreaks just in the last few months. And so for poultry farmers it's a major concern and also for dairy farmers who are seeing the virus spread and dairy herds as well. And what is the threat to humans and other animals?

So the primary threat to humans right now is in the farm worker population that's working with the sick animals. So the CDC has reported 70 cases of bird flu among humans in the past year. And the vast majority of those cases were among poultry farm workers or people working on dairy farms, perhaps milking the cows. Beyond that, the CDC hasn't yet reported any cases of human-to-human transmission of the virus that would be more concerning about its potential for human spread, but they're monitoring that very closely. And one person has died from this? Yes, one person in Louisiana did die from bird flu last year.

Is the bird flu outbreak, is that what's responsible for high egg prices or is there more to it? Bird flu is definitely a major factor why egg prices are high. I was at a conference this week where the Department of Agriculture's chief economist was presenting on this issue. He said that the laying flock, that's the chickens that lay our eggs, is down about 10% from where the country would want it to be to keep up with demand. So there is a real supply constraint. There have also been questions about whether egg companies are maybe taking advantage of this moment of constrained supply to hike prices higher than they really need to be.

And some lawmakers have asked for an inquiry into that as well. What is the government's plan to combat bird flu and lower the price of eggs? What will it entail? Well, newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on Wednesday announced a plan, and a big chunk of it goes to helping farmers, particularly poultry farmers, increase what's called biosecurity on their farms. So basically the efforts they can take to keep wild birds that might be sick off their property to make sure that technicians and workers and other folks coming onto the farm aren't bringing

the virus. So the agency is putting about $500 million towards those efforts of prevention really. And then there's also some effort that the agency is taking to look into vaccination of birds, which is something that was also happening under the previous Biden administration, looking into vaccines for chickens and cows as well as another sort of preventative approach. Well, about those vaccines,

because scientists have developed a vaccine, but I gather it's not widely used. Why isn't it being used? That's right. The USDA hasn't yet said that we should be vaccinating either poultry or cows against bird flu. And some of that is because there's still ongoing research, the agency is still collecting information. The poultry industry is divided over whether to use vaccines. So the farmers who grow laying hens, they do support vaccines because as we've talked about, that's primarily the chickens that are being affected by the spread of the virus. They really want that to stop. The growers who produce chickens for meat have been less impacted and there's also potential

trade implications from vaccinating those animals. And so there's a divide in the industry that the agriculture secretary has said she's still thinking about whether to move forward with a vaccine strategy. So you've been covering this story for a long time. What are the experts telling you needs to happen to get this outbreak contained? Experts are really telling me that this situation is unprecedented. That was a word used by the USDA's chief veterinarian in a presentation this week. There's a lot of support for a vaccine strategy as a way of really trying to prevent this

from continuing to spread. Farmers are already implementing biosecurity measures. And so there's already a lot of efforts underway. And I think there is increased attention to do we need to move to a vaccine because the efforts that we've been doing for the last few years clearly have not controlled the outbreak. That's Leah Douglas, an agriculture and energy policy reporter at Reuters. Thanks for talking with us. Thank you for having me. And that's up first for Saturday, March 1st, 2025.

I'm Aisha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon. Martin Patience produced today's episode with help from Gabe O'Connor, Fernando Nara, and Gabriel Dunatoff. Editing and so happy to be doing so are Christian Davenadev Colomore, Shannon Rhodes and Melissa Gray, who say they enjoy this perpetual state of bliss because they have such great colleagues including... Our director Andrew Craig, our technical director Andy Huther... And the engineers who help us out David Greenberg, Zach Coleman and Arthur,

Hela Day-Lorette. Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor, and Sarah Lucy Oliver is our executive producer. They're happy to work with the ever delightful, just a shining light, Jim Kane, our deputy managing editor. And we are too. Well, I'm not you, Aisha, but tomorrow on the Sunday Story. Wicked, Conclave, A Complete Unknown, plus seven other movies up for Best Picture.

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