Steve Inskeep

Blanch is Trump's former personal lawyer.

He's been at the Justice Department since early in the administration, so he's been on hand for the president's efforts to undermine court rulings

and turned the department into a weapon for his retribution campaign.

Blanche also oversaw the Justice Department's creation of a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who claimed to have been wrongfully targeted by the government, a fund that dismayed even many Republicans.

Their diplomats worked out new terms while meeting in Washington.

President Trump also spoke the other day with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and has said that he called Netanyahu crazy for his plan to expand attacks in Lebanon.

Yeah, the event is considered a pet project of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Normally, at an economic forum, you would hear prominent speakers droning on.

Instead, the city was attacked on Wednesday by Ukrainian drones.

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

Today's Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Tina Kriah, Tara Neal, Miguel Macias, Mohamed El-Bardizi, and John Stolnes.

It was produced by Ziad Bach and Nia Dumas.

Our director is Christopher Thomas.

We get engineering support from David Greenberg.

And our technical director is Carly Strange.

Our deputy executive producer is Kelly Dickens.

Join us tomorrow.

NPR's newest podcast is where you can find NPR's biggest interviews.

I'm Steve Inskeep.

The program is called Newsmakers.