Up First from NPR
Health Care Subsidies, Flooding In Washington, DOJ Under President Trump
13 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey Rob, how you doing?
Hey Isha, greetings from Berlin. Hey, I've got a question for you.
What is that?
So when you started hosting Up First, did you ever think that someday you and your team would be nominated for a Golden Globe Award?
Never.
Never.
Congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you. It's an honor to be nominated. It's an honor. I never thought that something I was doing would be in contention for a Golden Globe.
What?
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of expiring health care subsidies?
It's been that way since the law was passed in Obama's first term. But this current fight over whether to extend existing subsidies gets to the core of these differences, and it will have a great impact on how much health insurance costs. costs Americans who rely on the ACA.
So Republicans would rather have health savings accounts or give money directly to individuals to use on the health care of their choice. We're just at an impasse. Last night, House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a last minute Republican plan. It would enhance employer-sponsored health care plans. Democrats, skeptical. Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called it completely unserious.
But I guarantee you, Democrats will keep this issue front and center in the midterms.
Now, President Trump, in an interview with Politico this week, graded his own performance on the economy.
A plus, plus, plus, plus, plus.
That's good grade. And then at a rally in Pennsylvania, he said Americans can, quote, give up certain products. We can get by with fewer pencils and dolls.
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Chapter 3: What is the current situation regarding flooding in the Pacific Northwest?
Those are two consumer products I would not have thought to put together. Don, is this messaging working?
Well, poll after poll shows Americans are worried about inflation and affordability. As a result, Trump's approval ratings on the economy give him very low scores in that area. People are unhappy about the cost of a grocery store visit. about affording daycare and on and on. And they see inflation as a big worry.
But the president is, as we heard, taking a hard line, denying that affordability is anything other than a hoax that Democrats are pushing as a political issue. So he describes one economy. Americans describe a completely different place.
Hmm.
The House passed a $900 billion defense policy bill this week. Tucked inside this bipartisan legislation is a provision that would require the Pentagon to share with lawmakers unedited video of the strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. Now, do you think Congress is starting to show some willingness to push back against this administration?
It is on certain issues, including this one. Many questions have been raised regarding these strikes on alleged drug boats off the coast of Venezuela, particularly the one in September where a second strike killed two survivors of the initial attack. It's still just a small number of Republicans pushing back and demanding more answers.
But still, there are some, and I should underscore here that these requirements now to share the video recordings were actually just one piece of that major defense funding bill, and that bill passed by a wide margin.
Let's go on to redistricting. Indiana Republicans voted down a gerrymandered map favored by Trump despite threats from the president. Does this say something about Trump's hold on the party, or is it more specific to that state?
We've seen some GOP pushback on redistricting elsewhere as well, but this is a deep red state. Republicans hold seven of the state's nine congressional seats. The president wanted them to redraw the district lines to set up a potential clean sweep of all nine in next year's elections. But lawmakers looked at the map and said, look, we just did this four years ago.
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Chapter 4: How are Americans affected by potential health care price hikes?
Washington state is under a state of emergency after torrential rain caused historic flooding.
Rivers north of Seattle, such as the Skagit River, were at their highest levels ever recorded.
Hundreds of people have been rescued from their homes, while evacuation orders are affecting thousands of others.
KUOW's Scott Greenstone joins us now from Burlington, Washington. Thanks for being with us.
Hey, thanks, Rob.
So, Scott, you're in a town where people were told to evacuate yesterday.
Did they? Some did, you know, some did not. The river here is still really high. I saw a barn half submerged in it yesterday and a piece of like barn siding floating by in the river. But the water levels have begun to recede in the neighborhoods. And so some people are, you know, returning to check on the damage, even, you know, just just see if they can come back to their homes.
I went down one street and And I met a woman named Jocelyn Alm who was standing outside her totally flooded out home. And there was a crowd gathered and someone had waded in to look in the windows and told her this.
He goes, all your couches are floating. All your stuff is just floating. He goes, your bananas are floating. And I said, oh, well, God, if we lost our bananas, we lost everything. We had in this back bedroom there was pictures that we had forever.
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