Up First from NPR
Russia Rejects Peace Proposal, Hegseth Defends Boat Strikes, Tennessee House Election
03 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Did you actually say good morning yesterday?
I did, just because Layla constantly wants one, so I figured on Giving Tuesday would be the best day to do it.
Well, hold on. I want to hear this before we... I want to hear how this went.
Congratulations.
You did it.
I did it, I think, hopefully sarcastically.
I hope everyone heard it. Yes, it was nice. Good morning. I could hear the eye roll. So that was Giving Tuesday for you.
Yes, handing out good mornings all over the world. That's what I did, yes. Congratulations.
Well done. So let's think of this now as Giving Wednesday. It's not too late to support Up First and everything that you love from NPR News.
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Chapter 2: What happened during the five-hour meeting between Putin and the U.S. envoy?
here, Eleanor, if there's a mistaken assumption. The president of the United States has assumed that Russia wants to stop the killing. He wants to. Obviously, they must. That leaked phone conversation by Bloomberg with Steve Witkoff contains in it an assumption that Russia wants to end this and the deal is obvious. That's the U.S. assumption. Has Russia shown it actually sees it that way?
No, Putin, the dying doesn't affect him. In fact, Zelensky and analysts confirmed this, that in the month of October alone, 25,000 Russian soldiers died in Ukraine. That doesn't affect Putin. They hide it from the Russian public anyway. I think Secretary of State Marco Rubio's comments yesterday from Washington are the most telling.
Rubio said the conflict in Ukraine is not our war and President Trump has a million other things to focus on. So there you go.
And President Eleanor Beardsley, thanks so much. You're welcome, Steve.
The Trump administration continues to face questions about a U.S. attack on an alleged drug boat in September in the Caribbean.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at the White House on Tuesday he did not witness the second round of strikes that killed survivors on the boat.
I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we've got a lot of things to do. So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting.
Lawmakers now say they want to look into what happened.
NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh is with us. So we just heard Hague say that he had a lot on schedule the day of that strike. What other details did he talk about Tuesday?
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