Year: 2025

It’s been a little more than a week since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

Vice President JD Vance was in the meeting too. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the nation’s top diplomat, sat on an Oval Office couch, mostly silent, as Trump and Vance berated the Ukrainian leader.

Along the way, the president and vice president made it clear just how much of the established global order they are ready to upend. An order that for most of his career, Rubio has defended, and worked to help hold up.

So what changed …and what do those changes mean?

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Like a lot of economists, Mark Zandi, with Moody’s Analytics, thinks President Trump’s across-the-board tariffs are a bad idea. Saying, “Tariffs, broad-based tariffs, are a real problem for the economy.”

But Zandi says – it’s not just the tariffs themselves that are the problem, it’s the uncertainty created by Trump’s rollout.

Trump threatened 25% Tariffs on Canada and Mexico would start in February. They were paused at the 11th hour, only to eventually go into effect this week.

On Thursday Trump announced the new tariffs would be paused for most products, but potentially only until April 2.

Meanwhile tariffs on China snapped into place in February, and then doubled, to 20%.What happens next is anyone’s guess.

Businesses have been optimistic about the economy under Trump. His chaotic tariff rollout threatens that.

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A hundred minutes — that’s how long President Trump had the floor — literally — last night.

A hundred minutes he used to lay out his agenda, his grievances and what he argued are the accomplishments of his first six weeks in office.

This all came during his “joint address” to Congress — the State of the Union that’s not a State of the Union.

Since Trump returned to office in January, there’s been little room left for democrats to make their case to the American people.

Democratic moderates think they have an answer for Trump 2.0. What does their playbook look like?

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After the Trump-Zelenskyy blow-up on Friday, European leaders held emergency talks in London to put together a roadmap to peace.

Then, on Tuesday, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a proposal called ReArm Europe. The roughly $840 billion plan would quickly build up defense budgets in Europe.

Meanwhile, the U.S. seems to continue to align itself with Russia.

President Trump is upending the U.S.-led order that has dominated global politics for the better part of a century. What does that mean for Ukraine – and for America?

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People who work for the federal court system don’t have the same kinds of job protections that most other Americans do.

A nearly year-long NPR investigation has found problems with the way the courts police sexual harassment and bullying…and a pervasive culture of fear about blowing the whistle.

A warning to our listeners, this piece contains a description of sexual assault.

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Unlike any other religious leader around the world, the leader of the world’s one billion Catholics is also the leader of a sovereign nation. And Pope Francis hasn’t been shy about using that political power.

He’s pushed for an end to the wars between Hamas and Israel, and Russia and Ukraine.

And he’s repeatedly tried to point the world’s attention to two ongoing challenges: immigration and climate change.

Much of the world has spent the last two weeks focused on Pope Francis’ health. And the reason why has as much to do with the fact that he’s a powerful geopolitical force as it does with the fact he’s a key religious figure.

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On Tuesday, President Trump will address Congress and the nation in a major speech, where he’ll sum up what he’s accomplished in his first month. And while the Trump administration has already claimed success in curbing illegal immigration, many people affected by his policies have experienced chaos and panic.

Andrea Lino, a supervising attorney with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, shares stories about how Trump’s actions have affected her clients and her work.

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On Tuesday, 21 DOGE employees resigned. NPR spoke to one of them who says she felt the new administration was causing “harm to the American people.”

As Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency work to remake the federal government, some of the people tasked with executing his vision have serious concerns about what the changes will do.

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On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet President Donald Trump at the White House.

On the agenda — a deal for Ukraine to share its rich natural resources. The Trump administration wants hundreds of billions of dollars of rare earth metals and other critical minerals. Details are thin on what exactly Ukraine would get in exchange.

The meeting comes as the world marks three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and as Trump promises to bring an end to the war.

But bringing an end to the war may not be so simple argues Alexander Vindman.

The Ukrainian-born Vindman was the White House staffer and active duty Army officer, who testified against Trump during his first impeachment trial in 2019.

Trump fired Vindman not long after.

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President Trump’s calls for the U.S. to take over Greenland have sparked alarm and outrage.

Denmark, which is responsible for Greenland’s security, recently announced that it would further boost its defense spending.

And a recent poll found 85 percent of Greenlanders are opposed to being part of the United States.

Parliamentary candidate Naaja Nathanielsen is one of them.

It isn’t clear whether Trump’s ambitions for Greenland will take. But some politicians in the territory are taking his calls for acquisition more seriously than ever before.

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