We look at Friday’s contentious press conference at the Oval Office, as well as updates on the Trump administration’s cuts at federal agencies. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to weigh in on the matter.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
We begin this week with that remarkable Oval Office press conference on Friday with President Trump, Vice President Vance and, of course, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. NPR senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving joins us now. Ron, thanks so much for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: President and vice president flanking President Zelenskyy, and then President Trump telling him he ought to be grateful for U.S. military aid.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks.
PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY: In three days. I heard it from Putin, in three days. This is something…
TRUMP: Maybe less.
ZELENSKYY: In two weeks. Of course, yes.
TRUMP: It’s going to be a very hard thing to do business like this, I tell you.
VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: Just say thank you.
ZELENSKYY: I said it a lot of times.
SIMON: Very hard to do business like this. Ron, in your experience, anything like this in the Oval Office in front of the International Press Corps before?
ELVING: Simple answer, no. The point appeared to be for Trump to send a signal that the world could see, including supporters of his America First theme here in the U.S., but also including our allies in Europe, the countries he wants to stop depending on the U.S. for security, and perhaps also a signal to Vladimir Putin, with whom he has been quite visibly cooperative since returning to power. And as to the presence of reporters, it was less about the press than the cameras. In fact, as the aborted meeting ended, Trump could be heard to say to the departing crews that it must have made, quote, “great television,” unquote.
SIMON: Will President Trump get support from Republicans in Congress to essentially flip U.S. policy to support Russia? Because support for Ukraine has enjoyed bipartisan support.
ELVING: Yes. Judging by their public reactions in real time, yes, President Trump will get their support, the Republicans in the Senate, by and large. Even some of the biggest defense hawks, like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, were calling on Zelenskyy to apologize to Trump for that meeting or to resign as president of Ukraine. Others found the whole thing unseemly. They were expressing shock in private. But on this issue, as on so many, Republicans in Congress may utter criticisms or regrets here and there or disagree, but they do not break with Trump. They vote with him. They know what that will mean for them in the immediate hours thereafter online, if they oppose him, and on the phone and back in their districts or their states, and they know what it means when they next face Republican voters.
ELVING: Another email blast went out late last night to federal employees asking them to list what they accomplished in the past week. Is this different from the email that Elon Musk’s DOGE group sent out over a week ago?
ELVING: Lots of confusion about this last night, Scott, and again, this morning. The email came late Friday from the Office of Personnel Management, or perhaps still from the rather shadowy depths of the Department of Government Efficiency – that’s the province of Elon Musk and his minions – whom Trump has tasked with slashing the federal workforce. This email from OPM reiterating the original demand for the five bullet points looked like what Musk wanted.
Now, it’s not clear yet which of these messages – the first one sent from DOGE over a week ago or this latest one – is more legitimate, and it’s not yet clear whether this is real or just a gesture of some kind. Trump seems to suggest its purpose is to see how many of these federal employees actually exist or come to work at all. But in the short term, it’s another way to lower trust and regard for the government and empower those who would displace it.
SIMON: In the half a minute we have left, possible cuts to social security, which used to be considered the third rail.
ELVING: At this point, the cuts are to Social Security staff. The administration announced Friday it plans to cut 7,000 jobs in response to an executive order from President Trump, who has said he wants to slash the federal workforce, even in what have been considered politically sensitive functions, such as Social Security.
SIMON: NPR’s Ron Elving, thanks so much for being with us.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott.
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