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Up First from NPR

Rescission Vote, Trump And The Wall Street Journal, Trump's Health

Up First from NPR

NPR

Daily News, News

4.552.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

House Republicans passed a rescissions bill taking back $9 billion in funding for public media and foreign aid. President Trump says he intends to sue the Wall Street Journal after they published an article about his relationship with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, and President Trump was diagnosed with a common medical condition affecting the veins in his legs.

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Today's episode of Up First was edited by Gerry Holmes, Padma Rama, Jane Greenhalgh, Janaya Williams and Ally Schweitzer. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from David Greenburg. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange. And our Executive Producer is Jay Shaylor.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

Republicans in Congress agreed with President Trump's demand to roll back funding they'd already approved.

0:07.5

Most of the money was for foreign aid. Some was for public broadcasting. So what's that mean for local public media stations?

0:14.0

I'm Michelle Martin. That's Stevenski. And this is up first from NPR News.

0:20.9

President Trump says he told Wall Street Journal owner Rupert Murdoch he's going to sue the paper.

0:25.9

The paper published an article saying Trump once sent Jeffrey Epstein a birthday note filled

0:29.9

with sexual innuendo.

0:31.3

Trump says it's fake.

0:32.4

How is this landing with Trump supporters who say he's not being transparent?

0:35.6

Also images of the president's swollen ankles prompted the White House to disclose he has a

0:40.3

chronic condition.

0:41.4

The veins are very thin wall structures and they have valves.

0:45.3

But over time, these valves can become dysfunctional.

0:48.6

House's health.

0:49.6

Stay with us.

0:50.1

We've got the news you need to start your day.

1:04.2

A narrow majority in Congress took another step in ceding their power to the president.

1:08.5

The Constitution gives Congress authority over government spending, but at the president's request,

1:11.2

they overturned spending they previously agreed to for foreign aid in public broadcasting. The request was more of a demand. He'd threatened consequences

1:16.7

for lawmakers who didn't go along. Some voted in favor while publicly expressing concern, or even

1:21.6

saying they didn't know what they were voting for. The White House promises to use the technique again.

1:25.9

The people affected this time include hundreds of public radio stations.

1:30.4

NPR media correspondent David Fulkenflick has been covering them and will note, as we have

...

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