Epstein Files Subpoena, Columbia $221 Million Settlement, 'Woke' AI

Almost Friday.

I think we should just call Thursday.

Almost Friday.

The White House is employing lots of strategies to try to beat back questions about Jeffrey Epstein.

They have not released as much as I would like to see to date, but hopefully they're going to be doing that.

Is any of what they've tried to do satisfying the president's base?

I'm Michelle Martin.

That's Sasha Pfeiffer, and this is Up First from NPR News.

Columbia University will pay more than $200 million to the government to resolve multiple civil rights investigations and to restore access to billions of dollars in grants and contracts.

A lot of students are concerned about the precedent this sets for other universities to go down this route.

What are the details of the agreement?

And President Trump announces new policies aimed at cracking down on what he calls woke AI.

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Questions about the Epstein files keep coming.

So do bits of information about President Trump's ties to the late financier and convicted sex offender who died in prison five years ago in a death that was ruled a suicide.

The White House is employing lots of strategies to try to beat back the story, so far to no avail.

NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro is here with an overview.

Hi, Domenico.

Hey there.

So this is all about calls to release the Epstein files, including bipartisan calls.

Even though, as we've heard all week, we're told they may be underwhelming or limited.

So give us a recap.

It's been a lot.

Let's see if we can lay some of it out.

We know that the Justice Department and the House Oversight Committee are both seeking to interview Gillen Maxwell.

She's serving time in prison, convicted of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors.

What new information they would learn and what she could get out of it, if anything, we don't know.

The government, encouraged by Trump, also sought to release grand jury transcripts from the Epstein case.

A federal judge denied one of those requests.

What can you tell us about the story broken by the Wall Street Journal this week that says President Trump was briefed back in May that his name appeared several times in the Epstein files?

Right, a real eye-opener.

And we should say that NPR has not confirmed that reporting.

And it's important to note that the appearance of Trump's name is not an indication of wrongdoing.

He and Epstein were friends for years, seen on video partying together, even was on flight logs for Epstein's plane before falling out over a property dispute.

For Trump's part, a White House spokesperson said in a statement that Trump kicked Epstein, quote, out of his club for being a creep, and pivoted to talking about Russia's involvement in the 2016 election.

Russia is quite a pivot from the Epstein topic.

It is, and the White House has been talking about Russia and a lot of other things, a lot, other than Epstein when asked about it.

Trump has brought up Russia up multiple times to try and point fingers at Democrats.

Yesterday, Telsey Gabbard, the director of national intelligence from the White House briefing room podium, claimed to have new information about the 2016 election when really the assessments largely affirm what's already known about Russian interference.

But I want to go back to that Wall Street Journal story because something in there really jumped out at me.

The story says that Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, who told the president his name was in the files multiple times, said they felt that those files contained, quote, unverified hearsay.

That might help explain how Trump has talked about this for more than a year.

Here he was last week in the Oval Office when asked about whether he wants Bondi to release all of the files.

Whatever's credible, she can release.

If a document is credible, if a document's there that is credible, she can release.

I think it's good.

Whatever's credible, he said.

And take a listen to him from last year during the presidential campaign in an interview on Fox News.

Again, he's asked if he would release the files.

Yeah, yeah, I would.

I guess I would.

I think that less so because, you know, you don't know, you don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there because there's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world.

Yeah, notice the hesitation there.

And it's a recognition of the kind of political bombshell this really can become, especially since this is a story that his base has been all over.

And his base is famously loyal, but even some of them are calling for the release of the files.

Is anything the White House doing satisfying his base?

Well, take a listen to Congressman Ryan McKenzie, who's from a swing district in Pennsylvania.

Here he's speaking during a teletown hall last night that he called into.

This audio is from public radio reporter Carmen Russell Sluchansky with WHYY.

They have not released as much as I would like to see to date, but hopefully they're going to be doing that.

And if not, then Congress should potentially step in and compel them to do that because again, the American people deserve to have full transparency.

Really here, this is a reminder that Trump's not the only one who has to navigate this.

And these are exactly the types of members of Congress who will be in races that will likely determine control of the House next year.

That's NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.

Domenico, thank you.

You're welcome.

Columbia University will pay more than $200 million to the federal government to resolve multiple federal investigations.

This comes after months-long negotiations between the university and the Trump administration.

The settlement will restore access to billions of dollars in federal funding, resuming frozen grants and opening up opportunities for future research.

NPR's Alyssa Nadwerne has been covering this.

Good morning, Alyssa.

Good morning.

How expected or unexpected was this?

Well, back in March, the Trump administration sent a list of demands to Columbia that included strong controls over an international studies department and significant changes to student discipline and other university policies.

This was in response to the administration's allegations of anti-Semitism on campus.

If the university wanted to win back about $400 million in federal grants that were frozen and be eligible for billions of dollars in future money, it would have to comply.

And so Columbia said in a statement that it would overhaul their policies and thus began the behind-the-scenes negotiations.

Now, Sasha, this is a very different tactic than fellow Ivy League School Harvard University, which rejected the government demands and sued the administration.

Right.

So what are the details of the Columbia Agreement?

So Columbia will pay $200 million to the federal government over three years, and then an additional $21 million to settle an investigation that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission launched into claims of workplace harassment based on religion.

The university's acting president, Claire Shipman, released some of the details of the agreement in a statement.

She said both sides agreed to a dispute resolution process that includes an independent monitor and arbitrator, which will essentially function as neutral third parties.

She also said the settlement would address concerns about admissions and hiring, though she didn't provide details, and that the university would be sharing requested data with the federal government that followed existing law and regulations.

But she did make it very clear in her statement that Columbia will retain control over its academic and operational decisions, saying, quote, the federal government will not dictate what we teach, who teaches, or which students we admit.

And what's been the reaction both from the government and then from the education sector?

Well, on Truth Social, President Trump thanked Columbia for, quote, agreeing to do what is right.

He went on to say that settlements with other higher education institutions were upcoming, but other groups aren't so thrilled.

In a statement, the president of the American Association of University Professors, Todd Wolfson, said, quote, the announcement is a devastating blow to academic freedom and freedom of speech at Columbia.

Now, that organization represents professors across the country and has filed multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration.

You know, also, Sasha, I've been keeping in touch with James McCaffrey.

He's a student organizer at Harvard University.

Here is what he told me about the settlement.

I'm disappointed that Columbia is capitulating, but not necessarily surprised by it.

A lot of students are concerned about the precedent this sets for other universities to go down this route.

So McCaffrey was there actually earlier this week when Harvard and the administration argued in federal court over the legality of the government's cancellation of more than $2 billion in federal grants there.

We are still waiting for the judge's decision in that case.

And I guess the big question from this settlement, Sasha, is kind of like, what will this mean for other universities who are arguing with the government over similar funding cuts?

Right.

And I'm sure you'll be covering that over time.

That's NPR's a listen to that, Warney.

Thank you.

Thank you.

President Trump is turning his focus to artificial intelligence companies.

Yesterday, he announced new policies aimed at speeding up the development of AI and also a crackdown

NPR technology correspondent Bobby Allen has details.

Hi, Bobby.

Hey, Sasha.

Give us at a high level what these new AI initiatives by Trump intend to accomplish.

Yeah, it's a set of policies and executive orders striving to cut red tape for AI companies so they can build massive data centers faster, more easily ship AI hardware and software to overseas customers, and root out, as you mentioned, what the Trump administration views as AI chatbots that have adopted a liberal liberal worldview.

The president calls this wokeness.

Here's Trump speaking yesterday at an AI summit in Washington.

From now on, the U.S.

government will deal only with AI that pursues truth, fairness, and strict impartiality.

Trump is nodding there to one of the announcements that grabbed a lot of headlines, Sasha, which was that there is now a ban on federal contracts with tech companies that push woke AI.

The order defines that as AI that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion, transgender issues, and critical race theory.

And how is the administration proposing to ban such a thing?

Yeah, Trump's order spells out how tech companies would essentially have to certify that their AI chatbots are politically neutral before receiving work from the federal government.

The order points to an embarrassing episode last year when Google's Gemini image generator depicted America's founding fathers and Nazi soldiers as black.

You know, that is the kind of thing this order is aimed at, the over-corrections that that happen for things like diversity.

I talked to Neil Sejoda about this.

He advises the United Nations on AI issues, and this is how he says the tech industry is receiving this woke AI order.

I would say they're deeply concerned by the situation.

You know, this is a global arms race with AI.

But now you're putting in some very nebulous things that may actually undo some of the guardrails and safeguards you've actually built in because it may be considered biased or it might be considered woke.

Soota says one outcome of this could be AI companies releasing new versions of chatbots that have fewer guardrails and could be seen as anti-woke in order to land, you know, some lucrative federal contracts.

So that person we just heard from expresses concern.

But as you said earlier, Bobby, there are also proposals to speed up development of AI.

So how is the industry feeling about the rest of the proposals?

To the rest of them, the industry is giving a big, warm embrace, right?

Speeding up the permitting process for building AI infrastructure and making it easy to export American-made AI products have been on Silicon Valley's wish list for some time now.

So, some say all this warming up to Trump that we've seen the tech industry do in recent months appears to be paying off.

Worth noting, Sasha, just how much of a contrast this is compared to the Biden administration, which put the focus on AI safety and making sure AI tools were not used to discriminate or perpetuate bias.

Trump's AI executive orders do not include any measures to counter harm or address how AI could one day kill jobs.

Critics of yesterday's plan say it demonstrated that the administration is basically allowing the tech industry to write their own regulations.

But Trump insists these policies are needed in order to out-compete China in the AI race.

That's NPR's Bobby Allen.

Bobby, thank you.

Thanks, Sasha.

And that's Up First for Thursday, July 24th.

I'm Sasha Pfeiffer.

And I'm Michelle Martin.

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