Epstein Files Fallout, Charlotte Immigration Patrols, Economic Impact Of Shutdown

Speaker 1 President Trump ends the week in conflict with the House of Representatives.

Speaker 2 A meeting in the White House Situation Room was just one of the tactics used in response to a new eruption of questions about Jeffrey Epstein. How does this end?

Speaker 1 I'm Steve Inskeep with Layla Favel, and this is up first from NPR News.

Speaker 1 Border Patrol agents are packing up in Chicago. Charlotte, North Carolina is preparing for their arrival.
City leaders say they got almost no details.

Speaker 4 The public has the right to know what's happening and why it's happening.

Speaker 1 What's driving this sudden move and why Charlotte?

Speaker 2 And economists are tallying the costs of the longest government shutdown in American history.

Speaker 5 Our estimate of the White House is that each week that we were shut down is worth about $15 million off of GDP.

Speaker 2 Is some of that money lost forever? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

Speaker 3 Support for this podcast and the following message come from Indeed. Hiring isn't just about finding someone willing to take the job.

Speaker 3 You need the right person with the right background who can move your business forward. Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.

Speaker 3 Less stress, less time, more results now with Indeed sponsored jobs. Receive a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com/slash NPR.

Speaker 3 Terms and conditions apply hiring do it the right way with indeed

Speaker 6 support for npr and the following message come from hydro don't let the holidays derail your fitness stay on track with hydro 20 minutes rowing on a hydro targets 86 percent of your muscles as olympians guide you from incredible locations worldwide gq named the hydro arc the best rower of 2025 and every hydro comes with free shipping a 30-day trial and warranty go to hydro.com code NPR, save up to $600 on your next rower.

Speaker 6 Hydro.com, code NPR.

Speaker 3 This message comes from Kachava. Sometimes people stock their fridge with good intentions, only to have their future self sacrifice nutrition for convenience.

Speaker 3 Keep your body and mind nourished with whole body meal shakes from Kachava. It's got 25 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, greens, and so much more, but it actually tastes delicious.

Speaker 3 Try one of Kachava's indulgent flavors today. Shop now through December 2nd to get 30% off your first purchase of two or more bags.
Go to cachava.com and use code NPR.

Speaker 2 President Trump is finishing this week in conflict with a majority of the House of Representatives.

Speaker 1 That conflict emerged just as the House returned to work and reopened the government. Some Republicans joined Democrats to revive discussions of Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 1 As we have reported, a House committee released 23,000 documents documents about the convicted sex offender.

Speaker 1 The more than 1,000 mentions of Trump in those documents include an email saying Trump spent hours at Epstein's house with a victim and another in which Epstein says Trump, quote, knew about the girls.

Speaker 2 To discuss the White House's response, we have NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shipper and with us. Good morning.

Speaker 7 Hey, Leila.

Speaker 2 Hey, so the release of these documents has been a key demand of the president's supporters. What's the reaction been to this latest release of files?

Speaker 7 Well, Republican political strategist Alex Conan said the news around these documents isn't necessarily changing people's minds in the next election, say, but it doesn't exactly add up to a good week for Trump.

Speaker 8 And I don't know that it's damaging, but it's very distracting.

Speaker 8 You know, with the government reopening, Trump arguably had a great week, but instead, everyone's talking about this Epstein story that just won't go away.

Speaker 7 The White House says these documents don't prove anything. They say that Trump did nothing wrong.

Speaker 7 And the White House and the president are trying to frame the release of these documents as a distraction.

Speaker 7 They're saying that Democrats who released some of these files ahead of the House Oversight Committee's release are trying to take attention away from the government shutdown ending.

Speaker 7 Trump on Truth Social called it the Jeffrey Epstein hoax and said Democrats are trying to use it to quote deflect from their massive failures.

Speaker 2 Right, but it was also Republicans who wanted these released some Republicans.

Speaker 2 Well, the other thing that happened this week is the House reached enough signatures for a discharge petition to force the release of more documents from the Department of Justice.

Speaker 2 Does the White House feel any added pressure from this petition?

Speaker 7 Right. So, this petition that we're talking about requires 218 votes.
That's, of course, a majority of the House members.

Speaker 7 And what it does is force a vote on any issue, even if House leadership doesn't want it.

Speaker 7 It's really rare that a petition would come together in the first place, and even more rare in this political environment when we don't really see any level of bipartisanship.

Speaker 7 And one of the Republicans that's working with Democrats on this is Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert.

Speaker 7 She's been an ally of Trump's, but she signed on to this petition and she was called into the White House for a meeting in the situation room where the Epstein files and this petition were discussed.

Speaker 7 It was kind of seen as this potential pressure campaign from the White House.

Speaker 7 White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was asked about this meeting in the briefing earlier this week, and she said that the White House was just being transparent with members of Congress.

Speaker 7 And Bobert herself spoke to Colorado Public Radio about it.

Speaker 2 There was no pressure, and I mean, everybody was great and worked just well with me.

Speaker 7 So it's not fully clear what happened inside the situation room but the thing with this petition to keep in mind is that it probably isn't going to go anywhere after this House vote.

Speaker 7 The Senate is controlled by Republicans. They're probably not going to take up this vote.

Speaker 7 And even if they did and it passed, Trump himself is the one who'd have to sign it into law, which is even less likely to happen.

Speaker 2 Okay, so if this petition is likely to die, is the White House hoping then this just all goes away after that?

Speaker 7 Yeah, you know, I talked to Conan about that too, and he says the White House should should have handled this Epstein story very differently by putting out all the information that they have.

Speaker 7 Now, the White House says that they've been transparent, but at the same time, Trump uncharacteristically doesn't seem to want to answer questions about it.

Speaker 7 And keep in mind, there's been a lot of public interest in Epstein, in Trump's relationship with him, what these documents from the DOJ might say.

Speaker 7 And, you know, Trump has survived many political scandals before, right? But Conan says that Trump's strategy typically has been deflect, deflect, attack, attack, and then try to change the story.

Speaker 7 But because of the slow drip of this Epstein story, because this was a campaign promise that Trump made to release these documents, he just can't shake this story and he's really been unable to move beyond it.

Speaker 2 I'm Pierre's Deepa Shivaram. Thank you, Deepa.

Speaker 7 Thanks.

Speaker 2 The sheriff in Charlotte, North Carolina says the Trump administration has selected that city for its next immigration crackdown.

Speaker 1 Now, Charlotte is in Mecklenburg County, and the county sheriff there says federal officials have told him that agents could arrive as soon as tomorrow, and that's all he knows.

Speaker 1 This is happening as some Border Patrol agents are leaving Chicago after weeks of aggressive raids.

Speaker 2 Nick DeLacanal with member station WFAE in Charlotte has been following developments and joins us. Now, Nick, what do we know so far about agents coming to Charlotte?

Speaker 9 Well, we first started hearing reports a few days ago that this could be happening, but city officials said they were completely in the dark.

Speaker 9 And then yesterday, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff, Gary McFadden, said he was contacted by two federal officials who told him Border Patrol agents will be arriving possibly Saturday or early next week.

Speaker 9 Now, there's still a lot that we don't know, like how many agents are coming, how long they plan to stay, what their assignment is, although perhaps we could look to Chicago as a precedent.

Speaker 9 The sheriff, who is a Democrat, said he's not getting involved in any possible possible operation, and Charlotte Police put out a statement saying they don't participate with federal immigration enforcement.

Speaker 9 We did reach out to the Department of Homeland Security and they told us they don't comment on potential operations.

Speaker 2 Okay, so very little detail. How is the community reacting?

Speaker 9 Well, there's definitely fear, even though advocacy groups have been urging calm.

Speaker 9 I spoke with Daniela Andrade with the Carolina Migrant Network, and she says that their ICE hotline has been ringing off the hook over the last few days, mostly with false reports.

Speaker 10 People have been calling, reporting anything they see on the street, which sometimes might be just CMPD or something completely different.

Speaker 10 Most of these cases right now are not ICE, but it's just that fear in general that's already in our community.

Speaker 9 And CMPD is the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, by the way.

Speaker 9 Also, some Latino businesses shared photos on social media yesterday of empty parking lots in what are normally bustling immigrant shopping centers.

Speaker 2 And what are local officials telling people?

Speaker 9 Charlotte Mayor Vilis has released a statement saying that the city is committed to following the law while protecting civil rights.

Speaker 9 Some city council members are also speaking up, including a councilman-elect, J.D. Mazuera Arias, who himself is an immigrant.

Speaker 9 He told his community to take a deep breath, not to keep kids home from school or skip work out of fear.

Speaker 9 And he says customs and border protection need to be transparent with residents and law enforcement.

Speaker 4 Our community deserves clarity. The sheriff's department deserves clarity.
If there is an operation or presence in Charlotte, the public has the right to know what's happening and why it's happening.

Speaker 2 So that question of why, do you have any idea why border patrol agents are heading to Charlotte or appear to be heading there?

Speaker 9 Yeah, we really don't have any idea. We have seen ICE arrests in Charlotte, like in other cities.

Speaker 9 There was a workplace raid this summer and some isolated arrests, but never Border Patrol agents, as far as we know.

Speaker 9 Now, the city did draw national attention earlier this fall following the fatal stabbing of a Ukrainian woman on the light rail. The suspect was not an immigrant, however.

Speaker 9 Republicans and the White House directed a lot of criticism at the city's Democratic mayor for that.

Speaker 9 And there have been calls for the National Guard, even though violent crime is down 20% over the last year.

Speaker 2 Nick DeLacanal with member station WFAE. Thank you, Nick.

Speaker 9 Thank you.

Speaker 2 Now that the government shutdown is over, the damage assessments have begun.

Speaker 1 Federal workers missed paychecks. Many people missed flights.
Millions missed payments to help them buy food. Gradually, all that is now being corrected, but what are the lasting economic costs?

Speaker 2 NPR Scott Horsley joins us now to help tally it up. Good morning, Scott.
Good morning. Okay, so this was the longest government shutdown on record.
Is it also the most costly?

Speaker 11 Almost certainly. Kevin Hassett, who directs the National Economic Council, told the Economic Club of Washington this week, the bill will likely be in the neighborhood of $90 billion.

Speaker 5 Our estimate of the White House is that each week that we were shut down is worth about $15 billion off of GDP.

Speaker 5 I think the Goldman guys have added all that up and guessed that it's between 1 and 1.5%

Speaker 5 reduction in the growth rate of GDP this quarter.

Speaker 11 Now, some of that economic activity is not really lost. It's just postponed.

Speaker 11 Government workers who put off a big purchase during the shutdown might go out and spend that money once once they get their back pay. But some of it won't be made up.

Speaker 11 If you skipped a haircut during the shutdown, you are probably not going to get two haircuts to make up for it. Airlines are not going to recover all the money they lost.

Speaker 11 So while some of the drop in GDP is merely a timing shift, some of it is gone for good.

Speaker 2 And what about jobs? What's been the effect?

Speaker 11 Well, we don't have a good read on that. The government's monthly jobs tally was delayed by the shutdown, along with a lot of other government economic data.

Speaker 11 We should get the September jobs report pretty soon. That was almost finished when the shutdown began.

Speaker 11 But when it comes to the October report on both jobs and inflation, the government's really starting from scratch, and so it could take some time to reconstruct those.

Speaker 11 In fact, White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt suggested this week the reports may never come out.

Speaker 12 The Democrats may have permanently damaged the federal statistical system with October CPI and jobs reports likely never being released.

Speaker 12 And all of that economic data released will be permanently impaired, leaving our policymakers at the Fed flying blind at a critical period.

Speaker 11 Now, after previous government shutdowns, a lot of economic reports were late coming out, but the government has never skipped issuing a major economic report altogether.

Speaker 11 And most of the experts I talk to think the number crunchers will try very hard to avoid that this time.

Speaker 11 The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles both the jobs and inflation reports, put a note on its website yesterday saying it's assessing the situation and will issue an updated release schedule soon.

Speaker 11 And the Bureau also thanked people for their patience.

Speaker 2 Is the Fed, though, really flying blind here?

Speaker 11 No, although certainly its visibility is not as good as policymakers would like.

Speaker 11 During the shutdown, the Fed and others looked to other sources of information about the job market and prices.

Speaker 11 And while that's not as good as the missing government data, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says he thinks he and his colleagues would know if there were a sudden shift in the economy.

Speaker 11 The Fed holds its next interest rate meeting in a little less than four weeks, and by that time we may have some additional government data.

Speaker 11 But you know, unless the numbers are really clear-cut one way or another, it could still be a close call.

Speaker 11 Right now, markets think it's pretty much a coin toss whether the Fed keeps cutting interest rates by another quarter point in December or takes a break and holds rates steady.

Speaker 2 NPR Scott Horsley, thank you, Scott.

Speaker 11 You're welcome.

Speaker 2 And that's a first for Friday, November 14th. I'm Layla Falden.

Speaker 1 And I'm Steve Inskeep. This Sunday, we'll follow up on a big story.
President Trump promised a Gaza peace plan would bring an end to the war between Hamas and Israel. Can you believe it?

Speaker 1 And it's going to hold up, too. It's going to hold up.
Okay, it's been a little over a month since the ceasefire went into effect, and forward progress has stalled.

Speaker 3 Until all of the bodies of the hostages are returned, from Israel's point of view, the next phase doesn't move forward.

Speaker 2 Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violations, but it is really President Trump who's holding it together.

Speaker 1 This weekend on the Sunday story, what will it take to keep a peace process on track? Listen to to the Sunday story right here on NPR's Up First podcast.

Speaker 2 Today's episode of Up First was edited by Dana Farrington, Susanna Capaluto, Rafael Nam, Mohamed El Bardisi, and H.J. Mai.
It was produced by Ziad Buch, Neo Dumas, and Lindsay Toddy.

Speaker 2 We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Carly Strange. Our executive producer is Jay Shaler.
Join us again tomorrow.

Speaker 6 Support for NPR and the following message come from Hydro. Don't let the holidays derail your fitness.
Stay on track with Hydro.

Speaker 6 20 minutes rowing on a hydro targets 86% of your muscles as Olympians guide you from incredible locations worldwide. GQ named the Hydro Arc the best rower of 2025.

Speaker 6 And every hydro comes with free shipping, a 30-day trial, and warranty. Go to hydro.com, code NPR, save up to $600 on your next rower.
Hydro.com, code NPR.

Speaker 3 This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab with its original podcast On Investing. Each week, you'll get thoughtful, in-depth analysis of both the stock and the bond markets.

Speaker 3 Listen today and subscribe at schwab.com slash on investing or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 This message comes from NPR sponsor eBay, who is home to millions of parts for your next project and free returns. If it doesn't fit or it isn't what you expected, eBay has your back.

Speaker 3 Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.
eBay, things people love.