House Shutdown Vote, Aviation Challenges, USS Ford Heads to the Caribbean

Speaker 1 Good morning. How goes it? It's going okay.
You know, we're in a different studio today. There was a technical issue, and so we're in studio 32 instead of 31.

Speaker 2 It looks the same from my end, though.

Speaker 1 It is designed to be an identical studio.

Speaker 1 A little more to the right. This studio is a little more to the right.

Speaker 1 I see. Our critics will be pleased.

Speaker 1 Thank goodness they finally moved a little to the right.

Speaker 1 Republicans promised Democrats a vote on health care subsidies.

Speaker 2 Republicans are also making demands of their own calling for restrictions on abortion. As a shutdown ends, how will lawmakers work through policies that affect millions?

Speaker 1 I'm Steve Enscave with A. Martinez, and this is up first from NPR News.

Speaker 1 The FAA director says the agency is keeping flight restrictions in place as they deal with controller shortages.

Speaker 3 This shutdown is going to make that more difficult for us to accomplish that goal.

Speaker 1 Okay, how long will it take for the aviation aviation system to recover?

Speaker 2 And President Trump sends the military's largest aircraft carrier to the Caribbean and posted a $50 million bounty on Venezuela's president. Is it just a show of forces or is the U.S.

Speaker 2 preparing for war? Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.

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Speaker 2 Today, the Republican-led House returns to take up legislation that would end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

Speaker 1 Republican leaders are confident they will have the votes to approve it. In a sense, then the action here is on the Democratic side.

Speaker 1 Many Democrats are upset with this deal and with the handful of their Senate colleagues who voted for it.

Speaker 2 MPR Congressional correspondent Claudio Guisales has been following this. So, what, 43 days of a shutdown? Is this the end?

Speaker 2 Is this over with now?

Speaker 6 It truly could be. House lawmakers will be back in town today for the first time since House Speaker Mike Johnson let them go home in September before the shutdown even began.

Speaker 6 The House Rules Committee met for more than seven hours last night, and they moved this bill to the floor just a few hours ago. And that sets the stage for a final vote later tonight.

Speaker 6 And as you will recall, this deal came together after after a group of Senate Democrats broke ranks to vote with Republicans to end the government shutdown. And they sent this bill to the House.

Speaker 6 Now, the package includes a stopgap measure to fund the government at least through the end of January with full-year appropriations plans funding some of those federal agencies and services.

Speaker 2 The thing is that Senate deal does not include anything about extending the health care subsidies that Democrats were dug in on. So what did they get instead?

Speaker 6 Right, exactly. That was a key demand from Democrats.
And this deal doesn't address that.

Speaker 6 Instead, they secured a promise for a vote in December on health care and a commitment to negotiate a plan to address those subsidies.

Speaker 6 Those who broke with the party in the Senate said they got the best deal possible, and that includes those full-year appropriations plans, which were negotiated between the parties over several months.

Speaker 6 Meanwhile, other Senate Democrats who voted no argued they weren't making good to reopen the government in exchange for addressing these expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies that's spiking premiums.

Speaker 6 So those who are upset, it carries over to the House and the fury is only worse there, where we expect most Democrats to vote no on this plan.

Speaker 6 Several progressives, for example, have called for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to be ousted from his leadership role, even as he voted no on the plan.

Speaker 6 And last night, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries dodged a question on this with reporters in terms of Schumer's role.

Speaker 6 And so a reminder, the party's really struggling to reconcile the various factions around this deal.

Speaker 2 Claudia, the promise to vote in December on the Affordable Care Act subsidies, what might come out of that?

Speaker 6 Well, we could see a deal come out of that, possibly, but it's a very tall order. It's going to be a really difficult negotiation for Congress, especially in these ultra-partisan times.

Speaker 6 And we already know that Republicans have demands on ACA reforms that many Democrats won't be able to stomach, such as installing new restrictions for care related to abortions.

Speaker 6 And even if it can pass the Senate, it's not clear if Speaker Mike Johnson will bring it up for a vote in the House.

Speaker 6 But we do know Democrats have warned if Republicans do not hold up their end of the deal and negotiate a plan to extend these subsidies, they will hold Republicans' feet to the fire when most of the government's funding ends January 30th under this current plan.

Speaker 6 So it could be something we're still talking about come next year and into the midterm elections.

Speaker 2 And we'll be here for all of it. That's MPR's Glaudi Guest.
Thanks a lot.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 2 All right. Even if the U.S.
government shutdown ends this week, flight disruptions are likely to linger.

Speaker 1 Airlines have canceled thousands of flights, as you may have heard, to comply with an order from the Federal Aviation Administration to keep the skies safe.

Speaker 1 And airlines are expecting to cancel thousands more by this weekend as air traffic restrictions ramp up.

Speaker 2 MPR transportation correspondent Joel Rose is here. So Joel, where do things stand with these air traffic reductions?

Speaker 7 Yeah, not only are they still in place, but as we heard, the cuts are actually increasing. The FAA ordered airlines to cut 10% of air traffic at dozens of major airports.

Speaker 7 So airlines have been gradually building toward that target.

Speaker 7 The FAA says it is dealing with persistent shortages of air traffic controllers and that this step was necessary to relieve the pressure on controllers who are coming to work.

Speaker 7 Air traffic controllers, of course, don't get paid until the shutdown ends, and they have now missed two full paychecks.

Speaker 7 Some have taken on second jobs and many have called out sick during the shutdown.

Speaker 7 Over the weekend, dozens of facilities reported staffing shortages leading to some of the worst delays since the shutdown began.

Speaker 7 Staffing levels did improve yesterday with only a handful of facilities reporting shortages.

Speaker 7 Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called that a good sign, but he said these restrictions will remain in place until regulators are satisfied that staffing is back to normal levels.

Speaker 2 Has Duffy given any indication on when those restrictions could be lifted?

Speaker 7 No. Duffy spoke yesterday at a press conference at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, and he declined to give any kind of timetable for when these restrictions could be lifted.

Speaker 7 Instead, he painted a picture of more chaos in the aviation system if lawmakers do not vote to reopen the government.

Speaker 3 If this doesn't open, you might have airlines that say,

Speaker 3 we're going to ground our planes. We're not going to fly anymore.
That's how serious this is. You may find airlines that stop flying.
Full stop.

Speaker 7 I should note that so far no airline has said that, at least not in public.

Speaker 7 Duffy also said controllers would get some of the money that they're due quickly when the government reopens, a big chunk, about 70% of that within 48 hours, he said.

Speaker 7 But even so, Duffy says it may take time for staffing levels to recover.

Speaker 2 So on the airlines,

Speaker 2 how quickly can they get back to a normal flying schedule?

Speaker 7 That is another challenge. Airlines will likely need a few days to get back to their full schedules.
Randy Babbitt is a former administrator of the FAA.

Speaker 7 He spoke yesterday on NPR's All Things Considered, and here's some of what he said.

Speaker 8 The airplanes are in the wrong cities and so forth. They're going to have to sort all of that out as well.

Speaker 8 So a good deal of the responsibility will be the carriers getting their schedules and the aircraft and personnel back in the right positions to resume normal flying.

Speaker 7 And airline industry trade group, Airlines for America, also said there could be residual delays for days, even after the government reopens.

Speaker 2 Why did the Trump administration decide to put these restrictions in place when it did?

Speaker 7 There has been debate around whether this is really all about safety, as the administration says, or about politics.

Speaker 7 To the Trump administration's critics, the timing of the move appears to be political.

Speaker 7 Some Democrats say that Duffy's increasingly dire predictions about the air traffic system seem calculated to raise the pressure on them to vote to reopen the government.

Speaker 7 Secretary Duffy rejects the charge that this is about politics.

Speaker 7 He says the administration is responding to real safety concerns, including complaints from pilots and increasing loss of separation between aircraft and flight.

Speaker 7 The Air Traffic Controllers Union says, you you know, the controllers are the rope in this political tug of war, that the pressure and stress on them keep mounting, and some are just opting out.

Speaker 7 Secretary Duffy says that 15 to 20 controllers are simply retiring every day during the shutdown.

Speaker 2 That's MPR's Joel Rose in Washington. Joel, thanks.
You're welcome.

Speaker 1 Okay, we have some idea of the force the United States is massing in or near the Caribbean Sea. We do not have a clear idea of what the U.S.
plans to do with it.

Speaker 2 The world's largest aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, is now in the area covered by the U.S.
Southern Command. Now, that's the part of the world that includes Venezuela.
In recent weeks, U.S.

Speaker 2 forces already in the region have opened fire on small boats, killing at least 76 people. And the U.S.

Speaker 2 is saying that they were smuggling drugs, though any evidence of that is really at the bottom of the sea.

Speaker 1 Does the United States have some larger plan? Quill Lawrence from NPR's national security team is going to work through the evidence for us. Quill, good morning.

Speaker 9 Good morning.

Speaker 1 What does an aircraft carrier have to do with stopping drugs?

Speaker 9 This isn't how the U.S. has ever fought against narco-trafficking in the past.
I'm just blowing boats out of the water.

Speaker 9 Then, with the Secretary of Defense sharing a grainy video on social media about it, declaring them terrorists and enemy combatants.

Speaker 9 We're going to have to see whether this has a deterrent effect on these many small boats carrying relatively small amounts of drugs. We think.
Yeah, there are facts reported by our colleagues.

Speaker 9 First of all, that overdose deaths in the U.S. have dropped significantly last year from a high several years back.

Speaker 9 The drug that has been killing these Americans is fentanyl, which mostly crosses in from Mexico by land. The boats that the U.S.
is destroying off Venezuela, and as you said, the evidence,

Speaker 9 we don't have it, but if they were carrying drugs, former officials I've spoken with say that those routes from Venezuela mostly carry cocaine for Europe, not the U.S.

Speaker 9 I was recently in a discussion with a former leader of U.S. Southern Command, Admiral James Trevridas, and he was very blunt.
This is not about drugs, he said.

Speaker 9 It's about intimidating Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's very interesting. Well, then what is an aircraft carrier going to do about Nicolas Maduro?

Speaker 9 It's just another asset in what's now an armada in the Caribbean, maybe 15,000 U.S. troops.
The U.S. has posted this $50 million bounty on Maduro.
U.S. bombers have flown over.

Speaker 9 President Trump has talked openly about attacks on land in Venezuela and mentioned possible CIA operations in that country.

Speaker 9 There's speculation that this could be just a push to get someone in Venezuela to come out and claim that $50 million.

Speaker 9 There's speculation about a full-scale invasion or direct strikes against Maduro. We don't know.
Congress doesn't really know either. The briefings have been very scant.

Speaker 9 Last week, a measure to require the Trump administration to get a legal declaration of war failed in the Senate, although a couple of Republicans did join in pushing for some sort of law.

Speaker 1 Well, let's think about that for a second.

Speaker 1 In recent decades, it has not been that common for administrations to go to Congress in a formal way before acting, but sometimes they have tried to build some international support, make a case for intervention, line up allies.

Speaker 1 Is the U.S. doing any of that?

Speaker 9 No, this administration has really made no effort to win over the world or the region, and these killings have strained relations with what has been America's strongest ally in counter-narcotics in the region, the Colombian military, which the U.S.

Speaker 9 has been building and training for decades. These killings of citizens from countries in the region might also put U.S.
troops in legal jeopardy. Some international jurists say that U.S.

Speaker 9 military actions here are illegal, and there could be warrants out for the arrest of some of these officers who ordered the strikes. A U.S.

Speaker 9 four-star admiral, Alvin Halsley, who was overseeing these strikes, abruptly resigned last month two years early.

Speaker 9 And Congressional Pentagon sources say they believe it's because he objected to these strikes on these alleged drug boats that, and this is crucial for the laws of our armed conflict, the people on these boats were showing no hostile intent.

Speaker 9 They maybe weren't even armed when the U.S. military killed them.

Speaker 1 Well, we'll keep listening for your reporting. Quill, thanks so much.

Speaker 9 Thank you.

Speaker 1 That's Quill Lawrence of NPR's National Security Team.

Speaker 2 And that's Up First for Wednesday, November 12th. I'm Emartinez.

Speaker 1 And I'm Steve Inskeep. The news you hear on Up First is possible because of people like you.

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