Transcript of Pushback On Trump's Russia Policy, Competitive Midterm Races, DOJ Noncitizen Voting

A bipartisan group of lawmakers pushes back on President Trump's overtures to Russia.

Ukraine's president brought his concerns to some of those members of Congress. He told them the Pentagon is delaying already paid-for missile shipments.

I'm Steve Inskeep, with A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News. We're 2 weeks until Election Day. Republicans are pouring money into races in Kansas, Mississippi and other places they've rarely had to fight for. Democrats are spending there, too. Where is each party deciding to go all in?

And the Justice Department is escalating its fight with California over allegations of noncitizens voting. Last week, it sued the state to stop thousands of ballots. How is that connected to a series of new criminal cases? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.

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Democrats and Republicans are opposed to President Trump's friendlier stance toward Russia.

Senators from both parties are criticizing Trump's decision to lift diesel sanctions. The president said that move was meant to head off high energy prices ahead of the midterm elections. He's also paused sharing military intelligence with Ukraine. In a moment, we'll discuss all this with former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. We begin with the news.

NPR's Emily Feng is with us this morning. Emily, so first run through what President Trump has done to roll back pressure on Russia.

OK, here's just a brief list. He's had the Treasury Department lift sanctions on Russian diesel. He's effectively suspended a sanctions bill he just signed into law that was named in honor of the late Senator Lindsey Graham. He said yesterday he was willing to sit down with China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin to talk about the war in Ukraine. even if Ukraine's leader is not there. And then he cited a Ukrainian woman he heard speak about the loss of lives as a reason to end the war.

She blames Zelensky. She said, he's killing our men. And the fact is, she said— and it was very poignant— she said, our men are dying. Our men have no legs.

Also last week, Ukrainian officials say they lost connectivity for a few days to Starshield and Starlink. These are satellite services which Ukraine uses for battlefield communications. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says he thinks the U.S. was behind that, and he also made the extraordinary move of lobbying a bipartisan group of senators and House members about this Starlink issue this week.

Emily, do you have any sense why Trump, who really has faced repeated accusations of favoring Russia, is now seemingly courting Russia again?

Trump wants a deal. He wants a foreign policy win in Ukraine, and he told reporters yesterday he is negotiating with Russia on a number of issues— on energy, on American hostages in Russia. and he also wants to keep Russia from not helping Iran. So he said he doesn't want to drive Russia away from the bargaining table. I spoke to Bill Taylor about this. He was a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine until 2009, and Taylor notes the U.S. is no longer giving much direct financial and military assistance to Ukraine.

I mean, it's down 95%. The only thing we continue to provide, which is very valuable— it's come up in the last couple of days— is this military intelligence and the ability for the Europeans to buy weapons from the States and Elon Musk to be able to provide Starlink.

But now the US has shown Ukraine cannot rely on the US for that intelligence either. And in that meeting I mentioned with members of Congress on Monday, Zelensky said that the administration, the US government, is the one holding up weapons for his country.

We also know that, unfortunately, the Pentagon is delaying the delivery of missiles that our partners have already paid for.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke on this, speaking in Mumbai, India today. Rubio said it could be accurate that a batch of interceptors purchased for Ukraine has not been delivered. Rubio, however, told reporters that the important takeaway was, quote, there has not been some deliberate political directive to go out and harm Ukraine.

Right. So, Emily, there's been bipartisan fallout that's followed this. So tell us about that.

Yes.

Notably, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are criticizing the U.S. for buying Russian diesel. For example, on top of the lawmakers, that Zelensky briefed, you have Republican Representative Mike Lawler saying that the diesel puts money in Russia's pocket. Notably, Darlene Graham, sister of the late Senator Graham, whose namesake sanctions law was just signed into law by Trump, spoke out against the US buying Russian diesel. And this fallout is illustrative of the bind that Trump has put himself in by starting a seemingly intractable conflict with Iran. He has driven up energy prices for Americans. That's put more leverage in Russia's hands to push the U.S. for a quick resolution on Ukraine.

All right, that's NPR's Emily Fang. Emily, thanks.

Thanks, A.

Okay, an NPR team is reporting from here in Georgia today. I'm at our station WABE in Atlanta. Georgia has a big Senate race and a governor's race. President Trump campaigned here last Friday and returns this weekend.

The president travel schedule says something about the party's desperation. The Republican is trailing in Georgia, and Trump is even campaigning in red states such as Kansas, Iowa, and Florida. Now, 2 weeks before Election Day, both parties are now deciding which races to cut loose and where to push all in.

NPR's Stephen Fowler is with us here in Atlanta. Stephen, you brought your NPR sweatshirt. Nice fashion statement like that. Good morning.

Good morning.

Good to talk with you. And I know you're going to be traveling to some of the states we just mentioned. What do the president's travel plans tell us about the state of play?

On paper, this is not really where the leader of the Republican Party should be spending his time and energy. Kansas hasn't elected a Democratic senator in nearly a century, and yet polls suggest it's possible. There's a trip to a conservative corner of Iowa. That's a state where Democrats could flip the governor's office, 3 of 4 House seats, and the Senate seat because of how unpopular Republicans are.

Wow.

Trump is visiting North Carolina as many Republican outside groups have basically gone dark on the airwaves because the Senate race is viewed as a lost cause. So in many ways, it's rallying the troops to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic.

Well, we're in Georgia, which was supposed to be a marquee Senate race, and now it's not so competitive.

Nope. And that's because of Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. He raised well over $100 million this cycle. He raised his profile with a very strong anti-corruption tack in the campaign message, and his poll numbers have risen, too, thanks to crossover support from some Republicans. However, there is still a competitive governor's race here. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is in a toss-up race with billionaire healthcare executive Rick Jackson. He's funneled over $100 million of his own money to try and beat back the rising tide of Republican unpopularity. And also in Georgia, demographically, you have basically every major group that swung towards President Trump in 2024— young people, Latino voters, people who don't show up to vote very much. Now they're swinging back.

Okay, so President Trump's travel schedule tells us something. Then there's the money, where money goes and where money is drawn back. What does that tell us about the party priorities?

For Republicans, it looks like there's more of a priority to save their Senate majority than the House. That's where more money is. And Democrats are seizing on openings in very conservative places. Over the last 3 weeks, data shows Republicans have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled their investment in places like the Senate race in Kansas and Mississippi.

Mississippi, please go on.

Wow.

Deep red House districts in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and they've pulled back at the same time from the Georgia-North Carolina Senate races and one-time toss-up races in Iowa, Ohio, and Nebraska that are not as competitive anymore. Meanwhile, the Democrats have a long list of flip targets that have actually been accompanied by millions of dollars in spending, too, leading Republicans to scramble and respond in places like Arkansas.

So as we've been going around the Atlanta area the last couple days, we've been seeing people Going to the early polling sites, early voting, what can you read into the early voting numbers across the country?

What we're seeing right now is that Democrats appear to be changing how they vote away from mail-in ballots to in-person early voting or Election Day. It's also going to be notable to see where else Trump goes in his final days. And with more than a million people already voting here in Georgia so far, I am watching what appears to be higher-than-usual Black turnout in Georgia and other key races across the South.

NPR's Stephen Fowler, thanks for the insights.

Thank you.

The Trump administration's fight with California elections officials over the voter rolls is intensifying.

On Monday, the Department of Justice filed charges against more than 2 dozen people for voting crimes in previous elections. Just last week, the Department of Justice sued the state and Los Angeles County because local officials declined to investigate the administration's noncitizen voting allegations. So with Election Day coming, where's all this heading?

All right, let's bring in NPR voting correspondent Miles Parks to answer that question. Miles, let's start with that LA lawsuit. What's the latest here?

So the Department of Justice filed an emergency motion just yesterday asking a federal court to force LA County and the state of California to do what it wants as soon as possible. This all began about a week ago last Tuesday when the DOJ delivered a thumb drive to Los Angeles County that contained the names of 20,000 people all over California who are on the state's voter rolls and who the federal government says are likely noncitizens. Now, I should say there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of that number, but the DOJ wants California to segregate the ballots of everyone on this list and for them not to be counted until those people have been investigated. The state says the federal government has not provided evidence for its claims, and doing what the DOJ asks would probably violate state and federal law.

What are the chances the DOJ will be successful?

Election law experts are pretty skeptical. I mean, this DOJ has tried a bunch of different ways to compel states to change how they vote, and there just hasn't been much success. It would be pretty shocking if 2 weeks before an election, when ballots have already gone out, that that changes.

All right, so we mentioned the charges that were filed yesterday against noncitizens in California for alleged voting crimes. Are these 2 things related somehow?

Yes. So the 28 people charged yesterday were supposedly on this broader list of 20,000 names that was provided to local officials. These were all green card holders who allegedly registered to vote. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter announced the charges at a press conference yesterday: This Department of Justice will not look the other way while noncitizens vote in federal elections.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for California and L.A. County.

I should say there's still a lot we don't know about these cases. Research has found that in many of these cases where legal permanent residents do register to vote, it's often found to be because of bureaucratic errors or because they didn't realize it was illegal. usually does not make that much sense that someone would risk their chance at permanent citizenship to cast one vote.

And so on that, Miles, because 28 people, I mean, that doesn't sound like, you know, this big grand conspiracy that the president has talked about for so many years.

Exactly. I mean, just for context, 28 people is roughly 0.0001% of California's registered voters. But election experts I talked to say announcing charges like this, and this is something we've seen more and more in recent days as early voting is beginning across the country, it allows the Trump administration to give the impression that this idea of noncitizen voting is happening more than it is.

All right, so 2 weeks short of Election Day here, so what are people worried about?

So the number one fear from election experts is that these sort of accusations could be leveraged in some way by federal law enforcement to potentially confiscate ballots in the period after voting ends during counting. But I should say, voting officials are preparing for that. Dana Lewis is a Republican election official in Pinal County, Arizona, and she told me election officials everywhere are watching this legal process play out in California and making plans as though they'll be next.

When this impacts another administration, you know, or jurisdiction, you automatically have to feel that. If it's happening in Georgia, if it's happening in Colorado or California, we're all watching.

Local officials I talked to say they have their county attorneys on speed dial right now, just in case the DOJ comes knocking at their door.

All right, we'll have you on speed dial as well. NPR's Miles Parks, thanks a lot.

Thanks, Zach.

That's Up First for Tuesday, October 20th. I'm Iman Martinez.

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Today's Up First was edited by Rebecca Metzler, Megan Pratz, Shannon Bond, Mohammed El Bardisi, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Iman Maani and Nia Dumas. Our director is the long-suffering Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hynes. Our technical director is Zach Coltman. And our supervising senior producer is Vince Pierson.

Amen.

Join us again tomorrow.