Transcript of Trump Eases Russia Sanctions, Midterm Campaign Money, Violent Protests In France

President Trump signed new sanctions on Russia. Now he's waived them.

What does the U.S. easing pressure on Moscow mean for Ukraine?

But if United States will support Putin, it's historic mistake and big tragedy.

I'm Leila Faldun, with Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. Democrats are outraising Republicans in the most competitive Senate races, but Elon Musk is pouring hundreds of millions into Republican super PACs. What does the money tell us about where each party stands ahead of the midterms.

And France's president says the protesters who rioted over the weekend must be punished. A minister admitted that police lost control. What began over conditions in schools grew into nationwide demonstrations over the cost of living and violent police crackdowns. Stay with us, we'll give you news you need to start your day. At least one person is dead and more than a dozen injured from a major Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's former imperial capital, The attack

happened Sunday. Russian missile strikes against Ukraine killed at least 11 people over the weekend. The continued fighting is happening as President Trump argues the best way to end the war is to relieve pressure on Russia.

Joining us to talk about this is NPR's Charles Maynes in Moscow. Charles, good morning.

Morning, Michelle.

Could you start with these attacks in St. Petersburg? What can you tell us?

According to Russia's regional governor, Ukrainian drones struck a range of strategic targets in and around St. Petersburg, including energy infrastructure, a key port oil was hit, so was a refinery, causing large fires and massive plumes of black smoke along the skyline. It appears this was the largest attack on St. Petersburg since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Exactly how many drones struck the city, we don't know, but Russia's Defense Ministry said it intercepted 1,000 drones over various regions of Russia that night.

How big of a deal are the strikes on oil facilities, given that President Trump has been demanding That Ukraine stop hitting those sites?

Well, Trump, you know, seems to be trying to protect Russian oil facilities following a deal he cut with President Vladimir Putin to import Russian diesel, a move Trump hopes will bring down the price of gas for U.S. voters ahead of midterm elections. So in that sense, the news of Ukraine striking energy facilities in St. Petersburg Sunday is unlikely to please, please Trump, who's already called previous strikes, including one against Moscow last week, a disgrace, even as Russia has continued its own strikes on Ukraine. But it's part of a recent pattern we've seen from Trump. Trump lashing out at Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in particular.

Talk more about that tension between Trump and Zelenskyy.

Well, Trump accuses Zelenskyy of carrying out these attacks to drive fuel prices up in the U.S., although economists will say that the rise in prices is mostly a result of Trump's war in Iran. Trump has since called for new leadership in Ukraine, saying Zelenskyy, not Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched this war after all, is the real obstacle to peace. And so to Ukrainians and their supporters, it feels, and not for the first time, that Trump is aligned the U.S. with Moscow against Kyiv.

And what has Zelenskyy been saying about this?

He's tried to tread lightly, but he was asked directly what the U.S. supporting Russia would mean for Ukraine's future. Here's his response on NBC's Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.

But if the United States will support Putin, I mean, it's unbelievable. It's tragedy. It's historic mistake and big tragedy.

So, Thomas, what's your sense of what happens next?

Well, I think it depends on how much more political capital Trump is willing to bet on better ties with Russia. On Friday, he exempted Russia from a congressionally approved sanctions package— this is legislation Trump himself signed into law to honor his late friend, the Senator Lindsey Graham— that would have placed steep tariffs on Russian energy sales and increased sanctions on senior Kremlin officials, including President Putin. Trump has justified the waiver, saying the legislation wasn't in the national interest right now, and later argued that more sanctions would only drive Russia away from a peace deal But the decision just crystallized how Trump's claims, you know, he's a mediator in this conflict, are growing untenable. We heard Zelenskyy call this kind of dealmaking with Putin a historic mistake. Well, the Kremlin's White House envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, he called it truly historic.

That is NPR's Charles Maynes in Moscow. Charles, thank you.

Thank you.

The 2026 midterms are on track to be the most expensive on record. More than $15 billion have been raised to influence who will win control of Congress.

That includes more than a quarter billion in new spending by the wealthiest person in the world, Elon Musk.

NPR's Stephen Fowler spent the weekend crunching the latest numbers, and he's with us now. Hi, Stephen.

Hey there.

So last week was the last major campaign finance deadline before Election Day. What are the biggest takeaways?

I've got 2 big things for you: Democratic dominance and a Republican super PAC tsunami. There's a ton of Democratic nominees in House and Senate races that are receiving just gobsmacking amounts of donations. But the Democratic Party, capital D, capital P, is unpopular. You know who else is unpopular? Republicans right now, thanks to the war in Iran and rising gas prices, uncertainty about the economy. So you've got a few mega-donors giving a few super PACs a lot of money to try and convince voters to elect Republicans anyway.

So we mentioned Elon Musk already. He gave hundreds of million dollars to President Trump's campaign in 2024. Where is he spending now?

Well, in the last few months, he gave $10 million to a pro-Ken Paxton super PAC, $20 million to a Republican House super PAC, $89 million to his own America PAC, and $158 million to the Republican Senate super PAC, which in turn used that for something called the Texas PAC, which has already spent almost all of that to boost Paxton and attack the Democratic nominee, You know,

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around those numbers. So can you help me put that last one, $158 million, into some context?

Well, that $158 million is more than the Talarico and Paxton campaigns have raised this cycle combined. And it could have funded the amount spent on every House and every Senate race's ads everywhere in the country for the entire first week of September. But as far as campaigns go, Democratic Senate candidates have been blowing the doors off their Republican opponents, led by Talarico reporting $60-plus million from July to the end of September. I mean, in the last quarter, the Democrat or independent in these races outraised the Republican in about 4 out of every 5 races.

But some of those races aren't very competitive. So talk about the Republican fundraising in toss-up races.

If you zero in on just the 13 races the Cook Political Report rates as competitive, Republicans are being outraised by a 5-to-1 margin. And it's not just that Democrats are raising a ton of money. You also have Republicans that aren't raising money, too, like the incumbent Republican senators in Kansas, South Dakota, Idaho, Mississippi. All of them raised less than $1 million each last quarter.

And what about the House?

Oh, there are so many other numbers I could throw at you, and I won't this time. So I'll have this for you. Both parties have a list of vulnerable incumbents they would like to keep in office. One Democrat on that list was outraised, and only one Republican was not. I mean, Democrats also reported raising more in 40 flip targets, even in a handful of super conservative districts considered a reach.

So the thing about, okay, all that money is that it doesn't just stay in the bank. Okay. What should we know about spending?

Well, it doesn't do any good if it just stays in the bank. So both parties are spending money like there's no tomorrow and like they think Democrats could win big in a lot of places. 3/4 of the planned ad buys from now until Election Day are in races that, in theory, favor Republicans or are toss-ups. We don't know the answer to the billion-dollar question of will it work, but time's running out to make a difference.

Well, yeah, that is the question. Does it work, or does it just cancel itself all out? All right, that's NPR's Stephen Fowler. Stephen, thank you.

Thank you.

In France now, the president there, Emmanuel Macron, denounced this weekend's riots that overshadowed largely peaceful protests marches across the country, with scenes of violence as roving bands of what looked like mostly young people destroying property, looting stores and fighting with police.

About 2,300 people were arrested and nearly 1,000 police officers injured, according to the Interior Ministry. It's one of the biggest crises in France in years.

Our correspondent Eleanor Beardsley is there and has been following all this. Hello, Eleanor.

Good morning, Michelle.

So even watching the news here, we saw these images of just very disturbing violence, some might say shocking. What was Macron's response last night?

Well,

let's have a listen.

He said nothing justifies, explains, or excuses the violence. He spoke of all of France's shame to see its towns and streets sacked. He said delinquents would be punished, but said in no way should the violence take away from the legitimate demands of peaceful protesters. Let's remember, this started as a student protest over better conditions and has widened to include public sector workers against You know, skyrocketing energy prices, high cost of living, inequality in society. But Macron didn't really give any concrete proposals. He's leaving that to his prime minister. So he was immediately eviscerated by the left and the right for not being tough enough and not offering solutions.

So I know you've been out talking to people. What are they telling you?

Oh yeah, I was out in the streets of Paris yesterday. What a mess. Burned bikes, glass, charred debris everywhere, graffiti scrawled on looted stores saying things like tax the rich and capitalism kills. And I spoke with 23-year-old Sarah Baglia in front of a charred Range Rover on the street.

I think it's coming from a frustrated generation and a generation with less and less rights and opportunities and a worse and worse environment.

You know, though, we're used to seeing a lot of demonstrations in France, but this level of violence— I mean, why, why do people think it's gotten to this level?

Yeah, everyone is actually asking that. You know, for starters, yes, there is this whole protest culture in France, and it often draws small groups of troublemakers. But what we're seeing this time is massive. So is it just a confluence of things that got out of control or something deeper? Anyway, this— the government spoke of opportunist rioters. It said ultra-left groups who want to fight police came out and other delinquents, as Macron called them, had shown up to pillage. Yesterday, young people were still skirmishing with police in pockets on, you know, and I was out in, um, at Paris's Place de la République. I spoke with 18-year-old Lila Baer, a student. And let me warn you, this clip contains sounds of police firing tear gas.

We are young people, we are students, and we don't like Macron. We hate Macron. And it's like 10 years of repression, of violence. We don't have enough money to live. So now we are angry. The police is—

So yeah, she was one of the many youth out there yesterday playing cat and mouse with the police.

So look, there's an election in 6 months. What is your sense of the political implications of all this?

Well, far-left presidential candidate for the France Unbound party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has been out with the protesters. He's totally capitalizing on these protests, which are overwhelmingly left and far left. There are just as many slogans against Macron out there as there are against far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Now, far-right leader Marine Le Pen is currently in the lead in polls 6 months ahead of the presidential election. She has condemned the violence and the government of Macron, but she's being careful not to alienate the students or the working-class protesters. In fact, she said that, quote, legitimate social demands had been hijacked by the far left And she said the rhetoric of Jean-Luc Mélenchon is fostering chaos by legitimizing violence.

That is NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in Paris. Eleanor, thank you.

You're welcome.

And don't forget to tune in to this week's episode of The Sunday Story. 3 years after October 7th and the start of the war in Gaza, Israelis have a chance to elect a new leader. Droves of expatriates are flying back to cast ballots.

The existence of Israel is at stake here. If I came all the way from America, you can go downstairs and

This week on The Sunday Story, what Israelis want for the future. Listen now to The Sunday Story from the Up First podcast on the NPR app. And that's Up First for Monday, October 19th. I'm Michelle Martin.

And I'm Leila Fadel. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Tina Craya, Padma Rama, Miguel Macias, Mohammed Elbrardisi, and Lindsay Totty. It was produced by Iman Maani and Nia Dumas. Our director is Kristin We get engineering support from Carly Strange, and our technical director is Zach Coleman. Join us again tomorrow.