DHS Funding Negotiations, Russia Attacks Ukraine Power Grid, Nationalizing Elections

The partial government shutdown is over, and now Congress has to do the rest of its job.

Lawmakers have nine days to negotiate restraints on immigration enforcement.

What are they willing to accept?

I'm Steve Innscape with Michelle Martin, and this is up first from NPR News.

Russia is hitting Ukraine's power grid, again.

After agreeing to stop those attacks while peace talks move forward, Ukraine's president

says he's waiting for an American response, so he has diplomacy with Moscow making any

difference.

And President Trump is openly calling for the federal government to take over elections

in some states.

The Republicans are to nationalize the voting.

What does the Constitution have to say about that?

Stay with us.

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The partial federal government shutdown has ended.

The House voted 217 to 214 on Tuesday to fund most government offices through September.

You'll notice Michelle said most.

Congress now has just nine days to finish negotiating the budget for the Department of

Homeland Security.

Lawmakers seem far apart over changes to immigration enforcement.

Democrats are demanding changes after federal agents shot and killed two Americans in Minnesota.

In PR, immigration policy correspondent Jim Enabustillo has been tracking all this and is

with us now to bring us out today.

Good morning, Jim Enab.

Good morning, Michelle.

So the immigration and customs enforcement agency, ICE, already got $75 billion from Congress

last summer.

So what's the difference between that and what Congress is trying to come up with after

February 13th?

So in this instance, we're talking about funding for all of DHS and not just ICE through

the end of the fiscal year.

So that 75 billion that you're talking about was in the one big, beautiful bill.

And that was just for ICE.

It made immigration and customs enforcement the highest funded federal law enforcement

agency.

Now, Congress still has to buy law, do what's called annual appropriations.

And that's the baseline budget for each department that has to get renewed every year or

we have these shut down.

Okay.

So this is for the whole department and not just one agency and so that's why this is a

big deal.

Okay.

So body cameras keep coming up.

Democrats want immigration officers to wear body cameras.

But DHS Secretary Christie, you know, I'm already said this week that every officer

on the ground in Minneapolis specifically would be issued a body camera.

So what's the issue they still need to negotiate?

Right.

And keep in mind that that wouldn't necessarily happen overnight.

It could take over 180 days to fully implement that just in Minneapolis.

Nome also said that as funding is available, the body camera program would be expanded

nationwide across the agency to all agents.

But Democrats want more than just Nome's word for it.

They want it written into law.

And the current DHS budget bill negotiated by Congress does provide $20 million for body

cameras.

But Democrats want to mandate that they actually be used.

And this is just one of the asks that has been discussed.

And this one has gotten some bipartisan support, but other requests have been more contentious.

Like what?

Democrats want to mandate that immigration officers only use warrant signed by a judge

to make arrests, for example.

They say that the current use of administrative warrants, which are written by DHS itself,

and not signed by a judge raises questions about violations to people's Fourth Amendment

protections against unreasonable search and seizures.

While some Republicans are interested in negotiating and talking about this, others

like House Speaker Mike Johnson have poured cold water all over this.

Democrats also want to ban officers from using face coverings, but Republicans are broadly

opposed to this and say that it would make it easier for people to dox federal agents.

Okay.

So they have nine days to play.

It's now ticking.

I'm wondering if lawmakers really think they can get this done.

What does your reporting suggest?

No, many members are skeptical that less than two weeks is even enough time to come up

with such a large compromise.

If they can't get this done, they could risk a shutdown of just DHS, which puts out

risk non-immigration parts of the agency, like disaster response and TSA.

That is NPR's Human Abustia.

I'm going to thank you.

Thank you.

Peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, resume in Abu Dhabi today.

They've advanced to the point where Ukrainian and Russian negotiators are now meeting face-to-face

with the U.S.

President Trump has said he is more optimistic than ever.

Last week, the President asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold off on striking

Kiev and other Ukrainian cities during a frigid winter while the negotiations underway.

We're going to go now to NPR's Eleanor Beardsley, who was in Ukraine's capital, Kiev,

to hear more.

Good morning, Eleanor.

Good morning, Michelle.

So tell us about this pause the President asked for.

Did that happen?

Well, yeah, I did.

For a couple nights, Ukraine's cities did not get hit with the swarms of drones and missiles

they've become used to, but it didn't last long.

Monday night, the strikes resumed.

I was here in bed when they started after midnight, and you could hear loud cracking and

booming in the sky as they were met with air defenses and a sort of whooshing noise

from the ground.

You know, President Zelensky said Russia is, quote, more interested in taking advantage

of the coldest days of winter to terrorize people than diplomacy.

And here's Zelensky speaking in his daily address to the people last night.

Bolo, prohanjo, subist, bid, president, as fulshing state.

We're bachelor.

He says, we see how Russia responds to a personal request from the President of the

United States with ballistic missiles, not even four full days have passed.

And why is President Trump hailing progress?

Well, it seems there has been great progress on security guarantees, which are crucial

for Ukraine to make sure Russia does not use its gains as a launch pad to reinvade in

the future.

And Secretary General of NATO, Mark Ruta, was in key of yesterday.

He spoke to the Ukrainian parliament, but before that, he visited a thermal power plant that

was hit that night, cutting power and heat to more than 1,000 apartment buildings in

Kiev, according to the mayor.

As overnight temperatures, Michelle hit minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

Here's Ruta standing in the midst of the mangled, steaming wreckage of the plant.

This bloc was hit last night by five Russian missiles, without any use in terms of military

aids.

It's only to create scales, a fear, an ordinary citizen living in Ukraine.

You know, Ruta said this shows that Russia is not serious about peace.

However, Ruta is trusted by President Trump and the Ukrainians, and he painted an optimistic

picture in the Ukrainian parliament.

He said Europeans are ready to put peacekeeping troops on the ground, air, and sea once the

fighting stops.

And he said the U.S. President Trump personally has agreed to be the backstop, meaning any

peace will be guaranteed not by sign papers, but by, quote, hard force.

Okay, well, that does sound like progress.

So what are the sticking points then?

Well, there could be many.

First of all, the Kremlin welcomes diplomacy, but says it's not aware of the security

guarantees, and Russia has always said if there are European troops in Ukraine, that

be a legitimate target.

And Russia has not backed down from its demands that Ukraine hand over the 22% of the Eastern

Donetsk region that its troops have been unable to take in four years of fighting.

That includes a heavily fortified belt of land with some battered cities that blocks Russian

forces from progressing further west towards Kiev.

And how do Ukrainians feel about that?

Well, they're against giving that land up, Michelle, and you know, even in this frigid

winter, without heat and power, Ukrainians refuse to give in.

Yesterday, I was out walking on the Nipro river that cuts through the heart of Kiev.

It's now frozen.

And I talked to ice fisherman who told me, laughing, that it was warmer out there in the

bright sun than in their homes with no power.

And here is 65-year-old Volodymyr Karabenko who spoke to us through in Paris producer Polina

Lipvinova.

We won't surrender, we won't give up, at least without a fight.

And that's what you hear out on the streets and the river, and that's what Pol say, neither

the bombing nor the cold is breaking Ukrainians.

That is.

And Paris owner, Bersley and Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

And Loner, thanks.

You're welcome, Michelle.

President Trump said this week that Republicans should take over voting in a number of places

and nationalize elections on the podcast of his former FBI deputy director Dan Bungino.

Trump made a number of false claims about non-citizens voting before pushing for more

federal control of elections.

We should take over the voting in at least many 15 places.

The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.

Just to be clear, that would be super illegal without some change in the law.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Caroline Levitt claimed the president was referring

to a bill that he wants Republicans to pass in Congress.

And the president repeated his desire while appearing with Republican lawmakers.

If a state can't run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about

it.

Because if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections.

I don't know why the federal government doesn't do them anyway.

Miles Parks covers this issue for NPR, so we're going to ask him to fact check all this

Miles Parks.

Good morning.

Good morning.

So let us start with what President Trump said.

What do you make of it?

I mean, it feels like another one of those moments where Trump says the quiet part out loud,

right?

I mean, for much of a second term, we've reported on this idea that his administration

has been encroaching on state responsibilities when it comes to elections.

But this is the clearest we've heard the president just come out and say he wants to take

over in some places.

In terms of where exactly he's talking about these 15 places, that's still a little bit

unclear, though he didn't mention Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia, all places controlled

by Democrats, all places with high minority populations, and all places that election

conspiracy theories have really focused since 2020.

I want to ask you about some of the other ways that the president has sought to influence

elections.

But first, can you just give us a little background and a little history here?

What does the Constitution say about a president's role in elections?

He has basically no role, Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution, known as the Elections

Clause, says that states run elections, though Congress can pass laws to make national rules.

So how has President Trump been pushing that boundary?

A few different ways.

I mean, shortly after he took office, he signed an executive order that's been blocked

by the courts for trying to overstep his presidential authority in elections.

The Department of Justice is asking every state for unredacted versions of their voter

lists, seemingly to try to police how they're maintaining those lists.

The majority of states haven't complied.

And then most recently, we saw this raid in Fulton County last week, Fulton County, Georgia,

where federal agents seized election equipment and ballots related to Trump's loss there

in 2020.

And local officials, I talked to see a trend here.

Here's how main secretary of state, Shana Bellows, she's a Democrat, put it in an event

on Friday.

We know the 2020 election was safe and secure, as was the 2024 election.

And so we'll be the 2026, as long as the federal government stops its unconstitutional

unlawful interference.

The states are sovereign, she said, and Trump needs to quote back off.

So secretary of billis is a Democrat.

Our only Democrats concerned about this.

Democrats have definitely been more vocal on this issue, but I've heard from Republican

election officials as well this year who say that they are actively preparing for the

idea of federal interference in this year's midterms.

It's also worth remembering that in 2020, there were many, many Republican election officials

that stood up to Trump's pressure campaign.

So over the next nine months, this is definitely going to be something I'm watching.

How Republican election officials engage with some of this rhetoric, especially since

states write the idea of states rights in elections has been a big conservative value

over the years.

That is, in pure voting correspondent Miles Parks.

Miles, thank you.

Thanks, Michelle.

And that's up for Wednesday, February 4th.

I'm Michelle Martin.

I'm Steve Innscape.

Today's our first was edited by Anna Yukonanov.

Miguel Nassias, Ben Swayze, Mohamed El-Bardisi, and Alice Wolflinks, produced by Ziad Butch,

Neo Dumas, and Christopher Thomas, our director.

I talk when he points.

We get engineering support from Nisha Heines, and our technical director is Carly Strange.

I also talk when she opens the microphone.

Thank you.

Our supervising producer is Michael Lipkin, who merely critiques what I say, and Michelle

is here as always.

Join us tomorrow.

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