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Up First from NPR

Hegseth Boat Strikes, Witkoff To Moscow, National Guard Shooting Suspect

Up First from NPR

NPR

Daily News, News

4.552.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A U.S. official contradicts the White House account of who ordered the deadly boat strike in the Caribbean, while President Trump considers his next moves with Venezuela.
U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff heads to Moscow for high-stakes talks after revising the peace agreement with Ukrainian negotiators.
And new details about the Afghan man accused of shooting two National Guard soldiers point to a long-running mental health crisis rather than radicalization.

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Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Rebecca Metzler, Miguel Macias, Alina Hartounian, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.

It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas.

We get engineering support from Damian Herring. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.

Our Senior Supervising Producer is Vince Pearson.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Good morning, Leila.

0:01.5

What? Did you just say good morning?

0:03.2

Yeah, it's Giving Tuesday. I figured I'd give you a good morning.

0:06.2

Thank you, and I'm glad you remembered what I reminded you of yesterday.

0:09.6

So on this Giving Tuesday, we want to thank Up First listeners who have stepped up to support NPR during a really difficult year.

0:17.8

Yeah, listeners such as Shannon in California who says she gave because NPR lost federal funding, and I listened to Up First difficult year. Yeah, listeners such as Shannon in California who says she gave because

0:21.6

NPR lost federal funding and I listened to Up First every morning. Hi, Shannon. I hope you're

0:26.9

listening. Thank you for supporting the work. We love starting the day with you. Now, it's true. Federal

0:32.9

funding for public media was eliminated as of October 1st. That means that NPR is now operating without federal support for the first time in our history,

0:40.9

but NPR's commitment to you has not changed one bit.

0:43.8

Yeah, we're going to keep bringing you the news you need to start your day right here on Up First,

0:49.2

and you can help us do that by signing up for NPR Plus.

0:52.7

It has a simple recurring donation that gets your perks to NPR's podcast, and you'll be

0:57.2

supporting public media while you'll listen.

0:59.1

So join us at plus.npr.org.

1:05.1

A U.S. official tells NPR that it was Defense Secretary Pete Hegset, who gave the command

1:10.5

that killed everyone on board a boat in the Caribbean.

1:13.6

Did those orders break the law?

1:15.3

Members of Congress want to know.

1:16.8

I'm Lela Fald. That's A. Martinez, and this is up first from NPR News.

1:24.0

U.S. envoy, Steve Whitkoff, meets with Vladimir Putin in Moscow today, and he's joined by President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

1:31.8

The goal? Peace in Ukraine. The question, does Putin want peace or just a path to declare victory over Ukrainian territory?

...

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