Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
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Officials say they're close to getting a temporary truth between israel.

Haswell love, you've been trading fire for over a year. In the last two months, israeli attacks escalated. Destin ate his .

bolas leadership in parts of lebanon, and this is up first from npr news. Congress holds the power of the purse, but could the future president take that .

power fer the crack down on rampant waste in the derby government? We're going to bring back presidential impounded.

which nobody knows. Look, president electron could slash government spending.

And what a man central to the conservative legal movement plans to focus .

on during the next administration.

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ceasefire is in the works between israel and lebanon. yeah.

Both israeli and lebanese officials are set to hold meetings and vote on the proposal this week. Israel and hezbollah been fighting a low level conflict for more than a year now than in late september, is rewarded its air strikes on lebanon and sending ground troops, killing most of husband as leadership and devastating the country. The U. N. Estimates a quarter of lebanon's population has been displaced for more.

On the details of the ceasefire were joined now by emps Lawrence freer in the lebanese capital, beirut. Lawrence? What are the terms of this proposal?

So it's not a done deal yet, but here's what we understand. That would be an initial two months ceasefire. Sixty days takes us to Donald trumps inauguration.

Israeli troops would withdraw from lebanon. Hezbollah pull its fighters and weapons north of the latini river that's about twenty miles from the israeli border. The lebanon ese army would move on alongside un.

Peacekeepers who are already there. An international committee would be set up to monitor implementation of the ceasefire. Incidentally, these are basically the terms of the last ceasefire between israel, lebanon, in two thousand six, which was never fully implemented.

Hm, the U. S. And israel, of course, consider hezbollah terrorist group. So how do these talks work?

So hezbollah, really the power broker in this country, but IT is the lebanese government that is negotiating and signing this agreement. The speaker of the lebanese parliament is close to hezbollah, sort of deputized, to negotiate on hezbollah behalf. So he's been shuttling back in fourth between hezbollah. The us. Envoy, omas hawk stein, who has been shuttle back and forth between the and jerusalem, explains in part, aside from all these sensitivities, why this process is just so time consuming.

right? So in washington, of course, U. S. Officials have been characterizing this as close to a deal, but not quite there yet. So what are some of these stumbling .

blocks oversea? So one of them is israel wants the freedom to attack as bullam if he thinks the group is violating the ceasefire by keeping weapons near the israeli border, for example. By the way, israeli surveilling here is intense.

I don't know if you can hear me, but there's israeli drown buzzing over the building where I am right now. If the us. Guarantees israel the right to strike preemptively, that could be seen here in lebanon as a violation of this country's sovereign and really a red line on this side. Npr spoke this morning to a lebanese member of parliament. His name is Simon .

oby roma I 的 老总。

and he basically says, no matter what the us. May be telling israel on the sidelines, any such right for israel to attack preventively is not part of this official agreement.

And learn you're there in beirut. You mention the drones buzzing over your head. You know, i'm wondering how people there that you're talking to, how are they .

feel devastated unexhausted. Lebanon and hezbollah paid a very dear Price in this war. Nearly all of hezbollah ads have been killed in israeli attacks.

More than thirty seven hundred people killed on this side of the border ers in september. You know, even today, air strikes seem to be intensifying even during these negotiations. In central brave route, we get shaken from our beds are huge.

boom. There's widespread destruction. Parts of beyroot look like gaza, but hezbollah still managing to fire rockets. That is well, this weekend, upwards of two hundred fifty rockets in a single day. So in that sense, israel has failed to eliminate the threat.

That's emps learn frame and bee, thanks. learn.

You're welcome.

President elect trump is promising big cuts in government spending.

and he wants to use a little known to all to make those .

cuts to further crackdown on rapid waste in the federal government. We're going to bring back presidential impounded authority, which nobody knows what he is, but IT allows the president to go out and cut things and save a fortune for our country, things that make no sense in.

On friday, he announced pick for someone to wear that tool. It's rust. Vote, a key architect of project twenty twenty five, who will lead the White house budget office and P.

R. White house correspondent Franko or dona has joins me now, the two to break this all down. Good morning.

Franko, I am. So let's get into this. You know, we heard trump there saying nobody knows what impalement authority is.

I mean, that sounds like something you might do to a dog. What to see in the incoming ministration say about this? yeah.

So congress has the power of the purse rise. IT decides how money should be spent in partment. IT is an odd word, is when the president kind of holds back money that congress has approved for a specific purpose, trump, in his allies like russ vote, argue a president has the right, or should have the right to not spend those funds. And that's raising alarm bells across washington that trump may be trying to overstep his power.

So what does the law say about that?

Well, there is all on the books. It's called the important control act of one thousand nine seventy four. IT requires that the president spend money as congress direct.

I talked to lis pass off. She's a George town law professor, SHE says. It's all part of the system, checks and baLances. I'm cautiously .

optimistic because I think that this is the way the system is posed to work. I believe in the rule of law. I believe in government institutions doing what they're set up to do. I'm also worried because these are complicated times.

but vote has argued, and i'd say force that is on constitutional. Trump is nominating him for his old job, the director of the office of management and budget vote told me last year when talking about project twenty twenty five, that implement could be useful. Here is talking about IT on fox business.

I believe that the loss of important authority, which two hundred years of presence enjoy, was the original sin in eliminating the ability from a branch on branch to control spending. And we're going to need to bring that back.

So of course, how would trump bring that back?

Well, I mean, he tested IT out once before. In his first term, he impounded foreign aid for ukraine, but congress objected. IT was part of his first impeachment.

So we'll see what congress does this time with republicans in control. Several trumps top aes want to use IT that includes elon must, the tech billionaire and former G O, P. presidential.

Hopefully the vague they say bypassing the law could help them in their work on the department of government efficiency or dose for short. And trump s says he'll direct agencies to identify part of their budgets to compound. He also says it's a way to cook, choke off the money to parts of the government he doesn't like.

So franco, if there is a long the books though, I mean, wouldn't any moves to cut costs by using this impounded authority be chAllenged in the court?

Yeah and I talk to experts about this, you know, and they say IT is almost certainly going to be headed to the supreme court and that trump would have to argue that his constitutional powers are will override the one thousand nine seventy four law. But they also say that the supreme court has acted favorite ably toward trump in terms of executive power, and they think that will be sympathetic again this time.

That is mp. s. Franco ordonez. Franco.

thank you. Thank you.

A second term for president ecco ald truth means another opportunity for conservatives to entrench their power.

Trim appointed three supreme court justices in his last term, explicitly promising that they would overturn the federal right to abortion, and they did so at the first opportunity. So what do conservative plan this time?

Steven skip has been talking with a man who's been central to the conservative legal movement. Steve, who were we talking about?

His lennard, leo. And he played a big role in assembling the supreme courts' conservative supermajority. He has links with a lot of conservative donors and with several conservative legal groups, the most famous of which is the federalist society. And he's been central to setting up a network to identify and promote Young lawyers, law clerks, with what leo would consider the right political views or judicial views, and persuaded republican presidents to appoint .

them to the bench. Um so what does he plan this time around?

Well, his network has potential judicial ominous ready all there few vacancies this time. So leo is turning his fundraising and organizing skills on other targets. He wants people promoting western culture and traditional values as he sees them. Other industries, wall street, silicon valley, even hollywood .

and there are a lot of Young professionals in entertainment and in journalism and in business and finance to um are looking at you know for opportunities to uh inject the traditional values in the western cultural tradition into other aspects of american social cultural list republic obtained the .

video of you promoting this project and saying you wanted to quote, crush liberal dominance. Is that what you want to do?

yes. And the recent Steven and I would really call your attention to the words I you OK I want to crush with all dominant. In other words, I want to make sure that there's a level playing field for the american. People can make choices about the lives if they want to have in a country.

So this approach obviously was successful for the judiciary. But Steve, i'm hearing him talk about hollywood, the all street. Is he able to do that for these sectors of american social life? Well.

he can try, and he has access to funding for sure. Although these industries are a lot bigger and less centralized, you can just win a presidential election and have your guy start to pointing people. That would be a much more complicated process, although he feels like those industries are moving in this direction. Now.

yeah, I want to ask you about another aspect of the coming administration. Trump wants to greatly increase presidential power. He wants to take steps that may get him sued, and he'd end up in front of judges promoted billinger. Leo, can they rule independently in those days?

Well, I ask, because leo himself contends that for the rule of law, so does he want to all president? And he expressed confidence in the separation of powers to contain truth.

I think the conservative justices of the court have consistently shown that they were independently in twenty twenty. During the earlier election, the supreme court and the local federal courts ruled in the election cases the way they saw that. Of course.

the court is also ruled in the president elect favor, most recently saying that the president has immunity for his official x and even for some private actions which impeded the prosecution of trump in will now apply to his actions in five.

That is our very own morning edition home, Steve inskeep, Steve, thank you.

You're welcome.

And that's up first for a tuesday of every twenty .

six i'm rosh and lay for your next listen. Why not try consider this from M. P. R.

President and electrum has suggested that in his second term, he'll take on the news media with more than just words. How might we do IT and how will the press respond? Listen to consider this from here.

Today's episode of up first was edited by escape repair rampton, jane Johnson, lisa thomson and mohamedan by dc IT was produced by the ad butch nia dumas and lily heroes. We get engineering support from artha rent, and our technical director is hardly strange. Join us again tomorrow.

I just love carle's name so much. I just feeling he is, you know, an investigator, private, exactly some type of like superhero. Currently.

strange IT is a good name. It's like a name bound for fame. exactly.

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