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Trump In China, Hegseth Requests Wartime Budget, FDA Commissioner Resigns

Trump In China, Hegseth Requests Wartime Budget, FDA Commissioner Resigns

Up First from NPR
May 13, 2026 12 min
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About this episode

President Trump is in Beijing today meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping, with American manufacturers hoping for tariff relief even as the war in Iran looms over the high-stakes summit.<br>The Pentagon told Congress they estimate the war in Iran has cost $29 billion dollars so far. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asked for $1.5 trillion dollars for next year’s Pentagon budget.<br>FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary has resigned after thirteen months on the job, with the final straw being White House pressure to approve flavored vapes, something he refused to do.<br/><br/><em>Want more analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? </em><a href="https://www.npr.org/newsletter/news"target="_blank" >Subscribe</a><em> to the Up First newsletter.</em><br/><br/>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Jason Breslow, Kris Husted, Mohamad El-Bardicy and John Stolnis.<br/><br/>It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas Our director is Christopher Thomas.<br/><br/>We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis. <br/><br/>And our Supervising Producer is Michael Lipkin.<br/><br/>(0:00) Introduction<br>(01:57) Trump In China<br>(05:40) Hegseth Requests Wartime Budget<br>(09:26) FDA Commissioner Resigns<br/><br/>See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>

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