Comey Indictment, Hegseth Summons Military Leaders, Impending Shutdown

About this episode

Former FBI Director James Comey is indicted on obstruction and false statement charges after President Trump pressured the Justice Department to pursue a case. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth orders an unprecedented global meeting of top U.S. military commanders, raising questions about what changes are coming. And Democrats accuse the White House of “mafia-style blackmail” as the shutdown fight intensifies over health care funding and the threat of mass federal layoffs. <br/><br/><em>Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? <a href="https://www.npr.org/newsletter/news"target="_blank" >Subscribe</a> to the Up First newsletter.<br></em><p class="readrate" data-rr="17" style="line-height: 1.5;" data-pm-slice="1 1 []">Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Krishnadev Calamur, Andrew Sussman, Kelsey Snell, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.<p class="readrate" data-rr="17" style="line-height: 1.5;" data-pm-slice="1 1 []">It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Lindsay Totty<p class="readrate" data-rr="17" style="line-height: 1.5;"><p class="readrate" data-rr="17" style="line-height: 1.5;">We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.<p class="readrate" data-rr="17" style="line-height: 1.5;"><p class="readrate" data-rr="17" style="line-height: 1.5;">And our Executive Producer is Jay Shaylor<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>