Up First from NPR - Baltic Cable Cut, Trump's NATO Ambassador, Republican Voter Turnout

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

European officials investigate whether severed Baltic internet cables were an act of Russian sabotage, raising fears about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure. President-elect Trump names Matthew Whitaker, a loyalist with no foreign policy experience, as U.S. ambassador to NATO. And, with historic voter turnout helping Donald Trump secure a sweeping victory, will Republicans shift their stance on policies that make voting easier?Your feedback helps us make Up First better. Tell us what you like and what you don't like by taking our survey at npr.org/upfirstsurveyWant more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Andrew Sussman, Tara Neill, Andrea DeLeon, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Alice Woelfle.It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Milton Guevara.We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent. And our technical director is Zac Coleman.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Before we get to all the news, we want to hear from you. Our audience survey is your chance to tell us what you like and what you don't like about Up First. Help us shape this podcast to fit your mornings even better. Just head to npr.org slash up first survey. Wait a minute. I can tell you what I don't like. What if there's one of the hosts I have a problem with?

Don't think I just opened the door for people to do that. Let's go to music. I have a problem with. Don't think I just opened the door for people to do that. The door's wide open. Let's go to music. European investigators are asking how two cables were cut beneath the surface of the Baltic Sea. A German official calls it sabotage affecting the type of cable that carries 90% of the world's data traffic. Who are the suspects? I'm Steve Inskeep with Amartinus and this is Up First from NPR News. The president-elect chose a loyalist as ambassador to NATO.

Matthew Whitaker has no foreign policy experience but served in the first Trump administration. You can be a brilliant expert on European security, but if you have no access to the president, it's not gonna do that much for you. So how could the ambassador and his boss approach the war in Ukraine? And with record high voter turnout helping Republicans win this election, will the GOP start to rethink their stance on policies that make voting easier?

Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day. The hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at autografecollection.com. Arguments happen, and our body's automatic response to conflict doesn't always help. We may start to feel anxious or angry, making it even more difficult for us to see eye to eye. Over time, that becomes contempt. And contempt is a very destructive interpersonal process. Here how science can help us reframe and make the most of our conversations on the shortwave podcast from NPR.

What's good y'all? It's Gene Dembe from Code Switch. And on Code Switch, we are deeply curious about race and identity and the way it shows up in the news headlines or in our personal lives. With the wide range of voices in front of and behind the mic, we see how race shows up all over the place. So come rock with us on the Code Switch podcast, only from MPO. Undersea cables carrying internet traffic across the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe were severed earlier this week, and European investigators are still trying to piece together what happened Germany's defense minister calls this an act of sabotage the Danish Navy Stopped a Chinese cargo ship in the region investigating a possible connection NPR's Berlin correspondent Rob Schmitz Joins us now. So Rob Steve mentioned that Chinese cargo ship what makes investigators think it had something to do with this

Yeah Chinese cargo ship. What makes investigators think it had something to do with this? Yeah, this Chinese vessel named the Epong-3 left a Russian port on the Baltic Sea six days ago and according to investigators it passed over an undersea fiber optic cable connecting Sweden and Lithuania Sunday morning and shortly after that the cable operator noticed that it had stopped working and later found out that the cable had been severed. Then on Monday morning investigators say the same ship passed over a telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Germany,

and two minutes after that, that cable stopped working and its operator discovered it had been cut as well. And that's why Swedish officials are investigating the Eponk 3, but they say they're also looking into other ships, saying there could be more parties involved. Okay, so the cables were severed. Did it lead to any communications outages in Europe?

There was a temporary reduction in internet service in Lithuania after this happened, but the local operator rerouted traffic and it all improved. But according to Moritz Bracke, a marine security expert, what's most important here is that this type of action, which he believes was intentional, should be considered an attack. Here he is speaking to German public media. And he's saying here over 90% of the world's data traffic runs over C cables like these, he said, and this means someone is trying to destroy the connectivity of our societies. Someone wants to show us we can disconnect you all and we need to show in return that we are not

going to let ourselves be bullied. Okay, so what are the Chinese saying about this? Well, the company that owns the Yipeng 3, Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, is not responding to requests for comment. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing said the Chinese government requires Chinese ships to adhere to relevant laws, but it is worth mentioning here that a year ago another Chinese ship destroyed undersea cables and an undersea gas line connecting Finland and Estonia in the same region of the Baltic Sea. A Finnish investigation found that the ship

had been dragging its anchor for hundreds of miles scraping the bottom of the sea. China's government admitted that the vessel was responsible for all that damage, but claimed it was all an accident. An accident. Any suspicion that the Chinese ship was somehow in cahoots with Russia?

Well, there might be suspicion about that, and social media is sort of a buzz with all sorts of speculation. But at this moment, authorities have not released any evidence about any such connection. And it is important to reiterate here that this is still very much an open investigation. OK, so where does that investigation go now?

So Swedish investigators are now being joined by investigators from the other countries involved and a real-time GPS map of shipping traffic shows that the Chinese cargo ship has not moved in the the day that it's been there and there's a Danish Navy patrol boat floating beside it. This investigation could likely take a week or longer to conclude due to the bad weather in the region. And to add a layer here, I mean this comes at a time where there's some pretty heightened tensions in Europe.

Yeah. The U S evacuated its embassy in Kiev yesterday, bracing for Russian attacks. Uh, Ukraine has used both American and British long range missiles to attack Russia, uh, after president Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to attack targets inside of Russia for the first time. So it's clear that tensions in Europe are heating up. That's NPR's Rob Schmitz. Rob, thanks.

Thank you. NATO is one of the many national and global institutions that president-elect Donald Trump has criticized over the year, specifically how much money other countries spend on defense. The president-elect has suggested that Russia could quote, do whatever the hell they want to members that don't pay their fair share.

He's threatened to leave the alliance at times, and now he's named a new ambassador with no foreign policy experience to represent America's interests in NATO. MPR Stephen Fowler joins us now. So Donald Trump, Stephen, announced he's nominating Matthew Whitaker to that role. Who is Matthew Whitaker, and what does Donald Trump want him to do? Whitaker's a lawyer. He once served as a US attorney in Iowa,

but more recently served as chief of staff to Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions. He later spent three months as acting AG. Whitaker has no national security experience, no foreign policy experience, no diplomatic background, and is unlike other NATO ambassadors. But what he does have is an intense loyalty to Donald Trump. He's been very active in blasting Trump's criminal investigations,

especially through appearances on Fox News. And Trump said in the announcement Whitaker, quote, will strengthen relationships with our NATO allies and stand firm in the face of threats to peace and stability. he will put America first. Okay, now is Whitaker's selection a signal of Donald Trump taking a tougher stance toward Europe? Whitaker comes in with a blank slate that will immediately be filled with Trump's mandate. Now Trump's main beef with NATO A boils down to the US paying an outsized financial and

organizational role in a European alliance. So I called a few experts to ask what posture Whitaker may take. Anatole Levin is with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. They're a think tank that calls for restraint in US foreign policy. He pointed out that Trump's top foreign policy priorities in the Middle East require having friends elsewhere. America is not a European country. It's thousands of miles away.

The US Mediterranean fleet needs a base in Italy and Greece. The US Air Force needs a base in Germany. I also spoke with Michael O'Hanlon with the Brookings Institute. He studies international alliances and highlighted the part of Trump's statement about strengthening relationships suggest Trump would not pull out of NATO but rather pull back America's role in European geopolitics I think that if Trump threatens allies with the possibility of Weakening the US commitment to NATO but still stays in the alliance and keeps US troops in Europe

Then we'll be okay thing is that Trump has promised to end the war in Ukraine quickly and Ukraine's key focus of NATO resources. I mean, how does this pick fit into that? Well, when dealing with NATO and conversations around the war, O'Henlin with the Brookings Institute says Whitaker may have one advantage that arguably is very important and that's Trump's ear. You can be a brilliant expert on European security going back to the Middle Ages,

but if you have no access to the president or limited access even to the secretary of state, it's not gonna do that much for you. Trump has signaled that the America First agenda includes some doubt about how much the US will commit to Ukraine and the war effort. It's also possible that his proposed peace plan could be different from NATO's goals,

especially if Trump suggests Ukraine give up some of its territory. So all of this, A, makes the NATO ambassadorship one of Trump's picks that has a more immediate impact as soon as he takes office in January. Right. That's NPR's Stephen Fowler in Atlanta. Stephen, good to talk to you again. Thank you. Hey folks, you showed up. The turnout rate in this year's presidential election looks to be the third highest in 100 years. Yeah, and Republicans did really well. They won control of the House,

Senate, and the presidency. That directly contradicts conventional political wisdom that high turnout inherently favors Democrats. NPR's voting correspondent, Miles Parks, has been looking into this and he's in our studios. Good morning, Miles. Hey, Steve. Thanks for coming by Studio 31. How do you think now about this general idea for many years that turnout, high turnout,

favors Democrats? So this idea was never a hard and fast rule. It centers on people who only vote usually in big presidential races or every once in a while, people known as low propensity voters. Research has found that these sorts of people are generally less educated, are poorer people generally, and those sorts of people have tended to vote for Democratic candidates. Therefore, higher turnout brings out more of these sorts of people, helps Democrats. But Trump seems to have really changed the game here. Exit polls found that he did really well among people

without a college degree and also won people who said it was the first time they'd ever cast a ballot. So the question now is whether this is going to change how Republicans feel about voter turnout and also critically policies that make voting easier since those policies have been shown to help low propensity voters the most. Oh, and up to now, Republicans as a party have fought efforts to make voting easier. In fact, that was the heart of their complaints about the 2020 election, was voting was too easy.

Right, and generally those complaints have been centered on election security, but politics have always played a role as well. I talked with John Merrill, who is the former top voting official in Alabama. He's a Republican. And he told me how he used to argue with fellow Republicans about whether registering new voters was a good idea.

I had people, when I would speak to some Republican groups, they'd tell me, I don't like that. I don't think it's a good thing. I'm like, why would you say that? And they're like, because you're going to get more blacks and you're going to get more Democrats. It is not usually said out loud that explicitly, but Trump himself in 2020 said he thought higher voting levels would mean that Republicans would have a harder time getting elected. I'm really interested to see if his views on that change now that he seems to have benefit from a high turnout election.

Yeah. And there is this longstanding kind of conservative line of argument that maybe not everybody should vote because a lot of people aren't paying attention and maybe you really don't want their participation. But that was the old way of thinking. So is this shift to a new way for Republicans to think really happening? I think it's helpful to think about the Republican Party in different kind of groups or factions, right? Some conservatives have argued for years that making it harder for people to vote was actually bad for the party.

And this year we saw a real shift in strategy compared to 2020, specifically with many Republican campaigns embracing the idea of early voting and mail voting, telling voters to vote that way. But what I heard from experts as I reported the story was that the Trump right, the most kind of MAGA right, may still struggle with the idea of access a little bit. Here's how Charles Stewart, who's a voting expert at MIT, put it to me. If you're a Republican strategist, it does require you to kind of rethink some of these things. If you're part of the Republican Party that really is motivated by nativism

and nationalism, I think it's going to be harder to make that leap. There is just a clear opposition among some in the Republican Party to widening the tent of American politics. We see this in survey data, and over the last couple years, I've listened to a bunch of grassroots election integrity sort of meetings, and you can hear skepticism about bringing new people into the electorate. Pete Nielsen NPR's Miles Parks turned out in our studios this morning. Thanks for coming by.

Miles Parks Thanks, Steve. Steve Innske And that's Up First audience survey, your chance to tell us what you think about Up First. It helps to make this podcast better. Just go to npr.org slash up first survey. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Megan Pratt, Ben Swayze, Mohammed El Bardisi, and Alice Wolfley was produced by Zia Puch, Nia Dumas and Milton Guevara.

We get engineering support from Robert Rodriguez and our technical director is Zach Coleman. Join us again tomorrow. This week on our podcast Here and Now Anytime, have you had a frustrating conversation about politics with someone you disagree with lately? Most Americans have, according to a Pew survey from before the election, so I'm going to guess that number has only gone up. We're kicking off a series on finding common ground called Conversations Across the Divide. Listen now on Here and

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