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Kennedy Center Demolition Threat, Trump's Troubles, Poland Warns Of Russian Attacks

Kennedy Center Demolition Threat, Trump's Troubles, Poland Warns Of Russian Attacks

Up First from NPR
Sep 18, 2026 13 min
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About this episode

A federal judge told President Trump he cannot demolish the Kennedy Center without 30 days’ notice, after the board shut the building and Trump threatened to rip it down if his name is not on it.<br>The president has taken a series of hits this week, from the Supreme Court blocking his mail-in voting plan to the Fed increasing interest rates against his wishes, raising questions about how much institutions are willing to push back as the midterms approach.<br>Poland’s prime minister says Russia is planning hybrid drone and missile attacks on European countries that support Ukraine, strikes Moscow would try to pass off as accidents to keep NATO from responding.<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/>Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at <a href="http://plus.npr.org/"target="_blank" >plus.npr.org</a>.<br/><br/>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Steve Drummond, Rebekah Metzler, Tina Kraja, Mohamad ElBardicy and Alice Woelfle.<br/><br/>It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas.<br/><br/>Our director is Christopher Thomas.<br/><br/>We get engineering support from Zac Coleman.<br/><br/>Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.<br/><br/>And our Executive Producer is Jay Shaylor.<br/><br/>(0:00) Introduction<br>(01:51) Kennedy Center Demolition Threat<br>(05:44) Trump's Troubles<br>(09:15) Poland Warns Of Russian Attacks<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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