Donald Trump picks RFK Jr. for HHS; Bond market : NPR

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Today’s top stories

President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former independent presidential candidate, to run the Department of Health and Human Services. On the campaign trail, Kennedy, an environmental advocate and vaccine skeptic, has made claims that he will drastically reduce rates of chronic disease in just two years. He has spread several conspiracy theories including claims that Wi-Fi causes cancer and school shootings are caused by antidepressants.

• 🎧 “The idea of someone who has actively sowed misinformation about vaccines being in charge of the government’s scientific research and public health agencies really horrifies a lot of people in those fields,” NPR’s Selena Simmons-Duffin tells Up First. The Senate will have to vote to confirm Kennedy for this role. Kennedy’s campaign website says he supports abortion access. Simmons-Duffin says it will be interesting to see how that opinion plays out among Republicans who are eager to curtail abortion access federally.

Bond investors say parts of Trump’s economic agenda are alarming. Though the stock market surged after Trump’s victory, the bond market has been selling off. The U.S. government sells bonds to investors like banks and other countries. Bond sell-off can affect things like interest rates and inflation. If interest rates are low, your company and government can borrow money cheaply. If rates climb, things will get expensive fast. The bond market can also influence interest payments on credit cards, auto loans and mortgages.

• 🎧 Although Trump has promised to lower inflation, bond investors believe he could do the opposite, NPR’s Rafael Nam says. Trump is proposing a wide range of tariffs that will make things that the U.S. imports like clothes, toys, shoes, and tech gadgets more expensive. He also wants to exempt workers in restaurants and other locations from paying taxes on tips. These things could make the country’s finances worse. Bond investors wield power through their money, Nam says. If the interest the U.S. pays on its bonds surges, the financial hit to the country can spread fear to other markets, like stocks.

President Biden is meeting with leaders from the Asia-Pacific region, including China’s President Xi Jinping, in Lima, Peru. The two will sit down tomorrow in what’s expected to be the final summit between the leaders before Biden leaves office.

• 🎧 The meeting has two main missions: Biden wants to cement the policy cooperation he feels he has been able to achieve in this relationship and emphasize the importance of keeping the lines of communication open. NPR’s Asma Khalid says one of those lines in particular is military-to-military communication. The White House feels that competition with China is going to be the defining issue for what the world looks like in decades to come.

Special series

Each day this week, Morning Edition will dive deep into one of the promises President-elect Trump has made for day one of his administration. 

Trump has promised to sign an executive order instructing every federal agency to stop the promotion of sex or gender transition at any age. Jamie Taylor, a professor at the University of Toledo who has written about the transgender rights movement, talks about what the executive order could do and how health care providers will be impacted. She also dives into how transgender athletes could be impacted by changes to Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at schools and education programs that receive government funding.

Weekend picks

Check out what NPR is watching, reading and listening to this weekend:

🍿 Movies: The holiday season comes to an emergency halt when Santa is kidnapped in Red One. It’s up to his head of security and a ne’er-do-well to save Christmas.

📺 TV: In Say Nothing, a woman was kidnapped and killed by members of the Irish Republican Army. Decades later, one of the women involved in her disappearance grapples with her memories.

📚 Books: NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan found two books this week that delivered beauty, inspiration and humor: Water, Water by Billy Collins and The Dog Who Followed the Moon by James Norbury.

🎵 Music: Composer Laura Kaminsky’s intimate new opera, Lucidity, revolves around Lili, an aging opera singer portrayed by the 80-year-old soprano Lucy Shelton, who deals with the effects of memory loss.

3 things to know before you go

1. Four Los Angeles residents allegedly used a life-sized bear costume to stage attacks on their vehicles to defraud multiple insurance companies out of a six-figure payout.
2. Have you ever had a dispute with loved ones over the holidays? If so, we want to hear about how you navigated it. Your response could be featured in the Up First newsletter on Nov. 24.
3. NBC announced yesterday that Craig Melvin will replace Hoda Kotb as the new anchor on the Today show.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.