Politics and Government

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene. President Obama delivers the commencement address at West Point today. Aides say he'll lay out a broad vision for foreign policy and America's role in the world. Among the foreign policy challenges facing the president of late, Russia's annexation of Crimea and China's provocative moves in Asia. The president will try to describe a coherent approach to those challenges. But as NPR's Scott Horsley reports, this might not be an out-right Obama doctrine.

The oldest member of Congress has lost his bid for an 18th term in the House.

Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas, 91, was defeated in a Republican primary runoff by John Ratcliffe, 48, a former U.S. attorney with Tea Party support.

Hall, who has been in the House since 1981, is also the last member to have served in World War II, our Newscast Desk reports. No Democrat is running in the district, which runs from suburban Dallas to the Louisiana and Oklahoma borders.

First lady Michelle Obama is by far one of the most popular political figures in America, because she's largely avoided appearing too political — instead devoting much of her attention to encouraging good nutrition and healthful lifestyles for America's children.

But that cause has run head-on into a congressional fight over stalling some of the nutritional gains of the school lunch program, which she helped put in place.

Brad Paisley is well-known as a top-selling country music star. Turns out, he's a pretty good juggler, too.

Paisley joined President Obama in a surprise trip to Afghanistan this Memorial Day weekend, playing for some 3,000 troops at the Bagram Airfield. Just 24 hours earlier, Paisley was the headliner at the Tree Town Music Festival in Forest City, Iowa.

A list that was meant to help journalists report on President Obama's trip to Afghanistan on Sunday has instead created an awkward and potentially damaging situation. That's because it mistakenly included the name of the CIA station chief in Kabul, the agency's top official there.

President Obama made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on Sunday — his first since 2012. Since that time, U.S. troop levels there have been cut by about two-thirds.

The financial crisis of 2008 caused such an enormous upheaval that future historians will long be asking: Who caused it? Who fixed it? Could it have turned out better?

Recently, two key players looked back: Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote Stress Test, Reflections on Financial Crisis, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote A Fighting Chance.

The two reached opposite conclusions. Geithner believes the bank bailout proved its worth. Warren remains outraged that wealthy bankers have not been jailed.

Same-sex marriage supporters continued to enjoy considerable legal momentum this week.

Election watchers say Republicans could take control of the Senate this fall. At the same time, many of these same analysts see problems for the Grand Old Party in the longer term.

Republican voters tend to be white, older and more affluent, and their share of the overall population is shrinking. That's why at least some conservatives think it's time for the party to broaden its appeal to the middle class.