Transcript

8.6.26 · Washington Post

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the reading of the Washington Post for Thursday,
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Speaker 1: August six, twenty twenty six. As a reminder, Radio I
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Speaker 1: is a reading service intended for people who are blind
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Speaker 1: or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
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Speaker 1: printed material. Your reader for today is Teresa. Today's front
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Speaker 1: page headlines from the Washington Post are how the vandalism
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Speaker 1: claims crumbled. Reflecting Pool project continues to be thorny issue
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Speaker 1: for administration. CDC reports leap in cases expands outbreak to
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Speaker 1: fifteen states, Cyclosporiasis trace to shredded iceberg lettuce. Next, Senate
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Speaker 1: Committee advances blanche for AG after standoff. Full Chamber must
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Speaker 1: now hold a final vote on confirmation, potentially as early
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Speaker 1: as this week. Trump keeps making threats world leaders aren't blinking,
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Speaker 1: Predatory schools, cheated veterans out of job training institutions, defrauded
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Speaker 1: VA of three hundred million post investigation fines. First article
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Speaker 1: How Trump's claims of vandalism at the renovated Reflecting Pool crumbled,
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Speaker 1: by Dan Diamond, Liam Bowman, Salvador Rizzo, and Jake Spring.
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Speaker 1: Trump has lashed out at US Attorney Jeanine Piro after
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Speaker 1: she dropped vandalism cases and blamed damage at the pool
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Speaker 1: on rushed and flawed work by a contractor standing on
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Speaker 1: the basmin of the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool. In early May,
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Speaker 1: President Donald Trump promised to fix the leaks and other
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Speaker 1: problems that had long plagued one of the capital's most
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Speaker 1: recognizable landmarks. It's going to last. I would say fifty years,
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Speaker 1: he said, it'll last. It's going to last a long time.
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Speaker 1: Trump vowed to finish the job in time for July
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Speaker 1: fourth celebrations on the National Mall. He and his aides
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Speaker 1: cast the project, launched with a multimillion dollar no bid
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Speaker 1: contract and without the normal review process, as a demonstration
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Speaker 1: of how quickly the long time real estate magnet could
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Speaker 1: transform Washington. Trump's changes instead lasted a few days. The
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Speaker 1: basin's coding began to visibly peel, with chunks of Trump's
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Speaker 1: newpool liner, tinted American flag blue littering the surface, and
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Speaker 1: Aljae blooms clouding the water. Since then, the administration's response
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Speaker 1: to blame vandals for the damage has morphed into a
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Speaker 1: political headache, raising questions about what leaders in the administration knew.
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Speaker 1: As the government pursued criminal charges against four people, including
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Speaker 1: US former US Olympian David Hearn. The president is furious
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Speaker 1: at one of his most ardent supporters, Jeanine Piro, the
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Speaker 1: U S Attorney for the nation's capital, for dropping vandalism
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Speaker 1: charges against the four people in recent days. Prosecutors in
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Speaker 1: a Friday court filing blamed the damage on flawed installation
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Speaker 1: work and said the Interior Department had not shared critical
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Speaker 1: information in a timely manner. Trump lashed out pierro on
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Speaker 1: social media and delivered a very pointed message in a
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Speaker 1: phone call Saturday. A White House official said on Monday,
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Speaker 1: he renewed to criticism from the Robo office, saying she
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Speaker 1: had folded like an umbrella. The reflecting pool project, intended
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Speaker 1: as a showcase for Trump's ability to quickly get things done,
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Speaker 1: has instead become a speed bump in his second term.
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Speaker 1: Its problem riddled rollout comes as Trump presses ahead with
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Speaker 1: larger and more complex projects that would remake Washington's skyline,
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Speaker 1: including a new White House ballroom and a two hundred
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Speaker 1: and fifty foot tall triumphal arch. The pool was drained
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Speaker 1: again July ten for more repairs. Government records strongly suggests
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Speaker 1: that a rushed and botched installation by AIC, the primary contractor,
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Speaker 1: led to the visible damage in the pool's new liner.
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Speaker 1: Piero in one of her deputies, wrote in the filing Friday,
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Speaker 1: Piero accused the Interior Department of withholding relevant documents that
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Speaker 1: would of scuttled investigation. The pool's problems had sparked tirades
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Speaker 1: from Trump inside the White House, and the President soon
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Speaker 1: grew angry. For another reason, Piero did not give the
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Speaker 1: White House a heads up about dropping the charges. A
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Speaker 1: White House official said the President spoke with her by
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Speaker 1: phone Saturday to discuss the decision, a call first reported
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Speaker 1: by CNN. Trump publicly turned his ire on Piero, too,
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Speaker 1: saying on social media he disagreed one hundred percent with
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Speaker 1: her decision and again insisting that vandals were to blame.
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Speaker 1: Interior Secretary Doug Burgham chimed in to agree that vandals
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Speaker 1: repeatedly damaged the site, claiming the acts were caught on camera,
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Speaker 1: and insisting his agency had been forthcoming with the Justice
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Speaker 1: Department lawyers White House. An Interior Department declined further comment,
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Speaker 1: referring to Trump and Bergham's posts, Atlantic Industrial codings. The
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Speaker 1: contractor did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Outside
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Speaker 1: observers for weeks had dismissed claims of widespread vandalism. A
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Speaker 1: Washington Post an analysis of satellite imagery and photos and
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Speaker 1: videos taken in June during the renovation concluded that the
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Speaker 1: basin's pealing was probably caused by application errors. Waterproofing experts
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Speaker 1: review the evidence reached the same conclusion. The administration publicly
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Speaker 1: disputed that the coding had been improperly applied, but on Monday,
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Speaker 1: Trump acknowledged some frustration with contractor's work. I'm not saying
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Speaker 1: I was one hundred percent thrilled with the contractor, but
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Speaker 1: the contractor was rushing, he said in the Oval office,
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Speaker 1: noting that workers had a tight deadline. He saved his
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Speaker 1: sharpest words for Piero. I guess she choked. I don't
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Speaker 1: know what the hell happened, he said. Piero, a former
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Speaker 1: Fox News host, had been a staunch defender of the
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Speaker 1: president before joining his administration, and in her current role,
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Speaker 1: had pursued several claims of wrongdoing involving Trump's perceived political foes,
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Speaker 1: having setbacks and along the way, including a failed attempt
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Speaker 1: to prosecute a DC man for misdemeanor assault after throwing
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Speaker 1: a sandwich at a federal agent last year. The twenty
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Speaker 1: page filing by prosecutors to drop Hearn's case was extraordinary,
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Speaker 1: not only because it contradicted what Trump and Piro had
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Speaker 1: said publicly about charges, but because it painstakingly outlined Interior
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Speaker 1: Department documents showing problems with the liner's installation and how
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Speaker 1: prosecutors came to feel deceived. Piero reviewed and signed off
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Speaker 1: on the motion after speaking with Michael Spence, the chief
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Speaker 1: of the unit handling superior court cases in the U. S.
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Speaker 1: Attorney's Office. According to people familiar with the matter who
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Speaker 1: spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations,
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Speaker 1: Norm Eisen, a lawyer for Hearn, said he did not
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Speaker 1: accept the claim that the Justice Department was unaware of
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Speaker 1: evidence indicating Hearn's innocence. Icen cited public photographs and reports
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Speaker 1: demonstrating that the damage probably stemmed from contractor errors. The
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Speaker 1: idea that Jeanine Piro and her office were somehow hornswoggled
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Speaker 1: by the Interiors not credible. Eisen said this account is
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Speaker 1: drawn from interviews with Justice Interior and White House officials,
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Speaker 1: as well as public statements and documents disclosed by the
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Speaker 1: Trump administration and legal battles over the reflecting pool. Some
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Speaker 1: of the people spoke on the condition of anonymity because
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Speaker 1: they were not authorized to discuss matters publicly. Trump decided
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Speaker 1: to revamp the century old pool earlier this year, saying
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Speaker 1: that friends had criticized the historic site's appearance and smell.
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Speaker 1: I was getting complaints from people saying that it wasn't good,
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Speaker 1: Trump told reporters I called Doug Bergham, and he agreed.
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Speaker 1: The pool's last significant renovation, began during the Obama administration,
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Speaker 1: took several years and cost thirty four million dollars. Trump
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Speaker 1: concluded he could do it much faster and far cheaper.
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Speaker 1: The president also believed he could personally drive the project.
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Speaker 1: Having transformed the real relationship between the White House and
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Speaker 1: National Park Service staff, Trump had torn down the White
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Speaker 1: House's East wing to build a planned nine hundred ninety
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Speaker 1: thousand square foot ballroom, Edition begun planning a triumphal arch
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Speaker 1: near Arlington National Cemetery, and envisioned other major projects on
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Speaker 1: federal parkland, such as renovating several golf courses. The pool
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Speaker 1: in comparison felt straightforward. Trump would tell allies the administration
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Speaker 1: had also stripped away layers between on the ground Park
8:31
Speaker 1: Service employees and senior Interior and White House officials. Many
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Speaker 1: many senior Park Service employees left amid us Doeze service
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Speaker 1: cuts last year that reduced the agency's staff by about
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Speaker 1: a quarter, leaving fewer experienced officials between junior staff and
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Speaker 1: political appointees. Officials with little historic preservation experience wound up
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Speaker 1: making construction decisions, while Park Service staff with experience renovating
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Speaker 1: them all would end up being sidelined. By March, the
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Speaker 1: National Park Service was fast tracking the pool project at
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Speaker 1: the White House's direction. The changes, which included applying a
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Speaker 1: new tinted epoxy to its basin, did not undergo the
9:14
Speaker 1: normally required reviews because there is no option other than
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Speaker 1: to speed the project to meet the administration's timeline, a
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Speaker 1: Park Service official road in March thirty document. Trump unveiled
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Speaker 1: the project in the Oval Office on April twenty third,
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Speaker 1: releasing an accompanying promotional video later that day and calling
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Speaker 1: it a business study. It will look far more beautiful,
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Speaker 1: more beautiful than it did in nineteen twenty two when
9:40
Speaker 1: they build it, Trump said, rather than spend years and
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Speaker 1: potentially hundreds of millions of dollars, he said his renovation
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Speaker 1: would cost less than two million dollars and take less
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Speaker 1: than two weeks. That cost would later balloon almost immediately.
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Speaker 1: Historic preservationist and past administration official cautioned Trump was moved
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Speaker 1: being too quickly. Charles A. Bernbaum, who heads the Cultural
10:04
Speaker 1: Landscape Foundation, an education and advocacy organization focused on historic sites,
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Speaker 1: said after Trump's announcement, he didn't understand how something so
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Speaker 1: important could be changed without testing the new materials. The
10:19
Speaker 1: notion has been do the work and ask questions later,
10:23
Speaker 1: Bernbaum said, referencing Trump's other local construction projects, such as
10:27
Speaker 1: his demolition of the White House's east wing to build
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Speaker 1: a new ballroom. Bernbaum's group also sooned to stop the
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Speaker 1: pool project, although a judge rejected an injunction. The work
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Speaker 1: on the pool began May fifth, as contractors cleaned the
10:41
Speaker 1: site and began spraying a specialized protective coding RHINO four
10:46
Speaker 1: h six on a portion of the basin, according to
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Speaker 1: the Justice Department. Then on May six, it rained, forcing
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Speaker 1: workers to pause for a day. Behind the scenes warning
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Speaker 1: signs came quickly. It appears AIC is SI significantly behind schedule,
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Speaker 1: an employee with the contractor responsible for monitoring AIC's progress
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Speaker 1: wrote in an email shared with Interior Departments officials on
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Speaker 1: May seven. According to the Justice Department, more delays followed.
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Speaker 1: Rain repeatedly halted work, and contractors ran out of Rhino
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Speaker 1: four oh six on May eighteenth, forcing another pause until
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Speaker 1: more supplies arrived. According to the Justice Department, the job
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Speaker 1: was largely complete by June seven, and workers began refilling
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Speaker 1: the pool. A final inspection was held June ninth, and
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Speaker 1: the Justice Department wrote as the pool officially opened one
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Speaker 1: month later and costing more than twelve million more than
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Speaker 1: Trump had originally promised. The cleaned up pool initially won
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Speaker 1: some bipartisan praise, and the president posted a flurry of
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Speaker 1: photos to a social media account. Trump also shared images
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Speaker 1: of the pool looking grimy and filled with trash, saying
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Speaker 1: that was its appearance under predecessor Joe Biden, compared with
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Speaker 1: a pristine pool that he said was due to his leadership.
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Speaker 1: Everybody's looking at the reflecting pool. They can't believe it reflects,
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Speaker 1: Trump said in the Oval Office the following day, when
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Speaker 1: I'm here, It'll be perfect. The next day, a park
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Speaker 1: service engineer concluded that the pool's new liner had already
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Speaker 1: begun to appeal, blaming contractor Air, according to documents released
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Speaker 1: Friday by the Justice Department. Soon passerby passers By noticed
12:31
Speaker 1: appealing too. Herne told the Post that when he visited
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Speaker 1: the pool on June nineteenth, he saw a piece of
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Speaker 1: liner that was already partially detached from the pool bottom
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Speaker 1: and reached into the water to see what it felt like.
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Speaker 1: He was quickly arrested by US Park Police officers and
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Speaker 1: charged with vandalizing the site. More arrests followed. The charges
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Speaker 1: gave administration officials cover for their claim that the pool's
12:54
Speaker 1: problems stemmed from deliberate damage, but none of those arrested
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Speaker 1: were accused of the most serious that Trump publicly alleged,
13:02
Speaker 1: using blades or chemicals to damage the liner. They took
13:06
Speaker 1: some form of knife or blade and put a two
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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty foot long gash into the beautiful facade
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Speaker 1: of what took so much work, competence, and money to
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Speaker 1: build and complete. They also poured corrosive and destructive chemicals
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Speaker 1: into the pool. Trump wrote on True Social on June twentieth,
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Speaker 1: increasing the length of the gash to three hundred and
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Speaker 1: then three hundred and fifty feet in subsequent posts. Frank Lands,
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Speaker 1: the Park Service deputy director, also told a federal judge
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Speaker 1: in a separate case on June twenty four that foam
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Speaker 1: sealant on the pool had been cut with a sharp
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Speaker 1: knife or razor. Lands, a former Armity deputy garrison commander
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Speaker 1: who joined the Park Service in twenty twenty one, had
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Speaker 1: become a central figure in carrying out Trump's policies in Washington.
13:51
Speaker 1: He declined to comment to the Post. Pierro, whose office
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Speaker 1: handles prosecutions of both local and federal crimes in d C,
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Speaker 1: initially framed the alleged vandalism as an assault on Americans
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Speaker 1: shared heritage. She visited the pool on July first to
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Speaker 1: inspect the damage, according to court records, when a grand
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Speaker 1: jury indicted her in the next day on felony charge
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Speaker 1: of destruction of property, the sole felony vandalism charge pursued
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Speaker 1: in connection with the pool. Piro gave a news conference
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Speaker 1: and later a Fox News interview in which she described
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Speaker 1: him forcefully and violently tugging at the liner with both
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Speaker 1: hands and shouting at a park Service employee who told
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Speaker 1: him to stop. The next article from the front page
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Speaker 1: of today's edition is titled how predatory trade schools drained
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Speaker 1: three hundred million dollars from the GI Bill and cheated veterans.
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Speaker 1: This articles by Craig Whitlock and Andrew Batran the institution's
14:48
Speaker 1: defrauded veterans while cheating thousands out of career training, with
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Speaker 1: some offering training on how to grow grass and make
14:54
Speaker 1: fake rocks. A Posting investigation found for profit trade schools
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Speaker 1: educate military veterans under the GI Bill have built the
15:03
Speaker 1: federal government out of more than three hundred million dollars,
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Speaker 1: often by charging eye popping sums for basic classes that
15:10
Speaker 1: last only a few days or weeks. According to a
15:13
Speaker 1: Washington Post investigation, in New Hampshire, an organic lawn care
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Speaker 1: institute taught veterans how to grow grass in a course
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Speaker 1: that took at most five days. The school typically built
15:24
Speaker 1: the Department of Veterans Affairs fourteen thousand, nine hundred dollars
15:28
Speaker 1: per student, more than triple what it charged civilians not
15:31
Speaker 1: covered by the GI Bill. The federal government paid the
15:34
Speaker 1: school more than two million dollars before it came under
15:37
Speaker 1: investigation and closed. Records obtained under the Freedom of Information
15:43
Speaker 1: Act show another gi Bill trade school, based in New Hampshire,
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Speaker 1: charged eighteen thousand, five hundred dollars intuition to teach veterans
15:51
Speaker 1: how to make fake rocks out of concrete. Federal documents
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Speaker 1: show that course lasted eight days. The school owner, a
15:58
Speaker 1: convicted tax evader, EXCPS, avoided veterans as free labour on
16:01
Speaker 1: building projects, according to public records and interviews. Before officials
16:07
Speaker 1: forced to shut it down. VA paid the school seventeen
16:11
Speaker 1: point eight million dollars over nearly seven years. In Texas,
16:15
Speaker 1: a destitute high school dropout opened a boot camp that
16:19
Speaker 1: trained novices to become heating and air conditioning technicians In
16:23
Speaker 1: just six weeks. Tuition and fees ran around twenty thousand dollars.
16:28
Speaker 1: Within three years, the school had heaped seventy two million
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Speaker 1: dollars from the gi Bill to enroll more than three thousand,
16:35
Speaker 1: five hundred veterans. The owner bought a Lamborghini, a Ferrari,
16:40
Speaker 1: and a Bentley, and spent almost two hundred thousand dollars
16:43
Speaker 1: at strip clubs before being arrested and convicted of fraud.
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Speaker 1: Court record show at the owner's trial, Several veterans described
16:51
Speaker 1: the boot camp as a slap dash operation that duped
16:54
Speaker 1: them with hollow promises of a good paying career. I
16:58
Speaker 1: feel bamboozled, testing Ryan DeFranco, a marine veteran who said
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Speaker 1: the school's deficient training caused him to lose three jobs.
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Speaker 1: It's a nightmare that lives in the back of my
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Speaker 1: mind all the time. The GI Bill ranks as one
17:12
Speaker 1: of the most popular benefit programs in US history. Since
17:16
Speaker 1: its inception near the end of World War II, more
17:19
Speaker 1: than twenty five million veterans have relied on it to
17:22
Speaker 1: pay for college, job training, and other benefits. Some economists
17:26
Speaker 1: credit the GI Bill with helping to expand America's middle class.
17:31
Speaker 1: Military recruiters touted as a critical incentive for volunteers to
17:35
Speaker 1: enlist in the Armed forces. Last year, taxpayers spent more
17:39
Speaker 1: than eleven billion dollars to educate about six hundred and
17:43
Speaker 1: sixty six thousand people under the GI Bill. Over the
17:47
Speaker 1: past two decades, Congress has passed laws to make the
17:50
Speaker 1: GI Bill more generous and flexible. Veterans no longer must
17:54
Speaker 1: use their benefits within a few years of leaving the
17:56
Speaker 1: Armed forces. And they can transfer benefits to their sepouses
18:00
Speaker 1: or children. But lax government oversight has given rise to
18:04
Speaker 1: chicanery and fraud, allowing predatory and for profit trade schools
18:09
Speaker 1: to cheat thousands of veterans out of training intended to
18:12
Speaker 1: help them build new careers. The post bound part of
18:17
Speaker 1: the problem is a loophole that allows trade schools to
18:20
Speaker 1: charge exorbitant prices for brief, often rudimentary classes. The GI
18:25
Speaker 1: Bill generally covers up to thirty six months of expenses
18:28
Speaker 1: for students enrolled in college or vocational school. VA now
18:32
Speaker 1: pays a maximum of thirty thouy nine hundred eight dollars
18:35
Speaker 1: annually in tuition at most private and for profit schools.
18:40
Speaker 1: Lower limits apply to public institutions. While the annual cap
18:44
Speaker 1: is designed to prevent price gouging. VA has no standard
18:48
Speaker 1: for minimum course length. Because schools bill VA directly for tuition,
18:53
Speaker 1: veterans who enroll in expensive, short term classes often don't
18:57
Speaker 1: pay close attention to how much they cost. Another fundamental
19:02
Speaker 1: problem a dearth of rules governing the quality of training
19:05
Speaker 1: at trade schools. Unlike other federal student aid programs, the
19:09
Speaker 1: GI Bill does not require trade schools to obtain academic accreditation.
19:15
Speaker 1: Lawmakers carved out an exception to allow veterans to attend
19:19
Speaker 1: vocational schools that do not grant degrees, as well as
19:22
Speaker 1: work study programs and apprenticeships. The weak regulations are compounded
19:28
Speaker 1: by poor supervision. VA has contractual arrangements with state officials
19:32
Speaker 1: to help approve and monitor GI bill schools, especially unaccredited ones,
19:38
Speaker 1: and to make sure they comply with a few quality
19:41
Speaker 1: assurance standards that exist. Many state agencies, in turn, lack
19:46
Speaker 1: resources to be effective watchdogs. According to veteran advocacy groups
19:50
Speaker 1: and the agencies themselves, the trade schools have largely escaped
19:55
Speaker 1: scrutiny because lawmakers and VA officials have focused their attention
19:59
Speaker 1: for the past two decad aides on the rapid growth
20:01
Speaker 1: of online colleges and universities that cater to veterans that
20:05
Speaker 1: have drawn complaints about quality. Trade schools which students are
20:09
Speaker 1: required to attend in person are a far smaller group,
20:13
Speaker 1: but they account for an outsize share of GI bill fraud,
20:17
Speaker 1: the Post found. The Post made multiple requests to interview
20:21
Speaker 1: Kenneth Smith, the executive director of VA's Education Service, for
20:25
Speaker 1: this investigation. The department declined in a response to written
20:31
Speaker 1: list of questions, VA Press Secretary Quinn Slaven said the
20:35
Speaker 1: Post's findings that more than three hundred million dollars has
20:38
Speaker 1: been lost to fraud during roughly the past decade represents
20:42
Speaker 1: less than zero point three percent of VA's educational budget
20:47
Speaker 1: during that period, underscoring the fact that protecting veterans and
20:51
Speaker 1: taxpayers from fraud is a top VA priority. At the
20:55
Speaker 1: same time, he blamed state governments for enabling fraud within
20:59
Speaker 1: the GI bill program. The problem is that many state
21:02
Speaker 1: level bureaucrats have looked the other way for years as
21:06
Speaker 1: fraudster's rob government programs, blind, Slaven said. In an emailed statement,
21:11
Speaker 1: he said a White House fraud task Force led by
21:14
Speaker 1: Vice President j. D. Vance is moving at unprecedented speed
21:18
Speaker 1: and ferocity to root out the waste of use and
21:21
Speaker 1: criminal exploitation of government programs in these areas and others.
21:26
Speaker 1: To examine the scope of g I Bill fraud and
21:29
Speaker 1: gain insight into House schools cheated taxpayers and veterans, The
21:33
Speaker 1: Post sought financial and enrollment databases from VA under the
21:37
Speaker 1: Freedom of Information Act, as well as records from investigations
21:42
Speaker 1: conducted by the VA Office of Inspectral General since the
21:45
Speaker 1: first Trump administration. The government declined the request, citing privacy exemptions,
21:52
Speaker 1: but the Post fidal lawsuit to compel the release of
21:55
Speaker 1: the material, arguing that disclosure once was in the public's
21:58
Speaker 1: best interest. After a year long battle, VA and its
22:02
Speaker 1: Inspector General's office released some of the databases in more
22:06
Speaker 1: than eight thousand pages of documents from twenty fraud investigations
22:10
Speaker 1: that resulted in criminal convictions or civil finds. The Post
22:14
Speaker 1: also reviewed more than ten thousand pages of federal court
22:17
Speaker 1: records and trial transcripts, and obtained about fifteen thousand pages
22:23
Speaker 1: of public records from state agencies in Texas, California, New Hampshire, Georgia,
22:28
Speaker 1: and Florida that were responsible for monitoring most of the
22:31
Speaker 1: twenty schools investigated for fraud. The total losses to the
22:35
Speaker 1: government in those investigations exceeded three hundred million. Fifteen of
22:40
Speaker 1: the twenty cases involved unaccredited trade schools. The documents, combined
22:46
Speaker 1: with dozens of independent interviews with veterans and school officials,
22:50
Speaker 1: lay bare the extent of the fraud for the first
22:52
Speaker 1: time and underscore VA's failure to tackle the root causes.
22:57
Speaker 1: Almost all the schools that were investigated had by red
23:00
Speaker 1: VA's rules for years before they were caught. Most packed
23:04
Speaker 1: their courses with too many veterans and not enough civilians,
23:07
Speaker 1: or else charge veterans more, which is against the law.
23:11
Speaker 1: Investigators found that one barber college in Mississippi illegally charged
23:16
Speaker 1: ten times more for veterans than other students. Some schools
23:20
Speaker 1: falsely claimed they had been in operation for years. At
23:23
Speaker 1: several trade schools, administrators had criminal records that went undiscovered
23:27
Speaker 1: for years because VA and state agencies aren't required to
23:31
Speaker 1: conduct background checks. Some veteran advocacy groups say that VA
23:36
Speaker 1: does not have sufficient tools, expertise, or political will to
23:39
Speaker 1: prevent or reign in fraud. In truth, the configuration of
23:44
Speaker 1: the program is so fundamentally flawed that almost anything goes
23:48
Speaker 1: at any price, and therein lies the problem, said Barmark Nasrean,
23:53
Speaker 1: a vice president at Veterans Education Success, a Washington based
23:58
Speaker 1: nonprofit that lobbies for GI build improvements. I always wondered
24:02
Speaker 1: why the mobs stuck to drug dealing and organized crime
24:06
Speaker 1: get into this racket. It's easier money. According to a
24:10
Speaker 1: post analysis of VIA data, unaccredited schools cost taxpayers more
24:15
Speaker 1: money on average than accredited ones. Tuition rates at unaccredited
24:19
Speaker 1: schools were thirty percent higher. About fifty nine thousand people,
24:23
Speaker 1: or roughly six percent of all GI Bill students, attended
24:27
Speaker 1: unaccredited institutions in twenty twenty five. Veterans also filed complaints
24:33
Speaker 1: with VA about unaccredited programs at a rate nearly five
24:37
Speaker 1: times higher than for accredited ones. Federal data shows a
24:42
Speaker 1: long history of ripoffs. The GI Bill rules, designed to
24:46
Speaker 1: prevent waste, traud, and abuse, have been largely unchanged for decades.
24:51
Speaker 1: For two weeks after Allied forces invaded Normandy on D Day,
24:55
Speaker 1: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, known
25:00
Speaker 1: as the GI Bill. It provided educational benefits and other
25:04
Speaker 1: financial aid to returning veterans. Millions of former gis took advantage,
25:10
Speaker 1: so did the trade school industry. Within five years, the
25:13
Speaker 1: number of for profit vocational schools in the United States
25:17
Speaker 1: triple Government record show. A wave of fraud followed. Many
25:22
Speaker 1: trade schools embraced dodgy marketing tactics. Some television repair programs,
25:27
Speaker 1: for example, offered free TV sets to get veterans in
25:30
Speaker 1: the door and then fleece BA for their tuition. By
25:34
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two, about one hundred and forty schools were
25:37
Speaker 1: facing criminal fraud investigations. A House of Representatives report at
25:41
Speaker 1: the time concluded there was no doubt that hundreds of
25:45
Speaker 1: millions of dollars had been frittered away on worthless training
25:50
Speaker 1: during the Korean War, as millions more veterans became eligible
25:55
Speaker 1: for GI Bill benefits, Congress imposed rules intended to ensure
25:59
Speaker 1: quality of amid another influx of unaccredited for profit trade schools. First,
26:05
Speaker 1: lawmakers decreed that veterans on the GI Bill could make
26:08
Speaker 1: up no more than eighty five percent of the students
26:11
Speaker 1: in a course, and that schools had to charge the
26:13
Speaker 1: same tuition for veterans and non veterans alike. Second, unaccredited
26:19
Speaker 1: trade schools had to be in business for at least
26:21
Speaker 1: two years before they could enroll veterans under the GI Bill.
26:25
Speaker 1: The logic behind the rules was that if the school
26:28
Speaker 1: had a track record with at least some civilians willing
26:31
Speaker 1: to pay full price, then it probably provided inadequate education.
26:36
Speaker 1: In practice, however, compliance hinged to a large degree on
26:39
Speaker 1: an honor system. Today, the government still allows schools to
26:43
Speaker 1: self report their enrollment and tuition data. Auditors are supposed
26:48
Speaker 1: to visit schools to conduct compliance surveys, but they must
26:52
Speaker 1: provide notice. State agencies such as Veterans Commissions or education departments,
26:58
Speaker 1: many of them under sourced, approve and provide direct oversight
27:03
Speaker 1: of GI bill schools on VA's behalf. Under federal law,
27:08
Speaker 1: VA required schools to post course catalogs and calendars online
27:12
Speaker 1: and to provide evidence to officials of financial soundness, but
27:16
Speaker 1: state regulators and VA pay almost no attention to what
27:20
Speaker 1: is going on in the classroom, said Nasareen, the vice
27:24
Speaker 1: president of Veterans Education Success. As long as the paperwork
27:29
Speaker 1: is right, the question of what did you teach and
27:31
Speaker 1: how much is a non question, he said. Twenty eighteen
27:36
Speaker 1: audit by the VA Inspector General's Office found that neither
27:39
Speaker 1: the states nor the federal government had effective financial controls
27:43
Speaker 1: in place. The audit estimated that VA could make two
27:47
Speaker 1: point three billion in improper GI bill payments over the
27:51
Speaker 1: next five years. It also found that the risk of
27:54
Speaker 1: problems was particularly high at for profit schools. In his
27:59
Speaker 1: statement to the Post, Slaven, the VA Press Secretary, highlighted
28:03
Speaker 1: recent actions the department has taken to prevent fraud Earlier
28:09
Speaker 1: this year, he said VA created a tool that assigns
28:12
Speaker 1: a fraud risk score to schools. In addition, he said
28:15
Speaker 1: VA's Education Service started a Compliance Investigations and Enforcement Division
28:20
Speaker 1: to spot fraud risks and refer cases to the Inspectral
28:24
Speaker 1: General's Office. Slaven said risk factors for fraud at gi
28:28
Speaker 1: BILL schools include rapid increases in enrollment, rapid increases intuition,
28:33
Speaker 1: a rising volume of complaints, low course completion, and predatory
28:38
Speaker 1: advertising and recruiting practices. He also said VA performs targeted
28:43
Speaker 1: risk based reviews at schools that generate serious complaints or
28:47
Speaker 1: that data analysis indicates are at serious risk of non compliance.
28:54
Speaker 1: The next article from the front page of today's edition
28:58
Speaker 1: is titled CDC expands largest known cyclosporiasis outbreak to fifteen
29:05
Speaker 1: states by Lena H. Sun and Rachel Bian. The Center
29:11
Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention is expanding the largest known
29:14
Speaker 1: cyclosporiasis outbreak to fifteen states, adding six states where illnesses
29:19
Speaker 1: have been traced to shredded iceberg lettuce sourced from Central Mexico.
29:24
Speaker 1: According to three individuals familiar with the investigation, Missouri, which
29:28
Speaker 1: is reporting one thousand, ninety five cases. It is one
29:32
Speaker 1: of the states being added. According to a state Health
29:34
Speaker 1: Department spokesperson, the number of states' cases jumped dramatically in
29:39
Speaker 1: the past week. Patients who were interviewed at length by
29:42
Speaker 1: state and local investigators said they consumed taco bell before
29:46
Speaker 1: getting sick. Spokesp Person Lisa Clock said the other states
29:51
Speaker 1: are Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. According
29:56
Speaker 1: to a fourth person familiar with the investigation, On Wednesday,
30:00
Speaker 1: the agency updated its outbreak web page to reflect the
30:04
Speaker 1: additional states. The expanded fifteen state outbreak has sickened six thousand,
30:09
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty eight people, including two hundred and
30:12
Speaker 1: seventy eight who were hospitalized and two deaths. CDC said
30:17
Speaker 1: the expansion marks a significant widening of the outbreak. On Monday,
30:22
Speaker 1: Michigan health officials announced that two people have died in
30:25
Speaker 1: the outbreak, the first desks confirmed in the United States
30:29
Speaker 1: related to the microscopic parasite. Both people had underlying health
30:33
Speaker 1: conditions that may have been affected by the intestinal illness
30:37
Speaker 1: and dehydration. On July twenty fourth, federal officials had linked
30:42
Speaker 1: illnesses in nine states to the outbreak. CDC has said
30:47
Speaker 1: epidemiological and trace back data continues to show that iceberg
30:52
Speaker 1: lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico was contaminated with the
30:56
Speaker 1: parasite that has made people sick. The newly linked dates
31:00
Speaker 1: joined Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and
31:06
Speaker 1: West Virginia. Taylor Farms recalled shredded iceberg lettuce sourced from
31:11
Speaker 1: Central Mexico on July seventeenth after investigators linked the product
31:16
Speaker 1: to illnesses among people who had eaten at Taco Bell.
31:19
Speaker 1: The company said the lettuce was distributed from June twenty
31:23
Speaker 1: nine through July sixteen through food service channels and retail
31:26
Speaker 1: stores in twenty seven states. CDC now says it has
31:30
Speaker 1: received reports of ten thousand, four hundred and sixty eight
31:33
Speaker 1: laboratory confirmed domestic cases of cyclosporiasis across the US, and
31:39
Speaker 1: is investigating more than twelve thousand, two hundred and fifty
31:42
Speaker 1: five additional cases. CDC's confirmed cases were expanded to include
31:47
Speaker 1: illnesses and people who reported exposure to Taco Bell or
31:51
Speaker 1: recalled Tailor Farm, New Mexico iceberg lettuce. According to an
31:55
Speaker 1: update noticed from Food and Drug Administration, any of these
32:00
Speaker 1: illnesses began before the Tailor Farms to Mexico Iceberg lettuce
32:04
Speaker 1: recall on July seventeenth. Federal investigators so far have publicly
32:09
Speaker 1: linked illnesses only to a portion of the states where
32:12
Speaker 1: the company said the recalled lettuce was distributed. Federal officials
32:17
Speaker 1: say forty seven states have now reported cases of cyclosporiasis.
32:22
Speaker 1: Investigations are underway into those outbreaks, which are separate from
32:26
Speaker 1: the fifteen state outbreak. The sources of other outbreaks have
32:30
Speaker 1: not been identified or tied to Tailor Farms. Tailor Farms
32:35
Speaker 1: has declined to provide additional details about its recall, including
32:39
Speaker 1: how many pounds of product were covered by the recall
32:42
Speaker 1: and where the shredded lettuce was distributed before June twenty ninth.
32:46
Speaker 1: A Tailor Farm spokesperson did not immediately respond to request
32:50
Speaker 1: for comment. During food borne illness outbreaks, CDC is charged
32:55
Speaker 1: with trying to identify the food sickening and Americans, relying
32:59
Speaker 1: on labour intensive disease detective work that includes detailed interviews
33:03
Speaker 1: with people about what they ate, where they ate it,
33:06
Speaker 1: and when. The FDA works to determine who produce the
33:10
Speaker 1: contaminated food and works with food companies to stop it
33:13
Speaker 1: from being sold. The FDA also tries to identify how
33:18
Speaker 1: the food may have come have become contaminated. The new
33:22
Speaker 1: cases being reported don't necessarily mean the risk is still ongoing.
33:26
Speaker 1: Experts have said the true number of sick people in
33:29
Speaker 1: the multi state outbreak is probably higher than the number reported,
33:34
Speaker 1: and the outbreak may not be limited to states with
33:36
Speaker 1: known illnesses. The CDC has said the incubation period is long,
33:42
Speaker 1: and some people recover without medical care and are not
33:45
Speaker 1: tested for cyclospora. Recent illnesses may not yet be reported
33:50
Speaker 1: because it can take as long as six weeks to
33:53
Speaker 1: determine if a sick person is part of an outbreak.
33:57
Speaker 1: We're always trying to figure out what is the risk
33:59
Speaker 1: today of going and eating a salad, for example, said
34:03
Speaker 1: Craig Hedberg, a professor at the University of Minnesota's Division
34:07
Speaker 1: of Environmental Health Sciences. The next article. Senate committee advances
34:12
Speaker 1: Blanche's a G nomination after standoff over Trump fund by
34:17
Speaker 1: Jeremy Roebuck and Theodoric Meyer. A divided Senate Judiciary committee
34:22
Speaker 1: voted Tuesday to advance Todd Blanche's nomination to become Attorney
34:26
Speaker 1: General putting President Donald Trump's formal criminal defense lawyer one
34:30
Speaker 1: step closer to becoming the next confirmed head of the
34:33
Speaker 1: Justice Department. The twelve to ten party line vote came
34:36
Speaker 1: after Blanche's prospects for the job were nearly derailed last
34:40
Speaker 1: week by lingering Republican concerns over the controversial deal the
34:44
Speaker 1: Department broker this spring to resolve Trump's legal claims against
34:48
Speaker 1: the IRS. Two GOP holdouts, Senators John Cornyon of Texas
34:54
Speaker 1: and Tom Tillis of North Carolina, threatened to vote against
34:57
Speaker 1: the acting Attorney General, potentially killing his nomination at the
35:01
Speaker 1: committee stage without written assurances that the Justice Department would
35:05
Speaker 1: not move forward with the aspects of the agreement, including
35:08
Speaker 1: its proposed one point eight billion fund for people who
35:11
Speaker 1: claim they were victims of politicized prosecutions. Both senators set
35:17
Speaker 1: Tuesday that Blanche had allayed their concerns with a pair
35:20
Speaker 1: of written statements issued late Sunday purporting to impose limits
35:24
Speaker 1: on the deal, a step Blanche had previously resisted. As
35:28
Speaker 1: Cornyon cast his vote in favor of Blanche, he appeared
35:31
Speaker 1: to acknowledge the chief criticism of those written commitments that
35:35
Speaker 1: they had not been signed off on by Trump's legal
35:37
Speaker 1: team and could be reversed by the President ultimately, Cornyon said,
35:43
Speaker 1: bringing stability to a Justice department that has been without
35:46
Speaker 1: a permanent leader since Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondy
35:50
Speaker 1: four months ago influenced his decision to vote for the nominee.
35:54
Speaker 1: We need a stabilizing force at the Department of Justice,
35:58
Speaker 1: and mister Blanche deserves the opportunit unity to provide that,
36:01
Speaker 1: he said. Senator Pete Welch, Democrat from Vermont, made a
36:05
Speaker 1: related argument before joining the rest of the committee's Democrats
36:09
Speaker 1: in voting against the nominee. Rejecting Blanche, who brings considerable
36:13
Speaker 1: experience as a federal prosecutor earlier in his career, could
36:17
Speaker 1: not Trump could not prompt Trump to nominate someone less qualified.
36:23
Speaker 1: If we rejected Todd Blanche, this corrupt president would find
36:27
Speaker 1: a new Todd Blanche. Welsh said. The committee's vote Tuesday
36:31
Speaker 1: clears the way for the full Senate to hold a
36:33
Speaker 1: final vote on Blanche's confirmation, potentially as early as this week.
36:38
Speaker 1: Blanche can only afford to lose two GOP votes in
36:41
Speaker 1: the full Senate, given the expectation of united opposition from Democrats.
36:46
Speaker 1: And the continued absence of Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican from Kentucky,
36:50
Speaker 1: who is recovering after suffering a fall. Several Republicans have
36:54
Speaker 1: yet to pledge their support, while Republicans on the Judiciary
36:59
Speaker 1: Committee unified in backing Blanche. Tuesday's hearing revealed emerging fault
37:04
Speaker 1: lines between GOP lawmakers and the Trump administration over the
37:08
Speaker 1: direction of the Justice Department has taken over the past
37:12
Speaker 1: year and a half. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the
37:16
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee's chairman and a reliable Trump loyalist who praised
37:20
Speaker 1: Blanche as an exemplary nominee, nonetheless called it a crime
37:25
Speaker 1: that it had taken the White House and the Justice
37:27
Speaker 1: Department so long to address Cornyan's and Tillus's concerns about
37:31
Speaker 1: Trump's IRS deal. He also added that he shared the
37:35
Speaker 1: senator's concerns. Tillis criticized the criticized the Department's prosecution of
37:41
Speaker 1: former FBI Director James B. Comy, the latest case the
37:45
Speaker 1: Department has pursued at Trump's urging against his perceived political foes.
37:50
Speaker 1: Comy was indicted this year after posting on social media
37:54
Speaker 1: a photo of seashells arranged to spell eighty six forty seven,
37:58
Speaker 1: which prosecutors had chucked, charge was a subtle threat against
38:01
Speaker 1: the president's life, allegations The former FBI director has denied
38:06
Speaker 1: Trump is the forty seventh president. In eighty six commonly
38:10
Speaker 1: means to get rid of something. Some bonehead in North
38:13
Speaker 1: Carolina think that's a crime, till Is said Tuesday, Well,
38:17
Speaker 1: they better damn sure have information to back it up,
38:20
Speaker 1: because if all it is is a picture that a
38:22
Speaker 1: person should lose his job of Blanche, the senator added,
38:27
Speaker 1: what I hope to see out of him is a
38:29
Speaker 1: bending of the curve of this absurdity. Cornyan, who praised
38:33
Speaker 1: Blanche's willingness to address questions about the irsdo, beseeched the
38:37
Speaker 1: nominee to use, when necessary the trust he has built
38:41
Speaker 1: with Trump as his personal lawyer. At potus needs someone
38:45
Speaker 1: in this role with a strong legal mind, but who
38:48
Speaker 1: also is close enough to him to give him confidential
38:51
Speaker 1: legal advice and to tell him hard truth. Cornyon posted
38:55
Speaker 1: after the hearing, I would advise mister Blanche not to
38:59
Speaker 1: be afraid to capitalize on that earntrust when necessary for
39:03
Speaker 1: the good of the country. Democrats maintain Tuesday that Blanche
39:07
Speaker 1: at every step has demonstrated inability or an unwillingness to
39:11
Speaker 1: do so in his brief but tumultuous tenure. They argued
39:15
Speaker 1: Blanche has overseen a hollowing out of the Justice Department's
39:18
Speaker 1: ranks and defended Trump's efforts to erode its traditional independence.
39:24
Speaker 1: They accused Blanche of using the Department's resources to enrich
39:27
Speaker 1: the President, pursue his political vendettas, and stage manage the
39:32
Speaker 1: end of the IRS lawsuit to create a deal designed
39:35
Speaker 1: to personally benefit Trump and his allies at the expense
39:39
Speaker 1: of American taxpayers. The fundamental problem with Todd Blanche is
39:43
Speaker 1: not that he's inexperienced, not that he's not capable, not
39:47
Speaker 1: that he's not intelligent. The problem with confirming Todd Blanche
39:52
Speaker 1: is that he has never been able to shed his
39:54
Speaker 1: role as criminal defense lawyer for Donald Trump. He just
39:58
Speaker 1: can't do it. Senator Adam Shift, Democrat of California, said,
40:02
Speaker 1: he does not represent the American people. You only do
40:06
Speaker 1: what is best for Donald Trump. The Judiciary Committee vote
40:10
Speaker 1: was expected to be the chief hurdle Blanche faced in
40:13
Speaker 1: the nomination process. Several Republican senators have not yet committed
40:18
Speaker 1: their votes to confirm him, including Senators Lisa Murkowski of
40:21
Speaker 1: Alaska and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, both of whom declined
40:26
Speaker 1: to say Tuesday which way they were leading, and at
40:29
Speaker 1: least one Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, said late Tuesday
40:33
Speaker 1: she would vote against the nomination. Colin cited Blanche's approval
40:37
Speaker 1: of the IRS deal and the failed Justice Department effort
40:41
Speaker 1: earlier this year to indict Senators Mark Kelly Democrat Arizona
40:46
Speaker 1: and Alyssa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan, as well as other
40:50
Speaker 1: lawmakers over a video they made urging service members to
40:54
Speaker 1: resist unlawful orders. While I believe mister Blanche is a
40:58
Speaker 1: capable Lawyerartment of Justice has become increasingly political, said Collins,
41:03
Speaker 1: who faces a competitive election this November in her purple state. Nonetheless,
41:09
Speaker 1: many GOP lawmakers said they were reassured by the concessions
41:13
Speaker 1: Tillis and Cornyon had extracted from Blanche on the IRS deal.
41:17
Speaker 1: In addition to the written commitment eliminating the nearly one
41:21
Speaker 1: point eight billion payout fund, Blanche has also clarified another
41:25
Speaker 1: aspect of Trump's deal, one that shields the President, his sons,
41:29
Speaker 1: and their business from past tax claims. Blanche said Sunday
41:33
Speaker 1: those protections apply only retroactively and would not bar the
41:37
Speaker 1: IRS from auditing the Trumps moving forward. Those protections alone
41:42
Speaker 1: could still provide an unusually lucrative benefit to a president
41:46
Speaker 1: who has often complained that he has been targeted by
41:49
Speaker 1: repeated IRS audits. Heading into an expected confirmation vote later
41:54
Speaker 1: this week, Democrats are hopeful they can still drum up
41:57
Speaker 1: enough concern over the deal's tax protection and the possibility
42:01
Speaker 1: of a payout fund revival to defeat Blanche's nomination, especially
42:06
Speaker 1: as Trump has continued to express support for the idea
42:09
Speaker 1: of compensating those he believes were unfairly prosecuted under the
42:13
Speaker 1: Biden and Obama administrations, such as the defendants convicted of
42:18
Speaker 1: playing a role in the January sixth, twenty twenty one
42:21
Speaker 1: attack on the US Capitol. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of
42:26
Speaker 1: Rhode Island, described their written assurances Blanche provided Cornyon UNTILUS
42:30
Speaker 1: earlier this week as effectively meaningless. There is enough weasel
42:34
Speaker 1: room in these documents to drive a truck through, he
42:37
Speaker 1: said the next article. Trump keeps making threats the world
42:41
Speaker 1: has stopped flinching by Steve Hendricks and Anthony Faiola London.
42:47
Speaker 1: When President Trump Donald Trump strode into the Rose Garden
42:50
Speaker 1: in April twenty twenty five, brandishing a poster board of
42:53
Speaker 1: teriff hikes, the world leaped as if a fire alarm
42:57
Speaker 1: had gone off. Markets shed trillions of dollars. Envoys rushed
43:02
Speaker 1: to Washington. More than seventy five governments scrambled to negotiate,
43:06
Speaker 1: some scrapping carefully prepared countermeasures in a rush to cut deals.
43:12
Speaker 1: Sixteen months later, the flabbergasting threats keep piling up to
43:16
Speaker 1: weaponize trade, annex Canada, sees Greenland abandoned, NATO annihilate Iran.
43:22
Speaker 1: But the alarm bells have gone quiet. World leaders are
43:26
Speaker 1: slower to rattle, as they've seen the President increasingly fenced
43:30
Speaker 1: in by courts, rebuffed by Congress, and strung along by Tehran,
43:34
Speaker 1: his ultimatums evaporating and pull numbers sinking. When Trump announced
43:40
Speaker 1: a fresh barrage of tariffs last month, this time based
43:43
Speaker 1: on accusations of child labor violations to skirt limits imposed
43:47
Speaker 1: by the Supreme Court, the world didn't shriek, It shrugged.
43:51
Speaker 1: France's Central Bank governor predicted little impact. Britain proclaimed its
43:56
Speaker 1: exporters largely unaffected. Mexico's economy minister waved it off as
44:02
Speaker 1: one tariff, simply replacing another. The financial markets insured inerd
44:08
Speaker 1: to the bluster, hardly moved. As Trump nears the midpoint
44:11
Speaker 1: of his second term, officials and analysts say one of
44:15
Speaker 1: his signature powers to bluster on social media shock, spark panic,
44:19
Speaker 1: and convert that panic. Thank you for your attention to
44:22
Speaker 1: this matter into the outcomes that he wants, has begun
44:26
Speaker 1: to fade. The bully pulpit of the presidency remains, but
44:30
Speaker 1: the audience is no longer quaking in the pews. We
44:34
Speaker 1: are getting used to these daily announcements, said Brando Benefee,
44:38
Speaker 1: an Italian member of the European Parliament who chairs its
44:41
Speaker 1: delegation for relations with the United States. We don't take
44:45
Speaker 1: them so seriously anymore. At home, Trump continues to dominate
44:49
Speaker 1: the national conversation and drive the policy agenda. Still, the
44:53
Speaker 1: President was unable to muscle the Republican controlled Senate into
44:57
Speaker 1: leaving the Epstein files under seal or passing his signature
45:01
Speaker 1: Save America Act. This week. He had to make concessions
45:05
Speaker 1: to get his nomination of Todd Blanche as Attorney General
45:08
Speaker 1: back on track abroad. Most consequently, Iran refuses to bend
45:13
Speaker 1: under American bombs and reopen the strait of Hormus, and
45:16
Speaker 1: Russian President Vladimir Putin persists in his war in Ukraine.
45:21
Speaker 1: Europe met Trump's recently renewed demands for Greenland with a
45:24
Speaker 1: collective sigh, and trading partners have shrugged off the latest tariffs.
45:29
Speaker 1: For a world weary of the United States capacity to disrupt,
45:33
Speaker 1: the bombast is baked in. The threats are frequently bluffs,
45:37
Speaker 1: and the president, who relishes shock and awe in the end,
45:40
Speaker 1: often backs down. The stock trader's refrain of taco Trump
45:45
Speaker 1: always chickens out has begun to take hold in more
45:49
Speaker 1: world capitals, said Jeremy Shapiro, director of the US Program,
45:55
Speaker 1: a European Council on Foreign Relations think tank. I've been
45:59
Speaker 1: a little surprised how much his bluster has worked until now,
46:02
Speaker 1: Shapiro said, of the bravado that rattled the world at
46:05
Speaker 1: the start of the Trump second term. It was effective,
46:08
Speaker 1: he said, because it drew on the awesome power and
46:11
Speaker 1: deep long stored up diplomatic capital of the United States reserves.
46:18
Speaker 1: He said that Trump has finally started to blow through.
46:22
Speaker 1: Officials are starting to notice that he's kind of a
46:24
Speaker 1: bully and is quite easy to scare. Shapiro said. Last
46:28
Speaker 1: year's Liberation Day tariffs were hollowed out within days by
46:32
Speaker 1: carveouts and delays. The steep levees he threatened against European
46:36
Speaker 1: allies over Greenland were withdrawn in Davos, Switzerland in January
46:41
Speaker 1: for a vague framework that Denmark never accepted and yielded
46:45
Speaker 1: no major change. China met his threat of one hundred
46:49
Speaker 1: percent tariffs by refusing to blink, then used its choke
46:52
Speaker 1: hold on rare earth minerals and a hault on US
46:55
Speaker 1: soybean purchases to force Washington into a climb down, A
46:59
Speaker 1: lesson in how standing tough often causes Trump to bend
47:03
Speaker 1: that other governments has also learned. Brazil's President Louise Inatio
47:08
Speaker 1: Lula da Silva ignored a fifty percent tariff designed to
47:12
Speaker 1: derail the prosecution of former president Air Bolsonaro, who was
47:17
Speaker 1: convicted of charges related to fomenting an armed coup and
47:21
Speaker 1: sentenced to twenty seven years. Anyway, nowhere is the erosion
47:25
Speaker 1: of Trump's bluster power starker than Iran, where the United
47:29
Speaker 1: States and Israel initiated a bombing campaign that killed the
47:32
Speaker 1: country's supreme leader and other top officials, but let the
47:36
Speaker 1: Islamic regime intact with a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz,
47:40
Speaker 1: a vital conduit for global energy supplies and other cargo.
47:45
Speaker 1: Trump issued a cascade of ultimatums demanding that Tehran reopened
47:50
Speaker 1: the strait, notably threatening to annihilate Iranian civilization if it
47:54
Speaker 1: refused the straight stage shut. Iran did not fold even
47:59
Speaker 1: under exacussion existential threat, and Trump quietly shifted his stated
48:03
Speaker 1: goals on regime change and on iran stockpile of enriched uranium,
48:09
Speaker 1: between threats then bombing, then backing off. What he's radiating
48:13
Speaker 1: to the Iranians is that he's desperate, said Ronald E. Newman,
48:17
Speaker 1: a career Foreign service officer and US ambassador to Afghanistan, Bahrain,
48:23
Speaker 1: and Algeria under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
48:29
Speaker 1: As experienced bargainers, that means you don't have to lower
48:32
Speaker 1: the price. Newman also put it less diplomatically the way
48:36
Speaker 1: Trump bargains. He said, I wouldn't give him money to
48:38
Speaker 1: go to the carpet bazaar. Trump's browbeating also failed to
48:43
Speaker 1: pull European countries into his Iran campaign. He threatened Spain
48:47
Speaker 1: with a total trade embargo after it refused assistance, leaned
48:51
Speaker 1: on Britain, France, and Germany to reimpose UN sanctions, and
48:55
Speaker 1: hinted he might not honor America's NATO obligations. But though
49:00
Speaker 1: those allies refused to get more deeply involved in the war,
49:03
Speaker 1: and some countries, namely Spain and Italy, have closed their
49:06
Speaker 1: bases or airspace to it. When Trump threatened to cut
49:10
Speaker 1: off trade with Spain, said one EU diplomat, Officials seemed
49:15
Speaker 1: more inclined to dismiss the comments as rhetorical bluster, with
49:19
Speaker 1: many having learned from experience that his outburst would fizzle
49:22
Speaker 1: if ignored. But this diplomat, who spoke on the condition
49:26
Speaker 1: of anonymity to discuss delicate relations, conceded that Trump's unpredictability
49:32
Speaker 1: made such calculations difficult. It can be tricky, the diplomat said,
49:36
Speaker 1: citing Trump's military operations against Iran. He doesn't always chicken out.
49:42
Speaker 1: To be sure, Trump has shown he is willing to
49:44
Speaker 1: pull the trigger to the surprise of his America first
49:47
Speaker 1: base that expected a retrenchment, not adventurism. He has deployed
49:53
Speaker 1: the U. S Military more aggressively abroad than any recent president,
49:57
Speaker 1: seizing Venezuela's Nicholas Maduro and January raid by Special Operations forces,
50:03
Speaker 1: bombing Tehran a month later, and ordering a dozen of
50:06
Speaker 1: lethal strikes on alleged drug boats across the Caribbean and Pacific.
50:11
Speaker 1: At home, he sent National Guard troops on patrol in Washington,
50:15
Speaker 1: d C. And his immigration crackdown has thrown American cities
50:19
Speaker 1: into turmoil, with masked federal agents sweeping workplaces and courthouses,
50:25
Speaker 1: raids that sometimes turn deadly and ignited protests. But even
50:29
Speaker 1: the willingness to use force has not brought the deference
50:33
Speaker 1: it once did. Increasingly, officials and politicians at home and
50:37
Speaker 1: abroad are willing to challenge Trump's threats or ignore them.
50:41
Speaker 1: Europe is noticeably less prone to panics, said Mujtaba Rahman,
50:46
Speaker 1: Managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group consultancy. European
50:51
Speaker 1: governments are increasingly distinguishing between Trump's rhetoric and the policies
50:56
Speaker 1: that ultimately emerge. The pattern reaches into the golf, where
51:00
Speaker 1: officials have grown inerd to Trump's style of deal making,
51:04
Speaker 1: annalysts said. Last month, Washington and Riod announced an agreement
51:09
Speaker 1: on Saudi Arabia's civilian nuclear program, only for Trump to
51:13
Speaker 1: post later on True Social that the deal was contingent
51:16
Speaker 1: on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords. Saudi officials found
51:21
Speaker 1: the claim surprising and annoying, given that they had already
51:24
Speaker 1: trumpeted the agreement across their own channels, said Andrew Lieber,
51:28
Speaker 1: a Middle East scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
51:32
Speaker 1: the Washington based policy Institute. At this point, they have
51:36
Speaker 1: doubt enough what Trump deals to know that such exasperating
51:39
Speaker 1: and inconsistent moves have become the norm. Leber said. For
51:43
Speaker 1: much of Trump's first year back, European capitals ran the
51:46
Speaker 1: same strategy of flattery and appeasement they believed had contained
51:50
Speaker 1: him before European Commission President Ursula von der Leyan flew
51:56
Speaker 1: to Trump's Scottish golf resort to settle a trade fight
51:58
Speaker 1: on his terms. Britain invited him for an unprecedented second
52:02
Speaker 1: state visit. Leaders are now still willing to flatter Trump,
52:07
Speaker 1: specially in private, but they are less willing to offer
52:10
Speaker 1: the concessions he wants. According to a European diplomat who
52:13
Speaker 1: has been involved directly in talks with the administration behind
52:17
Speaker 1: closed doors, they are still putting it on thick because
52:21
Speaker 1: they know at work, said the diplomat, who spoke on
52:24
Speaker 1: condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive interactions. This is a
52:28
Speaker 1: president who can consi and significantly soften his position in
52:32
Speaker 1: the course of a single meeting, but that doesn't mean
52:35
Speaker 1: you give in. That is true more than ever. Greenland
52:40
Speaker 1: was a turning point, the diplomat said, because Trump's threats
52:43
Speaker 1: evaporated against United European opposition. China too showed that pushing
52:48
Speaker 1: back could been the president, as did Brazil. Whereas Europe
52:52
Speaker 1: surrendered to trump initial trade barrage merely led to further
52:56
Speaker 1: demands from him. I think people are saying, well, we
53:00
Speaker 1: don't want to provoke him unnecessarily, but we can't really
53:03
Speaker 1: make him happy, said Newman, the former ambassador. Learning to
53:07
Speaker 1: mute Trump's threats won't necessarily make the rest of his
53:10
Speaker 1: term easier to navigate. Analysts said doing so could even
53:15
Speaker 1: make things less predictable if Republicans lose one or more
53:18
Speaker 1: of their majority majorities in Congress in the midterm elections,
53:23
Speaker 1: and Trump turns to more unilateral executive actions, it could
53:27
Speaker 1: be super dangerous. Shapiro said, Trump is not somebody who
53:31
Speaker 1: will go quietly into the night. He will rage about
53:34
Speaker 1: his loss of capacity, and he will look for other
53:37
Speaker 1: ways to take risks with American power. The next article,
53:42
Speaker 1: ICE begins outfitting Haitian immigrants with ankle monitors, attorneys says
53:48
Speaker 1: by arealists Hernandez ted Hessen and Lauren Kori Gurley, the
53:53
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security has begun summoning Haitian immigrants in
53:56
Speaker 1: Ohio to check in appointments with federal officers who are
54:00
Speaker 1: outfitting them with ankle monitors in what appears to be
54:03
Speaker 1: a new enforcement effort after the Supreme Court allowed the
54:06
Speaker 1: Trump administration to end their humanitarian protections. Gerlane Josev, executive
54:12
Speaker 1: director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, set about fifty Haitians
54:15
Speaker 1: with temporary protected status in Springfield, Ohio, were called into
54:19
Speaker 1: immigration and Customs enforcement offices on Friday. Local attorneys said
54:24
Speaker 1: the immigrants were arrested and then conditionally released with electronic
54:27
Speaker 1: monitoring devices. They were instructed not to travel anywhere outside
54:32
Speaker 1: of seventy five mile radius from their homes. A Trump
54:36
Speaker 1: administration official confirmed the effort to call Haitians with Temporary
54:40
Speaker 1: Protected status into ICE offices, give them ankle monitors, and
54:44
Speaker 1: release them. The official, who spoke on the condition of
54:47
Speaker 1: anonymity to discuss international ICE internal ICE operations, expected the
54:53
Speaker 1: check ins to be scheduled in waves. The U s
54:56
Speaker 1: Supreme Court ruled in June that the Trump administration could
54:59
Speaker 1: end temporary protections for about three hundred and fifty thousand
55:03
Speaker 1: Haitians despite ongoing political instability and gang violence in the
55:08
Speaker 1: Caribbean nation. DHS alerts employers last week that it had
55:13
Speaker 1: officially ended Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, triggering mass layoffs
55:18
Speaker 1: and confusion because a lower court that had blocked the
55:21
Speaker 1: administration's attempts to terminate the program has not yet lifted
55:25
Speaker 1: the order, keeping TPS benefits in effect. Congress created Temporary
55:30
Speaker 1: Protected Status in nineteen ninety to shield immigrants in the
55:33
Speaker 1: United States from being deported to countries engulfed in armed conflict,
55:38
Speaker 1: a natural disaster, or another extraordinary crisis, allowing them to
55:43
Speaker 1: work legally in the US for up to eighteen months.
55:46
Speaker 1: Applicants to the program cannot have serious criminal records, and
55:50
Speaker 1: they must pay fees and pass a background check. DHS
55:53
Speaker 1: can renew the protections, and it has multiple times for
55:57
Speaker 1: several countries. Advocates and immigrants attorneys said the new arrests
56:01
Speaker 1: in Ohio reflect ICE's attempt to more quietly carry out
56:05
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump's deportation campaign. Rather than large scale operations
56:10
Speaker 1: like the ones DHS conducted in Minneapolis and Chicago, the
56:14
Speaker 1: agency has been focusing on arrests that take place after
56:18
Speaker 1: traffic stops and ICE check ins. Arrests rose significantly in July.
56:26
Speaker 1: A DHS spokesperson said the agency does not discuss ongoing
56:30
Speaker 1: or future operations, but conducts enforcement daily. Temporary Protected Status
56:35
Speaker 1: is exactly that temporary. For too long, TPS has been
56:39
Speaker 1: allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program, despite
56:42
Speaker 1: Congress never intending it to be permit. DHS said in
56:46
Speaker 1: a statement, what we would say now is its closing time,
56:50
Speaker 1: which means you don't have to go home, but you
56:52
Speaker 1: can't stay here. Many of the Haitians outfitted with ankle
56:56
Speaker 1: monitors in recent days have ongoing asylum claims. No final
57:00
Speaker 1: order of deportation. Their attorneys said. Historically, the agency has
57:05
Speaker 1: deployed the warned devices on a case by case basis,
57:09
Speaker 1: but immigration attorney Carolyn Marx, who accompanied two Haitian clients
57:13
Speaker 1: to appointments with ICE on Sunday, said they are now
57:16
Speaker 1: being used more broadly. This concludes the reading of the
57:19
Speaker 1: Washington Post for today, August sixth, twenty twenty six. Your
57:25
Speaker 1: reader for today has been Teresa. If you have any questions, comments,
57:29
Speaker 1: or suggestions concerning this program, please feel free to call
57:33
Speaker 1: us at eight five nine four two two six three
57:36
Speaker 1: nine zero. Thank you for listening, and now please stay
57:39
Speaker 1: tuned for continued programming on RADIOI