Latest / Washington Post / 7.2.26
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to the reading of Today's Washington Post for Thursday,
- 0:06Speaker 1: the second of July of twenty twenty six. Your reader
- 0:11Speaker 1: is Alice Dainer, with a reminder that RADIOI is for
- 0:16Speaker 1: those blinder with difficulties in reading or holding printed material.
- 0:22Speaker 1: And I will start with today's front page. And so
- 0:27Speaker 1: the whole front page, except for one column at the top,
- 0:32Speaker 1: is taken up by a picture of a jubilan USA team.
- 0:37Speaker 1: It's entitled World Cup Fever and a Victory Driven by Grit,
- 0:44Speaker 1: and it shows three soccer players that were on the
- 0:48Speaker 1: pitch with others absolutely running up to congratulate them. Mark
- 0:54Speaker 1: Malick Tilman, number twelve, celebrates with his US teammates after
- 0:59Speaker 1: score on a free kick. Wednesday, the United States topped
- 1:05Speaker 1: Bosnia Herzegovina too Nothing in Santa Clara, California, accomplishing something
- 1:11Speaker 1: the US men had not done in twenty four years,
- 1:15Speaker 1: win a World Cup knockout game, extending their run. Number
- 1:21Speaker 1: ten is Mark Tillman. There was number two and number seventeen,
- 1:27Speaker 1: and I believe it was number seventeen that was given
- 1:32Speaker 1: a red card and total leave the game at the
- 1:39Speaker 1: end of the second half. Towards the second half, given
- 1:42Speaker 1: a red card. That's the story on B four, I
- 1:45Speaker 1: don't know how to get to be four. To the
- 1:48Speaker 1: right of that, a giant leap in Trump's riches no
- 1:55Speaker 1: modern president in scale fueled by crypto income sours to
- 2:01Speaker 1: two point two billion dollars by Clara Ence Morris and
- 2:07Speaker 1: Dan Diamond. Below the picture of the soccer team on
- 2:12Speaker 1: the left. ICE's arrest of a nun sparks bipartisan outcry.
- 2:21Speaker 1: Deportation drive has riled border areas that supported Trump in
- 2:27Speaker 1: twenty twenty four by Arelis R. Hernandez out of San Antonio.
- 2:35Speaker 1: To its right, July fourth, fireworks are likely to cause
- 2:40Speaker 1: hazardous air pollution. Files revealed by Jake Spring and its
- 2:46Speaker 1: internal modeling shows risk around the National Mall. And below
- 2:52Speaker 1: the article on the Trump billionaire crypto stuff ren ensues
- 2:58Speaker 1: DOJ in preemptive strategy. X CIA director signals intent to
- 3:06Speaker 1: claim vindictive prosecution if indicted by Jeremy Roebuck. Below the
- 3:14Speaker 1: Ice arrest on the left side of the front page.
- 3:17Speaker 1: Ruling on sports caps year of setbacks for trans advocates.
- 3:25Speaker 1: Losses fuel questions of a wisdom of strategy to pursue
- 3:29Speaker 1: change in courts by Julian Mark. And then there is
- 3:33Speaker 1: a picture and it is almost just Sepia colors. It's
- 3:39Speaker 1: black figures, but the sky and the clouds are shone
- 3:45Speaker 1: with the sun coming up, and you see colors of orange,
- 3:50Speaker 1: e and yellows, and the clouds of black blue with
- 3:57Speaker 1: blue sky in the background, but around the sun tote yellow.
- 4:01Speaker 1: And you see people jogging along the Potomac River on Wednesday,
- 4:07Speaker 1: as the sun rises near the Washington Monument, a sprawling
- 4:12Speaker 1: area of hot air is moving eastward and will sit
- 4:17Speaker 1: squarely over the mid Atlantic, which is what we are
- 4:21Speaker 1: getting ready to feel. And it's entitled July Sun Ready
- 4:26Speaker 1: to unleash. At first article, ICE's arrest of none heading
- 4:34Speaker 1: to church fuels bipartisan backlash in South Texas. The president's
- 4:41Speaker 1: deportation drive has riled border areas that supported him in
- 4:46Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. And a GOP congresswoman join Democrats calling
- 4:52Speaker 1: for the sister's release. And here's a picture of sister
- 4:57Speaker 1: Letitia Letty ub by Up, a Catholic nun from Nigeria
- 5:03Speaker 1: who was arrested by Immigration and Customs enforcement on her
- 5:07Speaker 1: way to Mass this week. And she has her beads
- 5:12Speaker 1: hooked her her belt on the side going down a
- 5:16Speaker 1: row black beads. She has her cross on. She's in
- 5:20Speaker 1: white completely, her habit is white, and she has her
- 5:26Speaker 1: headdresses in white wrapped around. She's rather pretty, actually well
- 5:30Speaker 1: she is pretty with a very soft smile. And in
- 5:34Speaker 1: the background is an area I believe sort of by
- 5:38Speaker 1: the church by Aurelis R. Hernandez out of San Antonio.
- 5:45Speaker 1: Sister Letitia Letty Ubaiah was walking to church Sunday Mass
- 5:52Speaker 1: to Sunday Mass in McAllen, Texas, when federal immigration officer
- 5:56Speaker 1: stopped her, confiscated her rosary, and put her in handcuffs.
- 6:03Speaker 1: The Catholic none from Nigeria, was released hours later after
- 6:07Speaker 1: Democratic and Republican lawmakers intervened the Department of Homeland Security
- 6:13Speaker 1: did not respond to requests for comment about her immigration status,
- 6:18Speaker 1: and Diocesan Oak Visuals would not give details other than
- 6:22Speaker 1: to say she is a nurse who entered the country legally.
- 6:28Speaker 1: Ubbah's arrest was the latest to trigger anga from both
- 6:33Speaker 1: sides of the political island South Texas, highlighting how Hispanics
- 6:38Speaker 1: in a region that supported Donald Trump in the twenty
- 6:40Speaker 1: twenty four elections are growing weary of his administration's deportation campaign.
- 6:48Speaker 1: An unlikely bipartisan consensus has emerged in Texas's Rio Grande
- 6:53Speaker 1: Valley to protest several recent immigration arrests, including those of
- 6:59Speaker 1: three teammates, age Mariachi musicians, numerous construction workers, and cases
- 7:06Speaker 1: involving children and people who have been granted protection from
- 7:10Speaker 1: deportation represented. Demonica de la Cruz, a Republican who flipped
- 7:16Speaker 1: her host district that includes the Texas border in twenty
- 7:19Speaker 1: twenty two, has joined Democrats in the predominantly Mexican American
- 7:25Speaker 1: region in calling for the release of immigrants with deep
- 7:29Speaker 1: ties to their local communities and no criminal record. As
- 7:35Speaker 1: I have repeatedly set our immigration enforcement should target violent criminals.
- 7:43Speaker 1: A Catholic nun on her way to church is not
- 7:46Speaker 1: a threat to our community, Dela Cruz wrote on Facebook.
- 7:51Speaker 1: Trump wrote twelve of fourteen Texas border counties one twelve
- 7:57Speaker 1: of fourteen Texas border counties that had long been dominated
- 8:02Speaker 1: by Democrats in the last presidential election, the right would
- 8:06Speaker 1: shift was the result of widespad discontent over how the
- 8:10Speaker 1: Biden administration handle immigration and inflation. But lawmakers and political
- 8:17Speaker 1: analysts a border constituents hold nuanced views of the deportation
- 8:22Speaker 1: campaign is testing. On the one hand, they support deporting
- 8:27Speaker 1: criminals and enhancing border security, but they also say hard
- 8:32Speaker 1: working immigrants with no criminal records should be given a chance,
- 8:36Speaker 1: and they are upset by images of people like Ubaiah
- 8:40Speaker 1: being detained while going about their daily lives. If the
- 8:46Speaker 1: administration said they close the border and are deporting criminals
- 8:50Speaker 1: and stopped there, it would have been welcome news, said
- 8:54Speaker 1: Representative Henry Sellia, Democrat of Texas. But they didn't stop there.
- 9:01Speaker 1: They started going after people on the streets, and that
- 9:04Speaker 1: part the overreach by ICE is turning Hispanics back to
- 9:09Speaker 1: other candidates to Democrats honestly, the Diocese of Brownsville said.
- 9:15Speaker 1: Ubaya is part of the Daughters of the Mary, Mother
- 9:19Speaker 1: of Mercy congregation, headquartered in Nigeria, and has worked more
- 9:24Speaker 1: than a decade at local Texas hospitals. Ubaya has not
- 9:29Speaker 1: publicly addressed her arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and
- 9:34Speaker 1: did not respond to her request for comment. Ice did
- 9:39Speaker 1: not respond to her request for comment on why she
- 9:42Speaker 1: was dissained. Richard Cortez, a Democrat who is the elected
- 9:47Speaker 1: judge or administrator of Heldalgo County is a parishioner at
- 9:54Speaker 1: a Lady of Sorrows, the church said Ubaya had been
- 9:57Speaker 1: walking to when she was arrested. He said he contacted
- 10:02Speaker 1: representatives for de La Cruz and Cellar after a deacon
- 10:07Speaker 1: texted him to let him know that a nun had
- 10:09Speaker 1: been arrested. The lawmakers then sent frenzied phone calls and
- 10:14Speaker 1: text messages to Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen and
- 10:19Speaker 1: Tom Homan. The administration's borders are where is she? Seyl recalled,
- 10:26Speaker 1: texting officials in Washington, demanding her swift relief. The veteran lawmaker,
- 10:31Speaker 1: who sits on the House Appropriations Committee said Mullen and
- 10:35Speaker 1: Homan reassured him Uba would be home by nightfall that
- 10:39Speaker 1: same day. Dela Cruz wrote on Facebook on Sunday that
- 10:44Speaker 1: she had elevated this to the highest levels the Congress
- 10:49Speaker 1: rooman is up for reelection, has been walking a careful
- 10:52Speaker 1: line in support of the Trump administration while also advocating
- 10:57Speaker 1: for specific immigrants caught up in the deepertation campaign. In
- 11:02Speaker 1: a statement to the Washington Post, she said there is
- 11:05Speaker 1: a misconception that Hispanic families want open voters. It simply
- 11:12Speaker 1: isn't true. We want a strong, secure border, an enforcement
- 11:16Speaker 1: that prioritizes violent criminals and real threats to our neighborshoods,
- 11:21Speaker 1: she said. Local activists and cultural leaders who are also
- 11:25Speaker 1: involved and signed in the alarm, including Tijuano's singer Bobby Pulito,
- 11:32Speaker 1: a Democrat challenging Dela Cruise in the upcoming election. It's
- 11:37Speaker 1: an aggression coming from the top, and they're not targeting
- 11:41Speaker 1: bad people. Polito said Trump voters friends of mine are
- 11:45Speaker 1: very upset by this. Sister Norma Pimentel, a well known
- 11:51Speaker 1: figure in the region, drove to the l Valley Detention
- 11:54Speaker 1: Center in Raymondville, Texas, late Sunday to embrace a tearful
- 12:00Speaker 1: Ubaya as she exited the metal gates. The GOP is
- 12:05Speaker 1: optimistic that redistricting and a slate of promising new candidates
- 12:10Speaker 1: will allow it to hold and expand the party's reaching
- 12:13Speaker 1: the borderlands, but Republicans will have to strike a more
- 12:17Speaker 1: nuanced tone than they may in other parts of the country.
- 12:21Speaker 1: On immigration, said political scientist Albaro Carral of the University
- 12:26Speaker 1: of Texas In the Rio Grande Valley. She is arguing
- 12:32Speaker 1: for the compassionate release for some but not others. Carral
- 12:36Speaker 1: said of de la Cruse, it puts her in a
- 12:40Speaker 1: complicated place. The folks that elected her are like her
- 12:46Speaker 1: likely cheered some of this. On a next article, Trump's
- 12:52Speaker 1: wealth grew on a scale without modern presidential precedent. In
- 12:58Speaker 1: his first term, most of the president's money came from
- 13:01Speaker 1: real estate. Now more of his income comes from cryptocurrency
- 13:07Speaker 1: and related adventures his administration regulates. And there's a picture
- 13:12Speaker 1: of him with his arms spread out in his usual
- 13:15Speaker 1: stance of his fingers spread out on both sides of him.
- 13:19Speaker 1: He is speaking with reporters before boarding the new Air
- 13:23Speaker 1: Force One on Wednesday. The Air Force One is the
- 13:27Speaker 1: gift from Qatar, which was supposedly a gift to the
- 13:32Speaker 1: United States, but he is keeping it himself for his
- 13:37Speaker 1: president to a library. Later, Clara Encemors and Dan Diamond
- 13:42Speaker 1: wrote the article No past president has seen financial gains
- 13:48Speaker 1: in office like those reported by President Donald Trump this week,
- 13:52Speaker 1: not even Trump. The president's income last year soar to
- 13:57Speaker 1: more than two point two billion dollars, fueled by cryptocurrency
- 14:02Speaker 1: holdings and related adventures, according to his latest financial disclosure forms.
- 14:08Speaker 1: The figures represent a vast expansion over his first term,
- 14:13Speaker 1: when Trump reported still significant income gains, but on a
- 14:17Speaker 1: smaller scale. Trump reported making at least four hundred and
- 14:22Speaker 1: forty million dollars in twenty nineteen, driven primarily by his
- 14:27Speaker 1: real estate businesses, according to financial disclosures released the following year.
- 14:34Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four, before he retook office, he reported
- 14:38Speaker 1: making over six hundred million dollars. Trump's surge in income
- 14:44Speaker 1: contradicts a frequent claim by his aide that his time
- 14:47Speaker 1: in office has worsened his financial situation. Press Secretary Caroline
- 14:54Speaker 1: Leavitt told reporters last year, this is a president who
- 14:58Speaker 1: is actually law lost money for being president of the
- 15:02Speaker 1: United States. On Wednesday, Trump claimed that his income has
- 15:08Speaker 1: surged because of improved conditions in financial markets. You'll know
- 15:13Speaker 1: why I'm profiting because the stock market's going up, Trump
- 15:18Speaker 1: told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One,
- 15:23Speaker 1: encouraging other Americans to thank him for boosting the value
- 15:27Speaker 1: of their retirement savings. But Trump's stockholdings are just a
- 15:32Speaker 1: small piece of his record gains as president. In his
- 15:36Speaker 1: second term, according to the financial disclosures, Trump's reported income
- 15:42Speaker 1: increased by more than one point six billion dollars last year,
- 15:47Speaker 1: with most of that coming from his vast holdings and
- 15:49Speaker 1: cryptocurrency and related adventures, even as his administration relaxed rules
- 15:56Speaker 1: on crypto markets. The income from crypto currency and related
- 16:01Speaker 1: adventures underscores how thoroughly Trump's financial picture has changed since
- 16:06Speaker 1: his first term. Back then, the longtime Real estate Magnet
- 16:11Speaker 1: reported that much of his income came from his hotels,
- 16:14Speaker 1: golf courses, and other properties. Trump reported at least making
- 16:19Speaker 1: at least three hundred and eighty nine million dollars in
- 16:22Speaker 1: twenty nineteen from his real estate businesses. Trump National Dorral,
- 16:28Speaker 1: one of his golf courses in Florida, brought in seventy
- 16:31Speaker 1: seven million that year, and his mari A Lago estate
- 16:35Speaker 1: brought in twenty one million. The profits from his real
- 16:39Speaker 1: estate holdings have generally grown during his second term. Trump
- 16:45Speaker 1: made one hundred and twenty two million from Trump National
- 16:48Speaker 1: Dourral last year and seventy seven million from mari A Lago.
- 16:53Speaker 1: As president, Trump has extolled businesses that have used his properties,
- 16:58Speaker 1: such as visiting Trump National Death Rl earlier this year
- 17:01Speaker 1: to celebrate the return of the PGA Tour after golf's
- 17:06Speaker 1: biggest circuit shunned the costs for a decade, but that
- 17:10Speaker 1: real estate income now makes up a much smaller share
- 17:13Speaker 1: of Trump's income. The president launched a crypto company, World
- 17:19Speaker 1: Liberty Financial, as he ran for president in twenty twenty four.
- 17:24Speaker 1: The company is now run by his family members and
- 17:27Speaker 1: sold a large stake to investors tie to the United
- 17:30Speaker 1: Arab Emirates just days before Trump's inauguration last year. Trump
- 17:36Speaker 1: has also been involved in other ventures, such as the
- 17:41Speaker 1: dollar sign Trump Coin, a meme coin bearing his name.
- 17:47Speaker 1: Royalties from coin sales provided one of his largest income
- 17:52Speaker 1: sources in twenty twenty five, the financial disclosure form show
- 17:57Speaker 1: netting him six hundred and twenty five million dollars in
- 18:04Speaker 1: his first term. His real estate holding sparked investigations by
- 18:09Speaker 1: Democrats into whether Trump had used his assets, especially his hotels,
- 18:15Speaker 1: to wrongly profit from his office. His cryptocurrency ventures pose
- 18:20Speaker 1: an even more serious set of potential conflicts. Trump's critics
- 18:25Speaker 1: say he is a little aside on this one. Trump
- 18:30Speaker 1: makes more money on crypto real estate and novelty products,
- 18:35Speaker 1: and his income source there is World Liberty Financial, which
- 18:39Speaker 1: is basically crypto. Five hundred and ninety two million in
- 18:43Speaker 1: twenty five twenty twenty five. Other cryptocurrency Crypto eight hundred
- 18:49Speaker 1: and forty three million in twenty twenty five, Maralago real
- 18:54Speaker 1: estate seventy seven million in twenty five, Trump Durral National
- 19:01Speaker 1: real Estate one hundred and twenty two million in twenty
- 19:04Speaker 1: twenty five, Other real estate three hundred and eighty four
- 19:10Speaker 1: million in twenty twenty five. Forget this, Trump Guitars, Watchers, Sneakers,
- 19:16Speaker 1: and Fragrance five million in twenty twenty five, and Trump
- 19:23Speaker 1: branded Bible two hundred and eight thousand in twenty twenty five.
- 19:32Speaker 1: Since he retook office, he's making over a billion dollars
- 19:36Speaker 1: a year off of crypto will at the same time,
- 19:39Speaker 1: his administration is writing the rules of the road for
- 19:42Speaker 1: how crypto will be regulated. Sid Lee Reiners, a Duke
- 19:47Speaker 1: University lecturer who warned earlier this year about Trump's potential
- 19:51Speaker 1: financial rewards from his cryptocurrency policies. Not only is this
- 19:58Speaker 1: an unprecedented level of self dealing and self enrichment, the
- 20:03Speaker 1: scale is really hard to wrap your head around, Reiner said.
- 20:08Speaker 1: Under Trump, the Securities and Exchange Commission has rejected the
- 20:12Speaker 1: idea of regulating mean coins as securities. A priority for
- 20:16Speaker 1: the cryptocurrency industry. Trump also issued executive order in his
- 20:22Speaker 1: first week in office to ease regulation of the cryptocurrency industry. Hiners,
- 20:29Speaker 1: who has worked as a bank examiner at the Federal
- 20:32Speaker 1: Reserve Bank of New York, said he believes the administration's
- 20:36Speaker 1: loose regulation of cryptocurrency will eventually harm average Americans. In
- 20:42Speaker 1: my opinion, that will eventually lead to some type of
- 20:46Speaker 1: financial stability event similar to two thousand and eight, in
- 20:50Speaker 1: which case we would all be impacted, he said. Senator
- 20:55Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, a frequent critic of the
- 21:00Speaker 1: president's policies, called Tuesday night for legislation that would prevent
- 21:05Speaker 1: the president, other political leaders, and their family members from
- 21:09Speaker 1: profiting off the crypto industry. Others said that Trump, who
- 21:15Speaker 1: as president in his second term, has endorsed products, solicited
- 21:20Speaker 1: donations for his pet construction projects, and took possession of
- 21:25Speaker 1: a Boeing jet gifted back tar that he plans to
- 21:28Speaker 1: put in his presidential library, has used the Oval Office
- 21:32Speaker 1: to benefit in ways they never thought possible. Its corruption
- 21:37Speaker 1: on a scale that, to be honest, has few rivals
- 21:40Speaker 1: in world history, said Norm Eisen, who served as White
- 21:44Speaker 1: House ethics are under President Barack Obama. Eisen added, that's
- 21:50Speaker 1: because you never had the combination of a president willing
- 21:54Speaker 1: to fully monetize the oval office, combined with the world
- 21:58Speaker 1: full of countries and others special interest who are willing
- 22:02Speaker 1: to fork over vast sums. The White House and Trump
- 22:07Speaker 1: have defended his conduct, with officials saying that the president
- 22:10Speaker 1: has no conflicts of interest. Neither the President nor his
- 22:15Speaker 1: family has ever engaged or will ever engage in conflicts
- 22:19Speaker 1: of interest, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in his statement,
- 22:24Speaker 1: adding that any suggestion otherwise has a tired, false narrative.
- 22:30Speaker 1: The president also reported a wide array of other sources
- 22:34Speaker 1: of income, including more than two hundred thousand from Trump
- 22:37Speaker 1: endorsed bibles, nearly six hundred thousand from a book collecting
- 22:42Speaker 1: letters written to Trump, and at least four point seven
- 22:45Speaker 1: million related to trump abandoned watches that Eisen said would
- 22:50Speaker 1: have exceeded any past president single year gains while in office,
- 22:56Speaker 1: even if you took the bottom portion of the financial
- 22:59Speaker 1: disclosure as it still would be by far the greatest
- 23:03Speaker 1: exploitation for personal gain of the American presidency in our history.
- 23:08Speaker 1: Eisen wrote, President Joe Biden, for example, reported making tens
- 23:13Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars, largely from interest payments on bank accounts.
- 23:18Speaker 1: According to his financial disclosure for twenty twenty three, which
- 23:22Speaker 1: was released during his final year in office, Trump reported
- 23:26Speaker 1: assets of at least two point four billion last year,
- 23:30Speaker 1: up from at least one point four billion in twenty
- 23:33Speaker 1: nineteen and at least one point six billion in twenty
- 23:36Speaker 1: twenty four. His assets are almost certainly worth more, since
- 23:41Speaker 1: the federal disclosure forms require only that asset values be
- 23:47Speaker 1: reported in ranges that top out at over fifty million dollars,
- 23:52Speaker 1: which leaves it for value of the president's holdings unclear.
- 23:57Speaker 1: Past presidents profited less during their time in office because
- 24:01Speaker 1: of ethical norms, federal laws, and simple propriety. Expert said,
- 24:08Speaker 1: when Barack Obama was president during the Great Recession and
- 24:11Speaker 1: regulating the banks, I wouldn't even let him refinance his
- 24:15Speaker 1: modest family home in Chicago, which would have been a
- 24:18Speaker 1: matter of a few hundred dollars a month in lowered
- 24:21Speaker 1: interest payments because he was regulating the banks. Eisen said.
- 24:28Speaker 1: Presidents including George W. Bush and Bill Clinton divested some
- 24:32Speaker 1: assets of put them into blind trust before becoming president,
- 24:37Speaker 1: which Trump has not done. Trump also has not released
- 24:40Speaker 1: his tax forms, unlike his presdecessors going back several decades.
- 24:46Speaker 1: Speaking as he prepared to board Air Force One, Trump
- 24:50Speaker 1: told reporters on Wednesday that he didn't speak to peoples
- 24:53Speaker 1: managing his money as he did so two of his sons,
- 24:58Speaker 1: Eric and Donald Trump Junior behind him. Trump's children are
- 25:02Speaker 1: helping manage his finances. The White House said, well, go
- 25:09Speaker 1: on to forma CIA director John Brennan sues over Justice
- 25:16Speaker 1: Department investigation. Brennan signals his intent to claim vindictive prosecution
- 25:24Speaker 1: if he is indicted. There's a picture of him testifying
- 25:30Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill in twenty sixteen. He has on a
- 25:35Speaker 1: dark blue suit with a light blue shirt and a
- 25:37Speaker 1: maroon colored tie, and he's looking up at the congressman
- 25:45Speaker 1: in the picture by Jeremy Roebuck, facing a steady drum
- 25:50Speaker 1: beat of signs that the Justice Department could soon seek
- 25:54Speaker 1: to indict him. Former CIA director John Brennan took the
- 25:58Speaker 1: unusual step of asking a federal court to intervene before
- 26:04Speaker 1: any charges against him had been filed. In a lawsuit
- 26:08Speaker 1: filed in Washington, Brennan's attorneys asked a judge to order
- 26:12Speaker 1: top officials at the Justice Department to preserve all records
- 26:17Speaker 1: related to the investigation of the Obama era official who
- 26:22Speaker 1: oversaw intelligence gathering on potential ties between Russia and President
- 26:28Speaker 1: Donald Trump's twenty sixteen campaign. The defense lawyers said they
- 26:34Speaker 1: intend to use those files as part of an argument
- 26:38Speaker 1: that any effort to prosecute Brennan stems from an unlawful
- 26:42Speaker 1: and vindictive push by the Trump administration to seek vengeance
- 26:47Speaker 1: against longtime critics. Kenneth l Win Wainstein, an attorney for Brennan, wrote,
- 26:58Speaker 1: this administration has adopted a policy of using criminal process
- 27:03Speaker 1: and prosecution to punish the president's perceived adversaries. It is
- 27:08Speaker 1: against this backdrop that the former director of the Central
- 27:12Speaker 1: Intelligence Agency, John O'Brennan, is being vindictively singled for investigation
- 27:19Speaker 1: and prosecution. A Justice Department spokesperson said Wednesday that the
- 27:24Speaker 1: department could not comment on the existence of any investigation,
- 27:29Speaker 1: but added in a statement, it is certainly rich that
- 27:33Speaker 1: John Brennan is accusing anyone of a retribution campaign. Other
- 27:40Speaker 1: top Department officials, including Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, have
- 27:45Speaker 1: made no secret in recent months that they have Brennan
- 27:48Speaker 1: in their sites. I'm not giving away state secrets, Blanche
- 27:53Speaker 1: joke during a recent appearance on Sean Hannity's podcast in
- 27:58Speaker 1: which he discussed the ongoing investmentstigation. Four months, a team
- 28:03Speaker 1: of lawyers under the US Attorney in Miami have summoned
- 28:07Speaker 1: former intelligence officials for interviews and issued a flurry of
- 28:11Speaker 1: subpoenas as part of a broad conspiracy investigation, the largest
- 28:16Speaker 1: and most legally complicated effort the Justice Department has launched
- 28:21Speaker 1: in its s bid to pursue trump perceived political enemies.
- 28:26Speaker 1: The theory, as Justice Department officials have described it, is
- 28:31Speaker 1: that Brennan and of the government officials violated Trump's civil
- 28:35Speaker 1: rights in a years long deep state conspiracy stretching back
- 28:41Speaker 1: to President Barack Obama's time in office. These those efforts
- 28:46Speaker 1: investigators contend include the FBI and Intelligence community investigations of
- 28:52Speaker 1: potential ties between Russia and Trump's twenty sixteen campaign, as
- 28:57Speaker 1: well as the push under Special count so Jack Smith
- 29:01Speaker 1: to prosecute Trump after his first term for allegedly mishandling
- 29:06Speaker 1: classified documents and attempting to overturn the twenty twenty presidential election.
- 29:13Speaker 1: Prosecutors have also been examining testimony Brennan gave to Congress
- 29:18Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three about intelligence reports that it concluded
- 29:22Speaker 1: Russia was attempting to assist Trump's campaign. In twenty sixteen,
- 29:27Speaker 1: Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, chairman of the host
- 29:31Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee, referred Brennan to the Justice Department for potential
- 29:36Speaker 1: prosecution on charges that he lied during that testimony. Brennan
- 29:42Speaker 1: has denied any wrongdoing, and through his attorneys, repeatedly characterized
- 29:47Speaker 1: the efforts to prosecute him as an improper attempt at
- 29:51Speaker 1: harassment and intimidation by the Trump administration. In their lawsuit Wednesday,
- 29:57Speaker 1: Brennan's lawyers acknowledged the unusual nature of their request, which
- 30:02Speaker 1: comes before there is even a case filed against Brennan
- 30:06Speaker 1: in court, but they maintained their early action was justified,
- 30:11Speaker 1: saying the probes targeting Brennan are anything but normal, citing
- 30:16Speaker 1: examples of other investigations, including those targeting former Federal Reserve
- 30:22Speaker 1: Chair Jerome H. Powell and Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz, Democrat,
- 30:27Speaker 1: in which courts have recently ruled that the Justice Department
- 30:31Speaker 1: strayed from standard legal norms. They argue that federal prosecutors
- 30:36Speaker 1: could no longer be trusted to adhere to the law.
- 30:41Speaker 1: In light of this Justice Department's highly irregular conduct, courts
- 30:46Speaker 1: now recognize that it no longer deserves the presumption of
- 30:50Speaker 1: regularity in certain categories of cases, and in particular those
- 30:55Speaker 1: against the presidents perceived adversaries, the attorneys wrote. They described
- 31:01Speaker 1: a series of what they characterized as troubling signs about
- 31:05Speaker 1: how the Brenan investigation has unfolded. The Justice Department pressed
- 31:11Speaker 1: several US attorney's officers, including in Philadelphia and Virginia, to
- 31:16Speaker 1: investigate Brennan, before the top federal prosecutors in Miami, US
- 31:21Speaker 1: Attorney Jason reading Quinnes, agreed to take on the case
- 31:26Speaker 1: last year, Brennan's lawyers said. Then in April, the career
- 31:32Speaker 1: attorney who had been overseeing the probe, Mariah Mededis, a
- 31:36Speaker 1: veteran national security prosecutor, stepped aside after expressing discomfort with
- 31:42Speaker 1: its direction. Medetas has since been replaced by Joseph Genova
- 31:49Speaker 1: di Genova, a former Trump campaign lawyer and conservative pundit
- 31:55Speaker 1: prior to his current role with the Justice Department. Di Genova,
- 31:59Speaker 1: who served as US attorney for d C during the
- 32:02Speaker 1: Reagan administration, had called for Brennan's prosecution, describing him as
- 32:08Speaker 1: evil and a trader, and accused the CIA of manufacturing
- 32:13Speaker 1: intelligence around Russia to stop Trump from winning. In twenty sixteen,
- 32:18Speaker 1: in a recent interview on Forma, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani's podcast,
- 32:25Speaker 1: Jiddunova claimed that Trump's decision to fire Forma Attorney General
- 32:30Speaker 1: Pam Bondi was at least in part tied to a
- 32:33Speaker 1: lack of progress on the Brennan investigation. The president was
- 32:38Speaker 1: ripping mad about the fact that there was no progress
- 32:42Speaker 1: on the law fair investigation in Miami. Did Genova said
- 32:47Speaker 1: he was appointed to oversee the case two weeks later.
- 32:51Speaker 1: So far, prosecutors tied to the case have issued subpoenas
- 32:54Speaker 1: to Brennan, as well as other intelligence officials from the
- 32:57Speaker 1: Obama era, including i'm A Director of National Intelligence, James R.
- 33:03Speaker 1: Clapper junior, former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, ex Bureau Attorney
- 33:09Speaker 1: Lisa Page, and Peter Strozik, a former FBI counter intelligence
- 33:15Speaker 1: agent who helped lead the Russia probe. Several people who
- 33:20Speaker 1: worked with Brennan were also summoned to testify before grand
- 33:23Speaker 1: jury in Washington, only for prosecutors to abruptly withdraw those
- 33:28Speaker 1: requests in April, saying they intended instead to follow up
- 33:32Speaker 1: with voluntary interviews of those potential witnesses. Last year, Brennan's
- 33:40Speaker 1: attorneys raised concerns to Cecilia M. Altonaga, the chief federal
- 33:46Speaker 1: judge for the Southern District of Florida, over what they
- 33:49Speaker 1: described as a Justice Department effort to steer oversight of
- 33:54Speaker 1: the grand jury investigation toward a federal favorable judge. Prosecutors
- 34:00Speaker 1: overseeing the case have set up camp in Fort Pierce,
- 34:04Speaker 1: an outpost in that judicial district where the Court of
- 34:08Speaker 1: Trump appointee US District Judge Aleenim Cannon is based. Cannon
- 34:14Speaker 1: became a conservative favorite after her twenty twenty four decision
- 34:18Speaker 1: to dismiss the federal case against Trump from mishandling classified documents.
- 34:24Speaker 1: Before that, she issued a number of controversial rulings in
- 34:28Speaker 1: the runner up to a potential trial that redeemed favorable
- 34:32Speaker 1: to the then former president. It remains unclear what, if
- 34:37Speaker 1: any steps Altonaga took in response to the concerns raised
- 34:41Speaker 1: by Brennan's defense. Government conduct in this case makes it
- 34:48Speaker 1: abundantly clear that the driving force behind the investigations targeting
- 34:54Speaker 1: Director Brennan is the President's obsession with punishing him for
- 34:58Speaker 1: his lawful conduct is Director and for his constitutionally protected
- 35:03Speaker 1: criticism of the President and the president's policies. Brennan's attorneys
- 35:09Speaker 1: wrote in their lawsuit Wednesday, adding that dot dot dot
- 35:15Speaker 1: is why Director Brennan will have an extremely strong basis
- 35:19Speaker 1: to challenge those charges as the product of vindictive and
- 35:24Speaker 1: selective prosecution. Efforts to seek the dismissal of criminal charges
- 35:31Speaker 1: based on a defense claim of vindictive prosecution are rarely
- 35:36Speaker 1: successful because the defendant must prove that they would not
- 35:40Speaker 1: have been charged but for improper motives on the part
- 35:44Speaker 1: of government attorneys. However, during Trump's second term, it has
- 35:49Speaker 1: become a go to defense strategy for high profile targets
- 35:53Speaker 1: of Justice Department investigations. Former FBI Director James B. Comy,
- 36:00Speaker 1: New York Attorney General Letitia James, US Representative Larmonica Macava,
- 36:06Speaker 1: Democrat of New Jersey, and the voting machine company's smartmedic
- 36:11Speaker 1: have all raised similar claims in criminal cases filed against them.
- 36:16Speaker 1: Last month, a federal judge in Tennessee threw out a
- 36:20Speaker 1: human smuggling case filed against Kilmar Abrago Garcia, the undocumented
- 36:26Speaker 1: Maryland demand whom the Trump administration illegally deported El Savador
- 36:31Speaker 1: last year. The judge found that prosecutors only charged to
- 36:36Speaker 1: Brago to punish him for successfully challenging his unlawful removal
- 36:41Speaker 1: in court. Brennan's lawsuit names his defendants Trump Blanche, FBI
- 36:47Speaker 1: director Cash Battel, and the prosecutors in Florida who have
- 36:52Speaker 1: been overseeing the probe of Brennan and other government officials.
- 36:56Speaker 1: It asked the court to order those officials to preserve
- 37:00Speaker 1: all status reports, witness statements, emails, memorandums, and other funds.
- 37:07Speaker 1: The case has been assigned to US District Judge GM Cobb,
- 37:13Speaker 1: an appointee of former President Joe Biden, and with the
- 37:19Speaker 1: fourth just two days away, here is an exclusive to
- 37:23Speaker 1: The Washington Post. Fireworks on Mall likely to cause hazardous
- 37:29Speaker 1: air pollution document show. Internal National Park Service modeling for
- 37:36Speaker 1: the July fourth show predicts dangerous pollution around the mall
- 37:40Speaker 1: and very unhealthy conditions across Central DC. And there is
- 37:46Speaker 1: a gate chainling fence where the fireworks are being set
- 37:53Speaker 1: up near the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Tuesday. So
- 37:58Speaker 1: you see people and fireworks on steps in all happening
- 38:03Speaker 1: right there is danger explosives with the bomb and looking
- 38:07Speaker 1: like a firework coming out of the bomb. Authorized personnel
- 38:11Speaker 1: only by Jake Spring. Fireworks for this year's July fourth
- 38:17Speaker 1: celebration are expected to cause hazardous levels of pollution around
- 38:22Speaker 1: the National Mall and very unhealthy conditions in Central DC,
- 38:28Speaker 1: according to internal National Park Service documents reviewed by The
- 38:32Speaker 1: Washington Post. The show, billed by the Trump administration as
- 38:36Speaker 1: the largest pyrotechnic display in history, will include some eight
- 38:41Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand fireworks in a roughly forty minute
- 38:45Speaker 1: show expected to start at ten thirty PM or eleven PM,
- 38:50Speaker 1: according to organizers. President Donald Trump will speak as part
- 38:54Speaker 1: of the event, which marks the two hundred and fiftieth
- 38:57Speaker 1: anniversary of US independence. The combustion from large fireworks displays
- 39:03Speaker 1: typically causes significant pollution because it generates fine particulate matter,
- 39:10Speaker 1: also known as PM two point five. These small particles
- 39:15Speaker 1: can penetrate deep into the heart and lungs, causing irritation
- 39:19Speaker 1: and in some cases, asthma attacks and other illnesses. A
- 39:24Speaker 1: draft air quality analysis based on the National Park Services
- 39:28Speaker 1: modeling states that people should avoid prolonged explosure to the
- 39:33Speaker 1: pollution around them all. The Interior Department in the National
- 39:37Speaker 1: Park Service did not immediately respond to questions about the
- 39:41Speaker 1: documents and pollution associated with the event in downtown d
- 39:46Speaker 1: C Arlington and the Capitol Hill area, where pollution will
- 39:49Speaker 1: be very unhealthy. The document says that people should expect
- 39:54Speaker 1: irritation symptoms and limit their post show exposure to the pollution.
- 40:00Speaker 1: Protracts that pollution will remain at levels elevated levels for
- 40:04Speaker 1: three to six hours after the show. The analysis highlights best, worst,
- 40:10Speaker 1: and most likely scenarios based on wind, conditioned humidity, and
- 40:13Speaker 1: other factors. In the expected or most likely scenario, the
- 40:19Speaker 1: fireworks show will generate six hundred to twelve hundred micrograms
- 40:23Speaker 1: of PM two point five per cubic meta in the
- 40:26Speaker 1: mall area. A worst case scenario would see more than
- 40:30Speaker 1: two thousand microgames per cubic meter. Well, I'm not going
- 40:35Speaker 1: to worry about too much air pollution since most of
- 40:38Speaker 1: us will not be there at that time to be exposed.
- 40:45Speaker 1: Trump honors of President he sees as a peer. Theodore Roosevelt.
- 40:53Speaker 1: The President flew to rule North Dakota to open Roosevelt's library,
- 40:58Speaker 1: As aids tout, compare between the two outside experts say
- 41:03Speaker 1: their records revealed different priorities. And there's a picture of
- 41:08Speaker 1: a profile of Trumps standing in front of a painting
- 41:11Speaker 1: of President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House in February
- 41:16Speaker 1: by Natalie Allison and Dan Diamond out of Madura, North Dakota.
- 41:23Speaker 1: President Donald Trump is an exactly the outdoor spotsman and
- 41:28Speaker 1: conservationist that was Theodore Roosevelt, a hunting, wilderness loving president
- 41:33Speaker 1: who preserved hundreds of millions of acres of public land
- 41:37Speaker 1: and in his final years led a jungle expedition to
- 41:41Speaker 1: the Amazon. Yet the White House wants Americans to know
- 41:45Speaker 1: that the two New York Natives, one the leader of
- 41:49Speaker 1: the Rough Riders volunteer Cavalry, the ava who spent most
- 41:54Speaker 1: of his adult life seated behind desks and in limousines,
- 41:58Speaker 1: have plenty in On Wednesday, Trump traveled west in his
- 42:03Speaker 1: new luxury Air Force One, a gift from the Qatari
- 42:07Speaker 1: royals to open Roosevelt's presidential library. It is a project
- 42:12Speaker 1: that has been in the works for years at the
- 42:15Speaker 1: site of the national Park bearing the twenty sixth President's name,
- 42:20Speaker 1: after taking a short train ride into sparsely populated Medora,
- 42:26Speaker 1: retracing part of Roosevelt's journey through the region. Though Trump
- 42:30Speaker 1: reached the railroad by helicopter, the president's motorcade was led
- 42:35Speaker 1: up winding hills by horseback riding re enactors of the
- 42:38Speaker 1: Rough Riders, a volunteer Calgary regiment Roosevelt formed during the
- 42:43Speaker 1: Spanish American War. The parallels between Theodore Roosevelt and President
- 42:49Speaker 1: Trump just keep adding up and up and up. Interior
- 42:53Speaker 1: Secretary Doug Bergman, the former governor of North Dakota, set
- 42:58Speaker 1: on Fox News on Chios, used the ahead of Trump's trip.
- 43:03Speaker 1: Tr was the president at the one twenty fifth, president
- 43:08Speaker 1: Trump at the two fiftieth. Both of them transformed people
- 43:12Speaker 1: who really shaped not just the US, but shaped the
- 43:16Speaker 1: world and the world order, Bergmann said. The Secretary a
- 43:21Speaker 1: long time teddy Roosevelt. De Feccinado, who as governor helped
- 43:25Speaker 1: spearhead planning and fundraising for the library, has made similar
- 43:30Speaker 1: comparisons between Trump and Roosevelt for months. In January, he
- 43:35Speaker 1: said Trump's Venezuela strikes can only be compared to Teddy
- 43:39Speaker 1: Roosevelt and the Panama Canal one hundred and twenty five
- 43:42Speaker 1: years ago. Roosevelt saw to the building of the Panama
- 43:46Speaker 1: Canal and sent military vessels to Panama City to guarantee
- 43:51Speaker 1: Panama's independence as it ceded from Columbia. Inside the library,
- 43:58Speaker 1: Trump asked an ai verse of Roosevelt whether creating the
- 44:02Speaker 1: Panama Canal was his greatest achievement. The ai designed. Roosevelt
- 44:08Speaker 1: responded that I measure my greatest work by the lives improved.
- 44:14Speaker 1: Outside experts said the exchange was unintentionally revealing, with Trump
- 44:19Speaker 1: focused on building big things and Roosevelt thinking more about
- 44:23Speaker 1: the lives affected. The two men also cut different images
- 44:27Speaker 1: at home and abroad, with Roosevelt building national parks and
- 44:31Speaker 1: Trump lifting some conservation protections. The two men would hardly
- 44:37Speaker 1: have been simpatico, Timothy Nofhtali, a Columbia University presidential historian,
- 44:44Speaker 1: said of their approaches to the preservation In an interview,
- 44:49Speaker 1: Naftali said the contrast extended beyond conservation, citing Roosevelt's establishment
- 44:55Speaker 1: of federal regulation of food and drugs against the current
- 44:58Speaker 1: administration's to unwind the food in drug administration, Trump sees
- 45:05Speaker 1: it differently. At an amphitheater overlooking the rolling hills of
- 45:09Speaker 1: the Badlands, where a couple thousand Trump supporters had waited
- 45:13Speaker 1: many hours in the hot sun for his arrival, the
- 45:17Speaker 1: President addressed the enthusiastic crowd for over an hour, flanked
- 45:22Speaker 1: on stage by the rough Rider re enactors. I'm honoring
- 45:27Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt, and that's the man who I've long admired.
- 45:32Speaker 1: He's one of the few I do admire too many people,
- 45:35Speaker 1: Trump said. Trump repeatedly toted his electoral performance in North
- 45:40Speaker 1: Dakota and joked about how he got more boats in
- 45:44Speaker 1: the state than Roosevelt. Some attendees were escorted at by
- 45:48Speaker 1: medics as Trump spoke. One official who was not authorized
- 45:52Speaker 1: to speak publicly, estimated that more than a dozen people
- 45:56Speaker 1: retreated after fainting from the heat. Others found out of
- 45:59Speaker 1: the Amir theater before Trump completed his speech. Trump's voice,
- 46:05Speaker 1: Bergman told reporters as the president toured the library will
- 46:10Speaker 1: eventually be played over speakers reading the Famous Man in
- 46:16Speaker 1: the Arena excerpt from Roosevelt's nineteen ten Citizenship in a
- 46:21Speaker 1: Republic speech. Roosevelt the youngest man to assume the presidency
- 46:28Speaker 1: and Trump, the oldest, shares some personal qualities. Trump was,
- 46:34Speaker 1: Roosevelt was blustery, egocentric, and a rambunctious violator of the
- 46:38Speaker 1: existing norms that limited President of Powell. Roosevelt's daughter, Alice
- 46:44Speaker 1: long Roosevelt Longworth famously said of her father, he wants
- 46:49Speaker 1: to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at
- 46:52Speaker 1: every funeral, and the baby at every christening. Both men, too,
- 46:57Speaker 1: sought the project overt masculinity from the White House in
- 47:01Speaker 1: ways that went beyond typical president of business. Both, for example,
- 47:06Speaker 1: hosted organized fights at the White House, unlike Trump at
- 47:11Speaker 1: the UFC match he held on his eightieth birthday. However, Roosevelt
- 47:16Speaker 1: took part in the fighting and was partially blinded as
- 47:19Speaker 1: a result. But while Roosevelt also throw America's waight around
- 47:25Speaker 1: in the Caribbean, the differences between him and Trump are larger,
- 47:29Speaker 1: said Neftali. He also noted that when Roosevelt negotiated peace
- 47:34Speaker 1: between Russia and Japan, winning a Nobel Prize in the process,
- 47:39Speaker 1: he did so without asking for mineral rights or pieces
- 47:42Speaker 1: of territory. Attacked that Trump has repeatedly employed when involved
- 47:47Speaker 1: in foreign conflicts. Trump and White House officials, however, have
- 47:52Speaker 1: repeatedly pointed to Roosevelt as a model for some of
- 47:55Speaker 1: his policies at home and abroad. Roosevelt, for instance, intervened
- 48:01Speaker 1: in college football after a series of brutal, sometimes fatal
- 48:05Speaker 1: injuries in the early twentieth century, nationally discredited him for
- 48:09Speaker 1: helping bring rule changes that improved the sports safety. Trump
- 48:14Speaker 1: has cited Roosevelt's actions as he issued several executive orders
- 48:18Speaker 1: seeking to reverse changes in college sports that he has
- 48:22Speaker 1: described as threats to the games, notably the ability for
- 48:26Speaker 1: players to be paid as they repeatedly transfer schools. Much
- 48:32Speaker 1: like President Roosevelt saved American football, White House spokeswoman Taylor
- 48:37Speaker 1: Rogers said in a statement earlier this year, President Trump
- 48:41Speaker 1: is committed to saving college sports from the threats they
- 48:45Speaker 1: face today. Trump has long held Roosevelt in high esteem,
- 48:51Speaker 1: publicly praising his investments in national parks, his projection of
- 48:55Speaker 1: American military power around the globe, and his experience leading
- 49:00Speaker 1: the rough Riders. During a speech at Mount Rushmore on
- 49:04Speaker 1: July third, twenty twenty, where Trump is scheduled to return Friday,
- 49:09Speaker 1: the President said Roosevelt saw the towering grandeur of America's
- 49:14Speaker 1: mission in the world, and he pursued it with overwhelming
- 49:18Speaker 1: energy and zeal. Like Trump, Roosevelt was shot during his
- 49:22Speaker 1: third bid for the president Zee, which came after exiting
- 49:26Speaker 1: the White House. Roosevelt two projected defiance, insisting on giving
- 49:31Speaker 1: his speech as planned before seeking medical treatment. The new
- 49:35Speaker 1: library that Trump will help dedicate is on the side
- 49:38Speaker 1: of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands, where
- 49:42Speaker 1: Roosevelt first visited to hunt bison in eighteen eighty three
- 49:47Speaker 1: and later returned to grieve the death of his wife
- 49:49Speaker 1: and mother and live as a rancher. In his twenties,
- 49:54Speaker 1: Roosevelt became concerned about conservation, and after becoming president in
- 49:59Speaker 1: nineteen oh one one, went on to establish two hundred
- 50:02Speaker 1: and thirty million acres of public land, according to the
- 50:06Speaker 1: National Park Service. He created the United States Forest Service
- 50:11Speaker 1: and what are known today as Federal Wildlife Refugee Refugees.
- 50:16Speaker 1: After camping at Yosemite National Park, Roosevelt wrote, it was
- 50:21Speaker 1: like lying in a great solemn cathedral, farvaster and more
- 50:25Speaker 1: beautiful than any built by the hand of man. When
- 50:29Speaker 1: Congress opposed his attempt to create a national park at
- 50:32Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon, Roosevelt used executive power to protect it
- 50:36Speaker 1: as a national monument. By contrast, conservation advocates have slammed
- 50:42Speaker 1: Trump's administration for removing protections from tens of millions of
- 50:46Speaker 1: acres of public lands and opening some up for redevelopment,
- 50:51Speaker 1: timber harvesting, and mining. The irony of this celebration could
- 50:56Speaker 1: not be sharper, said Aaron Louis, Executive director of the
- 51:00Speaker 1: Center for Western for Priorities. Donald Trump and Doug Berman
- 51:06Speaker 1: are going to cut the ribbon on the library, honoring
- 51:08Speaker 1: America's first true conservation president. But the Trump administration's record
- 51:15Speaker 1: reads like a checklists assault on everything that Teddy Roosevelt
- 51:20Speaker 1: has built. We said, here's an unusual article. Is America
- 51:28Speaker 1: celebrating the wrong anniversary? John Adams thought so. The founding
- 51:35Speaker 1: father anticipated Pompin's parade to mark America's birthday, that he
- 51:41Speaker 1: didn't think it would happen July fourth, by Karen Tumulty.
- 51:46Speaker 1: In early seventeen seventy six, John Adams penned a euphoric
- 51:50Speaker 1: letter to his wife, Abigail. Something had happened a day
- 51:54Speaker 1: earlier that citizens of the new country would commemorate every
- 51:58Speaker 1: year far into the few. Adams predicted, it will be
- 52:03Speaker 1: the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I
- 52:07Speaker 1: am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by
- 52:11Speaker 1: succeeding generations as the Great Anniversary Festival, Adams wrote. He
- 52:17Speaker 1: imagined pomp and parade, with shoes, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires,
- 52:23Speaker 1: and illuminations from one into this continent to the other,
- 52:27Speaker 1: from this time forward forevermore. And he got it right.
- 52:32Speaker 1: With one glaring exception. Adams was certain we would be
- 52:36Speaker 1: doing all this on July second. That was when the
- 52:41Speaker 1: Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, a year into a revolution,
- 52:46Speaker 1: had passed a resolution put forward by Richard Henry Lee
- 52:50Speaker 1: of Virginia, formerly severing ties with Britain and establishing the
- 52:55Speaker 1: thirteen colonies as free and independent states. Two days later,
- 53:01Speaker 1: on the fourth, the delegates approved a declaration drafted largely
- 53:06Speaker 1: by Thomas Jefferson, explaining their reasons for what was by
- 53:10Speaker 1: then a fate a complete. The delegates held no ceremony
- 53:14Speaker 1: around the approval, nor even of public reading. Jefferson went
- 53:18Speaker 1: on about his errands, which included buying seven pairs of
- 53:22Speaker 1: Lady Glove to be sent home to Monicello. Two hundred
- 53:27Speaker 1: copies were hastily printed and dispatched throughout the colonies, but
- 53:31Speaker 1: the actual declaration of Independence was not engrossed, that is,
- 53:36Speaker 1: officially prepared and signed until August. Nearly a dozen of
- 53:42Speaker 1: the fifty six men who put their signatures to the
- 53:44Speaker 1: parchment weren't even present when its language was approved on
- 53:48Speaker 1: July fourth. According to Michael Ostlin, author of a new book,
- 53:53Speaker 1: National Treasure, how the Declaration of Independence made America? So?
- 53:59Speaker 1: Is it possible the country has for more than two
- 54:02Speaker 1: centuries been celebrating the wrong date? And how was it
- 54:06Speaker 1: that July fourth, not the second, came to be regarded
- 54:10Speaker 1: as Independence Day? By a year after the events in Philadelphia,
- 54:16Speaker 1: July fourth was the anniversary date that had taken hold.
- 54:20Speaker 1: In seventeen seventy seven, Adams was again writing his wife
- 54:25Speaker 1: from Philadelphia, this time noting that the fourth, being the
- 54:28Speaker 1: anniversary of American independence, was celebrated here, with a festivity
- 54:33Speaker 1: and ceremony becoming the occasion. On July fourth, seventeen seventy eight,
- 54:38Speaker 1: Adams and Benjamin Franklin hosted an independence banquet in Paris
- 54:43Speaker 1: during the Revolutionary War. George Washington marked the date by
- 54:47Speaker 1: ordering cannon salutes in double rations of rum for his troops.
- 54:52Speaker 1: Part of this confusion and contradiction relates to varying accounts
- 54:56Speaker 1: of what actually happened in Philadelphia, as well as the
- 54:59Speaker 1: fact fact that the leaders of this new country had
- 55:02Speaker 1: a war to win, so documenting an accurate record was
- 55:06Speaker 1: not high among their priorities. Also, the first unofficial printing
- 55:12Speaker 1: of the text, known as the Dunlap Broadside, was titled
- 55:17Speaker 1: in Congress July fourth, seventeen seventy six, so readers could
- 55:22Speaker 1: easily have made their own assumptions about everything transpired, and
- 55:27Speaker 1: some of it may have been deliberate. The identities of
- 55:30Speaker 1: the Sinus, for instance, were kept secret for months because
- 55:34Speaker 1: they could be risking their lives and livelihoods if identified
- 55:37Speaker 1: by the British as having committed treason. So the legends
- 55:41Speaker 1: around Independence Day unscrewled on their own, leaving history to
- 55:46Speaker 1: catch up. I can't finish this article, but I probably
- 55:51Speaker 1: should have read it earlier. Supreme Court expanded Trump's Powell,
- 55:56Speaker 1: but was unwilling to go to go as far as
- 56:00Speaker 1: he wanted in a term in which the president's policies
- 56:03Speaker 1: dominated the docket. One dynamic explains why the court often
- 56:07Speaker 1: ruled for him but didn't always give him what he
- 56:11Speaker 1: was seeking. By justin juvenal, Liberal Supreme Court Justice Katanji
- 56:18Speaker 1: Brown Jackson scorched her conservative colleagues in a dissent this term,
- 56:23Speaker 1: accusing them of contorting the law and a series of
- 56:26Speaker 1: rulings so President Donald Trump always wins. Months later, Trump
- 56:31Speaker 1: ripped some of the same conservative justices, calling them disloyal
- 56:35Speaker 1: and an embarrassment to their families for striking down his
- 56:39Speaker 1: sweeping tariffs in a term in which the president's policies
- 56:43Speaker 1: dominated the docket. Some saw a High court overly beholdened
- 56:48Speaker 1: the Trump's agenda, while others thought the justices tried to thwarted.
- 56:54Speaker 1: The High Court cemented Trump's authority to bend the executive
- 56:57Speaker 1: branch to his will in ways his predecess did not,
- 57:01Speaker 1: and to aggressively pursue short limits on legal and illegal immigration,
- 57:06Speaker 1: but the court stopped short of granting him more power
- 57:09Speaker 1: to impose trade barriers, shape the economy and redefine who
- 57:14Speaker 1: is American legal experts said both his wins and losses
- 57:18Speaker 1: reflected divide in conservative ideology. The Court has been largely
- 57:24Speaker 1: solicitous of Trump, but it broke with him when his
- 57:26Speaker 1: make America Great Again agenda clashed with traditional conservative orthodoxy,
- 57:32Speaker 1: said Aziz Hoak, a University of Chicago law professor. Hoak said,
- 57:37Speaker 1: I think a majority of justices on the Court as
- 57:40Speaker 1: being broadly aligned with the Republican's political project as it
- 57:45Speaker 1: unfolded over the last few decades. I view them as
- 57:49Speaker 1: being in sync with Trump so far as they view
- 57:51Speaker 1: him as extending and deepening that political project, and contemptuous
- 57:57Speaker 1: where they see him as being at odds with that project.
- 58:01Speaker 1: While Trump appointed three of the six conservatives on the
- 58:04Speaker 1: None Justice Court, all emerged from mainstream conservative legal circles
- 58:10Speaker 1: rather than the populist wing of the Republican Party that
- 58:13Speaker 1: has come to dominate under Trump. The court's conservative block
- 58:19Speaker 1: has also emphasized an interpretation of the Constitution based on
- 58:23Speaker 1: its public meaning at the time it was ratified. Overall,
- 58:29Speaker 1: the Trump administration racked up an impressive series of wins
- 58:32Speaker 1: on the Supreme Court emergencies docket, at which the justices
- 58:37Speaker 1: decide whether to let policies go forward temporarily while lawsuits
- 58:42Speaker 1: challenging them play out. The administration won twenty one such
- 58:46Speaker 1: cases on Trump's policies in his second term so far,
- 58:50Speaker 1: while losing only six. And with that I stopped reading
- 58:54Speaker 1: Today's Washington Post for the Thursday, the second of July.
- 58:58Speaker 1: Maybe the true independent Enden's day, according to John Adams
- 59:02Speaker 1: of twenty twenty six, Please listen to continuing program on
- 59:08Speaker 1: Radio BI Bye