Transcript

8.21.26 · Washington Post

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the reading of the Washington Post for Saturday,
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Speaker 1: August twenty second, twenty twenty six. As a reminder, RADIOI
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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 Roger Hamperion. Today's
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Speaker 1: front page headlines from the Washington Post are as follows.
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Speaker 1: Trump wants a ballroom in Ireland. One man is having
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Speaker 1: a ball fighting it. Next, frustrated Trump lashes out at allies. Next,
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Speaker 1: this highway exploded, many more are at risk. Next, dip
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Speaker 1: in retail sales is a worrying sign for inflation weary US. Next,
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Speaker 1: artificial intelligence is a new force driving inequality. And finally,
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Speaker 1: Swalwell's devices seized an FBI probe. The next article from
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Speaker 1: the front page of today's edition is titled Trump wants
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Speaker 1: a ballroom in Ireland. One man is having a ball
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Speaker 1: fighting it. Tiny Dunberg was all in favor of the plan,
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Speaker 1: but concerns about an endangered snail and serial objector Liam
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Speaker 1: Madden could derail the project. By Terence McCoy, everything seemed
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Speaker 1: primed for President Donald Trump to get his ballroom. No,
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Speaker 1: not that ballroom. His other ballroom across the Atlantic. In
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Speaker 1: the tiny village of Dounberg, where the Trump International Golf
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Speaker 1: Links and Hotel rises above the dunes of a windswept beach,
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Speaker 1: the president and his family had promised to build the
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Speaker 1: nicest ballroom in Ireland, a grand edifice that would extend
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Speaker 1: across twelve thousand square feet and seat three hundred twenty
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Speaker 1: guests at forty two tables. And unlike in Washington, where
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Speaker 1: Trump's push to fast track a grandiose white House ballroom
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Speaker 1: set off a political and legal fight that has now
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Speaker 1: reached the Supreme Court, the population of Douneberg, which hovers
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Speaker 1: around three hundred, had lined up behind the project. In
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Speaker 1: a letter to the local planning commission, a local pub
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Speaker 1: owner said it would halt the village's decline. Another resident
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Speaker 1: said it would create jobs and bring in off season tourism.
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Speaker 1: A statement by the Douneberg Football Club called the golf
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Speaker 1: resort not just a business, but an integral part of
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Speaker 1: our community. Even the snail lobby had been appeased. Questions
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Speaker 1: over the fate of the threatened Vertigo Augustio or snail,
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Speaker 1: a microscopic mollusk nestled in Dunberg's sandy dunes had bedeviled
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Speaker 1: the golf property even before the Trump organization owned it,
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Speaker 1: But in February, the Commission approved the ballroom, provided the
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Speaker 1: Trump's offer a snail restoration plan. The ballroom, sed Rita McInerney,
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Speaker 1: a Donberg resident and member of the Clare County Council,
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Speaker 1: had become part of the community's vision. The jubilation, however,
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Speaker 1: was quickly cut short days after the February approval. A
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Speaker 1: lone appeal was lodged by Liam Madden, a hermetic figure
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Speaker 1: notorious for blocking hundreds, if not thousands, of development projects
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Speaker 1: across Ireland, including a previous expansion plan in Dounburg. Impervious
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Speaker 1: to shaming or calls for decency, he once stirred such
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Speaker 1: rage that a foe attacked him with a blow torch. Please,
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Speaker 1: Madden urged the Appellate board refuse this nonsense. Trump's other
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Speaker 1: ballroom was stalled. How to torpedo a project. Madden is
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Speaker 1: a tall man with white hair who lives in a
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Speaker 1: historic house behind a thick stone wall in the Irish
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Speaker 1: village of Longford. He owns no cell phone. He has
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Speaker 1: no website, no social media accounts. The only way to
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Speaker 1: find him is either through his malfunctional landline or an
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Speaker 1: email address that identified him in Latin as the Iris Betruvius.
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Speaker 1: And yet people across this country know the name Liam Madden.
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Speaker 1: When confronted by bothersome development projects, the Irish over the
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Speaker 1: years have turned to this quarrelsome and punctilious man for
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Speaker 1: his ability to torpedo plans. He is what many in
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Speaker 1: Ireland call a serial objector someone who makes a living
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Speaker 1: by appealing planning commission decisions. Madden, however, bristles at that classification. Instead.
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Speaker 1: When he's feeling reticent, he describes himself as the most
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Speaker 1: successful appellent in the history of the Irish state. At
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Speaker 1: other times, including in interviews with The Washington Post, he
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Speaker 1: referred to himself as a god, a hero, a celebrity.
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Speaker 1: There simply isn't anyone better, he said, It's a scientific fact.
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Speaker 1: I'm modest as well. Madden seventy six added, that's one
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Speaker 1: of my failings. His profession is an unintended outgrowth of
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Speaker 1: Ireland's wildly permissive planning of pellet system. In most of
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Speaker 1: Europe and the Americas, a person typically needs to legally
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Speaker 1: demonstrate some stake, financial, geographic or otherwise to gum up
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Speaker 1: a project with an objection. Ireland has taken a different tack.
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Speaker 1: All anyone has to do to file an appeal and
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Speaker 1: trigger a month's long review by and Commission PLIONALA the
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Speaker 1: National Appellate Planning Board is submit a preliminary observation and
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Speaker 1: pay a nominal fee. Appellants don't have to be Irish
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Speaker 1: or even in Ireland. There's no such thing as too
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Speaker 1: much democracy, reasoned Lore Concier, a housing analyst at Technological
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Speaker 1: University Dublin. The system increasingly has become a matter of
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Speaker 1: national controversy. Developers complain that it's an impediment to progress,
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Speaker 1: vulnerable to abuse, and fueling a cottage industry of serial objectors,
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Speaker 1: some of whom have used appeals to extract payments from
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Speaker 1: developers before lawmaker's proposed reforms. Madden, who's never been accused
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Speaker 1: of such improprieties, looks at other serial objectors as a
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Speaker 1: lesser form of the species. He said he would never
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Speaker 1: profane his craft with profit seeking. What motivates him is
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Speaker 1: the pleasure of winning, identifying even the smallest legal violations
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Speaker 1: to bedevil his adversaries. That in bald faced publicity. I'm
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Speaker 1: perpetually seeking notoriety, he said so. In January, while flipping
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Speaker 1: through the papers, he saw what he recalled as a
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Speaker 1: golden opportunity. In Dunberg, roughly three hours from Madden's house.
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Speaker 1: By car, Eric Trump had proclaimed his intent to build
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Speaker 1: the nicest ballroom in Ireland. Madden knew what he must do.
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Speaker 1: If there is a god in heaven, he declared one
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Speaker 1: July evening, I will win the planning appeals and capitalize
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Speaker 1: on it for notoriety. A village praying for a golf course,
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Speaker 1: Dunburg was in trouble as the night teen nineties drew
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Speaker 1: to a close. The shoreline village, whose history dated to
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Speaker 1: at least the fifteen hundreds, was fading. We weren't poor
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Speaker 1: in community, said Tommy Comerford, a fifth generation Doneburg resident,
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Speaker 1: but we were poor in jobs and opportunities. To keep
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Speaker 1: our young people, the community pitched the European Regional Development
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Speaker 1: Fund on a golf course and one financing for it.
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Speaker 1: Designed by fame golfer Greg Norman, The Douneburg Golf Club
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Speaker 1: opened in two thousand and two, just as the local
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Speaker 1: population fell to two hundred six. Bus loads of golf
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Speaker 1: tourists from the United States and Canada were soon rolling
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Speaker 1: in seasonal employment at the club, which quickly added a
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Speaker 1: luxury hotel and events space grew to three hundred people.
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Speaker 1: Residents who'd left were coming back. The golf resort is
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Speaker 1: so important to us, said source Comerford fifty two, who
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Speaker 1: returned to take over the family pub. But the resort
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Speaker 1: could not turn a profit. By two thousand, all ven
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Speaker 1: it had lost a reported seventy million dollars. In January
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Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, it was put up for sale, and worries
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Speaker 1: spread through Dounburg. It was like, oh my god, three
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Speaker 1: hundred jobs gone, said Caroline O'Brien, a resident. A savior, however,
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Speaker 1: quickly arrived an American buyer named Donald Trump. He touched
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Speaker 1: down at Shannon Airport in May twenty fourteen and immediately
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Speaker 1: declared his plans for the resort. One of the main
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Speaker 1: reasons I'm here is sighting the ballroom, Trump said, a
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Speaker 1: truly great ballroom. I believe people from all over the
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Speaker 1: world will be using this ball room. I'll be a
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Speaker 1: friend to the snail. Shortly after the sale's announcement, an
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Speaker 1: Irish environmentalist named Tony Low's got a call from Trump.
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Speaker 1: I'll be a friend to the snail. Low's recalled Trump
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Speaker 1: declaring questions over the threatened Vertigo angusti, or a fickle
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Speaker 1: creature with exacting ecological needs, had long troubled the god.
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Speaker 1: Of course, even before it was built, Low's Friends of
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Speaker 1: the Irish Environment had filed a lawsuit to protect the snail.
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Speaker 1: A judge ordered that the snail's lot be maintained or improved,
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Speaker 1: and a settlement agreement even allowed for the appointment of
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Speaker 1: a snail expert as a sort of steward. For years,
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Speaker 1: the snail thrived and Trump promised to sustain its role,
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Speaker 1: but Lows said the Trumps haven't kept their word, and
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Speaker 1: the snail's population has plunged. Shortly after they bought the resort,
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Speaker 1: the snail expert was dismissed. The expert didn't respond to
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Speaker 1: requests for comment. Then, in twenty sixteen, the Trumps proposed
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Speaker 1: building a one point seven mile rock barrier wall along
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Speaker 1: do More Bay Beach to forestall shoreline erosion and protect
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Speaker 1: the links from storm damage. Environmentalists said the plan, even
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Speaker 1: after it was scaled down, would alter the dune's delicate
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Speaker 1: alchemy and doom the snail to block construction. Friends of
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Speaker 1: the Irish Environment filed an appeal with a National Planning
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Speaker 1: Board at its side with his own appeal was Liam Madden.
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Speaker 1: The board decided against the Trumps. Madden basked in glory,
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Speaker 1: comparing himself to Saint Patrick. Madden at the time said
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Speaker 1: he'd drive Trump out of Ireland like a snake. The
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Speaker 1: making of a serial objector. When he graduated from architecture
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Speaker 1: school in nineteen seventy three, Madden said he wanted only
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Speaker 1: an architect's life, but the planning system was so integral
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Speaker 1: to his work that he immersed himself in planning law,
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Speaker 1: and upon submitting his first appeals, realized I was very
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Speaker 1: good at it. During the mid nineteen nineties, as Ireland
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Speaker 1: experienced a building boom, people began seeking out Madden for
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Speaker 1: his unusual acumen. Some wanted him to clear a project's way,
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Speaker 1: others wanted the opposite. He became friend and foe to developers.
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Speaker 1: He had a nickname among developers, The condom Man said,
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Speaker 1: I Federal Senator Joe Flaherty. You'd use him once and
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Speaker 1: then throw him out. Most of Madden's work was done
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Speaker 1: in obscurity, but his name nonetheless often rose to public notice.
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Speaker 1: First came a political campaign in two thousand four against
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Speaker 1: a candidate also named Liam Madden for nothing more than
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Speaker 1: what Madden called devilment. Then he stalled a project by
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Speaker 1: the Gaelic Athletic Association, which is Ireland's largest sporting organization,
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Speaker 1: until it apologized to him over a decade's old grievance.
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Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, Madden delayed the reopening of Saint Mel's Cathedral,
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Speaker 1: a massive church that suffered a devastating fire, by objecting
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Speaker 1: to a glass elevator that he alleged would offend the
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Speaker 1: modesty of scotsmen visiting in their kilts. The town was furious.
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Speaker 1: It was hugely emotional for the town. Flaherty said it
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Speaker 1: was two middle fingers to the local community. The attention
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Speaker 1: only spurred Madden on. He objected to a fast food development,
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Speaker 1: He objected to converting an abandoned factory into a car
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Speaker 1: auction site. He objected to Trump's barrier wall, and he
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Speaker 1: objected to UFC legend Connor McGregor's bid to build a
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Speaker 1: boutique hotel, challenging him to a bare knuckle fight Lewis Herderic,
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Speaker 1: a longtime client, said most people simply didn't get Madden.
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Speaker 1: He's just different. Herderick said his god as being right
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Speaker 1: and getting it right and winning. Flaherty added, nobody in
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Speaker 1: the right mind would want to be Liam Madden. The
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Speaker 1: criticism the open contempt, but he relishes it in a way.
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Speaker 1: The two men said they almost felt sorry for Trump
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Speaker 1: even if he loses. Flerty said he'll just find something
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Speaker 1: else and keep going at it. A fatal error. To Madden,
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Speaker 1: there is no way he'll lose, not this one. I've
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Speaker 1: caught them with their pants down, he said while beaming.
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Speaker 1: One July evening, he returned to the Snail, this time
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Speaker 1: focused on helicopters. The Trump organization. A promotional video indicated
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Speaker 1: allows guests to be ferried in and out by helicopter.
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Speaker 1: In materials published online, an aviation company executive Helicopters said
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Speaker 1: it has two Helli landings at the resort, one by
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Speaker 1: the hotel and one on the golf course. To Madden,
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Speaker 1: this was a fatal error. The Trump organization neither mentioned
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Speaker 1: the helicopters nor sought to measure their ecological impact. The
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Speaker 1: ballroom proposal, thus was tainted at law and beyond remedy,
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Speaker 1: he wrote. Plus Madden wrote, would our poor little Vertigo
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Speaker 1: and Gustier survive? The Trump organization didn't respond to her
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Speaker 1: request for comment. Golf course manager Joe Russell declined to comment.
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Speaker 1: Executive Helicopters didn't respond to her request for comment. Jerine Ellis,
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Speaker 1: an expert on an Irish planning law who reviewed the
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Speaker 1: appeal at the Post Request, said Madden's objection wasn't frivolous.
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Speaker 1: Mister Madden seems to have found some issues that are
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Speaker 1: worthy of further scrutiny, Ellis said. As words spread of
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Speaker 1: the objection, Dunburg residents reacted with outrage. The golf resort
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Speaker 1: had nothing to do with Trump. Resident Rita McInerney said,
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Speaker 1: Dunburg started the resort and will rise or fall with
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Speaker 1: its fortune. How could a single outsider with nothing at
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Speaker 1: stake kick up such trouble? Ludicrous, she said. Disgraceful, said
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Speaker 1: Saucy Comerford. Totally unfair, added Tommy Comerford. In Washington, the
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Speaker 1: White House Ballroom is well under way. Foundational construction has started.
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Speaker 1: The nine hundred million dollar, ninety thousand square foot structure
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Speaker 1: is coming into focus. Including new details like gold colored
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Speaker 1: presidential seals. The Supreme Court is expected to rule this week,
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Speaker 1: potentially giving it a green light, but in Ireland, where
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Speaker 1: the National Appellate is expected to rule by year's end,
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Speaker 1: Liam Madden insists the other ballroom will never be approved.
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Speaker 1: Joe Biden beat Donald Trump once, he said, I've beaten
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Speaker 1: him twice. The next article from the front page of
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Speaker 1: today's edition is titled Trump increasingly lashing out at allies
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Speaker 1: as victory in Iran war proves elusive. Unable to force
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Speaker 1: Tehran's surrender, President Donald Trump appears to be taking his
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Speaker 1: frustration out on Oman and other US partners in greater measure.
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Speaker 1: By Rachel Chassen, Susannah, George Riley Began, and Mohammed El Chamah.
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Speaker 1: To kick off the week, President Donald Trump threatened to
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Speaker 1: bomb Oman, a U s ally that has been acting
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Speaker 1: as a mediator trying to end the war against Iran.
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Speaker 1: The next day, Trump posted a map with a circle
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Speaker 1: around the Strait of Hormuz and land along its shorelines
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Speaker 1: in Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran, labeling the
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Speaker 1: area new US time territory, and on Wednesday, Trump declared
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Speaker 1: Economic d Day against Iran, warning in a post on
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Speaker 1: True Social of dire consequences for any nation that supports Iran.
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Speaker 1: Trump's incendiary missives this week were symptoms of growing frustration,
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Speaker 1: analysts said, as the president does not appear to see
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Speaker 1: a way out of the war that he started nearly
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Speaker 1: six months after launching attacks on Iran with Israel and
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Speaker 1: seventy five days before elections that will determine whether his
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Speaker 1: party retains control of Congress, Trump faces the kind of
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Speaker 1: open ended conflict he once claimed he would end. Unable
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Speaker 1: to force Tehran's surrender and declare the victory he sought,
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Speaker 1: Trump is increasingly lashing out at allies. He also seems
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Speaker 1: worried of a potential side deal between Iran and other
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Speaker 1: Persian Gulf countries that would open the street. Analysts said.
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Speaker 1: He's in a situation that he can't get out of, and,
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Speaker 1: unlike so many other things that Trump has gotten himself into,
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Speaker 1: he cannot get bailed out, said Andrew Leber, a Middle
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Speaker 1: East scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the
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Speaker 1: Washington based policy institute. This is a problem that neither
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Speaker 1: military force nor bluster can fix, Leber said, so when
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Speaker 1: he cannot force Iran to change course, he lashes out
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Speaker 1: at others. An administration official, speaking on the condition of
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Speaker 1: anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, described Iran
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Speaker 1: as completely broke and said there are many levers the
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Speaker 1: President can crank harder in the weeks and months ahead.
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Speaker 1: President Trump has destroyed Iran's military capabilities and is crushing
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Speaker 1: what's left of its abysmal economy with the most successful
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Speaker 1: naval blockade in world history. White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales
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Speaker 1: said the President has been clear he will always advance
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Speaker 1: America's interests and never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
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Speaker 1: The war has in recent weeks reached a strange stalemate,
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Speaker 1: with US attacks against Iran and Iranian attacks against US
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Speaker 1: allies in the Gulf slowing dramatically since last month, with
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Speaker 1: stocks of US armaments dwindling, Trump for the moment is
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Speaker 1: foregoing military force and instead has focused on punishing Iran economically,
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Speaker 1: which experts say has caused severe financial pain, especially for
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Speaker 1: Iranian civilians, but still failed to elicit the concessions that
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Speaker 1: Trump wants from Iran's leadership, especially regarding the Strait. Alan Eyer,
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Speaker 1: a former diplomat who served on the US negotiating team
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Speaker 1: that secured the twenty fifteen Iran nuclear deal. Compared the
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Speaker 1: Trump administration's actions to that of a thrashing mastodon slowly
18:41
Speaker 1: sinking into a tar pit during the ice age. The
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Speaker 1: president's statements this week, Aire said are evidence of frustration
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Speaker 1: that he cannot even achieve the minimal goal of getting
18:52
Speaker 1: traffic in the Strait of Hormuz back to normal levels.
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Speaker 1: Monday marked the end of a sixty day truce that
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Speaker 1: failed to bring the peace Trump promised when he signed
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Speaker 1: a memorandum of understanding with Iran, which was quickly broken.
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Speaker 1: That Oman, a tiny nation across the strait from Iran,
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Speaker 1: again finds itself in Trump's crosshairs illustrates the extent of
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Speaker 1: his disconnect from realities on the ground, analysts said. Ire
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Speaker 1: said that Trump appears to be upset that Oman, acting
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Speaker 1: as a mediator, has been negotiating with Tehran on a
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Speaker 1: deal that could give it partial control of the street,
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Speaker 1: even though Trump explicitly agreed to Oman negotiating control of
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Speaker 1: the waterway in the memorandum of understanding that he signed
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Speaker 1: with Iran in June. Although much remains uncertain about why
19:39
Speaker 1: Oman became a target of Trump's rage this week. Are
19:42
Speaker 1: said that the frustration probably boils down to one thing.
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Speaker 1: He is upset with Oman for the same reason he
19:49
Speaker 1: is upset with South Korea, Iyres said, referring to Trump
19:52
Speaker 1: lamb basing South Korea for refusing to join the war.
19:55
Speaker 1: Efforts neither have solved his problem, he said. The map
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Speaker 1: Trump posted on Tuesday, showing a circle around the Strait
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Speaker 1: of Hormuz under a heading that read new US territory,
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Speaker 1: prompted widespread consternation. The post followed earlier claims by Trump
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Speaker 1: that he would declare the waterway to be u S property,
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Speaker 1: but the map went further, including territory of Ahman, the UAE,
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Speaker 1: and Iran. The Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council,
20:25
Speaker 1: Mosun Razai, responded to the map with a joke, saying
20:29
Speaker 1: the gap between America's inability to reopen the Strait of
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Speaker 1: Hormuz and its claim to own it is greater than
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Speaker 1: the seven thousand mile distance between Washington and the Strait itself.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the post American order in the Persian Gulf,
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Speaker 1: Rizai wrote on x some dreams are too far from reality.
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Speaker 1: Trump's threats on Wednesday of new sanctions appeared to up
20:52
Speaker 1: the ante, with the President saying that economic warfare and
20:55
Speaker 1: isolation against Iran would be on an unprecedented scale. He
21:00
Speaker 1: added that any country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports,
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Speaker 1: or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to
21:09
Speaker 1: Iran will itself face tremendous economic consequences. Oil smuggling, swap lines,
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Speaker 1: cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies. It all
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Speaker 1: needs to stop now, he said, you know who you are.
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Speaker 1: This will be an economic d Day, and we need
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Speaker 1: all of our allies to stand with the United States
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Speaker 1: of America to isolate and defeat the Iran threat. The
21:35
Speaker 1: UAE on Tuesday had said it would cut all trade
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Speaker 1: ties with Iran, which is one of its biggest trading partners.
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Speaker 1: That announcement came after Trump and Emoradi President Sheik Mohammad
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Speaker 1: bin Zayed al Nayan spoke by phone. Edward Fishman, Senior
21:52
Speaker 1: Fellow and director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for
21:55
Speaker 1: Geoeconomics at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that Trump
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Speaker 1: often makes threats like those on Wednesday with little follow through.
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Speaker 1: Iran Fishman noted has been under US sanctions since twenty eighteen,
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Speaker 1: so Trump's remaining recourse is to ramp up sanctions on
22:12
Speaker 1: Iran's partners, including China, the UAE, and Turkey. He said.
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Speaker 1: Other options include targeting banks and refineries buying small amounts
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Speaker 1: of Iranian energy, and sanctioning banks that hold Iranian assets overseas.
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Speaker 1: It's not a huge list, Fisherman said, so there's really
22:31
Speaker 1: not much else to do unless you're truly willing to
22:33
Speaker 1: completely threaten the entire world with being cut off from
22:36
Speaker 1: the US economy if they transact with Iran. That's what
22:40
Speaker 1: the text of Trump's post implied, Fishman said, but he added,
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Speaker 1: I just don't believe that's credible. Trump's rising frustration puts
22:49
Speaker 1: allies in the Persian Gulf who long sought to avoid
22:52
Speaker 1: the war and have borne the brunt of Iranian military
22:55
Speaker 1: aggression in a tight spot. Daniel Banam, who served as
22:59
Speaker 1: Deputy the Assistant Secretary of State for Arabian Peninsula Affairs
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Speaker 1: in the Biden administration, said he expects countries like Saudi Arabia,
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Speaker 1: Cotterer or the UAE to continue a kind of balancing act,
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Speaker 1: maintaining close ties with the United States while scouting possible
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Speaker 1: agreements with Iran. They're trying to create options for themselves
23:20
Speaker 1: so that they aren't caught flat footed no matter what happens.
23:23
Speaker 1: B Name said, Gulf states are exploring diplomatic accommodations with Iran,
23:29
Speaker 1: such as an agreement Oman is trying to secure that
23:32
Speaker 1: may include a toll for vessels using the waterway, he said.
23:36
Speaker 1: At the same time, he added they are expanding infrastructure
23:39
Speaker 1: to bypass the strait. B Nam said he would not
23:42
Speaker 1: be surprised if eventually some Gulf states support the Aman
23:46
Speaker 1: deal to manage the strait jointly with Iran and charge
23:49
Speaker 1: cargo vessels a fee. With the right fig leaf, they
23:53
Speaker 1: would support it, he said, acknowledging that such a deal
23:56
Speaker 1: isn't ideal. It's more important, he added, to the lifelines
24:00
Speaker 1: of their economies open. The next article from the front
24:05
Speaker 1: page of today's edition is titled why one highway exploded
24:09
Speaker 1: this summer and why many more are at risk. Hotter
24:13
Speaker 1: summers are buckling roads and bending tracks. One solution Paint
24:17
Speaker 1: Everything White, by Todd C. Frankel. It was another sizzling
24:23
Speaker 1: summer day in late July, with temperatures nearing one hundred
24:26
Speaker 1: degrees when one of the main roads cutting through Greenville, Texas,
24:30
Speaker 1: finally just gave up. The stretch of US Highway sixty
24:35
Speaker 1: nine kept expanding in extreme heat until it exploded, creating
24:39
Speaker 1: a sharp two foot tall ramp where it broke at
24:42
Speaker 1: the pavement joint. Most of the traffic in this Dallas
24:45
Speaker 1: excerp drove around it, but then a black pickup truck
24:49
Speaker 1: hit the ramp going about thirty miles per hour, sending
24:52
Speaker 1: the truck airborne dukes of Hazzard style, flying several feet
24:56
Speaker 1: in the air and slamming down on its front tires.
25:00
Speaker 1: Oh my god, an onlooker said as the scene was
25:02
Speaker 1: being recorded, that's crazy. It was a dramatic example of
25:07
Speaker 1: what has been playing out repeatedly this summer along the
25:10
Speaker 1: nation's roadways, railroad tracks, and bridges. Intense heat is causing
25:15
Speaker 1: surfaces to expand to the point that they break. The
25:18
Speaker 1: failures illustrate how the nation's transportation networks built for a
25:22
Speaker 1: different era increasingly struggle to handle hotter modern day summers,
25:27
Speaker 1: and this summer has been brutal. July, federal scientists have
25:31
Speaker 1: said was the single hottest month on record in the
25:34
Speaker 1: contiguous United States. Heat waves melt asphalt into goo, train
25:39
Speaker 1: tracks twist overhead power lines, sag concrete snaps into pieces
25:45
Speaker 1: in what are known as blow ups, the technical term
25:48
Speaker 1: for what the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation defines as a
25:52
Speaker 1: heave in a concrete or brick pavement caused by pavement
25:55
Speaker 1: expansion from excessive heat. The entire state of Wisconsin was
25:59
Speaker 1: cautioned earlier this summer to watch for pavement buckles. A
26:03
Speaker 1: blow up last month closed part of Interstate ninety seven
26:06
Speaker 1: near Saverna Park, Maryland, clogging traffic for a quick repair,
26:11
Speaker 1: and then for three straight nights. Interstate forty nine in Shreveport,
26:15
Speaker 1: Louisiana was also shot four hours while crews raced to
26:18
Speaker 1: deal with a blow up after a bike path next
26:22
Speaker 1: to US thirty six buckled. Officials in Boulder County, Colorado
26:26
Speaker 1: warned residents to prepare for more. You start seeing them
26:30
Speaker 1: in early summer, and then they surge as the heat builds,
26:33
Speaker 1: said David North, a district engineer with Louisiana's Transportation Department.
26:38
Speaker 1: Blow Ups, he said, are unpredictable and instant. In New Jersey,
26:43
Speaker 1: a vertical lift bridge over the Point Pleasant Canal has
26:46
Speaker 1: been forced to close to boat traffic four different times
26:49
Speaker 1: this summer, on June eleventh, June thirtieth, July fourteenth, and
26:54
Speaker 1: August seventh, because unrelenting heat kept cooking bridge components and
26:59
Speaker 1: preventing the span from moving. The bridge, which opened in
27:03
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, was built for a different climate. State
27:07
Speaker 1: officials now are working with our consultants to see if
27:10
Speaker 1: there can be any modifications made to mitigate these issues.
27:14
Speaker 1: Steve Shapiro of the New Jersey Department of Transportation said
27:18
Speaker 1: in a statement. In Wisconsin, the rate of pavement buckling
27:22
Speaker 1: had been increasing over the last decade, with higher temperatures
27:25
Speaker 1: partly to blame, according to a twenty twenty two state report.
27:30
Speaker 1: The Federal Highway Administration in twenty twenty three warned against
27:33
Speaker 1: relying on historical climate records when designing new roads and
27:37
Speaker 1: suggested looking into predictive climate models. I do think there
27:42
Speaker 1: is a recognition that road specifications and standards are static,
27:46
Speaker 1: but whether patterns are changing, said Shane Underwood, an engineering
27:50
Speaker 1: professor at North Carolina State University and president of the
27:53
Speaker 1: Academy of Pavement Science and Engineering. He was the lead
27:58
Speaker 1: author on a twenty seventeen paper that warned that failing
28:01
Speaker 1: to change methods significantly threatens the nation's roads. Underward said
28:06
Speaker 1: he's seen some progress. He pointed to an online tool
28:10
Speaker 1: developed by federal officials that uses site specific climate data
28:14
Speaker 1: to help engineers select the correct blend of binders for
28:18
Speaker 1: asphalt pavement. Roads in Arizona, for example, need to be
28:22
Speaker 1: stiffer than those in Minnesota to survive the high temperatures.
28:26
Speaker 1: The regional recipes for new roads have changed over the years,
28:30
Speaker 1: like how the US Agriculture Department updated its plant Hardiness
28:33
Speaker 1: zone map to account for warm weather plants surviving farther north.
28:37
Speaker 1: These days, road engineers also are experimenting with other ways
28:42
Speaker 1: to protect the nation's infrastructure. It's really taken off in
28:46
Speaker 1: the last ten to twenty years, said Kim Raddis, Professor
28:50
Speaker 1: Emerita of Civil and Environmental Engineering at George Washington University.
28:55
Speaker 1: Some asphalt roads, which can soften like chocolate chip cookies,
28:59
Speaker 1: are now dusted with plastic polymers for better rigidity. Rodas
29:03
Speaker 1: said several cities have tested out what is essentially white
29:07
Speaker 1: asphalt to reflect more heat. San Antonio, Phoenix, and Los
29:11
Speaker 1: Angeles have launched cool pavement pilot programs. New Jersey has
29:16
Speaker 1: stopped building concrete roads with asphalt on top due to
29:19
Speaker 1: hotter temperatures, calling it an outdated design. Shapiro said next
29:24
Speaker 1: year it plans to repair concrete pavement slabs along eleven
29:28
Speaker 1: miles of Interstate two eighty seven, in part to get
29:31
Speaker 1: ahead of potential future blow ups caused by the heat.
29:35
Speaker 1: Railroads are struggling with hotter days too. Metal tracks can
29:39
Speaker 1: bend in extreme summer heat, creating what's known as sun
29:43
Speaker 1: kink as rails exert force against the ties that can
29:46
Speaker 1: cause trains to derail. Train operators have responded by stepping
29:51
Speaker 1: up rail inspections and going slower during heat waves. Washington's
30:01
Speaker 1: Metro uses heat ride inspections to look for rails reaching
30:05
Speaker 1: one hundred thirty five degrees, the trigger for speed restrictions.
30:10
Speaker 1: Amtrak runs into the problem so often that it offers
30:13
Speaker 1: an explainer page on its website so customers understand why
30:16
Speaker 1: trains might run slower during heat waves. In February, a
30:21
Speaker 1: trade group for public transit agencies issued new guidelines to
30:24
Speaker 1: improve its resilience to climate hazards, with ideas such as
30:28
Speaker 1: replacing wood ties with concrete ones. Union Pacific, one of
30:33
Speaker 1: the nation's largest freight railroads, said this summer it was
30:36
Speaker 1: sprang white paint on its rail network in some places
30:39
Speaker 1: to cool the metal, barring a page from European Railroads
30:43
Speaker 1: in Greenville. That flying pickup truck was not the first
30:47
Speaker 1: time extreme summer heat caused problems on US Highway sixty nine.
30:51
Speaker 1: Just three weeks earlier and ten miles away, a different
30:55
Speaker 1: section of the highway also succumbed to the heat when
30:58
Speaker 1: the asphalt pavement softened and vehicles pulled up the roadway
31:01
Speaker 1: in chunks. It was a mess, but it was no
31:05
Speaker 1: match for what was to come. The viral video of
31:08
Speaker 1: the pavement blow up was the talk of the town,
31:10
Speaker 1: said Greensville spokesman Daniel Starks. I was shocked, he said,
31:14
Speaker 1: you don't ever want your road buckling, and definitely not
31:18
Speaker 1: like that. The next article from the front page of
31:22
Speaker 1: today's edition is titled Walmart posts weakest growth in years,
31:27
Speaker 1: a worrying sign of inflation weary Americans. Walmart posted weak
31:32
Speaker 1: earnings Thursday, while Target and other major retailers reported strong
31:36
Speaker 1: sales this week, offering a mixed picture of the American consumer.
31:41
Speaker 1: By Rachel Lherman. Signs of inflation weariness are starting to
31:46
Speaker 1: appear at some of the nation's most important retail giants,
31:49
Speaker 1: raising doubts about how long consumers can keep up strong spending.
31:54
Speaker 1: On Thursday, Walmart, one of the nation's largest retailers, reported
31:58
Speaker 1: its weakest sales growth since the pandemic recession in twenty twenty,
32:03
Speaker 1: a dip blamed in part on falling prescription drug prices.
32:07
Speaker 1: Analysts expressed concern about Walmart's growth and what that says
32:11
Speaker 1: about the strength of the US consumer. It does raise
32:15
Speaker 1: this question, is the consumer slowing down? Said Neil Saunders,
32:19
Speaker 1: a retail analyst at Global Data. There's definitely a few
32:23
Speaker 1: signs that things are becoming a bit tattered at the edges.
32:27
Speaker 1: Surging fuel prices and higher inflation have plagued Americans this year,
32:32
Speaker 1: especially since the war in Iran began in February. Americans
32:36
Speaker 1: have mostly been spending robustly this year, even for things
32:39
Speaker 1: that are not necessities. Consumer spending is important because it
32:43
Speaker 1: makes up roughly two thirds of economic activity. Prices grew
32:48
Speaker 1: faster than wages in July, and more cracks and consumer
32:51
Speaker 1: spending are starting to show. July retail sales showed an
32:55
Speaker 1: unexpected slump and people increasingly feel wary about the state
32:59
Speaker 1: of the economy. According to several polls, home improvement retailers,
33:04
Speaker 1: including Lows and Home Depot, continued to feel the effects
33:08
Speaker 1: of a tough housing market. High mortgage rates and home
33:11
Speaker 1: prices have many people opting to stay put and delay
33:14
Speaker 1: large projects in hopes that costs will come down. Both
33:18
Speaker 1: companies reported growing sales this week, but Home Depots said
33:22
Speaker 1: customers are sticking to smaller home projects amid the frozen
33:25
Speaker 1: housing conditions, and Lows noted that demand for discretionary DIY
33:30
Speaker 1: was under pressure. Customers continued to tell us that they
33:34
Speaker 1: are being cautious about their spending and prioritizing where and
33:38
Speaker 1: when they invest in their homes. Low's CEO Marvin Ellison
33:42
Speaker 1: said on a call with analysts. Even TJX, the parent
33:47
Speaker 1: company of budget conscious Havens, tj Max and Marshals, reported
33:51
Speaker 1: slower sales growth for the division that includes those two chains,
33:55
Speaker 1: but the company said the issues were self inflicted. We
33:59
Speaker 1: could have been showed on having the right goods in
34:01
Speaker 1: the right stores at the right time, CEO Ernie Hermann
34:05
Speaker 1: said Wednesday on a call after reporting earnings. Herman said
34:09
Speaker 1: he's confident the company will see improvement in time for
34:12
Speaker 1: holiday shopping. Meanwhile, Target reported strong sales this week as
34:18
Speaker 1: the company continues its turnaround with new CEO Michael Fiddleke,
34:22
Speaker 1: who took the helm in February. The retailer posted sales
34:25
Speaker 1: growth of more than five percent over the past year
34:28
Speaker 1: and raised its outlook for the rest of the fiscal year.
34:32
Speaker 1: Retailer earnings this week generally covered the period between April
34:36
Speaker 1: and June, when many Americans still had larger than usual
34:40
Speaker 1: tax refunds in their pockets. Those stimulus checks are now gone,
34:45
Speaker 1: plus fuel costs, and many groceries were hired during this
34:48
Speaker 1: period because of the war. More recently, inflation has eased,
34:52
Speaker 1: but is still much higher than the Federal Reserve's target
34:55
Speaker 1: of two percent. The end of the year is typically
34:59
Speaker 1: a time for huge sales events, especially around the holidays. Increasingly,
35:04
Speaker 1: experts say people are holding out for sales to buy
35:07
Speaker 1: big ticket items, which could boost spending. Promotions in June,
35:11
Speaker 1: including Amazon Prime Day, help bolster consumer strength. Both Walmart
35:17
Speaker 1: and Target are prioritizing value and cutting prices where they
35:20
Speaker 1: can to reach a careful consumer, said Aaron Sunderam, Senior
35:24
Speaker 1: vice president of equity Research at CFRA. It's a resilient
35:29
Speaker 1: but cautious consumer. Sunderum said that's kind of been the
35:33
Speaker 1: theme for a few years now. Target said it has
35:37
Speaker 1: lowered prices on ten thousand items in the last year
35:40
Speaker 1: and that ninety five percent of its school supplies are
35:43
Speaker 1: the same price or lower than last year. Many of
35:47
Speaker 1: the major retailers are also seeing big boosts from tariff refunds,
35:51
Speaker 1: which started filtering in earlier this year after the Supreme
35:54
Speaker 1: Court in February invalidated President Donald Trump's Liberation Day tariffs.
36:00
Speaker 1: Consumers do not generally get tariff rey funds, even though
36:03
Speaker 1: they paid for the price hikes caused by the invalidated tariffs,
36:07
Speaker 1: but Sundaram said he is seeing some retailer's lower prices
36:10
Speaker 1: in response to tariff reimbursements. The next article from the
36:16
Speaker 1: front page of today's edition is titled A new force
36:19
Speaker 1: is increasing inequality in America. Evidence is mounting that artificial
36:24
Speaker 1: intelligence is helping the richest people and cities pull further ahead.
36:29
Speaker 1: By Shira Ovide. Sam Altman, the chief executive who unleashed
36:34
Speaker 1: chat GPT on the world, has called artificial intelligence and
36:38
Speaker 1: equalizing force that will collectively lift us all up. But
36:42
Speaker 1: evidence is piling up that the AI boom may instead
36:45
Speaker 1: be widening the gap between America's economic aristocracy and everyone else.
36:51
Speaker 1: Data shows that the people making the most use of
36:53
Speaker 1: AI are concentrated in richer urban areas, while disadvantage regions
36:58
Speaker 1: have lagged behind. Affluent Americans are on a spending spree
37:02
Speaker 1: thanks to investment portfolios fattened by an AI addicted stock market,
37:07
Speaker 1: and some economic experts are warning that AI could widen
37:11
Speaker 1: the income gap between American workers and business owners that
37:14
Speaker 1: has caused anxiety for a decade. The developments are sparking
37:19
Speaker 1: concerns from top economists, hedge fund titans, and left wing
37:23
Speaker 1: politicians that AI may be building a powder keg of
37:26
Speaker 1: inequality with potentially disruptive political consequences when wealth concentrates and
37:32
Speaker 1: disaffection spreads, booms end badly. Top executives from Bridgewater Associates,
37:38
Speaker 1: a prominent hedge fund, wrote last week they called for
37:41
Speaker 1: the government to tax use of AI and redistribute AI
37:44
Speaker 1: weal to everyone. Behind the concern is an ominous history.
37:49
Speaker 1: Some influential economists assess that while recent technology revolutions created
37:54
Speaker 1: more jobs than they destroyed. They also widened inequality by
37:58
Speaker 1: walloping middle class workers and enriching corporations and higher income professionals.
38:04
Speaker 1: What happens if another inequality sparking technology collides with already
38:08
Speaker 1: historically large US income gaps and an economically pessimistic American public.
38:14
Speaker 1: AI may create many more billionaires and also reduce the
38:18
Speaker 1: real incomes of many households, as automation did for blue
38:22
Speaker 1: collar workers. Darren A Chemigloo, who shared the twenty twenty
38:26
Speaker 1: four Nobel Prize in Economics for studying prosperity gaps between countries,
38:30
Speaker 1: said in an email, I am genuinely afraid that it
38:33
Speaker 1: would threaten social peace and the very foundations of democracy.
38:38
Speaker 1: Rich growing richer. Inequality long predated AI, and the future
38:43
Speaker 1: is not yet written for the technology or its influence
38:46
Speaker 1: on American prosperity. About half of American adults and roughly
38:50
Speaker 1: one in five US businesses use AI technologies, but AI
38:55
Speaker 1: hasn't yet shaken society or raised unemployment. But people are
38:59
Speaker 1: appointing to early signs of AI related divides between haves
39:03
Speaker 1: and have nots, perhaps most notably in who is and
39:06
Speaker 1: isn't using the technology, workers and businesses in economically advantaged
39:11
Speaker 1: parts of the United States are harnessing AI the most,
39:15
Speaker 1: according to research from sources such as the AI startup Entropic,
39:19
Speaker 1: the Brookings Institution, and Oxford Economics. Those places include the
39:24
Speaker 1: San Francisco Bay Area and the cities and regions surrounding
39:28
Speaker 1: New York, Washington, and Seattle. Use of AI on a
39:32
Speaker 1: per person basis is lowest in states including Mississippi, West Virginia,
39:37
Speaker 1: and North Dakota. Entropic data shows while it's common for
39:41
Speaker 1: new technologies to be adopted first by higher income people
39:45
Speaker 1: and regions, Mark Muro at Brookings said that AI could
39:49
Speaker 1: ossify the existing gap between America's regional economic winners and losers.
39:54
Speaker 1: For decades, He said, superstar cities and regions have leaped
39:57
Speaker 1: ahead as they reaped the biggest gains from an increasingly
40:01
Speaker 1: digital US economy. We've seen this movie over and over,
40:05
Speaker 1: said Muro, a senior fellow at the Washington Think Tank.
40:09
Speaker 1: AI will likely reinforce existing unevenness of the US economic map.
40:14
Speaker 1: Recent data from Anthropic, which publicly releases some information on
40:18
Speaker 1: how people use its clawed chatbot, shows that less affluent
40:22
Speaker 1: US regions are catching up in AI usage. Muro also
40:26
Speaker 1: said that businesses and communities with higher AI use could
40:30
Speaker 1: lose jobs faster if companies replace workers with technology. There's
40:35
Speaker 1: also a clear gap and who's getting rich from AI
40:38
Speaker 1: mania in the stock market. A jump in stock prices
40:41
Speaker 1: for AI related companies accounts for the vast majority of
40:44
Speaker 1: gains in the S and P five hundred stock index
40:47
Speaker 1: this year, according to the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Because
40:51
Speaker 1: the top twenty percent of US households by income owned
40:55
Speaker 1: nearly ninety percent of the country's stock market wealth, Federal
40:58
Speaker 1: Reserve data shows that they are the ones benefiting the
41:01
Speaker 1: most the psychological boost people are getting from those stock gains,
41:06
Speaker 1: a phenomenon known as the wealth effect, is affecting the
41:10
Speaker 1: spending habits of more affluent Americans, said Mark Zandi, chief
41:14
Speaker 1: economist of Moody's Analytics. His firm's data shows that over
41:18
Speaker 1: the past three years, spending growth among the richest twenty
41:21
Speaker 1: percent of US households is about three times the rate
41:25
Speaker 1: of the bottom eighty percent. Essentially, Zandy said, AI wealth
41:29
Speaker 1: is giving affluent Americans the freedom to spend on fund
41:32
Speaker 1: products and activities like new clothes and eating out, while
41:36
Speaker 1: inflation is eroding the purchasing power of everyone else. Zandi
41:41
Speaker 1: said the entire US economy is being propped up by
41:44
Speaker 1: the spending of richer Americans going gaga on AI connected
41:47
Speaker 1: stock gains. But he also believes that the spending gap
41:51
Speaker 1: between the richer households and the masses which predated AI
41:55
Speaker 1: is one reason for Americans dissatisfaction with the economy. Would
42:00
Speaker 1: be one word to describe it, Sandy said, AI is
42:03
Speaker 1: driving the spending train and the broader economic train pitchforks
42:08
Speaker 1: on the horizon. Some economists and researchers are also worried
42:12
Speaker 1: that AI could worsen the prosperity gap in the United States,
42:15
Speaker 1: known as the labor versus capital divide. That's the split
42:19
Speaker 1: in national income between workers on one side, and business
42:23
Speaker 1: owners and people who make money from their assets or
42:26
Speaker 1: investments on the other. This year, just over half of
42:29
Speaker 1: the country's total economic output went to worker paychecks and benefits,
42:34
Speaker 1: according to Commist Department data. It was the smallest slice
42:38
Speaker 1: of national income going to workers in seventy nine years. Meanwhile,
42:42
Speaker 1: the share of the economic pie is growing for corporations
42:45
Speaker 1: and people who profit from investment gains. Economists fiercely debate
42:50
Speaker 1: the causes and size of that divide, which opened up
42:53
Speaker 1: long before AI came on the scene, but most of
42:56
Speaker 1: them believed that the gap has been widening for decades.
43:00
Speaker 1: Since twenty twenty, now, a growing number of economic researchers
43:04
Speaker 1: believe that AI could make it worse and even lead
43:07
Speaker 1: to worker uprisings. A Chemic Glue and two collaborators recently
43:12
Speaker 1: released a draft research paper describing theoretical scenarios in which
43:17
Speaker 1: AI related job destruction and inequality trigger revolts if they
43:20
Speaker 1: further reduced worker's share of national prosperity. Other economists, including
43:26
Speaker 1: Michael Strain at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, say
43:30
Speaker 1: it's counterproductive to speculate about the economic consequences of such
43:34
Speaker 1: a new technology. Strain said AI could help reduce inequality.
43:39
Speaker 1: There are also signs that AI may be helping far
43:42
Speaker 1: more ordinary Americans start their own businesses, thanks to chatbots
43:46
Speaker 1: helping with legworks such as marketing and paperwork. Two economics
43:51
Speaker 1: PhD students at Harvard University, Guy Lichtinger and say Ed M.
43:56
Speaker 1: Houssanni recently sketched out the possibilities of AI leader to
44:00
Speaker 1: either a utopian future of shared prosperity or a widely
44:04
Speaker 1: unequal economy. In an in progress research paper, they say
44:09
Speaker 1: that AI could make rich people and companies even richer,
44:12
Speaker 1: including by making top tier professionals like lawyers more valuable
44:17
Speaker 1: and pushing down prices for services they disproportionately buy, such
44:21
Speaker 1: as financial services. But Lickinginger and Husseini also write that
44:25
Speaker 1: AI could be a great equalizer if less experienced and
44:29
Speaker 1: middle income workers become more productive and AI reduces prices
44:33
Speaker 1: for things they buy. Whether that vision of shared prosperity
44:37
Speaker 1: comes to pass largely depends on how lawmakers respond to
44:40
Speaker 1: AI's effects on the economy, the duo said in an interview.
44:45
Speaker 1: In the end, the government is responsible, lichting Her said.
44:50
Speaker 1: The next article from the front page of today's edition
44:53
Speaker 1: is titled FED sees Eric Swalwell's devices search home as
44:57
Speaker 1: part of sexual assault inquiry. The former Democratic congressman, once
45:02
Speaker 1: considered a leading candidate in the California governor's race, resigned
45:06
Speaker 1: after the allegations surfaced in the spring by Perry Stein
45:11
Speaker 1: and alexey Kosef. Federal law enforcement officials seized electronic devices
45:17
Speaker 1: belonging to former Congressman Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California, as
45:21
Speaker 1: part of an investigation of sexual assault allegations against him.
45:25
Speaker 1: According to two people familiar with the inquiry, the FBI
45:29
Speaker 1: seized at least one of Swalwell's electronic devices at San
45:32
Speaker 1: Francisco International Airport on Saturday evening. The people familiar said
45:37
Speaker 1: his DC home was searched the next day. According to
45:40
Speaker 1: the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to
45:43
Speaker 1: discuss an ongoing investigation, Swalwell has not been charged with
45:47
Speaker 1: any crimes. Publicly available court papers confirmed the seizure of
45:52
Speaker 1: an iPhone and laptop from Swalwell, but do not detail
45:56
Speaker 1: why they were taken. The searches were first reported by
45:59
Speaker 1: The Daily Das. One of the people familiar said that
46:03
Speaker 1: authorities are considering pursuing multiple federal charges. The court record
46:08
Speaker 1: associated with the search warrant shows that at least one
46:10
Speaker 1: of the possible crimes that federal authorities are looking at
46:14
Speaker 1: is whether Swalwell used his official government position to deprive
46:17
Speaker 1: a person of their constitutional rights. Attorneys for Swalwell did
46:22
Speaker 1: not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday. We don't
46:26
Speaker 1: comment on the existence of investigations or lack thereof, a
46:30
Speaker 1: Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement. Swalwell, a long
46:35
Speaker 1: time vocal critic of President Donald Trump, had been considered
46:38
Speaker 1: a leading candidate in the California governor's race before he
46:41
Speaker 1: was accused this spring of sexual misconduct. A former staffer
46:46
Speaker 1: accused him of sexually assaulting her, according to the San
46:49
Speaker 1: Francisco Chronicle. The Washington Post has not been able to
46:53
Speaker 1: independently verify those claims. Another woman, Lonna Druze, accused him
46:58
Speaker 1: of raping her in twenty years eighteen. In news media reports,
47:02
Speaker 1: multiple women accused him of inappropriate behavior, including sending unsolicited
47:07
Speaker 1: nude photos. Arik Fudali, an attorney for Druze, said in
47:11
Speaker 1: a statement that we are encouraged to learn about the
47:14
Speaker 1: escalation of the FBI's investigation into the allegations against Eric Swalwell.
47:20
Speaker 1: We will continue to cooperate with any and all law
47:23
Speaker 1: enforcement agencies pursuing this matter in our fight for justice.
47:27
Speaker 1: One woman who accused Swalwell of misconduct told The Post
47:31
Speaker 1: on Thursday that she spoke to the FBI earlier this year.
47:35
Speaker 1: Another said that the FBI tried to contact her several
47:38
Speaker 1: times but that she never responded. Swalwell has previously acknowledged
47:43
Speaker 1: mistakes in judgment, but his attorney has said he categorically
47:47
Speaker 1: and unequivocally denies each and every allegation of sexual misconduct
47:51
Speaker 1: and assault that has been leveled against him. Amid the
47:55
Speaker 1: flurry of allegations, Swalwell resigned from Congress and dropped out
47:59
Speaker 1: of the California governor's race, while local law enforcement officials
48:03
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles and New York City said they were
48:05
Speaker 1: investigating the claims. Jeanine Piro, the top prosecutor in d C,
48:11
Speaker 1: immediately opened a tip line to solicit information from the
48:14
Speaker 1: public to provide information about any sexual assault allegations against Swalwell.
48:20
Speaker 1: Sexual assault investigations typically fall to local authorities because DC
48:26
Speaker 1: is not a state and has an unusual law enforcement structure.
48:29
Speaker 1: The U S Attorney is also responsible for investigating what
48:33
Speaker 1: are considered local crimes. The Post reported in March, before
48:38
Speaker 1: the women's allegations against Swalwell were made public, that FBI
48:42
Speaker 1: Director Cash Pattel was pressing to release a decade old
48:45
Speaker 1: investigative file involving Swalwell and a suspected Chinese intelligence operative.
48:51
Speaker 1: Swalwell sent a cease and desist letter to the FBI
48:54
Speaker 1: at the time, accusing the Trump administration of trying to
48:57
Speaker 1: undermine his candidacy. Declassified documents released Monday by a White
49:02
Speaker 1: House task force include summaries of interviews with Swalwell in
49:06
Speaker 1: which he acknowledged that he occasionally hooked up with the
49:09
Speaker 1: woman Christine Fang, who was suspected of being a Chinese spy.
49:14
Speaker 1: Swalwell was never accused of any wrongdoing by the FBI.
49:18
Speaker 1: A person who worked as a staffer for Swalwell before
49:21
Speaker 1: the congressman resigned in April said that he and other
49:24
Speaker 1: people who worked in the office at the time were
49:26
Speaker 1: interviewed by the FBI in the spring. The staffer, who
49:30
Speaker 1: spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid being associated with
49:34
Speaker 1: the investigation while seeking a new job, said his interview
49:38
Speaker 1: with the FBI lasted about forty five minutes and included
49:41
Speaker 1: questions about the sexual assault allegations, as well as other topics,
49:45
Speaker 1: including Swalwell's association with Fang. The next article from today's
49:51
Speaker 1: edition is titled Democrats are moving past the resistance. They
49:55
Speaker 1: want a new kind of fighter. Prominent democrats from present
50:00
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's first term battles are losing in primaries, a
50:03
Speaker 1: signal their party wants something else. As it looks to
50:06
Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight by Karen Tumulty. For more than a decade,
50:11
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party has defined itself by its opposition to
50:14
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and everything for which he stands. Midterm elections
50:18
Speaker 1: almost always are referendums on the president and the party
50:22
Speaker 1: in power, but this year's election season is providing mounting
50:26
Speaker 1: evidence that although Democratic animosity toward Trump is a given,
50:30
Speaker 1: it is no longer sufficient to hold the party together
50:33
Speaker 1: as it did during twenty eighteen's off year contests. Florida's
50:37
Speaker 1: Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday was the latest example. A
50:41
Speaker 1: folk hero of the Trump resistance, former Trump National Security
50:45
Speaker 1: Council aide Alexander Vindman was trounced by state Representative Angie Nixon,
50:51
Speaker 1: who joined the Democratic Socialists of America a few weeks
50:54
Speaker 1: before the election. Vinman was a key witness during Trump's
50:58
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen impeachment, testifying that he had been on a
51:01
Speaker 1: phone call in which the then president had pressured Ukrainian
51:05
Speaker 1: President Volodimir Zelensky to investigate rival Joe Biden and his family.
51:11
Speaker 1: Vindman campaigned as a champion of democracy and had the
51:14
Speaker 1: backing of the Democratic Establishment, as well as a sixteen
51:18
Speaker 1: million dollar war chess that dwarfed less than one million
51:21
Speaker 1: dollars that Nixon raised, but Vindman, by many accounts, proved
51:25
Speaker 1: a lackluster candidate who didn't take his opponent seriously. Nixon, meanwhile,
51:30
Speaker 1: had earned her combat stripes in Tallahassee, the state capital,
51:34
Speaker 1: and Jacksonville, her North Florida district. She spent almost six
51:38
Speaker 1: years in the legislature opposing the agenda of Florida's Republican
51:42
Speaker 1: Governor Ron DeSantis. In May, she was arrested while staging
51:46
Speaker 1: a five hour sit in in the Governor's office against
51:49
Speaker 1: the GOP's mid decade registricting process, which gave Republicans a
51:54
Speaker 1: leg up in four additional House races. Earlier, she had
51:58
Speaker 1: preempted a vote on that map by marching onto the
52:01
Speaker 1: House floor with a hot pink bullhorn and shouting, this
52:04
Speaker 1: is a violation of the Constitution. Nixon, campaigning under the
52:09
Speaker 1: slogan change Can't Wait, has also turned her fire on
52:13
Speaker 1: her own party. Floridians don't want the establishment in Washington,
52:17
Speaker 1: d C. Deciding who their Democratic nominee and U s
52:20
Speaker 1: senator is going to be she told The Tampa Bay Times.
52:24
Speaker 1: Vinman's loss by double digits follows the primary defeats of
52:28
Speaker 1: other Democrats who had positioned themselves at the vanguard of
52:31
Speaker 1: the Trump resistance. They include Representative Dan Goldman New York,
52:37
Speaker 1: who had gained national prominence as the House Intelligence Committee's
52:40
Speaker 1: lead council in Trump's first impeachment trial, and Representative Diana
52:45
Speaker 1: to Get Colorado, who had been an impeachment manager at
52:48
Speaker 1: Trump's second trial before the Senate in twenty twenty one
52:52
Speaker 1: after the January sixth attack by supporters on the US Capitol,
52:57
Speaker 1: Representatives Al Green Texas and Shrian Thanadar Michigan, both of
53:02
Speaker 1: whom had introduced impeachment articles during Trump's second term, also
53:06
Speaker 1: lost their primaries. And lawyer George Conway, a former Republican
53:10
Speaker 1: who became one of the president's most prominent antagonists on
53:13
Speaker 1: cable news, placed fifth in a crowded primary for an
53:17
Speaker 1: open New York City seat, getting barely six percent of
53:20
Speaker 1: the vote. It is understandable that Democrats would be disillusioned
53:24
Speaker 1: with what their party has been doing to thwart Trump.
53:28
Speaker 1: We are at a point where, like woke one point
53:31
Speaker 1: oh resistance one point oh is also dead. Donald Trump
53:35
Speaker 1: was impeached twice and he's president again, said Trey Easton,
53:39
Speaker 1: vice president for public Policy at the Searchlight Institute, a
53:43
Speaker 1: democratic think tank. People want more from the Democrats, so
53:47
Speaker 1: voters are moving on, even if many of their candidates haven't.
53:52
Speaker 1: The challenge moving forward is how Democrats confront the new
53:55
Speaker 1: forces that are emerging within their party. Should they once
53:58
Speaker 1: again gain control of at least one House of Congress
54:01
Speaker 1: in November, as seems likely, they will have to offer
54:04
Speaker 1: at least a semblance of a governing agenda, But the
54:08
Speaker 1: bigger test will come as they turn their attention to
54:10
Speaker 1: the presidential contest of twenty twenty eight and a political
54:14
Speaker 1: future that will unfold beyond Trump's time in office. It
54:18
Speaker 1: could well be a contentious exercise, and the standard bearer
54:21
Speaker 1: who emerges will probably be the one who can demonstrate
54:24
Speaker 1: an effective way to redefine what the party stands for,
54:27
Speaker 1: while also creating a broad space in which the various
54:30
Speaker 1: factions of the party can feel comfortable. We are overdue
54:35
Speaker 1: for it, eastern said, predicting that the twenty twenty eight
54:38
Speaker 1: nominee will be picked by a Democratic primary electorate that
54:41
Speaker 1: really wants to define itself not by what it is against,
54:45
Speaker 1: but by what it is for. The next article from
54:49
Speaker 1: today's edition is titled Elon Musk posted and she lost
54:53
Speaker 1: her job. Now she seeks to clear her name. A
54:57
Speaker 1: judge found that Mary Coleman's unlawfully lawt her job at
55:00
Speaker 1: FEMA amid cuts by the U. S. Doge Service by
55:05
Speaker 1: Merrill Cornfield and Brianna Sachs, a senior Federal Emergency Management
55:10
Speaker 1: Agency official fired early last year, is seeking to clear
55:14
Speaker 1: her name after Elon Musk blamed her for allowing payments
55:17
Speaker 1: to New York City to house immigrants, which she said
55:20
Speaker 1: was approved by a U. S. Doge Service aid. In
55:24
Speaker 1: early February last year, Musk posted on x that DOGE,
55:28
Speaker 1: which stands for the Department of Government Efficiency, discovered FEMA
55:33
Speaker 1: sent fifty nine million dollars to luxury hotels in New
55:36
Speaker 1: York City to house illegal migrants, Calling the payment unlawful
55:40
Speaker 1: and an act of gross insubordination, Musk shared FEMA's former
55:45
Speaker 1: chief financial officer, Mary Coman's name and photo in opposed
55:49
Speaker 1: accusing her of a criminal action. Last month, a judge
55:53
Speaker 1: ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully fired Comans in February
55:57
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. As part of us SA District Judge
56:00
Speaker 1: Michael S. Knachmanoff's decision, which the government is currently appealing,
56:05
Speaker 1: Comens is now entitled to a name clearing hearing after
56:09
Speaker 1: Musk and conservative influencers attacked her and shared her personal
56:13
Speaker 1: information on social media. Coehmen's attorneys filed a new statement Tuesday,
56:18
Speaker 1: explaining she had no role in authorizing the payments in question,
56:22
Speaker 1: and that days before she was fired, a DOGE official
56:25
Speaker 1: had explicitly endorsed FEMA's decision to continue sending money to
56:29
Speaker 1: state and local governments. The filing provides the most detailed
56:33
Speaker 1: account yet of the events surrounding her firing, and reveals
56:36
Speaker 1: how the government haphazardly responded to social media claims made
56:40
Speaker 1: by Musk and others during the early harried days when
56:43
Speaker 1: DOGE exerted extensive power across the federal government. The statement
56:48
Speaker 1: from Comen's alleges that senior officials at FEMA and the
56:51
Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security knew she had not authorized the payments,
56:55
Speaker 1: even as the administration publicly blamed her for them. The
56:59
Speaker 1: case marks one of the first to reach this phase
57:02
Speaker 1: of resolution. While other fired federal workers have appealed to
57:06
Speaker 1: the Merit System's Protection Board, a quasi judicial independent agency
57:11
Speaker 1: that is supposed to protect federal employees from unfair firings,
57:15
Speaker 1: Coemens took her case to federal court, arguing MSPB has
57:19
Speaker 1: been ineffective and her dismissal is a constitutional question because
57:23
Speaker 1: the administration has cited the President's Article II powers to
57:27
Speaker 1: remove subordinates. Comens dispute centers on FEMA's Shelter and Services Program,
57:33
Speaker 1: a congressionally funded grant program that reimbursed state and local
57:37
Speaker 1: governments and other organizations for certain costs of sheltering migrants
57:41
Speaker 1: released from federal custody. On her first day in office,
57:45
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump ordered agencies to review federal funding to
57:48
Speaker 1: non governmental organizations that provided services to immigrants and pause
57:53
Speaker 1: payments while that review was underway. DHS Secretary Christy L.
57:58
Speaker 1: Nom later directed the department to halt certain immigration related
58:02
Speaker 1: grant payments to non profit organizations. Due to time constraints,
58:07
Speaker 1: we'll need to end this article at this time. This
58:11
Speaker 1: concludes the reading of the Washington Post for today, Saturday,
58:15
Speaker 1: August twenty second, twenty twenty six. Your reader for today
58:19
Speaker 1: has been Roger Hamperion. If you have any questions, comments,
58:23
Speaker 1: or suggestions concerning this program, please feel free to call
58:27
Speaker 1: us at eight five nine four two two six thirty
58:30
Speaker 1: nine zero. Thank you for listening, and now please stay
58:33
Speaker 1: tuned for continued programming on Radio I