Prosecutors ask to delay Trump hush money sentencing, but oppose dismissal | The Excerpt
On Wednesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: What's next for President-elect Donald Trump's hush money sentencing? Paste BN White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers talks through how the Biden administration is addressing aid to Ukraine in its final weeks. Donald Trump taps TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Plus, he picks Linda McMahon to be education secretary. Paste BN National Correspondent Rick Jervis discusses immigrant advocates' concerns about children under Trump immigration plans.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson and today is Wednesday, November 20th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, the latest in Trump's hush money sentencing post-election, plus what's next for Ukraine Aid in the final weeks of the Biden Administration and what immigrant advocates are worried about when it comes to children under Trump immigration plans.
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Prosecutors advised a New York judge yesterday to delay President-elect Donald Trump's criminal sentencing in his hush money case following the election, but said they will still fight against Trump's efforts to get the case dismissed. Judge Juan Merchan already put the November 26th sentencing date and other deadlines in the case on hold at the joint request of prosecutors and Trump's legal defense team earlier this month.
In it's filing yesterday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office raised the question of whether any sentencing would now be appropriate before Trump's next presidency ends. The office recommended Merchan set a schedule for Trump to file a formal request to have the case dismissed and allow prosecutors to respond by December 9th. It said it plans to oppose Trump's request and that other proceedings in the case should be adjourned until the request is dealt with.
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Ukraine used U.S. missiles to strike deeper into Russian territory this week after President Joe Biden lifted restrictions on Ukraine's use of long-range U.S. weapons. So what's next for Ukraine Aid going forward as we move toward a new administration? I spoke with Paste BN White House Correspondent, Francesca Chambers, who joined me from the G20 Summit in Brazil for more.
Hello, Francesca.
Francesca Chambers:
Hi, Taylor. Thanks for having me again.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for hopping on today. So we're into the final weeks of this Biden Administration. Lots happening as it pertains to Ukraine Aid. What have we seen really from President Joe Biden here in the final weeks before he passes the baton to Trump?
Francesca Chambers:
Taylor, going back to September, before we knew the results of the U.S. presidential election, President Joe Biden authorized all of the remaining Ukraine Aid that Congress had already passed to be spent before he left office. Now the Pentagon is rushing to get all of that assistance out the door. It also has found out that it had more Ukraine Aid available to it than it previously thought. So the Biden Administration does not plan to go back to Congress before President Joe Biden leaves office to ask for more assistance. This week we also saw President Biden authorize Ukraine to be able to strike in Russian territory with long-range U.S.-made weapons.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, so this issue of the long-range missiles striking deeper into Russia, Francesca, this has been controversial. It's been discussed for a while. Why now?
Francesca Chambers:
So, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine has been pressing President Biden to lift restrictions on where those missiles could strike for some time now. And when he saw Biden in September, he really pressed him as a legacy making issue to lift these restrictions because the Biden Administration had not been allowing Ukraine to strike into Russian territory, they were worried that it would escalate the war. Now the Ukrainians have also pushed Biden to support an invitation to NATO for Ukraine before he leaves office. But that is something that we have not seen him do.
Taylor Wilson:
And as for Congress, of course, the big player here, we know we'll get a new Congress next year as well with the Republican trifecta control coming into Washington. What's next for lawmakers over the next few weeks, when it comes to Ukraine Aid?
Francesca Chambers:
Congress has to pass new spending authority by December 20th. Now, that would be the logical time if the Biden Administration was planning to press for Ukraine Aid before Biden left for them to have that fight. However, Republicans in Congress have already been indicating that they just want to continue existing spending levels right where they are. And why do they want to do that? Because of what you just said, Taylor. Next year they'll have the White House, they'll have the House, and they'll have the United States Senate, so they can craft a spending deal at that point that's more along the terms that they'd like to see. Now whether that will include additional Ukraine Aid will be up to Republicans.
Taylor Wilson:
Francesca, you're at G20 in Brazil. How big a part of the conversation has Ukraine been this week?
Francesca Chambers:
So to take you behind the scenes at these summits, like the G20, we haven't actually gotten to see the leaders that much while they've been here in Rio de Janeiro. We did get to hear from President Joe Biden at a session on hunger and poverty where he made a point of bringing up Ukraine while the Russian foreign minister was in the room. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was sitting in at the conference for Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia. Joe Biden at that session said that he thought that everyone at the table should continue to support Ukraine in its fight for territorial sovereignty.
Taylor Wilson:
And we know, Francesca, President-elect Donald Trump has a very different approach to Ukraine from the outgoing administration. Really, what's the expectation for how things will shift next year under Trump?
Francesca Chambers:
Well, as a candidate, Donald Trump said that he'd solve the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day without detailing exactly how we'd go about that. And he also said as a candidate that he might even be able to get it done before he was president, while he was still President-elect. Now we haven't seen the details of such a plan. And when asked about this on Capitol Hill, Marco Rubio, who he has picked to be his Secretary of State, said that it would be up to Donald Trump to determine what that looks like.
Taylor Wilson:
You will see Francesca Chambers covers the White House for Paste BN. Joining us from Rio de Janeiro. Thank you, Francesca.
Francesca Chambers:
Thanks.
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Taylor Wilson:
President-elect Donald Trump said yesterday he will nominate television personality, Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator. If confirmed by the Senate, Oz would lead one of the federal government's largest agencies. It operates or oversees healthcare programs that provide coverage to about half of all Americans, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Affordable Care Act Marketplace Exchange.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services operates under the Department of Health and Human Services, which Trump has already selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead. Kennedy has said he wants to address disease rates and other health issues facing Americans, but has also spread misinformation about vaccines, COVID-19 and more. Trump has also named his new Secretary of Education, tapping former Small Business Administration Head and former wrestling executive, Linda McMahon. The education department provides some funding for public schools, administers federal student aid programs, and collects data on U.S. education. Trump has vowed to close the department and redistribute most services to state level education officials. McMahon served as administrator of the Small Business Administration under Trump's first term.
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Immigrant advocates fear President-elect Donald Trump's policy shifts will hurt one group the most: children. I spoke with Paste BN National Correspondent, Rick Jervis, for more. Rick, I appreciate you making some time for me today.
Rick Jervis:
Good to be here.
Taylor Wilson:
So Rick, what are some of the worries really from immigration advocates with this incoming Trump Administration as it pertains to children, in particular in immigration?
Rick Jervis:
The advocates are particularly worried about a couple of fronts. One is that the Trump Administration basically returns to family separations, which was a big controversial thing which happened during his first term where families were forcibly separated at the border. They're also concerned about this issue of mass deportations and how it collect lead to families being separated where one or two family members might get actually deported and the other younger family members stay back. They're also concerned about rolling back certain protections which are in U.S. immigration law. And there's a lot of worry also over DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and how that might also be repealed.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. We'll get to DACA and some of these issues, Rick. You mentioned separating families. Remind us about this Trump practice of doing so. Separating families at the border during his first term. And what was the lawsuit that came out of this? What will this potentially prevent going forward?
Rick Jervis:
The family separation issue was something which actually came up during Trump's first term, and it was part of the zero-tolerance policy. And under that policy, they were telling border agents to separate families and charge the adults with misdemeanor crimes about crossing into the U.S. without proper documentation. The children were taken away from them and placed into protective custody. So children as young as six months old were forcibly taken away from parents at the border. They were separated for months, sometimes up to several years. The government later lost track of where all the children were in relation to the actual parents. And so they lost track of how to basically reunite some of these families even after a court ordered them to do so.
There was a key lawsuit filed on this by the American Civil Liberties Union and that lawsuit was known as Ms. L v. ICE. And that actual lawsuit was really pivotal because it ordered the government to stop separating families, but it also led to a settlement. And in that settlement between the federal government and the actual defendants, both sides agreed that the government wouldn't separate families again until at least 2031. And they also agreed to reunite a lot of the families that had been separated. Overall, some 5,500 families were separated at the border. Many have been actually reunited, but there's about a thousand that remain separated.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, so Donald Trump has named Tom Homan to be this, so-called border czar. What do we know about him? What have we heard from him about his plans and do these fall in line with what we've heard from Trump himself?
Rick Jervis:
He actually worked as an immigration official under President Barack Obama and then came out of retirement to join Trump's Administration back in 2016. And during that administration he was one of the more sort of fervent supporters of this zero-tolerance policy. Recently, Trump said that he was going to name Homan as his border czar. It's not exactly clear what that actual position means, but he is obviously going to be a top advisor and overseeing a lot of the border policy. And in recent interviews, Homan has signaled that he and the actual administration is going to take a really hard stand towards immigration. He has said in TV interviews that he is interested that some of his top sort of priorities are saving children from smugglers and traffic rings, but he has also said that he supports basically revisiting family separation as a policy, and he's also signaled that in the mass deportation sweeps that he actually supports instead of separating families, just basically deporting the entire family.
Taylor Wilson:
So Rick, you mentioned DACA at the top, but remind us what that is, what it stands for and what could be next for this program as we enter whatever this next Trump Administration brings.
Rick Jervis:
DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It was an Obama-era policy where it's basically shielded undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children and it protected them from deportation and allows them to work legally in the U.S. Back in 2016, 2017, Trump tried to repeal it. There were legal challenges to that. It basically went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2020 ruled to uphold the actual policy. It was a very narrow decision how the administration brought the case. So the Supreme Court didn't actually rule on the merits of the actual policy, just on the sort of way the administration brought the case. And currently it's under review by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump has actually tried to repeal this in the past, could be in the crosshairs again. Right now, though, everybody is actually waiting just to see what the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals does with it, and it could affect about 500,000 DACA recipients.
Taylor Wilson:
Wow. All right. Rick Jervis is a National Correspondent with Paste BN. Great insight for us as always. Thanks, Rick.
Rick Jervis:
Thank you too.
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Taylor Wilson:
And today is Transgender Day of Remembrance. Honoring the memory of transgender people lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. Artificial intelligence has had a revolutionary impact across numerous industries, and it's been felt across the world. But one sector in particular where it could be transformative is global agriculture. Hiroki Koga, co-founder and CEO of Oishii, the company behind the world's largest indoor vertical farm, joins my colleague, Dana Taylor, to talk us through how it all works. That's right here, beginning at four PM Eastern Time this afternoon.
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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.