11 dead, 12K structures destroyed in LA fires | The Excerpt
On Saturday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Los Angeles area fires are turning entire neighborhoods into ash. Paste BN Justice Department Correspondent Bart Jansen puts Donald Trump's hush money sentencing in context. The Biden administration extends protections for nearly 1 million immigrants. Paste BN Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe breaks down Friday arguments over TikTok. Earth passed a critical climate change threshold in 2024.
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 Saturday, January 11th, 2025. This is The Excerpt.
Today, the damage from Southern California fires rises. Plus, what a historic Donald Trump sentencing actually means. And we sink into the Supreme Court arguments over the future of TikTok.
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At least 11 people have been killed and some 12,000 structures have been destroyed as wildfires continue to move through Los Angeles area communities. Fires have scorched some 56 square miles, an area about the size of Miami, according to Cal Fire. The largest, the Palisades fire, ranks as the most destructive in Los Angeles history. Across the LA metro area, officials have ordered the evacuation of around 150,000 people. The battle against the wildfires has turned into an international effort, with Mexico and Canada sending firefighters and other resources to California. The National Guard and neighboring states have also deployed resources.
Meanwhile, Governor Gavin Newsom yesterday announced an independent investigation into water mobility issues that reportedly hampered firefighting efforts. Newsom's announcement comes as politicians, including President-elect Donald Trump, have pointed fingers at California's elected leaders saying they were not prepared for the fires.
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President-elect Donald Trump received the first ever criminal sentence for a former or incoming US President yesterday with an unconditional discharge. I caught up with Paste BN Justice Department correspondent Bart Jansen to find out exactly what that means. Bart, hello, sir.
Bart Jansen:
Hey. How are you?
Taylor Wilson:
Good. Thanks for hopping on on this historic day. So Bart, tell us about the sentencing here as Donald Trump received an unconditional discharge. What exactly does that mean?
Bart Jansen:
Well, it doesn't mean much in terms of punishment. What it means is that the case has been formally concluded, but that the sentencing included no prison time, no fine, no probation. It just basically put an end to the case so that now Trump can formally appeal the decision, the verdict, that he was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records, and move on with that appeal. What's more important historically about the event was that Trump had been the first former President charged criminally. He was the first former President convicted. And now he's the first sentenced. He continues to say that he did nothing wrong. He called the event, on social media, a despicable charade. He told the judge that it had been a terrible trial, a terrible mistake before he was sentenced. So he remains upset about it and will continue to dispute it as he appeals the verdict.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, appeals has kind of been the name of the game when we've been talking here in recent months, Bart. What happens next functionally? What does that appeals process look like?
Bart Jansen:
He's got 30 days to appeal. He has already appealed several times. The judge Juan Merchan has decisioned not to dismiss the charges and a variety of other decisions that Merchan has made. So the names of the appellate courts are confusing, but that he's got an intermediary step to appeal to the next level of judges. Eventually, he could reach the State Court of Appeals, which would be the highest state court. And potentially from there, he has argued throughout that he should be immune from these state-level charges just as the Supreme Court ruled in July that he is immune from many federal criminal charges if they apply to actions that he took as official duties when he was President. He contends that some of the testimony in the case harken back to when he was President in 2017.
One witness was Hope Hicks, his communications director, and another was Michael Cohen, his former lawyer. And so that that testimony tainted the verdict in the case. And he's basically arguing the entire case should be overturned under the same immunity decision that shielded him from federal charges. So we'll have to see what the state-level courts make of that. But that's why potentially eventually he might ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on the state-level charges as well.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. So meanwhile, Bart, I know we end this week with some shifting developments on this special counsel report into Trump's alleged election interference. What is the latest here? And where do we go from here?
Bart Jansen:
The latest firm development that we got was that the Eleventh US Circuit Court of Appeals decided not to stand in the way of releasing the report. Two of Trump's co-defendants had asked the Appeals Court to block the release because they argued that it could still hurt the trial that they may eventually face, even though the charges have been dismissed against President-elect Trump. So the Appeals Court decided not to stand in the way, but that threw it back to the District Court Judge Aileen Cannon. And her order had been, "Don't release the report." She told Attorney General Merrick Garland and Special Counsel Jack Smith, "Do not release the report." But she set a time limit on that of three days if the Eleventh Circuit disagreed with her, of three days after the Eleventh Circuit decision. So the Eleventh Circuit decided on Thursday, you count out three days, I don't know how formally they do that, but that would look like Sunday to me.
And so I think it's possible Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has said he intends to release the report, that Monday would be the first day that that is possible. He has not announced anything. And so we are waiting to see what he will do. An effective time limit on him is that Trump has fought the release of this report. He continues to oppose the release of this report. And the Biden administration ends on January 20th. Trump has already named who he would have as Attorney General, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. So Garland has basically until the 20th to either release it or continue to hold onto it. If he holds onto it for that duration, Bondi is not expected to release the report. Trump does not want the report released. So we'll know in the next 10 days whether we will get to see this report about election interference and the investigation into Donald Trump. But it's not clear yet when that release might come.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Lots to keep track of here in Trump world. As always, Bart Jansen covers the Justice Department for Paste BN, doing a great job helping us make sense of all of it. Thank you, Bart.
Bart Jansen:
Thanks for having me.
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Taylor Wilson:
The Biden administration yesterday extended temporary protections for close to a million immigrants living in the US from Venezuela, El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine. The decision comes days before the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has vowed to end temporary protected status for immigrants from some countries. Republicans have criticized the program over extensions that allow some immigrants who entered or stayed in the country illegally to remain for decades. The Department of Homeland Security said the 18-month extension to TPS for eligible immigrants is warranted based on adverse political, economic, or environmental conditions in their home countries.
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The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday over whether TikTok could be banned in the US later this month in a case pitting two major issues, freedom of speech and national security, against each other. I spoke with Paste BN Supreme Court correspondent Maureen Groppe to learn more. Hello, Maureen.
Maureen Groppe:
Hey. How are you?
Taylor Wilson:
Good. Thanks for hopping on on this big story, this big case. So would you just reset the case for us, Maureen? I think a lot of folks have gotten kind of a headline perspective in recent months. But what's that issue here? And who are the major players?
Maureen Groppe:
The issue is whether the government can require TikTok to cut ties with ByteDance, which is its China-based parent company. Congress put that requirement into a law last year that passed with wide bipartisan support, and it was signed into law by President Joe Biden. So if TikTok isn't divested by January 19th, it will be effectively banned in the United States. TikTok is challenging that requirement, as are some of the platform's many content creators. Lawyers for both were in the courtroom on Friday, as was the top Supreme Court lawyer for the Justice Department, who was defending the law.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. So what did we hear during these arguments, Maureen?
Maureen Groppe:
Well, we heard very different views on whether this law violates the First Amendment rights of TikTok and the rights of its users. TikTok says this is a massive unprecedented restriction on free speech, but the government said that the same speech can be expressed on the platform as long as it's not covertly manipulated by China and China can't harvest its data. We also heard different views about whether there are less restrictive ways of addressing the government's concern about China. TikTok and its users said it would be better if the government just required a warning label and if it also prohibited the company from sharing data with ByteDance. But the government said that both of those options would be ineffective.
Taylor Wilson:
Okay. So did we get any sense of Justices leaning one way or the other?
Maureen Groppe:
Well, they seemed likely to uphold the law. That was expected going into the argument, that they would be more swayed by the government's concerns about national security than by TikTok's arguments about the First Amendment. And that seemed to be playing out. Although, of course, we won't know until after the Justices issue their decision. But they spent more time testing the lawyers for TikTok and for TikTok's content creators than they did sparring with the Justice Department's attorney.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, Maureen, you've mentioned the First Amendment a few times here. What might this case mean for First Amendment arguments going forward? Just what are the broader impacts potentially even beyond TikTok?
Maureen Groppe:
If the Supreme Court does side against TikTok, it'd be another indication that when these two big issues go up against each other, free speech and national security concerns, that they're going to favor national security. And that has been the recent trend.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. We're entering a new Trump era, a new Trump administration. Could Donald Trump choose not to enforce the law after being sworn in as President later this month? How does the Trump factor play into all this?
Maureen Groppe:
He could decide to do that. He could direct the Justice Department not to enforce it. But it's unclear if that would stop Apple and Google from making TikTok available because they're the ones that would face huge penalties if they made it available once the January 19th had passed and TikTok was still connected to ByteDance. And they might not trust that Trump's directive would give them enough protection from these huge penalties. So President could try to do that, but we don't know whether the companies that would face the penalties would go along.
Taylor Wilson:
Fascinating stuff. Maureen Groppe covers the Supreme Court for Paste BN. Thank you, Maureen.
Maureen Groppe:
Thank you for having me.
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Taylor Wilson:
Last year was not only the hottest since record keeping began in 1850, but it was also the first to pass a threshold meant to limit the worst effects of climate change. That's according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service yesterday. The setting of a new record warm temperature for the second year in a row has prompted further pleas from many organizations for more effective and immediate action to try to rein in warning temperatures and the greenhouse gas emissions that worsen the warming.
You can read more on some of the latest findings with the link in today's show notes.
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Over 50 million people work on our oceans around the world, and over 80% of the goods we consume are delivered by vessels navigating them. But when it comes to maintaining law and order on the high seas, is there anyone really in charge? Journalist Ian Urbina, director and founder of The Outlaw Ocean Project, joins The Excerpt to talk about his work trying to bring accountability to the high seas. You can find that episode right here beginning at 5:00 AM tomorrow.
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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 Monday with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.