Plane collides with helicopter, crashes into DC river | The Excerpt
On Thursday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: An American Airlines passenger jet with 64 people aboard and a military helicopter collided Wednesday night. President Donald Trump orders his administration to begin preparations on a facility at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay to house up to 30,000 migrants detained for being in the U.S. without legal authorization. Paste BN White House Reporter Zac Anderson gives some of his major takeaways after the first day of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearing. The Trump administration rescinds a freeze memo on federal grants. Paste BN White House Correspondent Joey Garrison breaks down President Donald Trump's buyout offer for federal employees who don't wish to return to work at the office. The Trump administration ends deportation protection for Venezuelan immigrants.
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 Thursday, January 30th 2025. This is The Excerpt.
Today, the latest after a devastating plane and helicopter collision in Washington. Plus, we take a look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearing. And the Trump administration is offering buyouts to federal employees who don't wish to return to work at the office.
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A passenger jet with 64 people on board collided with an army helicopter above Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last night, launching a major search and rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River. Authorities said American Airlines flight 5342 from Wichita, Kansas was preparing to land at the airport, before it collided in midair with the helicopter around nine o'clock last night. At least a dozen bodies have been recovered, according to NBC and CBS. Local officials are expected to give another update at 7:30 Eastern time this morning. President Donald Trump thanked first responders in a statement, and called the incident a terrible accident. You can stay up with all the latest on usatoday.com.
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President Donald Trump ordered his administration yesterday to begin preparations on a detention facility at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to house up to 30,000 migrants detained for being in the US without legal authorization. Trump signed a presidential memorandum, instructing the Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security to expand an existing migrant center at Guantanamo Bay, which has long been used to hold suspects accused in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump did not give many details, but said it would house the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. He announced the move during a bill signing ceremony at the White House for the Laken Riley Act, which empowers immigration officers to detain unauthorized immigrants when they are arrested on criminal charges. The new law is expected to increase the number of detained migrants.
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It was a contentious start to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearing yesterday, as he's up to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. I spoke with Paste BN White House reporter, Zac Anderson, to dig into some of his major takeaways. Hey there, Zac.
Zac Anderson:
Hey.
Taylor Wilson:
So, Zac, before we get to some of the issues, and there were a lot to chew on here, what was the general mood, the general vibe, of the hearing on the day?
Zac Anderson:
I would say it was pretty contentious. This is one of the more controversial nominees that Trump has put forward. There was a lot of build up to this hearing. There's concerns about RFK Jr. on both sides of the aisle here. He was a Democrat for a long time. He favored abortion rights. Republicans have some concerns about some of his views. His vaccine views have generated a lot of questions, his anti-vaccine advocacy. So this hearing was expected to be fairly dramatic, and it did end up being so. The criticism was entirely coming from Democrats though, Republicans gave him a fairly warm reception, although they did ask some questions that hinted at some underlying concerns.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, in terms of some of those specific issues you mentioned there, Zac, let's start with his positions on junk food and nutrition, just broadly. We know he's talked a lot publicly about some of these stances. How was he pressed here, and how did he respond?
Zac Anderson:
This was an issue where there was some bipartisan consensus. He's talked about problems with chronic disease, and really blamed the food industry, processed foods, and lack of healthy foods in the American diet. And this is something that Republicans and Democrats generally seem to agree on. And there were some Republicans from big ag states, like Kansas, Iowa, Montana, that asked him very gently, "Would you make sure to include more of a collaborative process? Are you going to crack down on farmers?" And he was eager to say, no, that he doesn't want to do anything to hurt farmers. That he'll work with them to help improve their practices.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, as you mentioned at the top, Zac, we know he's had some controversial views on vaccines. These are often some of the real headline grabbing aspects of his platform. How did these come up during the first day of the hearing, and what was his take?
Zac Anderson:
Democrats were pretty relentless in this. Kennedy has a long history of questioning vaccine safety. And lawmaker after lawmaker brought these issues up, said that these are concerning, even frightening, one of the lawmakers said. And that they would jeopardize people's lives. Kennedy, he's said repeatedly that he is not anti-vaccine. He said that he is pro-safety. Now, questioning the safety of vaccines, a lot of people view that as anti-vaccine. But there are concerns that Kennedy would basically oversee these agencies, and could have influence on how they approach vaccines going forward. So there was a lot of very aggressive questioning on this, accusing him of basically participating in junk science, quackery, conspiracy theories, all of that.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, Zac, he also seems to have espoused a variety of viewpoints on abortion, leading up to this moment. He'd have a lot of authority over abortion issues in this job, if confirmed. Did this come up, and where does he stand currently on abortion?
Zac Anderson:
He was a Democrat for the longest time, and he said that he was pro-abortion rights. And he ran for president, as a Democrat, saying that he was, "Pro-choice." So he has a fairly recent history of being in favor of abortion rights. And the way that he has framed it now that he is trying to be in the Republican administration is that, basically, I support what Trump supports. And I will follow his policies. His frequent line that he went back to is that, "Every abortion is a tragedy."
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, Zac, I'm just going to stop you for a second. We have some tape of one of those exchanges. This is Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat. And you can hear some of this back and forth. As you mentioned, this was, I guess, a repetitive theme throughout the abortion conversation.
Senator Maggie Hassan:
So, Mr. Kennedy, I'm confused. You have clearly stated in the past that bodily autonomy is one of your core values. The question is, do you stand for that value or not? When was it that you decided to sell out the values you've had your whole life in order to be given power by President Trump?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:
Senator, I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy, that we can't be a moral authority in this country.
Senator Maggie Hassan:
Right, but that isn't what you said back in New Hampshire in 2023.
Zac Anderson:
Now, that, not necessarily saying that he's completely divorcing himself from his previous views, but that he thinks that abortion in itself is bad. So he's definitely changed how he talks about this. He just repeated that statement over and over again. He was asked by Republicans if their base wants to see further efforts to restrict abortions. And, specifically, the abortion pill was a question that they brought up. So he got it from both sides on that. Although, with Republicans, it was just fleshing out the idea that he has aligned himself with Trump on this, and he seemed happy to do that.
Taylor Wilson:
And another day of lawmaker grilling coming up today. Zac Anderson covers the White House for Paste BN. Thank you, Zac.
Zac Anderson:
Hey, thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
The Trump administration yesterday rescinded a memo describing a freeze on federal grants and loans, after setting off a firestorm in Congress, and at least two lawsuits disputing who controls spending priorities. The Office of Management and Budget aimed to review grants and loans to ensure they complied with his priorities, which lawmakers and legal experts blasted as unconstitutional. Congressional Democrats insisted the Constitution gives Congress the power to control spending decisions. A federal judge on Tuesday had temporarily blocked the Trump administration policy. In a statement to reporters yesterday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the Office of Management and Budget is pulling back its memo to end any confusion on federal policy created by the court ruling, and what she called dishonest media coverage.
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The Trump administration is offering buyouts to all federal employees who don't wish to return to work at the office, in a push to significantly reduce the size of the federal workforce. I spoke with Paste BN White House correspondent, Joey Garrison, to learn more. And, Joey, thanks as always for hopping on.
Joey Garrison:
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
Taylor Wilson:
So let's just get the basics out of the way, Joey. What is President Trump offering here with these buyouts?
Joey Garrison:
Yeah, well, you'll recall, during President Trump's first day in office, he signed an order that required federal workers to return to in-person working in the office. Now, many federal workers had still been on these COVID-era remote working parameters. And this said, "Hey, you need to start moving back to your offices." Well, he followed that up with essentially what was a unprecedented government-wide buyout offer for two million federal workers that said, "Hey. If you don't want to come back to work in person, you can choose to buy into this buyout plan and get a severance of essentially eight months of pay through September. You just have to make your decision by February 6th, and then you'll be paid until the end of September." So this is a deliberate way of really trying to downsize our federal workforce. This has been pretty well documented by Elon Musk, who's become a top advisor for Trump. So this is a very aggressive way of trying to do that.
Taylor Wilson:
Is there any sense, Joey, just of how many employees might participate in this buyout program?
Joey Garrison:
I think before even this buyout program, they thought that just having this requirement of people to go back to in-person work would reduce, pretty significantly, talking 5% to 10% of people, might not want to buy into that. But the fact that you have, on top of this, this financial incentive, but I think they think that they can reduce the workforce pretty sizably. They think that this can weed out a lot of folks who maybe were already thinking of retiring. Or it might weed out federal workers who might not be big fans of Donald Trump, and they say, "Hey, this isn't an administration I want to be a part of. Now, I have a financial incentive to pack my bags." And so I think that's what the thinking is here.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, Joey, this has clearly been a focus for Trump, as you mentioned, him taking aim at federal employees in this way since taking office. Is there any sense on what's next? What's down the pipeline? Is he going to go after anything else when it comes to federal employees?
Joey Garrison:
Well, really, this is representative of a much larger purge of the government. He started off, he fired inspector generals of multiple departments. Those are supposed to be the oversight person, nonpartisan roles, those are, career roles that he fired all of those. He's fired more than a dozen Justice Department attorneys who helped out with the special counsel Jack Smith case against Trump. So he's gone after folks who he thinks are not in line with his administration, and who are hostile to his administration. The USAID agency, which oversees the foreign aid deployment, a number of those workers were put on leave.
So if you look back at what Trump was talking about on the campaign trail, this really reflects a lot of the things he talked about. He's said he wanted to go after the deep state. That was always an amorphous thing. What is that? Well, he's trying to get people out who he thinks are beholden to the other party, to his enemies. And he is trying to find more loyalists to be part of the new federal government. Stephen Miller, a top policy official for the new White House, was on CNN, where he blatantly made the point of the two million federal workers. He believes that most of those are far left leaning individuals. And so I think you can look at all these efforts collectively as this larger push to remake the federal government more in Trump's image.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Joey Garrison covers the White House for Paste BN. Joey, I know it's a super busy time for you, so I appreciate you carving out some time for us.
Joey Garrison:
Anytime. Thank you very much.
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Taylor Wilson:
The Trump administration has revoked immigration protections for more than 600,000 Venezuelans in the United States. That's according to an announcement by Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, yesterday. Noem rescinded the protections that former President Joe Biden provided earlier this month under a program called Temporary Protected Status or TPS. Biden's extension aimed to provide 18 months of protection from deportation and access to work permits. Yesterday's move means Noem still has to decide to extend or terminate temporary protected status for about half the Venezuelan population in the US benefiting from the program by February 1st, instead of spring of next year, according to Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the Nonpartisan American Immigration Council. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
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Wildfires are still burning across Los Angeles, and it's only intensified the already terrible housing crisis playing out there since the 1980s. Peter Dreier, an urban and environmental professor at Occidental College, says that, at this point, the city really needs to decide what its priorities are.
Peter Dreier:
Ultimately, we have to make a decision, as a society, whether housing is a human right, or it's a privilege for those who can afford it.
Taylor Wilson:
Peter joined my colleague, Dana Taylor, to talk about what solutions were on the table for affordable housing after the fires. You can hear that conversation right here on this feed today, beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern Time.
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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.