Suspect identified in Trump assassination attempt | The Excerpt
On Monday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Former President Donald Trump is safe after another assassination attempt. Paste BN Democracy Reporter Erin Mansfield takes a closer look at Democrats' voting rights agenda. GOP officials say states could punish colleges that divest from Israel. Could they? Paste BN Health Reporter Karen Weintraub breaks down the new FDA mammogram guidelines. 'Hacks' and 'Shogun' win big at the Emmys.
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 Monday, September 16th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.
Today, the latest from another assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Plus we take a closer look at Democrat's agenda on voting rights, and the FDA issues new guidelines for mammograms.
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is safe following gunshots near his golf course in Florida his campaign and the Secret Service announced yesterday. The incident appears to be an assassination attempt on the former president, the second one in two months. The FBI says it's investigating. The incident took place at Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, where Donald Trump was golfing shortly before 2:00 PM according to officials. Authorities said a man stuck the barrel of a rifle through the fence at the edge of the golf course while the former president was golfing. Secret Service agents on the course spotted the weapon and opened fire on the man who fled.
David Aronberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County, confirmed to Paste BN that a suspect in custody is 58-year-old Ryan Routh. Aronberg also said an AK-47 rifle, believed to belong to the suspect, was recovered at the scene. Aronberg said he appeared to be at least partly motivated by his strong support for Ukraine and its war against Russia.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for President, said in a statement yesterday that she is thankful that Donald Trump is safe following the reported attempted assassination. And President Joe Biden vowed to make sure the Secret Service has every resource for Trump's safety, adding that there is no place for political violence.
Experts say agents in West Palm Beach appear to have handled the situation properly, two months after the Secret Service was heavily criticized about an earlier assassination attempt where a gunman with an AR style rifle shot at the GOP nominee from about 150 yards away.
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Democrats say voting rights are under attack, but what's in their voting rights agenda if they win this fall? I spoke with Paste BN Democracy Reporter Erin Mansfield for more.
Erin, thanks for hopping on today.
Erin Mansfield:
Thank you for having me. Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
So Erin, Democrats say this year's election will determine not only the fate of a slew of issues, but also democracy itself. So before we get into some specifics, which voting rights bills has Vice President Kamala Harris said she would sign into law as president?
Erin Mansfield:
So the current names for them are the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. Those bills have in the past had different names often associated with the civil rights icon, John Lewis. They're essentially the same laws with a few modifications that happened over the years.
Taylor Wilson:
So let's walk through the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, starting with this idea of federal pre-clearance. What is that, Erin, and what's the significance here?
Erin Mansfield:
In the first half of the century, even though on paper the United States had ended slavery, had tried to make Black Americans equal citizens, functionally, they were still not able to vote. There were ridiculous things like literacy tests, counting jelly beans in a jar, stuff that basically meant Black people were not allowed to vote. So in 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, and one of the big pieces of it was this idea that these states, usually southern former slave states, had to pre-clear their voting laws with the federal government in order to have a review that made sure it didn't discriminate. So basically, instead of waiting for discrimination to happen and then having an aggrieved person sue, and fight, and take years and years in litigation, these states had to actually ask the federal government for approval. In a culture of states' rights, that's obviously a very contentious thing, but it is the reason that you don't have these really egregious voting rights violations in this day and age.
Taylor Wilson:
As you mentioned, Erin, there's also the Freedom to Vote Act. This addresses a few things. Let's start with gerrymandering. Can you remind us what exactly gerrymandering is and what would this bill do to approach that issue?
Erin Mansfield:
A long, long time ago, some guy named Gerry drew a congressional district that looks like a salamander, and that's where gerrymandering came from. But essentially, congressional maps are drawn by usually state legislatures. Sometimes there are independent commissions, but in a lot of states it's state legislatures. So whichever party runs that legislature will draw the maps. And there are ways to use really fancy GIS technology to figure out who in a certain neighborhood is going to vote for whom. And so what'll happen is, and this has happened in Democrat and Republican sides, New York recently has come under attack for it, Texas, Ohio on the Republican side, and basically you draw shapes, and let's say if you're given 35 congressional districts, you come up with a bunch of shapes to try to see how many statistically are likely to go to Republicans versus Democrats. And you end up with these really bizarre-looking districts that can run hundreds of miles, members of Congress who are representing people from multiple counties, but only small parts of those counties. This suburb is pulled into one district, another suburb is pulled into a different district, these three streets within a specific city, those have to be pulled into a different district. So that's what gerrymandering is, a way of manipulating congressional maps to partisan advantage.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, so what would the Freedom to Vote Act do here?
Erin Mansfield:
It would create a new law that said partisan congressional map drawing is illegal. Right now, the Supreme Court has been clear that you can't draw a map to discriminate on race, but they've been a lot more lax when it comes to discriminating based on party because, as we all know, party politics are as old as time, or as old, as least, as our country. And what this would do is it would make partisan gerrymandering illegal.
Taylor Wilson:
And you know, Erin, a core tenet of Democrats' approach and strategy when it comes to some of these issues around democracy has to do with voter registration. How does the Freedom to Vote Act approach that issue?
Erin Mansfield:
It would make it easier to register to vote, in a nutshell. One, they would have automatic voter registration. For a lot of people, if you've ever moved from one state to another, or even if you got your driver's license after you turned 18, the DMV probably asked you, "Do you want to register to vote?" or you've checked a box. What's become more popular lately is, instead of checking a box to say, "Yeah, please register to me to vote," states are saying, "We're going to register people to vote automatically and give them a box to check if they don't want to register to vote." It puts more work on the government. There's still an opt-out, but it's just a different decision to make and it's, "Hey, you're going to be registered to vote. Is that okay? Is that not okay? Check the block and be done."
Taylor Wilson:
And, Erin, some folks listening might be thinking, "Hey, Democrats have had the White House for four years, they have the Senate." What are some barriers to accomplishing some of these goals, getting these bills passed around democracy issues? Why haven't they in the Biden era?
Erin Mansfield:
The Democrats don't run the House and the House would not push this through because the Republicans largely oppose it. Now, that is a pretty modern example. While the original Voting Rights Act was pretty contentious historically, in this past generation or two, voting rights have been pretty bipartisan. However, one of the big things when they were trying to pull this through in 2022, the Democrats ran the House and they had 50 votes in the Senate. And because they had the vice president, that gave them a tiebreaker, so effectively they had control. But there's a rule in the Senate called a filibuster that requires you to get 60 votes. It means you need bipartisan support. So this is really a result of parties that do not see eye to eye.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, great insight here. Erin Mansfield covers democracy for Paste BN. Thanks as always, Erin.
Erin Mansfield:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
As they return to college campuses this fall, pro-Palestinian student activists are finding a new foe, lawyers for conservative states. Last month, two dozen Republican attorneys general sent a letter to Brown University ahead of the Ivy League school's planned vote to consider dropping its investments in companies with ties to the Israeli military. If that proposal is adopted, the officials warned it would have immediate and profound legal consequences for staff and students. The threat suggested the school could lose money if those state governments stopped doing business with them. But the attorneys general didn't spell out exactly how that could happen, and the actual impact anti-boycott laws could have on colleges like Brown is debatable.
Two weeks ago, the Muslim Legal Fund of America shrugged off the warning, saying the letter was a fruitless attempt to force the school to comply with laws outside its jurisdiction. In a separate letter to Brown's administrators, lawyers for the fund called on the university to reject the baseless threats of legal repercussions. The debate marks a new phase in the campus divestment movement, as the few colleges where administrators consider protesters demands start a new school year. Most schools dismissed requests to disentangle their investments from companies with connections to Israel, but some seem to entertain those pushes more seriously. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
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New mammogram guidelines from the FDA shift what patients should know. I spoke with Paste BN Health Reporter Karen Weintraub about the move that went into effect last week requiring mammogram centers to inform patients about breast density.
Hello, Karen.
Karen Weintraub:
Hello.
Taylor Wilson:
So Karen, what are these new guidelines for mammogram facilities?
Karen Weintraub:
Yeah, so the FDA is now saying that women have to be told about their breast density. A number of states have already had similar guidelines or related ones, but now everybody has to be told. And breast density is a measure of how much fatty tissue a woman has in her breast relative to something called fibroglandular tissue, which is the stuff that contains the muscles and the milk ducts, sort of everything else but the fat. And you can't tell just by normal means how dense your breasts are. Nobody knows this just from observation or from knowing themselves. And you can't change this. You can't go on a diet and get less dense breasts. This is something you're just born with. Although some women do age out of it as they go through menopause, they get less dense breasts.
Taylor Wilson:
Right. So do dense breasts then increase cancer risk? Is there a direct correlation there?
Karen Weintraub:
So mammograms can't see breast cancer in denser breasts as well, and so they tend to miss breast cancers. It's not necessarily that dense breasts are more likely to have cancer, but they're more likely to be missed when women with dense breasts have cancer.
Taylor Wilson:
So after a mammogram, healthcare providers may recommend women with dense breasts to get a breast ultrasound or MRI. Does insurance cover these cost, Karen, and what's the significance for women who cannot afford this extra step?
Karen Weintraub:
This is a huge issue. A lot of insurance will not cover this follow-up. It is required to cover the initial mammogram. It's considered preventive care, and that's covered under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, required that preventive care like mammograms are covered. But the follow-up, like the MRI or the ultrasound, is not necessarily covered, and so many women can't follow through, can't afford it, or say, "Oh, well, I'll get to it," and don't. I did a story a couple of months ago about a woman on Long Island named Cindy Russo who put it off, didn't have the spare $200 and ended up with stage three breast cancer. It's a terrible situation for women to be in.
This may be self-evident, but catching breast cancer early improves the chances of survival, and also the treatment gets much harsher the further along you are in breast cancer. Stage zero breast cancer is a simple, quick operation. Stage three breast cancer might involve radiation, chemotherapy, five years of hormone therapy. It's much more invasive, intrusive, costly, and life-altering. Hopefully, with everyone being told, there will be some pressure on insurance companies now to have to cover this follow-up.
Taylor Wilson:
And is there anything on the policy level to help fix this cost issue going forward and increase access to this extra testing?
Karen Weintraub:
At this point, there's talk but not action yet.
Taylor Wilson:
Karen Weintraub covers health for Paste BN. Thank you, Karen.
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Last night marked the 76th annual Primetime Emmy Awards. Even though they were last year's winners and nearly every Emmy pundit predicted the top comedy award would go to The Bear, it was actually Hacks, the comedy about an older comedian, that took home the prize. And Shogun, a historical drama that takes place in 16th-century Japan, won a slew of awards including actor categories and best drama. You can read more from the small screen's big night in the entertainment section on usatoday.com.
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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods, 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.