NY judge upholds Trump hush money conviction | The Excerpt
On Tuesday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: A New York judge Monday upheld President-elect Donald Trump’s felony conviction for falsifying records to cover up a “hush money” sex scandal. Wisconsin police hail a hero second-grader for calling 911 during a deadly Monday shooting. Paste BN Congress, Campaigns and Democracy Reporter Karissa Waddick breaks down the conversation around subminimum wage for people with disabilities. TikTok asks the Supreme Court to temporarily block a law that could ban the site in the U.S. Paste BN Wellness Reporter David Oliver gives an explainer on symbiosexuality.
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 Tuesday, December 17th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.
Today, a New York judge upholds Trump's hush money conviction. Plus, the latest from a school shooting in Wisconsin, and a look at the debate over subminimum wage for people with disabilities.
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A New York judge yesterday upheld President-elect Donald Trump's felony conviction for falsifying records to cover up a hush money sex scandal. In doing so, Judge Juan Merchan rejected his claim that a sweeping recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity had nullified his Manhattan criminal case. For now, the ruling keeps in place Trump's criminal conviction. Though, through a spokesman, he immediately vowed to fight it. If Merchan's ruling is upheld, Trump will make history on January 20th as the first criminal felon to occupy the White House and serve as president. Separately, Trump has asked Judge Merchan to dismiss the entire New York criminal case as a result of his November election victory. Merchan did not rule on that argument yesterday.
Two people were killed and six others injured yesterday, after a 15-year-old student suspect opened fire at a private school in Madison, Wisconsin. Police said multiple students are in critical condition. Authorities said the shooter was pronounced dead on the way to a local hospital and appeared to die from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Authorities revealed harrowing details about how police were alerted to the deadly shooting, saying that a second-grader alerted police by calling 911. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
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A new proposal to abolish the subminimum wage for people with disabilities is being met with mixed reaction. I spoke with Paste BN congress, campaigns and democracy reporter, Karissa Waddick, for more. Hello, Karissa.
Karissa Waddick:
Hey, it's great to be here.
Taylor Wilson:
Always great having you on, Karissa. So let's talk through this history of subminimum wage for disabled workers. When does this date back to, what can you tell us here?
Karissa Waddick:
So the subminimum wage was first enacted in 1938. It was part of the Fair Labor Standards Act. And the goal of the subminimum wage was to help people with disabilities, and at that time particularly wounded veterans, find work. The belief around that time was that people with disabilities weren't as capable as their peers at completing work; they would take longer, they weren't as productive. There was some incentive workplaces needed to hire these people. And so by allowing workplaces to offer the subminimum wage, that was the solution back then to this issue.
Taylor Wilson:
So fast-forward to the 2020s. What are advocates and supporters of change pushing for here, Karissa, as it pertains to this wage?
Karissa Waddick:
So advocates of eliminating the subminimum wage say that this policy is outdated, that it is dehumanizing for people. And then, frankly, they say it's a civil rights issue for people with disabilities removing the subminimum wage. They look at it and say people with disabilities may have different levels of productivity than an average person, but the fact that there is an average person means that all of us have different levels of productivity anyway, and that the people who have disabilities shouldn't be paid differently from others for that reason. And they say that there are ways to be able to pay people with disabilities, a living wage, a minimum wage, in order for them to live healthy, happy lives and to earn a living and to be able to pay mortgages, car payments, all of that stuff.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, there is some pushback. What are some of the concerns from both family members and also those who run these kind of sheltered workshops where a lot of disabled folks work? What have we heard from them, family members? I mean, what's the pushback really center on?
Karissa Waddick:
You're absolutely right, there is some pushback from families of people with disabilities. And the pushback comes in not thinking that this is necessarily a practical solution or a practical way of handling this problem. A lot of the places that use the subminimum wage are called sheltered workshops, and these are non-profits specifically designed to employ people with disabilities. These workshops tend to get contracts from larger businesses. Families of people with disabilities that I spoke with, say that these workshops provide a safe place and a supportive place for their family members to work. That workplaces in the community, so they say, these are places like grocery stores, retail shops, other places like that, don't have the type of supports that people with disabilities might need, or the staff to help them through issues they might have throughout the day, where these sheltered workshops do sometimes have those services.
Families also say that the sheltered workshops give a kind of sense of community and a sense of family for people with disabilities, that they worry that they're going to feel left out in a traditional workplace, or they're going to feel some discrimination in other ways in the workplace, than they do in these sheltered workshops.
And there's just a variety of concerns that they have about this change. They see it as a matter of choice. They and their family members with disabilities like working in these sheltered work spaces and they don't want that to go away. And they fear that removing the subminimum wage would lead to a loss of jobs in these places for many people. And that's the same mentality as the people who own these sheltered workshops.
I spoke with one man who owned a sheltered workshop in Pennsylvania, and he has a brother who has disabilities, and he was a special education teacher for a long time. He opened that workshop to provide vocational training for people with disabilities, and he said that he sees this as rooted in idealism rather than reality. He doesn't see a plan B, he doesn't know where people with severe disabilities would go if they didn't have the opportunity to work in a sheltered workshop, and worries that employers, grocery stores, places like that wouldn't hire some of these people that he employs.
Taylor Wilson:
Interesting perspective. So just in terms of what's next here, Karissa, we're entering a new presidential administration, a completely different look on Capitol Hill. Where does this conversation go from here, whether it's about formal legislation or just kind of the cultural debate going forward?
Karissa Waddick:
This subminimum wage proposal was proposed by the Biden administration Department of Labor, and the incoming Trump administration hasn't said much about whether they support removing the subminimum wage or not. We tried to contact the Trump transition team and Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer's office. She is the incoming nominee to lead the Department of Labor. Neither of them said anything or responded to a request for comment about whether they supported the proposal. But this is also at the state level, and so there's been a number of states, over a dozen states have passed legislation to remove the subminimum wage over the last few years, and there's legislation proposed in a handful of other states. So it's a two-battle front, if you will, for them.
Taylor Wilson:
Right. Karissa Waddick covers congress, campaigns and democracy for Paste BN. Folks can find this full piece with a link in today's show notes. Thank you, Karissa.
Karissa Waddick:
Thanks so much.
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Taylor Wilson:
TikTok yesterday asked the Supreme Court to stop the clock on the January 19th deadline it's facing to be sold or face a ban in the United States. In an emergency appeal, attorneys for the social media giant and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, said the deadline should be put on hold as the high court considers its challenge to the federal law that mandated the sale. The company also argues the incoming Trump administration needs time to evaluate what TikTok calls a massive and unprecedented speech restriction. A federal appeals court this month upheld the law and rejected TikTok's request to pause enforcement until the Supreme Court considers the company's appeal. Unless ByteDance sells the platform by the deadline, it will be banned from app stores and web hosting companies in the US.
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What is symbiosexuality? I spoke with Paste BN wellness reporter, David Oliver, about a term that serves as a reminder there are always new ways to think about ourselves and our desires. Thanks for hopping on, David.
David Oliver:
Hey. Thanks, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
So this was an interesting piece, introducing a term that I was not familiar with. So let's try to kind of establish a definition here at the top. What does it mean to be symbiosexual?
David Oliver:
It's a term that not many people are aware of because it's really early in terms of its research. But basically, this is research from Sally Johnston, talking about this new term that people might not be aware of, that she's discovered through digging through other research. Basically, it means that someone is attracted to a couple, it's specific things about that couple. It's something that's beyond someone who is bisexual or pansexual and attracted to individual people. It's not the same as being polyamorous, where you are attracted to a couple or being in a relationship with a few people. It's a more ephemeral type of attraction that way. And it's something though that she found that was prevalent across age and race demographics. It's something that has been seemingly latent all around us, but we just have a name for it now. Much like a lot of different identities in the LGBTQ and nonmonogamy spaces.
Taylor Wilson:
And what did she hear specifically from some of the study participants?
David Oliver:
She heard a bunch of different things. Some people, they were attracted to that love and to secure attachment. Some were attracted to the aesthetic, as in how do people as a couple really just look together. Some people were attracted to how they play with different gender roles. They also spoke about the attraction to just the strength that people exude in relationships, the power built through mutual support, shared goals and desires, things like that. So it's a bit more in the weeds than your basic this person's attracted to men or this person's attracted to women. It's some more granular data.
Taylor Wilson:
And Johnston was clear that more research is needed. I mean, what's next for said research and this conversation going forward?
David Oliver:
I spoke to an outside psychology professor who talked a bit about this. And she said that, I would say, labels are certainly divisive, is what she was talking about, but they also have some power. When you put a label on LGBT, for example, that's something that people can point to, people can advocate for a new term under that umbrella or a term all on its own. It makes people feel seen and makes them want to fight for themselves and makes that more likely to be taken seriously.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Interesting story. David Oliver covers wellness for Paste BN. Thank you, David.
David Oliver:
Thanks so much.
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Taylor Wilson:
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.