Trump holds off on Colombia tariffs after agreement on deportation flights | The Excerpt
On Monday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: President Donald Trump is holding off imposing tariffs and sanctions he threatened Sunday on Colombia after a spat over deportation flights. Trump floats a plan to move Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan. Paste BN Reporter Andrea Riquier looks into whether we're facing an insurance crisis. It's been 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. Paste BN National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise gives an explainer on the doomsday clock and what a Tuesday update might tell us about humanity. The Super Bowl matchup is set!
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, January 27th, 2025. This is The Excerpt.
Today, the latest on a bizarre back and forth between Trump and Colombia's president over deportations. Plus, the Doomsday Clock will give us a sense of how close we are to self-destruction. And the Super Bowl matchup is now set.
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President Donald Trump is holding off imposing tariffs and sanctions that he threatened on Colombia after Colombian president Gustavo Petro agreed to the unrestricted acceptance of US military flights deporting Colombian migrants according to the White House. The agreement comes after a feud yesterday between the US and Colombia, over Trump's mass deportations of migrants that risk becoming a trade war with both sides promising new tariffs on goods coming from the other country.
The deportation showdown started yesterday morning after Petro accused the Trump administration of treating Colombian migrants like criminals, pointing to images of handcuffed detainees. He said his country would not accept deportation flights from the US unless migrants are treated with the dignity that a human being deserves, in his words. After learning of two repatriation flights that were not allowed to land in Colombia, Trump had said he would immediately slap 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the US from the South American country and raise it to 50% after one week. Trump also announced the immediate revocation of visas and a travel ban to the US for Colombian government officials and their allies and supporters, along with heightened customs and border protection inspections of all Colombian nationals and cargo on national security grounds. His press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the visa restrictions and enhanced inspections will remain in effect until the first plane load of Colombian deportees is successfully returned to Colombia.
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President Donald Trump said over the weekend that he wants Egypt and Jordan to take in additional Palestinian refugees from Gaza while floating a plan to just clean out the war-torn area to bring peace to the Middle East. Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump mentioned a call he had earlier that day with King Abdullah II of Jordan. Trump said, "I'd like him to take people. I'd like Egypt to take people. You're talking about a million and a half people and we just clean out that whole thing. You know, over the century it's had many, many conflicts, and I don't know, something has to happen." He suggested the relocations of Palestinians from their homes in Gaza could be either temporary or long-term.
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Are we facing a homeowner's insurance crisis? I spoke with Paste BN reporter Andrea Riquier to find out. Hey, Andrea, always a pleasure having you on. How are you today?
Andrea Riquier:
I'm doing well. Thanks for having me, as always.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for hopping on. So, most experts agree we're in an insurance crisis. Really strong words there, Andrea. Why is that? What are you hearing from them?
Andrea Riquier:
We all know about the California wildfires and the big question of how much all those homeowners and renters, but homeowners in particular, are going to be made whole after losing their homes or having their homes badly destroyed. It's top of mind for everybody, and a lot of reporters are writing about the insurance issue. Since about 2000, the cost of homeowners insurance was roughly 7 to 8% of the typical mortgage payment, but over the past decade, the cost of homeowners insurance has spiked so much that it's now over 20% of the mortgage. So, it's tripled, basically.
Some people are seeing just enormous spikes in the cost of homeowners insurance, and in many cases, despite that, insurers feel that they are not being made whole for what they have to pay out to account for growing climate risk. There are going to be a lot more situations like what we're going to be watching unfold in the coming weeks in California is the short answer.
Taylor Wilson:
Staggering data. That's a massive leap, Andrea. So, as you write, many states are really taking the lead in innovating policy solutions. What are you seeing here and which states in particular stand out?
Andrea Riquier:
California is often seen as sort of maybe the poster child for what not to do. Maybe that's a little bit strong, but there's a lot of industry critique of California because the commissioner there kept policies, and therefore, monthly premiums artificially suppressed for a long time. And so, now they're in sort of crisis mode in California trying to figure out how to address the fact that insurers feel like it would take a big increase to get them to where they need to be.
So, having the discussion about protecting consumers, protecting homeowners, protecting property values because you can't jack up the price of insurance premiums without having a corresponding decrease to home values in many cases, that is one of the big things that states have to grapple with. There is currently a debate about that in North Carolina, for example. I can give you the example of Colorado, which is currently trying to make sure that property insurers account for any mitigation efforts that go on, that either homeowners or municipalities undertake. So again, this differs state by state. There are some states where that already exists. If you put in this particular type of hardening on your home, maybe it's a roof or something like that, you are eligible for a discount, say, on your premium. But in states where that's not the case, that's a good conversation to be having.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, Andrea, we're talking a lot about the states here. I mean, what steps could the federal government be doing, and I guess, what's the barrier to doing so? Why are we talking so much about states and not the federal level?
Andrea Riquier:
There's not high hopes, let's say, for the federal government to get much done both because of partisan divides, but also because, frankly, we have both a Congress and a White House that want to have a lighter touch, let's say, in industry.
One thing that is interesting that the federal government could be doing is something akin to what took place in the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare, you probably remember, really hinged on the fact that insurers could not deny coverage to people who had a pre-existing condition, right? So, if insurers were able to just say, "We're not going to insure you because we know that you have a history of heart disease or you've had cancer," or something like that, they would only be insuring the people with the lowest risk and it would be great for their profits, but it wouldn't be great for overall public health.
Something similar to that on the federal level could really help the property insurance market because right now, I mean, we've talked a lot about affordability and the cost of insurance, but the other big problem is that insurers are just pulling out of a lot of areas where they feel like it's too risky for them. Florida is the perfect example. Over the past couple of years, people just not being able to renew their policy. So, some role for the federal government in either helping states set up the plans, sometimes called FAIR plans, some sort of monetary role for the federal government in helping states could be helpful, but also just some sort of law that sets a cap on how insurers approach the homeowners in their area.
At this point, there are definitely parts of the country that are much more higher risk, California, Florida, some coastal areas, but we just don't really know the impact of climate change. Everybody is going to have a pre-existing condition in the property insurance market at some point.
Taylor Wilson:
Andrea Riquier is a reporter with Paste BN. Folks can go check out this full piece with a link in today's show notes. Thank you, Andrea.
Andrea Riquier:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and a time to remember the 6 million Jewish Holocaust victims along with millions of other victims of Nazi persecution. One 86-year-old survivor who spoke with Paste BN, Tova Friedman, was held captive at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. She said, "We cannot forget." You can read more about her story with a link in today's show notes.
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How close is humanity to self-destruction? Tomorrow's Doomsday Clock update will reveal just how bad things are. I caught up with Paste BN national correspondent Elizabeth Weise to learn more. Hello, Beth.
Elizabeth Weise:
Hey, how are you doing?
Taylor Wilson:
Good. Good. Thanks for hopping on today. So, I just want to start with some kind of definition at the top. What is the Doomsday Clock? A bit of a daunting term. And how did it originate?
Elizabeth Weise:
By design it's daunting. So, in 1947, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which is a journal run by atomic scientists who were exceedingly freaked out about the possibility of a nuclear war because boy, it was not looking good. They started this concept of how many minutes to midnight is it? And with midnight being humanity destroying itself through nuclear war. So, they were trying to make America and make the world pay attention and realize this was a serious, serious threat.
And so, every year since then, they set the clock. It's an apocryphal clock, it's not a real clock, but they're saying, "This is how close we think we are to doing ourselves in, and we should be paying attention." And so, it's been happening since '47.
Taylor Wilson:
Wow. Okay. So, just in terms of the specific factors that they keep an eye on every year, Beth, I mean, what are they looking at?
Elizabeth Weise:
They get a bunch of some of the smartest people on the planet and a bunch of Nobel laureates together who spend the whole year talking and meeting and reading these insanely dense papers. And then they meet together twice. And basically their science and security board is asked two questions, "Is humanity safer or at greater risk this year than last year?" And, "Is humanity safer or at greater risk compared to the 78 years since the clock began?"
Taylor Wilson:
Where do things stand right now? How close are we to midnight?
Elizabeth Weise:
Well, we're at 90 seconds to midnight right now, and that was the last two years. And before that, we were at 100 seconds. And remember, when they started this, we were seven minutes, back in the '40s, we were seven minutes. We've gotten a lot closer. The things that they have been concerned about the last couple of years, I mean, they're always concerned about nuclear war. They're also concerned about what artificial intelligence might do, the threat of biological threats and terrorism. And then, recently, they've added mis and disinformation because it's become so much a part of how nations attack one another. And it's very hard to make reasonable decisions if the information that you're basing them on is not true. And there's been so much mis and disinformation wafting around the globe of late that that's another concern.
Taylor Wilson:
That's fascinating. So, is it possible to make progress here, Beth? I mean, can we move the clock backwards?
Elizabeth Weise:
Yes, it can move back, and it has. When the Iron Curtain fell, it went back. When Russia and the United States signed some nuclear disarmament treaties, it went backwards and we gained time. We became safer. So, we have become safer. We haven't become safer in the last couple of years. I mean, we've had war in the Ukraine. We've had war in the Middle East. Yeah, it's looking a little dicey.
Taylor Wilson:
When will this announcement be made, and is there any expectation for where things stand?
Elizabeth Weise:
So, we don't know. They keep it such a closely held secret. I talked to several people who are on the board of the scientists who make the decision, and they so will not even talk about it. The reset is announced on Tuesday, which is January 28 at 10:00 AM Eastern Time. They broadcast it on the web. We'll have a live stream on our website. Will it go forward or back? Difficult to imagine it will go backwards. Wouldn't that be a beautiful thing? But I mean, we'll see.
It was interesting when I talked to some of the scientists who are on the board, they said, "Thinking about the end of humanity is really hard. As humans, our minds just shy away from it." I mean, who wants to think about that? And they said, "So, we're trying to create this one little place in the year for maybe even if it's only for a few minutes, people really think, 'Wow, what are we doing? And maybe what should we not be doing?'"
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Elizabeth Weise is a national correspondent with Paste BN. Thank you, Beth.
Elizabeth Weise:
Always happy to be here on the doom and gloom beat.
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Taylor Wilson:
The Superbowl matchup is now set, and sorry if you were hoping for any kind of a Cinderella story. The Kansas City Chiefs are back as they try for a record third title in a row after they took down the Buffalo Bills last night in the AFC Championship game. From the NFC side, the Philadelphia Eagles will try to stand in their way after ending the Washington Commander's dream run earlier yesterday. Superbowl 59 is set for Sunday, February 9th. And be sure to stick with Paste BN Sports until then for full coverage leading up to the game.
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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.