House debates Republican Medicaid, tax proposals and more | The Excerpt
On Wednesday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Lawmakers spent hours debating legislation that would enact sweeping tax cuts, raise the debt ceiling and add restrictions to benefit programs. President Trump pledges to end sanctions against Syria to "give them a chance of greatness.” Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura Fine testified against ex-boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs. Plus, Paste BN Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer breaks down what is at stake for the Hip-Hop mogul. Eric and Lyle Menendez are eligible for parole after a Los Angeles judge hands them a new sentence. Baseball star Pete Rose has been posthumously removed from Major League Baseball’s permanently ineligible list. Paste BN MLB Reporter Gabe Lacques tells us more about this decision.
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Cody Godwin:
Good morning. I'm Cody Godwin in for Taylor Wilson. Today is Wednesday, May 14th, 2025. This is The Excerpt.
Today we take a closer look at the latest debate over Republican Medicaid and tax proposals, plus how prosecutors aim to seize much of Diddy's fortune under federal asset forfeiture laws, and Pete Rose has been removed from Major League Baseball's ineligible list.
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House Republicans yesterday defended a bill that would enact sweeping tax cuts, raise the debt ceiling and add restrictions to benefit programs during a marathon day of committee hearings on Capitol Hill. Three separate panels reviewed the legislation that would become part of a massive package to implement President Donald Trump's agenda.
Tensions ran high at the Energy and Commerce hearing over proposed Medicaid changes. Republican members argued that they are trying to eliminate waste and fraud from the system in order to protect it for those who really need it. Among the changes would be work requirements for adults enrolled under the 2010 Medicaid expansion and more frequent eligibility checks.
Democrats highlighted the stories of people on Medicaid who could lose coverage under their proposal. They argued that Republicans had produced a bill that would cut coverage even though they had, in the past, claimed such cuts would not happen.
There were also protests yesterday against Medicaid cuts and some 26 people were arrested for crowding, obstructing and incommoding, according to Capitol Police.
Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee debated House Republican's broad tax plan. Their proposal would make the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts permanent, increase the standard deduction, increase the child tax credit, temporarily create a tax deduction for tips and overtime through 2028 and implement an additional $4,000 tax deduction for seniors, among other proposals.
Democrats lampooned that proposal as a giveaway to the wealthiest Americans. Republicans highlighted their provisions in the bill that would help working class Americans.
And the House Agriculture Committee met to debate proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, or food stamps, which provides assistance to around 42 million Americans.
You can read more from yesterday's hearing with the link in today's show notes.
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President Trump said he will order the end of sanctions against Syria in an effort to normalize relations with the new government there after the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad. Trump made the pledge during remarks yesterday at the US Saudi Investment Forum in Riyadh as he makes his first presidential visit of his second term, a four-day trip through the Middle East.
During his Saudi stop, the White House also announced billions of dollars in arms deals and Saudi investments.
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Following her allegations of sexual abuse, Cassandra 'Cassie' Ventura-Fine is taking the stand in ex-boyfriend Sean 'Diddy' Combs' criminal trial. A warning, some of the following details may not be suitable for all audiences.
Ventura-Fine, whose November 2023 lawsuit against the hip-hop mogul opened the floodgates to a series of civil complaints, delivered emotional testimony about the alleged abuse she says she endured from Combs during their relationship.
The singer broke down crying in court as she discussed Combs' so-called freak-offs, a term for his alleged drug-fueled sex parties. She said that they made her feel horrible and worthless, but that she continued to participate for the one-on-one time with Combs and out of fear the rapper would become violent or find someone new.
Combs was arrested in September of last year and indicted on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. A superseding indictment charged him with two additional counts, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. Diddy could lose his freedom and his vast empire of assets.
My colleague Taylor Wilson spoke with Paste BN Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer for more.
Taylor Wilson:
Josh, thanks for joining me.
Josh Meyer:
Sure. Hey, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
So just starting here, Josh, could you just tell us a bit about Diddy's wealth, his ventures and just kind of what he's involved with?
Josh Meyer:
So he, at one point, was a, what we'd like to say, is a near-billionaire. I mean, he was estimated to be worth at least about $740 million, plus other ventures. This is by Forbes Magazine, which does a ranking.
After his legal troubles started in 2023, it's dropped to about 400 million, maybe 450 million, but he does have a lot of assets. He's got three mansions at least, he's got a jet that's worth probably $30 million. He's got a stable of about 20 really exotic cars, artwork, lots of diamonds, et cetera. So yeah, he's worth a lot.
Taylor Wilson:
And how have we seen, I guess, his empire, if we're calling that, crumble in recent years, especially going back to 2023?
Josh Meyer:
What's really fascinating about Diddy is he's one of the first multi-hyphenates, or somebody that really went into a lot of different businesses. He sort of pioneered that, the fashion business. He even had his own fragrance, liquor with Ciroc vodka and so forth. So he had a lot of these different money streams coming in.
But after his legal troubles started, some of those went away. He still has Bad Boy Records, but he has had some breakups with people he's had a lot of legal problems. Lawyers are eating up a big chunk of his money as well. And now the Feds want to go after through asset forfeiture much, if not most, of his assets.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. So fast-forward to this week at this trial, I mean, [inaudible 00:05:26] prosecutors alleged he used this empire as part of a criminal enterprise.
Josh Meyer:
So they're charging him under RICO, which is a very broad federal statute. It stands for Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and, through asset forfeiture, seize anything that was used in furtherance of those crimes, or even just linked to those crimes.
So it's a very broad statute, and the way they've written it in the indictment is even broader. Sometimes they specify one thing or another, but in this case, anything that was used in furtherance of this alleged scheme, including like a record company or a recording studio, if that was used for some of this. So they're taking a very broad look at what might be seizable under asset forfeiture.
And in his defense, Diddy has hired a former top Justice Department official as an advisor.
Taylor Wilson:
And just in terms of that side of the coin, how worried are he and his defense team, I guess, about the potential asset forfeiture part of this case, and really just what's their argument or perspective on all this?
Josh Meyer:
Well, I mean, I think they're taking it very seriously. They hired a guy, Stefan Cassella, who's the former deputy chief of the Justice Department's Asset, Forfeiture and Money Laundering section, which has not been disclosed before. Cassella has trained thousands of prosecutors, federal law enforcement officials from the US and overseas, that he's, literally, written the bible, like two books on this stuff. So I think that's a good sign that they're worried about it.
They haven't commented on that and neither has the Justice Department, but experts told us that he should be worried about this because under RICO, if he is convicted of these crimes, then the asset forfeiture part kicks in, and it could be very costly to him.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Great story again from you, Josh. Josh Meyer covers domestic security for Paste BN. Thanks, Josh.
Josh Meyer:
Always a pleasure. Thanks, Taylor.
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Cody Godwin:
A Los Angeles judge has ruled that Erik and Lyle Menendez are now eligible for parole. The brothers, both in their mid to late 50s have been resentenced to a term of 50 years to life.
They were convicted of murdering their parents in an act of alleged self-defense in 1989, and were originally sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. It's now up to state officials to review the case and decide if the brothers should be released from prison.
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Major League Baseball's all-time Hit King, Pete Rose, who's gambling on baseball banished him from the game, has been removed from Major League Baseball's permanently ineligible list. The move comes less than a year after his death.
Taylor Wilson spoke with Paste BN MLB Reporter Gabe Lacques to learn more about the decision and how it's landing across the baseball community.
Taylor Wilson:
Gabe, thank you so much for hopping on today. How are you?
Gabe Lacques:
Oh, good, good. Busy day, for sure, but one we've certainly been waiting for.
Taylor Wilson:
Huge news. So what exactly was this decision formally from Commissioner Rob Manfred?
Gabe Lacques:
Manfred is a veteran lawyer and certainly put on his legalese cap here. And a couple months ago, he met with an attorney for Rose's family in January and in late February, President Donald Trump posted on social media that he was going to issue a pardon for Pete Rose, who did serve jail time for tax evasion and that he should be in the Hall of Fame and all this other stuff. And suddenly, it was like, oh, my gosh, he's going to exert this pressure on Manfred to reinstate him. And so they met once at least to discuss issues around the game, they said, and it started to seem like it was maybe something of a reality.
But in his explanation, Manfred said that the late commissioner, A. Bartlett Giamatti, who passed away shortly after banning Rose in 1989, he said that Giamatti was acting not necessarily as the act of a commissioner to ban Rose, but rather to strike an agreement to fend off any pending or potential litigation. So that's sort of the legal needle that he tried to thread to sort of justify this.
But it's curious, to say the least. It certainly makes one think why now, and really what was the reason behind it?
Taylor Wilson:
Well, I know that this won't just impact the late Pete Rose, right? Other deceased ineligible players now become eligible as well. Is that correct?
Gabe Lacques:
Correct. The eight men permanently banned for the Chicago Black Sox scandal in 1919, led by Shoeless Joe Jackson, now off the permanently ineligible list.
And that's the other thing is using that litigation thing as one piece of this, and then as the second piece of it, that no commissioner intended for it to be a ban in perpetuity, but that upon one's death, the permanently ineligible ban had served its purpose.
So Rose having passed on, that was the second reasoning for this. And so if you take Rose off the list, you got to take everybody off the list, right?
Taylor Wilson:
You've covered the game a long time, Gabe. How surprising, really, was this to you? And I'm also curious just how this is landing, I guess, with the baseball community at large.
Gabe Lacques:
I'm pretty stunned because it's the kind of thing that always ropes in casual to even moderate fans of the game. "Hey, will they get them off the list now?" And, "Hey, there's bad guys in the Hall of Fame. Will this be the time?"
No, no, no. And that was always kind of an unspoken thing among commissioners to uphold A. Bartlett Giamatti's intentions because he passed away of a heart attack, I think three weeks after agreeing to the ban with Rose. So it was always kind of a sacred thing among commissioners and among the industry. And even with the gambling landscape having changed, still something that the game takes very seriously. So I'm pretty startled by that, to say the least, that he's off the list, even after he passed away.
A couple teams have released statements, the Philadelphia Phillies, with whom Rose won a World Series with in the '80s, so they were quite pleased. And Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt said he was quite happy with it, but I don't think it's going to land particularly well.
Herein lies kind of a rub with all this. The Hall of Fame, as they noted, can now take up Rose as a candidate. One committee can suggest that a 16-person electing committee consider Rose for election, and that's probably going to happen. And then when it gets to that 16-person committee, it's staffed largely with eight Hall of Famers, a handful of executives in the game, and a handful of historians and longtime baseball writers. And so just like the writer's ballot, 75% of votes are required for induction. So he needs to be named on 12 of 16 ballots within this committee.
I don't think that's a slam dunk by any stretch, especially because there are a fair amount of people highly upset with it. And especially when you pull from the like baseball historian bucket, these are folks who have covered the game and who, for 106 years, that's been the precedent. You bet on baseball, you're out. And obviously we've seen match-fixing, game-fixing, everything else, and that's also kind of bubbled up in this recent wave of sports gambling that we've had.
It's a big deal. The integrity of the game always sounds so haughty, kind of high and mighty, but it's true. The very integrity of the game is you're assuming that people are trying their hardest to win and not trying to be on the take.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Gabe Lacques covers Major League Baseball for Paste BN. Thank you, Gabe.
Gabe Lacques:
All right. You've got it.
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Cody Godwin:
And coming up later today, with digital banking expanding by leaps and bounds each year, what is the future of cold hard cash?
Neha Narula:
All of our digital payment systems right now ultimately are built on top of the banking system, and that can create some frictions and cause some issues that cash just doesn't have, and we really don't have an electronic equivalent of cash yet.
Cody Godwin:
That was Neha Narula, director of the Digital Currency Initiative at MIT Media Lab. Taylor Wilson sat down with her to talk through the shift in digital currencies and explore what's next for the movement. You can hear that conversation right here today, beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern.
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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. If you use a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Cody Godwin, and Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.