The Excerpt podcast: US troops casualties highlight military vulnerability overseas
On today's episode of The Excerpt podcast: The Iran-linked drone strike that killed US troops highlighted military vulnerabilities. Paste BN Pentagon Correspondent Tom Vanden Brook puts the incident in context. Tens of thousands of rape victims became pregnant in states with abortion bans, according to a study estimate. Paste BN Justice Department Correspondent Bart Jansen has the latest from President Donald Trump's legal battles. A former IRS contractor has been sentenced to five years in prison for releasing tax returns of Donald Trump and thousands of others. Has Amelia Earhart's plane been found?
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, January 30th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.
Today making sense of Sunday's drone attack that killed US service members. Plus, what research tells us about rape victims and pregnancy in states with abortion bans. And we have the latest from Donald Trump's legal battles.
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A drone attack on Sunday in Jordan was the third and six months on a base known as Tower 22. The attack killed three US service members and wounded 34 others. The White House has blamed Iranian backed militias for the latest attack. To help us better understand Sunday's incident and the broader context in the Middle East, I spoke with USA Today Pentagon Correspondent Tom Vanden Brook.
Tom, thanks for hopping on The Excerpt today.
Tom Vanden Brook:
Taylor, good to be here.
Taylor Wilson:
So Tom, let's just get the basics here at the top. What happened on Sunday at this US base?
Tom Vanden Brook:
It's a little unclear, but some of the details are emerging, Taylor. We do know that three soldiers were killed when a one-way attack drone struck their base in Jordan on the Syrian border. And it appears to have happened when they were sleeping in their living quarters and the drone hit those living quarters and exploded.
Taylor Wilson:
Tom, this was not the first time the US military base in Jordan was hit. What happened with these previous attacks? And just generally, Tom, I'm curious how we got to this point. Could you outline some of the timeline leading up to what we saw Sunday?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Sure. The broader context here, Taylor, is that there's been 160 attacks on bases in Syria, Iraq, and Jordan since October 17th. And they're in reaction, these Iranian-backed militias, say to Israel's invasion of Gaza. So they've been lobbing rockets, a few ballistic missiles, and a lot of one-way attack drones. So these drones are just smallish, essentially off the shelf commercial drones that can carry an explosive charge. They're programmed to hit a specific spot once they're launched. They don't have to be steered. They know where they're going. And typically what happens is that the base defenses that the Americans have knocked them down, they either shot down or they're disabled in some way. This one got through. Some sources told me that there was some confusion at the base because there was an American drone that they thought was coming in at the same time and they didn't want to shoot that down so this drone apparently slipped through. But that's preliminary at this point.
Taylor Wilson:
So President Joe Biden has vowed retaliation here. Tom, who would this be against and what might this retaliation look like?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Well, that's a big question, Taylor. If Iran is behind these attacks, which the Pentagon and the White House maintain through its arming and training these militia groups, the question is, how do you attack them so that they don't do these things again? How do you deter them? In the past couple of months, there have been airstrikes even as recently as a few days ago on these militias, and they go after some of their arsenals and command and control posts. But if Iran is directly responsible for it, the question becomes, do you attack targets in Iran itself? And if you do that, that becomes a major escalation. It's an attack on a sovereign country. Do they ratchet up the escalation? Does this war get even more intense and spread even wider? And neither side has much interest in a war in Iran, which would be incredibly bloody.
Taylor Wilson:
So these attacks have come in the months since October 7th. I'm curious, what is the connection that we're seeing with Iranian-backed militias attacking US bases and the violence continuing to play out in Gaza along with some other incidents, Tom, popping up around Middle East right now?
Tom Vanden Brook:
It's been described to me Taylor as campfires around the Middle East and that they're loosely related. So you've got these Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen that are firing missiles at ships. People are well aware of that. We've conducted airstrikes to halt that. And then we've got these attacks in Syria, Iraq and Jordan, where they're US troops-based. Again, there are Iranian-backed militias that are conducting those. And then Hamas has Iranian backing, as does Hezbollah in Lebanon just to the north of Israel and the concern is there that they may start to widen the war even more by attacking Israel. So there's just a lot of different pressure points here, and Iran seems to be behind a lot of them.
Taylor Wilson:
There are 40,000 US troops deployed across the Middle East. How much risk are they now in Tom? And how does Sunday's attack highlight broader potential vulnerabilities overseas?
Tom Vanden Brook:
It's a good question, Taylor. They're spread out in lots of different places across the Middle East, and there's only so much as far as protection that can be offered them through anti-aircraft, missile defense sorts of things. So that becomes an issue. If you can knock down these drones, for the most part, if they're simple, they can be taken care of, but we can see that the margin for error is very small. And when there isn't error made, people's lives are at stake and the problem isn't going away and it doesn't appear that these militants have been deterred by whatever strikes we have mounted against them. So it's very unclear what happens next.
Taylor Wilson:
Tom Vanden Brook covers the Pentagon for USA Today. Thanks so much, Tom.
Tom Vanden Brook:
You bet, Taylor.
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Taylor Wilson:
Before I get into this next story, a warning, it deals with sexual violence. According to a study estimate, tens of thousands of rape victims became pregnant in states with abortion bans. Researchers estimated there may have been more than 64,000 500 pregnancies resulting from rape in the 14 states that have enacted near-total abortion bans since Roe versus Wade was overturned in twenty-Twenty-two. That's according to a research letter published in the Journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Study co-author Kari White is executive and scientific director for renowned research for reproductive health in Texas. White said, "These are people who have really experienced a very traumatic event. Not only have they lost their own reproductive autonomy as a result, but that's now being further undermined by the policies in place in their state that are really now making it difficult for them to make their own personal decisions about and determine the trajectory of their lives following this event."
Other research found that the number of abortions fell to nearly zero in states with the strictest bans. That indicates that people who were raped and became pregnant could not access abortions in their home state even when there's an exception for rape. That's according to a study done by researchers from Planned Parenthood of Montana, Hunter College, Cambridge Health Alliance and UC San Francisco. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
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Donald Trump keeps racking up wins in GOP presidential contests, but his legal battles have been less rosy. I spoke with USA Today Justice Department Correspondent Bart Jansen for the latest.
Bart, thanks for hopping on.
Bart Jansen:
Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So Bart, Donald Trump spent a decent amount of time this month on a pair of civil trials he wasn't required to attend. Which legal issues has he been focused on over the past few weeks?
Bart Jansen:
Yeah, he had a New York state level case alleging fraud in his real estate business. The State Attorney General Letitia James has sued him for up to $370 million from him, the company, his two oldest sons and two company executives. They had final arguments on January 11th. The Judge State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron said that he would try to make his decision by the end of the month. So we're expecting it this week.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. And of course, Bart, we also saw some resolution in the E. Jean Carroll civil case. What was the latest there?
Bart Jansen:
A jury came back and found that he should pay her $83 million on Friday for defamation for statements that he made basically denying that he had sexually assaulted her in a department store in the mid-90s. He has proclaimed his innocence throughout that case, but there again, the judge had already ruled that he was found liable for the sexual assault. So what the jury was considering in that case was just how much to penalize him. What was provocative was E. Jean Carroll's lawyers had asked in closing arguments Friday morning for $24 million. The jury comes back a few hours later saying that they would grant her 83 million. So that was a big wallop. He has vowed to appeal that case. And whatever we hear in the fraud case this week will come on the heels of that. So a couple of big dollar cases that he's facing. And that's before you get to the criminal trials he's facing later this year.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. And what is coming up on the calendar for those federal cases this spring, Bart?
Bart Jansen:
Yeah, he still faces four criminal trials, the first of which would be the federal election interference case, tentatively scheduled for March 4th. But the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is still considering his argument that he is immune from the charges because the actions that are accused in the case happened while he was president. Of course, the prosecutors say you can't behave badly even if you are president, and they are seeking to convict him on conspiracy and obstruction charges when they get to the trial. He's pleaded innocent in that case. While we wait for that appeals decision, which could eventually reach the Supreme Court potentially delay the start of that trial, the next one on the schedule would be charges in Florida, federal charges, alleging that he mishandled classified documents after he left the White House. That trial is tentatively scheduled for May 20th, but there are still months of arguments ahead in that about how to handle the classified documents in that case. That is another one where legal experts expect that date could slip as well.
Behind those are two state level cases. A Georgia case alleging election interference has not yet been scheduled and neither has a New York State case for falsifying business records. He's, of course, pleaded not guilty in all of those cases.
Taylor Wilson:
And Bart Trump is obviously out on the campaign trail while juggling this busy legal calendar. This is a dynamic we've discussed a lot here on the show. Are his legal issues helping him politically at this point? And then on the flip side, how does his political success in this GOP primary influence the legal proceedings, if at all?
Bart Jansen:
Well, that's right. He has been campaigning on these cases against him, basically trying to drum up support by arguing that Democratic prosecutors, and he even argue some of the judges or Democrats, are moving against him basically to try to block him from returning to the White House. Of course, the concern from prosecutors is to try to get verdicts in at least some of these cases before the election so that know what they are voting for. Legal experts tell me that his political status should do nothing to affect the legal cases. He was indicted before becoming a candidate. He, the legal experts say, will be treated like any other defendant. He's got to defend himself in court. They threaten to be a distraction from his campaigning but that his status as a candidate should not affect how the judges consider the cases and how they're handled in court.
Taylor Wilson:
Bart Jansen covers the Justice Department for USA Today. Thanks so much, Bart.
Bart Jansen:
Thanks for having me.
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Taylor Wilson:
A formal Internal Revenue Service contractor was sentenced yesterday to five years in prison for releasing tax returns of Donald Trump and thousands of other affluent people. Charles Little John pleaded guilty in October to unauthorized disclosure of tax return information. US District Judge Ana Reyes sentenced him and said, "When you target the sitting president of the United States, you target the office. It could not be open season on our elected officials." Five years in prison is the maximum possible sentence, something prosecutors sought because of little John's intention to release the confidential tax information and because of the volume of information released for thousands of taxpayers. But his defense lawyers had called for less than a year of prison time. One of his lawyers, Lisa Manning, argued that Little John released the tax forms not for personal gain or out of malice, but to serve the public interest.
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Has Amelia Earhart's missing plane finally been located? An ocean exploration company may have some clues. The company Deep Sea Vision said Sunday that it had captured a sonar image in the Pacific Ocean that appears to be Earhart's 10-E Electra aircraft. Sharing a video of the search expedition on social media, the company said that a cruise scanned more than 5,200 square miles of ocean floor before finding what could be her plane. Fellow pilot and former Air Force Intelligence officer Tony Romeo told the Wall Street Journal, "I feel like a 10-year-old going on a treasure hunt." He sold his commercial real estate properties to raise the $11 million required for the mission. Another expedition with a camera is planned for later this year. Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She disappeared in 1937 while setting out to be the first woman to complete a circumnavigation flight around the globe. She was 39 years old.
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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 back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA Today.