Guatemala open to accepting Trump's Central American deportees | The Excerpt
On Friday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Guatemala is open to accepting President-elect Donald Trump's Central American deportees from other countries. Paste BN Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer discusses why a center for coordinating U.S. efforts to counter foreign disinformation shut down this week. Sources say a Russian air-defense system downed an Azerbaijan plane this week, killing dozens. Paste BN Health Reporter Karen Weintraub takes a look at the FDA's new rules on "healthy" food labels, set to take effect in February. Do you qualify for an IRS stimulus check?
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 Friday, December 27th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, Guatemala is open to accepting Central American deportees from other countries in the region, plus a state department center to fight foreign disinformation has shut down. And the FDA issues new rules on healthy food labels.
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Guatemala is open to receiving citizens of other Central American countries who are deported from the US, that comes as the country looks to build a positive relationship with the incoming Trump administration. A Guatemalan official who requested anonymity told Reuters that there has to be a regional response a nation wants to be part of the solution. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to deport record numbers of immigrants living in the US illegally. But due to strained relations, the US has struggled to deport nationals from places like Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti.
Trump's team has already reached out to the governments of several countries about taking on Deportees from third countries. Many US neighbors, including Mexico and The Bahamas have said they do not want to do so. In 2022, more than 40% of immigrants living in the US illegally came from Mexico, followed by Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, which together counted for more than a fifth of the total.
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The state Department's Global Engagement Center used for coordinating US efforts to counter foreign disinformation, especially by Russia and China, shut down this week amid GOP opposition. I spoke with Paste BN domestic security correspondent Josh Meyer for more. Hello again, Josh.
Josh Meyer:
Hey Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
So Josh, what was this Global Engagement Center and how did it originally come to be?
Josh Meyer:
Yeah, so the State Department's Global Engagement Center was initially named something else, and it was created in 2011 to fight terrorism and foreign disinformation and recruiting by terrorist organizations. In 2016, it was renamed and expanded, so it could go after foreign disinformation, including by foreign governments like Russia and China, especially those that were using propaganda and disinformation to undermine or influence the policies, security and stability of the US government and its allies.
Taylor Wilson:
Okay. So Josh, what is actually formally found over the years, especially as it pertains to those two countries you just mentioned, China and Russia.
Josh Meyer:
So yeah, the GEC, it's basically a very small organization that punches above its weight. It's got about a staff of 120 and a $60 million budget, but it uses a combination of intelligence and data analysis and so forth. And it's really found some damning things about Russia and China in a series of reports that, in a lot of detail, showed how China was creating fake narratives about how the US government was actually the one that created the COVID-19 virus, which created narratives that the US government had bioweapons, then bio warfare manufacturing plants in Ukraine and so forth. And also that called out Russia and to a lesser extent, China for meddling in US elections. So it's done a lot of good work. It had a lot of support, even some bipartisan support by some Republican senators.
Taylor Wilson:
So it's now shut down here this week, Josh, at the end of the year, just a few weeks ahead of the Trump administration. I know there's a lot of GOP opposition here. Was that the formal driver on this decision?
Josh Meyer:
Yeah, correct. So basically Elon Musk starting '23, there was a thing called the Twitter files, and there was some basically conservative-driven propaganda from those that said that the GEC was going after Americans, spying on Americans and shutting down free speech. There was nothing to indicate that that actually happened, but it became a Republican narrative, especially fueled by Elon Musk. And so when they were looking at the budget during the fights over the last couple of weeks of looking for things to cut, basically the Republicans said that they were going to get rid of it. And just quietly without anybody really paying attention, its funding got cut and the State Department quietly shut it down, basically starting on Tuesday, the day before Christmas.
Taylor Wilson:
And Josh, what are we hearing from the other side of the aisle or any democratic lawmakers speaking out about this move?
Josh Meyer:
Yeah, Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut especially has been very vocal about this, but so has Senator John Cornyn from Texas who's a Republican. What Murphy said is that shutting this thing down basically will unnecessarily undermine US national security. And he said that the Global Engagement Center has played quote, "an indispensable role in combating Russian and Chinese disinformation". And so he was still fighting for it. And it's not clear right now what's going to happen, but with the Republicans in control of the House and the Senate and Trump about to take office, nobody's really expecting this thing to survive, which I think that its bipartisan support shows the value of this. And I think it's fallen victim to sort of uninformed politics.
Taylor Wilson:
So then Josh, for now, there are no plans for a replacement version, maybe one that some of these Republican critics are more friendly towards. I mean, what do we hear on that from?
Josh Meyer:
Well, I mean if you look on Twitter or X, as it's now called, people that were opponents of this are saying we need to watch and make sure the State Department doesn't hide it within some other budget. I do think the State Department would try to continue doing this. I mean, it had made a lot of progress creating a network around the world of allies that were united in going after this kind of disinformation. And so it had basically set up an infrastructure there that would be hard to just immediately take it down. So we will be on the lookout to see if it surfaces somewhere else, or at least these efforts to go after Russian and Chinese foreign disinformation exists somewhere else in the State Department.
Taylor Wilson:
And Josh Meyer, great breakdown, as always covers domestic security for Paste BN. Thanks, Josh.
Josh Meyer:
My pleasure, Taylor.
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Taylor Wilson:
Russian Air defenses downed an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed into Kazakhstan this week. That's according to four sources to Reuters with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan's investigation into the disaster, at least 38 people were killed. The plane crashed Wednesday after diverting from an area of southern Russia where Moscow has repeatedly used air defense systems against Ukrainian drone strikes. One of the Azerbaijani sources familiar with the investigation into the crash said that preliminary results showed the plane was struck by a Russian Pantsir-S air defense system. Its communications were paralyzed by electronic warfare systems. Pictures of the plane wreckage showed what appeared to be shrapnel damage to the plane's tail section. Russian officials earlier this week when asked about the idea that the aircraft had been shot at by Russian Air Defenses said it would be improper to comment until an inquiry was concluded.
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The Food and Drug Administration has issued new rules on healthy food labels. I spoke with Paste BN health reporter, Karen Weintraub, to learn more. Hello, Karen.
Karen Weintraub:
Hello. Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for coming on on this, Karen. So what did the FDA decide here as it pertains to healthy foods?
Karen Weintraub:
So they have updated the definition of healthy foods and what foods can call themselves can be called healthy, which has not been done since the '90s. So it's been a while. We've learned a little bit since then. And back then fat was bad. And so anything that had fat in it was considered bad. So olive oil, for instance, was not considered healthy and now it is. And anything that was fatty like fish was not considered healthy, and now it is. So salmon can now be labeled healthy, which we have known for a very long time is healthy. And olive oil, as I said, has long been considered healthy and can now be labeled as such. So that's the kind of thing also can now be labeled healthy. So it's basically an updating for everything we've learned in the last 30 years is now official.
Taylor Wilson:
And this is essentially voluntary guidance. I mean, what does this actually mean for consumers?
Karen Weintraub:
Yeah, it's a little early yet for consumers to see it, but the hope is that eventually you'll be able to get almost a traffic light on a package. That's what it is in other countries where there's a red, yellow, green on a package, this is healthy food. This is sort of healthy food, and this is something you should eat in moderation, if at all. And the idea being that you can kind of make better choices that way very quickly in a grocery store when the kids are screaming or whatever, and you're just trying to make quick decisions. So actually the biggest impact may be things like children's cereals, which have been considered healthy because they have lots of vitamins in them that are added later, but they also have a lot of sugar. And so under the new rules, they will not be considered healthy. Cap'n Crunch, all those kinds of things that kids love, they're not going to be considered healthy anymore.
Taylor Wilson:
There's a new presidential administration coming in in the new year. Does that mean anything for guidance like this or not really?
Karen Weintraub:
It could. It's hard to say. These took, as I mentioned, a very long time to implement. The FDA does not move quickly. It is possible. Robert F. Kennedy, who has been nominated to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services has named his own picks for FDA. They could move faster. It's not clear yet, but like I said, this tends to be a very slow process, a process by committee. This committee has taken a very long time to come here, so we don't know.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Karen Weintraub covers health for Paste BN. Thank you, Karen.
Karen Weintraub:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
A check from the IRS is set to make the end of the holiday season a little greener for a million taxpayers. The amount issued for a payment will vary on several factors, but the maximum payment is up to $1400 per person, about $2.4 billon worth of stimulus checks will be distributed among some taxpayers in the coming weeks according to an IRS announcement yesterday. Internal data reviewed by the IRS found that many people who filed a tax return in 2021 failed to claim the recovery rebate credit, prompting the revenue service to issue the batch of special automatic payments.
All eligible taxpayers will receive payments by late January that will either be automatically deposited directly into their account or sent by paper check in the mail. No action from eligible recipients is needed to receive the money. You can read more with a link in today's show notes to see if you qualify. Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. 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.