Israeli cabinet will meet to give final approval for Gaza ceasefire | The Excerpt
On Friday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Friday that the Israeli cabinet will meet to give final approval for the truce, following newly reported Israeli strikes in Gaza. Paste BN Congress Reporter Riley Beggin discusses the importance of the relationship between President-elect Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson ahead of Trump's inauguration Monday. Firefighters are making progress against deadly Los Angeles-area wildfires. But strong winds could return next week. Filmmaker David Lynch has died at 78. Paste BN Personal Finance Reporter Daniel de Visé breaks down the debate over the H-1B visa.
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, January 17th, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, will a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas go ahead as planned on Sunday? Plus how the alliance between House Speaker Mike Johnson and President-elect Donald Trump will impact Washington. And we dig into the debate around the H-1B Visa.
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Palestinian authorities said late yesterday that Israeli warplanes killed at least 86 people in Gaza the day after a ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas and Israel was announced. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said earlier today that the Israeli cabinet will meet to give final approval for the truce. The US meanwhile, yesterday was still confident the ceasefire will begin on Sunday. The three-stage agreement is intended to see in its first phase 33 hostages held by Hamas and Gaza released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails. The full details of the deal have not been publicly released, but it includes a Gaza ceasefire, exchange of captives and the gradual phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian territory leading ultimately, officials hope, to an end to the nearly 16 month old war. Ordinary people impacted by the conflict are cautiously optimistic. That includes Ifat Calderon whose cousin, Ofer, was taken hostage.
Ifat Calderon:
It's really complicated because from one hand I'm happy, but on the other hand, I'm going to believe it just whenever I'm going to see the hostages crossing the border to Israel. We don't know the situation of all the hostages. I don't know if Ofer, my cousin, is still alive or not.
Taylor Wilson:
A nineteen-year-old Palestinian, Hussam Al-Sharif, is ready for an end to the misery.
Hussam Al-Sharif:
We stand for more than five, six, or even seven hours to get one kilo of sugar or rice or even sometimes two liters of water. This is refers to how miserable our life became of this war. And you still ask me why I am so happy about the ceasefire. Because all of this are going to end. That's why I am so happy.
Taylor Wilson:
You can stay with usatoday.com over the next few days to track the ceasefire's progress. And for more, check out Thursday morning's episode of The Excerpt when I talked about the truce with Paste BN world affairs correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard.
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The alliance between house speaker Mike Johnson and President-elect Donald Trump may prove to be the most important relationship in Washington. I spoke with Paste BN Congress reporter, Riley Beggin, for more. Hey there, Riley.
Riley Beggin:
Hey.
Taylor Wilson:
So as you outline in this great piece, it's clear Donald Trump and Mike Johnson come from very different backgrounds and paths to have reached this point in their respective careers. Can you talk through that a bit?
Riley Beggin:
Yeah, I mean, they really could not be more different besides being Republicans and we'll sort of get at the ideology here. But in terms of background, Johnson is more than 20 years younger than Trump. He's really defined by his Christian faith. He's from the Deep South, from Louisiana. I mentioned in this piece that his favorite song in 2017 was the hymn, Be Thou My Vision. He's really soft-spoken. He's quite bookish, and I think notably, he was basically unknown on the national scene before he became the speaker in 2023. The last thing I'll say about Johnson is members really praise and sometimes complain about his willingness to listen and his predilection to avoid conflict sometimes.
On the other hand, we have President-elect Trump who was raised in Manhattan among wealth. He's been a celebrity since he was in his mid-thirties. And then of course there's some stuff that our readers probably know about. He's been convicted of paying hush money to a porn star and he's not a big reader. He watches a lot of television. And then on the leadership side, he really demands loyalty from staff and his allies. So two pretty different guys.
Taylor Wilson:
Interesting. You mentioned this post on social media last month when Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance called a deal Johnson had negotiated, "A betrayal of our country." Very strong words, what happened there and then what followed in the week since?
Riley Beggin:
It was pretty wild to watch. Congress was just about to leave for the Christmas break. They come back in early January and to do that they had to pass this spending bill to keep the government open, which was due in late December. They had a bill, a bipartisan bill, that was going to probably go through both chambers. There was definitely some conservative griping and I think the first sign of trouble was Elon Musk, a billionaire, a close friend of Trump's now, came out against it and then the next day, Trump and Vance, as you mentioned, called it a betrayal. So there was this huge scramble over the course of the next two days to come up with something that could get enough conservative support, crucially could get democratic support because the Senate was still controlled by Democrats, the White House was still controlled by President Joe Biden, across the finish line in two days.
So they actually did manage to do that. It did not include Trump's big request, which was to raise the debt ceiling. They're going to try to do that this year, which I'm sure we will end up talking about at some point. But then over the next two weeks, some members of that right-wing faction, being really frustrated with his leadership and threatening essentially to not vote for him when the time came on January 3rd.
When that election happened, it was in and of itself quite dramatic as well. The vote happened. There were, I think, around seven members who did not vote when their names were called. They were there in the chamber, but just didn't say, and there were three members who voted for somebody else. They left the vote open at the end. Johnson was going to lose, but they held the vote open for about an hour while Johnson runned around talking to different people. Trump's campaign manager and soon-to-be chief of staff, Susie Wiles was calling allies like Marjorie Taylor Greene on the House floor, and Trump himself paused a golf game to call some of these members and asked them to change their vote. In the end they did, and Johnson became the speaker on the first vote.
Taylor Wilson:
Dramatic events. So I'm curious, Riley, how challenging will it be for Johnson to, I guess, shepherd some of Trump's priorities in this chamber, considering how really historically small the Republican majority is?
Riley Beggin:
Exactly. Yeah, it's going to be tough. And that's why I go through that anecdote in this story of what happened in late December and earlier this month, because it's really emblematic of what Johnson is going to be dealing with this year as they go into some really big policy debates. They want to do big things. They want to increase border security, they want to boost domestic energy production. There's all sorts of things they want to do, and it's going to probably be divisive even among Republicans because when you get down to the nitty-gritty, there's always people who have concerns, they want something in that wasn't in or vice versa. So Johnson having this incredibly tiny majority means that he really has no room for error here. Or another way to think about it is every single member gets to be sort of a king for the day if they want to be, and hold up these things.
So this relationship between Trump and Johnson is going to be super, super important. For Trump, johnson is the person who will essentially be responsible for making sure his agenda can get through Congress given these really, really tough margins. And then for Johnson, Trump is the leader of the party. He's the person who has a lot of influence over these rank and file members and these people who get frustrated with certain bills here and there, Trump may be the only person who can bring them back in line and potentially save Johnson's job.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Fascinating dynamics coming up over the next couple of years. Riley Beggin covers Congress for Paste BN. Thank you, Riley.
Riley Beggin:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
Firefighters are making steady progress on the deadly blazes that have destroyed thousands of homes and other buildings across the Los Angeles Metro area. But residents must prepare for a return of the strong winds that could rekindle and spread the flames, according to authorities yesterday. Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said a large amount of unburned dry fuel combined with low humidity and the expected return of the harsh Santa Ana winds next week, could bring more devastation. She urged residents to clear all brush within 200 feet of their homes. The fires have reduced entire neighborhoods along the Pacific Coast and inland near the San Gabriel Mountains, to ash and rubble.
With tens of thousands of homes destroyed by fire and many communities inaccessible, housing is rapidly becoming one of the most critical questions facing residents in the area, and it's important that anyone renting a home or trying to find some place to live, knows their rights. It is illegal to gouge housing prices in the aftermath of a disaster, though there have still been reports of just that happening in Southern California. You can read more about how to spot post-disaster price gouging and what to do about it with a link in today's show notes.
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David Lynch has died. The storied filmmaker, actor and musician was the mastermind behind Twin Peaks, a cult classic television series that brought film-like Surrealism to the small screen. His other notable works included the movies, Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead, and The Elephant Man, which was nominated for eight Oscars, including best picture and best director. Born in Missoula, Montana in 1946, Lynch grew up painting and drawing before discovering his love of movie-making as a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. His family did not share the cause of his death, though last year he revealed he had been diagnosed in 2020 with emphysema, a lung disease caused primarily by smoking. David Lynch was 78.
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President-elect. Donald Trump and Elon Musk are pushing the H-IB visa, but not everyone is on board. I caught up with Paste BN personal finance reporter, Daniel de Visé, to learn more. Hey there Daniel.
Daniel de Visé :
It's a pleasure.
Taylor Wilson:
Always a pleasure having you on Daniel. So can we just get some basics here? What is the H-IB visa?
Daniel de Visé :
The H-IB visa is meant to bring in high-skilled workers, especially in tech, and it feels like a program that's supposed to be for where you can't find people here to do the jobs, but that's not exactly right because there's lots and lots and lots of tech workers in the United States. It's supposed to bring in additional firepower basically, to do these really important jobs.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, so who in Trump world and Trump's orbit has been pushing for this and what do they argue?
Daniel de Visé :
Well, this is the interesting thing because the Republican Party increasingly has been, I would say, skeptical about immigration just generally. And Elon Musk, who is Trump's big corporate ally now, is very much in favor of these visas. He himself says he came to the United States, he's from South Africa, on one of these visas, and he says, this just is what's made America as far as the tech movement. We've got to have these people coming in on these visas. But a lot of mega Trump supporters are very skeptical about this and don't want to see more immigration. One of the big detractors of this visa is Steve Bannon, who was Trump's chief strategist in his first term, and unlikely bedfellows, Bernie Sanders, the really progressive Vermont senator is also very skeptical about the visa program.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, unlikely bedfellows indeed there, Daniel. I was surprised to see that. I'm curious, do experts agree with the Musk side of this equation with the Bannon and Sanders side? I mean, where do they land?
Daniel de Visé :
Oh Lord, this is very complicated. I interviewed a bunch of the experts on this topic, and I would say the nutshell version is this visa program, it's a little bit of a hindrance if you're a tech worker in the United States, you might lose a job to somebody who comes in on one of these visas. You might get paid less because of it. Because it is true that, I mean, there's research that shows that American computer scientists, for example, are earning a little less money because of these visa people coming in. But for almost everybody else, other Americans, it's probably a good thing. I mean, there's all these H-IB visa holders who've founded billion-dollar companies. I mean, starting with Tesla. Musk came in on one of these visas he says. Tesla has more than 100,000 employees. So the people with these visas have, I think, unquestionably helped the economy. But there's a question of whether it's bad for the people they're replacing, if they're indeed replacing people.
Taylor Wilson:
So in terms of what's next, Daniel? I mean, what's the expectation for the future of this visa program under another Trump term?
Daniel de Visé :
Yeah, the experts don't expect Congress or the next Trump administration to let in a lot more people with these visas because it is a hot potato and there is a lot of skepticism toward immigration in the Republican Party, but there's ways they could improve the program. For example, there's a cap right now that limits how many people can come in on the visas, and that might be something that you could adjust. They could make the visa more dependent on salary so that it rewards high-salary people. The people who are experts on this say that would make it a program that's harder to criticize if you were paying more people more to come in.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for Paste BN. Thank you, Daniel.
Daniel de Visé :
And thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
And Girl Scout Cookies season is here. You can support the Scouts by purchasing cookies through April. And be warned, they're retiring a couple of options afterwards. Toast-Shaped Toast-Yay! and their S'mores cookies.
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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. We're produced by Shannon Rae Greene and Kaely Monahan, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. You can get podcasts wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson. I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.