The Excerpt podcast: Biden releases proposed federal budget, outlining campaign priorities

On Tuesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: President Joe Biden released a proposed federal budget Monday, outlining campaign priorities. USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer breaks down a Senate meeting covering intelligence threats. Former President Donald Trump's team cuts staff at the RNC. USA TODAY Trending News Reporter Kinsey Crowley looks at how some criminal justice reform is being rolled back. The state of Florida and LGBTQ groups have settled a lawsuit over the so-called 'Don't Say Gay' law.

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, March 12th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.

Today, a look at a Biden budget proposal, plus threats from abroad. And Trump's team is cutting staff at the RNC.

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President Joe Biden released a federal budget yesterday carving out new social programs for housing, healthcare, and childcare. It would also reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans. It also involves billions for border security.

Spending complies with caps that House Republicans pushed in last year's Fiscal Responsibility Act in exchange for raising the debt limit. The budget likely has no chance of advancing in the Republican-controlled House, but it establishes Biden's priorities for his campaign and gives some contrast for an election rematch against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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The Senate intelligence community heard from top US security officials yesterday about a broad array of threats at home and abroad. And Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Senator Mark Warner warned that elections this year will be under attack more than ever from misinformation and disinformation. I spoke with USA TODAY domestic security correspondent Josh Meyer to learn more.

Hi there Josh. Thanks for hopping on.

Josh Meyer:

How's it going, Taylor?

Taylor Wilson:

So what is this worldwide threats hearing that the Senate Intelligence Committee holds every year?

Josh Meyer:

So every year, the Senate Intel Committee and the House Intel Committee hold this hearing, and it's basically when they release something called the Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community. And they bring in the Director of National Intelligence, which overseas all 17 US intelligence agencies. They have the CIA director, the FBI director, the heads of the State Department and Defense Department Intel agencies and others. And they try to get a sense of what the most serious and concerning threats are facing the United States here and abroad. Then they go into a private classified only briefing where they talk about the real stuff.

Taylor Wilson:

So in terms of the issues, Josh, for an election meddling is always on people's minds these days. What did we hear on this issue and which countries were mentioned?

Josh Meyer:

They didn't talk a lot about it in the public session, but the usual suspects, it's Russia far and away the most egregious example. Then you have China and Iran as the two other ones for the most part. But what Warner said is that we're concerned about the possibility of foreign adversaries meddling in the election.

Warner said last month that we are less prepared for foreign interference in 2024 than we were in 2020. He said yesterday, and he said back then, we have nation states, China, Iran, Russia, who know that interfering in our elections is both effective and cheap. That with so many issues already dividing Americans that they try to exacerbate the tensions, divide people against each other, try to sway them particular ways. And Russia in past elections has demonstrated a propensity for trying to sway the election in favor of Donald Trump and against Democrats because they feel that he is better suited for their geopolitical interests.

Taylor Wilson:

And Josh, what did we hear about drug smuggling and the impact on US borders and more?

Josh Meyer:

Fentanyl has been a huge concern the past five years, I think at least. And most of that's been in the province of law enforcement agencies, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and so forth. But the Intel community is really now coming out strong and saying that this is one of their top priorities. And Avril Haines, who is the Director of National Intelligence, spent a good bit of time talking about it and about how they're concerned about this issue, about these traffickers bringing drugs and human beings across the border.

FBI director Christopher Wray said that the FBI alone has intercepted enough fentanyl to kill 270 million Americans just in the past two years alone. So it's a big threat for the whole Intel community and they say it's going to be a top priority for them going forward.

Taylor Wilson:

And Josh, in terms of some of the conflicts abroad, let's talk about the Middle East. What did we hear about some of the latest from Gaza?

Josh Meyer:

A lot of this was the CIA director, William Burns. He's been quite the diplomat. He just got back a few days ago from his eighth trip where he's been helping try to broker a lasting peace agreement, but he also said that we have the possibility of having another temporary truce and a prisoner swap. And this current one that's under discussion he said, would be about 40 Israeli women, older men and injured hostages in exchange for an unidentified number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

He didn't say whether any of the Americans remaining, and quite frankly, we don't really know how many there are would be part of this, but I assume that they talked about that in the classified briefing.

Taylor Wilson:

Josh, on Ukraine, this conflict continues, Russia's invasion there. We've talked about it kind of grinding to a halt in recent months. What did this hearing focus on?

Josh Meyer:

So Burns was expressing concern about that, too. He basically said that the lack of additional assistance for Ukraine in 2024 would not only really be a death knell of sorts for that country in beating back Russia, but it would have broader implications for the United States as well. He said, "It seems to me that would be a massive and historic mistake for the United States" in terms of not continuing to help Ukraine. He said that they're running out of ammunition and we are running out of time to help them.

But he was also asked what China would take away from the lack of continued US support for Ukraine. And he said that's going to have ripple effects across Asia certainly, where China has been eyeing an invasion of Taiwan for years. And he said, "Not only is it going to feed doubts amongst our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. It's going to stoke the ambitions of the Chinese leadership in contingencies ranging from Taiwan to the South China Sea."

So what he's saying is that basically if we don't continue to give aid to Ukraine, that China will see that as a stepping away from our responsibilities on the global stage and it might embolden them to take more action against Taiwan.

Taylor Wilson:

Josh Meyer covers domestic security for USA TODAY. Thanks as always, Josh.

Josh Meyer:

My pleasure, Taylor. See you.

Taylor Wilson:

The House Intelligence Committee is set to hold a similar hearing today.

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Former President Donald Trump's team is cutting staff at the Republican National Committee. The move comes just days after installing his new leadership team at the RNC. More than 60 people were fired with cuts to political, data and communications departments. Politico first reported the changes.

RNC members gathered last week to approve Trump's chosen leadership team, including daughter-in-law Lara Trump as committee co-chair. The Trump campaign and RNC have worked alongside each other previously, but the latest overhaul shows a new level of streamlining between the two.

Voters and lawmakers across the country are moving to reverse criminal justice reform. I spoke with USA TODAY trending news reporter, Kinsey Crowley about how we got here and where things might be headed.

Kinsey, thanks for helping on The Excerpt today.

Kinsey Crowley:

Thanks so much for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Kinsey, how have we seen the pendulum really swing on these types of reforms over the generations?

Kinsey Crowley:

Way back in the '60s, we had a wave of reform which led into the '70. Crime started to spike, followed by the '80s. That spike was worsened by the crack cocaine crisis. And that kind of started a three decade-long tough on crime, if you will, era. We had the 1994 crime bill, which was a huge piece of legislation, a lot of mandatory sentencing guidelines, harsher punishments.

What that did over time, it raised the prison population. By 2007, one in every 100 Americans was locked up. It's a stunning number. And not only that, but it was costly.

Then we entered the last 15 years up until I guess the last couple of years where we sought to address that high prison population by putting in a number of reforms and from our reporting, prioritize prisons for those who have committed, especially violent crimes, and try and get people who have been convicted of lower level crimes back out into society.

Taylor Wilson:

How are states like Louisiana and Oregon in particular now repealing previous reforms?

Kinsey Crowley:

So we talk about a rollback and it really is they're specifically going back to legislation that was passed in that period. In the case of Louisiana, the governor there just inaugurated in January, had a special session on crime. It passed a really substantial package, 19 bills were signed last week, and one of those banner pieces was repealing a 2017 law, the raise the age law. It allowed 17-year-olds to be tried as juveniles. So now that that's been repealed, they'll be tried as adults again.

And in the case of Oregon, it goes back to a 2020 voter approved measure to decriminalize drug possession that passed the house recently and is under consideration again.

Taylor Wilson:

And Kinsey at the city level, we also saw criminal reform on the ballot in San Francisco this past Super Tuesday. And this issue has been a focus in DC city politics, too. What's the latest in those places?

Kinsey Crowley:

San Francisco, as I understand, is still counting the votes. But first count is that there is a lot of support for a couple of propositions that the mayor has put on the ballot there. Those kind of focus less on sentencing and more on one of them is a police effort. It allows them more leeway in pursuit of certain suspects, allows for more surveillance using drones, rolls back a little bit of the criminal oversight board's powers. And the goal, the way that the mayor has talked about it is getting the police out from behind their desks and back out on the streets to do their jobs.

So DC also, the council just passed a big omnibus bill, which really clobbers together a bunch of different pieces of legislation that have either been in effect the past year or been considered. And those do a number of things. They both address sentencing and policing. And speaking of that 1990s era tough on crime, brings back this drug free zone, which is meant to allow police to target kind of drug related loitering.

Taylor Wilson:

Kinsey, there are lots of competing narratives around crime and criminal justice in this country. What does the crime data actually tell us these days?

Kinsey Crowley:

Crime data is actually notoriously really hard to track from a federal level. States and local jurisdictions have their own tracking measures, but the Council on Criminal Justice has been trying to put those pieces together and give a pretty good picture of what we're looking at.

And one thing to note is that during the pandemic crime changed and a crime is driven by a number of different factors. The opportunities there changed. So property crimes went down, but violent crime went up.

It seems like from most recent reports that those two trends are reversing and kind of reverting back to their pre-pandemic norms. But one thing that the CEO actually of Council on Criminal Justice, Adam Gelb mentioned that 2019 pre-pandemic doesn't necessarily need to be the goal. I think our most recent low was 2014, and that was climbing pretty steadily from the 1990s, but kind of a big rupture being the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, at least a factor that he raises could be contributing to kind of a rupture between the relationships of the public and the police.

Taylor Wilson:

Does this feel like a broad trend toward reversing certain criminal justice reforms? How is this playing out nationally?

Kinsey Crowley:

It seems like there's still a lot of consensus that harsher sentences don't actually reduce crime today. It's a long process, and so there's the front end of policing and the back end of sentencing, and I think that from our reporting, harsher sentencing today doesn't lead directly to crime being reduced.

But there is also from folks that I talked to, a case to be made for signaling, and despite the trend of violent crime may be going down, safety is the personal feeling. Someone may hear or see things in their neighborhood and it really scares them. But crime and what prevents it is pretty complicated and there's a lot of factors at play. So I think we're seeing these different factors pop up in different ways, whether it be a targeting on policing, on drug treatment, or on longer sentencing. And they all kind of work together in complicated ways.

Taylor Wilson:

Interesting story. Kinsey Crowley is a trending news reporter with USA TODAY. Kinsey, thanks for your time on this. Appreciate it.

Kinsey Crowley:

Thanks so much. I enjoyed speaking with you.

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Taylor Wilson:

A settlement has been reached after litigation over Florida's law referred to as the Don't Say Gay law by critics. LGBTQ advocacy groups that challenged the law said it was a historic settlement. Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights said in a press release, "Today's settlement reaffirms the rights of Florida students and teachers to openly discuss and learn about LGBTQ+ people marking a victory for free expression and inclusivity for LGBTQ+ students, families and teachers alike."

Governor Ron DeSantis' office framed things differently, calling the settlement in an emailed statement, "A major win against the activists who sought to stop Florida's efforts to keep radical gender and sexual ideology out of the classrooms of public school children." His office pointed out that as a result of the settlement, the case will be dismissed.

DeSantis signed the law called the Parental Rights and Education Act in 2022, and the state expanded it last year. It restricts classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation. Groups including Equality Florida and Family Equality tried to overturn the law, but such attempts failed in federal court. Parents, teachers, and students also had joined in on the litigation.

They said the settlement makes clear that the law does not bar classroom references to LGBTQ people and issues. It also does not prevent LGBTQ groups or anti-bullying measures. The State Board of Education, which was sued along with the Department of Education, is required to send the agreement to every school district under the settlement terms.

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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.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Excerpt podcast: Joe Biden releases proposed federal budget