Iran attacked Israel. Now what? Plus, abortion discussions on campaign trail | The Excerpt

On Monday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: What's next for the Israel-Iran conflict? USA TODAY National Political Correspondent David Jackson looks at how abortion is playing out on the campaign trail. Former President Donald Trump's historic hush money trial is set to begin Monday. USA TODAY Breaking News and Education Reporter Zach Schermele talks about crime on campus, and what the latest numbers tell us. Arborists are trying to clone Orlando's oldest tree.

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 Monday, April 15th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, the latest from tensions between Israel and Iran, plus how abortion is playing out on the campaign trail and Trump goes on trial.

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Israel still has not decided how to respond after Iran launched an attack with waves of missiles and explosive-laden drones launched toward its territory, though most were intercepted, but multiple officials said yesterday that there will be some kind of retaliation. That moves Israel's long simmering conflict with Iran out of the shadows and risks sparking a wider, direct military escalation that could draw in the U.S. and other countries. It may also potentially change the outlook of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Iran's Saturday attack comes after the country's leaders vowed revenge following a suspected Israeli airstrike on an Iranian consulate building in Syria. The strike killed seven Iranians, including a senior commander of its Revolutionary Guards. Israel has not admitted responsibility for the attack.

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Abortion is one of the issues of this year's election. I spoke with USA Today National Political Correspondent David Jackson, about how it's shaping up for former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.

Hi there, David.

David Jackson:

Hey, how you doing?

Taylor Wilson:

Good, good. Thanks for hopping back on The Excerpt. So, David, just refresh us, if you would, on these recent comments made by former President Donald Trump on abortion and what it tells us about his current stance here.

David Jackson:

The keyword here is current, because he's changed his mind on this issue quite a few times over the years, really over the past 25 years. But on Monday morning, he released a video, out of the clear blue sky, saying that he thinks that each individual state should decide its own abortion policy. He did not say anything at all about the prospect of a federal ban, which is something that a lot of his supporters wanted him to do. Well, on Wednesday, when a reporter specifically asked him if he would sign a federal abortion ban into law were it presented to him, Trump said, "No." So basically where we're at now is that Trump doesn't think the Federal Government should be involved in this decision at all, and it should be left up to the states.

Taylor Wilson:

You mentioned he's changed his mind a lot over the years. How do these recent comments stack up with Trump's history on this issue?

David Jackson:

Early on in his career, back in the early '90s, he described himself as pro-choice. He said he didn't like abortion and didn't think they should happen, but that he was pro-choice and didn't feel like there should be a law against it. But during his 2016 presidential campaign, he made abortion a big issue by saying that he would appoint conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Well, the biggest objection to the court by that time was the Roe v. Wade decision that granted women abortion rights back during the 1970s. Trump wound up appointing three Supreme Court Justices and they were the crucial votes in overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, and that created the political situation we have now where abortion is perhaps the biggest political issue heading into the elections. Trump was very proud of that accomplishment. He often brags about the justices he appointed and has even said that, "Hey, I killed Roe v. Wade." But one thing he's discovered in recent years is that it's not a terrific political issue for the Republicans. We've seen several Republican candidates lose, because of their opposition to abortion. We've seen abortion rights referendums passed in some states, even some states that are run by Republicans. So he is basically trying to run away from abortion, if you will, by saying, "Hey, it's up to the states, the Federal Government shouldn't be involved."

Taylor Wilson:

And on the other side of the coin, as for President Joe Biden, he of course has had a longer political career than Trump, decades on Capitol Hill. What's his path been like on this issue?

David Jackson:

Also complicated in large part, because he's a Catholic. He's only the second Catholic President we've ever had, next to former President John F. Kennedy. I think he's tried to strike a middle path toward abortion. He talked about his personal opposition to abortion, being of the Catholic faith, but he also said he didn't think the government should outright ban it. So, for years and years and decades really, he's tried to stake out what might be called a middle course on the abortion issue. It wasn't until after he was Vice President that he began to shift, because he was thinking about running for President at that time. And by 2020, the Democrats had become a totally pro-choice party. So the best example of this, I think, is that for years, Biden supported what we call the Hyde Amendment, that forbid the use of public money to assist with abortions. Biden was a longtime supporter of the Hyde Amendment, but in 2019, he suddenly announced that he was no longer in support of it and actually opposed it. And a lot of us saw that as a nod toward the pro-choice wing of the Democratic Party, which is basically essential to getting nominated.

Taylor Wilson:

And fast forwarding to now, 2024, where does Biden stand as we are? Does it appear he is shifting gears at all on this issue?

David Jackson:

Since winning election as President, he's just been a totally pro-choice President and he's looking at the same polls that Trump is, and he sees that so far it looks like abortion is a winning issue for democratic candidates. So he's pushing as hard as he possibly can. In fact, abortion has probably replaced Trump's supposed threats to democracy as the major issue of the Biden campaign. So he's going to try to ride this for all that it's worth.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. David Jackson is a National Political Correspondent with USA today. Thank you, David.

David Jackson:

Thank you, sir.

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Taylor Wilson:

A former American President will go on criminal trial for the first time in the nation's history today. Donald Trump is fighting 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election. If convicted, the charges could land the presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee in prison. Many legal experts say a realistic sentence ranges from just probation to as much as four years behind bars if convicted. Prosecutors allege Trump reimbursed his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 hush money payment through a series of checks, falsely labeling them as payments for legal services. That concealed a federal election law violation, because the $130,000 payment was meant to help Trump's 2016 election and exceeded campaign contribution limits according to the prosecution. They also say the records were meant to conceal plans to violate state tax and election laws. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges and recently submitted a slew of legal filings trying to delay the trial with no success so far.

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Crime on college campuses has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. Experts say it's not a huge problem, but parents are still worried. I spoke with USA Today Breaking News and Education Reporter Zachary Schermele for more.

Zach, thanks for having on today.

Zachary Schermele:

Thanks for having me, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

So Zach, crime on college campuses has rebounded. What does the government data say here?

Zachary Schermele:

The number of crimes reported by college campuses rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in 2022. That's according to the latest comprehensive information that we have on hand from the government. Crimes reported by nearly 6,000 institutions rose roughly 8% from that same average in 2019. That's even though the number of enrollments dipped during the same timeframe. As you'll recall, college students across the country largely went online in the early months of 2020, because of the pandemic, and arguably really didn't return fully en masse on campus until the 2022 calendar year.

Taylor Wilson:

And are any types of crime in particular leading to this increase?

Zachary Schermele:

The recent increase was mostly driven by a surge in reported motor vehicle theft, which more than doubled from 2019 and accounted for more than a quarter of the offenses that we looked at in 2022. Now, federal law requires schools to report motor vehicle thefts, but the statute doesn't only include cars. Scooters, electric bicycles and golf carts fall into the same category. Several schools said the spike in crime in or near their campuses in 2022 could be attributed to their revised reporting of that type of theft. Now, the numbers we looked at included crimes that occurred on and off campus, including on other university properties, crimes that happened on public property adjacent to campuses and some offenses that were reported to schools by local police.

Taylor Wilson:

Zach, how concerned are experts about some of these recent crime trends?

Zachary Schermele:

Experts see little reason to worry. They say the numbers are largely consistent with what colleges have been experiencing since 2013. It's important to put this information into context. So, following a steady decline starting around 2006, the number of crimes reported by colleges and universities remained pretty stagnant around the last decade. But when foot traffic on and around campuses diminished due to online classes during the pandemic, that crime dropped pretty precipitously in 2020. And in the years since, it has inched back up again. So, we're leveling back out.

Taylor Wilson:

How are parents responding to crime on campus nationwide?

Zachary Schermele:

It's important to remember these numbers don't seem to be too much of a cause for alarm, but still parents, when they send their students off to college and something bad happens, it makes them worry. So, one parent we spoke to said he left his kids at the University of California, Berkeley, where they enrolled in the fall of 2022, and several weeks later, a fatal shooting happened near their dorm. So, this year, he and a bunch of other parents raised about $40,000 to hire their own private security firm to patrol the campus. This is pretty unusual. Those guards were unarmed and they largely stayed on campus just for a few weeks. Hiring private security officers didn't sit well, of course, with Berkeley administrators who told us that money intended to keep Berkeley students safe would probably be best spent supporting the school's own police force.

Taylor Wilson:

And we often hear the Clery Act mentioned around stories like these. Zach, can you remind us what the Clery Act is and its role when it comes to encouraging students to report crimes?

Zachary Schermele:

Right. So colleges and universities that receive federal funding have to compile their statistics about crime that occur on or near their campus under the Clery Act. The federal law passed in 1990 and it was named after a 20-year-old Jeanne Clery, a student who's murder at her dorm, at a Pennsylvania university, drew national attention. There's real tension that college leaders have to contend with around simultaneously trying to encourage students to report crimes and also wanting to keep those numbers down. But if they want to be compliant with federal law and if they want to avoid fines, they have to report the numbers that they're seeing.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Zachary Schermele covers breaking news and education for USA today. Thank you, Zach.

Zachary Schermele:

Thanks, Taylor.

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Taylor Wilson:

It's been struck by lightning at least three times, and has survived multiple hurricanes. And it's sprouted from an acorn around the same time Ponce de Leon's ship first landed on Florida's Eastern Coast. So-called Big Tree sits in a park just outside Orlando's business district. Over 400 years old, the tree is so impressive that members of a Michigan-based nonprofit flew to Orlando in February to climb and sample it. The arborists are now in the midst of a months-long process to grow new roots from the clippings. That's in order to clone the tree, store its DNA and plant potentially thousands of replicas across the southeast. The Southern Live Oak is part of a rare group of trees that have survived centuries of extreme weather, pests, diseases, human interactions, and other life-threatening phenomena. Research has shown that such old large trees pull significant amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air and are crucial to the diversity and resilience of forests around the world. And with the increasing threat of climate change, arborists, researchers, conservationists and others say that they must be protected and preserved, even possibly through cloning. You can read more about this work with a link in today's show notes.

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Scotty Scheffler is Masters champion again. The 2022 champ won the golf tournament yesterday for the second time in three years, becoming one of just a handful of players ever to win a green jacket multiple times. And today is tax day. Get your taxes in and take a deep breath, it maybe a long week in news.

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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods, 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: Iran attacked Israel. Now what? | The Excerpt