Man sets himself on fire outside courthouse of Donald Trump hush money trial | The Excerpt

On Saturday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: A man set himself on fire Friday at the Manhattan courthouse where former President Donald Trump's hush money trial is taking place. A bill that could effectively ban TikTok picks up steam in Congress. Plus, another GOP lawmaker says he will support efforts to oust Mike Johnson from the speakership. USA TODAY Democracy Reporter Erin Mansfield discusses Republican efforts to push back on voter fraud. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes the Michigan presidential ballot as an independent candidate. USA TODAY Senior Reporter Jessica Guynn discusses a wave of young people glorifying the Columbine shooters on the 25th anniversary of the high school shooting.

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 Saturday, April 20th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.

Today, a man has set himself on fire outside the court where Trump's trial is taking place. Plus a bill that could ban TikTok picks up steam. And it's been 25 years since the Columbine massacre.

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A man threw conspiracy pamphlets into the air and set himself on fire yesterday outside the courthouse where former President Donald Trump's hush money trial is taking place. He critically injured himself and horrified onlookers in the process. The man was seen dousing himself with a liquid in a park across the street from the Manhattan courthouse, witnesses told USA TODAY.

The shocking incident took place in view of news cameras, shortly after a full panel of 12 jurors and six alternates was seated for Trump's trial. Six first responders suffered minor injuries trying to put out the fire and provide medical attention, according to the New York City Fire Department. The trial is set to continue Monday with opening arguments.

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The House has included a version of its plan to force TikTok's Chinese parent company to sell the social media platform or face an effective ban in the US in a foreign aid bill moving toward passage in both the House and Senate. And President Joe Biden has already said he would sign it into law immediately. The move effectively forces the Senate, which has been sitting on the House's original bill for a month, to consider legislation that would have implications for 170 million Americans. TikTok critics argue the app is being used for propaganda, and that American data could be accessed by the Chinese government. But the social media platform has pushed back against lawmakers. TikTok has argued that the Chinese government cannot access US user data, and has derided the legislation as an outright ban.

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Meanwhile, drama on Capitol Hill continues as a third House Republican is supporting an effort to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson from his post, in a sign of growing momentum against the speaker for advancing the foreign aid spending plan. Paul Gosar from Arizona, a hard-right lawmaker, announced yesterday that he would be co-sponsoring conservative rabble-rouser Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's motion to vacate against the speaker. That's a procedural tool that, if passed, would force Johnson out of the speakership.

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Former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee say they'll recruit tens of thousands of poll watchers, but experts are skeptical. I spoke with USA TODAY democracy reporter Erin Mansfield for more.

Erin, always great having you on.

Erin Mansfield:

Thanks so much for having me, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

So, Erin, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee have launched this program to combat voter fraud. What exactly will this entail?

Erin Mansfield:

The big thing is that they say they want to bring 100,000 people into promoting what they term election integrity. They say that this is going to happen in battleground states. They're talking about setting up hotlines. They're talking about basically someone being at every precinct. "Whenever a ballot is being cast or counted, Republican poll watchers will be observing the process and reporting any irregularity." They're talking about a massive volunteer mobilization. They sent out a news release. They used references like "Democrat tricks" and "beating Democrats at their own game." It's not clear what they meant by that, they didn't elaborate, but it is worth noting that we have no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. It has become a bit of a rabble-rousing term without any evidence behind it.

Taylor Wilson:

You know, the RNC ran a voter integrity campaign during the 2022 election. How does this one differ?

Erin Mansfield:

It's not really clear. There aren't a lot of details, and actually there have been efforts like this going back at least to 2016. Trump had prominently on his website, "Please join. We need to stop," I think he called her Crooked Hillary, "from rigging the election." This year, the mantra is, "Let's make this election too big to rig." So this is a lot of the same stuff, it's a lot of the same talking points. I spoke to Justin Levitt, he's a law professor in Los Angeles. He's worked for Democrats. And he was saying that 100,000 people just doesn't sound realistic, to be able to mobilize to do this.

Now, to be fair, Barack Obama mobilized 4 million volunteers, something along those lines, during the 2008 campaign. But what critics were quick to note is that poll watchers, it's not as much of an interactive sport, say, as other volunteer efforts. You're not going door to door, you're not getting that walk in, you're not meeting your neighbors, you're not talking with a lot of people. You're kind of standing there or sitting there and waving. And because elections do tend to be very well run in this country, it can be a lot of hurry up and wait. So, he was skeptical that they'll be able to have this many people doing this.

But it's really a very clear message that the RNC and the Trump campaign are focused on what they're calling election integrity measures. It's notable that they didn't send a release out on a Supreme Court decision or a specific policy position. This is all about the integrity of the election.

Taylor Wilson:

And Erin, you touched on this a bit, but how common is voter fraud really, in the country?

Erin Mansfield:

It's extremely uncommon. There's no record of it ever swaying elections. There are cases few and far between. I can think of a couple in Texas. The attorney general there really likes to make a show of it when they do find cases. We saw this with the allegations of non-citizens voting. Has it happened? Sure, but it's a fraction of a percent. It doesn't sway elections. Lots of people who've been going through the 2020 election with a fine-tooth comb looking for fraud, sometimes they'll find some user error type issues, but it's really not a common occurrence. It really goes to show that the theme of 2024, for the Republican campaign at least, it's about what they call election integrity, and whether they think this is going to be a fair election, more so than, say, topical issues.

Taylor Wilson:

And has the Biden campaign responded at all to this?

Erin Mansfield:

We didn't get a response from the Biden campaign. We didn't get a response from Trump's campaign either.

Taylor Wilson:

Erin Mansfield is a democracy reporter with USA TODAY. Thank you, Erin.

Erin Mansfield:

Thank you, Taylor.

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Taylor Wilson:

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will appear on Michigan's presidential ballot this fall. That's after the Natural Law Party nominated him to be the party's candidate, his campaign announced Thursday. Kennedy will appear alongside running mate Nicole Shanahan. According to his campaign, Michigan is the eighth state where he has secured ballot access. His campaign has scheduled an event for tomorrow evening outside Detroit, to celebrate getting on the ballot. In addition to being part of one of the country's most notable political families, Kennedy has made a name for himself as an environmental attorney and writer. In recent years, he's vocalized anti-vaccine rhetoric, most notably during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

President Joe Biden's campaign on Thursday announced endorsements from several members of the Kennedy family, including former US Congressman Joe Kennedy III, as it attempts to dissuade potential democratic voters from choosing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. this fall.

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Today marks 25 years since the massacre at Columbine High School, and some young people who were not born when it happened are now glorifying the killers on social media platforms. I spoke with USA TODAY's senior reporter, Jessica Guynn, to learn more.

Jessica, thanks for hopping on The Excerpt today.

Jessica Guynn:

Thank you so much for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Jessica, what happened on this day 25 years ago at Columbine?

Jessica Guynn:

Well, two Colorado students murdered 12 of their classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado on April 20th, 1999. And this was not the first school shooting of the internet era, but it was the first that really took on a life of its own on the web. The shooters left traces of their violent trajectory on the internet, and through the years we've seen a dark subculture latch onto their personal journals, their home videos. People gather in chat rooms, internet forums, they pore over those and other Columbine documents. And among those people who spent a lot of time on the internet were copycat killers, like the shooters at Sandy Hook Elementary School and Virginia Tech, and they studied and emulated the Columbine attack. And what we've seen is that the modern web, social media platforms, video platforms, and the algorithms that power recommendations on those platforms, have only amplified this focus on the shooters.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. So Jessica, how are we seeing young people now glorifying these shooters, and really how are they learning about them?

Jessica Guynn:

Well, researchers have observed obsessive online interest among a generation that wasn't even alive at the time of the shootings. And this is happening on video sharing platforms like TikTok and on gaming and social media platforms. For example, I spent hours viewing TikTok videos that spliced together old video footage and still photos of the Columbine shooters. And these accounts have hearts and ribbons, and in the comments people declare their love and admiration for the shooters.

The other thing that's really popular on TikTok are videos of first person shooter games that simulate the Columbine massacre. And much of this content hails the shooters as these heroes or anti-heroes who are striking back against bullies. But that basically utterly false depiction of them has been widely debunked by the FBI and researchers. I mean, these were stone-cold killers who craved notoriety for trying to cause the most deaths in US history.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. What do experts say about the allure or the attraction to this kind of darkness?

Jessica Guynn:

So, ours is a culture that is really obsessed with violence and the perpetrators of violence. And researchers say the internet is really like an accelerant for this kind of what they call dark fandom, basically communities of fans who are fixated on violent acts and people who commit them. When it comes to a fixation with mass casualty shooters, these communities often form online because they are inherently deviant, and we don't usually lead with our deviance in person. The internet makes it easier also for us to find other people who share our interests.

And while many of these discussions that take place may not be so dangerous, researchers say there can be something very dangerous about normalizing violent urges. During the reporting of this piece, I visited a website that's been around for years that's devoted to the Columbine massacre and other mass murders. And there was a recent chat on there in which people were prompted to say which serial killer or mass murderer they related to the most, and most said the Columbine killers. And it's important to note that three registered users of that website went on to commit mass murders.

Taylor Wilson:

Jessica, have the social media sites themselves really failed young users here by not better moderating their platforms?

Jessica Guynn:

Critics say they most definitely have. My colleague Will Carless spoke with one of the Columbine survivors, who was shot and paralyzed during the attack. She called on Facebook five years ago to take down pages glorifying the shooters, saying she feared that they would inspire others. Since then, she says these followers of the Columbine shooters have multiplied, and she and other survivors of the attack regularly receive abuse and death threats and have to call the FBI. And she says social media companies are reckless with people's lives and derelict in their duty. She calls them the true extremists.

Taylor Wilson:

USA TODAY senior reporter, Jessica Guynn. Interesting insight here on this disturbing anniversary. Thank you, Jessica.

Jessica Guynn:

Thank you so much for having me.

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Taylor Wilson:

Be sure to tune into The Excerpt tomorrow for a deep dive into the state of the planet, as we look to Earth Day this Monday. USA TODAY National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise joins my colleague Dana Taylor to share the surprisingly good news, and why some are calling for urgent optimism. You can find the episode right here tomorrow, beginning at 5:00 AM Eastern Time.

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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, and I'll be back Monday with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Man sets himself on fire outside court of Trump's trial | The Excerpt