cover of episode Trump's New AG Pick, Ukraine Turning Point, West Coast Storm

Trump's New AG Pick, Ukraine Turning Point, West Coast Storm

2024/11/22
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Key Insights

Why did Trump replace Matt Gaetz with Pam Bondi as his Attorney General pick?

Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination due to the difficult path to confirmation, stemming from a federal sex trafficking investigation and allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use. Trump chose Pam Bondi, a long-time ally, to replace him.

What is the significance of Putin's claim to strike NATO countries supplying weapons to Ukraine?

Putin's statement is a direct challenge to the West, escalating the conflict by asserting Russia's right to retaliate against NATO countries. This move signals a more aggressive posture and raises the stakes in the ongoing war.

How is climate change affecting atmospheric rivers on the West Coast?

Climate change increases the intensity of rainfall by enhancing evaporation and allowing warmer air to hold more moisture. While current atmospheric rivers in California are not dropping more rain than before, scientists predict more intense events in the future, necessitating preparedness.

What are the key challenges Ukraine faces as the war continues?

Ukraine is struggling to halt a Russian offensive in the east, facing massive casualties and a general sense of pessimism among soldiers and civilians. Additionally, the incoming Trump administration's desire for negotiations and ongoing Russian attacks on the electricity grid pose significant challenges.

What is the role of the Attorney General in Trump's second term agenda?

The Attorney General is crucial for overseeing the Justice Department, including the FBI and DEA, and ensuring the rule of law. Trump views the position as vital for seeking retribution against perceived political enemies, making Bondi's confirmation potentially significant for his agenda.

Chapters

President-elect Trump replaces controversial Attorney General pick Matt Gaetz with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi's history with Trump and her potential impact on the Justice Department are discussed.
  • Pam Bondi is a former Florida Attorney General and a long-time ally of Trump.
  • She has faced scrutiny over a political donation from Trump and a decision not to pursue legal action against Trump University.
  • Bondi's confirmation could see the Justice Department used to pursue Trump's perceived political enemies.

Shownotes Transcript

Good morning.

A hello.

ready for the weekend.

You already got a blister chores ahead of me. Not that i'm not ready for you. Do I make the lift up for myself? So yeah, yes, mrs. A mra has her own list.

Maybe you could .

trade this or no see, that's the big because if he doesn't, not the way I want them to be done and i'll have to just do going to add, no, that's why I do the laundry because that's funny.

My son and I does laundry because he's so picky about IT.

but I find her no idea.

And or maybe SHE is pretend not to know so that, no.

she's tried. She's in the .

other room so I can. No.

we want fresh smelling, clean cloth.

and we have to do IT. It's a areas president .

electrum move quickly to replace .

his nominee for attack y general after his controversial pick my gates withdrew .

his new pic, long time ally pan bundy. What is a shake of mean or the justice department?

I am a shal Martin. That's a Martina. And this is a first from N.

P. R. news. Russian president vitamin putin claims the right to strike natal country's army .

ukraine in the last the four months, the russian military has been advancing at the fastest, he said, has sence the early part of the war.

how far my putin and his efforts to menus the west as he escalates tes his attacks .

on ukraine and a massive storm is flooding the west coast. Could climate change be making these weather events worse? Stay all the news you need.

This is our glass of this american life. Each week on our show, we use the theme to different stories on that theme. Just going to stop right there. You're assending to an npr podcast, chances are, you know or so. So instead i'm going to tell you, we've just been on a run of really good shows lately, some big at the commotion stories and some weird, funny stuff too done. What is this american life?

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dot work.

President and eco ald d. Trump's controversial pic for attorney general is officially out of the running.

Trump's arted the day yesterday with former representative at gates as as nominee to become the next attorney general by the time the day was over, gates was out and trump ed had a new nominee. Former florida attorney general paying bondy P.

R. Justice correspondent ryan lucas is following all of this. So ryan, who is pam bondy.

but start, he is a former attorney general for the state of florida. The first woman hold that position. So in that time, for about eight years in her office, during that time, unsuccessfully chAllenged the affordable character, among other actions that he took.

Before that, he worked for nearly two decades as a local prosecutor. And in a statement in which trump announces decision, the president, alexa, that as a prosecutor, bondy was very tough on violent criminals and as a state tourney general, he says that he worked to stop the flow of deadly drugs into florida. Trump is known bondy for years. He says, SHE smart. She's tough and that you will focus the trust department on fighting crime.

Now Michael mentioned that bondi is replacing mad gates. Walk us to do what happened with gates is nomination.

Well, gates was a huge surprise when tram picked him, and IT was clear from the outset that he was going to face a difficult client to confirmation. The reasons were pretty clear. He'd been the subject of a federal sex trafficking in investigation, one that ended without charges that has to be said.

But also the house ethics committee was investigating him over allegations of sexual misconduct and, alas, a drug use. Gates has denied any wrong doing, but all of that baggage was put front and center of the minute that trump picked him for a tony general. IT said in a statement yesterday that he was clear to him that his confirmation was, as he put IT unfairly becoming a distraction to the trump fans transition. He said there wasn't any time to waste on he on what he called a drawn out fight over his confirmation, and so he withdrew his name from consideration for a tourney general.

You mention that trump has known bondy for years. What do we know about their history?

They have known each other for years. In fact, they face questions over a political donation that trump made to support bondy's reelection campaign when he was for to attorney general and a decision that her office made not to pursue legal action against trump university. They have denied there was anything improper with that, but bandi has long gone a supporter of truck.

SHE spoke at the twenty sixteen republican national convention when trump was running president. Then he was an attorney on trump's legal team during his first impeachment trial. He now leads the legal ARM of the amErica first policy institute. That's A A right wing pink tank, uh, this LED by some former trump administration staffers. So bony is a very much a trump supporter in someone who's very much rooted in trump world.

right? So assuming bondy is confirmed, how important could he beat a trump second term agenda? Well.

like this is a really big, really important job. It's an important job in every administration because the eternity general is in charge of the hundred thousand plus people who work for the justice department, the job overseas, the FBI, the drug enforcement administration, the eternity general prosecutorial crimes, and for civil rights walls. They play a big role in national security.

They at root, are responsible for a hole in the le of law. But trump, in his team, we know, view attorney general as one of the most important jobs in his incoming administration, part that's because trump had a rocky relationship with the justice carbon in his first term, but it's also because trump has claimed that the justice carbon was weapon zed against him. And during the campaign, he repeatedly talked about seeking vengeance against his perceived political enemies, including folks at the justice department. And so a big question for bondi, if she's confirmed as whether he will use the powers of the justice department to pursue trump state, a desire for retribution.

that mp. R, just as corresponded ryan, look, is ryan. thanks. Thank you.

Russian leader of lendemain putin says his country has the right to retaliate against nato countries that armed .

ukraine putin made this direct chAllenge to the west in televised ed remark yesterday.

Very is saying russia will respond .

accordingly to any nature country that allow weapons to be used to strike russian facilities. It's the latest instance of putin taking an even more aggressive posture toward ukraine in the west. To here.

more about what this could mean were joined by npr national security correspondent greg mary. Greg, good morning.

Hi Michelle.

l. So russian missile strikes are a daily occurrence in ukraine, but when yesterday was particularly significant, why was this different?

yeah. Shortly after the missile hit the central city of negro on thursday, the ukrainian said this was a missile they hadn't seen before, one that releases multiple warheads as that approaches the target. Now here, washington, the national security council described this as an experimental intermediate range ballistic missile.

IT said the warheads Carried conventional explosives, though they could deliver a nuclear weapon. And this was a very calculated move by russia. The pentagon said russia did give the us a heads up shortly before the missiles was launched.

What message is put in trying to .

send here that russia is prepared to escalate and nato could become a target? Putin link the russian missile strike directly to ukrainian attacks earlier this week when ukraine fired american and british missile into russia for the first time, a putin on to say that russia has the right to strike these nato countries that allow their weapons to be used against russia, so a very direct chAllenge to the us. And european and allies that are arming ukraine. We should also note that put in this week, lowered the thresh hold for russia to use nuclear weapons, saying they could be employed when the country faces a critical threat, which is obviously very subjective term.

I feel like every day week has brought some of significant and even ominous development. Are we at a particularly dangerous moment?

So that's what Michael cohen says. He's with the carnegie endowment ment for international peace. He recently returned from ukraine, where he's been visiting ally since rushes twenty twenty two invasion. He says the events this week come as ukrainy is still struggling to halt a russian offensive in the eastern part of the country.

The three to four months the russian military has been advancing at the fastest pace that has since, uh, the early part of the war. Without effective stables in the front exhaustion, the russian offense of momentum could accumulate behind the russian war effort.

So he noted the russians are suffering massive casualties and can sustain this pace indefinitely. But right now they do have the upper hand here.

But how about the ukrainians? How are they coping yet?

Comment says the war is taking accumulative toll on soldiers and civilians. Here's how we put IT.

Everyone I spoke to still has a strong world to fight, but there is a general sense pessimism, which is difficult to avoid looking at the situation ukraine find himself and and the current trajectory of the war .

and is ukrainean. Look at head, Michelle. They see additional chAllenges. President elect trump takes over in two months.

He wants negotiations to end the war, but coffman said we shouldn't assume putin will negotiate. He doesn't think putin will will negotiate seriously if he believes he's gaining ground. And also, ukrainian civilians are expecting another long, hard winner with their electricity grid under russian attack.

That is M. P. R. greg. My greg. Thank you.

sure. thank.

A powerful storm has been soaking northern california and organ this week, bringing high winds and flood risk that continue today.

It's known as an atmosphere river. A big question is whether climate change is making these .

storms worse or in summer. Remember, our climate desk is here to explain, to learn, put this storm into perspective for us. What are the impacts the west coast seeing out?

Yeah, it's a really intense storm and it's slow moving. So that means a lot of rain atmosphere. Rivers are basically these plumes of moisture that move across the pacific ocean.

And if you look at a weather map, IT actually kind of looks like a firehose is pointed at the west coast. It's pretty narrow. So IT doesn't affect the whole coast.

These storms are important. They are how california gets as much as half of its rainfall every year, so they Carry out a moisture. And this one has been affected by another weather system nearby, which is a bomb cyclone.

Bomb cyclone? Love the term. I don't know if I like what happens after a bomb cyclone. What's was the actual term for a bomb cyclone?

Yeah OK so technically it's bombo genesis .

that's a Better .

yeah it's basically when there's a rapid drop in air pressure in a short period of time, and that means the storm is intensifying. So higher winds and more rain and some parts of the west coast are expected to see up to sixteen inches of rain when the storm is finally done. It's causing flood warnings on some rivers um although IT is pretty early in the season. So rivers are low for the most part and that means that more room to abb water.

So climate change is influencing storms like hurricanes. Is that making atmosphere rivers like this one worse?

yeah. So atmosphere rivers are a regular thing on the west coast, right? But the role climate change is playing is actually a really big question that scientists are trying to sort out.

Because as the planet warms up, IT does make a rainfall more intense. There's more evaporation and warmer air can hold more moisture. So storms just, you know, have more to work with that very clear in the midwest and the north east where rain storms are already dropping more rain on average. But I talked to a scientist who has analyze storms on the west coast, park Williams, who was a professor at the university of california, los Angeles, and he found so far storms are not dropping more rain than they used to in california.

Not dropping more rain. Why is that ah he says.

well, there is more water vapor that can fuel those storms. There's been this circulation pattern in the atmosphere that swept a lot of IT to other place. So IT hasn't resulted in heavy or rainfall on the west coast overall. But we know by the second half of this century that will probably change if the planet heats up even more with climate change.

Important to be mindful that we expect in precipitation events in the western U. S. To get more intense in the future. We should be planning for that. And so the fact that we haven't seen yet doesn't mean we that we shouldn't be preparing for you to occur.

You know even today's storms can already cause dangerous levels of flooding that happens in california and twenty twenty three. And so our infrastructure, you know, roads and storm drains and flood channels IT already gets overwhelmed in certain years. So there's a lot to address here. Even when you take climate change out of the picture.

I think that's lawn summer from M, P, R. Climate does more than thanks.

yeah. Thank you.

Before we go, we have an update on an international development. The icc issued a reference for israeli prime minister Benjamin ein, yahoo and former defense minister of gant. There's also a rest one for hamas commander mohammed death, although it's unclear if he is still alive. As the war and gosa continues, he's wanted for alleged war crimes, including attacks on civilians during the masses.

Attack on israel on october seven international criminal court's charges against the israeli officials include alleged war crimes related to israel's military actions in gaza, prosecutor site reports of in discriminate attacks on civilians and withholding battled aid in yahoo, dismiss the warrants as antisemitic, and president biden also criticize the I ccs decision, calling IT outrageous. Meanwhile, some us senators threatened sanctions against the court. Now it's unclear if the democratic LED senate will take up those sanctions in the couple of month that has left, but IT is something to watch for when republic and take control next year. And that's a first for friday, november twenty second. I am Martina's.

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