Trump hush money trial: Trump doesn't testify; defense rests its case
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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to USA Today's The Excerpt ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. This episode of The Excerpt is brought to you by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Stay tuned after the show to learn more. Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Wednesday, May 22nd, 2024. This is The Excerpt.

Today, the defense has rested its case in Trump's hush money trial. Plus, we talk about an activist group with ties to old groups that funded Hamas and how U.S. guns end up in the hands of Mexican cartels. Former President Donald Trump's defense rested its case yesterday after calling just two witnesses in his historic criminal hush money trial.

Trump had initially said he would testify in his defense, but then backed out. He said he could not testify because of a gag order restricting his potentially intimidating attacks on witnesses and jurors. But Judge Juan Merchan made clear that this did not prevent him from taking the stand. After the prosecution rested its case on Monday, the trial now moves to closing arguments. Those are set for next Tuesday, with jury deliberations to follow.

Meanwhile, former Trump campaign lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Christina Bob pleaded not guilty yesterday as they and nine local Republicans faced charges in Arizona over an alleged plan to keep Trump in the White House by falsely certifying he won the state in 2020. Giuliani, a former mayor of New York, and Bob, a current election integrity counsel to the Republican National Committee, are among 18 people indicted by a Maricopa County grand jury last month.

All face nine felony counts, including conspiracy, forgery, and fraud. While addressing the judge by phone, Giuliani said the Arizona indictment was a completely political case. Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case, but he's identified in the indictment as unindicted co-conspirator one. Trump elsewhere faces federal and state election interference cases.

Most of this spring's student protesters have sought to distance themselves from Hamas, but an activist group has ties to old groups that funded the organization. I spoke with USA Today national correspondent Will Carlos for more. Will, thanks for making the time. Thanks for having me on.

So, Will, let's just start with this. What is American Muslims for Palestine and what are some of the past links you've found between their members and Hamas? American Muslims for Palestine is one of the biggest pro-Palestine activist groups in America. It is involved in, it's very difficult to know how involved it is in campus protesting and campus activism.

They have, for example, a man on their staff who is responsible for outreach and going out into universities. It's unclear actually how involved they are in the recent campus protests, but certainly their members, including their executive director, have been showing up at protests, making speeches, kind of making their voices heard. As far as the connections, there are a few.

So bear with me because the connection is a little complicated. But essentially, there is a man by the name of Osama Abu Rashid. He's the current executive director of American Muslims for Palestine. Mr. Abu Rashid used to work for an organization in the early 2000s called the Islamic Association for Palestine.

And that group's sister organization, the Holy Land Foundation, was investigated by the FBI, was charged and ultimately was found guilty of funneling more than $12 million to Hamas. And that remains the largest ever investigation and prosecution of terrorist financing in U.S. history.

Yeah, I want to hear a little bit more about the connections here with campus protests. These are, of course, the protests that erupted this spring, Will. What do we know about those connections? And also, what do student protest groups overwhelmingly say about being really independent? Yeah, let's make this very clear. What we know about the protesters who are out there on campuses is that they're out there protesting the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza overwhelmingly. That's why they're there.

They're overwhelmingly not supporting Hamas. They're overwhelmingly distancing themselves from support for Hamas. And that's not the object of this investigation. The object of this investigation is to show that there are groups, one group in particular, there are individuals who are at these protests who do have connections going back a long way to organizations that are connected to Hamas.

And so we want to be very clear about the distinction there. The way that I've been telling it to people is, look, if I was one of these students out there protesting, I want to know who is standing next to me, who is making the speeches, what they're involved in, where they're coming from. And that's what this investigation attempts to do. Yeah. What do experts on extremism, I know you speak with them a lot, Will, say about the involvement of a group like American Muslims for Palestine when it comes to campus protests?

So obviously this is a highly charged situation. There's a lot of emotion. There's a lot of upset. There's been protests. There's been violent counter protests. So there's a lot of emotion going on here. What the experts tell me is that, look, what we have seen while these protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful, there have been instances as well where

where that has crossed over into actual support for Hamas in terms of chanting, in terms of some of the clothing that's been worn or banners that have been held up.

And so that's what they're concerned about. They're concerned about the fact that a known terrorist entity could be having some sort of influence on the protesters. But of course, the extent to which that influence is really taking hold is extraordinarily difficult to measure in any meaningful way. All right. Will Carlos is a national correspondent with USA Today. You can find the full piece with a link in today's show notes. Thank you, Will. Thank you. Thank you.

A key pro-Israel group is spending big this year to elect people to Congress who share its views. And it's helped by a fundraising boost that began in the wake of the October 7th Hamas attack. The United Democracy Project, a super PAC that can raise unlimited amounts of money, spent $3.3 million last month on a race in Maryland and another $1.2 million on a race in Indiana. Both of its candidates won.

The super PAC is closely aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, more commonly known as AIPAC, which supports both Republican and Democratic pro-Israel candidates.

In Maryland, State Senator Sarah Elfrith prevailed against former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and 20 other candidates in a crowded Democratic primary for the 3rd Congressional District. And in Indiana's 8th Congressional District, the Super PAC helped Republican State Senator Mark Messmer beat former Congressman John Hostetler.

Going forward, AIPAC says it will support Democratic opponents running in two primaries against members of the progressive so-called squad who have vocally criticized Israel's conflict in Gaza. You can read more with a link in today's show notes. Well, another headache for the gun industry has emerged. Hack data reveals how guns from the U.S. landed in the hands of Mexican cartels. I spoke with USA Today investigative reporter Nick Penzenstabler to learn more.

Nick, thanks for hopping on. Yeah, happy to be here. So Nick, let's start here. What was revealed about U.S. guns in this leak of Mexican military intelligence? Oh, this is a really wide ranging leak of information that caught my attention because of this small nugget of what's known as firearm trace data, where the Mexican government is recovering guns.

sending the make, model, and serial number to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to find out where that gun was first purchased. And we've known that there's been this pipeline of guns from U.S. gun stores smuggled across the border, and now we know a lot more about those guns.

So, Nick, who are the major players here, be it the gun shops and manufacturers or the straw buyers moving these guns across the border? Yeah, it's no surprise. The major source of crime guns in Mexico are American sold guns. So these are guns either manufactured in the U.S.,

or imported and then sold at U.S. gun shops. And this data shows that stores in Arizona and Texas near the border are selling a predominant number of those guns. And this also revealed the types of guns being sold and some of the smugglers themselves that are taking these across the border. Which types of guns are we really talking about here?

Yeah, this data really provides a look under the hood of the AR-15 types and AK-47 type semi-automatic rifles that are really favored by criminals south of the border, the handguns, and the biggest concern over these high caliber, 50 caliber sniper rifles that are sold by Barrett here in the US. You wrote about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives scandal that was known as Fast and Furious. What exactly was this, Nick? And how does it fit in here? Yeah, this is an interesting twist of the story. This data revealed

the names of purchasers who purchased the most guns that have been recovered in Mexico. And to this day here in 2022, with the data, we're seeing guns that were sold as part of this Fast and Furious scandal, which was back in 2006, where the ATF was trying to watch straw purchasers go into stores and then track those guns as they made their way across the border and into the hands of

the cartels, and it kind of went haywire, if you remember back then, and they lost track of a lot of these guns. So to this day, there were about 2,000 guns sold under that regime. There are hundreds still unaccounted for, and we're seeing those continuing to crop up today.

And Nick, whose responsibility is it really to stem this flow? Well, really, it's a collaboration between the Mexican government, the military, the attorney general's office, and the U.S. government trying to crack down on this illegal straw purchasing where you're going into a store,

filling out the form and saying, yes, this is from my personal collection. But in reality, you're being directed by usually a criminal enterprise to buy the same make and model of firearm that's eventually going to be smuggled across the border. All right. Nick Penzen-Stadler is an investigative reporter with USA Today. Thank you, Nick. Thank you. Thank you.

When COVID-19 vaccines entered the commercial market last fall, the federal government introduced a program to make shots accessible to people with limited coverage or no insurance. That program, which provided millions of free shots to low-income people, is now coming to a stop, according to U.S. health officials.

The bridge access program is set to end in August, months earlier than local health departments and health centers expected because pandemic-era funding from Congress is expiring.

Biden administration officials are seeking permanent funding so that routine vaccinations can remain free for adults through a program akin to the longstanding Vaccines for Children program, according to a CDC official. Leaders at health centers and departments said without the Bridge Access program, they're worried about how they'll secure funding for vaccines in preparation for the winter respiratory viral season when hospitalizations and deaths tend to increase.

Red Lobster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week. The move caps a steady decline punctuated by leadership shakeups and store closures. Red Lobster says it's doing what it can to restructure and stay alive. But longtime Red Lobster fans, food experts and observers of Americana say the company's future is not a sure thing.

That's tough news for folks like Peter Bartis. The 72-year-old told USA Today that he ate red lobster at least twice a month for more than 40 years. In Pittsburgh, where he grew up and made his living working at various power plants, it was the only place he could find quality, reasonably priced seafood.

Once a booming seafood colossus with more than 700 restaurants around the world, the 56-year-old chain is the latest in a list of American dining icons like Howard Johnson's and Bob's Big Boy that ran into changing times, troubling economics, and new generations of people who want something different.

In the aftermath of yet another U.S. school shooting, Tennessee legislators passed a bill allowing teachers and other school faculty to carry concealed handguns. But will it keep our children safe? Rachel Wegner, children's education reporter for The Tennessean, a Gannett Network property, joined my co-host Dana Taylor on The Excerpt to discuss Tennessee's controversial new law. You can find the episode right here on this feed, beginning at 4 p.m. Eastern Time. And 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. If you like USA Today's The Excerpt, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

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