On Thursday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: New York City’s mayor has been indicted on federal criminal charges. The indictment remained sealed Wednesday night. Hurricane Helene is set to make landfall as a Category 4 in Florida. USA TODAY Pentagon Correspondent Tom Vanden Brook discusses the implications of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s push for U.S.-supported long-range missiles to reach deeper into Russia. The U.S. and other nations call for an immediate 21-day cease-fire on the Israel-Lebanon border. U.S. officials and lawmakers say Iran is trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump, and other political figures. USA TODAY Democracy Reporter Erin Mansfield reports on state election officials in several battleground states who say they would sue counties that won’t certify the 2024 election result.
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 Thursday, September 26th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.
Today New York’s mayor has been indicted on federal criminal charges. Plus, we have the latest on Hurricane Helene and we discuss what Zelensky is pushing for when it comes to long-range missiles for Ukraine.
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New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted on federal criminal charges according to multiple reports, after authorities raided the homes of his top aides and confidants earlier this month, in what appeared to be part of a major corruption investigation. The charges against Adams were unclear as the indictment remained sealed last night, the New York Times and Fox News reported, both citing sources with knowledge of the matter. The indictment is likely to be unsealed today when Adams may appear in court, according to the Times. Adams, in a video statement released yesterday, called the charges entirely false. The mayor’s administration has been under federal scrutiny over the last year for a separate probe on possible illegal foreign donations from Turkish officials during Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign. The Times previously reported on Monday that federal prosecutors submitted grand jury subpoenas to City Hall, Adams, and his campaign in July, demanding information related to Israel, China, Qatar, South Korea, and Uzbekistan. In recent weeks, other top city officials have resigned amid multiple federal corruption investigations. Police Commissioner Edward Caban resigned on September 12, a week after investigators from the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan seized his mobile phones. Caban was among several of the mayor’s aides and confidants who received federal search warrants earlier this month.
Hurricane Helene is predicted to reach Florida as a category four this evening. The storm reached hurricane status yesterday and was forecast to grow more powerful and dangerous before making landfall on the state’s Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center warns that a catastrophic and deadly storm surge is likely along parts of Florida’s Big Bend Coast, and the center said the storm’s speed will likely allow it to penetrate inland across the southeast. Several Florida airports have closed today, including Tampa International, and several universities have canceled classes.
You can stay up on all the latest today and through the rest of the week with usatoday.com.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is pressing Western allies for permission this week at the United Nations General Assembly to use US guided weapons to strike deep inside Russia. I spoke with USA TODAY Pentagon correspondent Tom Vanden Brook about what that might mean for the conflict in Ukraine, Russia, and beyond. Howdy, Tom, how are you today?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Taylor, I’m good. Good to be here. Thank you.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for helping on The Excerpt. So what exactly, Tom, is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pushing for this week at the United Nations General Assembly?
Tom Vanden Brook:
He’s looking for permission to use missiles with a far longer range than he currently has so that he can strike deep inside Russia to help prevent some of these attacks that are devastating Ukrainian infrastructure in residential neighborhoods.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, really, how would this functionally shift Ukraine’s strategy on the battlefield, Tom?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Well, it would allow Ukraine to hit deep inside Russia, which is a concern for Western allies because it’s another of the red lines that Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn saying that if it’s crossed, that it’ll drag NATO nations into the war in Ukraine. So that’s part of this issue with a big part of the consideration for Western allies, in particular the Biden administration.
Taylor Wilson:
So we’ll talk about the US part of this equation in a second, but have we seen Ukraine push deeper into Russia previously during this conflict, send long-range missiles, and if so, how did that go?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Not Western-supplied missiles, Taylor, they don’t have the range currently with Western missiles to hit deep inside Russia. They can do it with their own home-built drones, but there are restrictions in what the US has put on weapons that it is sending to Ukraine as how far they can hit inside Russia, right along the border right now. And Western allies like Great Britain and France want to allow some of their weapons to go in deeper as well. But those weapons have guidance systems on them that are US-designed and made, and unless the US provides permission for that, they can’t use those missiles for deep strikes as well.
Taylor Wilson:
On the US side of things, Tom, what are the calculations really for the Biden administration and the Pentagon on this decision?
Tom Vanden Brook:
There are a few different things. The main one obviously is that this would cross a red line and prompt Vladimir Putin to attack a NATO ally, and an attack on a NATO ally is an attack on all of them. So it could draw the US and the West into a much broader war that nobody wants to see. Secondarily to that, there just aren’t that many of these missiles in US stockpiles. Number one, to make a difference on the battlefield for the Ukrainians, and then as well, we just can’t draw down the stocks that we have here so that they’re available for other contingencies, say in Taiwan, for instance. So those are some of the considerations that the White House and the Pentagon are considering right now.
Taylor Wilson:
And I think we’re at what, two and a half years of this war at this point? What could be the broader downstream impacts going into next year and beyond of this decision for Ukraine and Russia and also, Tom, the United States?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Well, the hope if you’re on the Ukrainian side is that this would be enough to prompt Russia to enter into negotiations that would allow Ukraine to recover some of the ground that it’s lost to Russia. About 20% of Ukraine is now occupied by Russian troops. At the moment, it’s a war of attrition, and the time is on Russia’s side. If those missiles start striking deeper inside Russia, a senior US official told me, there would be a consideration perhaps on Putin’s part to want to negotiate further because it would be bringing this war home to Russian citizens who haven’t really seen it so far.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Tom Vanden Brook covers the Pentagon for USA TODAY. Thank you, Tom.
Tom Vanden Brook:
Thanks, Taylor.
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Taylor Wilson:
The US, France, and several allies called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border, while also expressing support for a ceasefire in Gaza after discussions at the United Nations yesterday. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has expressed hope that a ceasefire can be reached soon to end fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, but fighting continues. Israeli airstrikes overnight hit some 75 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including weapon storage facilities, the Israeli military said. In the latest deadly strike, at least 23 Syrians were killed when Israel hit a three-story building in the Lebanese town of Younine, the town’s mayor told Reuters. Dozens of projectiles were fired from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted with the rest falling on open ground, said the Israeli military.
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US officials and lawmakers yesterday said that Iran is trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump, as well as members of his former administration, and the current Biden administration, as payback for the killing of an Iranian general and other hardline policies. The comments came after Trump’s disclosure earlier this week that he had been briefed by the office of the Director of National Intelligence about Iran’s real and specific threats against him. Republican Senator Mike Rounds, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he hadn’t seen any indication Iran had anything to do with two alleged assassination attempts against Trump. But he said he thinks there’s clear evidence that Iran, “Has made it clear that they intend to. If they could, they would try to assassinate the former president.” Iran has denied trying to assassinate US officials, but the Justice Department has launched numerous investigations and prosecutions into such efforts, including into plots against former Trump National Security Adviser, John Bolton. US officials have been issuing public warnings about Iran’s desire for vengeance since shortly after General Qasem Soleimani was killed.
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Several key election officials say they’re prepared to certify 2024 presidential election results if county governments go rogue. I spoke with USA TODAY democracy reporter Erin Mansfield for more. Erin, thanks for hopping on today.
Erin Mansfield:
Thank you for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So Erin, what do election officials say in these swing states about potentially suing counties over refusing to certify election results?
Erin Mansfield:
It has become a trend since 2020 that a lot of local officials, usually at the county level, will go rogue and decide that they don’t want to approve election results for reasons that really aren’t relevant to whether or not that vote should be certified or approved. And we’ve seen cases in other states where election officials have sued, for example, a Secretary of State suing a county saying, “No, you have to do this.” So I spoke with election officials in most of the swing states last week. The ones in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin generally said that they were prepared to sue a county that decided to stand in the way of election results.
Taylor Wilson:
And you touched on this a bit Erin, but what really led up to this point? Why do officials say this might be necessary?
Erin Mansfield:
So what we’ve seen since 2020, that was the election that former President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed was stolen from him, but we know factually President Joe Biden won. We have seen people, usually at the county level, who are supposed to do a very administrative task where they just sign off on election results, essentially comparing one column to another, making sure the numbers match. But what they have decided to do, and these arguments are often based in some sort of misinformation about the 2020 election, the one that Donald Trump talks about quite a bit. They say, “No, we’re not going to certify these.” And it’s an outgrowth of what happened on January 6th, 2021 when folks showed up to the capitol, some violently, trying to stop the certification of an election, or change it to be certified for another candidate, the one who lost. So what’s happening is this battle has not actually ended, it’s just moved down to the local level, it’s in people’s backyards.
And so what states are saying is, “Well, counties have to do what they’re told. They don’t get to just decide whether or not an election was valid based on some thoughts about maybe a voter role, or some guidance they didn’t like from the state, that’s not their place.” So what’s happening, and what has happened before, is states will bring counties to court so that the court can say, “You have to do your job.” Certifications will start November 6th, that’s the day after the election. So it’s something I’m keeping my eye on and it sounds like other people are keeping their eye on too. And they did confirm in several of these states that they will take someone to court if they have to make sure that the legitimate election is upheld.
Taylor Wilson:
As you mentioned in the piece, Erin, lawsuits are not the only potential remedy here. What other options do state election officials have to ensure election results are certified properly?
Erin Mansfield:
So in Michigan, for example, the state can actually step in and certify if the county won’t. So they don’t even have to go to court, they just do it. That’s actually true in Colorado as well, not a swing state, but a state that we’ve seen a similar movement related to fighting election certification. North Carolina has a different remedy, and in 2023, last year, the State Board of Elections actually stepped in and removed two members from a local board of elections, that was in Surrey County. So that’s just a different remedy from the process that they were talking about in Pennsylvania and Arizona. But this was a question we wanted to ask up front to know what we might be able to expect. In Georgia, Secretary of State Raffensperger, he said that might not be necessary to actually engage with a county that doesn’t certify, but he did say, “At the end of the day, we’ll make sure every county follows the law and follows the constitution.”
Taylor Wilson:
Erin Mansfield covers democracy for USA TODAY. Thank you, Erin.
Erin Mansfield:
Thank you, Taylor.
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Taylor Wilson:
There have now been not one but two assassination attempts on Donald Trump. Both candidates now speak behind bulletproof glass at outdoor events, and after falsely claiming that Haitian immigrants are eating pet dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio, shooting and bomb threats have skyrocketed. Is incendiary campaign rhetoric to blame, or is political violence just the new normal here in America? Tune in right here after 4 P.M. Eastern Time later today to hear my colleague Dana Taylor’s eye-opening conversation with USA TODAY domestic security correspondent Josh Meyer.
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And 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 tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NY Mayor Eric Adams indicted on federal criminal charges | The Excerpt
