Ex-Japanese PM Abe shot and killed, a look at Boris Johnson's exit: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Ex-Japanese Prime Minister Abe shot and killed

The apparent assassination happened during a campaign speech. Plus, international correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard tells us what exactly happened surrounding British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's resignation, former White House counsel Pat Cipollone will testify to the Jan. 6 committee, money reporter Bailey Schulz gives a gas price update and U.S. hiring may be slowing down.

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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. 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.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Friday, the 8th of July, 2022. Today, a former Japanese prime minister is killed. Plus what's next in Britain following a political shake up and more.

Here are some of the top headlines:

1. The first funerals for victims of the Highland Park shooting are set for today. They come as some severely injured victims hold onto life. One of them, 8 year old Cooper Roberts, is in critical but stable condition after being shot in the chest.

2. Basketball star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty yesterday to drug possession charges. Her trial in Russian court continues in a case that could see her receive up to 10 years in prison.

3. And James Caan has died. The legendary actor known for his work in The Godfather and other iconic films was 82.

Taylor Wilson:

Shinzo Abe, Japan's former prime minister as recently as 2020, has died after being shot and killed during a campaign speech. Japan's NHK Television earlier reported his death. Abe was shot from behind minutes after he started his speech in Nara earlier today. A local fire department official said Abe went into cardiac and pulmonary arrest after being shot, and his heart stopped while being airlifted to a hospital where he was later pronounced dead. Police arrested a 41 year old male suspect on suspicion of attempted murder at the scene of the shooting. Abe came into office as Japan's prime minister for a second time in December of 2012. He was the country's longest serving leader before stepping down due to health issues in 2020.

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As we talked about on yesterday's 5 Things, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced he would resign.

Boris Johnson:

It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party, that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore, a new prime minister. And, of course, I'm immensely proud of the achievements of this government. And in the last few days, I've tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments when we're delivering so much. But as we've seen at Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful. When the herd moves, it moves. And my friends in politics, no one is remotely indispensable.

Taylor Wilson:

The move ends an unprecedented political crisis in the UK. 5 Things Producer, P.J. Elliott spoke with International Correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard about why Johnson stepped down and what's next for Britain.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

It's kind of accumulation of things that have gone on for weeks if not months. There's a series of sort of sleaze scandals involving allegations against some of his junior ministers that he claimed not to know about or he claimed at various times to know about, then not know about, then know about. He's kind of been a divisive figure in the UK ever since he was elected three years ago. A lot of people were dissatisfied that he was this huge champion of Brexit and didn't feel that it was maybe the best thing for the country. Although his Conservative Party members were broadly behind Brexit, there was still many who were not sort of happy about the way he conducted that business.

His poll numbers have been falling for a while. And there's concern that maybe he's not the best person to lead the country into the next general election, whenever that was going to be, sometime in the next couple years. And he's just kind of pissed off a lot of his own lawmakers over a long period of time because he's constantly kind of rewritten the rules of sort of how you behave in the British parliament. He's kind of ignored lots of traditions. He's just not of the typical mold of a British prime minister. But I think the series of scandals over the last number of weeks really were the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak, to use that phrase.

P.J. Elliott:

So what's next for the UK? When does this go into effect and who's going to take over?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

So Boris Johnson, he gave his little speech and said that he was effectively going to stay kind of a caretaker prime minister for the next couple of months while his Conservative Party decides who is going to be the next leader. Because many Americans may not know this, but in the UK you actually elect a party you don't elect a specific individual. So what that means is that any point in time really, the ruling party can swap out a leader, a prime minister and internally select a new one. So that's the process it seems like they're going to kick off over the next couple of weeks and the Conservative Party members will come up with a list of candidates, some of which will be put forward, others which will be volunteering themselves. And they'll kind of like whittle it down over the rest of the summer to two who will then be sort of the formal two candidates. They'll have a number of public debates, probably focus more substantially on policy than they have been in recent times. There'll be a lot about the inflation, which has just kind of gone gangbusters, not just in the UK but around the world, the war in Ukraine, stuff like that.

But essentially they they're going to have an internal selection process that will play out between now and September, October, something like that. And at that point there'll be two candidates and they will internally sort of vote on those and one of them will emerge.

Taylor Wilson:

For more click the link in today's episode description.

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Former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone will testify today to the house committee investigating the January 6th capital attack. Committee members, including Vice Chair, Liz Cheney, had repeatedly called for his testimony to clarify what former President Donald Trump was doing before and during the capital insurrection. Cipollone urged Trump not to join the mob marching to the capital after his speech on January 6th, 2021, because of the risk he could be charged with every crime imaginable, according to former Trump aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified last month.

Cassidy Hutchinson:

Mr. Cipollone said something to the effect of, "Please, make sure we don't go up to the Capitol, Cassidy. Keep in touch with me. We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen."

Rep. Liz Cheney:

And do you remember which crimes Mr. Cipollone was concerned with?

Cassidy Hutchinson:

In the days leading up to the 6th we had conversations about potentially obstructing justice or defrauding the electoral account.

Taylor Wilson:

Cipollone also threatened to resign when Trump threatened to replace Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, who was more willing to pursue claims of election fraud.

♦

Crude oil prices are down, but what does that mean for gas prices at the pump? Money reporter Bailey Schulz tells us what experts are saying.

Bailey Schulz:

So what we're seeing with crude oil prices, which really does affect the price that drivers see at the pump, is that prices have been dropping earlier this week, where on Tuesday and Wednesday prices fell mostly just because investors are getting a little nervous about concerns about a possible recession, where if that does come around, if that does happen, that could really curb demand for gas. That would just really kind of limit spending power for drivers and consumers in general. And so that has been the concern, and that's really what we saw drive this dip in crude oil prices.

I should add that it's hard to say how long the sort of dip will last. We're currently, as I'm speaking, where its prices for the US benchmark are back above a $100 a barrel already, so a very volatile time in the market and for gas prices. So it's very hard to say just how long this dip will last and just what sort of effects we will see at the pump from this. The expert I spoke to said that a recession at this point is not set in stone. We still have to wait and see exactly what will happen, but a lot people at this point are thinking that one is likely.

So what would that mean for consumers is that this would really just limit spending power, where the one quote I have is that people are going to have to tie in their belts with spending. So that would be something that would affect drivers, where people might go out and travel less, might buy less gas and so that is something that we saw affect crude oil prices this week.

It's very hard at this point to say exactly what will happen with prices at the pump, where we are still at pretty high levels. Experts told me they expect to see a bit of relief because of this dip with the price of crude oil on the market, but very hard to say how long that sort of dip will last. We've already seen prices trading above $100 once again on Thursday. And then there are a number of other factors that could make prices rise again, where hurricane season could cause refineries to shut down, which would affect prices. There could be more geopolitical challenges with Russia and Ukraine, and so a lot of different things could impact prices at the pump down the line. And it's just very hard to know exactly what we will be seeing with prices at the pump down the road.

Taylor Wilson:

Well, after going on a hiring spree, it appears US retailers are starting to slow down their recruiting. The country's top employer, Walmart, said it recently over hired because of a COVID related staffing shortage. And in April, Amazon said it, too, decided it had an excess of warehouse workers. The national job market overall is still strong, but the AP reports that economists surveyed by data provider FactSet expect the labor department's June jobs report out today to show employers added 275,000 jobs down from 390,000 in May. As for the unemployment rate, it's expected to have remained at 3.6% just above the half century low that came before the pandemic.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every morning right here, wherever you're listening right now. Thanks to P.J. Elliott for his great work on the show, and I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Japan's ex-PM Shinzo Abe killed, Cipollone to testify: 5 Things podcast