The Excerpt podcast: SCOTUS agrees to hear Trump appeal over Colorado ballot dispute

On Saturday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Donald Trump's appeal over the Colorado ballot dispute. USA TODAY National Political Correspondent David Jackson looks at the impact of Jan. 6 on 2024 presidential campaigns. The Supreme Court allows Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban in emergency rooms. NRA Executive Wayne LaPierre resigns. USA TODAY Health Breaking News Reporter Eduardo Cuevas talks about how owning pets may help slow cognitive decline among older people. Watch The Excerpt podcast on YouTube.

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, January 6th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Trump's appeal over the Colorado ballot dispute. Plus, we look at the impact of January 6th on this year's campaigns and how owning a pet might help slow the cognitive decline among some older people.

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We start today's show with a slate of court and political news, beginning with the Supreme Court announcement yesterday that it will decide whether former President Donald Trump is eligible to appear on the primary ballot in Colorado. The court's decision to grant the case came days after Trump appealed the decision from Colorado's top court, which ruled that Trump was ineligible for another term because of his role connected to the January 6th, 2021 US Capitol Riot. The Supreme Court has scheduled arguments for February 8th, an unusually quick turnaround that will allow the court to decide the issue before most states hold their primaries. Whatever the Supreme Court decides in Colorado will likely have repercussions in other states.

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Today's the third anniversary of the January 6th attack on the US Capitol. President Joe Biden marked the anniversary yesterday by going after Donald Trump, his potential general election rival later this year.

Joe Biden:

Trump exhausted every legal avenue available to him to overturn the election, everyone. But the legal path just took Trump back to the truth that I'd won the election and he was a loser.

Taylor Wilson:

Trump's strategy when dealing with January 6th while campaigning is a bit different. I spoke with USA Today National Political Correspondent, David Jackson about today's anniversary and what it means for Trump, his Republican rivals and Biden in 2024. David, always good to have you on.

David Jackson:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So David, how is Donald Trump trying to downplay the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection?

David Jackson:

He doesn't talk about it much or he talks about it in a particular way. He rarely mentions January 6th itself, the attack on the Capitol, but he sometimes complains about the way January 6th defendants are being treated by the authorities. He says some of them being railroaded, some of them being treated unfairly in prison. And he also complains about the indictments against him that have stemmed from January 6th. And he basically says that all of these legal actions are designed to thwart his reelection campaign.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, he doesn't really have a choice, right? When it comes to avoiding January 6th on the campaign trail in the coming year. What tangible role, David, might it have on Trump's campaign throughout 2024.

David Jackson:

The major role is that January 6th led to indictments of Trump in two jurisdictions. He's facing trials in Washington DC and in Georgia, basically over conspiracy to try to steal the election from Joe Biden, both nationally and in the state of Georgia. These efforts are what led to the January 6th insurrection. Both indictments mentioned the fact that Trump's efforts in this regard to disregard the outcome of the election is what triggered the January 6th riot is something that's going to reverberate all year, and Trump isn't never going to criticize the rioters in January 6th because they're his supporters. And deep down in his soul, he believes in what they did, but what he's going to do is he's going to attack the criticism of January the 6th and say that it's all unfair.

Taylor Wilson:

And David, do his Republican rivals have a similar strategy around this anniversary and the insurrection?

David Jackson:

They've got a tricky task as well. They don't want to criticize the January 6th insurrectionists either, because a lot of them are Trump supporters and a lot of them might be willing to vote for them in certain circumstances. So they don't want to alienate that particular base of the party. They also say that January 6th was a bad thing, it shouldn't have happened, and there should be consequences for it. So they're trying to parallel track kind of a thing.

The one thing that they want to stress is that the impact of January 6th is going to hurt Trump. And if the party renominates Trump, then January 6th will continue to be an issue and it's going to hurt both him and Republicans up and down the ballot.

Taylor Wilson:

And when it comes to the current president, how is President Joe Biden continuing to make January 6th an issue?

David Jackson:

He sounds like he's bound and determined and put it front and central. And just on Friday, he had a big speech citing the anniversary of the incident. And in his view, January 6th represents what he calls the threat to democracy that's posed to Donald Trump. He accuses the former president of seeking power by any means necessary and is willing to generate another January 6th if that's what it takes to win the election. So Biden served notice that he's going to be talking about this quite a bit.

Taylor Wilson:

Of course, the voters will have the final say. How do the American voters feel about January 6th at this point?

David Jackson:

The same way they feel about a lot of Donald Trump initiatives and the same way they feel about Donald Trump's indictments. The Republicans aren't too worried about it. Republican voters simply don't think January 6th is that big a deal, and they don't think Trump should be held culpable for it. But the problem for the Republicans is when you get into independent voters, the kind of voters who decide elections, and when it comes to January 6th, most independent voters are like most Democrats. They think it was a terrible thing for democracy. They think it shouldn't happen again. And many of them hold Trump responsible for what happened that day.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. David Jackson covers national politics for USA Today. Thanks as always, David.

David Jackson:

Thank you, sir.

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Taylor Wilson:

The Supreme Court yesterday allowed Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban in emergency rooms for now. The court also agreed to hear arguments in the case this spring, placing a second abortion case before the justices just over a year after the overturning of Roe versus Wade. Idaho's law makes it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless a physician can demonstrate that the mother's life is in danger. The Biden administration has claimed a separate federal law requires emergency rooms to provide stabilizing care, including abortions for a broader range of circumstances. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade last year, part of the argument was that the issue should be returned to the states to decide. That has happened, though a number of residual legal challenges continue to linger in federal courts.

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Longtime National Rifle Association Executive Vice President, Wayne LaPierre announced yesterday that he will resign. The 74-year-old leaves as the organization heads to court next week in a trial on allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement. And NRA President, Charles Cotton accepted LaPierre's resignation. The organization's membership, revenue and political force has waned in recent years amid scandals, legal battles and a bankruptcy filing. LaPierre joined the NRA in 1977 and became its leader in 1991. He piloted it from a sportsman club to a powerful political movement, one that has fought against state and national gun control. He was known for speeches in the wake of mass shootings, notably after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre when he called for placing armed guards at every school.

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Owning a pet may slow the cognitive decline among older people who live alone, according to a new study. I spoke with USA Today Health Breaking News Reporter Eduardo Cuevas for more. Eduardo, thanks for making the time.

Eduardo Cuevas:

Great to be here.

Taylor Wilson:

So Eduardo, what did new research find about what owning a pet can do for the cognitive abilities of older people?

Eduardo Cuevas:

So this is a pretty interesting study by folks at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. And really, they looked at a pretty large cohort study of folks age 50 and older living in the United Kingdom, and that showed pet owners had less verbal memory and verbal fluency losses compared to people who lived alone without a pet.

Taylor Wilson:

Eduardo, how did this study work and did this research have any limitations?

Eduardo Cuevas:

Yeah, so this study used data from nearly 8,000 participants in the English longitudinal Study of Aging. And that was about for a 10-year period from 2010 up through 2019. Participants were tested on verbal memory and that's like immediate delayed recalls of unrelated words, evaluating verbal fluency, trying to test animal names, recall animal names as much as possible. And results really showed rates of decline in verbal memory and fluency for people with pets who lived alone compared to those who were just alone without a pet. This is, again, a limited study and more research is needed. The study only tested two aspects of cognitive function. There's more to better understand cognitive functions among people.

And another part is this was observational, right? So this doesn't prove cause that if you have a dog and you're older, you will have less cognitive decline, right? So it's associated with, that's the important part. Another part of this, and this is really a problem in a lot of scientific studies, is nearly all of the participants were white. So findings can't necessarily be generalized to other racial or ethnic groups. And Taylor, I just want to note, black people are twice as likely to develop dementia compared to white people. And that's a part that as we start to understand cognitive decline, Alzheimer's and other related dementias, we have to have more research in this.

And really, we have to look at other options as well. There may be other reasons for slowing declines. Then simply owning a pet. When you have a pet that often requires you to exercise, or let's say you're going for a walk, right? And you might interact with other pet owners or family members or something like that.

Taylor Wilson:

And Eduardo, how does this build on existing evidence about how important it is to prevent isolation and loneliness among older people?

Eduardo Cuevas:

Really reducing isolation and loneliness and stress as well can reduce risk of Alzheimer's disease and other related dementias. And to note, there's currently no known cure for dementia. But again, this study really builds on that, that we need to reduce isolation and try to improve social connectedness for older people in our society. Already more than one in 10 Americans, 65 years and older have Alzheimer's, which is the most common form of dementia. That's according to the Alzheimer's Association, a non-profit group.

But if you look at the CDC, they estimate more than 6,000,000 Americans have Alzheimer's already. But that number is expected to more than double to 14,000,000 by 2060. So really, this is a public health concern as we try to understand what cognitive decline looks like as our population continues to age and we live longer.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Eduardo Cuevas covers health and breaking news for USA Today. Thanks so much, Eduardo.

Eduardo Cuevas:

Thank you for having me.

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Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. Be sure to stay tuned tomorrow when my co-host Dana Taylor looks at whether we're ready for the next pandemic, four years after COVID-19 took hold of the world. She'll be joined by Excerpt regular, USA Today Health Reporter, Karen Weintraub. You can find the episode right here on this feed. As always, you can find us at podcasts@usatoday.com if you have any questions or comments. And a reminder, all of our episodes are now on YouTube. We have a link in today's show notes. 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: The Excerpt: SCOTUS agrees to hear Trump appeal over CO ballot dispute