The Excerpt podcast: Trump testifies in fraud trial, hurling insults at judge, prosecutor

On today's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi recaps former President Donald Trump's testimony in his New York civil fraud trial. Israeli troops encircle Gaza City. Worker shortages are easing in some industries. USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze breaks down a gun rights case ahead of oral arguments Tuesday. A new Biden proposal would make changes to Advantage plans for Medicare.

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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 I'm here to let you know that 5 Things is now The Excerpt. It's the same show you know and love, and I'll continue to be your morning host, bringing you the day's most important headlines.

Today is Tuesday, November 7th, 2023. This is The Excerpt.

Today, Trump testifies in his New York civil fraud trial, plus Israel again rejects calls for a humanitarian pause as troops say they're closing in on Gaza City. And the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a major gun rights case.

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Former President Donald Trump testified yesterday in the New York Civil fraud trial surrounding the Trump organization. I spoke with USA Today Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi for the latest.

Aysha, always great to have you on.

Aysha Bagchi:

I'm glad to be here, Taylor. Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

Just how combative was this testimony?

Aysha Bagchi:

Monday was an extremely combative day from the morning through the afternoon, despite the judge issuing a warning advising Trump's legal team to try to control him. He threw out insults and invectives at the attorney general for New York, Letitia James that the judge threw out. He was very angry. He had a lot of personal attacks. He called Letitia James a political hack. He said the trial was a disgrace. He said James was a fraud. He said the judge called him a fraud even though the judge didn't know him and he called the entire case a political witch hunt. There were a lot of personal comments littered throughout the day even as he was asked very specific questions about his financial filings and documents.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. So strong words. Part of his testimony also centered on a dry breakdown of finances, as you mentioned. Did we learn anything new during this?

Aysha Bagchi:

I didn't know that we learned anything new, but the state did develop a record, which was probably one of its goals. It wanted to have the former president testify under oath and say things about what he knew, how he viewed his financial documents. The state took him through several loan agreements where there were particular covenants and promises basically that Trump was making in the loan agreements about the truth of financial statements that he had submitted to get the loans about his minimum net worth that he would maintain. And the state wanted to get him on the record saying whether those things were true or not because it's going to try to build a case, and has been building a case, that those things are not true.

At the very end of its questioning, it asked him what kind of changes he has implemented as a result of the case and as a result of the former chief financial officer of the Trump organization pleading guilty to tax fraud. And he gave a few answers to that, but one thing in particular is he said that they hadn't contemplated yet hiring a chief compliance officer, someone who would be in charge of making sure that you're compliant with rules and standards.

Taylor Wilson:

And Aysha, how did his testimony overall compare with that of his sons last week in this same trial?

Aysha Bagchi:

Donald Trump himself was much more free with his language than his sons. First of all, he was more combative than either of the sons were. And he seemed more comfortable answering questions however he wanted to answer them. Both with Donald Trump Jr. and with Eric Trump, you did see a lot of care from the two sons about saying that they didn't know much about documents and that they relied on other people. And it's not that Donald Trump senior completely avoided saying things like he wasn't aware of something, but for the most part, he was much more free with his answers and much more willing to stand by these filings and give the court and everyone listening a piece of his mind.

Taylor Wilson:

And Aysha, what's next for this civil fraud trial going forward?

Aysha Bagchi:

Well, we still have one Trump child left to testify. Ivanka Trump is scheduled to testify on Wednesday. So after that, the state plans not to call any more witnesses. That's going to be it for the state. And then Trump's team is going to get to put on its own defense. And Trump did make some comments from the stand about that. He seems really geared up about the defense that they're going to put on. They're clearly going to put on witnesses to make a case that this is a lawsuit that doesn't have any merit and that all the threatened repercussions, including potentially having to turn over hundreds of millions of dollars, would be inappropriate. So we've got a big fight still ahead. The case is very much still going.

Taylor Wilson:

Aysha Bagchi covers the Justice Department for USA Today. I'm sure we'll hear from you here soon again, Aysha, covering this trial. Thanks so much.

Aysha Bagchi:

Thanks, Taylor. I was glad to be here.

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Taylor Wilson:

Israel yesterday once again rejected calls for a humanitarian pause in the war with Hamas as it slammed Northern Gaza in preparation for a ground incursion into Gaza City. The White House said President Joe Biden spoke yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but could not get him to agree to a halt in the military offensive that began after a Hamas attack in Israel last month.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken failed in a similar effort over the weekend. National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby said the US will continue to advocate for temporary and localized pauses in the fighting. The Israeli military said it hit hundreds of Hamas targets this week, but barrages also hit Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital killing displaced people seeking shelter and destroying solar panels that kept the power on according to the general manager of hospitals in Gaza. Palestinians who fled this week said bombing also destroyed homes in the densely populated Shati refugee camp just outside Gaza City.

As Israeli ground forces encircle the city, many Palestinian civilians continued to flee toward Gaza South. They've reported walking past Israeli tanks on Gaza's main highway. Some have reported Israeli soldiers firing at them and said they passed bodies on the side of the road. Israeli troops have urged civilians to move south and have announced brief windows for safe passage, though Israeli airstrikes have hit supposedly safe areas. Tens of thousands have remained in the north, mostly sheltered in hospitals or UN facilities. Those who have stayed put say they are deterred by overcrowding in the south along with dwindling water and food supplies in addition to fears of Israeli strikes. More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war while more than 1,400 Israelis have been killed mostly in the Hamas attack on October 7th. Hamas is also holding some 240 hostages.

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Worker shortages are easing. That slowed the sharp wage growth US employees have enjoyed the past couple of years, but has also allowed businesses to raise prices more moderately, reopened shuttered restaurants and fixed product shortages. But that doesn't mean that labor shortages have decreased in all industries, shifting bargaining power from workers to employers. Labor shortages in retail, for example, have been largely eliminated. While struggles to find skilled workers in healthcare have continued. When it comes to manufacturing, employers for years have struggled to find skilled workers with fewer high school and college grads entering the field. But labor shortages have eased since early last year. You could find a deeper look at industries with the most and least severe labor shortages with a link in today's show notes.

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The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in a gun rights case that could have massive consequences for victims of domestic violence. I spoke with USA Today Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze to learn more. John, thanks for hopping on.

John Fritze:

Hey, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

So John, can you just set the table again for us? What's that issue in this case?

John Fritze:

So this is one of the biggest cases of this Supreme Court term, and it deals with a guy named Zackey Rahimi, who is a Texas man who fired his gun a lot, including once in a fast food place when his friend's credit card was declined, including after an accident he fired at the other driver. So this is a guy who has, even the gun lobbyists sort of acknowledged, has misused his guns a lot. He also had a restraining order against him, a domestic violence restraining order. And when the police went into his house to execute a search warrant, they found guns and they found this restraining order and they charged him with a federal crime that basically says you can't have guns if you are the subject of a restraining order. Rahimi has appealed this conviction and argued that a big case from the Supreme Court last year basically precludes it, that this law on domestic violence restraining orders can't withstand Second Amendment scrutiny. And that's the question for the justices. Can you have a law like this under the Second Amendment?

Taylor Wilson:

John, you wrote that the historical view will really be central to the discussion this week. Can you explain what you mean by that?

John Fritze:

Yeah, I mean, look, you never want to predict a case. If you're going to predict a case, you might predict this one. I think the government probably has the wind at their back heading into this case. I think this Rahimi guy is not a very sympathetic character. Even the gun rights groups will acknowledge that.

I think Rahimi's probably going to lose here. The question is how he loses and what that says about other gun prohibitions across the country. What the Supreme Court said last year was that, "Look, in order for a gun regulation to withstand scrutiny, in order for it to pass the Second Amendment bar, it has to have some historical underpinning. It has to be related to a law that was in place when the Second Amendment was approved." And of course there was no such law about domestic violence because women didn't have many rights when the Second Amendment was passed and domestic violence was looked at a lot differently than it is today. And so the government can't really point to a historical antecedent.

And so the question here is, when the Supreme Court said there has to be this historical antecedent, does it have to be direct? Or can it be something like, "Look, we were fined back in the nation's founding with keeping guns away from dangerous people." So that is kind of how this case comes down and why the historical part is important. The court in many areas is pushing this historical standard in order to interpret the constitution. We look to what the framers of the Constitution thought, how they define these words, how they thought about these issues back then. And the question is, "Does it have to be exactly like that or can it be some variation of it?" And I think the reason why this case is important is not just for domestic violence victims because it's hugely important for that, but also for how the court thinks about this broader issue of looking to history to interpret the law.

Taylor Wilson:

And John, you outlined three justices to keep an eye on. In this case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and also Clarence Thomas. For Thomas in particular, he is often been a major proponent of so-called originalism on the court. I'm wondering how you see that playing in here and why he's someone to watch.

John Fritze:

Thomas is interesting for what we were just talking about regarding history. If Thomas, who is arguably the court's most stalwart conservative, if he in argument signals that he thinks this is a crazy argument that Rahimi is making, then I think it's game over. If you have Thomas, it's hard to see how this isn't an 8-1 or a unanimous opinion for the government. It really comes down to a question of how they write it.

Taylor Wilson:

Supreme Court Correspondent, John Fritze. Thank you, sir.

John Fritze:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

The Biden administration wants to make changes to private Medicare insurance plans that officials say will help seniors find plans that best suit their needs, promote access to behavioral healthcare, and increased use of extra benefits like fitness and dental plans. If finalized, proposed rules rolled out yesterday could also give seniors faster access to some lower cost drugs. Administration officials said the changes build on recent steps taken to address what they called confusing or misleading advertisements for Medicare Advantage plans.

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And before we go, happy Election Day. You can check your voter registration status at vote.org and follow along with our live election updates on usatoday.com.

Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. If you have any comments, you can always send us a note at podcasts@usatoday.com. And you can get The Excerpt wherever you get your podcasts.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The Excerpt podcast: Trump testifies in fraud trial, hurling insults