Pence attacks Trump over documents indictment, interest rate hikes paused: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Pence attacks Trump over 'serious allegations' in documents indictment

Former Vice President Mike Pence attacks former President Donald Trump over 'serious allegations' in the documents indictment. Plus, the Federal Reserve holds its key interest rate steady, USA TODAY Education Enterprise Editor Nirvi Shah explains a Senate Republican plan to tackle the student debt crisis, a grand jury indicts a man in the fatal choking death of Jordan Neely, and USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub looks at the loss of smell and COVID-19.

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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 Thursday, the 15th of June 2023. Today, Pence attacks Trump over the classified documents indictment. Plus, the FED pauses its interest rate hikes, and we hear the latest plan to fight the country's student debt crisis.

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Donald Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, has joined the growing list of 2024 Republican candidates who are now starting to attack him over criminal charges that he hoarded sensitive classified documents and defied a grand jury subpoena to give them back. Pence told CNBC that the prospect of what allegedly took place "jeopardizes our national security." He made similar comments earlier this week to The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Most Republican candidates have been reluctant to discuss the indictment of Trump, which was announced last week, but that's changing by the day. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and current US Senator Tim Scott have also stepped-up criticism of Trump in the wake of his second indictment. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who's closest in the polls to Trump, responded to the latest indictment by accusing President Joe Biden and his Democratic administration of selective prosecution. Trump, himself, is trying to make the documents indictment an issue in his favor, telling voters that Biden and Democrats are using the legal system to play politics. He pleaded not guilty earlier this week to federal charges connected to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

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The Federal Reserve held its key interest rates steady yesterday. That's after its sharpest wave of interest rate hikes in four decades, in recent months. Still the FED signaled that two more increases are likely this year as officials continue to battle high inflation. The decision to stand pat will give a reprieve to consumers who have been slammed with steady increases in rates for credit cards, adjustable-rate mortgages, and other loans. But Americans, especially seniors, have also benefited from the hikes by finally seeing higher bank savings yields after years of weak returns. The rate hike pause follows news earlier this week from the Consumer Price Index showing a significant slowdown in inflation last month.

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Senate Republicans yesterday unveiled their plan to address the country's student debt crisis. That's as a Supreme Court decision on President Joe Biden's forgiveness plan is expected any day. I spoke with USA TODAY Education Enterprise Editor Nirvi Shah for the latest. Thanks for hopping on the podcast, Nirvi.

Nirvi Shah:

Thanks so much for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Senate Republicans have unveiled their plan to address America's student debt crisis. What's in their proposed legislation?

Nirvi Shah:

So they have a lot of ideas. It's five bills that they talked about. Some of these are issues that I feel like Democrats probably could get behind or have talked about in their own way. One is getting students more data about the colleges that they want to attend. There's been a lot of questions about the letters that students get that explain their financial aid and can those be clearer? There was some research done last year by the Government Accountability Office that said that those letters are not clear and doing a disservice to a lot of applicants as they try to make their decisions about where to go to college. There were some other things that I'm not sure that Democrats would be as behind quite so much - consolidating some repayment options that the federal government has for loans that can actually help cut your debt in the long run, putting some limits on something called graduate plus loans, which can really balloon the cost of your graduate programs. So there's a lot of conversation in Washington that is about how can we change the game so that students don't accumulate so much debt? And I think that end goal is shared by both parties, but how to get there is the big question.

Taylor Wilson:

You mentioned some ways that Democrats might differ with this proposal. Did any prominent democratic lawmakers or the White House respond to this Republican proposal?

Nirvi Shah:

There is general consensus on the part of Democrats, not entirely, they really want to see Biden's proposal about loan forgiveness go through. They'd like the Supreme Court to let it happen. Even with Biden's plan succeeding, if it has a chance to pass muster with the Supreme Court, student loan debt is projected to balloon back up to where it would be, with all of this debt forgiven, in just a few years. So it's a lot of questions about how to really get all of that under control. We are expecting a ruling from the Supreme Court in the next few weeks, by the end of June or early July. The administration has been pretty coy about whether they're planning for some kind of Plan B if their plan is struck down, and the White House reiterated that on Wednesday, that right now they're focused on having this plan succeed. There's a lot of questions about that.

Taylor Wilson:

So yeah, as you mentioned, we're still waiting on the Supreme Court's decision on the Biden Administration's plan. What will this ruling tangibly mean for borrowers around the country?

Nirvi Shah:

Well, a lot of people who are hoping for forgiveness, if the Supreme Court rules against the President, things that they have, some financial lightness that they might have expected if $10,000 or $20,000 was erased from their debt is going to come back. So for some people, this is going to be a pretty life-changing event, especially for people who that might have canceled out all of their loaned debt completely. There's other people for whom they may have hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans, and this would not necessarily be a life-changing event. But regardless of that, for all borrowers who have a balance, the ruling is it's a little bit irrelevant because the payments are going to come due starting in October anyway. That was a deal the president negotiated as part of his debt ceiling deal with Republicans on the hill. So interest is going to start accruing back in September and payments are going to be due in October, and that's going to be, I think, the bigger shock to the system for most Americans who have student loan debt.

Taylor Wilson:

USA TODAY Education Enterprise Editor Nirvi Shah. Thanks so much.

Nirvi Shah:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

A grand jury has indicted a US Marine veteran in the fatal choking death of 30-year-old Jordan Neely onboard a New York City subway car last month. That's according to the New York Times and several other media outlets. 24-year-old Daniel Penny previously turned himself in after Manhattan prosecutors said he would face a secondary manslaughter charge in Neely's death. If convicted, Penny could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. The incident sparked days of protest after police questioned and then released Penny on the day of the incident. Neely had been screaming on the train saying he was hungry and thirsty, but according to a freelance journalist who witnessed the incident, he did not physically attack anyone.

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Losing sense of smell has been a lasting effect of COVID-19 for many. And a new study found that it's impacted millions of Americans. I spoke with USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub for more. Hello, Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Hi.

Taylor Wilson:

Karen, what did this study find?

Karen Weintraub:

So they looked at people's responses to a national survey in 2021 and found a large number of people, 6 million people, were reporting loss of smell. We know from early in the pandemic that a lot of people, loss of smell and taste were the first symptoms they noticed in COVID. Something like 80% of people who had COVID early on had those symptoms. The numbers have dropped since, but clearly still a lot of people were suffering then and continue to have this problem.

Taylor Wilson:

And what are the underlying reasons for the loss of smell and taste with COVID?

Karen Weintraub:

They think it's inflammation of the nerves that connect the nose to the brain, but the traditional treatments, steroids that reduce inflammation don't seem to help. So they're not really sure what's going on here.

Taylor Wilson:

And can you just explain a little bit how smell and taste are linked together?

Karen Weintraub:

We taste in part with our sense of smell. So things like garlic, coffee, things with strong odors affect how we taste them. And so when you can't smell, it really does limit your ability to taste. You can still taste things that are salty and that are sweet, and people report indulging their sweet tooths more if they have this problem, but it really does affect your ability to taste, I guess, more subtle flavors when you have no sense of smell.

Taylor Wilson:

And in talking with some folks who have been affected by this, how is it impacting their lives, Karen?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah, so some people gain weight, because as I mentioned, they only eat sweet things, can only taste sweet things. Some people lose a lot of weight because they take no pleasure anymore in food. Other people have talked about distorted smells. I talked to someone earlier in the pandemic who said her dog suddenly started smelling like lemons, which is good, but she couldn't smell her husband anymore, and that was really disturbing to her. So it can really have this really wide range of impacts on people, some of which can be extremely distressing.

Taylor Wilson:

And is this something really specific to COVID-19, Karen, or is this a lingering effect from all kinds of different viruses?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah, so they think that a number of viruses can cause these kinds of problems, but they've never seen this many people after one infection in this way. So COVID clearly hits this problem more often and also because so many people caught COVID at the same time. The one good thing, I guess, is that it gives researchers a starting point, a common point they know what caused it, and so they can start to really hopefully understand better what's going on.

Taylor Wilson:

And what treatments or solutions, if there's anything, are available to people desperate to fix their sense of smell?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah, it's pretty slim, unfortunately. There's something called smell therapy where essentially you stick your nose in the spice cabinet for a couple of minutes every day, sniffing the cinnamon for a couple seconds, and then the cumin, whatever other things to rewire your brain a little bit to tell your brain what's going on. It can work, particularly if the loss of smell is recent. There haven't been a lot of clinical trials for it. There are a few other things that are being studied now, but nothing that we know of and nothing that really addresses taste issues. Until now, they didn't think that people could lose taste specifically, but researchers have seen reports during the pandemic of people who lost their sense of taste and without their sense of smell, which again had not been something that was understood before.

Taylor Wilson:

Karen Weintraub covers health for USA TODAY. Thanks as always.

Karen Weintraub:

Thanks.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. If you like the show, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And if you have any comments, you can reach us at podcasts at usatoday.com. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fed pauses interest rate hikes, GOP unveils student loan plan: 5 things podcast