We've reached the debt ceiling. Now what?, Alec Baldwin faces charges: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: We've reached the debt ceiling. Now what?

The U.S. hit its debt ceiling Thursday. What happens next? Plus, USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer looks at the need to overhaul how the U.S. protects classified documents, USA TODAY Reporter Christine Fernando explains how Roe v. Wade Day is different this year, Alec Baldwin will be charged with involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, and USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub examines new technology that could give loads of information from one drop of blood.

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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 20th of January 2023. Today, the US has hit its debt ceiling. What's next? Plus, a look at the need for an overhaul to how we protect classified documents. And 50 years later, Roe v. Wade Day now means something different.

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The United States hit its debt ceiling yesterday. The US has hit its lending limit before, but there are concerns this time around that hardline politics on Capitol Hill could prevent quick action. Some House Republicans have already said they want Democrats to agree to spending cuts before voting to raise the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department is taking what it calls extraordinary measures to avoid default and keep the government open. That includes putting a hold on investment redemptions for government workers’ retirement, and healthcare funds. That'll help keep the government operating until at least June. The US has never before defaulted on its debt and economists warn that doing so could cause financial markets to tank.

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Experts say that while very different, the Trump and Biden documents cases highlight the urgent and long overdue need for an overhaul of the US system for protecting classified presidential records. Producer PJ Elliot spoke with USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer for more.

PJ Elliott:

Josh, thanks for joining the podcast again.

Josh Meyer:

My pleasure as always.

PJ Elliott:

So how common is it that classified documents go missing?

Josh Meyer:

You know, that's a very good question. I think there's a distinction here. One is how often do they go missing and how often do people find out that they've been missing? And I think the consensus is that there is a lot more of this classified material out there in the wild, as they call it, because people inadvertently commingle them with their documents, their personal documents, when they were leaving the White House. And this doesn't just include the president and the vice president, it's everybody on their staffs, including what is often a very large national security council that can have a few hundred people on it.

PJ Elliott:

Is this a White House only issue? Is this happening in other departments?

Josh Meyer:

Oh, no, it's happening across the government with classified documents. One of the former intelligence officials that I talked to gave me the example of Henry Kissinger. Henry Kissinger worked for several government agencies during his time in government especially the State Department and the National Security Council as President Nixon's National Security Advisor. And also, it's worth noting that the Presidential Records Act didn't come into play until after Nixon's term, and it was meant to protect against the kind of document hoarding and keeping from the public that Nixon did during the Watergate scandal.

PJ Elliott:

So you're going back to the seventies there. How long has this been a problem?

Josh Meyer:

Well, you know, I quoted somebody who represents CIA officers saying that it goes back at least maybe almost a century. It goes back a long way. It probably goes back to the time the US government began keeping classified and top secret documents, which is probably at the beginning of the Republic.

PJ Elliott:

So are there any reforms being pushed, and if so, who is pushing them?

Josh Meyer:

You know, that's a good question. There have been reforms that have been put in place. The Obama administration enacted some reforms. There have been some efforts to fix the problem. I just think that there's an institutional reluctance on the part, especially of government agencies and even the White House, to really want to address the problem. One of the biggest problems is the over classification of documents. And, and by that I mean that there have been government studies, outside studies that have said that way more documents are classified at the top secret level and the secret level that don't need to be. And that's causing part of the problem because so much is classified that it's just makes it much harder to go through it all and decide what needs to be kept and what can be allowed out into the public.

PJ Elliott:

Josh, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Josh Meyer:

Thanks. Anytime.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

Every year since 1973, abortion rights activists have gathered on January 22nd for Roe v. Wade Day to celebrate the Supreme Court decision that granted a constitutional right to abortion. But now 50 years after that decision, Roe v. Wade Day will be different. PJ Elliott spoke with USA TODAY Reporter Christine Fernando for more.

PJ Elliott:

Christine, thanks for joining 5 Things.

Christine Fernando:

Yeah, thanks for having me PJ.

PJ Elliott:

So Sunday would've marked the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling, but instead it's the first anniversary since its repeal last year. Now abortion rights activists will still be gathering for the Women's March to mark the date. How many are expected and where will they be?

Christine Fernando:

That's a good question. This Women's March is gonna be looking a little different compared to previous years. One of the reasons is that the main march is actually in Madison, Wisconsin. And this is because a lot of the debate on abortion access is going to the states now because after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, it put a lot of this power in the hands of state legislature, state courts to make a lot of the decisions that are gonna be affecting people on the ground. As a symbolic kinda representation of that, the Women's March organizers decided to take the protest to the states in Madison. There will also be a protest in DC as well. Don’t know exactly how big either of those will be because it's a bit of a different structure from previous years, but excited to kinda see how it goes.

PJ Elliott:

So as you mentioned, the debate over abortion access has shifted to state courts and legislatures, but there's also ballot initiatives, abortion funds, and grassroots aid. Where are abortion rights activists focusing their efforts?

Christine Fernando:

Yeah, like you said, the debate has really shifted and medication abortion has also emerged as a major focus on both sides of the debate, is at the center of multiple lawsuits. But other than that, there's also dozens of other lawsuits that are using state constitutions and statutes to challenge abortions that are gonna be moving through state courts this year. So that's where a of focus is right now.

PJ Elliott:

So pro-lifers are also gathering on Friday, just before the anniversary, but in their case it's to celebrate Roe v. Wade's repeal. What message are they trying to send and what, if any, actions do they plan to further their cause?

Christine Fernando:

Despite the Dobbs decision, there has been a lot of recent wins for abortion access advocates. For example, the FDA has green lit pharmacies to provide abortion pills in states where abortion is legal, the Department of Justice has also allowed for the US to deliver abortion. And there's also several challenges to state abortion bans going through the courts right now. In terms of state ballot measures, most recently in California, Michigan, Kentucky, Kansas, Vermont and Montana, there have been ballot measures that have either codified abortion rights or have rejected measures that would have restricted abortion access. In terms of major court cases, there's a recent lawsuit that's moving through the system in which anti-abortion group Alliance Defending Freedom has sued the FDA over its approval of mifepristone which is part of a two-step process for medication abortion. So it's one of two abortion pills.

PJ Elliott:

You know, this is something that we've heard about over the past few months especially since Roe was overturned. But what about codifying abortion rights and making it the law of the land? Is that a remote possibility in this Congress?

Christine Fernando:

Definitely. That one is a little bit trickier because even if there is a desire to kind of move forward with codifying abortion rights on a national scale it's unlikely that there's gonna be those votes in Congress to be able to move something like that forward. Congress right now is very split, so a lot of the movement that we're likely gonna see in terms of abortion is really in the states. That doesn't mean there can't be different initiatives on the national level, but likely most of the effect is gonna be within states.

PJ Elliott:

Yeah. And speaking of the national level, the Supreme Court said that investigators were unable to identify the leaker of that draft abortion opinion that came out last year. Christine Fernando, breaking news reporter for USA Today. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.

Christine Fernando:

Thank you so much, PJ. I really appreciate you having me.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

Alec Baldwin will be charged with involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust. The film's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez Reed also faces the same charges. Hutchins died at the age of 42 when she was shot, while setting up a scene at a ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Baldwin was pointing a prop pistol at her when the gun went off, also injuring the director, Joel Souza. Legal analyst, Rachel Fiset, explained the charges to the AP.

Rachel Fiset:

Involuntary manslaughter is one where the prosecution doesn't have the burden of showing there's intent - intent to harm or intent to kill. So they are not in any way claiming that he intentionally fired the gun, knowing there was a live bullet. But what they are claiming is he did not act reasonably, he acted consciously disregarding the fact that firing a weapon could cause death.

Taylor Wilson:

Alec Baldwin's attorney said the charges represented a terrible miscarriage of justice.

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A geneticist studied one drop of his blood and saw things he couldn't from a vial of blood. But what's the reality of the science? PJ Elliott spoke with USA today Health Reporter Karen Weintraub to find out more.

PJ Elliott:

Karen, thanks for coming back on 5 Things.

Karen Weintraub:

Sure.

PJ Elliott:

So you have a story about a scientist who analyzed a drop of blood and it could offer some new insight into health. Can you tell us about it?

Karen Weintraub:

Sure. So it's a researcher out of Stanford named Mike Snyder. And what he's done is found a way to analyze, as you were saying, a drop of blood, basically as a substitute for the vials and vials of blood that you give when you go to the doctor's office. He thinks he can get something pretty much as accurate in a thousandth of the volume. And what he's used it for is frequent testing. So, the study included two separate aspects. One was he tested himself like 14 times a day for a week, 98 times total, and kind of watched the factors in his blood change over time. He also tested 28 people. He gave them the nutritional drink Ensure, which we usually associate with older people, and he tested their blood afterwards using this finger prick method and watched what happened. And interestingly, different people responded differently. So in some cases the people had worse inflammation and a bad glucose spike, and those might have been people who had some kind of perhaps like pre-diabetes or were on the path. And then other people saw a reduction in inflammation. So this nutritional drink helped them and helped their bodies. So it suggests that we're not all the same, that we need to eat different foods, live different lives, that there are things going on in our own bodies that we're unaware of. And this might offer some help in seeing that.

PJ Elliott:

So this technology seems eerily familiar to what Elizabeth Holmes was claiming Theranos could do before that claim was debunked and she was then sentenced to jail. How was this any different?

Karen Weintraub:

Right, so the big problem with Theranos was their analytics. They had allegedly devised a new method for analyzing blood that could take a small drop and develop tons of information out of it. This effort uses the same small amount of blood, but a more traditional method of analysis. So, hopefully I think it's above board. It's also not, not yet a commercial product. So, this researcher might eventually make money off of it, but that's not his primary purpose. He's an academic.

PJ Elliott:

Okay. So what is the potential for this kind of blood work?

Karen Weintraub:

Well, he would like to see it as a substitute for all those doctor's visits. That maybe a little bit much at this point. He also would like to see that we get tested regularly. So right now you might get a blood test once a year, once every couple years, every six months, whatever. He sees this finger prick blood test as a way to get more continuous information. So maybe you do it once a week or every three weeks, whatever, but much more regularly because it's easier. You have to prick your finger, put a drop of blood, and mail it in and you're done.

PJ Elliott:

Karen, thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

Karen Weintraub:

Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. We're here every morning of the week right here, wherever you get your pods. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: U.S. hits debt ceiling, charges for Alec Baldwin: 5 Things podcast