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- [00:00]
Shemita Basu
Hey there, it's Shemita. Before we get into the show, I have an exciting announcement. Today marks five years since the first episode of Apple News today. It is an honor bringing you the news every day and our whole team is so grateful for all of your support over the years. If this show is an essential part of your morning routine, as always, you can follow us in Apple podcasts. We especially appreciate when you tell your friends and your family about us. And if you have another 30 seconds, leave, leave us a rating and a review too. It helps other people find our show and it helps us know what you like about it. Thanks. Good morning. It's Tuesday, July 15th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News today. On today's show, news stories of vile conditions at Florida's so called Alligator Alcatraz. A rare up close view of the Gaza aid system and the Supreme Court clears the way for Trump to dismantle the Education Department. But first to the fractures forming among President Trump's strongest supporters.
- [01:14]
Natalie Allison
A number of people in Trump's movement have been upset with the way that the White House is handling certain issues that they see as really fundamental to the MAGA movement.
- [01:25]
Shemita Basu
That's Washington Post reporter Natalie Allison who told us about their concerns Trump's decision.
- [01:30]
Natalie Allison
To continue sending weapons to Ukraine, which they see as going against Trump's America first promises of not getting involved in other wars. And they're very upset over Trump's decision also recently to allow carve outs for certain illegal immigrant workers, specifically those working in agriculture and hospitality industries. And most recently they've been very vocal about the decision by Trump's administration not to release more files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
- [01:58]
Shemita Basu
While campaigning, President Trump on numerous occasions told his base he would be willing to release information on Epstein. Epstein was a registered sex offender under federal investigation for allegedly running a mass sex trafficking rink involving minors. He died in federal custody back in 2019 and his case has been surrounded by questions and conspiracy theories for years. In part because of the circumstances of his death and because Epstein frequently socialized with the country's most powerful people, from politicians like Bill Clinton to big name business people like Bill Gates and Donald Trump himself. Some of Trump's most ardent supporters believed his administration would reveal what they believed previous administrations had been hiding, most notably Epstein's so called client list, especially after comments Attorney General Pam Bondi made to Fox News earlier this year where she said she had that list on her desk. But the FBI and Department of justice announced earlier this month no files in Epstein's case contain a client list. They reaffirmed a medical examiner's conclusion that Epstein died by suicide. And Bondi told reporters in a Cabinet meeting last week that her comments to Fox News were misunderstood. I was asked a question about the client list, and my response was, it's sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file along with the, the JFK MLK files as well. That's what I meant by that. Trump has strongly defended Bondi and rebuked his supporters, who have continued to push conspiracy theories about the case. But for many in Trump's base, Allison told us, this outcome with Epstein is now testing their faith in the administration at large.
- [03:44]
Natalie Allison
It really gets at the heart of this idea that Trump was going to expose everything and all of the corruption, and now some of those people are, are really left in the dark about what's going on.
- [03:56]
Shemita Basu
That uncertainty was on full display at the conservative Turning Point USA Student Action Summit over the weekend, where Allison says some of Trump's youngest supporters were frustrated. So were a number of commentators who spoke at the conference, like former senior White House advisor Steve Bannon, who said the Epstein case represents something larger and more worrisome for the MAGA movement.
- [04:18]
Steve Bannon
For this to go away, you're going to lose 10% of the MAGA movement. If we lose 10% of the MAGA movement right now, we ain't got, we're going to lose 40 seats in 26. We're going to lose the president. You don't even have to steal it.
- [04:32]
Shemita Basu
Allison spoke to Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point usa, and he echoed those concerns in less drastic terms. Allison told us these commentators could be overstating what's happening as a tactic to keep fans engaged, but there are indicators the discontent they're describing is real.
- [04:50]
Natalie Allison
The people without platforms, the average Joes who are on the conservative social media sites like, you can see that there's a lot of anger from those people. And ultimately, you know, those are the people who, who were casting ballots and they're in far greater numbers than the number of influencers who are having these conversations. And so I think it, it might take some time to see if they come back around. But so far, the White House is like staying strong in their position that this isn't an issue that is salient with the overall elect.
- [05:22]
Shemita Basu
Foreign let's turn now to new reporting from the Miami Herald on the occupants and conditions inside an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, one that's being referred to as Alligator Alcatraz. Ana Ceballos is A state government and politics reporter for the Herald, she and her colleagues obtained records indicating that of the more than 700 people housed or scheduled to be housed at the facility, the about 250 have no criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.
- [05:57]
Ana Ceballos
It's really the first public accounting of who exactly is being held there. And this is a facility that has been described by state and federal officials as a place where, quote, unquote, vicious and menacing migrants will be held before they are deported.
- [06:13]
Shemita Basu
The Herald reports that a third of the current detainees do have criminal convictions, according to data they cite from Syracuse University. Across the country, nearly half of detainees in ICE custody as of late June were being held for immigration violations, not criminal convictions or charges.
- [06:31]
Ana Ceballos
Republicans seem to be brushing off the fact that you know that there is no criminal records associated with a lot of these individuals because they say just being in the country, undocumented or without legal authorization should in itself be a violation of the law, and therefore you should be a detainee at this facility.
- [06:52]
Shemita Basu
Democratic lawmakers who've been able to gain access to the facility, meanwhile, have said that conditions there are deplorable. Ceballos spoke to the wives of some of the detainees currently being held there, who also relayed some harrowing stories.
- [07:06]
Ana Ceballos
There were conditions where the bathrooms, for example, were not properly functioning, that the water was overflowing. There was no water at some point one day, that they have little or no access to showers, that they went days without showering.
- [07:22]
Shemita Basu
In fact, in another incident, the Herald corroborated a story about someone needing medical treatment at a nearby hospital.
- [07:30]
Ana Ceballos
We had a first person account of an ambulance leaving the facility at some point and a hospital that was nearby confirmed that there was a detainee who had been at the hospital for treatment. And the state said that that was fake news, that there had been no medical emerg. And then after we posted the story noting all of that, the Department of Homeland Security said, you know, it was just a hospital visit that lasted about an hour and then they came back. It was no big deal.
- [07:56]
Shemita Basu
A spokesperson for the state agency managing the facility dismissed the Herald's reporting as untrue. The detention facility is now at the center of a pair of lawsuits. State Democrats who were turned away are suing to gain access, while two environmental groups are seeking a restraining order against site activity, citing harm to wildlife. Now to some rare on the ground reporting from NPR in Gaza that reveals what exactly it's like for Palestinians to try to get food under Israel's dangerous new aid distribution system. Remember, it is operated by an American organization called the Gaza Humanitarian foundation, run by private US Contractors and guarded by Israeli troops. There are only a handful of GHF sites to feed over 2 million Palestinians facing starvation. And to reach the sites, Palestinians must pass through active combat zones where there's been regular, deadly violence. The UN Human Rights Office reports that nearly 800 people have been killed trying to get food. NPR producer Anas Bhabha, who lives in Gaza, recently documented what it's like to take this journey in a report for npr.
- [09:14]
Anas Bhabha
A day in my life that I will never, ever forget.
- [09:18]
Shemita Basu
At 1:30 in the morning, he and others heard a GHF site was opening. Palestinians are often told at the last minute which sites will open and for how long, which GHF says is to prevent crowd surges. But in reality, it means that people often crowd nearby, waiting for one to open. Baba and others started racing toward the site, some by foot, some by car. And when they got closer, they learned they were wrong. It wasn't open. But he told npr, an Israeli tank was there.
- [09:49]
Anas Bhabha
And I heard the gunshots and the people screaming that they are injured. And others they saying that my brother died and others were screaming, my friend died. And the gunfire didn't stop. And I can see in front of me that people are still awaiting. They're not leaving.
- [10:07]
Shemita Basu
He says the gunfire continued for almost 30 minutes. When it stopped, people started running again toward the site. At this point, at 2:00am it was open, and Baba watched as desperate people fought over limited food, in some cases wielding weapons to try to get as much as they could and protect what they had. He told his NPR colleagues he was then targeted for documenting the chaos.
- [10:31]
Anas Bhabha
People came to me telling me, look at your forehead. There is three laser points, green laser points on my head from the American contractors. And one of them said out loud with the speaker, no filming is allowed.
- [10:48]
Shemita Basu
So Baba grabbed some rice and pushed through a crowd of people who were trying to leave. But soon after, he was stopped by masked thieves and forced to give up some of his supplies.
- [10:58]
Anas Bhabha
They were having big knives, and they told us, you do have two options. Give us half of what you had, okay? Or we're gonna harm you.
- [11:07]
Shemita Basu
They left him with only about a week and a half worth of food. Since Israel still heavily restricts food entering Gaza, Bhabha told NPR he can only afford to eat one small meal a day to stretch his supplies as long as possible. He later learned from officials at a local hospital that 26 people were killed outside of the aid site that morning. And over 200 people were wounded. GHF has called the early weeks of its program successful. And the head of GHF defended their operation to CBS earlier this month, telling them GHF has not seen evidence of mass casualties related to people seeking aid.
- [11:45]
Steve Bannon
We certainly haven't seen it in our distribution sites or in the immediate proximity to our distribution sites. I'm not diminishing at all these reports. And the fact is we can't control what happens outside of our distribution sites.
- [11:57]
Shemita Basu
The group announced last week that it will start to supply aid directly to communities through a new program that it says will increase food distribution across Gaza tenfold. The UN along with more than 170 human rights groups and aid groups, have called for the GHF system to be dismantled. Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. President Trump has announced the US Will send new weapons to Ukraine to be paid for by NATO allies. There were few details as to what the weaponry would amount to, but Trump said it would be, quote, top of the line. It's the first time Trump has pledged new military equipment for Ukraine since his second term began and marks another sign of Trump's shifting position on the war. Sitting with NATO chief Mark Rutte in the Oval Office, Trump again expressed his frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin and made new economic threats.
- [12:57]
Steve Bannon
And I'm disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn't seem to get there. So based on that, we're going to be doing secondary tariffs. If we don't have a deal in 50 days, it's very simple.
- [13:10]
Shemita Basu
A White House official said Trump was referring to direct tariffs on Russia, as well as secondary tariffs and sanctions aimed at those countries trading with Russia and to the Supreme Court, which ruled that Trump could resume dismantling the Department of Education. The conservative majority court lifted a federal judge's order that had reinstated nearly 1400 workers affected by mass layoffs at the department and prevented the administration from moving some functions to other departments. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said her conservative colleagues were, quote, either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive. Formally eliminating the department would have required an act from Congress, but the administration argued it was maintaining some core functions and making, quote, internal management decisions. And finally, a quick tip for summer snacking. Do you know the secret to picking the perfect watermelon? It has a very specific sound. Now listen close. Let's hear that one more time. You hear that kind of like a ping. Experts in the state of Georgia which produces about one out of every five watermelons sold in the U.S. tell the Atlantic Journal Constitution that you want to listen for that ping sound when you tap a melon. The riper the melon, the more likely it pings, whereas melons that aren't very ripe sound more like a flat basketball. Kind of like this. So the next time you're at a store trying to figure out which melon to grab, do the tap test first, because watermelons stop ripening as soon as they're cut from the vine. So if you choose wrong, you're kind of stuck with what you've got. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next from Women's Health. The promise of Lasik surgery. One quick procedure followed by crystal clear vision for life made it a billion dollar industry. But many patients have learned the hard way that this surgery is not as simple, safe or effective as it's made out to be. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple Now News plus Narrated to find that story and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.