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- [00:05]
Shemitah Basu
Good morning. It's Friday, March 7th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News today. On today's show, House Speaker Mike Johnson's pastor roommate Rupert Murdoch's youngest son addresses the family's succession drama for the first time and how daylight saving time affects your health. But first, since President Trump took office, he and Elon Musk have been working to dramatically reshape and shrink the federal workforce. In less than two months, They've fired over 60,000 employees across at least 17 different agencies. The speed of the firings has led to some confusion and mistakes. Politico reported yesterday that Trump convened his Cabinet to make clear that they should make the final calls on hiring and firing within their departments, not Musk. But he also said if Cabinet secretaries aren't willing to make cuts, Musk will do the cutting. The meeting came after a flood of concerns from lawmakers and Cabinet secretaries over who has final firing power. Musk was also in the room for the Cabinet meeting, according to POLITICO's reporting, and acknowledged that the Doge team has made some missteps, something he also said to members of Congress this week. Some of those missteps have led to rehiring workers who were let go. At the Department of Agriculture, for example, scientists trying to fight the spread of bird flu were laid off as part of the mass firings, and the administration struggled to rehire key employees working on the virus outbreak. The Department of Veterans affairs fired 1,000 probationary employees one week, then sought to rehire employees who worked on the Veterans crisis line. Similar reversals have happened at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Energy and other agencies. Some of the firings are being challenged in federal courts, and Washington Post reporter Aaron Wiener told us they reveal some of the flaws in Musk's thinking, applying private sector strategies to the federal bureaucracy.
- [02:12]
Aaron Wiener
The sort of move fast and break things ethos that may or may not work at a private company runs into a lot more trouble when you're trying to do it with hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
- [02:21]
Shemitah Basu
Federal workers Wiener spoke to say the whiplash has been difficult to navigate. In some cases, they've been ordered to return to work in the office only to find that their agencies will no longer occupy the buildings they were reporting to. Musk's team has canceled hundreds of leases. In one case at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Weiner reports, managers were directed to flip a coin to determine who should use the limited available workspaces. Other workers said they've been instructed to kill time in hallways while they wait for desks to open up.
- [02:53]
Aaron Wiener
I would say the number one reaction has been confusion, and the number two reaction has been frustration. Some of them say they're just, you know, keeping their heads down and trying to do their job every day. Others say the daily work has become really hard to do among all these distractions. But it has really tested, I think, what a lot of people see as their life's work.
- [03:12]
Shemitah Basu
After the Cabinet meeting, Trump described in a social media post a more precise approach to job cuts than the administration has taken to date, writing, we say the scalpel rather than the hatchet. Now to reporting from ProPublica that examines the unusual relationship between Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, one of the most powerful politicians in the country, and a conservative evangelical pastor named Steve Berger. They are housemates in Washington, D.C. it's.
- [03:47]
Joshua Kaplan
A 3.7 million dollar townhouse blocks from the U.S. capitol building that's owned by a major GOP donor.
- [03:56]
Shemitah Basu
Joshua Kaplan is a reporter for ProPublica.
- [03:59]
Joshua Kaplan
And this house is also the headquarters of a political influence project that, until our story came out, had managed to stay completely out of public view.
- [04:12]
Shemitah Basu
Speaker Johnson has been staying in the House since earlier this year. And Kaplan told us the Pastor Berger had been working for several years to develop a political influence campaign with the explicit goal of building relationships with lawmakers and using those connections to influence influence policy. Kaplan walked us through some of Berger's positions.
- [04:32]
Joshua Kaplan
He's very opposed to gay marriage, to pornography, to sex between unmarried adults. He's called the separation of church and state a, quote, delusional lie. He has advocated for numerous specific policy changes on topics ranging from fuel efficiency regulations to a bill that would make it easier to fire federal workers. And he also called for Congress to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
- [05:03]
Shemitah Basu
Johnson, like Berger, is an evangelical conservative, and according to House ethics rules, the speaker and other lawmakers are allowed to live anywhere they want if they pay fair market rent. Otherwise it would be considered an improper gift under ethics rules. A spokesperson for Johnson says he pays fair rent for his portion of the town home. And this spokesperson told ProPublica that Johnson and Berger have never discussed legislation or public policy.
- [05:30]
Joshua Kaplan
Berger is said differently. He doesn't talk much about his conversations with lawmakers, but he has described talking with Johnson on a few topics, things like Israel.
- [05:41]
Shemitah Basu
Berger did not respond to ProPublica's request for comment, but he has claimed previously to have personally motivated legislation on Capitol Hill.
- [05:49]
Joshua Kaplan
As early as 2022, he said he had gotten a text from a senator thanking him for the inspiration that that led this senator to create a bill. He's also described a number of policy issues he's discussed with lawmakers. So I guess the question is, does he have quite the influence that he claims to have? Exactly how much his project has moved the needle on national policy is something we don't really know at this point.
- [06:21]
Shemitah Basu
ProPublica reports Berger has had close relationships with other conservative politicians. Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, has said that he and several members of Congress attend weekly Bible study with Berger.
- [06:33]
Joshua Kaplan
Meadows said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that I've confessed things to Steve that I wouldn't normally confess to anyone else.
- [06:43]
Shemitah Basu
Another person who's known to have lived in this townhome, former Congressmember Dan Bishop, who is President Trump's nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. He also did not respond to ProPublica's request for commentary.
- [06:56]
Joshua Kaplan
To live in a house like this, that close to someone who is explicitly trying to shape national policy is pretty remarkable. But the specifics of what these men talk about and the conversations going on inside this home are still a bit of a mystery.
- [07:22]
Shemitah Basu
Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch turns 94 next week, and his family is more divided than ever. Last year, he attempted to change the family trust. It's designed so that when Rupert dies, control of his global print and broadcast empire will be shared equally between four of his children. Rupert wanted to take voting power away from three of his kids in favor of his eldest son, Lachlan, who currently runs Fox News. He, he felt he could trust Laughlin more to carry on his legacy and maintain the right wing and in some cases, far right slant of his brands. But a court official in Nevada rejected his bid to make that change. And the bitter legal battle laid bare the dysfunction within the family.
- [08:04]
McKay Coppins
But I think that one of the hard things for his kids to wrap their heads around is that at the end of the day in the family media empire, Rupert has always prioritized the empire over the family. That's what he cares about most.
- [08:22]
Shemitah Basu
That's McKay Coppins, a staff writer at the Atlantic and my guest this week on Apple News. In conversation, he spoke with Murdoch's youngest son, James, extensively about his rivalry with Lachlan and the battle for control of his father's businesses.
- [08:36]
McKay Coppins
I remember asking James at one point about actually a family counseling retreat that Rupert summoned all the kids to in Australia in 2010 10. And I said, so was the idea that you were going to work out business stuff or personal stuff? And he, he said in this family, there's no difference.
- [08:54]
Shemitah Basu
The whole idea of the trust, initially, James told Coppins, was to incentivize the siblings to cooperate and make them less competitive for their father's favor. But in reality, the siblings have very different viewpoints on where the businesses should go. Lachlan is reportedly even more conservative than his father. Meanwhile, the other siblings have indicated that they would make efforts to tone down the political rhetoric at their father's outlets.
- [09:19]
McKay Coppins
You could see big changes at places like Fox News. You could see new executives being brought in to modernize, professionalize, change the culture. You could also see a scenario where there's a dismantling of the empire, that basically the outlets are sold off in pieces to various other companies and that the Murdoch media empire is no more.
- [09:40]
Shemitah Basu
Koppen's reporting on James Murdoch, titled Growing Up Murdoch, was the Apple News Story of the month for February. If you're listening in the Apple news app, we'll queue that up to play for you next. Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. President Trump on Thursday postponed the implementation of tariffs on Canada and Mexico for goods that are part of a trade agreement he signed during his first term that applies to about 50% of Mexican imports and 38% of Canadian imports. The pause is for one month. Tariffs that Trump imposed on China earlier this week remain in effect. This is the second time in less than two months that Trump has announced and then backtracked on tariffs on the United States neighbors, moves that have rattled the stock market and caused concern among some economists. The exemption is in Place until April 2. That's when Trump plans to announce another round of retaliatory tariffs on goods from a range of countries. In South Carolina, the first execution by firing squad in the United states in almost 15 years is scheduled to take place this evening. Brad Keith Sigman was convicted of double murder and sentenced to death in 2002. He chose the firing squad rather than lethal injection or the electric chair, which is South Carolina's default method. Problems with the state's recent lethal injections made Sigmund fearful that he might experience pulmonary edema, a condition condition that can develop due to a drug given during a lethal injection that can create the feeling of drowning. Only three people in the past 50 or so years have been executed in this way in the United States. And finally, clocks change this weekend as we move forward by one hour for daylight saving on Sunday. Time magazine reports there are a number of ways losing an hour of sleep can affect your health, including throwing off your circadian rhythm and exacerbating anxiety and depression symptoms. There are some ways to deal with it. One doctor told Time, since this is a biological change, simply giving your body time to adjust could help by exercising and adjusting your bedtime gradually over the course of several days. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app, stick around for my full interview with McKay Coppins about the Murdoch family. That episode of Apple News and Conversation is coming up next. Enjoy the weekend, and I'll be back with the news on.