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- [00:05]
Shemitah Basu
Good morning. It's Tuesday, February 18th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News today. On today's show, a snapshot of how Americans are feeling about Trump's presidency. One month in, European leaders worry about being sidelined by the US on talks with Russia and a polar vortex warning for later in the week. But first, a Delta Airlines plane flipped over while landing at Toronto's Pearson Airport yesterday afternoon. Officials say there were no deaths, but at least 18 people on board were injured, three critically, including a child. A man named John Nelson was on the plane and described what happened to cnn.
- [00:52]
John Nelson
When we hit, it was just a super hard, like hit the ground and the plane went sideways and I believe we skidded like on our side and then flipped over on our back.
- [01:05]
Shemitah Basu
He said there was a fireball on the left side of the plane and described it as chaos.
- [01:10]
John Nelson
I was upside down. The lady next to me was upside down. We kind of let ourselves go and fell to hit the ceiling, which is surreal feeling. And then everybody was just like, get out, get out, get out. We could smell jet fuel. Even now I smell like jet fuel. And then we just crawled out the back of the airplane. The firefighters, the MTs were there right away.
- [01:31]
Shemitah Basu
In a statement, Delta said the flight was carrying 80 people, including four crew members flying from Minneapolis before it crashed on the Toronto Runway. Toronto Pearson Fire Chief Todd Aiken said during a briefing, it's too early to speculate as to what caused the crash. What we can say is the Runway was dry and there was no crosswind conditions. Multiple outlets are reporting, however, that Toronto had windy conditions with gusts up to 40 miles per hour at times. Former National Transportation Safety Board Vice chairman Bruce Landsberg spoke to CBS News shortly after the crash. He said in strong wind conditions, a plane will start to turn into the wind, sort of like a weather vane, because of the tail.
- [02:12]
Bruce Landsberg
The pilot has to counteract that by pushing simultaneously on both the rudder pedals to keep the airplane going straight and then putting a wing down in order to keep it from drifting off the Runway. So it requires a very delicate balance. And of course, the wind isn't steady. It's going to be gusting. So just about the time you think you've got everything squared away, another gust comes along or the gust stops. So the pilot is constantly fighting to keep the aircraft properly aligned.
- [02:42]
Shemitah Basu
Landsberg said however, these were his preliminary impressions and investigators will learn more. This comes less than a month after the crash outside of Washington, D.C. when a Blackhawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines jet, killing all 67 people on both aircraft, an incident which has left many people nervous about air travel right now. Scott Hamilton, an aviation expert speaking to the NBC affiliate in Seattle, says flying remains an extremely safe mode of transportation.
- [03:12]
Scott Hamilton
It is absolutely safe to fly. There is nothing at all that is a common thread between these accidents.
- [03:19]
Shemitah Basu
This incident also happened as the Trump administration is making cuts to staffing at the Federal Aviation Administration. But Hamilton says that has nothing to do with what happened here.
- [03:30]
Scott Hamilton
Some have already tried to make a nexus between these layoffs and these accidents. There is no nexus. The people in the Federal Aviation Administration who have been laid off are technicians. They're not air traffic controllers. And of course, the layoff only was effective yesterday or the day before. So that's just completely irrelevant.
- [03:51]
Shemitah Basu
Two runways remain closed at the airport in Toronto, while American and Canadian officials work together to investigate the crash. Just over four weeks into President Trump's second term, we're getting some early snapshots of how voters are feeling. A recent survey from CBS News and YouGov found slightly more Americans, 53% approve of Trump's job performance, 47% disapproved. Polling by Pew Research center earlier this month revealed a similar narrow margin, though in their polling, slightly more people disapproved approved of Trump's performance. So people seem to be quite divided at first glance, but we are seeing more alignment on some specific policies. For example, when asked about Trump's pardons of January 6th offenders, about three quarters of the people who responded to Pew survey said they disapproved of pardons for violent crimes. On other issues, like immigration, a recent NPR Ipsos poll found most people said they support Trump's call for mass deportation of immigrants without legal status. But far less popular are the administration's effort to end birthright citizenship and its policy of holding immigrants at Guantanamo Bay. Republican strategist Sarah Longwell has been conducting focus groups with voters. She spoke with PBS NewsHour about some of the people she has met. Monty from New York told her he's happy with Trump's work so far.
- [05:21]
Sarah Longwell
I think he's running the country like a business. So what happens if management steps into a business for the first time? Shut everything down. Let's see the books, let's look at everything. Let's see what needs to stop being spent on and what. So I understand that it sounds scary, the funding freeze, and I know it does, like, shake up a lot of industries or a lot of places. But it's something that needs to be happening.
- [05:40]
Shemitah Basu
The Wall Street Journal recently did a Pulse check with roughly two dozen people who voted for Trump. And national politics reporter Eliza Collins told us many of them are excited about.
- [05:50]
Eliza Collins
What he's doing, ending transgender women in sports. You know, pardoning January 6th defendants. In particular, his focus on federal workforce cuts. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, they like that going through and trying to find what they say is waste and fraud.
- [06:11]
Shemitah Basu
But a handful of people told Collins, while they like the idea of what Trump is doing, they want him to slow down.
- [06:17]
Eliza Collins
They felt like the scope of what he was doing was too far, though they agreed with the goal. So they liked the idea of making the government more efficient, but they didn't think that people should have to lose their jobs over it. They didn't like the idea of layoffs or buys. They liked getting the border under control, but they felt that deporting families was problematic. They just wanted to focus on criminals.
- [06:42]
Shemitah Basu
At least one person Collins spoke to said she voted for Trump because she wanted lower prices and to stop fentanyl from coming into the US but now she's worried her family might lose their house if her partner gets laid off from his government adjacent job.
- [06:56]
Eliza Collins
She had voted for Biden last time, had been a longtime Democrat, and had basically given Trump a try this time and deeply regretted it. She called it the greatest mistake of her life.
- [07:08]
Shemitah Basu
Of course, these are conversations with a small number of voters. We have only a handful of polls so far just a few weeks into Trump's term, so we'll have to wait and see how public opinion evolves in the coming months. Let's turn to a series of critical meetings about the future of Russia's war in Ukraine. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Saudi Arabia today to meet with officials from Russia to negotiate an end to the war. Ukraine, notably, is not part of this conversation. President Volodymyr Zelensky told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday that he will not accept any terms of a deal that's reached without Ukraine's involvement. There is no any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us, about us and at the table. It's very important to hear America, Europe, Ukraine and Russia. I not only count on it, I'm sure that we have to be there. Otherwise it's not acceptable. Meanwhile, in Paris, the leaders of eight European nations in the NATO alliance held an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the fact that they too were shut out of the US Russia peace talks by the Trump administration. Their meeting was called after a series of recent actions by U.S. officials that have raised alarm in Europe last week. On Wednesday, reportedly Trump had a phone call with Vladimir Putin, raising concerns that they might be close to brokering a deal that favors Russia and undermines European security. Then on Friday, at the Munich Security conference, Vice President J.D. vance gave a critical speech about the state of European democracy, saying the nation's leaders were suppressing free speech and not taking concerns about migration seriously.
- [08:55]
John Nelson
The threat that I worry the most.
- [08:57]
Shemitah Basu
About vis a vis Europe is not.
- [08:59]
John Nelson
Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within.
- [09:07]
Shemitah Basu
His speech was widely denounced by European leaders. The German chancellor criticized Vance for meeting with and voicing support for German far right leaders on his visit. And then over the weekend, US Secretary of Defense Pete Heth told European allies that the US has bigger priorities in Asia and Europe needs to take care of itself.
- [09:27]
John Nelson
Leaders of our European allies should take primary responsibility for defense of the continent.
- [09:33]
Shemitah Basu
European leaders have said. If the Trump administration expects Europe to be the primary source of financial and military support for Ukraine, they expect to be at the negotiating table for peace talks. But with the US Sending these signals, NBC reports NATO allies have been discussing the possibility of deploying troops to Ukraine for peacekeeping. Both Trump and Rubio have tried to downplay the recent comments from U.S. officials by saying Ukraine and European would be part of real negotiations with Russia, raising further questions about Rubio's goals in his talks with Russia today. As all of this plays out, a recently released poll conducted in November and December on behalf of the European Council on Foreign Relations found public perception in Europe of the relationship with the United States has soured since Trump's election. Respondents were more likely to describe the US As a necessary partner than an ally. The exception to the trend were people who support far right parties in Europe. Before we let you go, a few other headlines we're following. As authorities prepare to investigate yesterday's Delta plane crash, a team from Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX is being brought into the Federal Aviation Administration to help overhaul its systems. The move was announced as hundreds of FAA employees were laid off. As we mentioned earlier, the Department of Transportation said the agency has retained employees who perform critical safety functions. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said On X the SpaceX team would, quote, envision how we can make a new, better, modern and safer system. Pope Francis is spending more time in the hospital after doctors diagnosed him with a complex respiratory infection. The pontiff was admitted to the hospital on Friday with a case of bronchitis, but doct changed their diagnosis and said the 88 year old will remain hospitalized as long as necessary. The pope recently made headlines for criticizing the Trump administration's policy on immigration, saying in an open letter it will end badly. He also condemned Vice President J.D. vance for using the ancient theological theory of ordo amoris, or order of love, to defend mass deportations. And finally, more brutal winter weather is on its way to the central and eastern part of the country. The polar vortex of ring of frigid air found near the North Pole will cause about 60 million people to experience sub zero temperatures and might also provide fuel for another ice and snowstorm. The Washington Post reports freezing temperatures will stretch from Montana to Maine and could break records for some central and southern states. It's the latest round of bad weather to hit the country. A winter storm is also expected to move into Kentucky as early as tonight as the state recovers from dangerous flooding that caused the deaths of 11 people. 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. Protein is having a huge moment in American food culture. New York Magazine examines how the hype has transformed grocery aisles across the country. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news.