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- [00:05]
Sumita Basu
Good morning. It's Monday, December 9th. I'm Sumita Basu. This is Apple News today. On today's show, Donald Trump considers a controversial pardon, how discriminatory policies expose black people to higher rates of gun violence. And the college football playoffs are set with one big surprise. But first, a major turn of events in the Middle east, where rebels captured Syria's capital, Damascus over the weekend, forcing President Bashar Al Assad to flee the country and bringing an abrupt end to more than a decade of civil war. Al Assad's fall was met with joyous celebrations in the streets of Syria and in countries around the world. It's a historic moment for Syrians who have lived under the oppressive hand of the Al Assad family since the early 1970s. Over the course of the 13 year long civil war, millions of people were displaced, hundreds of thousands imprisoned, and more than half a million people killed under Al Assad's rule. On Sunday, when the Assad regime fell, prison guards across the country abandoned their posts, setting free scores of people, some who had been considered missing for decade. Al Assad and his family arrived in Moscow on Sunday when they were given asylum by the Russian government, which had been a key supporter of the regime. As we mentioned last week, when rebel forces took Syria's second largest city, Aleppo, Russia, along with Iran are Al Asad's main allies. And both have been preoccupied with their own conflicts in Ukraine and Israel respectively, which left Al Asad exposed. But while some are celebrating the end of the regime, many are anxious to learn what comes next. Here's Sky News reporter Alistair Bunkle.
- [02:00]
Alistair Bunkle
It is a new dawn for the country, but there are dark clouds on the horizon. When that celebration calms down, the hatred and anger after decades of repression and harsh rule could spill out and it'll be hard to contain it. And who is going to govern Syria? It is divided many ways and many rebel factions will want to vie for their own slice of power.
- [02:27]
Sumita Basu
The main rebel group that toppled Al Assad is called Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, or hts. It was once an Al Qaeda affiliate and even though it has since denounced terrorism, the US still designates it as a terrorist group. For President Biden, this presents a late in his presidency foreign policy challenge. He spoke on Sunday, seeming to recognize the optimism of many Syrians.
- [02:51]
Joe Biden
It's a moment of historic opportunity for the long suffering people of Syria to build a better future for their proud country. It's also a moment of risk and uncertainty as we all turn to the question of what comes next. The United States will work with our partners and the stakeholders in Syria to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risks.
- [03:16]
Sumita Basu
Biden also said it's the US's mission to prevent ISIS from taking hold of the country, and he promised US troops in the country would be protected. Within 24 hours of the Al Assad regime's downfall, US forces carried out dozens of airstrikes targeting ISIS camps in Syria. Meanwhile, President elect Trump, who twice tried to end US troop presence in Syria during his first term, called the country, quote, a mess on Saturday and said the US should not get involved in the conflict. As for the immediate future, opposition leaders have left Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al Jalali in place until a new government can be formed. Ghazi al Jalali has since called for a peaceful transition of power and free and open. Let's turn now to a different matter of national security and a conversation in President elect Trump's circle that's raising some eyebrows. A growing number of advisers are pushing for Trump to pardon Edward Snowden.
- [04:29]
Michael Scheer
Edward Snowden is responsible for the biggest leak of classified information about U.S. surveillance in American history.
- [04:38]
Sumita Basu
That's Washington Post reporter Michael Scheer. Snowden, as you might remember, was an intelligence contractor with the national security agency, the NSA. Back in 2013, he released a stack of documents more than three miles high, according to a House report, with the goal of, in his words, exposing government abuses, including data collection on US Citizens. He and his supporters call him a whistleblower. His critics say he put Americans at risk. He's been living in Russia for years to avoid prosecution. Trump came close to pardoning Snowden at the end of his first term, pushed then by Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.
- [05:18]
Michael Scheer
At the time, he decided he wasn't going to go forward with a pardon of Snowden. But he said it was a very close call, and he said it could have gone the other way.
- [05:27]
Sumita Basu
Today, even more people in his circle are advocating for a pardon, and that.
- [05:31]
Michael Scheer
Includes his son, Donald Trump Jr. It includes Gates, who's still close with him. It includes Tucker Carlson, who has been down at Mar? A Lago, Tulsi Gabbard, his nominee to director of national Intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. His nominee to be Health and Human Services secretary. One of the reasons to justify a pardon of Snowden, this idea that the deep state that the intelligence apparatus is somehow corrupt, needs to be checked as part of their argument. And this is actually an argument that appeals to Donald Trump.
- [06:05]
Sumita Basu
Trump himself has claimed to be a victim of government abuse calling his various legal investigations witch hunts. National security experts say if Trump pardoned Snowden, it would be an insult to their work. Here's SUE Gordon on CBS's Face the Nation. She was principal deputy director of national intelligence in Trump's first term. She's talking about what Snowden did.
- [06:27]
Joe Biden
He had no authority and he had different paths and he harmed America. He not only harmed intelligence, he harmed our allies and partners. And so if they vacate it, what they're basically saying is all those rules you follow in order to be able to serve America, they don't matter anymore.
- [06:43]
Sumita Basu
A 2016 House report concluded the Snowden leak cost the federal government billions of dollars and did, quote, tremendous damage to national security. Scheer says the damage part is disputable.
- [06:56]
Michael Scheer
That's a debated point. The actual damage that the Snowden disclosures did do have not been detailed by the intelligence community. That remains classified.
- [07:04]
Sumita Basu
Snowden declined to comment for this reporting, and Trump's team did not respond to Scheer's questions about their potential plans for report in. Now to a new investigation from the Trace, a nonprofit newsroom that tracks gun violence in America. This is part of a series with the Philadelphia Inquirer that zooms in on Philly, and they examine how centuries of discriminatory policies like segregation and redlining keep black people in a cycle of poverty that exposes them to gun violence way more than other groups. In other words, as reporter Mensah Dean put it to us, Philadelphia's status as the poorest big city in the country is a major cause of its gun violence.
- [07:57]
Mensah Dean
Racism hemmed in the black population and it stifled their ability to move upward, even those who had the aptitude to do so. Where you have the lower income populations, that's where you have more crime.
- [08:11]
Sumita Basu
Gun violence in Philly disproportionately affects Black people. Since 2015, more than 80% of gun violence victims and 79% of people arrested for gun violence in the city have been black. And this pattern continues even as gun violence rates started to drop citywide. Dean put it this way, when people can't meet basic needs, they sometimes take drastic action.
- [08:34]
Mensah Dean
Hunger does drive people and deprivation. And so when you live in a community where there's so much poverty and despair and dysfunction and aberrant behavior, children are exposed to that from the time they can walk and to the time they're taking the subway.
- [08:52]
Sumita Basu
He told us about 90 year old Walter Palmer, who grew up in West Philadelphia. His family of 14 shared a two room apartment when he was 12 years old. He was arrested for the first of many times.
- [09:04]
Mensah Dean
He was shot in gang warfare. He did his share of violence. He was arrested many times before he was able to catch a break.
- [09:13]
Sumita Basu
Palmer says he believes the combination of poverty, crime and despair in his racially segregated neighborhood pushed him into these circumstances. But he managed to get out and go to law School in D.C. at Howard Dean told us. Palmer later became an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses on institutional racism and social change.
- [09:35]
Mensah Dean
I hope that he helps the reader see how poverty, how it shapes or misshapes people. And some people like Palmer, can escape the clutches of poverty and live productive lives, while others fall by the wayside.
- [09:52]
Sumita Basu
There are three parts to this series from the Trace about the roots and realities of gun violence in America. We'll include a link to this story in our Show Notes page. Before we let you go, a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app. President Elect Trump gave his first televised interview on Sunday since winning the election. In a wide ranging sit down on NBC's Meet the Press, Trump talked about how he'll prioritize deporting migrants with criminal records. He also discussed what he thinks should happen to some of his political opponents, in particular members of the committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
- [10:41]
Joe Biden
And Cheney was behind it and so was Benny Thompson. And everybody on that committee we're going to for what they did. Honestly, they should go to jail.
- [10:52]
Sumita Basu
So you think Liz Cheney should go.
- [10:54]
Joe Biden
To jail for what everyone on the committee you think? I think everybody on the anybody that voted in favor. Are you going to direct your FBI director and your attorney general to send them to jail? No, not at all. I think that they'll have to look at that.
- [11:06]
Sumita Basu
Various news outlets are reporting the Biden administration is considering blanket pardons for people they believe could be targets for retribution under Trump. In sports news, the first ever 12 team college football playoff is set with a big surprise on the bracket. SMU was awarded the final spot over Alabama, a perennial powerhouse. It was quite the debate, according to the selection committee chair. Alabama was ranked higher than Arizona State, which earned a top four seed by way of winning its conference champion Georgia, Boise State and Oregon, the number one overall seed, rounded out the rest of the top four. They'll get a bye in the first round, which starts on December 20th with Notre Dame versus Indiana. And in New York, authorities continue their search for the man they believe shot and killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week. He was captured on thousands of surveillance cameras across the city and investigators believe he left the city by bus. On Friday, police released two additional photos of the suspect over the weekend. There has been a strange sense of glee on the Internet around this story. Photos from a shooter lookalike contest over the weekend in New York are getting shared. A jacket similar to the one that the shooter was photographed wearing is getting lots of clicks. New Yorker writer Gia Tolentino has a piece out about the Internet's reaction to Thompson's murder and why so many people are being so flip about it. She writes that while the details of the crime itself are remarkable, the Internet's reaction has been, quote, even wilder, even more lawless. You can read Tolentino's full commentary on what this response means about our society in our Show Notes page, along with all the stories we talked about today 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. Popular Mechanics spoke to experts who are preparing the northwestern US For a natural disaster that we rarely discuss, volcanic mudflows that could inundate communities surrounding Mount Rainier. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.