A daily non-partisan, conversational breakdown of today’s top news and breaking news stories
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Headlines:
– Welcome to Mo News (01:30)
– Biden Proposes Reforms For Supreme Court (READ HIS OPED) (03:30)
– Trump Will Sit For ‘Victim Interview' In Assassination Attempt Investigation, FBI Says (07:30)
– Local SWAT Team Speaks Out About What Happened On Day Of Shooting (09:30)
– Nations Denounce Venezuelan Election, Demanding Transparency (13:15)
– Park Fire Now One Of California's Largest Wildfires On Record, Burning Area Nearly Half The Size of Rhode Island (16:20)
– Small Earthquake Felt In Southern California (17:10)
– F.D.A. Approves Blood Test for Colon Cancer Detection (17:30)
– In More Than 200 U.S. Cities, $1 Million Only Gets You A Starter Home (19:10)
– U.S. Men's Gymnastics Team Take Home Bronze, Their First Olympic Medal in 16 Years (22:10)
– Lauren Scruggs, 1st Black American Woman To Win an Individual Fencing Medal (23:00)
– NBC Scoring High Ratings During Paris Games (23:30)
– On This Day In History (24:00)
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Mosheh Oinounou (@mosheh) is an Emmy and Murrow award-winning journalist. He has 20 years of experience at networks including Fox News, Bloomberg Television and CBS News, where he was the executive producer of the CBS Evening News and launched the network's 24 hour news channel. He founded the @mosheh Instagram news account in 2020 and the Mo News podcast and newsletter in 2022.
Jill Wagner (@jillrwagner) is an Emmy and Murrow award- winning journalist. She's currently the Managing Editor of the Mo News newsletter and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News, Cheddar News, and News 12. She also co-founded the Need2Know newsletter, and has made it a goal to drop a Seinfeld reference into every Mo News podcast.
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(upbeat music) - Hey everyone, it is Tuesday, July 30th. You are listening to the Mo News podcast. I'm Jill Wagner. This is the place where we bring you just the facts. We read all of the news and read between the lines. So you don't have to. Again, it's just me today. Moshe is still off. I did ask on my Instagram account yesterday for some story ideas, what you guys wanted to hear about. So thank you to everybody who wrote in their suggestions. I think I got to many of them, but you could message me anytime at Jill R. Wagner. And now let's get to the news. Here are the headlines with six months left in office. President Biden, not done yet. On Monday, he outlined a major overhaul of the Supreme Court, but will any of those changes actually happen? To the investigation and to the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, the FBI says that the former president will sit for a victim interview, plus what we are learning about the hours leading up to the shooting as some of the local SWAT team members who were on the ground that day talk about what they saw and the lack of communication with the Secret Service. Two sides are claiming victory in the Venezuelan election, sparking protests and international condemnation, an update on the park fire in California, which is now burning an area nearly half the size of Rhode Island. Speaking of California, a small earthquake was felt in the southern part of the state. To medical news, no more colonoscopies, not quite yet. But the FDA has approved a blood test to help detect colon cancer. In real estate in more than 200 cities in the United States, a million dollars will only get you a starter home. And the Olympics are proving gold for NBC, plus some of the highlights from the Paris Games, the US men's gymnastics won their first Olympic medal in 16 years, also some history being made. We'll tell you about the first black American woman to win an individual fencing medal. Plus, I will have on this day in history. All right, President Biden making good on his promise to try to reform the Supreme Court. It was something that he had mentioned in his prime time Oval Office address last week. With just six months left of his presidency on Monday, President Biden called for major changes at the US Supreme Court in an op-ed for the Washington Post. Biden laid out three major changes. He says the court is mired in a crisis of ethics and that what's happening now is not normal, that it undermines the public's confidence in the court's decisions. Biden also spoke at the LBJ Presidential Library on Monday, blasting the court and outlining his ideas. My fellow Americans, based on all my experience, I'm certain we need these reforms. We need these reforms that are short, trust in the courts, preserve the system of checks and balances that are vital to our democracy. So here's what he is proposing. For one, he wants to get rid of lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices. Instead, he is proposing that a president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years on the bench. The idea is that this would prevent one president from having multi-generational influence. And Americans do seem to support this idea about two-thirds say that they are in favor of term limits for the High Court. A poll conducted last year by NPR, PBS NewsHour and the Maris Institute found that nearly two-thirds of Americans lack confidence in the High Court, which is the lowest number since that poll was first conducted in 2018. Biden also wants a code of conduct that would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. Federal judges already have to abide by a code of conduct, but as of right now, that code of conduct is not enforced at the Supreme Court. Justice Elena Kagan recently voiced her support for establishing enforceable ethics codes for the court. And it all follows scandals involving Justice Clarence Thomas, who took free trips and received gifts from a conservative mega donor. And also Justice Samuel Alito, his wife, flew flags outside of his house that are associated with the movement loyal to former President Trump. And Biden is also calling for a constitutional amendment that could limit presidential immunity. He writes, "I share our founders' belief "that the president's power is limited, not absolute. "We are a nation of laws, not of kings or dictators. "The amendment is in line with Biden's recent statements "that no president is above the law. "It is something he has said several times "since the Supreme Court recently ruled "that some actions related to the duties of a president "cannot be prosecuted, a decision that could help "former President Trump and some of the criminal cases "against him. "We should note a constitutional amendment "requires two-thirds votes in Congress, "which means this is highly unlikely of passing." House Speaker Mike Johnson has said, "It is pretty much dead on arrival." One of the things missing from Biden's list of proposals, adding justices to the court, also known as court packing, that has been proposed by some Democrats, but with a divided Congress and just 98 days until the 2024 election, there is virtually no chance that these measures will be enacted. Still, Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, quickly endorsed the Biden proposal. She says the changes are needed because there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court. The White House clearly looking to tap into the growing concern among Democrats about the court, which has a six to three conservative majority and has recently overturned landmark decisions, including on abortion rights. All right, now to the assassination attempt of former President Trump. The FBI announced on Monday that Trump himself will sit for a victim interview in the investigation into his attempted assassination. The FBI says this is a standard victim interview that they would do for any other victim of crime. During a call on Monday, though, the FBI provided some new details about what happened at the rally and also about their investigation. Kevin Rojek, the FBI special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office that they've conducted more than 450 interviews. They've examined more than 2,100 tips, and that includes images, videos, and audio recordings, but that they are still looking into a motive for Thomas Matthew Crooks, the shooter. They do know he made a huge effort to conceal his planning and activities. They say that starting in the spring of 2023, Crooks used an alias to make more than 25 firearms-related purchases from an online vendor. He also used aliases to purchase items online that could be used to build the explosives found in his car and his home after the shooting. They say that he has no friends and that his social circle appeared limited to his immediate family. The FBI has also looked into his online search history. Not only did he look up the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, as Moshe and I had reported last week, but he also searched for details about other mass casualty events related to power plants, mass shooting events, information on improvised explosive devices, and the attempted assassination of the Slovakia Prime Minister earlier this year. He also searched for other nationally elected officials, including President Biden. Also, some of the local SWAT team members who were on duty at the Butler-Trump rally shared their story. ABC's senior investigative correspondent, Aaron Katursky, talked to some members of the team. They say that they saw the shooter, they recognized him as suspicious, and even took pictures of him before the shooting, but they say that none of their concerns reached decision makers before Trump took the stage. One of the members of the team, Gregory Nickel, says that he noticed crooks kind of walking around the building from where he eventually got onto the roof and fired shots at former President Trump. Nickel says that he saw crooks looking up at the roof and that something just didn't seem right about him. So he did take pictures of crooks. Here is part of his interview with Aaron Katursky. We had a text group between the local snipers that were on scene. I had sent those pictures out to that group and advised them of what I'd noticed and what I'd seen. What do you think is transpiring once you send in what you've sent in? I assume that there would be somebody coming out to speak with this individual or find out what's going on. So how do you know if Greg's concerns about crooks are being relayed properly? We don't, we have to assume that when he put that information out to command, that command took that information and did something with it. We don't know if they did. According to the Washington Post, Trump's Secret Service details says that it was never made aware of any of these warnings. The local SWAT team also telling ABC News that there was a serious problem with communication on the day of the shooting. In fact, they say that they had no communication with the Secret Service until after the shooting had started. Here is Jason Woods, he is the team leader for Beaver County's Emergency Services Unit and SWAT sniper section. And here's what he told ABC News. We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service snipers whenever they arrived and that never happened. So I think that that was probably a pivotal point where I started thinking things were wrong because that never happened and we had no communication with the Secret Service. - You had no communication with the Secret Service at all on that Saturday? - No, not until after the shooting, I believe. - Yeah. - And by then? - It was too late. - This team, by the way, is not blaming anyone. They say they all played a part in this. Of course, Trump is okay, but a 50 year old husband and father who was at the rally was killed. As we have reported, the head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheetel has since resigned. And a Secret Service spokesperson says that the agency is committed to better understanding what happened before during and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that it never happens again. We're always talking about health trends and food trends and how hard it is to get all of your nutrients. Well, one way to get all the important ones is HE1 powder. It is just one scoop with a glass of water in the morning. It is easy and quick. So you can replace multiple health supplements like multivitamins, digestivates, immune support, and more with just one simple scoop. There's things like folate, magnesium, my favorite, ashwagandha for stress support, vitamin C and zinc, all through your immune system. It's good to know that you could cover your nutritional bases and just set yourself up for success in just 60 seconds. So with your first purchase of HE1, they are giving Mo news listeners a free one year supply with their vitamin D and five free travel packs of HE1. Visit drinkAG1.com/monews to take advance to this offer. You can get a discounted monthly subscription or try it one time for just a month. Again, that is drinkAG1.com/monews, M-O-N-E-W-S for this special deal and really start to take ownership of your health. Time for the speed read, starting with the election in Venezuela where two sides are claiming victory and there are protests on the streets from CBS news incumbent Nicholas Maduro was declared the winner in Venezuela's presidential election Sunday, but his opponents immediately disputed the results, claiming that their side won in a landslide setting up a showdown with the government. The National Electoral Council, which is controlled by Maduro loyalists, said that the two term president, 151% of the vote compared with 44% for rival at Mundo Gonzalez, but opposition leaders say they have access to about 75% of the results and they show a landslide victory for their side. They say the tallies in possession of the opposition showed a total of 2.75 million votes for Maduro and 6.27 million for his rival. Plus an exit poll conducted by the US firm Edison Research also had Gonzalez winning by more than 30 percentage points. Gonzalez is a previously little known former diplomat within hours, a few thousand Venezuelans began taking to the streets to protest Maduro's claim. Maduro came to power after the death of Hugo Chavez back in 2013 and he has fabricated voting results before. A 2017 vote was rigged to elect a pro regime assembly and in 2018, Maduro won reelection in a vote widely seen in the US and other countries is fraudulent. Maduro is extremely unpopular domestically. He has led Venezuela to its worst economic crisis in history. Despite sitting on top of the world's largest oil reserves under Maduro's rule, the economy contracted 80% in a decade. There are widespread shortages of basic goods and there was hyperinflation on the price of goods by 130%, nearly 8 million Venezuelans about a quarter of the population have fled the country. The US has sanctioned or indicted Maduro and other regime officials for crimes ranging from drug trafficking to corruption and rights abuses. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that they have serious concerns about the results. We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people. It's critical that every vote be counted fairly and transparently, that election officials immediately share information with the opposition and independent observers without delay and that the electoral authorities publish the detailed tabulation of votes. The international community is watching this very closely and will respond accordingly. If Maduro takes office, it will be for a third consecutive six-year term. Some Latin American countries, including Colombia, which just have friendly ties to Maduro, have expressed skepticism of the results as did Spain, Italy, and other European countries. Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba were among those to congratulate Maduro. From CBS News, a quick update on the park fire. As of Monday, officials say the park fire has grown to more than 368,000 acres, making it the sixth largest ever in the state. Cal Fire says it's about 575 square miles. That's almost half the size of Rhode Island and more than 12 times bigger than San Francisco County, slightly larger than the city of Los Angeles. More than 100 structures have been destroyed and more than 4,000 other buildings remain threatened by the fire, which has not caused any known injuries or fatalities to civilians or firefighters at this point. As I mentioned yesterday, officials believe this fire was started on purpose by arson when a man pushed a burning car into a gully, again sparking this fire. Also in California, a preliminary magnitude 4.9 earthquake rattling a large portion of Southern California, according to the US Geological Survey, the quake struck at 1 p.m. at a depth of nearly six miles. The shaking was felt in Calabasas, Los Angeles, Glendale, and beyond. And then a smaller 3.5 magnitude earthquake struck the same area a short time afterward. To some medical news yesterday, we told you about a potential blood test to detect Alzheimer's disease. We'll now another blood test making some news. From the New York Times, the FDA on Monday approved a new screening test for colorectal cancer. It requires only a sample of blood and can find cancers when they are early stage and usually curable. For many people, a routine blood test is a lot easier than getting a colonoscopy or a fecal sample test. I would say for pretty much everybody, it's a lot easier. That blood test is made by garden health. There are some limitations though. Unlike other screening tests for colon and rectal cancers, it does have a poor record of finding pre-cancerous growths. And it is the removal of those growths, especially during a colonoscopy that can prevent cancer. But this blood test is named SHIELD. It will be available within a week. It is not clear yet what it is going to cost. The test is approved for people 45 and older who are at average risk of colon cancer. And the hope here is that the blood test, despite its limitation, can encourage more people to be screened for colorectal cancer, which is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, as many as 53,000 Americans are expected to die from colorectal cancer this year. But regular screening can prevent as many as 73% of those deaths. And although current guidelines recommend screening starting at age 45, as many as 25 to 50% of people who should be getting screened are not. To business news from CBS MoneyWatch, a typical entry-level home in the United States costs about $200,000. But in a growing number of cities, that would only cover the down payment. With housing and short supply around the country and the stiffest mortgage rates in years, you need at least a million bucks to buy a starter home in 237 cities. This is according to a Zillow analysis. The new data marks a significant rise from five years ago when only 84 US cities had starter homes that cost seven figures. So how did we get here? The pandemic exacerbated an existing housing shortage in cities across the US. Most pronounced in Boston, Portland, Oregon, and Sacramento, California, according to Zillow. Now, despite robust residential home construction in 2023, the 1.4 million homes that were built do not sufficiently close the gap between the available homes and the number of home seekers in the United States. Zillow's senior economist says it's no surprise that we are kind of in a housing affordability crisis across the country. You saw a couple of decades of under-building, clashing with a surge in residential mobility during the pandemic that pushed prices and rents higher. But the economist says that there is some relief for home buyers that could be on the horizon because more homes are starting to come up for sale and price cuts are rising. Not all areas are created equal. The New York City metro area has 48 cities with million dollar starter homes that is the most of any metropolitan area. And one commonality among cities with one million dollar starter homes is that they tend to have very restricted building regulations which could hamper new construction in coastal markets like California and New York. There is a limited supply of buildable land for new homes as well as natural constraints like mountains, lakes, and oceans. From Axios, NBC Universal's coverage of the Paris Olympics is off to an exceptionally good start. Few events are as important to NBC as the Olympics, but recent games were beset by record low ratings and frustrated viewers. But Paris is turning that around. Friday's rain soaked opening ceremony drew nearly 29 million viewers, making it the most watched opening ceremony since 2012. On Saturday, the first full day of the Olympic events, NBC drew more than 32 million viewers across its platforms. And that was the best single day Olympics audience since the latter portion of the 2016 Rio games. And Peacock is finally getting the sizable Olympics push that NBC had envisioned when it launched the streaming service in 2020. This time around, it has a dedicated Olympics hub. Peacock is also rolling out an option to let viewers watch multiple events at once as well as a show called Gold Zone that basically whips around to whatever is the most compelling thing happening at any moment. It's kind of like NFL's red zone. And now to some Olympic news from People magazine for the first time in 16 years, the US men's gymnastics team is taking home an Olympic medal. Team USA gymnasts were strong and steady throughout the competition to earn bronze behind gold medalists, Japan and second place China. But this is the first medal in the team event since 2008 for the American men's gymnastics team. Going into Monday, they said they were not gonna watch other teams and they were not gonna worry about scores. They said, all we were gonna worry about were the controllables that we could control and that is our gymnastics. Good advice, right? And gymnastics as in life. Just worry about the things within your control. Another quick note, the women's team finalists today at 12, 15 p.m. Eastern time. It will last about two hours. And Simone Biles is set to have a major role in the competition despite her recent calf injury. Also making US Olympic history, 21 year old Lauren Scruggs winning silver in women's individual foil fencing. She becomes the first black American woman to win an individual medal in fencing as team USA took the top two spots. The defending Olympic champ Lee Kiefer won her second gold medal by defeating Scruggs 15 to six in the final. Some other news, the US women's basketball team opened group play by beating Japan. In tennis, Novak Djokovic defeated Rafael Nadal in the second round of the men's tennis singles tournament. And here's my tease for tomorrow. I'm gonna be talking about the youngest and oldest athletes competing at the Olympics. And that includes a 61 year old woman. Most of you are listening. She will definitely be making our 60 over 60 list. Time now for On This Day in History. On July 30th, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure making in God We Trust the National motto. In other presidential news on this day in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare and Tala that is the health insurance program for elderly Americans. Also on this day in 1976, some Olympics history, Caitlyn Jenner as Bruce Jenner won the gold medal and set a world record in the Olympic to Catalan. And that was at the Montreal Summer Games. And some pop culture history on this day in 1999, Gary Marshals run away brides during Julia Roberts and Richard Geer premiered in theaters. - All right, everybody. Thank you for listening to the Monuse Podcast. If you like what you hear, please share this with your friends. It will help us grow. Follow us and subscribe so you don't miss an episode and review us in the app store. Thanks everyone for sticking with me this week. Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday and I will see you back here tomorrow. - Thanks for listening to the Monuse Podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
