Pentagon sends warplanes to Middle East as Iran-Israel conflict continues
Pentagon sends warplanes to Middle East as Iran-Israel conflict continues | The Excerpt
On Wednesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: The Pentagon has shifted warplanes and an aircraft carrier to the Middle East. Plus, President Donald Trump threatens Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on social media. And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson urge Trump to stay out of Iran, exposing a MAGA rift. USA TODAY National Correspondent Will Carless discusses how as 'lone actor' attacks rise, Trump is dismantling the program aimed at spotting them. A poll finds the majority of Americans oppose Trump's tax bill. USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page breaks down what some recent primaries can tell us ahead of midterms next year. The Florida Panthers are Stanley Cup champions again.
Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to podcasts@usatoday.com.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Wednesday, June 18th, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, the latest on US actions as it pertains to Israel and Iran. Plus, as lone actor attacks rise, Trump cuts a program aimed at spotting them. And what lessons can we take away from some recent primaries?
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The Pentagon has shifted warplanes and an aircraft carrier to the Middle East as the conflict between Israel and Iran continues. Still, US officials insist the moves are defensive in nature. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump threatened Iran's Supreme Leader as he pushed Tehran to end its retaliatory airstrikes on Israel and warned against any threats to US service members in the region. Trump wrote on Truth social, "We know exactly where the so-called Supreme Leader is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there." He went on to say that the US is not going to take him out, at least for now. He also added a two-word post writing in all caps the words, unconditional surrender. While many Republicans might back any Trump military action in regards to the conflict, conservative pundit Tucker Carlson and representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who sat near Trump in the VIP section at his military parade over the weekend, are among the MAGA stars pressing for the US military to stay out of the fight, which they say is out of step with the movement's principles. Thousands of people were fleeing Tehran and other major cities according to Iranian media as Iran and Israel launched new missile strikes at each other in the early morning hours.
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As politically motivated attacks by lone actors surge across the country, the Trump administration is dismantling the office that oversees efforts to identify and stop such violent extremists. I spoke with USA TODAY National Correspondent Will Carless for more.
Will, thanks for joining me.
Will Carless:
Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So I want to just start here as we talk about lone actors. Are these types of attacks on the rise, Will?
Will Carless:
Yes. I mean, look, lone actors are nothing new. We've had lone actor attacks for decades in the United States, but there has been a recent surge in them. We're in a very heated political climate, and we've seen a good half dozen of these attacks since the beginning of the year. So for example, there was an attack in Washington, DC in which the young Jewish couple were shot and killed by a man with a political grievance. There was an incident in Boulder, Colorado just a couple of weeks ago, people might remember where a man attacked a parade with some firebombs. And then of course there was a surrender shooting over the weekend of the lawmakers in Minnesota. So there's been a gradual uptick in these since the beginning of the year.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, and how is the Trump administration cutting a program aimed at, in theory, spotting this sort of violence before it happens, Will?
Will Carless:
So if you talk to experts in terrorism and extremism, they'll tell you that these are extraordinarily difficult attacks to predict and to intervene, do anything about. If you think about it, we're not talking about members of extremist groups, like members of say a neo-Nazi group going out and committing violence. Those groups tend to be on the radar screen of law enforcement. They're watching, they're paying attention to them. But what we've seen increasingly over the last few months is just individuals who, for whatever reason, go out and act on that political grievance and either kill people or injure people. And those people didn't really have any signs of what they were going to do. The only way to really predict this is that people, even though they might not post about it on social media, they might not make their intentions clear. People do sometimes tell loved ones, or they tell friends, or they tell co-workers. And so there are a network of programs around the country where people can report that. They can call a hotline and they can say, "Hey, look, I'm a bit concerned about my co-worker," or my son or my daughter or my dad. And what the Trump administration has done is to roll back the government agency that funds those, that gives grants to those programs, essentially shutting them down.
Taylor Wilson:
How does the Department of Homeland Security defend this kind of dismantling of this program?
Will Carless:
Well, they say that this program, which is known as CP3, is really just aimed at targeting conservatives. They say that it's all about stymieing free speech, and they say that it's been used to overwhelmingly target conservative groups and not to look at left-wing groups. They also say that it's ineffectual and it doesn't really do anything, and so they don't want to spend the money on it and they want to shut it down. That's what DHS told us. Now, if you talk to the people who ran the program as I have, they'll defend against that and say, "That's not true. We intervene in hundreds of cases where people could go out and do something." These programs are able to intervene and get people mental health counseling or get them some sort of treatment or help to make sure that they don't go out and commit one of these atrocities. So it depends who you talk to. But yes, certainly under the Trump administration, they see this program as largely ineffectual and useless and a waste of money.
Taylor Wilson:
And as you write, programs supported by CP3, they also help to get people away from extremist groups, a lot of these groups that you follow and cover on a daily basis. Will, what can you tell us about this angle?
Will Carless:
So what people who watch extremist groups are concerned about at the moment is particularly post the January insurrection pardons in which anybody involved in the January 6th insurrection, including people who were accused and convicted of plotting against this country and of committing insurrection and of committing seditious conspiracy, they were all pardoned by President Trump. And that includes the leaders of the largest extremist groups or the most popular extremist groups in the United States. So what the experts are concerned about is that those groups are now regrouping. They've been given a green light by the federal government to say, go out there and do whatever you need to do. Do your training and mass weapons, write up your constitutions and your mandates, and train and form your compounds. And that's what they're worried about. They see groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys gradually regaining strength and it should be said these are groups that really, January 6th and the prosecutions that followed, really hobbled those groups and took a lot of the power out of them, and they're now re-strengthening.
Taylor Wilson:
Folks can find Will's full story with a link in today's show notes. Will covers extremism and emerging issues for USA TODAY. Thanks as always, Will.
Will Carless:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
A majority of Americans, 64%, have an unfavorable view of President Trump's tax policy bill, according to a new poll from the nonpartisan health research group KFF. The bill would extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts, implement new tax cuts for tips and overtime, pour billions into the administration's deportation plans, and make cuts to Medicaid and food stamps. It's expected to be the biggest legislative accomplishment of Trump's second term so far if the Republican-led Congress can find the votes to pass it through both chambers. It passed the house last month and is currently being tweaked in the Senate.
He poll found responses skewed heavily on party lines, though. The vast majority of Democrats, 85%, and Independents, 71%, have an unfavorable opinion of the bill while 61% of Republicans have a favorable opinion of it. Among Republicans, support for the bill is also divided between those who do and don't identify as supporters of Trump's Make America Great Again movement. Two-thirds of non-MAGA Republicans had an unfavorable view, while 72% of MAGA Republicans had a favorable view.
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What lessons can we take from a handful of primaries across the country? I spoke with USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page to find out. Susan, always a pleasure. Thanks for joining me today.
Susan Page:
Hey Taylor, it's great to be with you.
Taylor Wilson:
So Susan, let's get to some of these primary lessons starting with Virginia where you write that Democrats are revved up. What did we learn from this race and how else are we seeing some of this democratic energy play out around the country?
Susan Page:
Here's the amazing thing about Virginia. The Democratic gubernatorial nomination is not contested. Abigail Spanberger has in effect already won it, and yet Democrats are still turning out to vote. In fact, turnout in the early vote is almost 60% higher than it was four years ago when there was a contested race. So that tells you that Democrats are revved up and ready to go in a selection.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, as for the GOP, this is still very much President Donald Trump's party. What did you learn from his hold on the GOP in New Jersey and elsewhere?
Susan Page:
Here's some amazing thing about New Jersey. Jack Ciattarelli is now running for governor for the third time, seeking the Republican nomination. The first time around he said Trump was a charlatan. The second time around, he's just kept his distance from Donald Trump. This time, he courted Donald Trump. He went to his Bedminster golf club, he posted pictures of him with Trump, and he won Trump's nomination. That was very important to him in having a real landslide victory in the Republican primary there last week.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, you know Susan, everyone's been trying to forecast who, if anyone, might grab a similar hold of the Democrats. Have primaries taught us anything here?
Susan Page:
Primaries have taught us that Democrats are everywhere and nowhere. You just look at New Jersey, the Democratic vote there where Mikie Sherrill, the congresswoman, won the Democratic nomination. She won it with 34% of the vote. That was enough to win, not really impressive. The two liberal candidates got more votes than she did, if you combine them, about 36% of the vote. And the two most moderate or conservative Democrats got 19% of the vote, also a significant share. So there are no conclusions you can draw from that outcome to where Democrats will go ideologically.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, I guess New York's mayoral race also shows us another angle of some of these democratic divisions. What did you really take away from what's been happening out in New York City?
Susan Page:
Well, New York is sort of sui generis. It has its own politics, it's decidedly liberal. There are 11 candidates in this mayoral primary. They also used rank choice voting where voters can list up to five people in the order they would like to see them elected. So it's a little different than most places. In New York, we do see a kind of ideological battle. The front-runner is former governor Andrew Cuomo, who is pretty much a centrist, but there's a newcomer, Zohran Mamdani, who is just 33 years old, and he has come on strong. He's the strongest challenger to Cuomo and he is a Democratic socialist who has been endorsed by AOC and Bernie Sanders.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Susan, a long way to go until midterms next year, but what else are you keeping an eye on between now and then?
Susan Page:
The one thing that tells you the most about what's going to happen in the midterms, the President's approval rating. If a president is doing pretty well at the midterm point, he tends to do pretty well in the midterms. But if the President is underwater, if he's in trouble, that is where voters let him know it.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, brilliant analysis, as always. Susan Page is USA TODAY's Washington Bureau Chief. Thank you, Susan.
Susan Page:
Thank you.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
The Florida Panthers are Stanley Cup champions, winning the hockey championship for the second straight year over the Edmonton Oilers. Edmonton continues to search for its first cup since 1990.
♦
And coming up later today, there are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US, each with their own unique story.
Alix Dick:
I feel that most people believe that our stories begin when we become undocumented, and that's not the case. My story began in Mexico. I have the best parents, the best siblings, and then life happened, and tragedy hit.
Taylor Wilson:
That was Alix Dick, co-author of The Cost of Being Undocumented, describing her reconciliation with being just one in a vast sea of people in the US without documentation, currently under attack. She and her co-author on Antero Garcia joined me for a frank conversation of how undocumented immigrants are experiencing this inflection point in politics amid a global immigration surge. You can hear that episode right here on this feed today, beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern Time.
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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and as always, you can find us on email at podcasts@usatoday.com. I'm Taylor Wilson. I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
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