Latest news with #FrancescaChambers
Fox News
3 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
All-Star Panel: President Trump "Iran Can't Have A Nuclear Weapon"
After years of fighting through proxies, Iran and Israel are now exchanging direct military strikes–a dramatic escalation that's unfolded over just the past five days. As tensions rise by the hour, President Trump is demanding Iran's 'unconditional surrender,' telling reporters he isn't interested in a ceasefire but in bringing a 'real end' to the conflict. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers, host of 'The Big Ben Show' Ben Domenech, and FOX News Senior Political Analyst Juan Williams break down what could happen next–especially if Iran chooses to escalate further. Follow Bret on X: @BretBaier
USA Today
4 days ago
- Politics
- USA Today
Trump leaves G7 early, urges everyone in Tehran to evacuate
Trump leaves G7 early, urges everyone in Tehran to evacuate | The Excerpt On Tuesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers breaks down President Donald Trump's decision to abruptly leave the Group of Seven summit. Multiple lawmakers push to curb Trump's war powers on Iran. A federal prosecutor said Monday that the man accused of shooting two Minnesota lawmakers went to the homes of two other state officials the morning he launched a targeted "political assassination." USA TODAY Government Accountability Reporter Erin Mansfield discusses the trickle-down effect of Trump's NIH budget cuts. Trump Organization launches a new mobile cell service. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to podcasts@ 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. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Taylor Wilson: Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson. And today is Tuesday, June 17th, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today why Trump left the G7 early. Plus the trickle-down effect of his massive budget cuts to the National Institute's Health. And we're learning more about the suspect and the shootings of Minnesota lawmakers. ♦ President Donald Trump abruptly left the Group of Seven Summit in Alberta, Canada yesterday due to the current situation in the Middle East, according to the White House. Trump also urged residents of Tehran to evacuate immediately after telling Iran it should have signed a nuclear deal with the US when talks were on the table. For more on his decision to leave early and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran, I spoke last night with USA TODAY White House correspondent Francesca Chambers. Taylor Wilson: Hey Francesca. Francesca Chambers: Hey Taylor. Thanks for having me. Taylor Wilson: Thanks for hopping on. So let's start with the big news here. Trump leaving G7 early. Why did he do so? What changed? Francesca Chambers: Well, Taylor, the president left abruptly halfway through the summit. The White House said it was because of the deepening conflict that was taking place in the Middle East, just as the president said on social media that residents of Tehran should leave the city. Taylor Wilson: So obviously these G7 meetings were already being held as Israel and Iran continued to exchange strikes in recent days. How did really just this broad conflict change the dynamic in Canada this week? Francesca Chambers: So Taylor, the President's tariffs had been expected to be front and center at the gathering. It's an economic summit after all. And those conversations still took place at the G7 conference before Donald Trump left. But Israel and Iran and the fighting between the two, that overshadowed the rest of the summit. President Trump had conversations about the issue with nearly every world leader that he met with on Monday before he left. Taylor Wilson: Francesca, Trump's decision to abruptly leave like this and return to Washington. How is this landing with other leaders at G7? Francesca Chambers: Well, the president said as he was on his way out that they didn't mind, because they understood the situation that he was dealing with. And asked about it specifically, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney just sidestepped the question a little bit, and said what a good summit had been, and how grateful they were that Donald Trump came. Taylor Wilson: You and I had spoken earlier in the day about this planned meeting between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was set forward today, Tuesday. Presumably that won't be the case now, Francesca. What's next in terms of, I guess, the expectation for that meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump? Francesca Chambers: Right. And it's not the only meeting that President Trump had to cancel. The White House had previously said he would be meeting with Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum while he was at the G7 as well. Notably, the president is expected to head to the NATO summit next week in the Netherlands. So this won't be the last time that he gathers with these world leaders and talks about the Russia-Ukraine war. Taylor Wilson: All right. Francesca covers the White House for USA TODAY. Thanks, Francesca. Francesca Chambers: Thanks so much. ♦ Taylor Wilson: The Group of Seven Nations expressed support for Israel in a statement last night, and labeled its rival Iran as a source of instability in the Middle East, with the G7 leaders urging broader de-escalation of hostilities in the region. Meanwhile, democratic Senator Tim Kaine introduced legislation yesterday to prevent President Trump from using military force against Iran without Congress's authorization. During Trump's first term in 2020, Kaine introduced a similar resolution to rein in Trump's ability to wage war against Iran. That measure passed both the Senate and House with some Republican support, but did not get enough votes to win over the President's veto. While some Republicans, including Senator Rand Paul have said the US should avoid war, most of Trump's fellow Republicans who control Congress have shown little desire for opposing him, and are likely to support Trump if he decides to get more involved in the conflict. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders also introduced legislation yesterday to prohibit the use of federal funds for any use of military force in or against Iran, absent specific congressional authorization. ♦ The man accused of shooting two Minnesota lawmakers went to the homes of two other state officials the morning he launched a targeted political assassination, a federal prosecutor said yesterday. 57-year-old Vance Boelter appeared in a federal court and said he cannot afford a lawyer. A judge ordered public defense for him, and granted the prosecutor's request that he be detained in federal custody pending a trial. A combined detention and preliminary hearing has also been set for June 27th. Federal affidavit released yesterday, says he was impersonating a police officer and embarked on a planned campaign of stalking and violence. He faces six federal charges, including multiple counts of murder and stalking, opening the possibility of the death penalty if convicted. His arrest came after state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were shot and killed. And state Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were shot multiple times and wounded outside Minneapolis. ♦ We're learning more about the trickle-down effect of President Trump's massive budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health. I spoke with USA TODAY government accountability reporter, Erin Mansfield for more. Hello, Erin. Erin Mansfield: Hi, how are you? Taylor Wilson: I'm well, thanks. Thanks for hopping back on The Excerpt. So just starting here, how exactly has the Trump administration slashed parts of the NIH? What have we seen in recent months? Erin Mansfield: We've seen targeted cuts of grants from universities all over the country, research universities. These are grants that professors, graduate students, doctors use. And they have slashed things that they think promote diversity, equity, inclusion, things that they believe are too focused on coronavirus, which peaked about five years ago, and also some grants involving vaccine hesitancy. And then going forward, Trump has proposed in his budget to cut $18 billion from the NIH budget. And that is huge. That is the biggest of any agency when you go and look at his budget, and it's significant. Taylor Wilson: Well, let's get into some of the specifics there. You mentioned Coronavirus, in terms of just how all this is impacting research, it does seem like the administration is going after projects that I perceived as being focused on COVID-19 in terms of some of these cuts. What did you hear specifically in reporting this? Erin Mansfield: There are some. The big one that was really notable is something called the World Reference Center. And it's sort of a library of infectious diseases. And it's held at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. According to the scientific director for Galveston National Laboratory, they actually looked at COVID. And the reasoning behind that had to do with it was an emergency, everyone shifted to that. And what the gentleman Scott Weaver said was that when he received the letter, which USA TODAY has reviewed, it said that COVID is over. We're cutting off all Coronavirus grants. And this is not necessary. And this is something that Mr. Weaver thinks was done in error. He thinks that whoever decided to cut it really didn't have an understanding of what they were doing. But nonetheless, there was at one point research related to Coronavirus, so it got cut. Taylor Wilson: Well, and Erin, there have also been research programs targeted that were mistaken for DEI-related projects. What can you tell us on this point? Erin Mansfield: So this is obviously no secret that the Trump administration has been very anti-DEI. I spoke to Andy Johns from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And he said that some of the most stinging cuts have been ones that might be perceived as diversity, equity inclusion, but in his book are not. And he said there are cases when maybe a scientist is doing a study and they collected demographic information and they're going to do a demographic analysis. So they'll say, "Hey, NIH, can we do everything else, and just omit that analysis?" And they're not letting them. One of the examples also comes from Texas, from Scott Weaver who talked about a grant that helps people who get bachelor's degrees from small colleges that aren't really research colleges. Well, they might want to get into a program that'll help them get some research experience before they applied to a PhD program. Weaver said that grant was cut on the grounds that it was DEI. And he doesn't quite agree with it. He said it's really a bad opportunity. But we've seen a health equity hub, that according to the head Daniel Mullins, he said that it was really disease agnostic. It was kind of infrastructure to help people achieve health equity. That was cut. That was almost a $10 million grant over five years. Kim Elaine Barrett has worked a lot toward building a biomedical workforce that's more representative of the population. She said she had to see that effort just get cut. People are really heartbroken by the DEI cuts. Taylor Wilson: We've heard this argument from Trump officials that it's all about waste and getting rid of waste in terms of these cuts in recent months. Is that the fundamental argument here when it comes to NIH? What are we hearing from the Trump side? Erin Mansfield: So Kush Desai, a spokesman for the White House gave us a statement. It said in recent years, Americans have lost confidence and are increasingly polarized healthcare and research apparatus that has been obsessed with DEI and COVID, which the majority of Americans moved on from years ago. And his argument is that they're going to address the chronic disease epidemic and return to a gold standard of science. So there really is a perception in the Trump administration that the scientific research world has lost its way and gone off course. Taylor Wilson: You at the top, Erin, mentioned that further cuts are expected in this space. What might be coming down the pike, and what would it mean for some of this other existing research? Erin Mansfield: We're going to have to see that as Donald Trump's budget works its way through Congress. The top line sum is $18 billion. And that is huge. A lot of the public universities I spoke with talked about losing tens of million dollars here and there. But we're talking about a huge cut to universities all over the country, including public universities. Yes, including Harvard, including Columbia, but also including the places in American's backyards. Taylor Wilson: And just in terms of the pushback here, Erin, I mean, what kinds of challenges have we seen into these cuts? Erin Mansfield: Yeah. So there was actually a federal judge on Monday who said that the termination of these NIH grants was void and illegal. And he accused the Trump administration of discriminating against minorities and LGBT people. That's according to Reuters. So these challenges to existing cuts are definitely not going away. Taylor Wilson: Erin Mansfield is a government accountability reporter with USA TODAY. Thanks, Erin. Erin Mansfield: Thank you, Taylor. ♦ Taylor Wilson: Trump organization, the holding company for President Trump's business ventures has announced the launch of a new cellular service and cell phone. It'll be dubbed Trump Mobile. And its first phone the T-One will use an Android operating system, and the mobile plan itself is expected to be made available through the three major cellular carriers. You can read more with a link in today's show notes. ♦ Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. And as always, if you want to email us, you can find us at podcasts@ I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
USA Today
21-03-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Trump signs order aimed at dismantling Department of Education
Trump signs order aimed at dismantling Department of Education | The Excerpt On Friday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: President Donald Trump signed an order Thursday aimed at dismantling the Department of Education. Check out our special Deep Dive episode on what's next. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers takes a look at what might be on the way in an expected travel ban. A U.S. judge blocked Elon Musk's DOGE from accessing Social Security records. USA TODAY Money and Personal Finance Reporter Medora Lee discusses why cash poor Americans often fail to get ahead. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to podcasts@ 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. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Taylor Wilson: Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson. And today is Friday, March 21st, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, as expected, Trump ordered his administration to dismantle the education department. Plus, what might be on the way an expected travel ban. And we take a look at the challenges for cash-poor Americans. President Donald Trump ordered his administration yesterday to dismantle the Department of Education looking to achieve a top campaign promise. Even though the White House acknowledged the agency can't and won't entirely be dissolved. Trump signed the long anticipated executive order at a ceremony in the White House's East Room, attended by several Republican governors and state education commissioners, along with students seated at school desks. Trump directed his education Secretary Linda McMahon to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the department and return education authority to the states according to a White House summary of the order. But the order's immediate impact is unclear since only Congress can eliminate a federal agency, and the federal government does not set school curriculum. That's long been up to states and local school districts. You can read more on and check out our special deep dive episode on What's Next for Education with education reporter Zach Schermele. We have a link in today's show notes. ♦ President Donald Trump is expected to ban or severely restrict travel to the United States by citizens of more than a dozen countries as soon as today. I caught up with USA TODAY White House correspondent Francesca Chambers for more. Hello, Francesca. Thanks for hopping on. Francesca Chambers: Hey, Taylor. Thanks for having me. Taylor Wilson: So Francesca, what do we know about this travel ban as of now? Francesca Chambers: So the president on the campaign trail said that he would reinstate the travel ban that he put in place during his first administration. On his first day in office in January, the president signed an executive order telling his administration to put together a new set of recommendations as well as a list of countries that could have travel banned to the United States or partially suspended. But the Trump administration appears to be looking at doing things differently this time. Two separate memos that were leaked to reporters show that the list was much more expansive and could be up to 43 countries this time around as they look at all their potential measures and add visa restrictions on top of that outright ban for some countries. Taylor Wilson: So I know courts initially blocked his travel ban last time around before the Supreme Court then upheld a later version, Francesca. I mean, what's the expectation this time around in terms of maybe how this one differs from Trump 1.0? Francesca Chambers: So Taylor, this executive order explicitly says that the administration should identify countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension of the admission of nationals from those countries. Now, that is where the administration could draw on a larger list of countries than it did the first time. Individuals, Taylor, who worked on the earlier version of the travel ban, so that they learned a few things from that experience and they would do things differently. Now, the administration appears to be looking at a three-tier list where there would be the group of red countries where travel would be totally banned to the United States, as well as an orange list in which travel would be restricted and visas would be restricted. And then a third tier, which essentially is the administration putting countries on notice if this goes into effect. Now, those countries could get off the list by providing United States with the information it is seeking, or they could go up on the list because the administration deems them a national security threat. Taylor Wilson: So obviously a big question here is, who's going to be on the list? But another question is, when would this ban actually go into effect, Francesca. I know we've heard as soon as today, later today. What are you hearing, I guess, there on the ground. Francesca Chambers: Well, it wouldn't necessarily go into effect immediately. Even if the State Department as well as the other departments that the president tasked with putting together this report does submit its recommendations on Friday, the president wouldn't have to enact a travel ban immediately. Now Taylor, I do want to stress that the versions that have been floating around were not finalized. It's not clear if the administration had completely approved of the list of countries that have been publicized. Those were made by staff, I was told by someone who worked on an earlier version of a travel ban. And they may not have even cleared the administration yet. So there could be countries that appeared on that list that might not be on the final one. Taylor Wilson: All right. Lots to still keep an eye out for. Francesca Chambers covers the White House for USA TODAY. Thank you, Francesca. Francesca Chambers: Thank you so much. Taylor. ♦ Taylor Wilson: A federal judge has said the Social Security Administration likely violated privacy laws by giving Elon Musk's aides unbridled access to millions of Americans' private data. US District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of Maryland ordered a stop to any further record sharing and said that Musk's department of government efficiency was intruding into the personal affairs of millions of Americans as part of its hunt for fraud and waste. A White House spokesperson criticized the decision in a statement and said Trump will continue to seek all legal remedies available to ensure the will of the American people goes into effect. ♦ It's often difficult for cash-poor Americans to get ahead. I spoke with USA TODAY Money and Personal Finance Reporter Medora Lee for a look at some of the factors at play. Hello, Medora. Medora Lee: Hi, how are you? Taylor Wilson: Good. Thanks for hoping on today, Medora. So just starting here, I want to ask you just kind of point-blank, we're talking about cash-poor Americans. How many Americans are, Medora? Do we have numbers there? And what does it mean really to be cash-poor? Medora Lee: So cash-poor means that you don't have enough liquid cash on hand to cover any sort of emergency expenses, like if your car breaks down or you have to get to the doctor and things like that. These are people who are living paycheck to paycheck basically. And there are more of these Americans than you would even realize. A lot of people think that that's something that's limited to the working class, but really a lot of middle class Americans now are falling into this category, including people with college degrees, who own homes, people who invest money, even people who have six-figure incomes. And most of them are women. More than half of them are women. Two-thirds generally tend to be millennials or Gen X, and 14% are generally Black. So there are a lot of people who fall into this category that you may not even realize. Taylor Wilson: You outlined bad financial products in this story, Medora? Can you just help us understand what those are and how they fit into this conversation? Medora Lee: When most people, when they're down and out, they don't expect someone to kick them in the knees again, right? But that's basically what happens when your back is to the wall for a lot of these people. They will need to borrow some short-term money and they'll discover that these bad financial products, that these companies that are willing to give them that loan really are going to charge them a lot of money. And so there was a report, a study done by SoLo. They did what they called a cash-poor report, and they said, because of people who had to take out these types of loans, Americans paid more than $39 billion in fees to borrow money to help pay for these unexpected expenses last year. And those fees were on top of the advertised APRs, which were already really high. I mean, when you think about high credit card rates, you're thinking in that 20% and higher range. Some of these would maybe even get into the 600% range. So that's a lot of money. Taylor Wilson: So Medora, for the folks you spoke with, what's been their experience with some of these "bad financial products"? Medora Lee: It's kind of interesting. So for example, one woman I spoke to in Mesa, Arizona, I mean she's kind of like that middle class American. She had everything going for her. She graduated with a degree in advertising, in public relations with honors. She worked 20 years as a healthcare executive, earning as much as a six-figure salary for half of that time. And she, like a lot of people do, she hits a rough patch. She had three years where she changed careers. She had a flooding of her home and property that she had to pay for. She got into a legal battle and she had a falling out with some family members. And during those three years, just three years of her whole life, she's 44, things were rough and she ended up having to deplete her savings. And as she said, she had an 806 credit score, which is pretty high and nearly $150,000 saved before this all happened. And she went through every penny of it. She ended up having her cars repossessed and she lost her home to foreclosure. She became homeless for about five years. So during those five years, she ran into all sorts of crazy things. When her pickup truck broke down, she said that was her first introduction to bad financial products. She said she didn't want to be stuck somewhere, so she called someplace and they were willing to pay her $2,200 bill to get her truck fixed, but she had to pay it back full within three months or else the interest would go to. And then here we go from 0% to 169%. They needed it back three months of interest due immediately. And so she felt she had no choice because would you want to be stuck out nowhere? So she did it. Things like that keep setting these people back because they can never catch up because they can't ever dig themselves out of the hole. Another single mom in Connecticut, she's always had a full-time job her whole life, at least a full-time job, if not more jobs. And she... Because of the way the paychecks structure is, it's very rigid, you get paid every two weeks or once a month, her bills would come due and she wouldn't have enough money to cover it, and then she would end up having to pay all these late fees and then interest on top of it. And the late fees alone are sometimes $50 each. And so she said that ended up eating up a lot of her money, so she couldn't really catch up just because of that. A lot of people, they're not necessarily poor and they're not spending their money unwisely, but it's just kind of the way things go. She tried shuffling credit cards and going through the credit card cycle, but that didn't really work. She considered payday loans. But those are outrageous interest rates and really hard to pay back so people get stuck. Taylor Wilson: I mean, you can see how just a little bit of bad luck and really spiral out of control. Medora Lee covers money and personal finance for USA TODAY. Listeners can find this full piece with a link in today's show notes. Medora, I think folks will really appreciate the spotlight you're bringing to this issue. Thanks for hopping on. Medora Lee: Thank you so much. ♦ Taylor Wilson: Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
Fox News
08-03-2025
- Business
- Fox News
From Washington: President Trump's To-Do List
It was another busy week at the White House. President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress and implemented tariffs against Mexico, Canada, and China, but he did sign some exemptions for additional products. He also temporarily halted military aid to Ukraine. USA Today White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers breaks down the significance of all that happened this week, including a reportedly tense closed-door Cabinet meeting that included Elon Musk. Congress has only one week to devise a plan to avert a partial government shutdown. The March 14th deadline is fast approaching, and President Donald Trump emphasized the need for a short-term spending bill during his first address to a joint session of Congress this term. FOX News Senior Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram discusses the fallout from the President's Tuesday night speech and explains why Republicans might consider accepting Biden-era spending levels to sidestep this impending crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
