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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, April 26th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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New reporting reveals more about communications in Trump's inner circle involving the Capitol insurrection and attempts to undermine the election results. CNN obtained more than 2,000 text messages sent to and from Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff, between Election Day and Biden's inauguration. Here's Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel on CNN…
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Jamie Gangel: The messages really give an extraordinary glimpse at how Meadows was doing Trump's bidding, how they were trying to overturn the election when they knew that there was no widespread election fraud. Remember on December 1st, their own attorney general, Bill Barr, said there was no evidence of election fraud? But this shows what they're doing and saying behind the scenes in real time, even when they know otherwise.
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<v CNN reports on how the messages before the Capitol attack are sort of like an echo chamber for false claims and conspiracy theories about election fraud. Donald Trump Jr., Rick Perry, and other Trump insiders were swapping ideas and urging each other on as they tried to discredit the election results. The messages on January 6th have a different tone>fear. There's a text from Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene pleading for help as rioters storm the Capitol.
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Jamie Gangel: She says, quote, "Mark, I was just told there is an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol. Please tell the president to calm people. This isn't the way to solve anything."
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There were panicked messages from high-level Republicans inside and outside the Capitol. One of Trump's former chiefs of staff, Mick Mulvaney, texted Meadows to say "He needs to stop this now. Can I do anything to help?" And Trump's first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, texted Meadows in all caps "TELL THEM TO GO HOME." The new reporting comes as a Congressional committee is investigating what happened on January 6th. Here's CNN's Gangel again…
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Jamie Gangel: I will say this. From 30,000 feet, when you look at these messages, if this is what Meadows turned over willingly to the January 6th committee, you have to wonder what's in the rest of the documents, because these are so damning.
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Meadows did not respond to CNN's request for comment. The committee declined to comment. Also, yesterday, a New York judge held Trump in contempt of court for failing to comply with subpoenas from the state's attorney general. The office wants documents for its investigation into whether Trump and his company made false or misleading statements to tax authorities, banks, and insurers. The contempt-of-court ruling includes a fine of $10,000 per day. A lawyer for Trump told "The Wall Street Journal" that all documents were already turned over and promised an appeal.
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It was Trump's tweets around the Capitol attack that finally got him kicked off Twitter. Elon Musk's $44 billion deal to buy Twitter leaves a lot of questions, among them: will Trump come back to the platform? Trump himself told CNBC he won't return, even if Musk reverses the ban, but CNBC also looked at how investors with money on the line are reacting, and there are signs they think Trump will tweet again.
Shares in the company tied to Trump's media venture tanked yesterday after Musk sealed the deal to buy Twitter. Remember, a centerpiece of that company is this social media platform called Truth Social. Trump has only posted there once since the launch. If that platform doesn't have an exclusive on Trump's posts, it's potentially less valuable, so that sell-off means many investors seem to think Trump will return to Twitter.
And beyond Wall Street, "The Washington Post" reports many of Trump's advisers and supporters don't believe he can stay away from Twitter either. Analysts inside and outside Trump's orbit tell the "Post" they think that if Musk gives him a way back in, Trump will find it hard to resist the pull of what was once his favorite social media platform.
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A warning that this segment includes discussions of violence and sexual assault. A Texas court has halted the execution of Melissa Lucio, which had been set to take place tomorrow. Lucio was convicted of murdering her two-year-old daughter more than a decade ago, but new evidence and testimony led to widespread public outcry that this execution should be called off. One of Lucio's sisters spoke after the announcement…
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Lucio's sister: We're very thankful to all of you, the legal team, everybody-- Everybody that has helped us and has stood by my sister and her innocence. We're very thankful.
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Maurice Chammah, a staff writer at the Marshall Project, brought us up to speed. The state has said Lucio killed her daughter by beating her and points to a confession from Lucio shortly after her daughter's death in 2007. Lucio's lawyers argue that law enforcement pressured her to make a false confession.
Maurice Chammah: They lied to her. They said things like, you know, you'll never be able to see your kids again, or you're more likely to get the death penalty if you don't confess. She had for hours maintained that she had never hurt her daughter, but eventually she kind of acquiesced just to get out of the interrogation room.
The interrogation lasted for five hours, and Lucio expressed her innocence more than 100 times. Here's a clip from her interrogation…
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Unidentified Speaker: You know something is wrong.
Melissa Lucio: No, sir, I don't.
Unidentified Speaker: You know something is wrong.
Lucio: No, sir, I don't.
Unidentified Speaker: If I bring you all those pictures, if I beat you half to death like that little child was beat, I bet you you'd die too.
Lucio: Sir, I did not beat my daughter, sir.
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Lucio eventually said "I guess I did it." Her attorneys said, in the past, she experienced sexual abuse and domestic violence, which many psychological experts believe makes people more vulnerable to giving a false confession. Here's Chammah again…
Chammah: The argument that psychologists have made in her case and in other cases is that women who have been abused in this way, over and over again, learned to kind of acquiesce to authority figures in order to protect themselves.
Besides questions about the confession, there are also concerns that the child may have died because of an earlier fall down the stairs. Advocates for Lucio say key evidence was not disclosed to her defense as they prepared for the trial.
Lucio's case has gotten a lot of attention from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, religious leaders, even some jurors on the case, calling for clemency or at least a closer look at the case before it's too late.
The latest ruling allows the original court to do exactly that: take another look at the case. Texas Governor Greg Abbott could also save her life, but he's only granted clemency in a death penalty case once since taking office. Chammah told us how long and hard it is to fight a death sentence…
Chammah: There's so many players in the system that the things that can cause an execution to happen or get stopped at the last minute can feel very surprising and random, even to the people who are very close to the case and who know a lot about it. I've heard from people in the past that that whiplash can be really traumatic and difficult to live through.
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Maybe you caught this viral moment in Major League Baseball the other day. A San Francisco Giants coach entered the history books. Her name is Alyssa Nakken. Here's how the announcers marked the moment she set foot on the field.
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Unidentified Speaker 2: Which is historical, which means it's the first time that a woman has ever coached first base in a big-league ballgame. So, nice going, Nak.
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The history part was that she was on the field at a Major League game, but she's not the only woman coaching pro baseball. "The Wall Street Journal" looks at how women are starting to make a mark there. There are eleven women currently coaching across Major and Minor League clubs. Now, that's not a big number, but it's some progress when you consider that as recently as 2018, that number was zero.
The "Journal" speaks to one woman, Katie Krall, who said growing up she thought she had a better shot at being a mascot than a coach, just because she'd only ever seen men doing the job. But now, at 25, Krall is a development coach for a Minor League affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. She says she hopes "the floodgates open" and there are more like her.
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You can read more about women coaching baseball and all the stories we talked about in the Apple News app, and when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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