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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Wednesday, June 29th. 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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The latest January 6th Committee hearing presented a witness who says Trump knew his supporters were armed and still wanted them to be able to gather to hear his speech near the White House. The new details come from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former assistant to Mark Meadows, who was President Trump's final chief of staff. Here's video testimony from Hutchinson played yesterday.
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Cassidy Hutchinson: I overheard the president say something to the effect of, I don't effing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags away.
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Mags refers to magnetometers, which are metal detectors. When Trump was told rioters were chanting "Hang Mike Pence," Hutchinson said on tape that White House counsel Pat Cipollone urged Mark Meadows to get the president to intervene.
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Cassidy Hutchinson: I remember Pat saying something to the effect of, Mark, we need to do something more. They're literally calling for the vice president to be effing hung. And Mark had responded something to the effect of, you heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong, to which Pat said something, this is effing crazy. We need to be doing something more.
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Aides were trying to persuade Trump not to go to the Capitol, saying he could be accused of inciting a riot or more. Hutchinson recalled Cipollone saying quote: "We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable.”
Trump’s security was also against him going to the Capitol. Hutchinson testified yesterday about what another White House staffer told her happened in the motorcade with Secret Service agent Bobby Engel.
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Cassidy Hutchinson: The president said something to the effect of I'm the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now. To which Bobby responded, sir, we have to go back to the West Wing. The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We're going back to the West Wing. We're not going to the Capitol. Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel.
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<v The Secret Service issued a statement, saying it will continue to cooperate with the January 6th Committee and will respond to the new allegations in Hutchinson’s testimony. Trump has denied Hutchinson’s account of what happened in the motorcade and also said he did not ask to let people with guns in to see his speech. A reminder>Hutchinson was speaking under oath, and lying to Congress is a crime. Hutchinson also added to her previous testimony on pardons. She says her former boss, Meadows, as well as Rudy Giuliani, both requested to be pardoned by Trump.
"The Washington Post" spoke to a former Republican Capitol Hill staffer who said Cassidy Hutchinson was in every meeting involving Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. She was always quietly taking notes. That access turned her from little-known aide into star witness and target for Trump supporters. She’s now being compared to John Dean, a former Nixon insider who provided key information against the president in Watergate. Dean told “The New York Times,” her testimony provided instant gratification. It let us learn what she heard and observed as a staffer.
Hutchinson described how she felt when Trump tweeted on January 6th that Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what needed to be done.
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Cassidy Hutchinson: As a staffer that works to always represent the administration to the best of my ability and to showcase the good things that he had done for the country, I remember feeling frustrated, disappointed and, really, it felt personal. I was really sad. As an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.
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As soon as today, we could be getting another consequential decision from the Supreme Court. In West Virginia v. EPA, the court will decide how much power the EPA has to force power plants to reduce emissions. “Vox's" Ian Millhiser points out that this case is bigger than one agency’s ability to combat climate change.
Ian Millhiser: So potentially, the ability of most of the government to function is at stake in this case.
In a term with a lot of important cases, Millhiser says this one is critical to understand.
Millhiser: Obviously, overturning Roe v. Wade is a huge deal. A lot of the court’s voting rights decisions. Basically neutralizing the Voting Rights Act. Those are enormous deals. This, I think, is in that same league.
The legal details are pretty complicated, but a core issue for the court to decide is how much leeway Congress can give federal agencies to use their judgment on how to regulate things. A ruling that limits that power could not only limit what the EPA can regulate, but that logic could be extended to other agencies, impacting many aspects of our lives.
Millhiser: The rules governing if you are entitled to overtime pay are determined by the Department of Labor. There are not just the Clean Air Act but the Clean Water Act, all sorts of environmental regulations use this structure. So we're talking about taking decades worth of laws, many of these laws were in the past, in the sixties or seventies, completely gutting them, and replacing them potentially with nothing. If the Supreme Court takes the most aggressive approach here.
Given how far to the right the court has ruled on recent decisions, Millhiser and many court watchers expect conservatives to get what they want out of this ruling.
Millhiser: There’s very little doubt that EPA is gonna lose this case. There's a six-to-three Republican majority on the Supreme Court. Republicans want the EPA to do less. So you don't have to really guess very hard how this case is going to turn out.
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Civilian deaths in Ukraine are growing as Russia launches new airstrikes. Today a missile strike killed several people in an apartment building in southern Ukraine. That follows the deadly attack on a shopping mall on Monday. Ukraine says Russia has deliberately targeted civilians, which it continues to deny.
This raises the stakes for the NATO summit this week, where President Biden and U.S. military leaders have been talking with allies about what to do next for Ukraine.
“The Wall Street Journal” reports on a big, new development in a story that we’ve talked about before. Finland and Sweden are now on track to join NATO after years of staying out. Turkey cleared the way by dropping its objections to the Nordic countries joining the military alliance. Earlier, President Biden spoke about the importance of strengthening the coalition.
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President Joe Biden: Today NATO is united and as united and galvanized as I believe it’s ever been. And we are ready to face threats of Russian aggression because, quite frankly, there’s no choice.
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Moscow has made recent threats about new NATO members so close to its land. It has said it might move ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons to its border. And it says if Ukraine is allowed to join NATO, that could trigger World War III.
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Chances are, you're wearing something right now that has a tag on it, a label saying where in the world it was made. How much have you thought about those country-of-origin labels? Maybe a lot; maybe never. That’s the beauty of this series from "Marketplace" called “I’ve Always Wondered.” It’s where listeners send in questions like this, and "Marketplace" tracks down all the odd little details in the answer.
So, here’s what they got on country-of-origin labels. The idea first originated in Europe in the 19th Century. Germany was starting to become this big industrial power. So a lot of European countries started imposing rules about these labels so that shoppers would know where their products were coming from. The U.S. started requiring labels in 1890.
Now over time, these labels became a way to set products apart. Something that says “Made in the USA” could appeal to patriotism here. A leather handbag with "Made in Italy” on it taps into a centuries-long reputation for craftsmanship. Unions used to sew their own labels into the clothes that they made. The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union used to run ads with this little jingle, encouraging people to seek out the clothes that kept them working.
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But today, in our globalized world, these labels mean a lot less than they used to. A shirt can be made of fabric in one country, sewn in another, and then sold in a third. But for some consumers, these labels do matter. A study found that a “Made in USA” label could lead to a 28% price premium.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app, including results and analysis of the latest primaries. And when you’re in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. I’ll talk with you again tomorrow.
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