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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Wednesday, August 23rd. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, a witness in the classified documents case against Trump retracts past testimony, an update on how talks are going in the Hollywood writers strike, and why students and their families foot the bill for colleges' spending sprees.
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But before we get to those stories, tonight is the first Republican primary debate. Eight candidates will face off on stage in Milwaukee, not including the front runner, former President Donald Trump. Joining me now to talk about what his absence means for candidates struggling to break through is my colleague Gideon Resnick. Hey, Gideon.
Gideon Resnick: Hey, Shumita.
Basu: So give us a quick run through of who met the polling and fundraising requirements to make it on stage tonight.
Resnick: Sure. So we can start with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He is at the center of a lot of conversations going into this debate. He had this overwhelming reelection in 2022 that really kind of made it appear as if he was gonna be the next inheritor of Trumpism to a lot of Republicans, and I think they thought he was gonna be a really formidable candidate going into 2024.
Perhaps a better contrast with President Biden as a younger candidate in the race, and throughout the course of his campaign thus far, things have not been going in that direction, to say the least. There have been significant staff changes that the DeSantis campaign has seen, they have burned through quite a bit of money, and he really hasn't yet proven to donors that he is going to be the one to take on Trump and to eventually win the nomination. And there's little indication in most polling that he's closing that gap with Trump. To move on to some other candidates that are gonna be on stage with him tonight. And this is a lengthy list, so bear with me. There is gonna be Vivek Ramaswamy. He is a multimillionaire biotech entrepreneur. There's former Vice President Mike Pence. There's former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, and Doug Burgum the governor of North Dakota. They're all kind of averaging single to low single digits in national polling. So, given all of this, "The Washington Post" has a good walk up to tonight's debate about how it really is gonna be the first and maybe most crucial chance for a lot of these folks to introduce themselves and make an impression on voters.
Basu: Right. So Trump, as we've mentioned, has decided to skip this debate. He says he's gonna release a prerecorded interview with Tucker Carlson on social media instead, and as you said, Trump has led the polls significantly. Help us understand what this tells us about the size and strength of his base.
Resnick: Yeah, it, it certainly seems resilient, right? To a segment of the population, the indictments against former President Trump reinforce a belief that he has been wrongly and politically targeted by the government. There are some numbers to back this up. There was a recent poll from the Des Moines Register. It was conducted as the Georgia indictment was revealed, and they basically found over the course of serving, voters that support for Trump actually went up when that indictment came out, and that's not so uncommon in previous polling that we've seen around these indictments being unveiled.
Basu: Mm-hm.
Resnick: The other major factor here is that a lot of these candidates in the race are helping Trump out in the sense that, you know, with the exception of folks like Chris Christie, they're largely agreeing with assertions that he's making, that the indictments are political in nature. So it seems like most of them at this point, haven't been willing to use these legal issues as a cudgel against Trump and as an argument for themselves. As former Republican Senator Rick Santorum told "The Wall Street Journal" recently, "it's hard to run against a martyr." That is kind of the sentiment so far. So, we'll see what these candidates have to say tonight.
Basu: Yeah. So to bring it back to tonight's debate, aside from a lot of talk about Trump, which we can expect, what are some of the major issues, the things that are actually relevant to voters that we're expecting to hear these candidates talk about?
Resnick: Yeah, Shumita, it's a great question. I'll say that in my reading before this debate, it was surprisingly a little bit difficult to find a lot of really clear pieces, sort of walking through the differences in the candidate's positions on issues, which, you know, maybe is a little bit symbolic of where the race is at at the moment.
Basu: Mm-hm.
Resnick: It does feel like we have quite a bit of an understanding of some differences between candidates like Trump, like DeSantis on issues like abortion, but there is a lot that is a little murky on the nuances of some of the other issues that will hopefully get more of an understanding of later today. One thing I did read that was interesting was this "NPR" story about the significance of Republicans having this first debate as well as their convention in Milwaukee. It really seems to say that they think Wisconsin is gonna be a critical state, and it's one where issues like abortion have been real motivating factors in recent elections.
Basu: So we'll link to some of those stories that you mentioned, Gideon, on our show notes page, the debate is tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on "Fox News," and we'll have coverage of that in the Apple News app. Gideon, thank you so much.
Resnick: Yeah, of course. Thank you.
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Now, let's check in on some other big stories in the news.
Federal prosecutors say a key witness in the classified-documents case against Trump retracted false testimony. This came after the witness hired a new lawyer. The IT staffer at Mar-a-Lago was previously represented by an attorney paid for by Trump's political-action committee. He originally said he didn't recall conversations about security footage at Mar-a-Lago. But after changing lawyers, he gave information to prosecutors that implicated Trump and others in a plot to delete security-camera footage. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Let's turn now to a dramatic rescue story in Pakistan, where rescuers successfully pulled seven children and a teacher to safety, after their cable car broke. They were dangling hundreds of feet in the air, for more than 15 hours yesterday. The military says the rescue was especially difficult because of strong winds. "NBC's" Raf Sanchez reported on how bystanders helped.
Raf Sanchez: Rescue teams and locals improvised this kind of low tech solution, a sort of pulley system, where hands by patient hands, standing on the side of the ravine, they were able to pull the remaining students and eventually the teacher back to safety.
Police say today the cable-car owner was arrested and charged with ignoring safety rules.
And in Hollywood, studios are going public with their latest offer to striking writers. They say they're offering the largest pay bump in 35 years and setting minimum staffing levels in writers' rooms. Studios also say they're providing new protection to writers related to artificial intelligence. The Writers Guild criticized the studios, saying they're not serious about making a deal that's fair to writers, only in getting them to accept the studio's terms and end the strike.
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If you've paid a college tuition bill lately, for yourself or for your kid, this next story might make you a little mad. "The Wall Street Journal" went through records from flagship state universities dating back to 2002. And the data shows colleges are spending big, both inside the classroom and out of it. On lavish new buildings, stadiums, and expensive programs. And for the most part, students are paying the tab, in the form of steep tuition increases.
Since 2002, spending by colleges has gone up by nearly 40 percent. At the same time, students found themselves paying 64 percent more on average. That's far more than typical household expenses grew in the same time period. And these hikes are a big part of America's 1.6 trillion dollars student-debt bill.
The "Journal" found, many schools prioritized growth and revenue over cutting costs, with administrators trying to lure students with luxurious amenities. And there are some pretty eye-popping details in this report.
At the University of Kentucky for more than 10 years the school spent 800,000 dollars a day on average making upgrades to campus. At Penn State, administrators spent so much money, the school now has a budget crisis, even though it's one of the most expensive public universities in the country. The University of Oklahoma hit students with some of the biggest tuition hikes, all while spending millions of dollars on projects. It even bought and renovated a 32,000-square-foot monastery in Italy for a study-aboard program. Once the garden and the frescoes were factored in, the final tab totaled more than 14 million dollars.
University leaders often say that they're under pressure to raise tuition because state legislatures cut funding. And it's true, most states have reduced spending on higher ed. But the "Journal's" analysis shows that rather than tightening budgets, universities kept spending far beyond essentials, with students and families effectively footing the bill. Higher-ed watchers have called for more oversight to keep administrators in check.
So, the next time you're walking around a college campus, take a look around, at the stadiums, dorms, all those Greek columns and marble floors. And you'll see reasons everywhere why it's so expensive to earn a degree in the United States.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, stick around.
We've got a narrated article from "Town & Country" about an elaborate jewel heist. 130 million dollars in jewelry, gone in less than ten minutes. And that's when the story really gets twisty.
So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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