Jury deliberations set to begin in Trump hush money trial | The Excerpt

On Wednesday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi has the latest after closing arguments in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial wrapped up. Democrats will nominate President Joe Biden in a virtual session to ensure he's on the Ohio ballot. USA TODAY Investigative Data Reporter Austin Fast has the latest on PFAS chemicals and efforts by some utilities to get them out of the water supply. Check out the PFAS levels in your neck of the woods. Americans keep leaving big cities for smaller towns even after COVID. NASA has discovered a potentially habitable exoplanet 40 light years from Earth.

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, May 29th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.

Today, jury deliberations are set to begin in Donald Trump's hush money trial. Plus, we look at the latest data around PFAS chemicals. And NASA announces the discovery of a potentially habitable exoplanet.

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Former President Donald Trump's hush money trial moved to closing arguments yesterday as the historic case inches closer to a verdict. I caught up with USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent, Aysha Bagchi, for the latest.

Aysha, thanks for hopping on.

Aysha Bagchi:

I'm glad to be here, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

The defense gave closing arguments first. What did these center on, and did anything stand out to you in particular?

Aysha Bagchi:

Yes. The defense gave closing arguments that lasted more than two hours. So they were pretty lengthy. And the biggest point that Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, hammered home was all about Michael Cohen. That wasn't a big surprise. He was the prosecution's star witness, kind of a personal nemesis of Trump. And also, he had the most to say during the trial about Trump's alleged behavior in relation to these charges. Blanche created a term of art for Cohen, called the GLOAT, the greatest liar of all time, a play on the word GOAT, greatest of all time. So he really went after Cohen as a liar.

He called Cohen an MVP of liars. He said, really, there is little reason for jurors to credit Cohen's testimony. And he pointed to Cohen's long history of lying to make that point, that Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress, that he has lied to federal judges. Cohen has admitted to lying to a judge before. That, according to Blanche, Cohen has lied to state judges, that he has lied to both Houses of Congress. And that he's lied to the Justice Department, according to Blanche. So he basically said, "You can't credit Cohen's testimony." And then he attacked every other part of the prosecution's case. He said there is no evidence that any records were actually falsified in this case.

Cohen provided legal services to Trump in 2017. That's what Blanche argued. And because of that, these records that say that Trump was paying Cohen in 2017 for legal expenses were accurate. Prosecutors say that they weren't accurate, that actually these payments in 2017 were reimbursing Cohen for hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. But Blanche said, "That's not true to begin with." And he also questioned the basic idea that Trump would even think he could influence the 2016 election.

Prosecutors have argued that Trump participated in a catch and kill conspiracy to snap up stories before they could negatively impact his 2016 campaign. And Cohen said, "Hey, millions and millions of Americans voted in that election. The publication at Issue, the tabloid, the National Inquirer, has a small circulation. It's silly to think that Trump would think that he could influence the election that way. Trump is a sophisticated player." So Blanche really went after every part of the prosecution's case.

Taylor Wilson:

And as for the prosecution's case, how did they wrap up their arguments in court after these last few weeks?

Aysha Bagchi:

If Blanche's argument was long, the prosecution's argument was really long. Towards the end, Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass used the phrase, "beating a dead horse," and he was just talking about the arguments he was making, but people started laughing in the courtroom because he went on for hours and hours. We didn't get out of court until about 8:00 PM Eastern Time. But he really tried to systematically approach every element of the case. A big thing he addressed, unsurprising, was Michael Cohen's testimony. He really wanted to give jurors lots of reasons to believe Cohen's testimony. He said, "Donald Trump chose Michael Cohen as his fixer because Cohen was willing to lie and to cheat."

I've heard prosecutors make this argument before. We don't get to pick our witnesses. Sometimes witnesses in a criminal case come with baggage. That goes with the territory. But Steinglass basically told jurors, "We've given you a lot of reasons to credit Cohen's testimony in this case." And he went through that. He talked about other witnesses who testified and how that testimony, in Steinglass' eyes, bolsters what Cohen had to say. For example, there was a moment when top former Trump aide, Hope Hicks, cried on the witness stand. And this was soon after she had made a comment about Trump reacting to a story about the hush money deal involving Stormy Daniels that ran after the 2016 election. And Hope Hicks said she thought that Trump believed it was better that the story came later rather than before the election.

And basically, the prosecution pointed to that yesterday to say that Trump was concerned with the election. This was not about Melania Trump, this was not about protecting his marriage. They did that time and time again about different people's testimony, and looking at text messages. Steinglass showed jurors a text message from Stormy Daniel's former lawyer, Keith Davidson, where Keith Davidson said, "What have we done?" after the election day came in November of 2016 and it looked like Trump was going to win the election. Steinglass basically pointed to that and said that people involved absolutely believed that the hush money deals had something to do with the election.

So, again and again, the prosecution has tried to introduce lots of evidence to encourage jurors to believe that there's more than just Cohen's testimony to rely on in believing that Trump might be guilty of these crimes.

Taylor Wilson:

So the verdict is now in the hands of Trump's peers, the jury. What's the expectation for jury deliberation and the upcoming timeline here?

Aysha Bagchi:

The first thing we're going to have today is jury instructions. Judge Juan Merchan still hasn't instructed the jurors on the law. And that's really important because they both have to decide what actually happened here in terms of what the evidence showed, what factually did Donald Trump do, and what is there not enough evidence for? But they also have to figure out whether that's a violation of the law. And that's where the jury instructions come in, and then the case will be in the hands of the jury. And there's no real telling of how long jury deliberations will last, but they have to come to a unanimous verdict. We'll just be waiting for that to happen.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Aysha Bagchi covers the Justice Department for USA TODAY. Thanks, as always, Aysha. Appreciate you.

Aysha Bagchi:

Thank you, Taylor. Glad to be here.

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Taylor Wilson:

The Democratic National Committee decided yesterday to hold a virtual roll call vote ahead of the August Convention to ensure President Joe Biden's name would appear on the ballot in Ohio come November. According to Ohio law, candidates must be added to the ballot 90 days before the election. That leaves August 7th as the deadline to certify the ballot in that state. But the Democratic National Convention, when Biden is expected to be selected as the party's nominee by delegates from around the country, is scheduled to take place in Chicago from August 19th to August 22nd. Over the last few weeks, lawmakers have unveiled a proposal to move the certification deadline to 74 days before the November election, and Republican Governor Mike DeWine has ordered lawmakers back to the State Capitol to pass the legislation.

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Many of America's drinking water systems have a major problem when it comes to PFAS, so-called forever chemicals. I spoke with USA TODAY Investigative Data Reporter, Austin Fast, for a look at the latest data and how some utilities are getting PFAS out of their water.

Austin, thanks for making the time.

Austin Fast:

Sure. Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Austin, I know I've had you outline this for us before, but I think a lot of folks are curious when they see these letters together. So, what are PFAS chemicals, and how are they used?

Austin Fast:

Yeah. PFAS is a broad range of manmade chemicals that have been used industrially for decades. They don't break down in the environment naturally, so they tend to accumulate out in nature and eventually in human bodies, unfortunately. They've had, really, a range of uses from firefighting foams to nonstick coatings on fabrics, cookware, food containers. I've even heard things like contact lenses have PFAS in them. And a lot of industries have been phasing them out over the past recent years, but because they are so-called forever chemicals, they tend to stay there.

Taylor Wilson:

So Austin, what are your latest findings on drinking water systems that exceed new PFAS standards, and what are those standards?

Austin Fast:

So, the EPA last month announced the first ever federal standards on six types of these chemicals. And for about the past year, they've been asking all drinking water systems that have more than about 3,000 people, they've had to test for these chemicals and submit those results to the EPA. And so finally now we have 12 months of results and we can calculate over the course of the last year what is the average. And so, the EPA said that about 300 drinking water systems actually had an average that exceeded the limit, meaning that they would need to do something to remove the chemicals from the water and protect the people who use those systems.

Some of the places that fall into that bucket of 300 systems are cities like Fort Worth, Texas, Fresno, California, Pensacola, Florida, Augusta, Georgia, and the list goes on. There's a lot of them. And the EPA estimates that that number could grow up to about 6,000 drinking water systems over the next few years as they continue to test and get more results. 6,000 systems that'll eventually need to do something, whether it's install advanced filtration systems or just take a well out of commission and switch to some other source of the water that they're actually pumping out to their customers.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. So how are we actually seeing water utilities getting PFAS out of their water, and is anyone seeing successful results here?

Austin Fast:

Yeah, there's a lot of new technologies. Tampa, Florida in particular has been highlighting a system called Suspended Ion Exchange. They started that a few years ago to get the PFAS out of their water. I talked last week with a spokesperson from Fort Worth Water, and actually next month they're going before their city council to try to get a granular-activated carbon system. Basically, these are advanced filters that actually can take out the very tiny particles that are PFAS.

Another problem unfortunately though, is think of if you have a BRITA pitcher in your house, you eventually have to throw out the filter. You have to do something with that. So the PFAS is out of the water, but it's still in that filter and they still have to do something with that. So that's a problem that some of these systems are coming up against. And it turns out that incineration, is what I've been told, is one of the better ways to totally get rid of that once they're done with the filtration system.

It is very expensive, unfortunately. And Fort Worth, the spokesperson told me that there is federal money out there right now to try to help cities cover the cost of this so that they don't have to raise the rates so much on their customers. But she also told me that, as the EPA predicted, 6,000 systems, they might have to do something. That's a lot of places that are going to be chasing after that federal money. And so they told me, and several other systems have told me, that it's just unavoidable in some cases, that they're going to have to raise the prices, raise the rates on people's water bills.

My colleague Yun has put together a map and a lookup table so that you can type in your address and you can see all the water systems that are in your neighborhood or around your community and check what the results were and whether they found PFAS or not.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Austin Fast is an investigative data reporter with USA TODAY. Thank you, Austin.

Austin Fast:

Thank you. Take care.

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Taylor Wilson:

In 2022, places like New York City and Atlanta that had become ghost towns during the pandemic began seeing more people moving back than leaving. But the latest US Census Bureau figures show the revival was short-lived. Americans have continued to flee large metro areas in massive numbers as the remote work shift sparked by COVID becomes entrenched and the lure of more affordable mid-size cities and smaller towns grows. Big cities are still seeing modest population gains because of a surge in international immigrants, but at a slower rate than before the health crisis, according to Goldman Sachs in a recent research note. And they're losing the battle to keep and attract US residents, a development that started before the pandemic but was magnified by the health crisis. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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NASA has announced the discovery of a planet 40 light years from Earth that could be habitable. Gliese 12 b is a super Earth exoplanet that's nearly the same size as Earth or slightly smaller, according to a NASA news release. Exoplanets are planets outside of our solar system. Masayuki Kuzuhara, a project assistant professor at the Astrobiology Center in Tokyo, said in a statement that it's the nearest transiting temperate Earth-sized world located to date. The planet orbits a so-called cool red dwarf star called Gliese 12, according to NASA. Gliese 12 is only about 27% of the sun's size, with about 60% of the sun's surface temperature, NASA said. Assuming that the planet has no atmosphere, NASA astronomers believe it has a surface temperature around 107 degrees Fahrenheit. The extremely small sizes and masses of red dwarf stars make them ideal for finding Earth-sized planets, according to NASA.

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As another hot summer approaches, a surge in demand for air conditioning is inevitable, but the nation's electrical grid is aging and overtaxed in some areas. Can our grid survive? Be sure to tune in to The Excerpt later today, beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern, as my co-host Dana Taylor speaks with Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School.

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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jury deliberations to begin for Trump hush money trial | The Excerpt