transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:04] Good morning, talks with Iran are canceled, but the ceasefire goes on, the Associated Press explains. Trump's pick to be Fed chair gets a Senate grilling on his ability to resist White House pressure.

Speaker 2:
[00:17] I do not believe that independence of monetary policy is threatened when elected officials state their views on rates. Fed independence is up to the Fed.

Speaker 1:
[00:26] And Virginia votes to redraw its maps to favor Democrats in time for the midterms. It's Wednesday, April 22nd. I'm Cecilia Lei and this is Apple News Today. It was another 11th hour reversal from President Trump as he extended the ceasefire deal with Iran hours before it was set to expire. Trump had started yesterday with a morning call to CNBC and a warning to expect bombing soon.

Speaker 3:
[01:00] I'm looking at your numbers now as I speak. I mean, the market's up. We're going to be at 50,000. That's where we were just a little while ago when it started. And when I hit 50,000 on the Dow and 7,000 on the S&P, I said, well, I hate to do this to everybody, but I'm going to have to journey down to a place called Iran.

Speaker 4:
[01:19] He seemed to be almost marveling at his impact on the ticker in real time that was going in the green and chattering confidently how he didn't want to extend the ceasefire.

Speaker 1:
[01:29] Aamer Madhani is a White House reporter for the Associated Press.

Speaker 4:
[01:33] He was confident that things were going in the right direction. And there seemed to be also the certainty in his voice that JD Vance and the US negotiating team were about to head to Islamabad. And then we fast forward to the end of the day. The day ends with him effectively kicking the cannon indefinitely.

Speaker 1:
[01:54] Trump said the request to extend came from Pakistan mediators. He also pointed to splits within the Iranian government.

Speaker 4:
[02:01] He called it seriously fractured. And he was making allusion to this reported division within the Islamic Republic. And he's saying it didn't come unexpectedly. Over the course of the ceasefire to be on April 8th, Trump was repeatedly saying that his team is dealing with the right people, with the right Iranian officials who want to make a deal. But he's also kind of repeatedly talked about his decision to kill several top leaders has come with some complications.

Speaker 1:
[02:29] This time, there's no deadline to the ceasefire. Trump said they would hold off on attacks until Iran could come up with, quote, a unified proposal. One Iranian official said the extension has no meaning and that, quote, the losing side cannot set the terms. Even if the fighting remains paused, a negotiated settlement still looks a long ways away. Throughout the day, there was speculation about talks the vice president was meant to be leading. But by the evening, the White House had announced their cancellation with no updated timeline. Tehran reportedly had not responded to the US's positions and they never officially signed up to any negotiations. And after all this, the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut. Blockades on both sides are still in place, each aimed at forcing the other to the negotiating table. So far, efforts to reopen the waterway in the past week have failed. As Madhani notes, the US push to choke off Iran's oil exports has reportedly become the sticking point, stalling any momentum towards renewed talks.

Speaker 4:
[03:32] What remains a point of contention is the US blockade. Earlier in the week, there are announcements that they would open the strait, that that should coincide with the US removing its blockade. That didn't happen and the blockade continued. Oil prices have risen, the US has seized ships, Iran has attacked some ships. The situation remains really unsteady and it just becomes, I think at this point, a test of wills.

Speaker 1:
[04:01] Yesterday, Trump vowed to keep up the blockade, which Iran has called an act of war. Confirmation hearings for potential Fed chairs are usually pretty dry occasions. But President Trump's pick, Kevin Warsh, faced plenty of heat and tough questions when he appeared at the Senate yesterday, at least from Democrats. When it comes to his resume, Warsh has a fairly conventional background. He's a former Fed governor with lots of experience in financial and academic institutions. But Trump's attempt to bring the Federal Reserve within his orbit has raised the stakes of whoever succeeds the current chair, Jerome Powell, someone the president has pressured to dramatically cut interest rates. Warsh faced questions over his personal wealth, the Fed's independence, and what he might do with interest rates. On that front, Warsh indicated he wanted to change how the Fed arrives at policy decisions.

Speaker 2:
[05:00] Once you let inflation take hold in the economy, it's more expensive and harder to bring it down. The fatal policy error going back four or five years is still a legacy that we're dealing with. We need, in my judgment, fundamental policy reforms to fix it. And while it's true that inflation is less problematic, meaning the rate of change in prices is less severe than it was some years ago, hardworking Americans are no doubt feeling it. I think that means a regime change in the conduct of policy. I think that means a different new inflation framework.

Speaker 1:
[05:36] He said Trump had never asked him to commit to any rate decisions, but wouldn't say whether or not he'd support an immediate cut. The most aggressive interrogation came from Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren. She challenged whether Warsh could ever be independent, as Trump had already indicated that no one who disagreed with him could ever be Fed Chairman. Let's check out your independence and your courage. We'll start easy.

Speaker 5:
[06:00] Mr. Warsh, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?

Speaker 2:
[06:05] We try to keep politics, if I'm confirmed, out of the federalism.

Speaker 5:
[06:08] Let's ask you a factual question. I need to know, I need to measure your independence and your courage.

Speaker 2:
[06:14] Senator, I believe that this body certified that election many years ago.

Speaker 5:
[06:18] That's not the question I'm asking. I'm asking, did Donald Trump lose in 2020?

Speaker 2:
[06:23] And I'm suggesting you in 2020, the Fed made a huge inflation problem and you certified the election. So let me ask you another question.

Speaker 5:
[06:32] In our meeting, you said you would be independent.

Speaker 1:
[06:36] Shortly before the hearing, Warsh disclosed more than $100 million in assets. He wouldn't confirm the details of that fortune to Warren, who wanted to explore potential conflicts of interest. But he committed to following ethic guidelines and converting the assets if he was confirmed. Warsh likely has the votes for that with one major caveat. Republican Senator Tom Tillis is refusing to advance him unless the Justice Department drops its investigation to the current Chair Powell and the Fed's headquarters renovations. Tillis spent some of yesterday's hearing explaining why he thought the DOJ's inquiry was baseless and he repeated his commitment to block Warsh for the time being.

Speaker 2:
[07:15] We have got to end this investigation.

Speaker 3:
[07:17] Big DOJ didn't know about it. The president didn't know about it.

Speaker 2:
[07:20] Let's get rid of this investigation so I can support your confirmation.

Speaker 1:
[07:24] Tillis has avoided blaming Trump directly, but the president stood by the investigation as recently as yesterday morning.

Speaker 6:
[07:31] The question is, will the administration drop that probe?

Speaker 1:
[07:36] Victoria Guida is an economics correspondent who was covering the hearing for Politico.

Speaker 6:
[07:41] Basically, we're reaching a point where Powell might actually stay longer as chair. And the main reason why Warsh wouldn't be confirmed, perhaps the only reason, is because the Justice Department is continuing this investigation that Tom Tillis thinks is politicized.

Speaker 1:
[07:56] As for Warsh, Guida said the hearing probably didn't change anyone's mind about his qualifications.

Speaker 6:
[08:02] I think that people going into this hearing probably left thinking what they already thought about him because there's only so much he can do to convince people that don't think that he's going to be independent, that he will be independent.

Speaker 1:
[08:13] Last week, Trump threatened to fire Powell if he stays in his role at the Fed, a move that would almost certainly trigger a legal battle. Across the country, tax preparers say that they've noticed a drop in the amount of undocumented immigrants filing their taxes. They typically file with an individual taxpayer identification number, which is issued for individuals without social security numbers. The New York Times reports that at one Los Angeles tax clinic this year, clients who used this number dropped from one in three to roughly one in 10. And in Illinois, Evelyn Vasquez, a tax professional, shared her observations with a local ABC affiliate.

Speaker 5:
[08:59] They're scared of immigration getting information and going to their properties, looking for them at their job sites, going where their children are in school.

Speaker 1:
[09:07] Marissa Lang is a reporter for The Washington Post who's been looking into this trend.

Speaker 7:
[09:12] This is all rooted in an issue that happened last year where the IRS, which had historically walled off people's personal information as a way to encourage folks, including undocumented immigrants, to file tax returns. This past year, the IRS kind of made an about face and shared information of about 47,000 immigrant taxpayers who were subject to deportation with immigration enforcement.

Speaker 1:
[09:40] In February, federal judges ruled that the arrangement was illegal and banned ICE from using the information it had collected. So far, it appears that ICE has not arrested or deported anyone by using those tax records. Still, the potential implications of the data sharing has led to concerns. Lang told us that she spoke with some experts who worry about how fewer tax filings from undocumented immigrants could impact the nation's fiscal outlook.

Speaker 7:
[10:06] There's a lot of taxation experts and professionals who believe strongly that the US and the government should be lowering or eliminating barriers to people to engage in the tax system, but the best way for the government to actually collect the taxes that it is owed from workers in this country would be to staunchly wall off and pretty aggressively protect people's information.

Speaker 1:
[10:31] One progressive think tank estimated that undocumented immigrants were collectively paying $60 billion annually in federal taxes. A lot of that money goes towards programs like social security and Medicare, which undocumented immigrants cannot benefit from.

Speaker 7:
[10:46] Immigrants actually, by and large, contribute way more in taxes and into the system than they do receive benefits. Part of that is because a lot of immigrants, particularly those who don't have authorization to live or work in the US, are ineligible for a lot of benefits that taxes go into the system.

Speaker 1:
[11:05] And a study from the Libertarian Cato Institute recently found that in 2023 alone, the net surplus of this financial relationship was about half a trillion dollars. If fewer undocumented immigrants engage with the tax system, combined with larger scale deportations, there could be big financial repercussions.

Speaker 7:
[11:24] The Yale Budget Lab estimates that the IRS could stand to lose anywhere between $147 billion and $479 billion over the next decade because of all of these various push-pull impacts that the current administration's immigration policies are having. Because immigration is down, because people are being deported at higher rates, and because there's this climate of fear that has undermined the trust in the IRS and also just in what the government says it will and won't do.

Speaker 1:
[11:55] A DHS spokesperson told Fox earlier this year that the move to share information across the federal government would solve problems of immigration mismanagement under the Biden administration. Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. Yesterday, voters in Virginia approved a referendum to redraw the state's electoral maps to favor the Democrats. The result could deliver as many as four new Democratic seats to the House in time for the midterms. The state's Democratic Governor, Abigail Spanberger, celebrated the results, emphasizing that it was a temporary measure to combat President Trump's own gerrymandering efforts. It was a high stakes election and the most expensive ballot measure the state ever ran, with most of the campaign spend coming from the yes side. The New York Times reports that the result largely blunts the advantage Republicans built up last year when it began redrawing seats in places like Texas. Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick announced her resignation from Congress on Tuesday, just minutes before she was set to appear at an Ethics Committee hearing. The move effectively allowed the Florida Democrat to avoid a possible expulsion vote from the House. She was facing allegations that she had funneled Federal relief funds towards her 2022 Congressional campaign. In late March, a bipartisan House Ethics Committee found Cherfilus-McCormick guilty of 25 ethics charges, a process that she has called unjust and a witch hunt. Separately, she faces criminal charges that could lead to a decades-long prison sentence. Cherfilus-McCormick's resignation is the third in Congress in recent days. Last week, Representatives Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzalez announced their plans to leave Congress amid sexual misconduct allegations. A primary and special election will have to be called later this year to replace Cherfilus-McCormick in the House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority. And finally, there's a new game show king on the horizon.

Speaker 3:
[14:01] This is Jeopardy!

Speaker 1:
[14:10] 33-year-old New Jersey resident, Jamie Ding, is a 28-time Jeopardy champion who has so far won over $770,000, placing him among Jeopardy's all-time greats, including host Ken Jennings. The Wall Street Journal says, aside from his blazing buzzer speed and impressive range of knowledge, Ding is winning audiences over with his true superpower, likability. Ding has endeared picky fans of the show with his quirks. He's known for wearing his favorite color orange, his loopy wave to the camera during his intros, and his humble nature. He described himself on the show as a faceless bureaucrat. But when pressed by Jennings about what he actually does, he described pretty important work.

Speaker 4:
[14:53] The agency I work for, we manage the low-income housing tax credit for New Jersey. New Jersey is doing really well. We're ahead of New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania. If you're from one of those states, then shame on you, build more housing.

Speaker 1:
[15:05] Ding will be back to compete tonight. Currently, he ranks fifth in all-time consecutive wins, and is four wins away from tying James Haushauer, who won 32 games in 2019. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. If you're already listening in the news app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. Esquire explores one of the most dangerous professions in the country, power linemen who keep the electrical grid running during emergencies. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.