--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, September 26th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, what we know about the White House negotiated TikTok deal, what most people get wrong about political violence, and a high-tech piece of gear that could help keep rugby players safe. But first, former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted on charges of obstruction and making false statements.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The AP notes this makes him the first former senior government official to face charges stemming from one of President Trump's grievances, in particular the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yesterday's charges against Comey come just days after Trump apparently ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to go after several of his political opponents.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last Saturday, in a social media post seemingly addressed to Bondi, Trump, without providing evidence or naming specific crimes, called Comey and a host of other lawmakers and officials, quote, guilty as hell.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This indictment comes from the Eastern District of Virginia, the same jurisdiction where a newly appointed Trump loyalist, a former personal lawyer to the president, just stepped into the role as top prosecutor last week.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The previous U.S. attorney resigned after he found insufficient evidence to bring charges against several of Trump's critics, including Comey.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump had threatened to have him ousted for not bringing those charges.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Comey denied wrongdoing in a video message responding to the allegations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I'm innocent. So let's have a trial.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The investigation into Comey relates to whether he misled prosecutors when testifying about the FBI's inquiry into Trump's 2016 campaign and its ties to Moscow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The New York Times reports many DOJ officials, current and former, say the evidence against him is weak and describe the filing of criminal charges against him as deeply troubling.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As of Thursday night, the charges had yet to be unsealed, but multiple outlets report Comey faces one count each of obstruction and making false statements.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Caitlin Politz, CNN's Justice and Criminal Correspondent: These are serious charges. Perjury is a felony. I believe it carries a five-year maximum prison sentence.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Caitlin Politz: It is not something the Justice Department takes lightly and that a court also will not take lightly when looking at whether Jim Comey should go on to a trial.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Caitlin Politz: Pollent noted we are still in the very early stages of this case and there's a long way to go.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Caitlin Politz: There will be challenges made to this indictment, challenges that a judge will have to review and potentially at the end of the day, a jury would have to take a look to decide whether the former FBI director is guilty or not guilty.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Caitlin Politz: But this is quite a moment to be standing here and seeing that James Comey, after all of these years being the public spotlight for the 2016 Russia investigation, has been indicted by a federal grand jury after being asked by prosecutors in the Trump administration to bring this case.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Former FBI senior counterterrorism official Christopher O: Bringing an indictment is the easy part. But the problem is making this charge stick.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Christopher O: So is this just political theater indicting Director Comey arresting him in his home? But did he actually knowingly provide material false information to Congress?
--:-- Shamita Basu: Christopher O: Very hard thing to prove, especially when there's information that has already been established that's exculpatory through an OIG investigation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Observers say the indictment is a further blurring of the lines between the executive branch and the DOJ, which is supposed to remain politically independent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Comey is expected to appear in federal court in Virginia on October 9th to be arraigned.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's likely his attorneys will file a motion to dismiss the charges and a trial could come later.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Shortly after news of the indictment, Comey's son-in-law resigned as a federal prosecutor, saying he quit his job to, quote, uphold my oath to the Constitution and the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Two months ago, the Justice Department fired Comey's daughter, Maureen Comey, who had been a veteran lawyer in the Southern District of New York.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She's now suing the government, saying her firing was politically motivated and unconstitutional.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order greenlighting a new deal that would allow TikTok to continue operations in the U.S. and bring the social media giant under American ownership.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The order certifies that a new company structure being proposed meets the requirements of divestiture under a law passed by Congress last year that required TikTok be sold or be banned.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping signed off on the changes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The order also extends Trump's previous delay of the ban by 120 days so those involved can complete the deal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The attempts to ban TikTok span over three administrations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It all began in Trump's first term when he signed an executive order in 2020 that targeted TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Biden administration revoked that, but in 2024 signed a bipartisan bill from Congress that would require ByteDance to divest over national security concerns.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Then when Trump took office again, he delayed the ban.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amrith Ramkumar, The Wall Street Journal: Trump's public stance on TikTok has gone through quite an evolution, having once expressed concerns over China's potential access to masses of user data.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amrith Ramkumar: Trump then saw how the app helped him get elected.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amrith Ramkumar: The TikTok saga changed on a dime when the president started using it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amrith Ramkumar: He saw that millions and millions of people were going to be upset if TikTok went dark in the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amrith Ramkumar: So he saw an opportunity to swoop in and save the day and do a deal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The White House says the proposed agreement will create a new entity that will run TikTok in the United States.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ByteDance will own less than 20 percent of the app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The algorithm would be copied by ByteDance and then leased to this new entity.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amrith Ramkumar: And then they would trade it on U.S. user data, so not TikTok's global users.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amrith Ramkumar: That's a really key point because what has made TikTok special is that they have billions of users around the world and they train their global algorithm that way.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Amrith Ramkumar: They're trying to replicate that in the U.S. and basically make a U.S. version.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Roughly 50 percent of the new entity will be owned by Oracle, co-founded by Trump ally Larry Ellison, and Silverlake, a private equity firm.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the remainder will be held by a group of investors.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Among them Trump recently told Fox News conservative media scions Lachlan Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ramkumar says it remains to be seen whether politicians who initially backed the ban will be satisfied that the deal prevents the Chinese government from accessing sensitive data.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ByteDance has always maintained that it is independent from the Communist Party, though earlier this year the Supreme Court ultimately found Congress's national security concerns to be well supported.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The journal reports that the U.S. government is expected to receive a multibillion-dollar payment for arranging the deal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that's pretty unprecedented for the government to be taking a cut, basically, of a profitable, largely private sector transaction.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This deal is unique, obviously, because there is the U.S.-China element and you need legal and regulatory sign-off and all of that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the Trump administration is really pushing the bounds of what people thought was possible in this deal and in other areas as well.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ramkumar told us there are still a lot of steps needed before this goes through, but he said the administration will be eager to keep the app experience the same for users.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They know that they have a very valuable company on their hands when you're talking about this U.S. entity potentially worth tens of billions of dollars.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the last thing they want to do is mess that up by making some changes to the algorithm or the user experience or even making people have to migrate to a new app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One of the big questions will be if there are differences in the app because it only has U.S. user data, for example, and that's what the algorithm is training on.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The U.S. has seen several high-profile acts of political violence in the last few years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Two assassination attempts on President Trump last year, the assassination of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark this past summer, and most recently the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a college event in Utah.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And while data shows that political violence has risen recently, most Americans don't actually want to see it escalate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood, director of the Polarization Research Lab at Dartmouth College: It is honestly the case that we are seeing an uptick of events, but the key point is that these are isolated.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood: There's no evidence to suggest these attacks are coordinated or aligned.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood: There's not any kind of centralized political violence terror cell in the United States.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood: We have lone actors who are acting on their own.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Westwood has spent years surveying Americans and studying political polarization and public opinion.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He's found that only about 2% of Americans, and this is true across party lines, 2% say politically motivated murder is acceptable.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood: But when people are asked what they think members of the other party believe, the gap is striking.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood: So if you ask an American what proportion of the other party they think supports murder, they'll say more than 33 percent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood: So that's off by a factor of 10.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Westwood says divisive remarks from politicians and incendiary social media posts can deepen those misperceptions, fuel fear and in some rare cases even encourage violence.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood: So it's especially important not to see the loudest voices as representative of the country as a whole.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood: The truth is that there are a number of elected officials who've been very reasonable, very constructive in their response.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood: The problem is that if you talking about a need for calm that not going to get you attention.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sean Westwood: So instead of those more measured responses resonating on social media we have the most inflammatory responses resonating on social media.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the News app, that episode of Apple News In Conversation will play for you next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you prefer to listen in the podcast app, some exciting news, you can find it in this feed tomorrow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We'll be sharing all new episodes of In Conversation there on Saturdays.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has summoned U.S. military leadership from around the world to a rare and urgent last-minute meeting in Virginia next week.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post reports more than 800 senior officers are expected to attend.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The meeting comes after Hegseth fired a number of high-ranking military leaders this year, and called for a 20% reduction in the number of four-star generals and admirals across U.S. forces.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's still no clear reason why the meeting has been called or what will be discussed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to the U.S. economy, which grew faster than experts initially reported in the second quarter.
--:-- Shamita Basu: According to a new revision from the Commerce Department released Thursday, the GDP rose at a rate of 3.8% between April and June, much higher than the previous estimate of 3.3%.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, despite the fact that the labor market is slowing and consumer confidence is dropping, Thursday's report is a good sign for the health of the U.S. economy overall.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But this positive economic data does complicate things for the Fed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Fed tends to cut interest rates when the economy is showing signs of slowing down, and these new figures indicate that might be less necessary.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If the Fed, which just cut its benchmark interest rate in September and was expected to continue cuts next month, decides not to keep bringing it down, that'll surely be an unpopular decision with President Trump, who's been applying pressure to the Fed to cut rates.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, to an innovation in sports that could help athletes get quick treatment for a dangerous type of injury, head trauma.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You've probably noticed more NFL athletes in recent years wearing padded helmets in practice, as the league tries to do more to prevent players from developing the degenerative brain disease known as CTE.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But in women's rugby, where you won't find any helmets, a different piece of technology is being embraced.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Special mouthguards with LED lights that flash red when a player takes a potentially dangerous hit.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That way they can be pulled off the pitch and checked out by medical experts ASAP.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Athletic has more on how these mouthguards work and how they were developed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The process included several neurosurgeons and a NASA-trained mathematician.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So if you're tuning in to the Women's Rugby World Cup Finals this weekend and you see flashing lights, it's not just the cameras in the crowd.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Both teams, Canada and England, will be wearing these mouthguards, and they're going to be rolled out across the sport at all elite levels soon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the news app right now, stick around for the rest of my interview with Sean Westwood in the latest episode of Apple News In Conversation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News In Conversation to find that episode or come back to the Apple News Today feed tomorrow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As I mentioned before, starting on Saturday, all new episodes of In Conversation will be available there, too.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Enjoy your weekend and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
