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--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, December 23rd. I'm Shamita Basu. And I'm Duarte Giraldino. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We had a plan for today's show. We were going to bring you some of our favorite good news stories of 2020 and do a roundup show. But guess what? News happened.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So let's jump right into what's going on in Washington. President Trump issued a whole slate of pardons yesterday. He's also threatening to reject the stimulus package.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, we'll get to the pardons in just a minute. But first, let's talk about the stimulus, because Trump's announcement sent shockwaves through the Capitol. And many lawmakers have already gone home.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In a video message he posted on Twitter last night, President Trump told congressional leaders the spending and pandemic relief bill are just not good enough.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He says he wanted something better. A few months ago, Congress started negotiations on a new package to get urgently needed help to the American people. It's taken forever.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: However, the bill they are now planning to send back to my desk is much different than anticipated. It really is a disgrace.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The president called many items in this gigantic omnibus bill wasteful and said they had nothing to do with pandemic relief. And while it is true, a lot of it is unrelated.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It's also true that this bill was never intended to just be focused on the pandemic. Right The pandemic portion of the bill totals around 900 billion dollars
--:-- Shamita Basu: The other part is a broader spending plan totaling about trillion which Congress needs to approve in order to keep the government running. That's why there are provisions in there about things like military spending and aid for foreign governments.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Most of President Trump's complaints are about the broader, more expensive spending legislation, not the COVID relief package.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But he was critical of the pandemic relief bill, too. Trump said with a price tag of $900 billion, it's disgraceful that Americans who earn less than $75,000 will only be getting $600 relief checks.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He wants Congress to raise that to $2,000. Trump also urged Congress to do more for small businesses, restaurants in particular, which he says have been hit really badly by the pandemic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is urging the president to sign this bill, even if it's not perfect.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says on Twitter that Democrats would gladly return to the Capitol on Thursday and vote to amend the bill to include $2,000 stimulus checks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Still, The Washington Post says it'll be close to impossible for Congress to reconvene and get this done in a few days, let alone a few weeks.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And for his part, President-elect Joe Biden has called this week's bill a, quote, down payment and urged Congress to return to the negotiating table after the holidays.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You know, The Post is reporting many people in Washington, including Trump's aides, were sidelined by the president's disapproval.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You see, Trump largely stayed out of negotiations during the past few weeks. Moreover his economic team including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin signaled the president approved of this bill
--:-- Shamita Basu: So here are the two scenarios we're facing. One is Trump vetoes this bill. And to be clear he hasn't said he'll veto it. But if he did use this power, Politico says Congress could probably override it.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The other scenario is Trump refuses to sign it. Now, that doesn't mean the bill can't become law, but it would mean in six days the government would shut down and stimulus checks would be delayed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hours before President Trump slammed the pandemic relief bill on Twitter with that video, he was busy issuing pardons and commutations for 20 people who had been convicted of crimes.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Some of these people are former Republican members of Congress. Two had ties to Trump's first presidential campaign. And pardons also went to a number of military contractors convicted of killing unarmed civilians in Iraq.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Politico says there are a lot of well-connected people on this list. There's former Republican Congressman Chris Collins of New York, who was one of President Trump's earliest supporters.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He was found guilty of insider trading and lying to the FBI, and he was serving a 26-month sentence. Also, Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter of California, who was found guilty of misusing campaign funds for things like family vacations as well as extramarital affairs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Representative Steve Stockman of Texas also got a pass. In 2018, he was convicted of various fraud and money laundering crimes, and he was serving a 10-year sentence.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Trump also granted clemency to two men who had been convicted of crimes related to Robert Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election George Papadopoulos and Alex van der Zwan were both found guilty of obstructing the special counsel probe
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, these men served minor jail terms years ago, but because of President Trump, they will now have their records wiped clean. Trump also pardoned four contractors who worked for the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: These men played a role in one of the deadliest massacres of civilians during the Iraq war. They were convicted in the 2007 killing of 17 Iraqi people, including two children. 20 others were wounded.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One of the contractors was serving a life sentence for first-degree murder. The other three were sentenced to 12 to 15 years. And Trump reduced the prison sentences for three women convicted of drug crimes, too.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He also granted a full pardon to a man serving 55 years for selling marijuana while carrying a handgun.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Still, Politico notes, at least so far, Trump appears to be favoring people who are politically connected.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Meanwhile, 14,000 people, most of them ordinary women and men, have applied for clemency through a Justice Department program. The president now has less than 30 days to consider some of those cases as well.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Tomorrow, we really will do our final Apple News Today show of the year. And we really are excited about this one. It's a list of some of our favorite good news stories of 2020. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
