--:-- Shamita Basu: Hey there, it's Shamita. I've got a quick request for you. If Apple News Today is an essential part of your morning routine, follow the show in Apple Podcasts. And if you have another 30 seconds, leave us a rating and a review too. It helps other people find our show and it helps us know what you like about it. Thanks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, September 15th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, how Charlie Kirk represented the modern GOP, the new policy that's left transgender veterans feeling betrayed, and takeaways from Pope Leo's first interview. But first, to the economy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's a crucial week for the Federal Reserve as the central bank grapples with a slowing job market, inflation, and an overall uncertain economic outlook. At its policy meeting this week, the Fed is expected to cut the nation's benchmark interest rate after holding steady for the past nine months.
--:-- Nick Timmeros: They're likely to do so even though inflation has stopped declining and in fact looks a little bit worse than it did a few months ago. I've been looking at this, and those factors have put the Fed in a precarious position. If the central bank moves too quickly in one direction, it runs the risk of overcorrection, creating more problems down the line.
--:-- Nick Timmeros: It's a little bit like a soccer goalie who has a penalty kick they have to defend against. Are you going to jump to the left to defend against weakness in the labor market? Or are you going to jump to the right to defend against higher inflation? And when you move in one direction, you sort of open yourself up to a worse outcome.
--:-- Nick Timmeros: As the Fed deals with all of this, there is still much uncertainty over Trump's attempts to exert more control over the Federal Reserve. A judge ruled that for now, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in her job after Trump had announced he was dismissing Cook over allegations that she committed mortgage fraud by listing a secondary home as her primary residence to get a lower interest rate.
--:-- Nick Timmeros: That means that Cook is set to attend this week's interest rate meeting. The government has appealed the ruling, and a decision could come as soon as today. I reviewed documents tied to the property in question, which is a condo in Atlanta.
--:-- Nick Timmeros: The documents that we reviewed have shown for the first time that her lender may have known that the purchase of the Atlanta condo was a vacation home. They don't prove this. They're not exculpatory. But they show that when she sought a loan estimate for that mortgage, she filled out the property use as a vacation home.
--:-- Nick Timmeros: That complicates the narrative Trump and the DOJ have laid out against Cook. So far, no charges have been filed. Meanwhile, the Senate is also rushing to confirm Stephen Myron, Trump's pick to fill a vacant Fed governor seat.
--:-- Nick Timmeros: Myron, who currently has a role in the White House as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, has agreed to an unprecedented arrangement that will allow him to temporarily step away from that job and serve as a Fed governor until January 31st of next year when the term expires.
--:-- Nick Timmeros: It's very unusual because normally the Fed has tried to maintain a little bit of distance from the executive branch. And so having somebody who is still technically employed by Donald Trump, who sits on the Fed seven board of governors is not something we seen in the 90 years since the modern Fed governance was established.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn to the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's shooting. Yesterday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that the suspect, Tyler Robinson, was not cooperating with authorities, and they were expecting to formally file charges tomorrow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Over the weekend, Kirk's widow, Erica, spoke publicly for the first time. She addressed, quote, evildoers, issuing a stern warning. You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She also talked about how she was at a loss to explain the news to their one-year-old son and three-year-old daughter. A memorial is being planned for next weekend at State Farm Stadium in Arizona, and politicians gathered at the Kennedy Center in Washington last night for a vigil.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Kirk's influence on national politics and the evolution in his own politics since starting Turning Point USA in 2012 is a reflection of how the modern Republican Party has changed over the past 15 years or so. So let's take a few minutes today to talk about Kirk's impact.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last year, Atlantic staff writer Ollie Breland profiled Kirk. We caught up with him after the shooting to talk about Kirk's role as a linkage between various factions of the Republican Party. He is very respected in the establishment world of the conservative party.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He occupied this extremely unique role as this kind of connector and bridge between all of these different things. Breelich told us at the start of Kirk's political rise from his late teenage years to early 20s, he focused on Reagan-era conservative touchstones like free markets and limited government.
--:-- Ollie Breland: Here's Kirk speaking at the Western Conservative Summit in 2016. The younger generation needs to be reminded and told and quite frankly educated that free markets and free people are a necessary precedent to people's lives getting better.
--:-- Ollie Breland: After Trump won the Republican nomination that year, Kirk campaigned for him but mentioned at the time that he wasn't the biggest fan. Trump's election to the White House in 2016 began to change the relationship that Kirk had with the president and his family, and also the influence that Kirk would have on the direction of the Republican Party overall.
--:-- Ollie Breland: Kirk had started Turning Point USA with the goal of modernizing campus Republican activism. As Will Sommer in the right-leaning outlet The Bulwark wrote last week, Kirk's vision was wildly different from the stodgy, nerdy, buttoned-up, loafers-and-slacks contrarians that had defined college republicanism for generations.
--:-- Ollie Breland: Instead, he writes, both Kirk and the Trumps reveled in a more confrontational, at times dehumanizing, political discourse. Like the GOP at large, Kirk came a long way from Reagan's version of the Republican Party.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to the military, where the Trump administration is using a policy from its first term to support efforts to now remove transgender people from service.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You might remember on his first day in office this year, President Trump signed an executive order banning transgender troops, which was initially blocked by lower courts. But the conservative members of the Supreme Court later voted to allow it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, with the goal of eliminating trans people from the military by December 1st, the Defense Department is combing through military medical records to look for people diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And a policy from eight years ago when Trump was last in office is actually the reason many trans service members have this diagnosis on their records in the first place. NPR's Lauren Hodges told us about it.
--:-- Lauren Hodges: During the first Trump administration, anybody who was trans in the military were told they had a deadline to go get this official military medical diagnosis for gender dysphoria. And that's how they could stay and continue serving and keep their jobs.
--:-- Lauren Hodges: So a lot of people went to go do it. And not only did it feel a little strange to some of them because they didn't feel like it reflected who they were, they were also nervous about the military and the government having that kind of data on them.
--:-- Lauren Hodges: Including Logan Ireland, a master sergeant in the Air Force. He wanted to keep doing his job, so he went and got this taken care of and put on file. And now he is being removed from service for having gender dysphoria on file.
--:-- Lauren Hodges: So he is now really frustrated. He feels betrayed. And now Hodges says these diagnoses are being used to circumvent the typical military removal process. You're supposed to have the due process as a service member to go before one of these separation boards and plead your case to stay in the service.
--:-- Lauren Hodges: But the Air Force decided ahead of time, if this person has gender dysphoria, you will find them unfit to serve and separate them, which has never been done before. The Air Force also says it plans to deny early retirement benefits for transgender troops and that it'll try to revoke benefits for people who already qualified.
--:-- Lauren Hodges: That's leaving trans service members with two options. Agree to a voluntary separation where they receive a lower lump sum payment typically offered to junior troops, or if they try and fight the ban, their separation will be classified as involuntary and they'd get nothing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The director of Veterans Legal Support Network told NPR that kicking trans people out of the military and denying them benefits not only sets a bad precedent but also hurts the Pentagon goal of military readiness.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some of these people are rocket scientists. They have combat training and experience. They are, in the case of Logan, Ireland has 15 years in special investigations. You know, this is all stuff that is very useful to the military.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ireland told NPR that he feels like his service has been totally disregarded. You know, we're service members first. We all raise our right hand. We wear the same uniform. The only difference is we just happen to be transgender.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And my heart just breaks. It breaks because I gave so much of my life to the service. It's a core part of who I am. He's now trying to figure out a plan for his future outside of the military without the retirement pay that his family was banking on.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Air Force did not respond to NPR's request for comment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Israel for discussions with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the war in Gaza.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before arriving, he said he would talk about the ongoing conflict and seek answers about Israel's attack in Qatar that targeted Hamas leadership. That attack disrupted efforts to broker a ceasefire and reportedly angered President Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The AP notes Rubio's visit is also a signal of support for Israel, which has become increasingly isolated as the UN prepares to debate the creation of a Palestinian state this week.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, in Gaza City, Israeli forces destroyed 30 residential buildings, forcing thousands to leave their homes. This is the latest in Israel's plan to seize and occupy Gaza City, which has drawn international criticism.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Pope Leo discussed the challenges of learning on the job as he stepped into the papacy in his first interview since becoming pontiff. The interview excerpts are connected to an upcoming biography on the new pope and were released on Catholic news site Crux.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He also spoke on the issue of the widening income gap between the working class and executive class, citing Tesla's plan to make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Leo said, quote, if that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we're in big trouble. He also commented on broader world affairs, saying the U.N. appear to have lost its ability to bring countries together and mediate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The comments were released on Sunday, which was Leo's 70th birthday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And history was made at the Emmys last night as 15-year-old Owen Cooper became the youngest ever male winner for his performance in the Netflix series Adolescence.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The show took six trophies. Seth Rogen's The Studio on Apple TV Plus wasn't far behind, collecting four awards, while The Pit picked up the coveted Best Drama award.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Severance took home two, with Britt Lauer winning Best Actress in a lead drama. Her speech card had a playful Easter egg, fans of the show will understand.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On the back of the card, you could make out the words, let me out. 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 latest episode of Apple News In Conversation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I talked to New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv, who recently came out with a piece about a woman who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and lived with psychosis for decades, but all of a sudden, after starting medication for cancer, her symptoms of psychosis disappeared.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's a story that shows why psychiatry's understanding of schizophrenia may be shifting. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News and Conversation to find that episode.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
