--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, September 22nd. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, explaining the decisions from RFK Jr.'s new vaccine panel, how ICE is separating some families, and Trump and Musk meet again. But first, to President Trump's ongoing attempts to push the Department of Justice to bring charges against his political enemies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On Friday, a federal prosecutor tasked with investigating some of Trump's critics resigned. U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and a Trump appointee, Eric Siebert, had declined to seek an indictment, citing lack of evidence for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously sued Trump and his company, as well as former FBI Director James Comey.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Speaking to reporters shortly before Siebert's exit, Trump said he wanted him out because his nomination was endorsed by Democratic Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When I saw that he got approved by those two men, I said, pull it, because he can't be any good. So you want him fired? You want him out? Yeah, I want him out, yeah.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Not long after that, Siebert announced his resignation to colleagues in a letter obtained by NBC. Then over the weekend, Trump posted a message to social media saying that he fired Siebert because he was a, quote, Democrat-supported U.S. attorney who was, quote, never going to do his job.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The post was written as an unusually frank message to his Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of his most loyal cabinet members, in which he urged her to move on prosecuting Comey, James, and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump complained that nothing has been done and said without providing evidence that they were guilty as hell.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Schiff, who led prosecution in the first Trump impeachment trial, is currently the subject of a mortgage fraud investigation by the DOJ, but says he has always followed the law.
--:-- Shamita Basu: James also stands accused of mortgage fraud by incorrectly listing a Norfolk, Connecticut home as her primary residence to receive more favorable loan terms.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But her attorney, Abby Lowell, dismissed it as a paperwork mistake that she sought to correct at the time of the purchase.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A grand jury has been hearing evidence, but nothing has materialized to warrant an indictment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Lowell spoke to MSNBC last month. You can say a lot of things about what's supposed to happen between the White House and the Department of Justice where I started my career.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the separation is supposed to have existed at some level. I don't think there's been an attorney general that has been willing to carry out the president's wrongdoing as much as Pam Bondi has since, oh, I'd say John Mitchell with President Nixon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, Comey, who as FBI director led the investigation into ties between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, has been accused of treasonous conspiracy by the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and was investigated for a post he wrote and deleted about Trump on social media.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Both issues have failed to yield a prosecution. A 2019 report from the DOJ's internal watchdog during the Biden administration did suggest Comey violated FBI policy by leaking memos, but the DOJ brought no charges.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Siebert's departure as top federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia and Trump's subsequent post to Bondi sparked criticism from Democrats and some Republicans who say these moves threaten the Justice Department's independence.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on ABC This Week.
--:-- Chris Christie: Donald Trump not contentious being president He wants to be a prosecutor in every district where he has an enemy so that he can make the decisions
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now look the way our justice system has been set up since the beginning of this country is that the president designates someone with the experience to make decisions on how federal prosecutorial powers should be used.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So when that doesn't happen, people believe those decisions are now being made for personal reasons, not legal ones. And that creates a slippery slope in our justice system that we will have a very difficult time coming back from.
--:-- Shamita Basu: With Siebert gone, Trump has nominated White House aide Lindsay Halligan to the vacated seat.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Halligan is a former defense attorney for Trump and during his second term has been working on the administration's efforts to remove what they call improper ideology from Smithsonian properties.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to vaccines and a follow-up on last week's closely watched meeting of the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Committee, the first since the CDC director was fired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The panel's job is to develop recommendations on the use of vaccines in the civilian population of the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The big ticket item on the two-day agenda was the hepatitis B vaccine. They were specifically talking about the birth shot for hepatitis B given to babies essentially right after they're born while they're still in the hospital.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Elaine Chen is a reporter at the health publication Stat.
--:-- Elaine Chen: This birth shot has long been something that vaccine skeptics have targeted. Some of the newest members of the panel appointed by Kennedy are known anti-vaccine advocates who have in the past questioned scientific research and data on vaccines.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some were appointed just days before the panel's meeting.
--:-- Elaine Chen: Chen says some of those members immediately cast doubt on the Hep B shot.
--:-- Elaine Chen: The members would say we don't have long-term data on the safety of the shot. And we are already routinely testing mothers. Why do we need to still give the vaccine to the babies?
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the flip side of that is we do know the long-term safety of these shots. They are very safe. And it is a safety net to have universal birth shot vaccination because there are a lot of pitfalls that can happen with testing mothers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Those pitfalls, Chen says, can be things like false negatives, skipped testing, or documentation errors.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hepatitis B for babies in particular can lead to lifelong complications like chronic liver infection or liver cancer and the potential need for a transplant.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The board weighed whether to shift the recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine from immediately after birth to when a baby is one month old if the mother tests negative for Hep B.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Babies can contract the disease from their mothers during delivery, which is why it's typically given very soon after birth.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The panel ultimately tabled the issue and did not vote.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They did, however, vote to recommend parents split one vaccine into two.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The MMRV vaccine, which combines the inoculations for measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella, the chickenpox virus, can be given to kids under four.
--:-- Shamita Basu: New guidance from the panel now says the combined shot shouldn't be given to that age group because of the risk of seizures.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But Chen says experts think this was an unnecessary change.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The risk of seizures for that combined shot is still very low. And the bigger issue is that they are casting doubt and revisiting a vaccine that is overall very safe.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And there are no new safety risks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's important to note, however, that 85% of parents already do these shots separately.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the CDC had already suggested parents take that route unless they specifically requested the combination shot.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The meeting was according to Chen chaotic at times. Some members had questions about what they were voting on highlighting the inexperience of some board members.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The chair conceded in his opening remarks that the new team were rookies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And on Friday, they decided the MMRV vaccine for under fours would no longer be covered by a federal program, reversing a decision they made only a day earlier to keep it eligible.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Chen reports that the changes that were made are overall pretty modest, but what became clear was the panel's move away from a science-based framework for its decision-making.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If we're just changing recommendations suddenly without any new data or evidence being presented, then people have questions about what was behind this process, like what drove the initial recommendation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And it just gets people questioning the whole process if you're just changing recommendations suddenly, willy-nilly.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The next panel meeting is in October.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to immigration and the administration's efforts to deport children and families.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last week, a Trump-appointed federal judge blocked the administration from deporting more than 70 unaccompanied Guatemalan children over Labor Day weekend.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Department of Homeland Security had claimed that it was trying to reunite them with family members.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the judge in this case wrote that the DOJ's argument, quote, crumbled like a house of cards after scrutiny.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He said that none of the Guatemalan families had requested their children be sent back, and many of the kids feared returning.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The case comes against a backdrop of criticism over how and why some families are getting separated in the first place, and is raising comparisons to what family separations look like under the first Trump administration.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Maria Sacchetti, a reporter for The Washington Post, told us about the challenge of identifying all these cases.
--:-- Maria Sacchetti: Trying to track the children who are being separated from their parents inside the United States is really difficult because it's happening in all different ways.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's not just as they cross the border. It's a traffic stop. It's happening at immigration court. It's happening at workplace raids.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Trump's first term, there was an explicit zero tolerance policy at the southern border, resulting in the separation of more than 4,000 newly arrived children from their parents.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A federal judge referred to that moment as, quote, one of the most shameful chapters in U.S. history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And a court settlement prohibited similar separations for several years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But that ban doesn't apply to families who are detained within the borders of the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In July of this year, the Trump administration withdrew a Biden-era policy that urged that parents only be detained in limited circumstances.
--:-- Shamita Basu: According to Sacchetti's reporting, that same month, Selma Martinez and her 14-year-old twin daughters were pulled over by an unmarked ICE vehicle in Louisiana.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Martinez, who is originally from Honduras, had filed an asylum claim in 2022 that's still in progress.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In July, ICE officers pulled her over while she was taking her daughters from a dentist appointment to go shopping for school uniforms.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ICE officials told Martinez that she could either go to a hotel and be deported with her daughters or contest her removal and try to stay in the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If she chose to stay and fight, she would be arrested and her daughters would be sent to a shelter for immigrant children.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She's having to make this decision standing on the side of the road at a car wash, you know, in a parking lot when they pulled her over.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ICE records indicate that Martinez had no criminal history and was not the person that officers were looking for that day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She eventually told the officers that she wanted to stay and by that night she was in a detention center in Louisiana while her daughters were sent hundreds of miles away to San Antonio.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ICE said in a statement that Martinez was separated from her children because she changed her mind last minute and chose not to voluntarily leave the U.S.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Post reports that more than 400 children have been sent to shelters run by the federal government since Trump took office.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ICE officials disputed that figure but did not provide an alternative.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A representative for the Department of Homeland Security stated that the agency doesn't split up families and that ICE allows children to be removed with their parents or placed with a person designated by a parent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Martinez's final deportation hearing is scheduled for October 10th in Louisiana.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Her daughters are scheduled for a hearing before a judge in Texas a week later.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Tens of thousands of people showed up to a memorial service for Charlie Kirk at the State Farm Stadium in his home state of Arizona on Sunday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His widow, Erica, spoke to the packed crowd and said she forgave the alleged shooter.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Trump was also in attendance and called Kirk a great American hero and a martyr for freedom.
--:-- Shamita Basu: During the event, Trump was spotted sitting with Elon Musk and shaking hands, the first time they've been seen together in public since Musk quit his government role.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Leaders from the UK, Australia and Canada said Sunday they will formally recognize a Palestinian state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Wall Street Journal notes the move by the three countries is a watershed moment in international relations, as France and several other countries also plan to recognize Palestine as a state at this week's UN General Assembly.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in response to the announcement, vowed there will never be a Palestinian state, and said that Australia, England, and Canada's announcement was a reward for Hamas, which still holds dozens of Israeli hostages.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Those meetings at the UN kick off today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, summer may officially end today also, but for some Chicagoans, they took the opportunity to go for one last summertime swim in an interesting place.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For the first time in nearly 100 years, swimmers took a dip in the Chicago River for an organized open water swim.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The swim was a charity event to raise money for ALS research.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Swimming in the Chicago River has long been kind of a local joke for its association with filth and sewage.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But WTTW, Chicago's PBS affiliate, says over the past few decades, concerted efforts by a number of groups have transformed the river to a point where it has safe levels of bacteria most of the time.
--:-- 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 we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The New Yorker has the story of Jessica Reed Kraus, the blogger who started out writing about motherhood and home life but quickly became a darling of the right and RFK Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again movement.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
