Helene wreaks havoc across Southeast | The Excerpt

On Saturday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Helene has weakened to a post-tropical cyclone after killing dozens and leaving millions in the dark. Israel's military says it has killed Hezbollah's leader. USA TODAY National Political Correspondent David Jackson discusses the Trump campaign's approach to getting out the vote. The Justice Department charged three men for allegedly hacking the Trump campaign on behalf of the Iranian government in order to hurt former President Donald Trump's election prospects. USA TODAY Personal Finance Reporter Daniel de Visé breaks down why child care costs more than rent in some cities. Check out our deep dive episode from June on the child care crisis in America.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Saturday, September 28th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, Helene weakens but leaves behind a deadly wake. Plus, Israel says it has killed Hezbollah's leader. And we discuss how the Trump campaign is approaching get out the vote efforts.

♦

Helene weakened to a post-tropical cyclone as it moved through the southeast yesterday, but not before leaving historic flooding across multiple states, causing 39 deaths and millions of power outages. Helene is tied as the 14th most powerful hurricane to hit anywhere in the US since records have been kept, and the seventh most powerful to hit Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm made landfall on the state's Big Bend Coast with 140 mile an hour winds, making it the first known category four storm to hit Florida's Big Bend region since records began in 1851. Helene wrecked dozens of homes in Horseshoe Beach, Florida and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said some 115 structures in the southern Georgia city of Valdosta had been heavily damaged by the storm's high winds. Federal emergency management agency teams were on the ground in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas yesterday. President Joe Biden approved emergency declarations for all five states ahead of Helene's landfall in anticipation of the storm's impact. You can read more on usatoday.com.

♦

Israeli military said earlier today that it had killed Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in an airstrike on the group's central headquarters outside Beirut yesterday. As of early this morning, the Iran-backed Hezbollah had yet to issue any statement on the status of Nasrallah who has led the group for more than three decades. During Nasrallah's time in charge, Hezbollah has grown into a regional force that has projected Iran's influence across the Middle East. Yesterday's strike on Hezbollah's command center, along with more strikes today have escalated the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, adding to concerns of a broader regional conflict or beyond.

♦

The Donald Trump campaign is working on getting out the vote, but the turnout operation is worrying some Republicans. I spoke with USA TODAY, national political Correspondent, David Jackson, to find out why. David, thanks for making some time today.

David Jackson:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So David, what's Donald Trump's campaign strategy around getting out the vote and how does this compare with his approaches when he won in 2016 and then when he lost in 2020?

David Jackson:

Well, it's a little unique this time around in terms of getting out the vote. They're relying more and more on outside groups. They've contracted with a number of political action committees to go about the business of walking neighborhoods, knocking on doors and actually getting people to vote, signing them up in some cases, helping them with mail-in ballots. And this is the kind of work that used to be done by Republican national committee officials. I mean, the RNC itself ran the turnout operations in 2016 and 2020 and they did a good job. I think they won the election for them in 2016 and they almost won the election for them in 2020. But this time around the campaign has decided to rely more on outside groups.

Taylor Wilson:

David, you wrote in the piece that some Republicans take issue with this. What exactly is the dynamic at play here?

David Jackson:

Well, it's a tricky thing because there are Republicans out there who are taking issue, but they're doing so very quietly. Their concern is that these groups have a lot of amateurs, frankly, who've never really done this kind of work before, and they question the real expertise of having these volunteers go out and try to find people who might vote for them and actually get them to the polls. It's a very challenging assignment and it's the kind of thing that non-professionals aren't necessarily good at. Another one of their concerns is that the Trump campaign has made more of its targets, what we call low propensity voters. They're basically looking for people who may agree with them on the issues but haven't voted in many elections before. Those people are hard to find and it's very difficult for amateurs, if you will, to find those kind of voters and get them out.

Taylor Wilson:

What do experts and other observers say about this turnout operation from Trump, David?

David Jackson:

They felt like it's not really that big of a deal, that this kind of thing has been done before. There are new FEC regulations to make it easier for campaigns to coordinate with outside groups on this kind of thing, and it also saves the campaign's money. So basically the professionals say it's really not that different from what they're going on. But on the other hand, it's impossible to tell how good it's going to be because we're actually going to have to wait for people to vote. We're not going to know how effective this turnout operation's going to be until November when the votes are counted.

Taylor Wilson:

Meanwhile, what's the Harris approach to voter turnout and how does that differ from what we're hearing from the Trump camp, David?

David Jackson:

They're a little more traditional and they've always done it a little bit differently because they have unions to rely on. They're very big people in terms of getting out the vote and other long-standing organizations that they have strong ties to. And the DNC itself has long had their own get out the vote operations and they're kind of laughing at the Trump outfit. They think this idea of outsourcing neighborhood walking and door knocking never works. And they point out the fact, and it's true, that Florida governor Ron DeSantis tried the same tactic back when he ran for president earlier this year and it was a big flop. They just had all kinds of trouble with it. So the Democrats are kind of sitting back and enjoying all this.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, David Jackson covers national politics for USA TODAY. Thank you, David.

David Jackson:

Thank you, sir.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

The Justice Department has secured an indictment against three men for allegedly hacking the Trump campaign on behalf of the Iranian government, in order to hurt former president Donald Trump's election prospects. Trump's name is not included in the indictment that was released yesterday, but details within the document make clear the charges relate to an attempt to steal information from his campaign and leak it to journalists in the presidential campaign of Joe Biden before Biden chose to step aside in the election. For example, the indictment describes conspirators allegedly using their access to the personal accounts of people associated with a presidential campaign around May to steal non-public campaign documents and emails, and then trying to weaponize stolen campaign material by leaking it in late June, including to what was then another identified US presidential campaign. The FBI said earlier this month that Iranian hackers had sent people associated with Biden's campaign unsolicited information they had stolen from the Trump campaign. You can read more with the link in today's show notes.

♦

Child care now costs more than rent in some US cities. I spoke with USA TODAY, personal finance reporter, Daniel de Visé about the expense and whether there's anything being done to ease the burden on parents and childcare providers. Daniel, it's always a pleasure hearing from you, sir. How are you today?

Daniel de Visé:

Likewise, I'm doing well. Hope you are too.

Taylor Wilson:

Doing well, thanks. So let's just start with this, Daniel. What did this study from LendingTree find about the cost of childcare and really how it compares with the cost of rent in some US cities? This was pretty startling.

Daniel de Visé:

Yeah, they chose a provocative angle, which is to compare childcare, which is going up, to rent, which is also going up. Child care costs are up by about a quarter, I think, since the beginning of the pandemic. Rent is also up by about the same amount. So they looked at the 100 biggest cities and found that in 16 of those cities it would cost more to have full-time childcare for one infant than rent for a two-bedroom apartment in that city. And these places include Syracuse, New York, Spokane, Washington, and Minneapolis.

Taylor Wilson:

So in the piece, Daniel, you outlined some pretty stark trends as far as just how severely the cost of childcare has skyrocketed over the last few generations, the last few decades really. What do the numbers say here?

Daniel de Visé:

So some of our readers, some of your listeners, are a little older. My kids are older now, but apparently childcare costs are 220% higher now than they were in 1990 according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and that's more than inflation. So those of us who were paying for childcare 15, 20, 25 years ago would be surprised how much it costs now. I went on to Reddit and looked at some discussions where people talk about, here, "My husband and I spend 50% of our take-home pay on the mortgage and daycare for one child." That's from a Reddit discussion.

Taylor Wilson:

So Daniel, why have costs been pushed up this dramatically?

Daniel de Visé:

Well, it's because of several things, obviously inflation, and then also we had during the pandemic, a lot of childcare centers closed down. They've reopened, but a lot of the staff sort of scattered. There was some pandemic-era support that was offered to the childcare industry and that expired last year. So that's just the recent increase. But gosh, going back over many years, it's a difficult industry. Apparently the people who work in the childcare industry don't earn very much. The median income is about $14 an hour, and childcare centers generally don't turn much profit. And this has to do with, there's these regulations in most states that require a whole lot of adults in the building per kids. There's barely any profit margin in the business and yet the customers, the parents have to pay more and more every year.

Taylor Wilson:

As for the parents, Daniel, how are they dealing with all this? Have they found any solutions? You mentioned those Reddit threads and is there anything on the policy level happening that could bring relief?

Daniel de Visé:

The New York Times found, in an investigation a few years ago, that this country spends $500 per child per year on childcare. And among other affluent countries, the average is 14,000, which I think is 28 times as much. So the government, yes, could probably do more in terms of maybe funding more Head Start type programs. There are these child care and develop grants which apparently aren't really being utilized. One big solution according to people in the industry is private child care, meaning out of the home, offered by parents in homes. There could be a lot more of that than there is, and that tends to be cheaper than center-based child care. And one hurdle or barrier is that I guess it's pretty hard to become a out-of-the home child care provider in some states. The regulation is difficult, so states could simplify that regulation and just get this army of new child care providers operating out of their homes.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for USA TODAY. Thank you, Daniel.

Daniel de Visé:

Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

For more on this topic, check out our special deep dive episode from June of this year on the child care crisis in America. We have a link in today's show notes.

♦

In 2002, Robert Robertson brought his very sick two-year-old daughter, Nikki, to the emergency room. She died the next day. After doctors diagnosed shaken baby syndrome, Robertson was arrested and later convicted. He now sits on death row in Texas, scheduled for execution on October 17th. The man largely responsible for putting him there is Brian Wharton, the former police detective who led the investigation and subsequent arrest of Robertson. Wharton, now an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church says he made a mistake and Robertson is in fact innocent. Will it be enough to save his life? Tune in tomorrow, beginning at 5:00 A.M. Eastern to hear my conversation with Brian right here on this feed.

And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.