5 Things podcast: Two American hostages released by Hamas, House in limbo without Speaker

On Saturday's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Two American hostages have been released by Hamas. The House remains in limbo without a speaker. USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Bart Jansen breaks down what Kenneth Chesebro's guilty plea in the Georgia election conspiracy case could mean for other co-defendants. The Supreme Courtbacks the Biden administration on social media lobbying. USA TODAY Breaking News and Education Reporter Zach Schermele looks at an FCC move that brings more Wi-Fi to school buses.

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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. 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.

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and this is five things you need to know. Saturday the 21st of October 2023. Today, two American hostages have been freed by Hamas, plus the House remains in limbo without a speaker, and another co-defendant in the Georgia election case has pleaded guilty.

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Two American hostages taken by Hamas earlier this month have been freed. Judith Tai Raanan, and her teen daughter, Natalie Shoshana Raanan, had been visiting Israel from their home in suburban Chicago. They were staying in a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip when Hamas attacked on October 7th. The pair was released by Hamas' armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which said they were freed for humanitarian reasons according to a Reuters report.

Their release came as Israeli military forces continued slamming Gaza with heavy airstrikes yesterday. They even hit areas in the south of Gaza where Palestinians had been told to seek safety. That's prompted many to return north. Since Hamas attacked Israel earlier this month, Israel has bombarded the Strip and cut it off from major resources. At the Egypt-Gaza border, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told reporters that restrictions are preventing humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has formally asked Congress for more than $105 billion in emergency funding for the wars in both Israel and Ukraine, earmarking some 10 billion for Israel military support. That's after Biden announced a fraction of that, $100 million dollars in assistance for Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. In this month's war, the Israel Defense Forces said yesterday that more than 1,400 people have died. In Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said around 4,100 have died.

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The House enters its third weekend without a speaker after Ohio Republican Jim Jordan failed to win enough votes for the third time. In the latest round of voting for the speaker's chair, 25 Republicans voted against him. House Republicans have now dropped Jordan as their nominee, throwing the chamber into even more chaos. They'll now break for the weekend and return on Monday for a candidate forum to hear from prospective speakers.

After the forum, they'll hold another internal vote to determine a nominee on Tuesday. A mad dash for the speaker job has now begun with some members immediately declaring their candidacy and other lawmakers said they would seriously consider running over the weekend. You can read more with the link in today's show notes.

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Another co-defendant with Donald Trump in the Georgia election conspiracy case has pleaded guilty. I spoke with USA Today Justice Department correspondent Bart Jansen about Kenneth Chesebro and what his guilty plea might mean for the case going forward. Bart, thanks for hopping on.

Bart Jansen:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Bart, let's start here. Who is Kenneth Chesebro and what was he charged with initially in this case?

Bart Jansen:

He was a private lawyer who wound up offering a bunch of advice on the 2020 election to President Trump's campaign and to Republican officials in the half-dozen states that were the most closely contested that they were trying to flip from President Joe Biden to Trump in order for Trump to win the 2020 election.

Taylor Wilson:

And he pleaded guilty here. What did he agree to as part of this plea?

Bart Jansen:

He had been accused of a half-dozen charges dealing with developing the scheme for recruiting fake electors, these presidential electors that serve from each state that basically represent the voting in that state for either the Republican or the Democrat.

In Georgia's case, of course, the state went for President Joe Biden, but Chesebro and a couple of others drafted these memos that explained, well, maybe we should have Republicans meet and vote as if they are presidential electors. And then fill out the certificates, fill out paperwork to send to the National Archives and to Congress to be counted as if Georgia actually went for the Republicans. Now it didn't, that's why those documents are fake.

And so what Chesebro pleaded guilty to is conspiracy to submit a false document. That charge carries a potential five-year sentence. He was given a five-year probationary sentence and ordered to pay some restitution. If he completes that sentence as agreed, he will be able to wipe his record clean, and part of the agreement is to testify against other co-defendants in this case.

Taylor Wilson:

You mentioned other co-defendants, Sidney Powell also pleaded guilty in this case this week. We know another co-defendant, Scott Hall, did the same last month. What might these plea agreements mean for testimony during the trials of other co-defendants going forward?

Bart Jansen:

The case is sprawling. There were 19 co-defendants to start. Former President Donald Trump and lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, are a couple of the marquee names, but there are a total of 19 people. Now we've had three of them plead guilty and agree to testify against the others. What it looks like is each of these three at least offer a perspective on different aspects of the conspiracy.

So in Chesebro's case, he gives you a bird's eye view of the fake elector scheme and how the prosecutors described in court on Friday that he was communicating with Trump and with Giuliani to recruit fake electors to ask the Republican National Committee to help recruit them, and then to provide them with these fake certificates and to give them detailed instructions about how to fill them out. So from Chesebro, you get the description of the fake elector scheme.

Sidney Powell, another campaign lawyer was somebody who was raising widespread claims of voter fraud, all of which was baseless. She pleaded guilty to a handful of misdemeanors dealing with ... The accusation was that a group of people tampered with election equipment in Coffee County, Georgia, and she gives you the window into the folks that did that.

And then Scott Hall is a bail bondsman, but he was sort of a go-between or a logistics guy for other co-defendants in the case. He wound up helping get people to the Coffee County offices to deal with that election equipment.

He also wound up spending more than an hour on the phone with Jeffrey Clark, a former Assistant Attorney General who drafted a letter full of false statements from the Justice Department to Georgia officials that talked about concerns about the 2020 election as if there had been fraud. There was not widespread fraud.

Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen refused to sign the letter. And so, Scott Hall had an hour long conversation with Jeffrey Clark on January 2nd. Of course, we all know what unfolded on January 6th, 2021, when there was the riot at the Capitol Building.

So each one of these people provides a different perspective for different aspects of this overall conspiracy, which Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has called a racketeering conspiracy to try to overturn the 2020 election.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Bart Janssen covers the Justice Department for USA Today. Thank you, Bart.

Bart Jansen:

Thanks for having me.

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Taylor Wilson:

Meanwhile, former president Donald Trump has been fined $5,000 in his New York civil trial because a social media post disparaging one of the judge's staffers remained visible for weeks.

In other court news, the Supreme Court yesterday tentatively sided with the Biden administration and agreed to decide a dispute about whether officials in the White House and federal agencies violated the First Amendment when they leaned on social media companies to suppress content about the election and COVID-19. Without comment, a majority of the justices halted a lower court's order that blocked federal agencies from coercing social media companies to take down certain posts.

The move allows the Biden administration to continue to interact with social media platforms like Facebook and X to request that they remove disinformation. And by agreeing to decide the underlying issues in the coming months, the high court is again throwing itself into a divisive fight at the intersection of social media and the government.

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More school buses around the country could be getting Wi-Fi after a vote this week from the FCC. I spoke with USA Today breaking news and education reporter, Zach Schermele, to learn more. Zach, thanks for hopping on 5 Things.

Zach Schermele:

Thanks so much for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So let's start here. What did the Federal Communications Commission decide on Thursday about school bus Wi-Fi?

Zach Schermele:

So basically the five commissioners adopted what's known as a declaratory ruling, which essentially allows the school districts across the country to use money from something called the E-Rate program, which is a program that helps schools and libraries buy affordable broadband toward Wi-Fi and technology on their school buses. It was a three to two vote along party lines.

The E-Rate program is paid for by a system of subsidies and fees from telecommunications companies. Basically what this ruling lets districts do is use some of that money to retrofit their buses with Wi-Fi, or if they've already done that, put this money toward Wi-Fi on their buses in the future.

Taylor Wilson:

And Zach, this move is aimed at rural students in particular. Why is that?

Zach Schermele:

There's really gross disparities in this country in terms of internet access for all children and students, even as most schools increasingly rely on technology for their curricular needs.

Just taking a quick look at some of the latest available data from the National Center for Education Statistics, which is a data collecting arm of the education department. Even if we look at 2019, 5% of all 5 to 17 year old students, that sounds like small potatoes but it's roughly 2.4 million students, lived in homes without internet access that year.

And according to a survey that was conducted recently by the Consortium for School Networking, which is an education technology group, only about 13% of districts nationwide say they actually provide Wi-Fi on their school buses.

Taylor Wilson:

And you touched on some of this, but why do advocates say this is such a good idea, broadly?

Zach Schermele:

The proposal was supported by Democrats on the commission and a significant amount of Democrats in Congress as well. They lauded it as a way of supporting students, particularly those in those rural areas that I mentioned who have potentially lengthy commutes to and from school. They said that greater access to Wi-Fi would help to close disparities in homework completion, in academic success. There are some studies that show that a greater access to broadband can help a student in the classroom academically.

Jessica Rosenworcel, who is the Democratic chairwoman of the commission said that she recently took a trip to Vermont, where she heard a story about a girl there who at the end of every day would rush to the library, just before the bus left, and furiously printed out all of her assignments so that she could write them out physically on the school bus. And she called that student somebody with extraordinary grit, but said it shouldn't have to be that hard to do homework.

Taylor Wilson:

And so what issues do critics have here, Zach?

Zach Schermele:

Like many education issues nowadays, this is something that has met some criticism, particularly in Congress. Senator Ted Cruz is a notable critic of this particular proposal. He sent a letter last month to several folks involved with this issue, raising concerns about what he called subsidizing unsupervised internet access to social media sites like TikTok. He said that addictive and distracting social media apps are inviting every evil force on the planet into kids' classrooms.

A superintendent that I spoke to in Vermont named Matt Fedders, said the devices on the buses in his district, however, are going to have all the same firewalls and security measures as the network does in his school building. So he said that some of those concerns from congressional Republicans don't necessarily hold water.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Zach Schermele, thank you so much for your insight here. Really appreciate it.

Zach Schermele:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

And did you know that today is National Apple Day? It's a good chance to drink some cider, bake a pie, or head out to your nearest orchard.

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And thanks for listening to 5 Things. Dana Taylor is in for the Sunday episode tomorrow where she'll discuss reparations and the shameful legacy of slavery with the chair of the California Reparations Task force, Kamilah Moore.

And a reminder, 5 Things is now on YouTube. All of our episodes, podcasts, and vodcasts are now being posted to our playlist on the site. We have a link in today's show notes.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can listen to Dana tomorrow right here on this feed, and I'll see you on Monday with more of 5 Things from USA Today.