If it's Friday, allies are in Iowa where the Republican field of presidential hopefuls and the abortion issue are colliding. Today as a cavalcade of candidates address the summit of Christian conservatives, Iowa's gutter decides to use the event to sign a new six week abortion ban into the state. Let's go in insight for that historic heat wave. The scorching temperatures challenging local and state officials in what could be the hottest week in history for some communities in Hollywood and stands still actors have joined the rioters setting off the first industry wide shutdown in more than 60 years as workers demand better pay protections against AI and more.
This is the canary in the coal mine on AI. Happy Friday. Welcome to the press. Now I am Track time reporting for Washington.
It's Republican presidential hopefuls descent on Iowa addressing social conservatives and evangelical voters at what some believe is a critical conservative Christian conference where Moments ago the governor of Iwim Reynolds used the event to sign in a lot 6 with the worship of man. The event is drawing attention, welcome or not, to two of the field's biggest challenges, the issue of abortion and the issue of Donald Trump on abortion. Governor Reynolds signed this six week ban despite public polling. Her own state suggested that Iowans do not support this.
Not even close. According to a recent survey from the Des Moinester, a solid 60% of Iowans say abortion should be legal in most circumstances. All or most of the time they have a four part question. But it is a winning issue for certain parts of the Republican base, particularly the Christian conservative voter base in Iowa's caucuses.
According to our poll, most recent NBC people, 53% of Republicans say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports a six week band. Just 29% of all registered voters agree with that same sentiment. This is a disaster to try to woo swing voters in a general election, but when I talk about general election politics, now are we Iowa now becomes the 16th state to ban abortion at six weeks or less. All the Republican candidates who are in attendance today are embracing that six week abortion ban either indirectly by simply participating in this event or directly.
Like former Arkansas Hutchinson and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who spoke at campaign stop ahead of his appearance at the summit later today. I want to congratulate Governor Reynolds and the legislature for the heartbeat bill that's going to be signed today. Arkansas has been ranked as the number one pro life state in the nation. I'm proud of that.
We want to protect the unborn child. I have such a great mother here. Governor Reynolds, she's had a fantastic job, just had a huge victory by signing the she's going to sign today. So much so many different issues make that they are the best govern states in the country.
And while former Vice President Mike Pence did not bring up abortion on stage today, earlier this week embraced position on portion that goes even further than any of his Republican competitors found. The Associated Press Abortion should be banned even when doctors have determined the pregnancy itself is not viable. Notably absent from today's summit though, was the field's far away from Donald Trump. Whether because he didn't want to tie himself to the issue of abortion, or he didn't want to be seen on stage with his rivals, or he simply still wants to feud with Iowa's governor for not yet endorsing him, it's hard to say for sure what his motivation is.
And still it doesn't change the fact that the most undisciplined candidate in this field has been remarkably disciplined on the issue of abortion. While he's claiming credit for appointing the Supreme Court justices to vote it over to Roe v. Wade way, he's gone out of his way of avoid taking any real position on the issue of abortion bans. In fact, he's gone further.
He has specifically blamed his party's disappointing mentor performance on its messaging on the issue. Again, he might have said that for self serving reasons to deflect blame away from himself for the disastrous candidates he supported in primaries, but he also may be right. Still, his absence at this conference and his comparatively moderate messaging on proportion, the least amount of the rest of the Republican field sets him apart and it puts him closer to the overall American public. Reminds me of what he did on entitlements compared to what the rest of the field did on entitlements.
Joining me now from the summit itself in Iowa is our own Dasha Burns. So Dasha, look, there's multiple electorates we're trying to understand in Iowa. You've got your general election electorate, you got a regular Republican primary electorate, and then you've got the devoted caucus electorate where this conference and Christian conservatives have provided such energy in the past. What are you sensing in there?
What do those folks want to hear? Well, this is what makes things so interesting for the candidates that showed up here and for the one candidate that didn't, former President Trump, because he being the front runner, being the far and away front runner, I think maybe is worrying more about that general election audience. And so he is playing a different game, especially when it comes to the issue of abortion. But this room, Chuck, is full of thousands of evangelical voters that are a powerful voting block here in Iowa.
And when Governor Reynolds signed that abortion bill here, she signed it to a very enthusiastic audience, a lot of applause. And the voters here, they want to see candidates that are staunchly anti abortion. And I got a chance to sit down with Bob Vanderplatz, who is putting on this event. He is an influential evangelical leader.
He also has a history of backing candidates that go on to win the Iowa caucuses. I'm talking Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum. Of course, those candidates didn't go on to win the nomination or end up in the White House. But he talked to me about why the Iowa caucus this time around is so critical because of the Trump factor.
Take a listen. President Trump has won the state twice in the general election. He lost it in the Iowa caucuses. And.
But if President Trump wins here and wins big, I just don't see how you're gonna stop him. I think he runs the table after that. However, if one of these other candidates prove that they are the alternative to Trump and they're capturing the imagination and inspiration of Iowans and Americans and they beat Trump here, I think now you change the narrative and he'll be game on to the nomination. And that's it right for these candidates.
They have to get past Iowa. They have to do well here. So they can't really be thinking about that general electorate. They have to be thinking about voters like those in the room here.
And you've got Nikki Haley on stage behind now, talking to Tucker Carlson. He's been interviewing every one of the candidates here today and pressing them on these issues that do appeal to this conservative base here in Iowa. But it's been notable. Bring up Tucker's involvement here, how little he's.
It's like he has tried to steer conversations away from abortion. It's been fascinating. Yeah, it has been interesting. He's been talking a lot more about election integrity, Ukraine, those kinds of issues.
Is this a Tucker Carlson show or is this, is this a Bob Vanderplatts event? Because it looks like Tucker's hijacking. Well, look, I think this is Tucker's first, you know, big foray into a major presidential event since he's left Fox News. So he's certainly using it to his advantage.
And he's gotten himself a couple of fliery moments with some of these candidates, especially as a Hutchinson and Mike Pence. Mike Pence was booed at one point for one of his answers on election integrity. So he's I think trying to create a little bit of a little bit of a moment here from self assure. I'm just shocked that Tucker Carlson would make this about Tucker Carlson.
Dasha Burns at the subcourse. Sasha, thank you. We bring the panel here. Audrey Faulber, he's a reporter for this special, co host of the Latino Boat podcast as well as president of Solitary Strategies, founder of New Mr.
Parks. Long intro my friend. Thank you. Republican strategist Jim Dorset, longtime Dodger fan.
Audrey, I want to talk about something that Vanderplatz said because we talked about like self serving and all this stuff. It's in Bob Vanderplatz's interest to make people think that beating Trump in Iowa will somehow get them the nomination. But the only evidence we can go back to is the evidence of eight years ago where Trump lost Iowa and while it created his chief rival. The chief rival.
Well yeah it's really interesting hearing as you mentioned Rick Santorum, he won Iowa in 2012. Ted Cruz wins it in 2016. Exactly. So Trump does not need to win Iowa to win a Republican presidential nomination.
That's it. If he does win Iowa, that bulldozes a lot of competition. A lot of people are probably likely to drop out. Right.
So it's in his interest to keep it expand his commanding lead there. But he did make a clear decision to not attend this summit this weekend attacking very popular Republican governor Kim Reynolds, which is kind of an interesting move. And as Dasha Burns mentioned, you know this is a very important block, the evangelical voting block here. So that was twice I missed it.
So I know that it's important but it's only 9 11. Jim, I am skeptical that I just think that this is a case where Trump may have accidentally be on the smart side of this. I agree completely. I think South Carolina matters more than anything.
I think New Hampshire and Iowa are there because it's historic or whatever. One thing I don't understand however is why candidates are not adopting Obama strategy in 2008 when how he beat Hillary was he went after all the caucuses and there's gotta be a delicate strategy, a smarter delegate strategy. Correct. Correct.
And that's how he slowly won. No one thought he was as far along as he was when he was. You know it's ironic here Chuck Roka is that it's the Trump team that actually has been thinking about delegates election. They've been more worried about it more to him.
I don't get the sense team to scientists understand. Look I've done a lot of work and I went we first met you remember this long time And I would go back to get part when I was with labor and labor used to have a big control here just like the evangelical do for public because you could organize your win to win here. Hence why you see a lot of people when I would have gone losing other places. The campaign also baffled to get partner for now I like it for lots of people.
So the windowing I've seen this guy who's running the conference here then mess up his name. He's been there longer than the candidate himself and he's been using this thing. We're just here to whittle down the field. We're just here to whittle give us all your money and have all your eyes on us.
That's what makes Iowa really different. But to your point, you can win a lot of other things other than I want to be. Okay, I'll go back to the abortion decision here. I have been just sort of perplexed because I can't imagine another issue where I'd seen any political party do this where you brag and flaunt the fact that you're signing and passing bills that you're that 60% of your own state are against.
Right. As we've seen Iowa, we've seen it in Florida. In other places, the disconnect between where swing voters are and where elected Republicans think they have to be on abortion. Did they not see what happened 22 well, I think a lot of Republican presidential candidates here think that they need to run the right prompt to kind of peel off some of his voters and win the nomination.
What's wrong is how Democrats are kind of handling this issue. The DNC had a press call with reporters yesterday which Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois talked about the cattle call. The only issue that came up was abortion in the six week ban. She just kept pointing out his extreme saying that, you know, she believes that this issue plays to Democrats favor going into 2024.
You know, when we think about you know, Jim brought up the fact when he worked with a lot of labor groups and Iowa and all this stuff. And as he knows a lot of those labor union members, they're now Trump owners. And you know what they are. They like their Medicare, they like Social Security benefits.
The way Trump created his coalition was going against some of these conservative constituency groups. Right. On entitlements. And is he doing it on abortion?
Well, as I've said on the show many times, he's not a conservative and Even though he's a populist in this case, he's acting like a populist. No, absolutely. Absolutely. I think Reynolds had a good week.
Trump trasher. I couldn't get any better than that. Right. So, no, but I mean, I think it's.
I think abortion is a primary issue. It's less than a general issue, although 2022, I think in a presidential year, it's less of a general issue than it is during off years or odd years. But I think, and Trump is probably playing this correctly. I mean, his comments earlier indicate he's right.
Trump's. I mean, abortion is losing an issue while Trump is too. But abortion is losing issue for us. Check if Trump is the nominee.
Do you think Democrats have to spend more time reminding people of his ties to the Supreme Court in order to make abortion more of a viable issue against somebody? I mean, you think in some ways it's easier to use abortion against DeSantis than is Trump? No, I think that it's. Trump is the easiest.
Any other Republican Congress will keep reinforcing that with issues that are going on in state legislatures. From what I've been saying in work that we're doing in a number of states, it's still top of mind for everybody. Let's get it to the other issue in this race, which is Ron Desensis. We haven't, I think we've had eight straight weeks of a story, Audrey, and you probably there's another donor having some second thoughts and this or that.
And now there's almost. I noticed there's a whole bunch of media reporters are saying, you know what this really means, Ron DeSantis, but he doesn't win the first base. This thing is over. I mean, he's got himself back into a perception corner here where this candidate is going to take it over if he's not careful.
Right. There was an interesting report in NBC News this week about how, you know, in this kind of memo to donors, respective donors, the team DeSantis is essentially saying, you know, maybe we don't think that Kihaly and Pens are a threat, but Tim Scott, you know, could end up being kind of a dark horse. What did you make of that? Is that a, is that a, a calling sign?
Is that sending the fast signal to super pac? Can you please start running opposition research and drop off a research and drop negative ads on Tim Scott, please? Yeah, I'm sure that we'll start to see more of that as this thing heats up. Yeah.
What do you think of that, Jim? That they singled Out Tim Scott. Well, I think they're right. I think Scott is the most viable of that group.
If Trump doesn't get to where he needs to be. I also think this sand is peaked entirely too early and he did nothing. Hindsight's 20 20. Absolutely.
But I mean, they should have done more to tamp it down when they had a chance. But I think they thought they had an opportunity to take Trump down early on. Obviously they didn't. And so now they've got a lot of work to do.
And he's not a good retail politician, and that's going to be a problem in these early states. Chuck, are you somebody that thinks the Democrats ought to have had an opinion about who gets out of this primary or do you stay out of it? Because we know Democrats want to mess around with primaries before. Is this one that you think Democrats ought to mess around?
Look, I think I've been doing this for 34 years and it matters to the opposition. Going back to the early days before the Internet, we wanted to make sure there were certain people that we were running against. You have to organize it. Absolutely.
Absolutely. I'm a Mexican mandate from Texas and politics is still very local and people really care about it. And that's why you should see Democrats today. People don't always talk about it, but there are certain people we will see come out of primary.
And who do you think the party wants to see? Biden. Right. Only the reason the party's united behind him is the threat of Trump.
That's right. And if Trump went away tomorrow, Biden would have problems. Yeah. I think Trump is the ultimate candidate that we want because he has shown that he cannot win elections.
We should probably not fear since I have you here, I want to tax Donald Trump. There's a story today about how Donald Trump is really focused on trying to get to blue collar men, particularly blue collar men of color, those that love mma. This has been on your patient party doesn't know that Latinos, particularly Latino blue collar. Yeah, I was just gonna say explain because this is what you're seeing is I talked about Dick Gay partner before.
He was the world liberal. That's why I was there. Steel work, precious. You're going down when you're going to work for dad part because he was our guy.
The Democratic Party was our party. Over the years, it's still been a party of work contest. But you see this move away from the message that we allow Donald Trump to absolutely steal, even though he didn't mean it. He sounded like a big Gap party Democrat which then shaved off white men.
He started shaving off younger Latino men. We just see a pole after poll. We still win all of that. But it was just enough of a shaving off where it mattered in 2016 and close election.
Oh, you were seeing this, right? He's targeting the Mike Tyson podcast. He showed up at the Marshall at the, he showed up at the, at the MMA fight in UFC fight last weekend in Vegas. This is a strategy.
Absolutely. I think that we'll continue to see that as the cycle heats up. Anyway, nice to see you. Thank you all.
Let me turn now to Joe Biden. The Democrat 5 reaction campaign and Democratic Party groups raised more than $72 million in the first quarter since announcing the reaction effort. That's according to the campaign. Campaign also says it has $77 million in cash on hand.
Of course, we actually see the report what's primary, what's general, all that business. We'll know a little bit more about how successful these fundraisers were. Mike Mull joins me now with more on this reporting. Mike, it was a little bit concerning to some Democrats to see Joe Biden like do this last minute late June travel to New York and San Francisco.
There was this like it had the whip up. Is there panic in the air? The numbers look fine, but is there anything we should be looking under the hood on here? Yeah, Chuck, I mean you mentioned that the president did 12 high dollar fundraisers.
About half of them were in the final week of June. And the most important phrase was the one you mentioned. According to the campaign, the numbers we're talking about today are the numbers the campaign wants us to talk about heading into the weekend before everyone tunes out and the report lands with more specifics. So some of the numbers that we're going to be looking closely for are what is the split between the Biden campaign itself and the DNC and the Joint Victory Fund?
Because that gives us a cleaner apples to apples comparison with sort of the previous benchmarks, Obama 2012, Trump 2020. But also we want to look at some other things, which is how many people did give that maximum because the Biden campaign Now has all 50 states DC as part of this fundraising agreement. The new single individual max out donation is $928,000. That's a huge amount and it might have say that again.
So any individual who wants to support the Democratic Party and Joe Biden's presidential campaign, it isn't $5,800. It's nearly a million dollars, 928,600 to be exact. And that's because they've added more states into this joint fundraising committee. So I call that a loophole for sure.
Yeah. Because when we look at this report, we'll see how many people did actually max out, because that's an important metric, by the way, how many donors are all in for this president at this point. But the other numbers the Biden campaign put out today are about those small dollar donations. They say that 97% of the donations were under 200, that they expanded their donor base, people who didn't give in 2020, who gave this time, 30% of the total.
So there is a lot to like for Democrats who have a lot of other numbers they're worried about, especially 80, which is the president's age force. I want to pivot quickly to this announcement that the secretary of education made. So let me ask it this way. Is this a real attempt at trying to do something more on student loans or is this an administrative fix that they were going to do and had to do anyway and they're dressing it up looking like it's a response on student loans?
Yeah, this was something that had already been in the works, was being put through the regulatory process before the Supreme Court weighed in. But the way in which the White House made sure we knew about it certainly spoke to the need to demonstrate some forward progress on a very important issue. The bigger regulatory hurdle, of course, is how they are trying to make that Supreme Court fix, taking it out of the pandemic emergency authorization and into a more traditional higher education act as that legal foundation for it. And we know the campaign cares a lot about those voters under four.
That's right. Yeah. By knowledge. Thanks, sir.
Coming up, House Speaker McCarthy celebrates that Republicans pass a military funding bill stuffed with a bunch of cultural priorities on a party line vote and has a little chance passing the Senate. Plus, authorities may have captured a serial killer in a case that has confounded investigators for more than a decade. In this day and ages, DNA, the idea serial killers are still out there is shocking at times. 11 detective profound dead run a very latest investigation.
Welcome back. Earlier today, the House nearly passed the annual defense spending bill, but now without including what many Democrats consider poison pill amendments, House version of the annual bill known as the National Defense Authorization act, which usually sees strong bipartisan support in the guts of it about the actual defense stuff itself still is bipartisan, but this one passed largely on party lines. And the reason for this partisan divide this time, a slew of cultural amendments added to the legislation, including barring the Pentagon from reimbursing service members for abortion related expenses. Remember, they're not paying for the abortion, but they'll pay for the travel if you're happy to be based in a state that bans abortion.
There was also amendments that would prohibit transgender health care being provided for by essentially Tricare, which is of course what members of the military receive in the government health care. And banning diversity offices and training requirements. The legislation will not be reconciled with whatever version comes out of the Democratic controlled Senate before once again coming back for a vote in a divided Congress later this year. Nobles on Capitol and Ryan I am, I'm one that has like been trying to tell people, remain calm.
This is round one. This is it seems as if even folks like Chip Roy know this was a messaging bill, not the actual bill. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I echo your sentiment on that, Chuck, in particular because I had conversation with the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCall, shortly after the vote, who's as clear eyed about the situation as anyone.
And he made it very clear to me and the other reporters that this is a process, that this bill's gonna go to the Senate. A lot of these poison pill amendments are gonna be stripped out. They're gonna have a conference committee, they're gonna hash it out in that conference committee and then ultimately this will be passed in some sort of bipartisan fashion. Now, there is always a caveat that the Freedom Caucus or the conservative members in the Republican House conference could throw things into chaos.
And whether or not Kevin McCarthy goes along with that chaos, it's an open question. But if they deliver the kind of bill that they initially delivered out of committee, which I think there's only one negative vote on, it's hard to imagine that there'd be any scenario where this doesn't get passed with bipartisan support. There's a little bit work to do here, but yes, this is the process that we're dealing with this morning. Give me timelines here so we can mark our calendars.
When should we expect the Senate to be done with this? That's a good question. It's an open question. They're going to begin their process next week.
I believe Chuck Schumer's timelines have it wrapped up before they leave for the August recess. They'll then go to a conference committee. And an interesting wrinkle in the conference committee conversation. Shock.
That's, of course, the group of senators and House members that come together to try and reconcile the differences with the bill. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was very Much opposed to the bill last night, voted yes for today because she was asked by Kevin McCarthy to sit on this conference committee. So that's an example of these wrinkles that could mess the whole thing up. And you have someone like Marjorie Taylor Green in the mix as part of the negotiating team trying to figure this all out.
Those are some of the curveballs that the members are still gonna have to deal with before this whole situation is settled. So let's just remind people, we go from when she first got into Congress, where the House of Representatives stripped her committee assignments. Essentially, one election later, she's now helping design defense policy for the United States of America on a conference committee. Chuck, you know, I had the same exact thought that you did, that only a year ago, she wasn't on any committees.
And now she's gonna be sitting on a conference committee for one of the most important pieces of legislation that the Congress is gonna produce all year. It is pretty incredible, but it's also one of the reasons that she has run into trouble with her fellow, I should call them now, former members of the Freedom Caucus, because she's cozied up to House leadership in the form of Kevin McCarthy. But she still remains a very popular figure on the conservative right. So she's definitely gonna have a lot of influence in terms of how Kevin McCarthy handles this once that final product comes out of the conference committee.
Quick, so now that the House has a bill that will likely force this issue to the conference committee, does Tommy Tupperfield drop his opposition now? Does this sort of clear the way for this? Because he knows, look, what he cares about is going to be in this bill debated and, you know, look, you know, up or down, so he's gonna get his vote. Does this probably create the conditions for him to drop?
I do think that this is his exit ramp truck. But when I talked him about this yesterday, he specifically said that he was not going to be satisfied with just an amendment vote. He wanted a standalone vote on this particular measure with a policy specific to this measure. And if the vote failed, then the policy would go away.
Now, there's no. Why wouldn't Chuck Schumer say, fine, because it's going to fail? Like, why would you do that? Because here's the difference, Chuck.
If it's a standalone piece of legislation, it's going to require 60 votes. If it's an amendment and it goes to the amendment process with the ndaa, it only has to get that minimum vote. Fine, it's not going to get 60 votes. Well, but what he's asking for is a vote on the policy that he wants.
And so he, you know, there's no been question as to whether or not there's 60 folks to get that policy over the finish line and then enact it into law. So, you know, I do think, though, to answer your question, that this, this is perhaps. And what he said yesterday, you have to keep in mind that like two weeks ago when he was talking about this, he wasn't interested in negotiation. He wanted the policy rescinded or he wasn't going to lift a hold on these military appointments.
Now he's at least open to conversation and negotiation. He said to me yesterday, we gotta get in a room and talk about this. He didn't want to talk about it two weeks ago. So he seems to be open to that exit ramp at this point.
It is amazing. Sometimes an elected official just wants a phone call from a secretary of defense, maybe President of the United States, and suddenly they're willing to play ball. Rhino. It doesn't hurt.
It doesn't hurt that he got called out by the president on foreign soil, that that was the attention he might have been looking for? Yeah, I think so. Reynolds and Capital Force friend. Thanks, sir.
Up next, we're gonna head out to Hollywood where for the first time in one half century, both actors and writers are on strike at the same time. It's major turmoil and major sector of the economy. But more importantly. Why do you shush?
Why should you care? Because they're on the front lines of this AI issue that's gonna hit all of us in the next few years. So pay attention to this strike. You watch me first now.
Welcome back. For the first time in more than four decades, thousands of Hollywood actors are on strike. Some formed picket lines today after their union, SAG aftra, failed to reach an agreement with the industry's leading studios. At the heart of the dispute, it's money associated with Stream services as well as AI and other digital technology that's replacing humans.
The whole business model has changed. And if they don't allow us to change the contract to reflect on the new business model, what are we talking about? We're moving around furniture on the tit. We're all going to be put out of business.
And it's crazy. Consider this the last time both Hollywood actors and writers went on strike at the same time. As back in 1960, we showed up Comcast, which owns our current company, Ambassador Universal, is one of those entertainment companies represented by the alliance of motion pictures and television producers. Jenny Kip Joins me now from Burbank, California.
And we should know it's a smaller protest now because they're permanent right now. Just a few minutes ago, but walk me through what you saw in the picket lines today. Oh, my goodness. Wow.
Day one, there was quite a turnout, Chuck. I would say there were maybe 700 people, 500 from SAG alone. And then you had writer strike people, you had teamsters, you had teachers union, you had seiu all coming out here to support the day one of the strike is that you had quite a turnout here in Burbank, which has many studios, but the one I'm in front of happens to be Disney Studios. And the sentiment all around, lots of this pumping, lots of excitement and rallying around the same cause, but a lot of fear as well.
Let's be real. These people are scared that this is day one of 300. Right. They're afraid that the economy's gonna turn.
They're lose their homes. So. Yeah. But I also want to talk about the collateral damage beyond those on the strike, which is you got your concession workers, your service workers, you got, you know, the coffee shops, the restaurants that, you know, this is, you know, it's coffee town there.
Particularly Burbank, but in larger part of Southern California. If this strike. I've talked to some experts who think the best case scenario is resolution in October. What kind of financial hit is this gonna be?
The local car? You know, people at Chuck really have no idea how serious this is. I think a lot of people around the world and the country are like, yeah, you know, I'm canceled, whatever. Doesn't really affect me.
Oh, but it does. Because if you've ever seen the end of a movie or the end of a show and you stuck around for the credits, it goes on for 10 minutes. Every single one of those people. Well, except for maybe the post production people are out of a job right now.
And post production is like the editing. Right. So anything that's been filmed, maybe those editors will have a job until the strike ends. But anybody in production grips, gaffers, associate producers, all those names where you really don't know what they do.
Hundreds of thousands of people. Yeah. And again, this is just so much trickle down impact on this that I don't think people will fully appreciate until this thing drags on. Genie can on the ground force in Southern California.
Thank you. And as we just said, the big piece of this dispute has to do with technology. AI in particular has been a key concern for actors as a technology gets better and better at replicating human voices, human behavior. Writers are worried about this as they can just sort of write their own scripts in the style of a Law and Order episode, right?
Nobody's going to get that. And guess what? AI is coming for all of our jobs if we're not careful. This is why all of us should be paying attention.
Our technology corresponding to work has more. Chuck. The reason that AI is on everybody's mind is apparent every time you open something like Instagram or TikTok. If you've ever played with one of the face filters on there, you know what the actors here are worried about?
The extraordinary ability of AI to create lifelike faces, impose other emotions on our faces. All of that is obviously spelling disaster in the minds of professional performers. The sorts of fights we're already seeing between SAG AFTRA and the representatives of studios have to do with things like what background actors have recently been offered by those studios. And that is a single day's pay in exchange for scanning their faces in such that AI could replicate them in the background of a scene for perpetuity.
That again would be a single day's pay. And not only would you be wiping out your higher ability from then on because why would they need you again? You would also be not making SAG AFTRA's minimum pay standard of a little more than $26,000 a year in order to get health care through the union. All of this, of course, has, you know, is a big part of why they are so upset.
It also, you know, cannot have escaped their attention that the Directors Guild of America, which recently concluded its negotiations over a three year contract, they specifically made it such that generative AI would be forbidden from replacing their role in production going forward. It's that that probably has SAG AFTRA thinking about the future of AI and place in this, this historic moment as that technology continues to transform the industry. Thanks a lot, Jake Ward. I hope you will catch what Jake Ward and I put together.
Meet the Press reports episode on artificial intelligence is really, really good. Go check it out @meet the press.com after the break. The suspected serial killer behind at least 11 known murders in New York area has now been taken into custody in a case that has signed investigators for more than a decade. Some of the details next.
You're watching. Welcome back. We are following some breaking news out of Long island and following it all morning long. Authorities right now are holding a press conference with some new details about a case they believe they've now solved of a Long island serial killer that had confounded them for more than a decade.
Police say the suspected serial killer Rex Heuerman, an architect from Massapequa, New York was arrested last night in Manhattan and died today in Long Island. Been charged with multiple counts of murder had to a string of 11 deaths known as the Gilgo beach murders. Authorities just disclosed information about how they track down the suspect through an exhaustive investigation that included 300 plus subpoenas and search warrants. Mitochondrial DNA tracing technology, geolocation data from burner phones associated with the suspect, A Google search history in Moore.
Here's Suffolk county data declaring the mystery of the Gilgo beach murders solved. These young women went missing between July of 2007 and September of 2010. They were found in December of 2010 by the Suffolk County Police Department. And then there was nothing, absolutely nothing for their for the next 13 years their cases went unsolved until today.
Raina Ellis joins me now with the Lacera. Let's start with that. What made it so difficult? That's a lot of murder victims and a lot of years with little progress in an era of 21, 23andMe and DNA technology where we've been catching serial killers all over the west coast.
It seems every month you see a new story thanks to DNA. So it's shocking to see something in the 21st century take this long to solve. Well, it is a question that so many people have. One of the things I heard the authorities say that some of the DNA evidence that they were able to uncover the technology for uncovering this micro, the micro DNA was not available until more recently.
The other thing that I think that is a significant second here. It was reported that they formed a multi law enforcement task force about a year ago, maybe 18 months ago. And they were given a brand new directive of solve this case. Something that had gone unsolved for so many years.
And it is a stunning development that in this cold case of over a decade that they now have a man in custody, this 59 year old Rex Herman, whom they are charging with three of the 11 murders. The interesting thing about this too Chuck, is that these three women who are identified as victims of 59 year old Rex Herman, it's not the original person whom they were looking for, which is Shannon Gilbert. She was reported missing in 2010 and when they were looking for her, they in this area along Gilgo beach, they came upon the remains of another victim. Shortly after that they found another victim and another victim and another victim.
Do we get to the point that there are remains of some 11 people found in the stretch of this community of Long island known as Gilgo beach. And it was called the Long Island Serial Murders. But it took all this time for them to do that and really to focus and to focus these agencies of the FBI, the state police and county police officers also working with some help from New York City detectives to bring us to where we are now. But again, Sharon Gilbert's name is not the one mentioned in the three names that we have mentioned that this man is now being charged with their murder.
What do they know about him? How long have they had him as a suspect? That's a good question. They mentioned that they had been looking at him again with the formation of this task force for several months, if not over a year.
And they were able to use cell phone video. They found out that this man had burner phones. And they also found that he was looking recently searching child pornography. Investigators were tracking his online activities and found that he was also looking to see what were investigators doing in reference to this case known as the Long Island Serial case.
And what police were very strategic in doing is making care, making careful that they were not releasing more information than they wanted him to be aware of because they now suspected that he was tracking them. So they started tracking him through cell phones, through DNA material and through these mirror phones and by being able to connect where his phone was on at the time of some of the victim's phones were on as well. That's a stunning case of detective work. It is.
And what you're describing and what you're describing feels like right out of the right of the episode of Mindhunter on how they were able to try to cry. It is, it is astonishing some of these similarities, a gruesome story, but hopefully some resolution and justice for these families. Thank you. After the break, no relief in sight from this historic heat.
Wait, I want to talk to the chief heat officer in one of the hardest hit cities on earth on how his city is coping and preparing you. Watch me to press down. Welcome back. A third of Americans are now under heat alerts heading into this weekend as a brutal, dangerous heat wave breaks the southwest United States.
Phoenix temperatures have remained in triple digits for nearly a month now. Yes, it's Phoenix in July, but this is something they've never fakes. And forecasts are predicting that it will get even hotter this weekend. The National Weather Service forecast expects temperatures to peak as high as 118 degrees in Phoenix and possibly 120 degrees in other parts of the state.
Marissa Para has the latest from Phoenix for us. As the city Prepares to get even hotter. Hey, yeah. Here in Phoenix, no matter whether you're outside or even if you're inside like we are with the doors open, I mean, it is just inescapably hot.
It is only supposed to get hotter throughout the day as the sun rises in the sky. And then we also have hotter temperatures to look forward to this weekend. And for the Phoenix Fire Department, I mean these, these hot temperatures are really keeping them busy. They're keeping the cooling shelters busy.
They said that, you know, the cooling shelters are not only extending their hours to try to accommodate for more people, especially during what they're calling those peak hours in the afternoon sun, but they're also open on the weekends, they're open later. And something they've been telling me is that they're actually seeing more people come in at a time when typically they're not quite as busy. And now they've had 13 days of this, 13 straight days of 110 degree temperatures. The salvation army has teams that are going around giving heat relief bags and water to people who may need it, particularly the homeless population here in Phoenix and fantasy that is used to heat.
But even this is extreme for Phoenix. We know that the local physicians have been talking about, about they're seeing more heat related injuries than they typically do. Even Phoenix Fire Department saying that just yesterday they treated a man with third degree burns all over his body from laying outside on the concrete. He had been burned where he was laying down and they were up to third degree burns.
We do not know how long this person was, but this is the kind of temperature that we're dealing with right now. Your skin burns within five minutes, within three minutes of being on the concrete. The Phoenix Fire Department says they have received at least 260 calls since July 6. In fact, they believe that a number of heat related calls could be even higher because of how deceiving heat related illness and injury can be when they respond to a call.
But the bottom line here is those temperatures are not expected to cool down anytime soon. In fact, this weekend it's expected to get upwards of 118 degrees. Marissa Parr with that reporting force must thank you. As you heard from the fire captain, he can make even the most mundane aspects of city life extremely dangerous.
Last year I spoke with Phoenix's chief heat officer David Hundua on the ground about his city's efforts to address extreme heat. Knowing this was going to keep happening, that you know it's hot in the summer, it was going to get hotter thanks to climate change, world his efforts included cooling down pavement with special paint. Take a look. There's two different colors to the road.
That makes it easier for us to see the lighter color. Is this new technology a cooler asphalt, I guess, or a cooler. We call it cool pavement here in Phoenix. It's a coating that goes on top of the traditional asphalt.
This is more traditional asphalt, which somebody might do in their own driveway or whatever. Absolutely, yeah. This is what we use on thousands and thousands of miles of streets here in Phoenix. This other coating is only on about 80 miles right now.
This is a more reflective coating that's designed to prevent the sunlight from getting into asphalt column itself. Well, back with me now one year later, is the Phoenix chief officer David. And David, it's good to see you and visit with you. I'm not sorry that I'm not with you.
120 degree heat right now there though. So one year later, first of all, your efforts, you know, at heat mitigation, how many more miles of this cool pavement? How's the shade tree program due a year later? Do you have permanent funding?
Walk me through. Chuck. It's good to be back with you and thanks for bringing more attention to the dangers that he poses to our communities and how our communities can respond with respect to cool pavement up to 100 miles. Now continuing to learn how it's performing, respect to urban forestry, we continue to see unprecedented opportunity.
Lots of resources at the table now, especially through the U.S. forest Service. Recently we got a couple of big proposals in with them. So really excited about being quite literally being able to add orders of magnitude to tree planting in the city in pursuit of a cooler and more comfortable one for everyone.
You know, the tree planting thing has been a riddle here, right? Finding the right tree that would not be invasive, that would actually provide shade. I mean, I don't mean to get into the weeds here, pun intended, but what are you guys looking at? You know, Chuck, what we've learned is that workforce is a really important part of the riddle here.
If we were driving some neighborhoods in South Phoenix, I would see hiring signs signing bonus opportunities. We see a big need to grow the workforce not just in Phoenix and Southwest, but all across the country to ensure that we have trained laborers who are maintaining our green infrastructure in the city and of course, growing the plant material that we need, particularly for those desert adapted, drought tolerant and native species that we really think are the heart of the solution to growing the urban forest here. So last year, one of the things you told me is that, look, this was a department that Sort of got the city used some funding from the American Rescue plan which was right after Biden's election. This was.
But it was temporary money. And you were open to sort of prove your mettle here, Right? So it becomes a permanent fixture. Have you won over folks enough?
Is this gonna become a permanent agency in the city? Things are looking good, Chuck. Thanks for the question. We've been able to grow our staff in office of Heat Response Mitigation, adding a dedicated person to focus on heat response, coordinating cities programs that right now we're hopeful we'll bring down those 911 calls that we talked about, prevent heat associated deaths.
We've been adding staff, adding a bit of operational budget, but also continuing to work with those other city departments that have the big stats and budgets to help shape their programs. We talk about cool pavement, we talk about shade trees. What about roofs? Yeah, roofs.
Such an important part of our work moving forward. I think that's really the next frontier, the next topic for our heat office. We're working with some private sector partners on assessing where we are as a city with respect to cool roof coverage so we can design a program that can fill in the gaps. If we were to look at a thermal image of the city from space or from a helicopter.
Two hot features really stand out, the streets and the roofs. We're making some progress on the streets. We really want to go on roofs. I think that's a topic upcoming for us now.
How about basic shelters? Look, we have a homeless population problem all over the country. I know Phoenix is not immune from this either. This is, this is where it gets acute.
This is what we talk about. The health risk here of just sitting on concrete or laying on concrete. You could get, get life threatening burns here. What kind of air conditioned or cool cooling shelters have you been able to come up with?
We're so thankful that our regional planning organization coordinates a network of more than 200 cooling centers, hydration stations and respite centers. And we continue to learn how to do that work better. But as you reported, those facilities are seeing use. They're helping to meet the demand out there.
We know we have work to do to strengthen the heat relief network, particularly adding capacity after hours on the weekends. He doesn't discriminate between weekends. Weekdays we know it's still quite hot at 6, 7 o' clock at night when he still is closed. I think this could be a particularly exciting way that cities can partner with fema.
We see legislation now to add extreme heat to the Stafford act supporting cities and expanding their heat relief opportunities might be a real good way for that partnership to unfold. What would FEMA money do for you? At a minimum, we could add staff support to keep facilities open for more hours. We could add skilled training at these facilities that could allow responding to the individual circumstances that people are in and their needs, providing really a basket of services at these cooling centers, hydration stations.
We've seen pilot scale versions of this succeed already, particularly with some of our faith based partners at one or two locations. How can we do that at the scale of a city, a region or even the United States to make this really, really more effective solution? It's working to an extent right now, but we can scale up in a big way. Well, a lot of this they gonna do.
You're trying to take pilot projects and turning into big projects. It looks like you continue to make progress. We'll continue to check in and keep fighting to see what can be done here. David Donald, the chief dedication officer for Phoenix.
Thank you. Thank you all for being with us this hour. We're back Monday with more Meet the Press Now. I'm Craig Melt.
Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy and now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too.
Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs and challenges. Their stories are funny and I can't. So I hope you're joining each week. Who knows, you might just come away with your own Glass Half Full.
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