The Headlines - Explosive Claims About Gaetz, and Dozens Jailed in Hong Kong Mass Trial

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Plus, the man who opened travel to the masses.   Tune in every weekday morning. To get our full audio journalism and storytelling experience, download the New York Times Audio app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. On Today’s Episode:Lawyer Says His Client Testified That She Saw Gaetz Having Sex With Underage Girl, by Maggie HabermanTrump Confirms Plans to Use the Military to Assist in Mass Deportations, by Charlie Savage and Michael GoldBiden Asks Congress for Nearly $100 Billion in Disaster Aid, by Erica L. Green and Catie EdmondsonDozens of Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Leaders Sentenced in Mass Trial, by Tiffany MayCoffee, Juice, Shawarma: Tiny Traces of Normal Life in a Ruined Gaza, by Vivian Yee and Bilal ShbairLooters Strip Aid From About 100 Trucks in Gaza, U.N. Agency Says, by Hiba Yazbek and Erika SolomonArthur Frommer, 95, Dies; His Guidebooks Opened Travel to the Masses, by Paul Vitello

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, November 19. Here's what we're covering. For more than two years, the House Ethics Committee was investigating Florida Representative Matt Gaetz over claims of sexual misconduct, drug use, and other allegations. When he resigned from the House last week after being picked by Donald Trump for attorney general, it seemed possible that the details of what the committee found would never be released. House Speaker Mike Johnson moved to block their report. Now, a lawyer representing two women who were subpoenaed to testify in front of the Ethics

Committee is speaking out. She arrived at the party. She had sex with Representative Gates within minutes of her arrival. Joel Leppard told multiple TV news programs last night that Gates paid his two clients for sex in 2017, soon after Gates took office. He said the women told the committee they were paid on Venmo. And Leppard said one of his clients also testified she saw Gates having sex with her underage friend who was 17 at the time.

My clients want to know that this is, this happened and it's real. They didn't vote in the last two elections. They don't care one way or another. But they do want the public to know that they are not lying. Gates has previously denied the allegations, and a spokesman for the Trump transition team called them baseless, saying Gates was, quote, the right man for the job for attorney general.

Still, the Times has learned that in private conversations over the last few days, Trump admitted Gates may not get confirmed. Senators from both parties have expressed concerns about him. But picking someone as polarizing as Gates was part of Trump's plan, and it might get some of his other controversial picks through the process. It's a flood-the-zone approach. Trump is picking so many divisive choices for his cabinet, essentially betting that the Senate won't turn all of them down.

Meanwhile, Trump used his social media platform to confirm how he plans to conduct the immigration crackdown he promised while campaigning. On Truth Social yesterday, he shared a post that said his administration will declare a national emergency and use the military to carry out a mass deportation program. Trump added the word true in all caps

with three exclamation points. Declaring a national emergency would give him the power to deploy troops inside the US and to reallocate funding. Trump's top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, has said that part of the Pentagon budget will be used to build vast holding facilities to process migrants. It's the President campaigned on it. Vast deportations of all the people that have been illegally dumped into our country. That's what the mandate was. Trump's Republican allies on Capitol Hill, including Representative Chip Roy of Texas,

have expressed broad support for the plans, while immigrant advocacy groups have rushed to condemn them, with one director of the group, Human Rights First, telling the Times, quote, families will be torn apart, businesses left without vital employees, and our country will be left to pick up left without vital employees, and our country will be left to pick up the pieces for years to come. President Biden is asking Congress to approve almost $100 billion in aid to help communities across the U.S. recover from a series of devastating recent natural disasters. In a letter to Congress yesterday,

Biden said the aid is urgently needed in places like Florida and the Carolinas that are struggling to recover from hurricanes this fall, as well as Midwestern states still rebuilding after tornadoes last year. The money would help federal agencies pay for debris clearing, compensate farmers who lost

crops and livestock, and fund the government's disaster loan program for people who need to rebuild or repair their property. That loan program has run completely dry. It received 100,000 applications for help from people affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton alone. Even in a divided Washington, Biden's request might be met with bipartisan support, since Congress is trying to tie up loose ends before the new administration comes in, and also because much of the disaster aid would go to Republican districts. This morning, a court in Hong Kong delivered what's being called a knockout blow to hopes for democracy in the city.

The court sentenced 45 former politicians and activists for conspiracy to commit subversion, for participating in an unofficial primary election several years ago. It's the most forceful use yet of a national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong, as it's increasingly tightened its grip on the Chinese territory. So many people were on trial that the courthouse had to set up what it called a mega courtroom to carry out the sentencing. The court handed down multi-year prison terms for many of the defendants, including veteran lawmakers and also young

pro-democracy politicians. Analysts say that the trial was a stark reminder of how the Chinese government is unwilling to tolerate dissent of any kind, and it's been this awful story of tens of thousands of people being killed, many people starving nearly to death, a struggle to get even the most basic supplies in to the people who need it. But at the same time, people have started to create these little tiny pockets of normality, just to feel like even amid all this death and destruction, they have a little bit of their normal lives. Vivien Yee is part of the team covering Gaza for the Times.

And she says the town of Derebala in the center of the territory has become one of those tiny pockets. My colleague Bilal Shabir has been on the ground in Derebala and he spoke to residents and people displaced from other parts of Gaza who are now sheltering there. And people living there say, you know, most of the time, they can kind of settle into a rhythm of daily life there. One place where you see this is a street called Martyrs Street. It's the longest one in town, and Bilal has reported on lots of businesses opening up there, including shawarma places where you can get a sandwich or coffee shops, and juice shops where you can get avocado smoothies

and orange juices freshly squeezed. And he says that lots of people go and line up for dessert or go meet their friends for coffee. And he says that on parts of the street, it kind of does feel oddly normal, even though elsewhere in Dar al-Balakh, you see the tents of displaced people and they can hear airstrikes.

And obviously they know that they could have to evacuate or an airstrike could strike at any moment. But at the same time, they do have this sort of oasis. Obviously people in Dar al-Bala are not oblivious to what's happening elsewhere in Gaza. Everyone has friends or family living in much worse conditions. And so some of the people we spoke to said,

there's definitely this sort of cognitive dissonance where they wanna be able to focus on their own lives, but they know other people are suffering terribly, and there's a sense of guilt for sure. We talked to one woman who said that when she is on the phone with her daughter in northern Gaza, where things are much, much worse, she basically just lies to her about what she's eating because she feels so guilty that she's able to get all this stuff while her daughter has almost nothing. The struggle to get supplies into Gaza was underscored this weekend when a large convoy of trucks was violently looted, according to UNRWA, the UN agency that oversees aid to Palestinians.

109 trucks crossed together into southern Gaza before attackers shot out the tires. The agency said some of the drivers were shot, and it's still waiting to hear about casualties. Only 11 of the trucks made it to their destination. It's not clear who was responsible, but in much of Gaza there are no police officers, and organized crime groups and armed gangs have stepped in to fill the vacuum. UNRWA called this week's looting incident one of the worst of the war. And finally, the man who encouraged millions of Americans to take that European vacation, Arthur Fromer, has died at 95.

A trip to Europe has always been a luxury, but it used to be the exclusive domain of the super wealthy, until Fromer put out his guidebook in 1957 titled Europe on $5 a day. In it, he insisted that you didn't have to own an oil well to see London, Paris, and Rome, and millions of Americans liked the idea. The book sold out nearly overnight, and Fromer's travel guides became the standard for budget-conscious tourism.

One travel industry expert told the Times that Fromer basically single-handedly changed how Americans vacationed by making Europe seem possible. Fromer, who developed his love of travel in the army, believed that thrifty travelers did it better than the rich. They learned more, they saw more, and they interacted with more locals. He had a couple of rules in his early editions. Never travel first class. He advised people to skip the propeller plane or the ocean liner and to consider

traveling by freighter to Europe instead. He said you should pack lightly, take public transportation, and in Venice in particular he said skip the gondolas. He warned in his first edition that they could cost as much as $3 an hour. Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, how the people who pushed back during Trump's first term, the so-called resistance, are responding to his win this time. That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.