How the Platner Campaign Imploded, and New Questions About Trump’s Qatari-Donated Jet

0:00This podcast is supported by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Here's a story that's not getting nearly enough attention. Defunding Planned Parenthood has already caused chaos and harm, and access to essential reproductive care is plummeting. Right now, the Trump administration's backers in Congress want to permanently defund Planned Parenthood, forcing even more health centers to close, and millions at risk of losing access to care. It takes less than a minute to help. Go to plannedparenthood.org slash defend and make a gift of any size. From The New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford.

0:37Today's Thursday, July 9th. Here's what we're covering.

0:45We built a campaign. We engaged in electoral politics. We motivated people. We did it the way that we were told we are supposed to make change. And now they are not going to let us have it. Not if it's me. and so we're suspending campaign operations. Graham Plattner, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine, has bowed out of the race after facing intense pressure from his party following an accusation of rape. The Marine veteran and oysterman, who came out of nowhere in the last year to become a star of the progressive movement, has vehemently denied the allegation, but said yesterday that there was no way his campaign could continue under that cloud.

1:28Those in power who have the ability to do so are using these allegations as an excuse to take away all of the things that we need to run a campaign. The rape allegation was the final blow for Plattner, leading to ally after ally pulling their support. And the Senate Democratic campaign arm said it wouldn't put money into his race. But it was also only the latest controversy around Plattner. In the last year, at the same time as his campaign was building the first-time candidate into a rising star, it was weathering a steady drip of scandal, from old offensive social media posts to a tattoo he'd had resembling a Nazi symbol to reports from women who he'd dated about unsettling behavior.

2:16Along the way, Plattner denied the most serious allegations and urged Mainers to not judge him for, quote, the worst thing I said on the internet on my worst day 14 years ago. Those familiar with his campaign told the Times that Plattner repeatedly promised there was nothing else damaging from his past that could come up, and then something else would. Now, there are growing questions about whether the vetting process was thorough enough, given how key the main Senate race is for control of Congress. Plattner, dropping out this close to Election Day, has injected a new level of chaos into Democrats' effort to flip the seat blue.

2:57The state Democratic Party has said it's going to hold a convention to choose a new nominee, which it needs to do before a deadline of July 27th.

3:13In Turkey last night, President Trump wrapped up his trip for the NATO summit. But instead of flying off on his new Qatari-donated Boeing 747, which he took to Turkey, Trump left on the old Air Force One instead because of security concerns. According to people briefed on the change in plans, the precautionary move came at the urging of the Secret Service, after attacks flared up again between the U.S. and Iran, which borders Turkey. The officials didn't say why that necessitated a plane switch, but ever since the U.S. accepted the jet, there have been questions about whether it could be properly retrofitted with all the security measures Air Force One planes usually have.

3:55For example, the older planes have been widely reported to include things like a system that can force missiles off course. But it's unclear if any of those capabilities have been installed on the new luxury jet, which Trump pressed to get into service as quickly as possible. Sources briefed on the new plane's capabilities said it doesn't have all the features of the older planes. Yesterday, Trump denied that the change in aircraft was about security, saying instead that he would travel on the original Air Force One, quote, for old times' sake, and so that the new jet could leave early and stop at a U.S.

4:30military base in England to let troops there tour the aircraft. But when pressed by reporters, Trump also repeatedly said that he was Iran's number one target. And when he left Turkey, he boarded unusually quickly, and passengers flying with him were instructed to pull their window shades down before takeoff. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the U.S. and Iran are continuing their attacks. The Pentagon said it's hit nearly 100 Iranian targets in its latest round of strikes, And Iran said early this morning that it's launched more drones and missiles at U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.

5:14Around 7 a.m., I was notified by my mom that something bad had happened to my dad. We didn't know what. All we knew is that it was ICE-related. In Houston, the family of a man from Mexico who was killed by an ICE agent during a traffic stop is calling for an independent investigation. He did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of a Mexican man shot and killed by ICE. According to federal authorities, immigration agents stopped a vehicle on Tuesday morning and tried to arrest Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a business owner who'd been in the U.S. for 35 years. They said Araujo, quote, weaponized his vehicle and tried to run over one of the agents, who then fired at him.

5:59No evidence or video camera footage was immediately provided to support that account, and many details of the interaction remain unclear. The fatal shooting is part of a growing number of violent interactions involving immigration agents. Since September, more than 20 people have been shot by federal officers, nearly all of them in their cars. And officials have said in most cases that the agents' actions were justified because those vehicles had also been, quote, weaponized. Later, many government accounts of those shootings were contradicted by video evidence. The shooting in Houston came as the White House has been pushing ICE to ramp up immigration arrests across the country.

6:41In recent weeks, the number of daily arrests has doubled as officials are detaining migrants on the streets, at check-ins with immigration authorities, and during traffic stops.

7:05In Venezuela, the Times has been covering the aftermath of the deadly twin earthquakes, as a frantic search for survivors has turned into a desperate search for remains. Two weeks after the quakes caused scores of buildings to crumble and collapse, the official death toll stands at nearly 3 ,700 people. But thousands are still missing, and many Venezuelans, who were outraged at the government's slow initial response to the disaster, are now worried that officials will demolish damaged buildings and remove rubble before their loved ones are found or identified. So, while many international search and rescue teams have left, large numbers of family members are still picking through the rubble with their bare hands.

7:51Times reporters near the epicenter of the quake saw groups of people clustered on every pile of debris, and some people have even set up makeshift tents on top of collapsed homes so they can keep digging. My colleagues talked with one man who was collecting remains he believed belonged to a young relative, an 11-year-old boy, and he was placing them in a cotton pillowcase. They also spoke with the parents of an 8-year-old boy who was playing basketball when a building collapsed onto the court. They said they were terrified that he would end up in a mass grave. His mother said, quote, I want them to find his body so this nightmare can be over.

8:43And finally, this week, Metta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, unveiled a new AI image generator. It's intended to create whatever users dream up, with the company saying it could be used to fill in damaged parts of old family photos, let you see yourself with a new hairstyle, or what you might look like as a claymation character. But the backlash to this generator was immediate because anyone over 18 with a public Instagram account was automatically opted in, meaning other users could pull from, quote, part or all of your published images to create new AI ones. One user wrote online that the feature was a privacy landmine waiting to detonate, and people quickly shared instructions for how to disable it.

9:32The easiest way to opt out is to set your account to private, but if you don't want to do that, there's an option in the settings that allows people to toggle off the AI feature's permission to access your content. That applies to pictures and videos, though Meta said that users can't stop their audio, text, and comments from being, quote, reused by its AI. The new image generator is part of Meta's broader push to integrate AI across all of its platforms, not just Instagram and Facebook, but also Threads and WhatsApp, and it has plans to release a video generator in the next few months.

10:13Those are the headlines. Today on The Daily, how Donald Trump and his family are profiting off the presidency. You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.

10:33This podcast is supported by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Here's a story that's not getting nearly enough attention. Defunding Planned Parenthood has already caused chaos and harm, and access to essential reproductive care is plummeting. Right now, the Trump administration's backers in Congress want to permanently defund Planned Parenthood, forcing even more health centers to close, and millions at risk of losing access to care. It takes less than a minute to help. Go to plannedparenthood.org slash defend and make a gift of any size.