New Immunity for President Trump, and an Audacious Plan for Regime Change in Iran

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0:32From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Will Jarvis, in for Tracy Mumford. Today's Wednesday, May 20th. Here's what we're covering.

0:44In Washington on Tuesday, the Department of Justice quietly released a remarkable one-page document. It gives President Trump, his family, and his businesses complete immunity from any ongoing inquiries into their taxes. The new provision could be lucrative for the president. As of 2024, the Times reported that Trump could owe the IRS more than$100 million over his use of a dubious accounting move related to his skyscraper in Chicago. It's not clear if that IRS investigation is still ongoing or if there are any other audits that would now be stopped. Experts say the new immunity move might amount to illegal political interference in the audit process, with one senior advisor at NYU's Tax Law Center calling it a, quote, breathtaking abuse of the tax and legal system.

1:34It was the latest in a series of maneuvers this week that have blurred the now almost invisible line between the president and the Justice Department, which has traditionally tried to stay independent of the White House. And it underscores how Trump is intent on using his powers so that he and his allies can benefit financially from the federal government. The immunity clause was actually an add-on to another controversial move by the DOJ this week, its new$1.8 billion fund to compensate people who claim they were targeted during the Biden administration. On Capitol Hill yesterday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who will help oversee the fund, defended that arrangement amid fiery criticism from lawmakers who called it a slush fund for Trump's allies.

2:18The fact that I used to be President Trump's lawyer is just a fact, but I'm the acting attorney general. So don't say the president's former personal lawyer will do something. The acting attorney general will do something. Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney. And that's the whole problem. When pressed about who will get the money, Blanche suggested it could go to a wide range of people, including Hunter Biden, who was prosecuted during his father's administration. Ultimately, the names of people who receive payouts might not become public. The panel overseeing the fund is only required to submit confidential reports.

2:58I have called and conceded the race. We've been honorable the whole time, and we're going to stay that way. Last night in Kentucky, Representative Thomas Massey lost his reelection bid, becoming the latest victim of President Trump's retribution campaign against Republicans who've defied him. You all don't like bullies, and you don't tolerate them, and I love you for it. Massey lost decisively to Ed Gowrein, a candidate handpicked by the president, after a race that ended up being one of the most expensive House primaries in American history. Trump had grown increasingly frustrated with Massey over his criticism of the administration's handling of the Epstein files, the war in Iran, and other issues.

3:43In the end, Massey learned what so many other Republicans who have opposed Trump have found out, and that is there is virtually no place in the modern Republican Party for a Trump skeptic. Reed Epstein covers politics for The Times. Among Republican voters, Trump is the most powerful force there is, and his endorsement in many of these races, as it turns out, is the only thing that matters to voters. Trump's power within the Republican Party remains unmatched, even in a moment when his poll numbers are sinking among the broader electorate. A New Times-Siena poll out this week found that not only has Trump's popularity slipped overall, but that among independents, a crucial voting bloc heading into the midterms, his approval rating is just 26%.

4:34A New Times investigation has uncovered details about an audacious U.S.-Israeli plan at the start of the war with Iran. Early in the war, after Iran's supreme leader was killed in an airstrike, President Trump said it would be best if, quote, someone from within the country took power. Turns out the U.S. and Israel had someone specific in mind, the former president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So there's been all sorts of questions about what exactly the goals of this war were. Was it regime change? Was it just to decimate the Iranian military or set back its nuclear program? And what we found is that very clearly from the beginning, this was a war about regime change.

5:16The United States and Israel wanted to topple the government in Iran and install a new pliable leader. And Ahmadinejad was the leader they had in mind. Mark Mazzetti is an investigative reporter for The Times. The plan to install Ahmadinejad is surprising for a number of reasons. First off, he's known to most people as the hardline Iranian leader of more than a decade ago. Someone who was famously a Holocaust denier, talked about wiping Israel off the map, was firmly in favor of accelerating Iran's nuclear program. So all the things that this war is supposed to fight against, Ahmadinejad was for.

6:02But actually, in recent years, he had become something of a critic of the Iranian regime, a kind of gadfly who had been under house arrest because the Iranian regime, frankly, hadn't trusted him. Mark says that in Iran, there had been growing questions about Ahmadinejad's loyalty to the regime. People close to him were accused of spying for Israel, and in just the past few years, he'd visited Guatemala and Hungary, both of which have close ties to Israel. And the Times found that the U.S. and Israel did, in fact, take steps to get him into power. On the first day of the war, Israel carried out an airstrike on the former president's home that was designed to free him by taking out guards who were keeping him on house arrest.

6:45The guards were killed, but Ahmadinejad was injured, And according to U.S. officials and a source close to him, he then became disillusioned with the U.S.-Israeli plan for regime change. He's not been seen publicly since, and his current whereabouts are unknown.

7:04Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill yesterday... On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 47. The motion is agreed to. Senators advanced a measure that would force President Trump to end the war or ask Congress for authorization to continue it. Until now, that effort has failed again and again. But this time, four Republicans sided with Democrats to push it forward. The latest GOP member to join in was Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who lost his primary election over the weekend after Trump targeted him. It's not yet clear when the Senate will officially vote on the War Powers Resolution itself.

7:49So I can confirm there has been a manifesto that's been recovered. They didn't discriminate on who they hated. It covered a wide aspect of races and religions. In San Diego, authorities say the two suspects accused of opening fire on a mosque this week met and were radicalized online, and that investigators recovered a document laying out a deeply bigoted worldview. In the hours after the attack, which killed three people, a 75-page file circulated online that appeared to match the document found in the suspect's car. It contains Nazi symbols, racist and misogynistic passages, and a list of mass killers.

8:28It also describes how its authors were inspired by other mass shootings, including an attack on two mosques in New Zealand in 2019 that killed 51 people. That gunman had live-streamed his attack online, something the suspects in San Diego also appear to have done. Authorities say the attack in California could have been even more deadly if not for the actions of a security guard, Amin Abdullah. He ordered a lockdown before exchanging fire with the attackers who killed him. Officials say he prevented the gunman from getting deeper inside the mosque, which had more than 100 kids in it at the time of the attack.

9:05In a tragic coincidence, a friend of his said that Abdullah felt a calling to take the job as a security guard a few years ago, after learning about that 2019 attack on the Muslim community in New Zealand.

9:27And finally, Tesla is making a big bet that could shake up the trucking industry. The electric car company hasn't had a blockbuster new product in more than half a decade, but now it's going all-in on electric trucks. It recently announced that after years of delays, it's launched an assembly line that it says could eventually produce up to 50 ,000 of the vehicles each year. While it's not the first company to electrify big rigs, until now, the EV versions have been at least twice as expensive as diesel models, and concerns about how far they can travel on one charge have kept demand low. Tesla's version is expected to be much cheaper than other electric trucks and be able to travel up to 500 miles before needing to be plugged in.

10:12If the EV semis catch on, they could help push the industry towards battery power, helping reduce toxic emissions and smog. But they might not be the shiniest new thing on American highways for long. My colleagues have reported that by next year, multiple companies are preparing to start rolling out fleets of autonomous semi-trucks that are driverless. Those are the headlines. I'm Will Jarvis. The show will be back tomorrow.