Trump leaves G7 early, urges everyone in Tehran to evacuate

USA Today

17-06-2025

Trump leaves G7 early, urges everyone in Tehran to evacuate | The Excerpt
On Tuesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers breaks down President Donald Trump's decision to abruptly leave the Group of Seven summit. Multiple lawmakers push to curb Trump's war powers on Iran. A federal prosecutor said Monday that the man accused of shooting two Minnesota lawmakers went to the homes of two other state officials the morning he launched a targeted "political assassination." USA TODAY Government Accountability Reporter Erin Mansfield discusses the trickle-down effect of Trump's NIH budget cuts. Trump Organization launches a new mobile cell service.
Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to [e-mail].
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. 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.
Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson. And today is Tuesday, June 17th, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today why Trump left the G7 early. Plus the trickle-down effect of his massive budget cuts to the National Institute's Health. And we're learning more about the suspect and the shootings of Minnesota lawmakers.
♦
President Donald Trump abruptly left the Group of Seven Summit in Alberta, Canada yesterday due to the current situation in the Middle East, according to the White House. Trump also urged residents of Tehran to evacuate immediately after telling Iran it should have signed a nuclear deal with the US when talks were on the table. For more on his decision to leave early and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran, I spoke last night with USA TODAY White House correspondent Francesca Chambers.
Taylor Wilson:
Hey Francesca.
Francesca Chambers:
Hey Taylor. Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for hopping on. So let's start with the big news here. Trump leaving G7 early. Why did he do so? What changed?
Francesca Chambers:
Well, Taylor, the president left abruptly halfway through the summit. The White House said it was because of the deepening conflict that was taking place in the Middle East, just as the president said on social media that residents of Tehran should leave the city.
Taylor Wilson:
So obviously these G7 meetings were already being held as Israel and Iran continued to exchange strikes in recent days. How did really just this broad conflict change the dynamic in Canada this week?
Francesca Chambers:
So Taylor, the President's tariffs had been expected to be front and center at the gathering. It's an economic summit after all. And those conversations still took place at the G7 conference before Donald Trump left. But Israel and Iran and the fighting between the two, that overshadowed the rest of the summit. President Trump had conversations about the issue with nearly every world leader that he met with on Monday before he left.
Taylor Wilson:
Francesca, Trump's decision to abruptly leave like this and return to Washington. How is this landing with other leaders at G7?
Francesca Chambers:
Well, the president said as he was on his way out that they didn't mind, because they understood the situation that he was dealing with. And asked about it specifically, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney just sidestepped the question a little bit, and said what a good summit had been, and how grateful they were that Donald Trump came.
Taylor Wilson:
You and I had spoken earlier in the day about this planned meeting between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was set forward today, Tuesday. Presumably that won't be the case now, Francesca. What's next in terms of, I guess, the expectation for that meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump?
Francesca Chambers:
Right. And it's not the only meeting that President Trump had to cancel. The White House had previously said he would be meeting with Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum while he was at the G7 as well. Notably, the president is expected to head to the NATO summit next week in the Netherlands. So this won't be the last time that he gathers with these world leaders and talks about the Russia-Ukraine war.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Francesca covers the White House for USA TODAY. Thanks, Francesca.
Francesca Chambers:
Thanks so much.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
The Group of Seven Nations expressed support for Israel in a statement last night, and labeled its rival Iran as a source of instability in the Middle East, with the G7 leaders urging broader de-escalation of hostilities in the region. Meanwhile, democratic Senator Tim Kaine introduced legislation yesterday to prevent President Trump from using military force against Iran without Congress's authorization. During Trump's first term in 2020, Kaine introduced a similar resolution to rein in Trump's ability to wage war against Iran. That measure passed both the Senate and House with some Republican support, but did not get enough votes to win over the President's veto. While some Republicans, including Senator Rand Paul have said the US should avoid war, most of Trump's fellow Republicans who control Congress have shown little desire for opposing him, and are likely to support Trump if he decides to get more involved in the conflict. Independent Senator Bernie Sanders also introduced legislation yesterday to prohibit the use of federal funds for any use of military force in or against Iran, absent specific congressional authorization.
♦
The man accused of shooting two Minnesota lawmakers went to the homes of two other state officials the morning he launched a targeted political assassination, a federal prosecutor said yesterday. 57-year-old Vance Boelter appeared in a federal court and said he cannot afford a lawyer. A judge ordered public defense for him, and granted the prosecutor's request that he be detained in federal custody pending a trial. A combined detention and preliminary hearing has also been set for June 27th. Federal affidavit released yesterday, says he was impersonating a police officer and embarked on a planned campaign of stalking and violence. He faces six federal charges, including multiple counts of murder and stalking, opening the possibility of the death penalty if convicted. His arrest came after state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were shot and killed. And state Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were shot multiple times and wounded outside Minneapolis.
♦
We're learning more about the trickle-down effect of President Trump's massive budget cuts to the National Institutes of Health. I spoke with USA TODAY government accountability reporter, Erin Mansfield for more. Hello, Erin.
Erin Mansfield:
Hi, how are you?
Taylor Wilson:
I'm well, thanks. Thanks for hopping back on The Excerpt. So just starting here, how exactly has the Trump administration slashed parts of the NIH? What have we seen in recent months?
Erin Mansfield:
We've seen targeted cuts of grants from universities all over the country, research universities. These are grants that professors, graduate students, doctors use. And they have slashed things that they think promote diversity, equity, inclusion, things that they believe are too focused on coronavirus, which peaked about five years ago, and also some grants involving vaccine hesitancy. And then going forward, Trump has proposed in his budget to cut $18 billion from the NIH budget. And that is huge. That is the biggest of any agency when you go and look at his budget, and it's significant.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, let's get into some of the specifics there. You mentioned Coronavirus, in terms of just how all this is impacting research, it does seem like the administration is going after projects that I perceived as being focused on COVID-19 in terms of some of these cuts. What did you hear specifically in reporting this?
Erin Mansfield:
There are some. The big one that was really notable is something called the World Reference Center. And it's sort of a library of infectious diseases. And it's held at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. According to the scientific director for Galveston National Laboratory, they actually looked at COVID. And the reasoning behind that had to do with it was an emergency, everyone shifted to that. And what the gentleman Scott Weaver said was that when he received the letter, which USA TODAY has reviewed, it said that COVID is over. We're cutting off all Coronavirus grants. And this is not necessary. And this is something that Mr. Weaver thinks was done in error. He thinks that whoever decided to cut it really didn't have an understanding of what they were doing. But nonetheless, there was at one point research related to Coronavirus, so it got cut.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, and Erin, there have also been research programs targeted that were mistaken for DEI-related projects. What can you tell us on this point?
Erin Mansfield:
So this is obviously no secret that the Trump administration has been very anti-DEI. I spoke to Andy Johns from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And he said that some of the most stinging cuts have been ones that might be perceived as diversity, equity inclusion, but in his book are not. And he said there are cases when maybe a scientist is doing a study and they collected demographic information and they're going to do a demographic analysis. So they'll say, "Hey, NIH, can we do everything else, and just omit that analysis?" And they're not letting them. One of the examples also comes from Texas, from Scott Weaver who talked about a grant that helps people who get bachelor's degrees from small colleges that aren't really research colleges.
Well, they might want to get into a program that'll help them get some research experience before they applied to a PhD program. Weaver said that grant was cut on the grounds that it was DEI. And he doesn't quite agree with it. He said it's really a bad opportunity. But we've seen a health equity hub, that according to the head Daniel Mullins, he said that it was really disease agnostic. It was kind of infrastructure to help people achieve health equity. That was cut. That was almost a $10 million grant over five years. Kim Elaine Barrett has worked a lot toward building a biomedical workforce that's more representative of the population. She said she had to see that effort just get cut. People are really heartbroken by the DEI cuts.
Taylor Wilson:
We've heard this argument from Trump officials that it's all about waste and getting rid of waste in terms of these cuts in recent months. Is that the fundamental argument here when it comes to NIH? What are we hearing from the Trump side?
Erin Mansfield:
So Kush Desai, a spokesman for the White House gave us a statement. It said in recent years, Americans have lost confidence and are increasingly polarized healthcare and research apparatus that has been obsessed with DEI and COVID, which the majority of Americans moved on from years ago. And his argument is that they're going to address the chronic disease epidemic and return to a gold standard of science. So there really is a perception in the Trump administration that the scientific research world has lost its way and gone off course.
Taylor Wilson:
You at the top, Erin, mentioned that further cuts are expected in this space. What might be coming down the pike, and what would it mean for some of this other existing research?
Erin Mansfield:
We're going to have to see that as Donald Trump's budget works its way through Congress. The top line sum is $18 billion. And that is huge. A lot of the public universities I spoke with talked about losing tens of million dollars here and there. But we're talking about a huge cut to universities all over the country, including public universities. Yes, including Harvard, including Columbia, but also including the places in American's backyards.
Taylor Wilson:
And just in terms of the pushback here, Erin, I mean, what kinds of challenges have we seen into these cuts?
Erin Mansfield:
Yeah. So there was actually a federal judge on Monday who said that the termination of these NIH grants was void and illegal. And he accused the Trump administration of discriminating against minorities and LGBT people. That's according to Reuters. So these challenges to existing cuts are definitely not going away.
Taylor Wilson:
Erin Mansfield is a government accountability reporter with USA TODAY. Thanks, Erin.
Erin Mansfield:
Thank you, Taylor.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
Trump organization, the holding company for President Trump's business ventures has announced the launch of a new cellular service and cell phone. It'll be dubbed Trump Mobile. And its first phone the T-One will use an Android operating system, and the mobile plan itself is expected to be made available through the three major cellular carriers. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
♦
Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. And as always, if you want to email us, you can find us at [e-mail]. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.