Starvation stalks Gaza

USA Today

4 days ago

On Tuesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: There are major international starvation concerns in Gaza, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there is no starvation there. A gunman killed four people, and then himself at a prominent Midtown Manhattan skyscraper on Monday. USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer breaks down President Trump's comments about being 'allowed' to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. President Trump sets a new deadline of 10 or 12 days for Russia to end its war in Ukraine. A federal judge has blocked enforcement of a provision in Trump's tax and spending bill that would deprive Planned Parenthood and its members of Medicaid funding. USA TODAY Chief Political Correspondent Phillip M. Bailey takes a look at some upcoming governor races and why they will be major referendums on Trump vs. Democrats.
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.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Tuesday, July 29th, 2025. This is USA TODAY's The Excerpt.
Today, the latest from Gaza amid severe hunger worries, plus breaking down Trump's comments about Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell this week, and what's at stake in a slew of upcoming governor races?
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For the second day running yesterday, Israel paused its military operations in Gaza to improve the humanitarian response. That follows a series of alarming warnings from world leaders and global officials from the United Nations World Health Organization and from dozens of humanitarian agencies that malnutrition and even starvation in Gaza are on a dangerous trajectory. The UN's World Food Programme says a third of Gaza's population does not eat for several days at a time. One in four Gazans it says, are enduring famine-like conditions. The Hamas-run health ministry, the chief source of health data in Gaza says more than 100 people have died from malnutrition in recent days. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed those concerns yesterday.
Benjamin Netanyahu:
Israel is presented as though we are applying a campaign of starvation in Gaza. What a bold-faced lie. There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza.
Taylor Wilson:
That prompted a response from President Trump while on his trip in Scotland.
President Trump:
Those children look very hungry, but we're giving a lot of money and a lot of food and other nations are now stepping up.
Taylor Wilson:
And it's hard to parse the Israeli leaders' comments with some of what we've heard directly at USA TODAY, including from 35-year-old Amal Nassar, an English teacher from Gaza who said simply that she, her children and husband don't have enough to eat. Trump, though also criticized Hamas for holding Israeli hostages.
President Trump:
They don't want to give hostages. Very unfair.
Taylor Wilson:
You can read more on the latest from Gaza with a link in today's show notes.
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A gunman charged into a prominent Manhattan skyscraper during rush hour yesterday and fatally shot at least four people, including a New York City police officer before killing himself, according to authorities. Police received multiple reports of an active shooter inside 345 Park Avenue, a building that houses the NFL headquarters and offices of major financial firms, according to New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Surveillance footage showed a man exiting a vehicle outside before entering the building with an M4 rifle. The suspect immediately opened fire at an NYPD officer who was working a paid detail at the building. He then shot a woman who took cover behind a pillar and continued through the lobby opening fire, according to authorities. He then went up to the 33rd floor. Police said the motive for the shooting remains under investigation and investigators are working to understand why the suspect targeted the commercial building.
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President Donald Trump kicked off the week filled in questions about the ongoing conversation surrounding the late disgraced Jeffrey Epstein and his key associate Ghislaine Maxwell. I spoke with USA TODAY domestic security correspondent Josh Meyer for the latest.
Josh, thanks for joining me.
Josh Meyer:
My pleasure, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, another day, another chapter in the Epstein-Trump-White House drama. What did President Trump say yesterday about pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell?
Josh Meyer:
He was asked about it for the second time, and he said the same thing that he did last Friday, which was that, "I haven't really considered it, but I'm allowed to do it." So he was doubling down on that. He provided more information about it, and then he deflected and of course said that if there's anything in the documents that's damaging to him politically, then the Democrats must have put it in there and made it up when they were in office.
Taylor Wilson:
Trump also faced a question yesterday about whether his Attorney General Pam Bondi has told him his name is mentioned in the federal government's Epstein files. Remind us what Bondi has said here, Josh, and how did Trump approach this?
Josh Meyer:
Pam Bondi has been accused of providing cover for Trump, but she has not commented on this. Trump has said that Pam Bondi never told him that he was in the files, but The Wall Street Journal did do a story last week in which they said that several Justice Department officials have confirmed that Pam Bondi did tell the president in a meeting in May that he is in the Epstein files. It's not clear whether that's in investigative documents or that he shows up in some of the videos, but that his name appears several times in this investigative information that the Justice Department has in its possession and that it's not releasing.
Taylor Wilson:
We know Trump and Epstein ran in similar social scenes, at the least, over the years. At this point, Josh, what is Trump saying about whether he's visited the notorious Epstein island?
Josh Meyer:
He said categorically that he has never visited Epstein's island. There has been some investigative documentation that he showed up on the flight logs. It's not clear where or when, but again, Trump said that he has never been to Epstein's island. He said that he was invited to go to Epstein's island. By the way, this is where a lot of the alleged sex trafficking of underage girls happened, but he said he was invited there and that unlike a lot of other people from Palm Beach, he said no and that he didn't do it.
Taylor Wilson:
Have we heard from Ghislaine Maxwell or her legal team on any of this? What's the latest with her?
Josh Meyer:
So I've been in touch with her lawyer. Maxwell, of course, is not saying anything. She's in prison serving a 20-year term for sex trafficking in connection with Jeffrey Epstein, and she was his girlfriend and former accomplice. But her lawyer said Friday after Trump said the first time that he hasn't thought about it, but that he could pardon Maxwell, her lawyer David Markus said that he hopes Trump pardons Maxwell and that she's being made a scapegoat here and that she wasn't given a fair trial and that she deserves to be freed. That is ignoring, of course, mountains of evidence that were produced at her trial conviction by a jury, and basically a lot of evidence showing that Maxwell was an active accomplice of Jeffrey Epstein's in the trafficking of young girls.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Josh Meyer covers domestic security for USA TODAY. Thanks, Josh.
Josh Meyer:
My pleasure, Taylor.
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Taylor Wilson:
President Trump said he's moving up a deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine, warning that in 10 or 12 days, Russia must end the war or face sanctions and tariffs from the U.S. The president's threat came as he continued to express frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin, for refusing to scale back his country's war in Ukraine. When Trump's second term began, he placed equal blame on Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the war is still going on three and a half years later. But Trump has zeroed in on Putin in recent weeks as the Russian leader repeatedly rebuffs Trump's attempts to broker a ceasefire and pushes forward with drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.
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A federal judge has blocked enforcement of a provision in the recently enacted tax and spending bill that would deprive Planned Parenthood and its members of Medicaid funding saying it is likely unconstitutional. U.S. district judge in Boston issued a preliminary injunction yesterday after finding the law likely violated the Constitution by targeting Planned Parenthood's health centers specifically for punishment for providing abortions. That provision and the recent bill passed by the Republican-led Congress denied certain tax-exempt organizations and their affiliates from receiving Medicaid funds if they continue to provide abortions.
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Some upcoming governor races are set to be major referendums on Trump versus Democrats. I caught up with USA TODAY Chief Political Correspondent, Philip M. Bailey to discuss.
Philip, thanks for hopping on.
Phillip M. Bailey:
Taylor, how's it going?
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Let's start with Virginia and New Jersey as you do here in the piece, Philip. Who are the players in these elections and what might be some of the national implications at play?
Phillip M. Bailey:
Virginia has always historically been looked, it's governor's race at least, has been looked at as a bellwether for the nation because it's the election right before leading up to either the midterms and the presidential election. In this case, things seem to be a bit different. Republican incumbent Glenn Youngkin is term-limited, and there are already reports that underscore his Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican nominee giving her anemic fundraising and some other internal campaign combustion, one talk show radio host on the conservative side described as a "clown car".
There are some issues the Republicans are having, but that's still one of the early gubernatorial races that we're going to be looking at. She's going to be running against Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger, who I think in a recent July 16th poll by the Virginia Commonwealth University showed Earle-Sears, the Republican trailing Spanberger by about 12 points. There are other polls that have this a little bit closer, but I think when you look at all of these gubernatorial races, governors are at the forefront of policy decisions. Think of during the COVID-19 crisis, the critical role that governors play.
Nationally speaking, Virginia's home to about 152,000 federal workers, Taylor, so right next door to D.C. where the Trump administration laid off untold amounts of federal workers. Right now, it just seems like Republicans are just trying to keep their head above water in this race. It's looked at as more of a democratic pickup, but it's one that Republicans certainly aren't going to stop fighting for. But those internal campaign problems for Earle-Sears is something that cannot be overlooked and that may hamper our candidacy and get Republicans shifting elsewhere.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, shifting to next year, we have a bunch of swing state governor elections. What role might President Trump play here and what's at stake?
Phillip M. Bailey:
Well, look, I think the president's role is going to be outsized in most of these elections, either for or against. You're going to see Democrats, I mean some who've already announced their candidacies, like in Wisconsin, for example, already calling him a maniac and calling out his agenda, talking about the immigration crackdown. So a lot of places Republicans are going to be on defense. But look, any MAGA folks will tell you, any Republicans will tell you that having the White House is always better than not. The president's shadow is going to loom in some of these races, particularly these swing state races. When we look at some of these gubernatorial races, and 38 in total, the more premier ones, the more competitive ones are going to be in your swing states like Nevada, like Georgia, like Arizona. So the president who won all of those swing states last year in the 2024 presidential election, he's confident. He was speaking to the Republican Governors Association earlier this year, and he said he looks forward to working with these governors. They've made a lot of progress.
So I expect that some of these states that you could see President Trump arrive, but it all depends, I think, on his polling numbers there as we see President Trump's polling numbers begin to dip, as we've seen Trump, some of his more controversial maneuvers, particularly around immigration, particularly around the treatment of college or universities and other areas that could be the first signs of a backlash. We usually measure that in these congressional midterms, but these gubernatorial races with these chief executives, that's going to be critical of some of these issues in the president's role, and his impact and his popularity in those states is really going to come down to the why in a lot of these toss-up elections.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, I found this interesting, Phillip, that you feature former Vice President Kamala Harris in this piece. Is she considering a run for governor in California? What do we know about that race as of now?
Phillip M. Bailey:
When we talk about these 2026 gubernatorial elections, when we talk about New Jersey and Virginia are going to be the first test this year, we talk about some of these more competitive ones in swing states, but one feature of these gubernatorial contests is going to be the presidential campaign of 2028, and one of those ideas is that maybe Kamala Harris will make a return to the national stage. She has talked openly about, hey, she's considering running for governor in her home state of California. If she were to do that, polls show that she will be automatically one of the more popular, the lead candidate, really, in that race.
So I think being in charge of the fourth-largest economy in the world certainly is nothing to bat your eyes at, but there's a question of does Harris have her mind on running for president for a third time, which I think a lot of donors and Democrats might have some misgivings about, or going back to California and perhaps having a confrontation with Trump there. Remember Gavin Newsom, the current governor of California, who was also term limited, he's not running for reelection, but he's already had some major clashes with Donald Trump over immigration. We saw some serious clashes, some violent clashes in the streets between ICE agents and federal officials and law enforcement and pro-immigration demonstrators who were opposing the Trump administration.
So if Harris does make this announcement, it will automatically just put her on a collision course with Donald Trump and return her to the national stage. It doesn't forbid her from running for president in 2028. It's a bit difficult, I guess, to have those back-to-back campaigns, but her return to the national stage will certainly be a feature of the 2026 campaign.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Phillip M. Bailey is USA TODAY's Chief Political Correspondent. Thanks, Phillip.
Phillip M. Bailey:
Thanks Taylor, as always.
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Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and as always, you can email us at [e-mail]. I'm Taylor Wilson. I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.