On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: McCarthy faces revolt over debt limit dealHouse Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces revolt over his debt limit deal with President Joe Biden. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Joey Garrison has the latest. Plus, USA TODAY Pentagon Correspondent Tom Vanden Brook talks about suspected Chinese spies at Alaskan military bases, the majority of American teachers think arming themselves with guns would make schools less safe, scientists and tech industry leaders issue a warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence, and former first lady Rosalynn Carter has dementia.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I’m Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Wednesday, the 31st of May 2023. Today, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces a revolt. Plus, we hear about suspected Chinese spies in Alaska, and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has dementia.
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Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing a revolt from the right flank of his party over his debt ceiling deal with President Joe Biden. And some Republican lawmakers say they wouldn’t rule out trying to oust him from the speakership. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Joey Garrison has the latest. Welcome back to 5 Things Joey.
Joey Garrison:
Hey, thanks Taylor. Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Joey, who’s leading this charge and what issue do they take with the deal?
Joey Garrison:
Yeah, so the group we’re talking about, as you correctly described the right flank of the House Republican caucus. This is largely comprised of the House Freedom Caucus members. There’s about 45 of them and many of them are aligned with former President Trump and are relatively new to Congress. Many have been elected in the last two or three election cycles.
Now, heading into the debt ceiling negotiation between McCarthy and Biden, we always knew that several of these wouldn’t vote for any compromise reached by the two. And that’s remained the case, but I think it’s more widespread among that caucus than the opposition than some predicted. They believe McCarthy didn’t go far enough to reach this type of spending cuts that they hope to see in a deal that raises the debt ceiling. And they believe, and this is significant, that McCarthy betrayed his commitment to several of them. If you rewind back in January when McCarthy was having difficulty to get the members of his own party to vote for his speakership, several of these House Freedom Caucus members got certain commitments from McCarthy to ensure he had the votes. One of those is what they call a “power-sharing agreement,” where they would have more say of some of these individual members in deals reached by McCarthy. They say he effectively breached that agreement.
Taylor Wilson:
So Joey, what’s this mean for today’s critical vote on the debt ceiling?
Joey Garrison:
Well, the opposition from the members of the House Freedom Caucus isn’t enough by itself to defeat today the vote on the debt ceiling deal. But there’s also been considerable unrest from progressive Democrats on the deal for expanded work requirements, for food stamp and other benefits of federal aid, as well as over its overhaul to expedite permitting process for oil and gas projects. So, if you start thinking about all the no votes that could happen here, if you have the far right flank and several on the left, that means really both McCarthy and Biden are going to have to pass this from the middle from both the Republican and Democratic side. Ultimately, I do think the votes are going to be there, but I’m sure heading into this vote, McCarthy and Biden are both nervous.
Taylor Wilson:
And even beyond the debt sailing issue, you touched on some of this, but it seems like this issue has recast McCarthy’s future as speaker, at least in some sections of the party. We know he already initially had trouble getting the votes for the speakership earlier this year. What’s next Joey, for him and these power dynamics in the chamber?
Joey Garrison:
Well, among the agreements reached between McCarthy and some of these hardline Republicans to secure his speakership was a new rule that it only takes one member to propose ousting the speaker for that to get taken up. Of course, you’d still have to have a majority of votes in the House for any ouster of McCarthy of his speakership, but it really raises the level in the consequences of just having these disgruntled Republican House members. And so, one of those members, Dan Bishop from North Carolina, he became the first member on Tuesday to actually say he’s considering a push to oust McCarthy over the debt ceiling deal.
Scott Perry, the Chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, he is part of a group of other Freedom Caucus members who had a press conference outside the capital on Tuesday. He wouldn’t rule out pursuing an ouster if this bill ends up passing. So, really McCarthy’s future could very much be at stake if this bill does go through. McCarthy has always had a rocky relationship from the beginning of his short time as speaker with this pretty sizable faction of the Republican Party. And this certainly, even if the debt ceiling bill passes, isn’t going away. In fact, passage of this could probably make that friction even worse for him moving forward.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Joey Garrison, always great insight for us from Washington. Thanks as always.
Joey Garrison:
Yeah, thanks Taylor.
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Taylor Wilson:
US officials say that Chinese citizens posing as tourists have been trying to access military bases in Alaska, and they’re suspected of spying. I spoke with USA TODAY Pentagon Correspondent Tom Vanden Brook to learn more. Thanks for hopping on the podcast, Tom.
Tom Vanden Brook:
Sure thing, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
So you wrote about a series of incidents involving Chinese citizens posing as tourists, but suspected of being spies in Alaska. Why do US officials have these suspicions, Tom?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Well, there have been a string of incidents at bases in Alaska in which Chinese tourists have shown up at gates or actually run past security. They claim to have been tourists who are lost. Well, there are a lot of tourists, in fact in Alaska, and many of them are Chinese. But as one officer told me, not all tourists are tourists. And one of the reasons they suspect more is in one case a vehicle blew past a security checkpoint at Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks, and when it was stopped, they found a drone in the car. So, there’s this suspicion that a lot of these incidents are probing security to see where there are weaknesses, but also to see if there are ways to surveil the base from the inside. And this has happened before in other places, including Florida.
Taylor Wilson:
And Tom, why is Alaska such a place of interest?
Tom Vanden Brook:
There are a lot of very sensitive military sites in Alaska. The army bases, the interceptors that people may have heard about that are supposed to take down incoming ballistic missiles from North Korea, the military bases, some of its most sophisticated planes are there and radars. It’s where the Chinese spy balloon of all things entered US airspace back in January.
Taylor Wilson:
And Tom, what’s being done about these incidents and about some of these concerns? And I’m also curious in hearing from US officials and speaking with them, how do they weigh these concerns of Chinese spying with the privacy rights and other rights of Chinese Americans and Chinese citizens who are visiting the country and are just tourists?
Tom Vanden Brook:
Sure. Right. Some of these incidents are probably benign and they have to be aware of that and they’re not publicizing a lot of this stuff, you can say that as well. All of this stuff that I learned was from sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. And as I understand it, a lot of the information about these incidents remains classified. So, there’s not a ton we can know about it, but there are certainly benign reasons for people to visit Alaska. It’s a beautiful place. I was just there last week. But, I was told by the Pentagon’s number two official that intrusions in general are taken very seriously by the military, and they’re doing a lot to beef up security at some of these bases, including in Alaska. I talked to an official there who said that previously it’d been fairly lax there because it had been considered something of a backwater for the military until recent years when they’ve started basing more troops there and more sophisticated aircraft.
Taylor Wilson:
Can you put in perspective for us where US-China relations are right now kind of writ large, and where the officials you speak with feel these tensions will go next?
Tom Vanden Brook:
To start out with not great. The relations aren’t really good right now and we can cite a few different things, right? We had the Chinese spy balloon, which transited the entire width of the United States and maneuvered over sensitive military bases. We know that. It was filled with surveillance equipment before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina. So that’s one incident. We know that tensions are rising over Taiwan, which receives billions in US military aid. China wants to reunite it with the mainland. So, that’s another friction point. And then finally, you’ve got China’s support, if not materially, but in terms of moral support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. So, there’s some real friction. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his scheduled trip to Beijing last February after the Chinese spy balloon incident, and that hasn’t been rescheduled, so tensions remain very high.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, USA TODAY Pentagon Correspondent Tom Vanden Brook, thanks as always.
Tom Vanden Brook:
Thanks Taylor.
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Taylor Wilson:
The majority of American teachers think arming themselves with guns would make schools less safe. That’s according to a newly released survey from the nonpartisan RAND Corporation. In the survey, 54% thought schools would be made less safe if teachers could carry. And another 26% said they didn’t think it would make a difference in school safety. Only about one in five said they felt schools would be safer if teachers were allowed to be armed.
Race and location played a factor in teachers’ views. White teachers were more likely than Black teachers to say they thought teacher carry policies would make schools safer. And teachers in rural areas were also broadly more likely to feel that way. Still, school shootings were far from teachers’ top safety concerns. Only 5% felt that was a top safety issue, while 49% believed it was bullying. And 25% said drugs. It’s already legal for teachers to carry guns on school campuses, often needing special permissions in at least 27 states, according to the Giffords Law Center.
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Scientists and tech industry leaders issued a new warning yesterday about the dangers that artificial intelligence could bring to humankind. The statement read, “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
Those who signed the statement included high level executives at Microsoft and Google, according to the AP. Sam Altman, the CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist known as the godfather of artificial intelligence, also signed the statement. More than a thousand researchers and technologists signed a longer letter earlier this year calling for a six-month pause on AI development, saying it poses profound risks to society and humanity. Concerns about AI systems outsmarting humans, eliminating jobs and more, have crept up with the latest generation of chatbots. And countries around the world are trying to decide how to regulate them in the years to come.
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Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has dementia. Her family made the announcement yesterday, a diagnosis that comes as her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, is receiving hospice care. The family said in a statement that they hope sharing the news will increase difficult conversations about dementia. The Carters are the longest married first couple in US history. Rosalyn has worked as an advocate for mental healthcare at the Carter Center, the humanitarian organization the couple founded in the 1980s that’s also behind global peace and health programs. The Carters also volunteered for decades with Habitat for Humanity, a Christian nonprofit that works to build homes.
Yesterday’s announcement of Rosalynn’s dementia led to a wave of support. The White House said the Bidens have stayed in touch with the Carters’ team, telling them they’re in the President and First Lady’s thoughts. And Senator Raphael Warnock, also from Georgia like the Carters, said he’s praying for them.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. If you like the show, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And if you have any comments, you can reach us at podcasts@usatoday.com. I’m back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.