Israel launches strike; explosions heard in Iran. Tehran playing down attack | The Excerpt

On Friday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: Israel has launched strikes on Iran. But Tehran is playing down the incident. Police arrest more than a hundred protesters at Columbia University. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers talks about a Biden surrogate working to bring frustrated voters to the president. Florida bans local water break rules. USA TODAY National Music Writer Melissa Ruggieri breaks down Taylor Swift's new album.

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 Friday, April 19th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, Israel strikes Iran, plus we talk about a Biden campaign surrogate's pushed to move frustrated voters toward the president's reelection. And new music is here from Taylor Swift.

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Explosions were heard in Iran after Israel launched strikes in retaliation for a barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles fired by Tehran over the weekend. Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency said earlier today that explosions were heard near the airport in the city of Isfahan. ABC, CBS and NPR, each citing at least one unnamed American official, reported that Israel was responsible. And the New York Times citing three Iranian officials has reported that a military airport near Isfahan had been targeted. Civilian airports have been closed in Iran and flights from the Persian Gulf were diverted. There was no immediate comment from Israeli and US officials.

An unidentified Iranian official later told Reuters that explosions came from local air defense systems, adding that no missile attack had been carried out. Iran's weekend swarm of munitions and Israel's response marked the first direct exchanges of fire between the regional enemies. Meanwhile, the US yesterday essentially stopped the United Nations from recognizing a Palestinian state. The US vetoed a resolution in the Security council that would've admitted the State of Palestine to membership, Britain and Switzerland abstained, and the other 12 council members voted yes. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the US veto as unfair, unethical, and unjustified.

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Police arrested more than a hundred protesters on Columbia University's campus yesterday after they set up encampments to protest Israel's war in Gaza and the Columbia Spectator, a student newspaper reported the incident marked the first time that mass arrests were made on campus since 1968 when NYPD arrested hundreds of students protesting the Vietnam War. Earlier this week, University President Minouche Shafik appeared in front of a congressional hearing in Washington regarding anti-Semitism on campus. She defended free speech, but when asked whether calling for the genocide of Jewish people would violate Columbia's rules, she said yes.

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Ro Khanna, a Biden campaign surrogate and California congressman is looking to steer frustrated voters toward President Joe Biden. I spoke with USA Today White House correspondent Francesca Chambers for more. Francesca, thanks for hopping on today.

Francesca Chambers:

It's always good to be with you, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

So Francesca, let's just start with this. Who is Ro Khanna and how has he been really trying to steer voters towards supporting President Joe Biden's reelection? I know he thinks Biden should be doing some things differently at this point.

Francesca Chambers:

So Ro Khanna is on the President's National Advisory Board for his campaign, and he's a congressman who was elected in 2016, and he's become a very influential and powerful progressive on Capitol Hill. So in his capacity for the Biden campaign, he has been going to states such as South Carolina, New Hampshire, Michigan, I went with him to Nevada and there he sits and holds listening sessions with voters, sometimes young voters, and he thinks that the president should be going out and sitting down with young people and having those conversations too. He told me that he thinks that the president should go to every college campus in America and have these conversations with young people who, as we have seen repeatedly in polling, their support is really lagging for the president in 2024.

Taylor Wilson:

So Ro Khanna going around to all these swing states, is this a matter of him kind of going out on his own or is the Biden campaign formally asking him to do so?

Francesca Chambers:

Taylor, I think it's a little bit of both. So if you look at a state like New Hampshire where Biden was in a dispute with the state and then wasn't able to appear on the ballot there and allies of the president launched a rioting campaign. That's an example of where the rioting campaign asked Khanna to come to the state to campaign for the former president on his behalf. The campaign couldn't be involved in that at all. When you look at a state like Michigan, Khanna also was there in his personal capacity.

At the time, there was a large dispute taking place between the president and Arab Americans in the state and other voters who were upset with the president over his position on the Israel Hamas war. And so Khanna went and he was able to get meetings with folks in the state, including state lawmakers who didn't want to sit down with the Biden campaign or didn't want to sit down with the White House. Now, Nevada, the campaign wanted him to sit down with young people. He told me this is the thing that they've asked me to do. He's also going to be starting a college tour for the president. His first stop is in Wisconsin and he hopes to add more dates in May, and certainly that was campaign approved.

Taylor Wilson:

And Francesca, does it appear he's making any headway here or voters coming around to President Joe Biden on the Gaza issue or other issues that he's at odds with progressives on?

Francesca Chambers:

Well, we'll have to see as we get closer to the general election, how many of those disgruntled Democrats end up voting in the general election. But I did talk to a voter who told me that they weren't feeling very good about President Biden, but that after listening to Ro Khanna talk and hearing him also talk about his work with former President Barack Obama, he served in his administration that they were feeling a lot better about President. So I do think that there are younger people, there are people across the country who are hearing from him and as a result are closer to voting for Biden. But I also heard from other people who said that they would vote for Biden because he's a Democrat and they're Democrats even if they're upset with him.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. So going forward, what are Ro Khanna's political ambitions?

Francesca Chambers:

Well, when we were in New Hampshire, because I also had a chance to cover him while he was in New Hampshire, he did not rule out running for president in the future. He said, who knows, and that he hadn't talked to his family about it. By the time we had a chance to talk about it in Nevada, he was still saying that he's focused right now on campaigning for President Biden and his own congressional reelection this fall. Now, I did ask him if he'd be interested in being in the president's cabinet if Biden gets a second term, and he said, that's probably not something he'd be interested in, but if the president asked you to do something, you always have to entertain it.

I did mention to him that the last time though, in terms of a presidential campaign that a House member ever directly left to the presidency was more than 143 years ago. Is that something that he really thinks is feasible? And he said such a person would be an underdog. Well, I asked him if he's an underdog, if that's a position he sees himself in, and he said that he's always been an underdog in his political campaigns, Taylor. So you can take from that what you want about how he's viewing a potential 2028 campaign or maybe even beyond then.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, interesting stuff. Francesca Chambers covers the White House for USA Today. Thank you, Francesca.

Francesca Chambers:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

A proposal in Florida's Miami-Dade County to establish heat rules for workers has been preempted by a new law. Instead, Florida has joined Texas in banning such local rules for outdoor workers. Florida's new law has frustrated and angered some experts and advocates for construction workers and farm workers. As summers get hotter over the years, outdoor workers will need more protections, not fewer. That's according to Luigi Guadarrama political director of Sierra Club Florida. He added that the law will primarily affect low income workers of color.

Supporters of the new law say federal laws already prohibit unsafe work conditions, which make added local rules unnecessary. Meanwhile, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington have passed laws giving more protections to construction workers who work in extreme heat.

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It's been a tough week of news, but if you're a Swiftie, Relief came last night. Taylor Swift released her latest studio album called the The Tortured Poets Department overnight and she included a surprise that it was actually a double album with 15 additional songs to join the initial 16. Our own national music writer, Melissa Ruggieri, called the record hauntingly brilliant. I caught up with her for more. Melissa, thanks so much for hopping on The Excerpt today.

Melissa Ruggieri:

You got it.

Taylor Wilson:

So Taylor Swift's latest album, the Tortured Poets Department is out. This has been highly anticipated since she announced it at the Grammys back in February. I'm curious, what was your initial listening response to this, Melissa, and how does it compare to some of Taylor's recent work?

Melissa Ruggieri:

I got to the end of the album and I really needed to exhale and possibly grab a tissue. It's pretty heavy. It's about relationships gone bad. People are going to speculate, of course, who that might be about. And we all know that she had a six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn. And there are a lot of subtle and not so subtle comments and lyrics that refer to that period, but it's very clear that she went through a whole lot of heartbreak. And as we know from Taylor's past work, she's very good at putting that into lyrical form and melodic form.

And I think with folklore and evermore, she really grew as a songwriter. And on Midnights, I think she went a little bit back more into the pop realm of things. And this is almost like a combination of the two. The lyrical depth is there, like it was on those more folk recordings, but then the music leans a little bit more pop than those recordings did. So you kind of get the best of Taylor in a lot of ways. I mean, lyrically, I think it's probably the deepest she's ever gone and the most vulnerable she's ever been. And that's saying a lot, I guess Taylor Swift fans know.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, absolutely. So Melissa, which guests does Taylor feature here on the new album?

Melissa Ruggieri:

She's got a couple. Post Malone is actually on the first single called Fortnite, and he's getting around lately. I've been joking. He's like the John Legend of features lately because he was just on Beyonce's album and Taylor tapped him to do this. But Fortnite is... I think it's a better song for Post Malone than the Beyonce contribution that he had on Cowboy Carter. I think his vocals are a little more prominent. There's a little bit more of him in that song, but I think the better biggest guest on the record is Florence Welch from Florence + the Machine. And she and Taylor do a song called Florida!!! with three exclamation points for good reason. And it's a fun, dark, humorous type of song. It's got this very kind of stomping, purposeful beat to it, and it's very cinematic lyrically, it's almost like talking about some of the crazier things in Florida. So I think she's really targeting just trying to get some humor in there also, because it is... Like I said, it's a pretty heavy album.

Taylor Wilson:

So who is Clara Bow? I think this is the title of the last track on the album Melissa, correct?

Melissa Ruggieri:

Yes.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, I think some Swifties might be learning about her for the first time this week. Who is Clara?

Melissa Ruggieri:

I agree with you a thousand percent on that because Clara Bow was a 1920s era silent film star. And there are a couple of different things that could be in play here. One is that that song, Clara Bow is about basically what Taylor heard when she was an upcoming artist. Things like, "You look like Claire Bow. You look like Stevie Nicks." And then it wraps up with her turning the tables. And another new Taylor is now being told, "You look like Taylor Swift and you have edge, like she didn't."

I think it's interesting that she chose Clara Bow not only because yes, they actually do bear a physical resemblance, but also the silent film star aspect, a cornerstone of her relationship with Joe was the complete opposite of what she has right now with Travis Kelce. I mean, it was a very private relationship. You didn't know what they were doing, where they were, and you kind of wonder, is this a metaphor for the silence that maybe she had to deal with in that relationship as opposed to coming out of that. So I think Clara Bow is actually a pretty brilliant reference point for her to have on this album.

Taylor Wilson:

Melissa, we're also getting this essay or debrief from Taylor where she talks about the new songs. What are fans getting out of this?

Melissa Ruggieri:

Well, there's two cool things on it. There's a prologue. Taylor's always done prologues with her albums. This one is actually written by Stevie Nicks and Stevie and Taylor go back about 14, 15 years and they've remained close over the years. And Stevie wrote this poem that she said was for her and Taylor, but when you read it, you'll see exactly who this is really talking about. And then at the end of the album, Taylor does write this epilogue and she positions herself as the chairman of the Tortured Poets Department.

So there's a whole theme of this department that I think she's kind of looking at it from the third person. She's almost like setting herself up as a character, as the chairman of the Tortured Poets Department. I don't think the name which had been bandied about, that it came from a text chain that Joe and some of his friends had. I honestly don't think that's where it is. I mean, I really do think that it is something that she designed in her mind. It's a sort of cryptic explanation about what the title means and what she went through. And I think fans are definitely going to spend a lot of time decoding lots of things on this album.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Melissa Ruggieri covers music nationally for USA Today. Thank you, Melissa.

Melissa Ruggieri:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green and Bradley Glanzrock. And our executive producer is Laura Beatty. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA Today.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel launches strike; explosions heard in central Iran | The Excerpt