Poll shows voters are worried about democracy, auto loans are soaring: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Democracy in America: Poll shows voters are worried
USA TODAY National Political Correspondent Phillip Bailey looks at the state of democracy in America. Plus, fighting escalates in Israel, mercenary Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin forecasts more 'victories at the front' in a new video, USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer explains how a new center at the Hague plans to go after the Russian crime of aggression, and auto loans are soaring for many buyers.
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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. 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.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning, and Happy Independence Day. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Tuesday, the 4th of July 2023. Today, we check in with the state of democracy in America. Plus, fighting escalates between Israelis and Palestinians, and Prigozhin speaks out after an attempted rebellion in Russia.
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Happy Fourth of July. Heading into today's holiday, the reporting team at USA TODAY wanted to give our audience a kind of State of the Nation report card. We looked at issues around the economy, gun violence, and racism. And we asked, "How are we doing?" Our fourth and final story comes from USA TODAY National Political Correspondent Phillip Bailey. On the anniversary of our independence, we asked, "What is the state of our democracy?" Phillip, thanks for hopping on 5 Things.
Phillip Bailey:
Hey, man. How are you?
Taylor Wilson:
Good. Thanks. Thanks for making the time. So, Phillip, how do Americans feel about the state of democracy right now?
Phillip Bailey:
Well, I think like anyone who's about to have a birthday, sometimes, people aren't in a very celebratory mood. And as the US is set to blow out 247 birthday candles, our polling has found that all - about seven out of 10 Americans - agree with the statement that American democracy is quote "imperiled."
Now, that's important, Taylor, because we use that word in that poll very specifically to sort of show the alarm. I mean, imperiled means irreparably harmed or damaged. So the fallout from the January 6th insurrection back in 2021, coupled with concerns about the rise, I think, of artificial intelligence and other barriers to the ballot box, has many Americans worried.
Taylor Wilson:
And Phillip, a slew of restrictive voting rights laws have been passed this year. Some states have also expanded voting rights. What's the latest with these types of legislation?
Phillip Bailey:
Right. I mean, look, after the 2020 election and President Donald Trump and his misleading comments and outright lies about the 2020 election results, and it's important to say here, as we always should say, Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, right? But after that election, we did see a number of states take on these more restrictive voting rights laws in 2021 at the state level. Well, this year, in 2023, we still saw that. We still saw at least 13 states enact more than around 15 restrictive voting rights laws at the state level. These laws were looking at things like curbing access to mail-in voting, for instance, which was very popular and popularized during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
So after the 2020 elections, we saw 14 states pass 22 restrictive laws, right? Well, this year, I think Americans are making it clear after the 2022 midterms, they won't tolerate certain anti-democratic, anti-small D democratic efforts.
So this year, we did see legislators in 15 states take steps to expand voting rights. Of those, we saw about 23 measures that made ballot access either safer or easier, such as automatic voter registration, restoring voting rights for people upon the release from prison, and importantly, Taylor, here imposing criminal penalties for intimidating poll workers. We saw a rise of threats against poll workers. Again, another part of the aftermath of the 2020 election where you saw these conspiracy theorists really targeting the people who are on the front lines of our democracy, and those are the people who count the votes, right, and store those votes. So we did see states, both conservative and liberal states, Democratic and Republican states take on efforts to protect poll workers who saw a rise in threats as well.
Taylor Wilson:
And Phillip, do Republicans and Democrats differ when it comes to their concerns about the health of US democracy?
Phillip Bailey:
Republicans and Democrats are both worried about the future of our democracy. USA TODAY'S poll with Suffolk University shows that 74% of Democrats agree that democracy is imperiled. About 75% of Republicans also agree with that and, by the way, 66% of Independents. So that's a bipartisan question here that cuts both ways.
Is that for different reasons? I think so. I think when we do future surveys and dig into the polling more, you'll find that maybe Democrats and Republicans have different reasons for thinking that. But I think the January 6th, 2021 attacks at the US Capitol were really a watershed moment for the country, Taylor, both for Democrats and Republicans.
The coalition, I think, is emerging where you do have warnings last year from Republican leaders saying not to nominate certain individuals who had these conspiracy theories, not to nominate certain election deniers who we saw running for a series of important offices last year, and many of them went down in flames, probably the most prominent being Kari Lake, the former Republican gubernatorial candidate out of Arizona who still alludes to not losing the election in Arizona. She did lose that election to Katie Hobbs for governor of Arizona, by the way.
But there's a bipartisan concern here about the health of our democracy, and I think this is going to be a lingering issue as we go forward as states look for different ways and different policy levers to both protect our democracy, but also to expand our participation in it.
Taylor Wilson:
USA TODAY National Political Correspondent Phillip Bailey. Great insight for us. Thanks so much.
Phillip Bailey:
No problem, man.
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Taylor Wilson:
Israel yesterday launched its most intense military operation in the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades. They carried out a series of drone strikes and sent hundreds of troops into the Jenin refugee camp, killing at least eight Palestinians. The crackdown drew comparisons to Israeli military tactics during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s, and came in the wake of a shooting last month by two Palestinian attackers that killed four Israelis. The raid also came just two weeks after Israel killed a 15-year-old Palestinian girl in a separate raid on the Jenin refugee camp. Palestinians and three Arab countries who have normalized relations with Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, condemned yesterday's raid, as did the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Jenin a safe haven for terrorism.
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Mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin said that he expects more victories at the front for the Wagner Group. In a video posted yesterday to Telegram, Prigozhin made his first public comments since shortly after the rebellion he launched in Russia was suppressed. Prigozhin also claimed to have accomplished many of the goals of the brief revolt, which he said was intended at fighting traders and mobilizing Russian society. Wagner forces who had been on the front lines of much of Russia's fighting in Ukraine got within 120 miles of Moscow last month after launching a rebellion. But they then turned around after Prigozhin agreed to an offer of asylum brokered by the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. He said Prigozhin made it to his country, though Prigozhin doesn't mention his location in the video. Last week, Ukraine's intelligence chief said that Russia's federal security service has been tasked with killing Prigozhin.
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Top law enforcement officials from the US, Ukraine and the European Union met yesterday to open a new international prosecution center at The Hague for cases against Russian leadership. The International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, or ICPA, aims to plug a gap in international war crimes laws. I spoke with USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer for more. Thanks for hopping back on 5 Things, Josh.
Josh Meyer:
Sure, Taylor.
Taylor Wilson:
What's the center aim to accomplish specifically, Josh?
Josh Meyer:
This is part of a much broader effort to bring to justice Russian War criminals, starting with Vladimir Putin, the president at the top, but going all the way down to frontline soldiers. But some of the other efforts, most of the other efforts involve specific war crimes that are allegedly occurring in Ukraine, shooting civilians, killing civilians, raping, pillaging, and so forth. What this effort does is this is a coordinated effort to go after Russia as a country and its leadership for what is called the crime of aggression, which is actually the crime of going to war with Ukraine itself, rolling tanks across the border and so forth.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. Can you go into a little bit more specifically on how this differs from what the International Criminal Court at The Hague is already investigating about Russia war crimes?
Josh Meyer:
Yeah. So the International Criminal Court is investigating Vladimir Putin, his aides. In fact, they've already issued an indictment for Putin and a woman who is a top aide of his, who's alleged to have led his effort to kidnap Ukrainian children, bring them back to Russia and have them be adopted by Russian families. But what this is, this is a much broader effort, And there's a gap in international law about who can prosecute the country of Russia or other countries for the crime of aggression.
So again, this is just a much broader crime. And what happens is it's more of a country on country prosecution effort to go after Russia as a whole for going to war with Ukraine. So there's no specific tallying of individual war crimes. This is much more focused on when did they decide they were going to war, for what reasons and what was the result of it?
Basically, the ICPA will focus on building a case for prosecuting Russia for quote "the crime of aggression" unquote on which is an overarching war crime established in 2010 that makes it illegal under international law for one country to use armed force against the sovereignty, integrity, or independence of another. So it's a very broad statute here that they're trying to enforce.
Taylor Wilson:
And Josh, this new center seems like kind of a Eurocentric effort. What role will the US play in this court, and how does that factor into the broader US strategy surrounding the war in Ukraine?
Josh Meyer:
That's a good question, Taylor. I mean, the US is playing an advisory role for the most part in all of this. I mean, the war is in Europe. It's the biggest war in Europe in many decades, of course. And so The Hague is coordinating some of it Eurojust, which is a consortium of European justice agencies similar to the US Justice Department, but the US government through its Justice Department is providing funding, for one thing. But, it's also providing a special prosecutor who they've just tapped to do this, and also just its expertise and its influence, I think, around the world.
So basically, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite, who was in The Hague on Monday to join in the announcement, said that we were going to help operationalize the concept of the ICPA and provide a support role. We did just newly appoint US Special Prosecutor for the Crime of Aggression Jessica Kim, who was a US prosecutor, and she'll represent the United States at the ICPA. We will also provide a substantial body of expertise and resources that the US government and the Justice Department have amassed in their own investigations into war crimes in Ukraine, and basically just help move this along from a very early stage.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Josh Meyer covers domestic security for USA TODAY. Thanks so much, Josh.
Josh Meyer:
My pleasure.
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Taylor Wilson:
The number of car buyers paying a thousand dollars a month or more to finance a new vehicle is creeping higher, approaching one-fifth of all new car buyers, an all time high, according to car buying experts at Edmunds. The Online Auto Resources Director of Insights, Yvonne Drury, said that the Federal Reserve's recent pause and interest rate hikes didn't offer much relief for consumers, and that hints at further rate hikes later this year mean auto loan rates may even continue to increase. Unrelenting high new car prices are the result of a shortage of new vehicle inventory in recent months. That's helped to support sky-high manufacturer suggested retail prices with many dealerships charging over sticker price. The new car shortage initially began around two years ago with a tight supply of semiconductor chips used in many car parts.
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.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: State of U.S. democracy, increased fighting in Israel: 5 Things podcast
