Fed hikes interest rates, no Trump witnesses in E. Jean Carroll trial: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Fed hikes interest rates 0.25 percentage point

USA TODAY Economic Opportunity Reporter Charisse Jones looks at what the latest Fed rate hike means for the economy. Russia says Ukrainian drones attacked the Kremlin, an attorney for Donald Trump says he will not call witnesses in his defense of E. Jean Carroll's defamation lawsuit, new Tucker Carlson text messages are revealed in the wake of his firing, and USA TODAY National Correspondent for Extremism and Emerging Issues Will Carless looks into a new hate group on Telegram.

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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. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Thursday, the 4th of May 2023. Today what the Fed's latest interest rate move means for the economy. Plus, Russia threatens retaliation after an apparent drone attack on the Kremlin. And we look at one of the latest online hate groups.

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The Federal Reserve raised its key short-term interest rate yesterday for more on what that means for the economy as a whole, I spoke with USA TODAY Economic Opportunity Reporter Charisse Jones. Charisse, thanks for hopping on the podcast.

Charisse Jones:

No worries, glad to do it.

Taylor Wilson:

What can you tell us about this latest Fed rate hike?

Charisse Jones:

Well, it was expected. It is the 10th rate hike in a row. This is the steepest increase we've seen from them in terms of the rapidity of these hikes in four decades. It's a quarter percentage of a point which brings the key rate up to a range of five to five and a quarter percentage points, and that is the highest in 17 years. And it's aimed at curbing inflation, but it is something that consumers are going to feel and they've been feeling them all along and the pain is not going to go away instantly because we're here with another rate hike.

Taylor Wilson:

And based on this move, Charisse, what can listeners expect for inflation the rest of the year?

Charisse Jones:

Well, inflation has actually been waning. I mean it's down to about 4.2% as compared to 7% a year ago. It was at a four decade high a while back, and so it definitely is slowing down, but it's just not hitting this 2% mark that the Fed wants to see to definitively decide to stop pushing the interest rate hikes, which means that using your credit card gets to be more expensive. If you need a new car and you're trying to get a car loan, that's going to cost you more, your mortgage might be impacted, and at the same time, you're still paying slightly higher prices at the grocery store. So, you have a lot of people who are squeezed in the middle.

Taylor Wilson:

And this recession word has gotten thrown around for a few months now. Should we expect a recession later this year?

Charisse Jones:

Well, most economists think we will have one. They were saying that it will be relatively mild, even though mild is relative. Because obviously if you're one of the people that's thrown out of work, that's going to be really calamitous in your own life. Fed Chair Jerome Powell says there's a chance we won't have a recession, but he definitely thinks that it's still a possibility.

Taylor Wilson:

And what should we expect from the Fed for the rest of the year?

Charisse Jones:

Basically, this could mark the last Fed interest rate increase of the year. They're looking to see if the tighter lending standards that banks are implementing in the wake of the collapse of SVB and Signature, and First Republic Bank, if that might have an impact. They're also waiting to see if the string of rate hikes they've already done will have an impact on kind of curbing spending and curbing inflation. So, they're taking a wait and see attitude about what they're going to do. But the Fed Chair said today that it's unlikely that they will cut rates.

Taylor Wilson:

USA TODAY Economic Opportunity Reporter Charisse Jones. Thanks so much.

Charisse Jones:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

Fragments of two Ukrainian drones fell into the Kremlin and Moscow yesterday causing a fireball near the roof of one building according to the Russian government. Ukraine's government continues to deny any involvement. A statement from Russia said no one was injured in what they described as a terrorist attack and assassination attempt. Russian president Vladimir Putin was at his residence outside Moscow at the time, according to his spokesman. The incident came as Russia prepares to mark Victory Day on May 9th, its annual celebration of its victory in World War II. Russia is threatening retaliation after the incident. The country has previously staged false flag operations to try and justify assaults on Ukraine. Some Ukrainian officials have dismissed Russia's claims about this incident as more of the same.

An attorney for Donald Trump said yesterday that he will not call any witnesses in his defense of E. Jean Carroll's defamation lawsuit, which includes a rape allegation against Trump. The move by Trump's team means a jury should get to decide the case early next week. Trump Attorney Joseph Tacopina told the court that health issues would prevent an expert witness in psychiatry from testifying. He also said earlier in the trial that Trump himself would not testify. Carroll is suing Trump for defamation. She says he raped her, then lied about the attack, disparaging her character while doing so.

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We're learning more about text messages that helped lead Fox News to part ways with host Tucker Carlson. That includes, one, where Carlson declared that Trump supporters beating a protestor was "not how white men fight," according to the New York Times. The text was one of many from Carlson and other Fox News hosts uncovered in a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against the network. The suit centered on the network airing false allegations that the company's voting machines were used to steal the 2020 election from former President Donald Trump. Some of Carlson's texts have been publicly released, but the one quoted by the New York Times remains redacted by the court. Media organizations continue to try and lift the redactions. Before he was fired last month, Carlson was Fox's top-rated host. But he drew controversy for spreading theories, including that immigrants were being sent to the US to replace Americans born here. Critics have called him a white supremacist, something Carlson denies.

Racism, anti-LGBTQ sentiment and neo-Nazism continue to thrive in online forums that sanction hate speech. That includes the latest, a channel on telegram called Project Mayhem. I spoke with USA TODAY National Correspondent for Extremism and Emerging Issues Will Carless to learn more. Will, thanks for hopping on the show.

Will Carless:

Always a pleasure.

Taylor Wilson:

How did you first hear about Project Mayhem?

Will Carless:

Part of my job is to just keep an eye on certain people and groups, and I do that mainly by monitoring spaces online, places that most people wouldn't like to spend a lot of time. In fact, I don't really like spending a lot of time there, but it's part of my job. I don't know how many of the listeners are familiar with Telegram, but it works a little bit like Twitter and that's when I first heard about this Telegram channel we're going to talk about today. Every couple of days I'll go and take a look and see what the neo-Nazis and white supremacists and other nasty groups are talking about. And I saw they were all talking about this thing called Project Mayhem.

Taylor Wilson:

Will, what is Project Mayhem? What are we talking about here?

Will Carless:

Project Mayhem is essentially a Telegram channel where a group of people, there's about 1500 followers, someone will go on there and post what they call a "raid," which is essentially targeting someone. It could be an individual, it could be a business, it's usually an individual. And they will say things like, go and bully this person. Go and make their lives a misery. If it's a business, go and ruin all of their reviews online, their Google reviews, Yelp reviews, that sort of thing. If it's an individual, then bombard them with phone calls and hateful voice messages and hateful direct messages on social media. And that, indeed, has happened. I've spoken to several of the victims who were just absolutely bombarded with hateful messages, white supremacist slogans, images for at least a few days at a time, really made their lives miserable and really upset them, in addition to affecting people's businesses. It's not a very nice group of people and they're sort of actively engaged in these targeted hate campaigns.

Taylor Wilson:

And does Project Mayhem have a particular leader?

Will Carless:

It was started by a man who's from Florida by the name of Paul Nicholas Miller. He goes online as GypsyCrusader. That's his moniker. He's a very nasty neo-Nazi who posts all sorts of very offensive stuff online, and with some help I was able to trace back that he actually founded this back in 2019. There are posts on Telegram where he says, "I'm setting up this channel specifically to harass people."

Taylor Wilson:

Will, can this type of behavior be prosecuted or do free speech laws protect it?

Will Carless:

That's a very simple question with an extremely complicated answer, and I've spent several hours on the phone with people today trying to figure out just that. I think theoretically, yes, it can be prosecuted, by the time speech rises to the level of actual harassment, incitement to violence, that sort of thing, which has certainly happened in this case. The test is very, very stringent as well it should be in a country with a sacrosanct right of free speech. Essentially what it comes down to is whether somebody has been harassed for a prolonged period of time. And that's the difference in this case. What these guys are doing is they're going from victim to victim to victim, and each victim might only be harassed for sort of a few days or a couple of weeks at a time, but they've been doing it for a long time

And so the experts I've talked to say it would somewhat be breaking new grounds. And of course, you've got to get law enforcement interested enough and clued-up enough to take this stuff seriously and to make it a priority, which is a whole other kettle of fish.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Will Carless, always great info for us. Thanks so much.

Will Carless:

Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. If you like the show, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcast. And any comments, you can email them our way at podcasts@usatoday.com. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.