July 17, 2019 • 20 mins
Today is the 5th anniversary of the death of Eric Garner and yesterday we found out that the Justice Department will not bring federal charges against Daniel Pantaleo , the New York City police officer who put Garner in a chokehold that later led to his death. Carl Takei, senior staff attorney at the ALCU, joins us to discuss why no charges were filed and if there is any other disciplinary action yet to come for Pantaleo.
Next, as Operation Varsity Blues works its way through the courts with parents and coaches who were charged in the college admissions cheating scandal we take a look at how USC is investigating the students who have been connected to the scandal. 33 students are under investigation to see what they knew or if they lied on their applications. Joel Rubin, reporter for the LA Times, joins us for a look inside the admissions investigation.
Finally, a cash shortage may soon be squeezing the huge Democratic field of presidential candidates. Nearly half of the candidates spent more campaign cash than they raised in the second quarter of the year. Early money is more important than ever because candidates are forced to spend heavily to meet polling and donor thresholds to qualify for debates. David Siders, reporter for Politico, joins us for who is in danger.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Wednesday, July. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles, and
this is the Daily Dive. Today is the fifth anniversary
of the death of Eric Garner. And yesterday we found
out that the Justice Department will not bring federal charges
against Daniel Pantalia, the New York City police officer who
(00:20):
put Garner in a chokehold that later led to his death.
Carl Tak, senior staff attorney at the a c l U,
joins us to discuss why no charges were filed and
if there's any other disciplinary action yet to come for Pantalia. Next,
as Operation Varsity Blues works its way through the courts
with parents and coaches who are charged in the college
admissions cheating scandal, we take a look at how USC
(00:42):
is investigating the students who have been connected to the scandal.
Thirty three students are under investigation to see what they
knew or if they lied on their applications. Joel Reuben,
reporter for The l A Times, joins us for a
look inside the admissions investigation. Finally, a cash shortage may
be squeezing the huge democratic field of presidential candidates. Nearly
(01:04):
half of the candidates spent more campaign cash, and they
raised in the second quarter of the year. Early money
is more important than ever because candidates are forced to
spend heavily to meet polling and donor thresholds to qualify
for debates. David Cider's reporter for Politico, joins us for
Who is in Danger. It's news without the noise. Let's
dive in. Five years ago my son said I can't
(01:27):
breathe eleven times, and today we can't breathe. Wolf as
a pandemia and all the officers who was involved in
my son's death that day need to be off the pass.
The streets of New York City is not safe with
them walking around. Joining us now is Carl tk, senior
staff attorney at the a c l U focusing on
police practices. Thanks for joining us, Carl, Thank you for
(01:49):
having me. We're gonna be talking about Eric Garner. The
Justice Department will not be bringing federal charges against the
New York Police officer in the death of Eric Garner.
This is after a year's inquiry into this case that
really has divided the country and a lot of different fronts.
It's helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement. As we
can all recall back in when this happened, there was
(02:13):
a lot of protests, people in the street decrying police
brutality against us. And we all are very familiar with
the video now where the officers got Eric Gardner in
a chokehold, took him down to the floor, and he
was saying, I can't breathe, I can't breathe, and he
later died of an asthma attack as a result of that.
Tell us why the Justice Department is not bringing federal
(02:34):
charges against the officer Daniel Pentaleo. Well, the Justice Department.
This is part of a longer story of the Justice
Department alternately pushing forward and dragging its feet, and for
the last couple of years under the Trump administration, it's
been dragging its feet more and more. That finally ended
today the day before the five year anniversary of officer
(02:57):
Pantaleo killing Eric Garner, with Justice Department saying actually, we're
not going to do anything about it. We're not going
to bring any federal charges against officer Pantalio. And a
lot of this has to do with the quote unquote
choke hold that they put him in, and you can
see in the video he goes behind him kind of
jumps up and grabs him, puts his forearm around his neck,
(03:17):
and then they take him down to the floor. I
think he maintains that he used a take down maneuver
called the seat belt, but a lot of it has
to do with this choke hold. Yeah, and that was
actually a prohibited form of chokehold. Uh that that was
not allowed by NYPD policy at the time, nor is
it allowed today. And Officer Pantalio's defense that he has
(03:41):
offered through his attorneys in the internal NYPD disciplinary proceedings
is that, as you said, this was a seat belt maneuver.
But you know they're they're experts who have examined the
video and who testified in that disciplinary hearing that this
was in fact a prohibited choke hole. Old, what is
the seat belt maneuver? What's the difference? It's basically about
(04:04):
that the position of the arm around the neck and
and the key distinction is that a chokehold is uh,
something that cuts off the windpipe. That is prohibit in
many police departments across the country because of the extreme
risks of death that it creates. At the time, when
(04:25):
the police encountered Eric Garner, he was outside of a
storefront to the officers were going to be arresting him
because he was selling loose cigarettes. I think they refer
to them as Lucy's and you know they're untaxed, and
they said that he was resisting arrest. There was video
taken to this. As I said, we've all a lot
of us have seen this video. Did anything come of
(04:45):
this in the resisting part? And then you know, using
the force to take him down. So the overall context
of this is that Eric Garner had a number of
police encounters in the past, and Officer Pantaleo and his
colleagues attempted to arrest Garner because of this very very
(05:06):
low level legal violation that that is not the kind
of situation that ought to result in anybody's death. And
in a system that was fair, under a set of
laws and a set of police practices and culture that
didn't encourage this kind of aggressive street level harassment of
(05:27):
people of color by police, Eric Garner would still be
alive today because the most that would have resulted in
the from from this interaction would have been probably a
citation and a summons from to appear in court. The
New York Police Department and other police departments around the
country have made changes to the way they operate as
a result of this, anything in particular that they have changed,
(05:50):
You know, there are some changes that NYPD has made,
but these are really changes around the edges and and
the larger issue of police officers still harassing people of
color in ways that you know, people living in in
more well off white communities very rarely experienced continues to
(06:13):
be an issue, not only in New York but across
the country. So, yes, there were some changes to the
way that these types of offenses are handled, but the
broader issue of police basically being used as a tool
to interfere in often very severe ways, with the daily
(06:34):
lives of people color continues to be an issue. Officer
Pantalo specifically, he's been on desk duty for the past
five years. He's that still allowed him to collect a
paycheck and at pension. I know there's still waiting to
see if there will be any disciplinary action from the
New York Police Department specifically, that's up to the Commissioner,
James P. O'Neill. The family of Eric Garner has felt
(06:54):
like they have not gotten justice. Is this the last recourse?
Just action from the commissioner. That is the last form
of accountability that the legal system has to offer at
this point, and it is in the Commissioner's hands whether
or not Daniel Pantaleo is going to continue to wear
an NYPD uniform or not, and all eyes are going
(07:17):
to be on the commissioner just see what type of
action he takes. Carl Take, senior staff attorney at the
A C. L You focusing on police practices. Thank you
very much for joining us. Glad to be here. Thank you.
Investigators had gone and tried to confirm, you know, if
(07:39):
you said you had served as uh, you know, student
council president at your high school. They went back and
tried to confirm that, and if they couldn't, they asked
you about it and said, why can't we find any
indication that you were president of your student council? And
the lawyers said, have got pretty tense and pretty emotional.
Joining us now is Joel Rubin, reporter at the l A. Times.
Thanks for joining us, Joel, happy to be here, Thanks
for having me. We're gonna continue to talk about Operation
(08:01):
Varsity Blues. You know, this is the college admissions cheating
scandals that was centered around this man named William Rick
Singer was creating these side doors for students to get
into a lot of top universities. USC has been one
of these schools that has been impacted, I think the most.
I think they have the most amount of students that
were involved in all of this, and the most amount
(08:23):
of parents that were charged related to this. And we've
seen this play out in the courts already with Laurie
Laughlin and and others, and they've been pleading guilty and
not guilty and whatnot. But USC, the school itself, is
also doing an investigation into whether some of these students
were part of this process or how much they knew
(08:43):
about this. So tell us a little bit about how
this investigation with the school is going on. USC, by
far as far as what we know now, UM, by
far as the university that has been impacted the most
heavily by this college admissions scandal. You know, all the
universities that were affected started looking internally to try to
(09:04):
figure out how big of a problem they had, and
most found one or two students that had been perhaps
admitted through the illicit acts of of Singer and their parents.
But USC came up with thirty three students that they
felt had been involved somehow with Rick Singer. Um. So
(09:25):
now we have these investigations going on where each kid
was notified soon after the case was unveiled that they
were being investigated for falsifying their admissions application, and they
had to go through these pretty rough sounding interviews with
investigators that worked for USC and they were confronted with
(09:48):
the whole you know, stack of emails and documents and
grilled on whether they had lied and if they hadn't lied,
did they know of somebody lying for them? And now
they are pretty much waiting to hear what their fate
is at the school. Yeah, I hope paint the picture
of how these interviews are going. I mean they were
initially given emails and say contact the office. Then within
(10:09):
a week you had to set up one of these
interviews and you know, there's uh, somebody taking notes, there's
somebody asking the questions. And he said, then they're pulling
out documents, this is all the evidence we have on you,
and uh. Sometimes these interviews were run run long. They're
supposed to be about an hour but something most of
the times they were running more than that, right, And
(10:29):
the we spoke with with attorneys who have been hired
to represent the students. So the students have to go
through this process by themselves, but they were allowed to
hire attorneys to serve as advisors. And then the investigators
had gone and tried to confirm, you know, if you
(10:50):
said you had served as uh, you know, student council
president at your high school, they went back and tried
to confirm that, and if they couldn't, they asked you
about it and said, why can't we find any indication
that you were president and of your student council? And um,
the lawyers said, have got pretty tense and pretty emotional.
Some of the students had really no idea what was
going on because their parents hadn't been charged in the
(11:10):
in the federal case, and perhaps hadn't ever told them
that the that they had used this guy named Rick
Singer to help get their kid into college. And so
the lawyer said, you know, it often was the case
that the kids were seeing documents for the first time
or seen names for the first time, that they had
no idea what was going on, or um, certainly you know,
or if they didn't know what was going on, they
or if they knew Rick Singer they just thought of
(11:31):
him as a guy that had helped work on their
application with them, so they described some pretty tense moments.
These interviews were completed several weeks ago, but everybody's still
kind of in this limbo, and the students are still
frozen in the fact that, you know, they can't withdraw
so they can get their transcripts out of there. They
don't know if they're expelled, are suspended yet right yet.
(11:52):
The school had said early on that they hoped to
get this process done relatively quickly, but it has taken
much longer than than everybody had hoped. Um. The school says,
you know, that's because they're trying to do a thoroughfare
job and give the students a chance to put forth
any evidence that they want to make sure is reviewed.
(12:13):
We have been told that the school has made decisions
on just a handful of the thirty three students, and
all of those they won't say how many exactly, but
all of those kids have been uh cleared of wrongdoing,
which is to say, the school has determined that even
if there was some sort of falsification on the application,
they've determined that the kid didn't know about it and
(12:35):
really had would have had no way to know about it.
All the others are just wait into here. Also, it's
hard to determine the exact criteria on what it's going
to take to decide if the kids will be expelled
or confirmed that they had a part in all of this.
There was pictures taking of some of the kids in
you know, various sports postes. Is you know, saying that
(12:56):
a kid maybe took part in a photo shoot or
something like that. But it's hard to really determine exactly
how involved they were, and this is why some some
of it is taking so long. I think that's right.
There was some confusion among the students and the lawyers
representing them early on in the process as to what
the what the standard would be for you know, finding
(13:16):
a student culpable. Uh. The university has tried to clarify
that and say that if there was a faltification, but
the kid didn't know about it and would have had
no way to know about it. Realistically, they say they
are not going to punish the student for the actions
of their parents. And Rick Singer and the kids are
you know, again just waiting to hear what the university
(13:37):
comes down. As far as deciding whether they should have
known about what was done on their behalf. Joel Reubin,
reporter for the La Times, Thank you very much for
joining us. Happy to do it, Thanks for having me.
The ability to get money early is just much more
(14:00):
important than it used to be. And the reason is
because of these new thresholds in the debates, and with
these candidates needing to get a hundred and thirty thousand
unique donors to qualify for the September debate, you have
to spend money to get each one of those donors.
Joining us now is David Cider's national political correspondent for Politico.
Thanks for joining us, David. Good to be here. There's
(14:21):
a lot of people in the Democratic race for president
right now. For the nomination, I think we're still over
twenty and everybody's kind of wondering when is when are
the shoes gonna start dropping, When are we gonna start
getting some people getting winnowed out of this group? And uh,
it might seem that in the next few months we
might have some people jumping out. And this all has
to do with money now. A lot of the candidates
(14:42):
have been spending more campaign cash than they're raising, especially
in this past second quarter. Tell us a little bit
about this, David. I think it's exactly that that their
burn rates are fairly high. We counted eleven candidates, that's
almost half the field spending more than they raised. Now,
some of these people still have enough money to limp
along on because primarily these are senators have big accounts
(15:04):
that they can draw from and transfer in, so they're okay.
But it points to I think a problem that they
need to write in their campaign moving forward. It's all
about the money and name recognition early on, and you
need money to help with the name recognition to get
you out to events. And then also the other big
thing is paying your staff. How big are these staffs
for a lot of these candidates, Well, even the lesser
(15:27):
knowns are getting a lot bigger now. I think Warren's
might be the biggest at three plus uh nationally, so
she has a huge apparatus. But even some of these
candidates who are struggling. Federal Works a good example, probably
the most surprising number I think, on the fundraising night,
but he's as he's reporting raising less money, he's continuing
(15:48):
to expand his field staff. They're opening something like eleven
offices in Iowa this week. So what you say about
the money being important for name recognition is I think
so interesting because this year, in particular, the ability to
get money early is just much more important than it
used to be. And the reason is because of these
new thresholds in the debates, and with these candidates needing
(16:11):
to get a hundred and thirty unique donors to qualify
for the September debate, you have to spend money to
get each one of those donors. So you're seeing huge
investments on the digital side from a lot of these candidates,
buying every contribution that they end up taking in. And
that's one reason you have burn rates that are so high,
is because if you don't make the debate stage, if
(16:31):
you don't make the September debate stage, that's a real problem.
I think for a candidate, being on the debate stage
helps obviously, you know, people get curious about who you are,
and then if you're lucky to get that stand out moment,
then there could possibly be more money coming your way.
Julian Castro is a good example of that. He had
a really good performance at the last debate and then
he obviously got a lot more money because of that,
(16:53):
but he was spending of the amount of money that
he raised, So once again, I mean that cash goes
very fast. The Cast example is interesting because he did
bump up on the fundraising, as you mentioned, but he
also stayed relatively flat. His polling is not going off
the charts, and you haven't seen huge momentum that way.
Whereas Kamala Harris just days before I mean that debate happened,
(17:16):
what three or four days before the end of the
fundraising period. Had that debate not happened, she probably would
have raised less money in the second quarter than she
raised in the first quarter, and the entire narrative surrounding
her candidacy would have been flipped. But instead she had
that moment. She raised a couple of million bucks immediately
after the debate. She boosted her number beyond what she
(17:37):
raised in Q one, and she's also seen a polling bump.
So there's a candidate that used the debate I think
too great effect. The top five front runners combined to
rake in about a hundred million dollars. How about the
lesser tier candidates who are we worried about with this
big money crunch? There are some most tier candidates who
have lengthy records in public of us, and I think
(18:00):
those are the most interesting. Maybe hicken Looper is running
very short of cash. Build a Blasio, the New York
City mayor who never really gained any traction. I think
with his entry, doesn't have much money. Tim Ryan has
less than a million dollars. Seth Molten is a congressman
who is also struggling. So those are I think the
people who are in trouble financially. There's also Marian Williamson
(18:24):
Oprah's former. Money is a big measure of viability, and
you're saying, oh, you know, they've got a million dollars
on hand or whatever. To a normal person, that seems
like a ton of money. But when you're running these campaigns,
you're buying air time, you're buying, as you said that,
you have to spend money to get the donors, you
have to pay your staff, and that stuff goes quick.
(18:45):
There's not a lot there. And we're talking about these
thresholds for the next debates. A hundred and thirty thousand donors.
Do these increase for as the debates go along? We
don't know beyond the fall debate. So for that debate
threshold is hitting two percent in public opinion polls, and
I think it's four different polls, and then the hunters
(19:05):
of thirty thousand different donors, and then I would imagine
that the d n C would continue to make the
thresholds higher if they have to. It's not clear to
me that the field doesn't start to win O on
its own that that debate. I mean, that's really going
to be a hard threshold for a lot of candidates
to make. David Sider's national political correspondent for Politico. Thank
(19:26):
you very much for joining us. Thank you. That's it
for today. Join us on social media at Daily Dive
pod on Twitter and Daily Dive Podcasts on Facebook. Leave
us a comment, give us a rating, and tell us
the stories that you're interested in. Follow us on I
(19:46):
Heard Radio, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. This
episode of The Daily Dive was produced by Brooke Peterson
and engineered by Tony Sorrentina. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this
was your Daily Dive. Fat
It's Wednesday, July. I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles, and
this is the Daily Dive. Today is the fifth anniversary
of the death of Eric Garner. And yesterday we found
out that the Justice Department will not bring federal charges
against Daniel Pantalia, the New York City police officer who
(00:20):
put Garner in a chokehold that later led to his death.
Carl Tak, senior staff attorney at the a c l U,
joins us to discuss why no charges were filed and
if there's any other disciplinary action yet to come for Pantalia. Next,
as Operation Varsity Blues works its way through the courts
with parents and coaches who are charged in the college
admissions cheating scandal, we take a look at how USC
(00:42):
is investigating the students who have been connected to the scandal.
Thirty three students are under investigation to see what they
knew or if they lied on their applications. Joel Reuben,
reporter for The l A Times, joins us for a
look inside the admissions investigation. Finally, a cash shortage may
be squeezing the huge democratic field of presidential candidates. Nearly
(01:04):
half of the candidates spent more campaign cash, and they
raised in the second quarter of the year. Early money
is more important than ever because candidates are forced to
spend heavily to meet polling and donor thresholds to qualify
for debates. David Cider's reporter for Politico, joins us for
Who is in Danger. It's news without the noise. Let's
dive in. Five years ago my son said I can't
(01:27):
breathe eleven times, and today we can't breathe. Wolf as
a pandemia and all the officers who was involved in
my son's death that day need to be off the pass.
The streets of New York City is not safe with
them walking around. Joining us now is Carl tk, senior
staff attorney at the a c l U focusing on
police practices. Thanks for joining us, Carl, Thank you for
(01:49):
having me. We're gonna be talking about Eric Garner. The
Justice Department will not be bringing federal charges against the
New York Police officer in the death of Eric Garner.
This is after a year's inquiry into this case that
really has divided the country and a lot of different fronts.
It's helped spark the Black Lives Matter movement. As we
can all recall back in when this happened, there was
(02:13):
a lot of protests, people in the street decrying police
brutality against us. And we all are very familiar with
the video now where the officers got Eric Gardner in
a chokehold, took him down to the floor, and he
was saying, I can't breathe, I can't breathe, and he
later died of an asthma attack as a result of that.
Tell us why the Justice Department is not bringing federal
(02:34):
charges against the officer Daniel Pentaleo. Well, the Justice Department.
This is part of a longer story of the Justice
Department alternately pushing forward and dragging its feet, and for
the last couple of years under the Trump administration, it's
been dragging its feet more and more. That finally ended
today the day before the five year anniversary of officer
(02:57):
Pantaleo killing Eric Garner, with Justice Department saying actually, we're
not going to do anything about it. We're not going
to bring any federal charges against officer Pantalio. And a
lot of this has to do with the quote unquote
choke hold that they put him in, and you can
see in the video he goes behind him kind of
jumps up and grabs him, puts his forearm around his neck,
(03:17):
and then they take him down to the floor. I
think he maintains that he used a take down maneuver
called the seat belt, but a lot of it has
to do with this choke hold. Yeah, and that was
actually a prohibited form of chokehold. Uh that that was
not allowed by NYPD policy at the time, nor is
it allowed today. And Officer Pantalio's defense that he has
(03:41):
offered through his attorneys in the internal NYPD disciplinary proceedings
is that, as you said, this was a seat belt maneuver.
But you know they're they're experts who have examined the
video and who testified in that disciplinary hearing that this
was in fact a prohibited choke hole. Old, what is
the seat belt maneuver? What's the difference? It's basically about
(04:04):
that the position of the arm around the neck and
and the key distinction is that a chokehold is uh,
something that cuts off the windpipe. That is prohibit in
many police departments across the country because of the extreme
risks of death that it creates. At the time, when
(04:25):
the police encountered Eric Garner, he was outside of a
storefront to the officers were going to be arresting him
because he was selling loose cigarettes. I think they refer
to them as Lucy's and you know they're untaxed, and
they said that he was resisting arrest. There was video
taken to this. As I said, we've all a lot
of us have seen this video. Did anything come of
(04:45):
this in the resisting part? And then you know, using
the force to take him down. So the overall context
of this is that Eric Garner had a number of
police encounters in the past, and Officer Pantaleo and his
colleagues attempted to arrest Garner because of this very very
(05:06):
low level legal violation that that is not the kind
of situation that ought to result in anybody's death. And
in a system that was fair, under a set of
laws and a set of police practices and culture that
didn't encourage this kind of aggressive street level harassment of
(05:27):
people of color by police, Eric Garner would still be
alive today because the most that would have resulted in
the from from this interaction would have been probably a
citation and a summons from to appear in court. The
New York Police Department and other police departments around the
country have made changes to the way they operate as
a result of this, anything in particular that they have changed,
(05:50):
You know, there are some changes that NYPD has made,
but these are really changes around the edges and and
the larger issue of police officers still harassing people of
color in ways that you know, people living in in
more well off white communities very rarely experienced continues to
(06:13):
be an issue, not only in New York but across
the country. So, yes, there were some changes to the
way that these types of offenses are handled, but the
broader issue of police basically being used as a tool
to interfere in often very severe ways, with the daily
(06:34):
lives of people color continues to be an issue. Officer
Pantalo specifically, he's been on desk duty for the past
five years. He's that still allowed him to collect a
paycheck and at pension. I know there's still waiting to
see if there will be any disciplinary action from the
New York Police Department specifically, that's up to the Commissioner,
James P. O'Neill. The family of Eric Garner has felt
(06:54):
like they have not gotten justice. Is this the last recourse?
Just action from the commissioner. That is the last form
of accountability that the legal system has to offer at
this point, and it is in the Commissioner's hands whether
or not Daniel Pantaleo is going to continue to wear
an NYPD uniform or not, and all eyes are going
(07:17):
to be on the commissioner just see what type of
action he takes. Carl Take, senior staff attorney at the
A C. L You focusing on police practices. Thank you
very much for joining us. Glad to be here. Thank you.
Investigators had gone and tried to confirm, you know, if
(07:39):
you said you had served as uh, you know, student
council president at your high school. They went back and
tried to confirm that, and if they couldn't, they asked
you about it and said, why can't we find any
indication that you were president of your student council? And
the lawyers said, have got pretty tense and pretty emotional.
Joining us now is Joel Rubin, reporter at the l A. Times.
Thanks for joining us, Joel, happy to be here, Thanks
for having me. We're gonna continue to talk about Operation
(08:01):
Varsity Blues. You know, this is the college admissions cheating
scandals that was centered around this man named William Rick
Singer was creating these side doors for students to get
into a lot of top universities. USC has been one
of these schools that has been impacted, I think the most.
I think they have the most amount of students that
were involved in all of this, and the most amount
(08:23):
of parents that were charged related to this. And we've
seen this play out in the courts already with Laurie
Laughlin and and others, and they've been pleading guilty and
not guilty and whatnot. But USC, the school itself, is
also doing an investigation into whether some of these students
were part of this process or how much they knew
(08:43):
about this. So tell us a little bit about how
this investigation with the school is going on. USC, by
far as far as what we know now, UM, by
far as the university that has been impacted the most
heavily by this college admissions scandal. You know, all the
universities that were affected started looking internally to try to
(09:04):
figure out how big of a problem they had, and
most found one or two students that had been perhaps
admitted through the illicit acts of of Singer and their parents.
But USC came up with thirty three students that they
felt had been involved somehow with Rick Singer. Um. So
(09:25):
now we have these investigations going on where each kid
was notified soon after the case was unveiled that they
were being investigated for falsifying their admissions application, and they
had to go through these pretty rough sounding interviews with
investigators that worked for USC and they were confronted with
(09:48):
the whole you know, stack of emails and documents and
grilled on whether they had lied and if they hadn't lied,
did they know of somebody lying for them? And now
they are pretty much waiting to hear what their fate
is at the school. Yeah, I hope paint the picture
of how these interviews are going. I mean they were
initially given emails and say contact the office. Then within
(10:09):
a week you had to set up one of these
interviews and you know, there's uh, somebody taking notes, there's
somebody asking the questions. And he said, then they're pulling
out documents, this is all the evidence we have on you,
and uh. Sometimes these interviews were run run long. They're
supposed to be about an hour but something most of
the times they were running more than that, right, And
(10:29):
the we spoke with with attorneys who have been hired
to represent the students. So the students have to go
through this process by themselves, but they were allowed to
hire attorneys to serve as advisors. And then the investigators
had gone and tried to confirm, you know, if you
(10:50):
said you had served as uh, you know, student council
president at your high school, they went back and tried
to confirm that, and if they couldn't, they asked you
about it and said, why can't we find any indication
that you were president and of your student council? And um,
the lawyers said, have got pretty tense and pretty emotional.
Some of the students had really no idea what was
going on because their parents hadn't been charged in the
(11:10):
in the federal case, and perhaps hadn't ever told them
that the that they had used this guy named Rick
Singer to help get their kid into college. And so
the lawyer said, you know, it often was the case
that the kids were seeing documents for the first time
or seen names for the first time, that they had
no idea what was going on, or um, certainly you know,
or if they didn't know what was going on, they
or if they knew Rick Singer they just thought of
(11:31):
him as a guy that had helped work on their
application with them, so they described some pretty tense moments.
These interviews were completed several weeks ago, but everybody's still
kind of in this limbo, and the students are still
frozen in the fact that, you know, they can't withdraw
so they can get their transcripts out of there. They
don't know if they're expelled, are suspended yet right yet.
(11:52):
The school had said early on that they hoped to
get this process done relatively quickly, but it has taken
much longer than than everybody had hoped. Um. The school says,
you know, that's because they're trying to do a thoroughfare
job and give the students a chance to put forth
any evidence that they want to make sure is reviewed.
(12:13):
We have been told that the school has made decisions
on just a handful of the thirty three students, and
all of those they won't say how many exactly, but
all of those kids have been uh cleared of wrongdoing,
which is to say, the school has determined that even
if there was some sort of falsification on the application,
they've determined that the kid didn't know about it and
(12:35):
really had would have had no way to know about it.
All the others are just wait into here. Also, it's
hard to determine the exact criteria on what it's going
to take to decide if the kids will be expelled
or confirmed that they had a part in all of this.
There was pictures taking of some of the kids in
you know, various sports postes. Is you know, saying that
(12:56):
a kid maybe took part in a photo shoot or
something like that. But it's hard to really determine exactly
how involved they were, and this is why some some
of it is taking so long. I think that's right.
There was some confusion among the students and the lawyers
representing them early on in the process as to what
the what the standard would be for you know, finding
(13:16):
a student culpable. Uh. The university has tried to clarify
that and say that if there was a faltification, but
the kid didn't know about it and would have had
no way to know about it. Realistically, they say they
are not going to punish the student for the actions
of their parents. And Rick Singer and the kids are
you know, again just waiting to hear what the university
(13:37):
comes down. As far as deciding whether they should have
known about what was done on their behalf. Joel Reubin,
reporter for the La Times, Thank you very much for
joining us. Happy to do it, Thanks for having me.
The ability to get money early is just much more
(14:00):
important than it used to be. And the reason is
because of these new thresholds in the debates, and with
these candidates needing to get a hundred and thirty thousand
unique donors to qualify for the September debate, you have
to spend money to get each one of those donors.
Joining us now is David Cider's national political correspondent for Politico.
Thanks for joining us, David. Good to be here. There's
(14:21):
a lot of people in the Democratic race for president
right now. For the nomination, I think we're still over
twenty and everybody's kind of wondering when is when are
the shoes gonna start dropping, When are we gonna start
getting some people getting winnowed out of this group? And uh,
it might seem that in the next few months we
might have some people jumping out. And this all has
to do with money now. A lot of the candidates
(14:42):
have been spending more campaign cash than they're raising, especially
in this past second quarter. Tell us a little bit
about this, David. I think it's exactly that that their
burn rates are fairly high. We counted eleven candidates, that's
almost half the field spending more than they raised. Now,
some of these people still have enough money to limp
along on because primarily these are senators have big accounts
(15:04):
that they can draw from and transfer in, so they're okay.
But it points to I think a problem that they
need to write in their campaign moving forward. It's all
about the money and name recognition early on, and you
need money to help with the name recognition to get
you out to events. And then also the other big
thing is paying your staff. How big are these staffs
for a lot of these candidates, Well, even the lesser
(15:27):
knowns are getting a lot bigger now. I think Warren's
might be the biggest at three plus uh nationally, so
she has a huge apparatus. But even some of these
candidates who are struggling. Federal Works a good example, probably
the most surprising number I think, on the fundraising night,
but he's as he's reporting raising less money, he's continuing
(15:48):
to expand his field staff. They're opening something like eleven
offices in Iowa this week. So what you say about
the money being important for name recognition is I think
so interesting because this year, in particular, the ability to
get money early is just much more important than it
used to be. And the reason is because of these
new thresholds in the debates, and with these candidates needing
(16:11):
to get a hundred and thirty unique donors to qualify
for the September debate, you have to spend money to
get each one of those donors. So you're seeing huge
investments on the digital side from a lot of these candidates,
buying every contribution that they end up taking in. And
that's one reason you have burn rates that are so high,
is because if you don't make the debate stage, if
(16:31):
you don't make the September debate stage, that's a real problem.
I think for a candidate, being on the debate stage
helps obviously, you know, people get curious about who you are,
and then if you're lucky to get that stand out moment,
then there could possibly be more money coming your way.
Julian Castro is a good example of that. He had
a really good performance at the last debate and then
he obviously got a lot more money because of that,
(16:53):
but he was spending of the amount of money that
he raised, So once again, I mean that cash goes
very fast. The Cast example is interesting because he did
bump up on the fundraising, as you mentioned, but he
also stayed relatively flat. His polling is not going off
the charts, and you haven't seen huge momentum that way.
Whereas Kamala Harris just days before I mean that debate happened,
(17:16):
what three or four days before the end of the
fundraising period. Had that debate not happened, she probably would
have raised less money in the second quarter than she
raised in the first quarter, and the entire narrative surrounding
her candidacy would have been flipped. But instead she had
that moment. She raised a couple of million bucks immediately
after the debate. She boosted her number beyond what she
(17:37):
raised in Q one, and she's also seen a polling bump.
So there's a candidate that used the debate I think
too great effect. The top five front runners combined to
rake in about a hundred million dollars. How about the
lesser tier candidates who are we worried about with this
big money crunch? There are some most tier candidates who
have lengthy records in public of us, and I think
(18:00):
those are the most interesting. Maybe hicken Looper is running
very short of cash. Build a Blasio, the New York
City mayor who never really gained any traction. I think
with his entry, doesn't have much money. Tim Ryan has
less than a million dollars. Seth Molten is a congressman
who is also struggling. So those are I think the
people who are in trouble financially. There's also Marian Williamson
(18:24):
Oprah's former. Money is a big measure of viability, and
you're saying, oh, you know, they've got a million dollars
on hand or whatever. To a normal person, that seems
like a ton of money. But when you're running these campaigns,
you're buying air time, you're buying, as you said that,
you have to spend money to get the donors, you
have to pay your staff, and that stuff goes quick.
(18:45):
There's not a lot there. And we're talking about these
thresholds for the next debates. A hundred and thirty thousand donors.
Do these increase for as the debates go along? We
don't know beyond the fall debate. So for that debate
threshold is hitting two percent in public opinion polls, and
I think it's four different polls, and then the hunters
(19:05):
of thirty thousand different donors, and then I would imagine
that the d n C would continue to make the
thresholds higher if they have to. It's not clear to
me that the field doesn't start to win O on
its own that that debate. I mean, that's really going
to be a hard threshold for a lot of candidates
to make. David Sider's national political correspondent for Politico. Thank
(19:26):
you very much for joining us. Thank you. That's it
for today. Join us on social media at Daily Dive
pod on Twitter and Daily Dive Podcasts on Facebook. Leave
us a comment, give us a rating, and tell us
the stories that you're interested in. Follow us on I
(19:46):
Heard Radio, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. This
episode of The Daily Dive was produced by Brooke Peterson
and engineered by Tony Sorrentina. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this
was your Daily Dive. Fat
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