Noel King
Appearances
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
President Trump addressed the Congress last night. You heard that. Uganda. But let's check in on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. He tweeted from the car on his way to the address.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Noelle King here with Haley Britsky. Haley is CNN's Pentagon reporter and producer, and she's been following the DOD's plan to separate transgender service members from the military. Haley, what does this new Pentagon policy say exactly?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
How is this new policy going to affect you? What does it mean for your career?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
The Department of Defense is offering some terms for people who voluntarily leave the military in 30 days. We learned that in the first half of the show. Would you ever volunteer to go?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
I'm hearing you say you wanted to and you plan to stay in the military until retirement.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
The Department of Defense has said that being trans is contrary to the, and here I'm going to quote Sam, high standards for service member readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity. You've been in the service since 2015. You know what this is driving at here. Let me ask you how you respond to that statement.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
He tweeted again a thank you after Trump mentioned him.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Listener, did you know that every branch of the U.S. military has a creed? It must be memorized and sometimes quickly recalled. Petty Officer Second Class Sam Rodriguez can recite it without a hitch.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Then he went on Fox News this a.m. to discuss enlistment numbers.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
President Trump and Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, have they come out and said why they think people who are trans are unfit to serve their country?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
So the military is using the word separation, which is the word that it generally uses in cases like this. But it means people are losing their jobs. For people who are losing their jobs and didn't expect to lose their jobs, what are they receiving?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Neither Hegseth nor the president mentioned their plan to force transgender service members out of the military. Today on Explained, we're going to do that.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
We're assuming there will be legal challenges and we're in an environment where it's hard to tell what a legal challenge might lead to. But during President Trump's first term, as I recall, there were legal challenges to some of what he tried in the Pentagon.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Can you take us back and tell us, as we start to see lawsuits and look for lawsuits, what we might be looking at here?
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
That was Haley Britsky. She covers the Pentagon for CNN. Coming up, so you've been serving honorably, and now you're out. We're going to hear what that's like.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
Today Explained is back. So this is kind of a universal experience. Your job changes a policy that affects you, and it is terrible because change is very hard. For most of us, this doesn't happen all that often. But Navy Petty Officer Sam Rodriguez's military service has been upended again and again and again by policy changes. Sam joined the Navy in 2015.
Today, Explained
Serving your country while trans
In 2016, a ban on transgender service members was lifted. Then Donald Trump was elected. And in 2017, Trump banned transgender service members. In 2020, Joe Biden was elected. Biden reversed the ban. And then in 2024, President Trump was elected. And his DOD is now firing trans service members.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has always been an odd guy. As a state senator, he made a video explaining how to search your kid's room for contraband.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
We called Barb because a relatively tiny number of people have held these jobs. And we wanted to know what she makes of the DOJ pressuring New York prosecutors to drop their case against Eric Adams.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Walk us through who gave the prosecutors in New York their marching orders and what exactly those orders said.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
After the resignations, I heard people ask whether resigning is the best move, because if everybody resigns, then eventually somebody does give in and do it. And the people who are ethical, who have, you know, backbones, they're not there anymore. What do you think about that tension?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Katie Honan is a senior reporter at the nonprofit news site The City. Katie also hosts the FAQ NYC podcast. Yesterday, minutes before Katie dashed into a press conference with Eric Adams, we reached her in the rotunda of City Hall to ask her about the life and times of New York's mayor.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
And I think that puts us in a worse place. What do you think this scandal tells us about the Justice Department in the second Trump administration?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
How do we get out of this? Do you think that Congress is going to do anything here?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
The issue, of course, in New York is the quid pro quo. Donald Trump wants something from Eric Adams and Eric Adams wanted something from Donald Trump. But the vast majority of mayors in the United States and governors in the United States and other people in the United States who Donald Trump might want something from are not under indictment. Right.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
So is this situation in New York City just a one off or do you think it's part of a playbook?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Barbara McQuaid, UMich Law School, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Amanda Llewellyn and Devin Schwartz produced today's show. Jolie Myers edited. Laura Bullard checked the facts. And Patrick Boyd is our engineer. I'm Noelle King. This has been Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Before we get to the events of the past couple of weeks, what's his reputation as mayor been? What do New Yorkers think of him?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
As mayor, there was the Urban Rat Summit. There was the baptism, his, at Rikers Island. And then there was the alleged corruption, the wire fraud, bribery, the indictment. And then came the order from the Department of Justice that all those charges had to be dropped. Ahead on Today Explained.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Mayor Adams is a Democrat. Yes. OK, but he claims he was targeted by the Biden administration and then President Trump is elected. And that leads us to where we are today. What happened?
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
So is the case, are the charges against Adams really going to get dropped? We don't know yet.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
So you're a native New Yorker, and politics in New York can get weird. In your time covering politics in New York, where does this kind of stand on the scale of 1 to 10? Oh, I would say this is probably an eight.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
The city's Katie Honan getting ready to go into a Mayor Adams press conference. Good luck in there. Enjoy. I'll need it. Thank you so much.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Support for Today Explained comes from Greenlight. Greenlight believes that most people learn about saving and budgeting much later than they should. Greenlight wants to give you the opportunity to give your kids a head start with Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app that's made for families. Parents can send money to their kids.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
They can keep an eye on the kids' spending and saving. Meanwhile, the kids are building confidence and financial knowledge. With the Greenlight app, kids learn how to save, invest, spend wisely, thanks to games that teach money skills in a fun, accessible way. Here's our colleague, Otis Sham, who has used Greenlight with her thoughts.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Millions of parents and kids are learning about money on Greenlight. You can start your risk-free Greenlight trial today. Greenlight.com slash explained. That's Greenlight.com slash explained to get started. What's that? Greenlight.com slash explained.
Today, Explained
Quid pro bros
Barbara McQuaid teaches at the University of Michigan's law school. She served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. There are 93 U.S. attorneys in these United States, and it is their job to enforce federal law. As all U.S. attorneys are, Barb was a presidential appointee. She was appointed by Obama in 2010, and she served until 2017.