On today’s show: Aaron Wiener of the Washington Post joins to discuss the confusion among federal workers as some returned to offices with canceled leases. ProPublica’s Joshua Kaplan explains how an evangelical pastor and House Speaker Mike Johnson came to share a home in Washington, D.C. Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins joins this week’s Apple News In Conversation to talk about a bitter succession drama in the Murdoch family. Plus, Trump backs off certain tariffs, the first execution by firing squad in South Carolina is scheduled for tonight, and how daylight saving time impacts health. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Chapter 1: What are today's headlines in Apple News Today?
Good morning. It's Friday, March 7th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, house speaker Mike Johnson's pastor roommate, Rupert Murdoch's youngest son addresses the family's succession drama for the first time, and how daylight saving time affects your health.
Chapter 2: How are Trump and Musk reshaping the federal workforce?
But first, since President Trump took office, he and Elon Musk have been working to dramatically reshape and shrink the federal workforce. In less than two months, they've fired over 60,000 employees across at least 17 different agencies. The speed of the firings has led to some confusion and mistakes.
Politico reported yesterday that Trump convened his cabinet to make clear that they should make the final calls on hiring and firing within their departments, not Musk. But he also said if cabinet secretaries aren't willing to make cuts, Musk will do the cutting. The meeting came after a flood of concerns from lawmakers and cabinet secretaries over who has final firing power.
Musk was also in the room for the cabinet meeting, according to Politico's reporting, and acknowledged that the Doge team has made some missteps, something he also said to members of Congress this week. Some of those missteps have led to rehiring workers who were let go.
At the Department of Agriculture, for example, scientists trying to fight the spread of bird flu were laid off as part of the mass firings, and the administration struggled to rehire key employees working on the virus outbreak. The Department of Veterans Affairs fired 1,000 probationary employees one week, then sought to rehire employees who worked on the veterans' crisis line.
Similar reversals have happened at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Energy, and other agencies. Some of the firings are being challenged in federal courts. And Washington Post reporter Aaron Wiener told us they reveal some of the flaws in Musk's thinking, applying private sector strategies to the federal bureaucracy.
The sort of move fast and break things ethos that may or may not work at a private company runs into a lot more trouble when you're trying to do it with hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
Federal workers Weiner spoke to say the whiplash has been difficult to navigate. In some cases, they've been ordered to return to work in the office, only to find that their agencies will no longer occupy the buildings they were reporting to. Musk's team has canceled hundreds of leases.
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Chapter 3: What challenges are federal workers facing with office returns?
In one case at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Weiner reports managers were directed to flip a coin to determine who should use the limited available workspaces. Other workers said they've been instructed to kill time in hallways while they wait for desks to open up.
I would say the number one reaction has been confusion. And the number two reaction has been frustration. Some of them say they're just, you know, keeping their heads down and trying to do their job every day. Others say the daily work has become really hard to do among all these distractions. But it has really tested, I think, what a lot of people see as their life's work.
After the cabinet meeting, Trump described in a social media post a more precise approach to job cuts than the administration has taken to date, writing, we say, the scalpel rather than the hatchet.
Now to reporting from ProPublica that examines the unusual relationship between Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, one of the most powerful politicians in the country, and a conservative evangelical pastor named Steve Berger. They are housemates in Washington, D.C.
Chapter 4: Who is Mike Johnson's roommate and what is their agenda?
It's a $3.7 million townhouse blocks from the U.S. Capitol building that's owned by a major GOP donor.
Joshua Kaplan is a reporter for ProPublica.
And this house is also the headquarters of a political influence project that, until our story came out, had managed to stay completely out of public view.
Speaker Johnson has been staying in the House since earlier this year, and Kaplan told us the pastor, Berger, had been working for several years to develop a political influence campaign with the explicit goal of building relationships with lawmakers and using those connections to influence policy. Kaplan walked us through some of Berger's positions.
He's very opposed to gay marriage, to pornography, to sex between unmarried adults. He's called the separation of church and state a, quote, delusional lie. He has advocated for numerous specific policy changes on topics ranging from fuel efficiency regulations to a bill that would make it easier to fire federal workers. And he also called for Congress to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Johnson, like Berger, is an evangelical conservative. And according to House ethics rules, the speaker and other lawmakers are allowed to live anywhere they want if they pay fair market rent. Otherwise, it would be considered an improper gift under ethics rules. A spokesperson for Johnson says he pays fair rent for his portion of the townhome.
And this spokesperson told ProPublica that Johnson and Berger have never discussed legislation or public policy.
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Chapter 5: How does Steve Berger influence policies in Washington?
Berger has said differently. He doesn't talk much about his conversations with lawmakers, but he has described talking with Johnson on a few topics, things like Israel.
Berger did not respond to ProPublica's request for comment, but he has claimed previously to have personally motivated legislation on Capitol Hill.
As early as 2022, he said he had gotten a text from a senator thanking him for the inspiration that led this senator to create a bill. He's also described a number of policy issues he's discussed with lawmakers. So I guess the question is, does he have quite the influence that he claims to have? Exactly how much his project has moved the needle on national policy is
It's something we don't really know at this point.
ProPublica reports Berger has had close relationships with other conservative politicians. Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, has said that he and several members of Congress attend weekly Bible study with Berger.
Meadows said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that I've confessed things to Steve that I wouldn't normally confess to anyone else.
Another person who's known to have lived in this townhome, former Congress member Dan Bishop, who is President Trump's nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. He also did not respond to ProPublica's request for comment.
To live in a house like this, that close to someone who is explicitly trying to shape national policy... is pretty remarkable. But the specifics of what these men talk about and the conversations going on inside this home are still a bit of a mystery.
Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch turns 94 next week, and his family is more divided than ever. Last year, he attempted to change the family trust. It's designed so that when Rupert dies, control of his global print and broadcast empire will be shared equally between four of his children.
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