The Excerpt podcast: Alabama lawmakers pass IVF protections for patients and providers

On Thursday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: Alabama lawmakers passed IVF protections. USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers looks back on former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's campaign after her announcement that she's dropping out. The House passes a government funding deal, temporarily dodging a shutdown. USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page examines the presumed rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Californians get ready for a wildflower superbloom.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. 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.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Thursday, March 7th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, Alabama's legislature has passed IVF protections. Plus, what's next after Nikki Haley dropped out of the presidential race? And super bloom is coming.

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Alabama lawmakers gave final approval yesterday to legislation protecting in vitro fertilization providers and patients. The move comes less than a month after the state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are legally protected as children. Members of the State House passed the bill overwhelmingly 81 to 12, and the Senate did the same, voting to concur with a vote of 29 to 1. Republican governor, Kay Ivey, immediately signed the bill into law. The bipartisan legislation provides civil and criminal immunity to fertility clinics and doctors for the death or damage to an embryo during the IVF process. In the weeks after the state Supreme Court ruling, three of Alabama's largest IVF providers temporarily shut down out of fear of prosecution. Elected officials from across Alabama and the country spoke out in support of IVF, including both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

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Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley dropped out of the presidential race yesterday.

Nikki Haley:

The time has now come to suspend my campaign. I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard. I have done that. I have no regrets. And although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in.

Taylor Wilson:

In. She made the announcement acknowledging that former President Donald Trump will likely be the Republican Party nominee. Despite dropping out, Haley's campaign made history. She was the first woman to win a GOP primary, and the first Indian American presidential candidate to make it to Super Tuesday. And she defied most expectations. Still, she fell short as Trump's grip on the party continues. I spoke with USA TODAY White House correspondent Francesca Chambers for more. Hello, Francesca.

Francesca Chambers:

Hi again.

Taylor Wilson:

So Francesca, Nikki Haley has dropped out, but how did she defy the odds during her campaign?

Francesca Chambers:

Well, when you look back more than a year ago when she was the first challenger to get in the race against former President Donald Trump, she was low-polling, and while she had been twice-elected governor of South Carolina and she'd been a former UN ambassador, she was competing in a field that included former vice President Mike Pence, US Senator Tim Scott, as well as other sitting governors and former governors as well. And so she really had to break out of that pack, and she did so successfully on the debate stage. From there, you then saw her increase her polling in the state of New Hampshire, and that really gave her the momentum that she needed to be the last candidate standing against Donald Trump.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, and she spent several weeks as that last GOP candidate standing with him. How exactly did we get to this point where it was just she and Trump left in the GOP field?

Francesca Chambers:

She had pushed for that really hard, she really wanted Ron DeSantis to get out of the race earlier in the year, and was able to make that happen after Iowa, when he came in second place. But it was a distant second to Donald Trump. And while she came in third, she hadn't entered Iowa saying that she was going to win Iowa. In fact, we always knew that she was putting more of her time into New Hampshire and really counting on that. So when he came in that second place, you felt the pressure on him to get out really increased. She was able to then turn it into a head-to-head against him in New Hampshire. Another key moment was Chris Christie dropping out of the race just before Iowa. He was not competing in Iowa, but that mattered for her in the state of New Hampshire where she really needed to consolidate his former supporters in order to boost turnout for her campaign.

So that allowed her to stay in the race until her home state of South Carolina voted to continue raising lots of money. She had said she needed to do better in South Carolina than she did in New Hampshire, and that didn't happen. But I'm told by people who were close to her that, at that point it was like, "Listen, we're so close to Super Tuesday, what would be the point in getting out?" So many people hadn't voted yet, Taylor, and they wanted to give Haley voters a choice in the election, the opportunity, in the primary election to cast a ballot for her in many of these states.

Taylor Wilson:

Francesca, I'm curious, did Haley have a fatal flaw that ultimately led us to this moment with her dropping out? Or is this really just more about Donald Trump's continued roaring support in the GOP?

Francesca Chambers:

That's something else I've been talking to her allies about over the last few days. I think their sense of it is that that's not necessarily true. That it wasn't always inevitable that Trump was going to be the nominee this cycle, that someone couldn't beat him. While that turned out to be the case, that's just not how they feel about it. Even in her speech yesterday, she said that she had no regrets on the campaign trail. When she sat down with reporters in Washington DC a few days ago, when I was one of them, she said a similar thing to me. And she told reporters then, that if she had went harder against him earlier in the race, that would've made her a Chris Christie. And so she and the people around her just thought that if she went harder against Trump earlier that she couldn't get the conservatives that she needed in the Republican primary to support her. And so she waited until later in the race when she had already established her conservative credentials in order to start attacking him more aggressively.

Taylor Wilson:

Is Haley now expected to throw her support behind Trump the presumptive nominee?

Francesca Chambers:

Yeah, that's not something that she's planning to do at this time. She noted in her dropout speech that Trump will likely be the Republican nominee when the party convention meets in July, but she did not endorse him. She said that he needs to earn the votes of her supporters and people in the Republican Party who weren't supporting him in the primary election. And she said that politics should be about bringing people into your camp and not turning them away. And that's really a throwback to when he had said that anyone that donated to her after New Hampshire would be barred permanently from MAGA.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. USA TODAY White House correspondent Francesca Chambers, joining us here on a busy political week. Thank you, Francesca.

Francesca Chambers:

Thank you so much.

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Taylor Wilson:

Meanwhile, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has formally endorsed Donald Trump for another presidential term. And on the democratic side, Congressman Dean Phillips has suspended his primary challenge against President Joe Biden.

The House, yesterday, passed the first six spending bills needed to fund the government on a long-term basis. The move signals the beginning of the end of constant government shutdown scares on Capitol Hill. The legislation is expected to clear the Senate and then head to President Joe Biden's desk for his signature. Far more Democrats than Republicans supported the bill, despite the GOP's majority in the chamber. Every year, Congress has to pass 12 individual spending bills to keep the government's doors open. But recently, lawmakers have failed to meet their spending deadlines, so they tend to package the dozen bills together into a massive piece of legislation called an omnibus. But the first six of those spending bills were set to expire tomorrow. So to avoid a partial government shutdown, negotiators packaged the funding into one deal known as a minibus. The plan passed yesterday will fund parts of the government related to agriculture, veterans affairs and transportation, housing and urban development, among others. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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After this week's Super Tuesday contest, we now have a pretty good sense that we're marching toward a rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. For more on that, and a look ahead to Biden's State of the Union address tonight, I caught up with USA TODAY, Washington Bureau Chief, Susan Page. Susan, thanks for hopping on today.

Susan Page:

It's always my pleasure.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. You did write that there are some differences this time around from 2020. For starters, it's now this kind of incumbent versus incumbent battle. Why might that be significant?

Susan Page:

Well, it's easier to be the challenger. If you're the incumbent, you have a record to defend. Some things may have gone very well, but some things invariably don't go so well. So last time around, Biden was the challenger, and Trump had the record. This time around, they both have records, but Biden has the closer, nearer record, the one that we're living through these days. So that means on issues like immigration, he owns the issue, and whatever problems there are along the southern border, they belong to him, not to Trump. That's a tougher situation for Biden to be in than he was last time around.

Taylor Wilson:

And speaking of Biden, there's been a lot of talk around his foreign policy amid his term in office. What are the major issues here and why are aspects of his foreign policy under fire?

Susan Page:

It was a strength for him, I think, four years ago. Someone who knew foreign policy well, had a very long experience in the field as a senator and as vice president, and someone who promised to restore American credibility around the world. But he's got some problems. We had that withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in 2021. That did not go well, 13 American service members lost their lives in that withdrawal. And more recently, we have a big response from especially younger and more progressive voters concerned that US support for Israel is contributing to a humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip. And we see that really creating problems for Biden, even in the Super Tuesday contest, when about 20% of democratic primary voters in Minnesota voted uncommitted. That's become a way to register protest with what's happening in Gaza.

Taylor Wilson:

And as for Trump, Susan, how does the public view the kind of Trump rhetoric and image at this point? Especially as he continues to face all these legal issues.

Susan Page:

His tweets are no longer quite so front and center because he's posting on social media platforms that fewer people see. Now, I think we're still trying to figure out exactly what impact these trials might have on Trump. In the primaries, the fact that he has been indicted on 91 felony counts only galvanized his support in the GOP. But we do see signs in exit polls that as many as 40% of Republican primary voters in Virginia, for instance, said that they would consider him unfit for the presidency if he is convicted in one of those trials. And the first one is scheduled to start at the end of this month.

Taylor Wilson:

And of course, Susan, a big difference this time around is both candidates are older. In fact, as you wrote, we're all older at this point. What factor is age shaping up to play in this rematch?

Susan Page:

Yeah, I'm older, you're older, Biden's older. And Biden was reasonably old last time around. He became the oldest person ever elected President of the United States. It wasn't such an issue for him last time around. And there was an assumption among many that he would run, win and only serve one term. But of course, he is now running for reelection, and questions about his age and his acuity have become very much part of the debate, that is part of the Republican strategy to portray Biden as not having the physical and mental health to be president. That's a question he's going to need to answer in this campaign.

Taylor Wilson:

And shifting to tonight, President Joe Biden will be making a State of the Union address. How big of a speech is this for him, Susan, and how do we expect him to frame it?

Susan Page:

It's a big speech. It's always a big speech, big spotlight, a huge television audience. It could be the biggest television audience he gets this year. It's a chance to set the terms for this election year. It's a chance for him to look vigorous, to answer those questions we were just discussing about his age, to try to get hold of the immigration issue. It's the most damaging issue he has right now. It is a big opportunity. The stakes are really high.

Taylor Wilson:

Susan Page, is USA TODAY's Washington Bureau Chief. Thank you, Susan.

Susan Page:

Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

Biden's State of the Union address is set for 9:00 PM Eastern Time tonight.

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It's been another wet winter in the American West, torrential rains, flooding and mudslides have been the norm for months. But the rainbow is right around the corner. Wild flower blooms in California are expected to be spectacular this year. Blooms are usually especially stunning after a wet winter in the frequently dry West. And because last year was also a rainy year, this year's bloom could be even more stunning. And what's often called a super bloom. According to California State Parks, blooming wild flowers could include lupine, desert sunflowers, desert lilies, and more. If you're planning on checking out the flowers this spring, to protect fragile lands, remember to stay on designated trails, avoid trampling plants, and stick to taking pictures. Picking the flowers is prohibited and means they can't seed to bloom again.

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Be sure to stay tuned to The Excerpt later today when my co-host, Dana Taylor talks with microbiology and immunology expert, Dr. Arturo Casadevall on the growing threat of fungi. You can find the episode right here on this feed beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern time.

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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can find us wherever you get your audio. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.