On today’s show: President Donald Trump denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “a dictator without elections” on Wednesday. Reuters reports that major risks loom as Trump upends U.S.-Russia policy. Who can force out New York City’s mayor? Katie Honan from The City joins to discuss this and more questions. Health insurers deny 850 million claims a year. The Wall Street Journal’s Julie Wernau reports that the few who appeal often win. The Journal also has five steps to take if your health-insurance claim is denied. Plus, Hamas has returned return the bodies belonging to four Israeli hostages that are said to include the Bibas family, the Trump administration has halted a program that provided lawyers to nearly 26,000 immigrant children, and the U.S. and Canada square off in the 4 Nations Face-Off. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Chapter 1: What are today's main headlines on Apple News Today?
Good morning. It's Thursday, February 20th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, a couple ways New York City Mayor Eric Adams could lose his job, why it's worth your time to fight a denied health insurance claim, and in hockey, the United States and Canada, fresh off last weekend's brawl, face off again tonight.
Chapter 2: Why did Trump blame Ukraine for the ongoing war?
But first, almost three years to the day after Russian tanks first invaded Ukraine, President Trump shocked Ukraine and European allies by blaming Ukraine for the war, further straining relations between the U.S. and its NATO and Ukrainian allies.
Remember, Ukraine and members of the NATO alliance were already upset that Russia and the United States excluded them from peace negotiations in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. And Trump's lie about how the war started came during a press conference Tuesday evening in response to a reporter's question about how those talks went. Here's the president.
And I think it's going very well. But today I heard, oh, well, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land.
The war began in February of 2022 when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine from three sides with troops, tanks, and airstrikes targeting cities, military bases, schools, and hospitals. Tens of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes. It was the biggest attack on a European nation since World War II.
In Tuesday's press conference, Trump also incorrectly claimed President Zelensky has a 4 percent domestic approval rating. According to polling from this month, Zelensky's approval rating is above 50 percent. And Zelensky, in response to Trump's comments, accused the president of parroting talking points from the Kremlin.
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Chapter 3: How is President Zelensky responding to Trump's comments?
Since we are talking about 4%, we have seen this disinformation. We understand that it is coming from Russia. We understand and we have evidence that these numbers are being discussed between America and Russia. It is unfortunate that President Trump, and with great respect for him as the leader of the American people who constantly support us, unfortunately lives in this disinformation space.
During Tuesday's press conference and on social media, in response to that comment from Zelensky you just heard, Trump called Zelensky a dictator and suggested the Ukrainian president should not be in power. Elections in Ukraine were supposed to happen in 2024, but they've been suspended during wartime under martial law.
Chapter 4: What are the implications of Trump calling Zelensky a dictator?
A survey of Ukrainians conducted last year found 70 percent of people supported allowing Zelensky to remain in power until martial law is lifted. And Zelensky's administration has said it plans to hold elections immediately after the war has ended. Trump's envoy for Ukraine and Russia, retired General Keith Kellogg, arrived in Kiev on Wednesday to meet with Zelensky.
He told reporters upon arrival that part of his mission will be to listen to what Zelensky wants from U.S.-Russia peace talks. Meanwhile, members of NATO held their second emergency meeting this week on Wednesday, this time including nations that were not at the previous meeting, to discuss how to recalibrate their relationship with the United States.
The Wall Street Journal reports that this moment feels particularly difficult for European members of NATO to navigate. NATO was created in 1949 as a way for the United States to support the rebuilding of Europe after the Second World War. At the time, the U.S. viewed an economically and militarily strong Europe as crucial to preventing communist expansion across the continent.
Now it seems the premise of that alliance is being tested, and European leaders are questioning the U.S. 's leadership in a new way. New York City Mayor Eric Adams still has a job, for now. There's been a lot of talk about whether the mayor will volunteer to step down or if he'll be forced out.
Chapter 5: Can New York City's Mayor Eric Adams be forced out of office?
All of this after a wave of criticism following the DOJ's move to drop federal corruption charges against Adams, charges he pleaded not guilty to. Yesterday, the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, appeared in court before a federal judge to justify why the DOJ was asking to drop the case. Adams was there, too.
Bove said the move to drop the charges was not based on the strength of the evidence, that the prosecution was, quote, politicized and tainted. And he said the case was distracting the mayor from doing his job, which he wrote in an earlier memo included cooperating with Trump's immigration enforcement plans. The judge did not issue an immediate ruling, leaving the charges in place for now.
The Washington Post describes it as highly unusual for a senior department official like Bove to personally argue a case in court and to do it alone without the assistance of lower-level prosecutors. But since Bove ordered the dismissal of Adams' case, eight veterans of the department resigned in protest, as did most of the senior leadership of the DOJ's Public Integrity Division.
Chapter 6: How does the DOJ's dismissal of charges affect Mayor Adams?
Meanwhile, for Adams, this case and the suggested quid pro quo behind dropping it led to the resignations of four top deputies in his administration this week. There have been numerous calls for Adams to resign, which he has so far refused to do, and calls for Governor Kathy Hochul to remove him from office.
She's given the authority in the state charter to be able to do that.
Katie Honan is a senior reporter for The City, an online news site covering New York. She told us Governor Hochul says she's considering it. The other possible way to remove him from office would involve an obscure body assembled by the city council.
Chapter 7: What are the potential ways to remove a mayor in New York City?
What's known as the inability committee, which is a special committee that convenes to remove the mayor. And it's made up of five people.
Those five people are the city council speaker, the city comptroller, one deputy mayor, the city's top lawyer and the borough president who served in their position the longest. Honan told us this is all unprecedented.
A governor has never removed a mayor of New York City and the inability committee has never been formed. I know that there's been plenty of other mayors with investigations and other scandals, but nothing like this has ever happened and it's never really been required.
We asked Honan, why is Adams so adamant about holding onto an office amidst serious allegations of corruption, low public approval, high-profile resignations, and the prospect of being removed from office? She says the reason is a pretty simple equation.
There's the political maneuvering of he's really only useful to President Trump, who's personally trying to get his charges dropped, if he's mayor of New York City.
The timing of all this matters as well. New York holds a mayoral primary in June, with the general election in November. Adams, a Democrat, has floated the idea of maybe running as a Republican. Should he survive this and run for re-election, Honan says, she wouldn't count him out just yet.
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Chapter 8: Why is Mayor Adams determined to keep his position?
I don't know his chances. But again, he's a very skilled campaigner. And his message when he's been out is this message of we've all faced adversity. You've had challenges. I've had challenges. I am you. That's his message. And I think to some voters that actually resonates.
Health insurance companies process more than 5 billion claims a year. Roughly 17% of those claims are denied. That's 850 million every year. But research shows the people who do appeal, which is less than 1% of patients, largely get those claims approved.
About three quarters of those people are successful. And so that's a pretty good figure.
Julie Wurnau covers health for The Wall Street Journal. And she told us why, despite this success rate, many people don't file an appeal when their claim is denied. She says some feel like there's no point. Others are daunted by the paperwork. Some are too trusting that insurance companies were right to deny their claim. And many people are simply overwhelmed by the medical issues they're facing.
When someone gets a denial, often they might be in one of the worst emotional moments of their life. And so that prevents a lot of people from moving forward.
She told us about one family's journey through the claims system. Emily Beck contracted COVID-19 and viral pneumonia when she was in kindergarten in 2021.
After she got better from the illness, her mom noticed a remarkable change in her. She said she was like a totally different little kid. She was suddenly having really horrible behavioral problems and all sorts of issues. And it turned out that she had an inflammatory brain disease that was affecting her in multiple ways. And no one in their area seemed to be able to treat Emily.
It was a really rare condition.
By this time, Emily was nine years old, and a specialist recommended an infusion therapy that, according to one study, could potentially improve her symptoms significantly. But their insurer, UnitedHealthcare, wouldn't cover it.
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