On today’s show: Trump advisers have renewed a push for a pardon of Edward Snowden. The Washington Post’s Michael Scherer explains why. Rebels in Syria overtook the capital, Damascus, forcing President Bashar al-Assad to flee and bringing an abrupt end to more than a decade of civil war. Mensah M. Dean of The Trace investigates the intergenerational fallout of gun violence in the U.S. Plus, the College Football Playoff is set, Trump gives his first televised interview since the election, and why the internet reacted the way it did to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Full Episode
Good morning. It's Monday, December 9th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, Donald Trump considers a controversial pardon. How discriminatory policies expose Black people to higher rates of gun violence. And the college football playoffs are set with one big surprise.
But first, a major turn of events in the Middle East, where rebels captured Syria's capital, Damascus, over the weekend, forcing President Bashar al-Assad to flee the country and bringing an abrupt end to more than a decade of civil war. al-Assad's fall was met with joyous celebrations in the streets of Syria and in countries around the world.
Long live Syria! Long live al-Assad!
It's a historic moment for Syrians who've lived under the oppressive hand of the al-Assad family since the early 1970s. Over the course of the 13-year-long civil war, millions of people were displaced, hundreds of thousands imprisoned, and more than half a million people killed under al-Assad's rule.
On Sunday, when the Assad regime fell, prison guards across the country abandoned their posts, setting free scores of people, some who had been considered missing for decades. Al-Assad and his family arrived in Moscow on Sunday, when they were given asylum by the Russian government, which had been a key supporter of the regime.
As we mentioned last week, when rebel forces took Syria's second-largest city, Aleppo, Russia, along with Iran, are Al-Assad's main allies, and both have been preoccupied with their own conflicts, in Ukraine and Israel, respectively, which left Al-Assad exposed. But while some are celebrating the end of the regime, many are anxious to learn what comes next.
Here's Sky News reporter Alistair Bunkle.
It is a new dawn for the country, but there are dark clouds on the horizon. When that celebration calms down, the hatred and anger after decades of repression and harsh rule could spill out, and it'll be hard to contain it. And who is going to govern Syria? It is divided many ways, and many rebel factions will want to vie for their own slice of power.
The main rebel group that toppled al-Assad is called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. It was once an al-Qaeda affiliate, and even though it has since denounced terrorism, the U.S. still designates it as a terrorist group. For President Biden, this presents a late-in-his-presidency foreign policy challenge. He spoke on Sunday, seeming to recognize the optimism of many Syrians.
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