On Wednesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall Wednesday night. USA TODAY National Correspondent Trevor Hughes reports from Florida's Gulf Coast. A Democratic senator is accusing former President Donald Trump of steering the FBI investigation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Health insurance rates are climbing. TikTok faces new lawsuits from more than a dozen states. USA TODAY Congress, Campaigns and Democracy Reporter Karissa Waddick talks about a new era of conservative comedy.

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 Wednesday, October 9th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, Hurricane Milton nears Florida, plus how health insurance rates are climbing even amid cooling inflation. And we discuss a new era of conservative comedy.

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Hurricane Milton regained category five strength yesterday as it moved through the Gulf toward the Florida Peninsula. The National Hurricane Center said in an early morning update that the storm is expected to make landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast tonight. Sustained winds reached 160 miles an hour overnight. The Hurricane Center is warning about dangerous storm surge conditions in particular, and that they bring an extremely life-threatening situation for the state's western coast. Milton is forecast across the state in a northeasterly direction exiting the east coast somewhere between Daytona Beach and Stewart tomorrow morning. Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, told residents yesterday that time was running out before the storm made landfall

Ron DeSantis:

Prepare for the worst and let's pray that we get a weakening and hope for the least amount of damage as possible, but we must be prepared for a major, major impact to the west coast of Florida.

Taylor Wilson:

At least a million people have been placed under evacuation orders in at least 16 counties. For more on the atmosphere on the ground, I caught up with USA TODAY National Correspondent, Trevor Hughes, as the Tampa area prepared for the storm yesterday.

Trevor, I appreciate you hopping on today.

Trevor Hughes:

Absolutely, good to be here.

Taylor Wilson:

So Trevor, Milton is still barreling toward the Florida coast. We still don't know exactly what strength it will be when it hits and makes landfall, but really how are people preparing? What are you seeing there?

Trevor Hughes:

Well, there are large portions of this area... I'm in Tampa, in St. Petersburg right now. There are large portions of this area that are under mandatory evacuations and a lot of people have left. The people who are staying are boarding up their windows. They're sandbagging as you might expect, but everyone frankly is exhausted from Helene and now Milton's coming.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, there are still people displaced from that storm. You mentioned Helene. Where are they going? How is this influencing them?

Trevor Hughes:

It's been a real challenge. I spoke with someone earlier who lost his house in Helene. He had two feet of floodwater destroy his house, destroyed his cars, essentially his savings, and he's been living in his car ever since. So when I talked to him, he was at an emergency shelter trying to find a place to rest with his parrot because it's been a real crisis.

People can't live in their houses and they don't have anywhere to go right now. So hotels are all booked up, people are staying with friends and family, and then there's quite a lot of shelters that are open and folks are really starting to flood into those.

Taylor Wilson:

And Trevor, you're really no stranger to storms. You've covered these for years. What are you most worried about with Hurricane Milton?

Trevor Hughes:

I think there's a couple of things going on. The storm surge may be significantly larger for this area than it was for Helene, and we're talking about a city, Tampa and St. Petersburg, where there are piles of debris still all over the place from a storm a couple of weeks ago. So there's a real concern that this will actually be much worse in terms of storm surge.

But the other factor is the mental health. I mean, people here are exhausted, dealing with storm after storm, and you get the sense that there's just this, "oh my goodness, what is going to happen next" kind of feeling that's going on. I really feel for those folks.

Taylor Wilson:

It's so tough, Trevor. I appreciate you being out there and checking in with us. Stay safe and hoping for the best for all the folks in Florida.

Trevor Hughes:

You bet.

Taylor Wilson:

For all the latest from Milton today and beyond, stay with usatoday.com and tune into The Excerpt tomorrow morning, right here on this feed.

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Former President, Donald Trump, said in 2018 that the FBI would have free rein to investigate allegations against his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. But a report yesterday from a Senate Democrat found the investigation flawed and incomplete without following up on multiple leads. A report from a member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, criticized the FBI for not investigating more fully claims of Kavanaugh's alleged sexual misconduct described by two women. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. Whitehouse's report said the FBI did not investigate thousands of tips it received, but passed them along to the White House. Kavanaugh did not respond to a request for comment and Trump campaign spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement that the ridiculous story about the report was a way to delegitimize the Supreme Court and pave the way for Kamala Harris to pack the court with radical-left judges.

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Even as spiking grocery bills and car prices have cooled, health insurance rates are climbing. The average cost for a family health insurance plan offered through an employer, increased 7% this year to $25,572 according to the annual Employer Health Benefit Survey released today by KFF, a non-profit health policy organization. The cost of family health insurance jumped 7% for the second consecutive year, after a decade of more modest yearly increases. Family insurance rates increased by just 1% in 2022. As for individuals, insurance costs bumped up 6% to just under $9,000 this year, according to the survey. A year ago, individual plans increased 7%. Health insurance costs have risen at higher rates than the increase in workers' wages. Health insurance rates accelerating after a decade of more modest increases likely reflects the growth of prices in the economy overall according to Matthew Ray, Associate Director of KFF's Health Care Marketplace Project. Ray added, "people are also accessing healthcare more frequently after skimping on doctor visits and routine medical screenings during the Covid pandemic". You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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TikTok is facing a slew of lawsuits filed by 13 US states and the district of Columbia yesterday accusing the social media platform of harming and failing to protect young people. The lawsuits were filed separately in New York, California, D.C and 11 other states and expand Chinese-owned TikTok's legal fight with US regulators while seeking new financial penalties against the company. The states accused TikTok of using intentionally addictive software, designed to keep children watching as long and often as possible and misrepresenting its content moderation effectiveness. The states say TikTok seeks to maximize the amount of time users spend on the app in order to target them with ads. And New York Attorney General, Letitia James, said "young people are struggling with their mental health because of addictive social media platforms like TikTok", in her words. TikTok said last week, "it strongly disagrees with allegations that it fails to protect children", saying that "it has robust safeguards in place for teens and parents". US Justice Department sued TikTok in August for allegedly failing to protect children's privacy on the app and other states previously sued TikTok for failing to protect children from harm.

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From podcasts to late night. Are we in a new era of conservative comedy? I spoke with USA TODAY, Congress Campaigns and Democracy reporter, Karissa Waddick, for more.

Karissa, thank you so much for hopping back on the show.

Karissa Waddick:

Yeah, absolutely.

Taylor Wilson:

So Karissa, just starting here, how are some comedians finding really an audience with conservatives and who are some of the folks we're talking about here?

Karissa Waddick:

We're thinking about Joe Rogan, Greg Gutfeld, who hosts a show on Fox News. He's one of the most popular late-night show hosts out there right now. And other podcasters too, like Theo Von. So that's the group we're thinking about. And their popularity has skyrocketed in the last four or so years as a lot of the mainstream comedians on TV, thinking like Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, people like that, have leaned towards a more liberal leaning audience. There's been a gap for conservative leaning listeners and experts I spoke with said that these comedians, their comedy might not inherently be political all the time, but they've leaned into some of the more anti-woke and conservative stances that relate to conservative viewers.

Taylor Wilson:

So Karissa, how are Donald Trump and the GOP really approaching this movement and are they leaning in and trying to build their base this way?

Karissa Waddick:

Yeah, so Donald Trump is definitely paying attention to this movement. Trump has appeared on Gutfeld. He appeared in mid-September on the show and it was his first late-night show appearance since 2016. He's also been on Theo Von and has said that he's interested in appearing on Joe Rogan's podcast, though he hasn't appeared on that one.

So Trump and his allies understand the importance of this audience and they want to reach those listeners. They have been trying to gain more support with men and their base, and these platforms have a heavy audience of men, and so it's really important for them to reach those listeners.

Taylor Wilson:

Karissa, how is the growth of conservative comedy, this movement that we're talking about, really mirrored some of what we've previously seen on the left?

Karissa Waddick:

So when you think about left-leaning comedy, one of the people that comes to mind is John Stewart. In the early two thousands, he became popular during the George W. Bush administration. He said the same thing as a lot of the conservative-leaning comedians do now, which is that their comedy isn't expressly ideological.

Stewart acknowledged that he had liberal biases, but he said that his goal was to make people laugh. But at the end of the day, his audience leaned more liberal and a lot of his comedy leaned into liberal viewpoints and many of the alumni of his show, we think of Stephen Colbert, we think of John Oliver. People like that have come to define comedy now and our major comedic figures who a lot of people listen to. And so the movement now of conservative-leaning comedy gaining viewership is similar.

Taylor Wilson:

And in terms of the tangible impact on this year and this year's election, what impact is all this having on the 2024 race?

Karissa Waddick:

We all know too well that this race is going to be tight and every vote really counts. It'll be decided on hundreds of thousands of votes in a handful of states. And the two candidates are doing everything they can to reach voters where they are. Like I said, Trump is really focused on building his base with male support. These audiences are key to that. So reaching the viewers that these people have is important for them to cultivate that.

Taylor Wilson:

Karissa Waddick covers Congress, Campaigns and Democracy for USA TODAY. Thank you, Karissa.

Karissa Waddick:

Thanks so much.

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Taylor Wilson:

How do perspectives on sex, money, climate change and politics divide generations in the US? USA TODAY reporters sought to answer that question by talking to a diverse cross-section of Americans around the country. Hear our first installment of the Generation Divide series today, beginning at 4 PM Eastern Time when my colleague, Dana Taylor, speaks with two money reporters on the issue of saving for retirement. You can find the episode right here on this feed.

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