Global tech outage grounds flights, hits banks and businesses | The Excerpt

On Saturday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: A tech outage affected businesses, travel and more around the world Friday. What happened? USA TODAY Domestic Security Correspondent Josh Meyer discusses whether Secret Service agents followed protocols in the moments after a shooter opened fire on former President Donald Trump a week ago. A Russian court sentences Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison on charges of espionage. USA TODAY Senior Reporter Jessica Guynn discusses new survey findings on DEI in the workplace.

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 Saturday, July 20th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.

Today, what happened with yesterday's CrowdStrike outage that affected companies, hospitals, and travel around the world. Plus, we discuss whether the Secret Service followed protocol during the assassination attempt on Donald Trump a week ago. And a Russian court has sentenced journalist Evan Gershkovich to prison on charges of espionage.

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A defective update from US cybersecurity software company, CrowdStrike, crashed Microsoft Windows systems around the world yesterday. The tech outage disrupted operations across a number of industries, ranging from banks to hospitals and 911 call centers, while also grounding thousands of flights and hampering public transit systems. A fix was deployed to restore most systems by the afternoon to return to normal, but experts warn that ripple effects may be felt throughout the weekend.

CrowdStrike, which advertises being used by over half of Fortune 500 companies, said one of its recent content updates had a defect that impacted Microsoft's Windows operating system. Adding it was not a security incident or cyber attack. Outside the US, the outages disrupted London Stock Exchange, caused major train delays in the UK, sent British broadcaster Sky News off-air, forced medical facilities in Europe to cancel some services, and caused disruptions at airports in Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong, and India among other places. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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Following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump one week ago today, did the Secret Service's delayed evacuation fail to protect him? I spoke with USA TODAY Domestic Security correspondent, Josh Meyer for more.

Josh, thanks for hopping on.

Josh Meyer:

My pleasure, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

So Josh, it's really an iconic image at this point. Donald Trump with his bloody ear, fist pumping, and yelling, "Fight, fight, fight," after being shot last weekend. But apparently, these few minutes marked an operational failure by the Secret Service. What are you hearing from former Secret Service officials?

Josh Meyer:

That's right, Taylor. They did. I've been covering Secret Service for about 35 years, and that was my first thought when I saw him standing up and pumping his fist and yelling, "Fight, fight, fight," was, they can't let him stand up like that. When you're in the Secret Service, your training and the protocol is to always assume that there's a second shooter, or more. And so what they have to do is keep the protectee down, and then once they ascertain that it's okay to try to move them, they double them over so that they can still walk on their feet but that their head is down and their torso is down and they try to, as one Secret Service official said, "Bums-rush them out of there." And that didn't happen.

I mean, Trump first said he needed to get his shoes, then he stood up to do that. He said, "Wait." And he delayed them. You can hear one of the Secret Service agents in the background saying, "Let's move, let's move, let's move." But Trump stood there for a while. As our story said, there were other problems too. One of the problems is you're supposed to have a route of egress, an evacuation route that is much quicker than the one that they had. Some of the Secret Service former officials I talked to said you're supposed to have a ramp going out the back so he can essentially be made to disappear.

In this case, as you can see from the video, this was a very narrow staircase and the human circle of agents that are supposed to stay around Trump couldn't even make it down the stairs altogether with him. So they had this awkward moment where they were carrying him down the stairs. So there were a lot of screw-ups, and I think it's going to be looked at by whoever's doing the investigations.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. I want to get back to this incident where they're surrounding Trump. What's the figure themselves supposed to do in an incident like this? Did Trump himself follow protocols?

Josh Meyer:

The protectee, which is what they called him, is supposed to do anything and everything that his security detail tells him to do. And so you could see in this that they're trying to keep Trump down so they can move him out of there, and that Trump stands up and is very defiant. And so Trump did get a very iconic photo out of this, that some people say will actually help him win the election or rally his supporters. But a lot of Secret Service people I talked to said that they were just freaked out, that if they were the guys and the women on stage with him, it's really hard to manage somebody like that. They're there to take a bullet for the President or whoever the protectee is, and Trump's actions made it very hard for them to do that.

Now, in the moment, in all the chaos after being shot, you can't really necessarily blame Trump either. I mean, he was probably acting on adrenaline. He said publicly at the RNC that he was trying to make sure that his supporters knew that he was okay. As one of the former agents told me, "Everybody's got a plan, as Mike Tyson said, until you get punched in the face."

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. Are there things that former officials point to that Secret Service agents did get right during this incident?

Josh Meyer:

Yes. I mean, and nobody is doubting that these people acted heroically, showed great bravery to do this. So after Trump got hit, they were already moving toward him. Trump said they acted like linebackers. So they neutralized the shooter; they don't know if there's another shooter, but there's also what's known as the counter-assault team, which has a code name Hawkeye, and you can see those are the guys in the black camo that are out there with the really big heavy assault weapons that move into the front of them. They're supposed to provide cover fire so that if anybody starts shooting at the target while he's being moved, or she's being moved, they lay down cover fire and shoot back so that it makes it harder to hit the target.

So this is something they rehearse over and over again in practice and in drills. And also, the protectees oftentimes rehearse it too. I mean, one of the top people that I worked with who headed the training academy at the Secret Service said that Barack Obama, when he was the president-elect, spent five hours there working with Secret Service just so he would know what to do in case of an attack. And of course, back then, he had more threats than any President in recent history, because he was the first Black President. So he was a very eager pupil to learn what to do. It's not clear what kind of training Trump had or what he was being told in the moment, but I do know people think that it went sideways. That's the best way to put it.

Taylor Wilson:

So going forward, Josh, we know a hearing is set for Monday. What's next for investigations into this shooting, looking for answers into how a shooter was able to get this close to assassinating the former president and presidential candidate?

Josh Meyer:

In a lot of cases, they put up ballistic glass or bulletproof glass. So there's a question of why they didn't do that. And there's a question of why they didn't have more agents there, and whether it was a manpower issue. To me, one of the biggest questions is it's now known that they did know that there was a person acting suspiciously, even somebody with a rangefinder in the crowd, which turned out to be crooks.

So the question is, why did they let Trump even take the stage? Why didn't they neutralize the threat, or at least identify it and determine whether there was an actual threat or it was just some random person acting strangely and just make the crowd wait? I mean, we've all been to these political rallies. Biden and Trump both often make the crowd wait for hours. So it's not known why they didn't at least press hold on this until they could figure out what was going on.

Taylor Wilson:

And who's leading the search for answers in all this, Josh?

Josh Meyer:

Homeland Security says they're having an independent review. Obviously the FBI is investigating the shooting, and I am told that that will include looking at the Secret Service operational aspects of that day. But I think Monday should be very interesting, because it's the House Oversight Committee. It's run by Republicans, and they're demanding a lot of answers. The ranking Democrat on the committee, Jamie Raskin, also joined the chairman, James Comer, in asking Cheatle to testify. Kimberly Cheatle is the Secret Service Director, because they have a lot of legitimate questions about why this happened.

But the main one, of course, is how do you let a would-be shooter up onto the roof of a building where he has a clear line of sight towards the protectee? Because, as is well-known by now, he came within about a quarter of an inch of being assassinated. If he hadn't turned his head at the last minute, he wouldn't be with us today.

Taylor Wilson:

Josh Meyer covers domestic security for USA TODAY. Thank you, Josh.

Josh Meyer:

My pleasure.

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Taylor Wilson:

A Russian court has sentenced Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, to 16 years in prison on charges of espionage. The guilty verdict came yesterday, hours after closing arguments in what many in the US have called a baseless trial. Wall Street Journal Publisher, Almar Latour, and Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief, Emma Tucker, said in a statement, "This disgraceful sham conviction comes after Evan has spent 478 days in prison, wrongfully detained, away from his family and friends, prevented from reporting, all for doing his job as a journalist." They said they will continue to do everything possible to support his family and push for his release, and added that journalism is not a crime.

Russian prosecutors had accused the 32-year-old of gathering secret information on behalf of the US Central Intelligence Agency. He was the first US journalist arrested on spying charges in Russia since the Cold War. President Joe Biden responded to the conviction, saying in a statement that Gershkovich is innocent and was targeted for being a journalist and American. Espionage cases often take months to handle, and the unusual speed at which his trial was held behind closed doors, yesterday's hearing was only the third in the trial, has stoked speculation that a US-Russia prisoner exchange deal involving him and potentially other Americans detained in Russia may be on the way.

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A so-called anti-woke backlash has unnerved business leaders, but companies largely are not backtracking on their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. That's according to a new survey that the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals and YourCause from Blackbaud shared exclusively with USA TODAY. I spoke with USA TODAY senior reporter, Jessica Guynn, to learn more.

Jessica, thanks for hopping on.

Jessica Guynn:

Thanks so much for having me, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

So Jessica, what does the survey tell us about companies and their commitments, or lack thereof, on diversity, equity, and inclusion?

Jessica Guynn:

Well, the short answer is that despite these wide-scale attacks on DEI from conservative critics, companies by and large are not backing off their commitments to DEI, and a much smaller but not insignificant percentage are actually increasing their efforts. Are there companies who are abandoning DEI efforts and laying off teams of people dedicated to those efforts? Absolutely. But folks who work in this space say those companies were engaged in performative DEI and were never really that committed to it in the first place.

With that, I would say there are some caveats. There always are when you're dealing with outside research. The framing of a survey can influence the results, the methodology can influence the results. But it's important to bear in mind here that this survey is one in a long series of surveys that we've been seeing in recent months, and the findings mirror what those other surveys found and what the companies themselves and the people who advise these companies have been telling us.

Taylor Wilson:

Jessica, it does seem like we're maybe hearing less about some of these programs around DEI. Have companies gotten quieter about their DEI programs and initiatives compared to, say, in 2020?

Jessica Guynn:

Well, you have to remember back to the height of the COVID pandemic when the nation was reeling after watching George Floyd die under the knee of a white police officer. Americans poured into the streets, and corporate leaders felt a responsibility to speak out too, and they pledged billions in financial commitments and they drew up ambitious goals to make their workforces look more like America. And there was a feeling in some quarters after that that some of these policies and programs that came out of a very turbulent time overshot the mark, and that backlash has contributed to what is a very volatile political climate that big brands now have to navigate. They're doing what they can not to be the next target of a consumer boycott.

So yes, we're hearing a lot less about DEI. And I should also add that these companies are also subjecting these programs to a higher level of scrutiny than they did before, to make sure they're lawful and that they're fair.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. I want to hear a little bit more about this so-called anti-woke backlash. Are some companies just caving in entirely on this?

Jessica Guynn:

Generally speaking, major companies are not caving, but some companies are backtracking, especially those who are weathering these sustained social media campaigns and boycotts. We saw that with Bud Light, for example. And we're seeing it this week with John Deere as a result of criticism from a conservative commentator who launched a social media campaign that he said was going to expose the company for going, quote unquote, "woke." John Deere said this week that it's pulling back from some diversity measures, and I think you can count on continuing to see these pressure campaigns play out online.

Taylor Wilson:

How have we seen the Biden administration land on this issue? And what's the track record from former President Donald Trump and his newly selected running mate, Senator JD Vance, on this? I'm curious how we see this conversation playing out this election cycle.

Jessica Guynn:

Well, DEI was an issue that played to the GOP base in the 2022 elections, and it's a campaign plank in this presidential election cycle too. At the White House level, Trump kicked off the anti-DEI fervor in the final months of his term when he issued an executive order prohibiting DEI training by the federal government and by federal contractors. That order had a real chilling effect on DEI efforts in the workplace at the time.

When Biden took office, he rescinded that order and went in a very different direction. If he wins the White House, Trump has promised he's going to get rid of all of the Biden administration's, what he calls, woke equity programs. The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 contains very similar plans. And interestingly, Trump's pick for a VP, JD Vance, has also been vocal on this issue, and last month he introduced a bill, the Dismantle DEI Act that would end all federal DEI programs and federal funding for government agencies and contractors that have DEI programs.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Jessica Guynn is a senior reporter with USA TODAY. Great insight on an important topic. Thank you, Jessica.

Jessica Guynn:

Thanks so much for having me, Taylor.

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Taylor Wilson:

Athletes have lost faith in the World Anti-Doping Agency, also known as WADA. That's what we heard from Michael Phelps, the US Olympian with the most medals in history. Is there any way to restore faith that the Paris Olympics will be fair? I spoke with USA TODAY Sports columnist, Christine Brennan, to unpack the issue. You can find our conversation on this feed tomorrow beginning at 5:00 AM Eastern Time.

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And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the pod wherever you get your podcasts. 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.