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--:-- Georgia Howe: Good morning, I'm Georgia Howe, and welcome to Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: And I'm John Bickley, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief.
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--:-- John Bickley: The 2024 election will come down to the battleground states, and new polling shows that Trump leads Biden in all but one. It's going to come down to those seven states, and we know from 16 to 20, less than 100,000 votes decided in three states the election. We dig into the data and what it means for both campaigns.
--:-- Georgia Howe: New details emerge about President Biden's controversial immigration parole program, including that hundreds of thousands of the migrants are being flown into Florida and Texas. And amid spiking gas prices, the Biden administration cancels plans to restock the strategic oil reserve despite promises to refill it.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, April 4th, and this is Morning Wire. New details emerge about President Biden's controversial immigration parole program, including that hundreds of thousands of the migrants are being flown into Florida and Texas. And amid spiking gas prices, the Biden administration cancels plans to restock the strategic oil reserve despite promises to refill it.
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--:-- John Bickley: With the 2024 race for the White House well underway, new polling from the Wall Street Journal shows Donald Trump has a lead in most of the critical battleground states. Here to discuss the latest numbers and how the White House is responding to them is Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Hey, Cabot. So Washington was buzzing yesterday with the release of this new battleground polling. What did we learn there?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, while national polls can be fun to track and give a good idea of broader election trends, it's important to remember that presidential races are ultimately decided by fewer than 10 states. So the data from those battlegrounds rightfully gets the most attention. Now, throughout the last few months, Trump has been ahead on average in all of those states. And yesterday, we saw further evidence of his battleground dominance. The Wall Street Journal released a new batch of polling from seven critical states, and the former president was ahead in all but one, Wisconsin. And even there, the two men were tied. In Arizona, Trump was up five, North Carolina six, Nevada four, Pennsylvania three. You get the idea.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, those numbers had pundits and lawmakers in Washington abuzz, but the White House was quick to dispute the findings. First Lady Jill Biden appeared on CBS yesterday morning and took offense to the idea that her husband was trailing Trump. But when these polls like the Wall Street Journal one land in the White House and he's losing all the battleground states. No, he's not losing in all the battleground states. He's coming up and he's even or doing better.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: We heard a similar sentiment from President Biden who had this to say when asked last month about his struggles in the polls What your message to Democrats who are concerned about your poll numbers My poll numbers, the last five polls you guys don't report, I'm winning. Five. Five in a row. All right, so the Biden camp's still projecting confidence that they're ahead. Right, and the Bidens can claim they're ahead all they want. It's hardly the first time we've seen politicians dispute the numbers. but by any objective analysis of the data, they are wrong. Any polling showing Biden with the lead, especially in battleground states, is few and far between right now.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, it is worth noting, some of the states where Trump is ahead are within the polling margin of error, but the general trend undoubtedly shows Trump in the lead. For example, in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Georgia, there has not been a single poll over the last six months showing Biden on top of Trump in a head-to-head matchup. And remember, those are all states that Biden won back in 2020. All told, in every battleground state pulled by the Journal, Biden's job approval was underwater by at least, get this, 16 points. In four of those states, his approval ratings were more than 20 points underwater. For his part, Trump actually has a net favorable rating in every state but Arizona. And even there, he's only underwater by one point.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, obviously, a lot can happen from now to November, but historically speaking, no incumbent president in modern history has won reelection with approval ratings this low. Yeah, so what is driving these pretty dismal numbers? There are a few factors. First, voters in battleground states were twice as likely as the rest of the country to list the economy as their number one issue, which is really hurting Biden. On that topic, Trump leads by 20 points on the question of which candidate is best able to handle the economy. Biden is also struggling to win over voter blocks that were firmly in his grasp back in 2020. He's winning 68% of black voters in battleground states, which is quite a drop from the 91% he carried last election. We're also seeing a similar drop among Hispanic voters and Americans under the age of 30. And on top of all of that, voters also appear to be less settled than in elections past. The Journal Poll, for example, found that roughly one in four voters say they are undecided or prefer a third-party candidate like RFK Jr.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, we've talked a good bit about how folks supporting Kennedy are more likely to lean left. Exactly. It seems that way in the polling. And that really shrinks Biden's margin for error even further. And one final factor that's clearly having an impact is Biden's mental fitness, which everyone has been talking about this entire cycle. And while Democrats have attempted to deflect those concerns by noting Trump's advanced age, just 28 percent of battleground voters say they trust Biden's mental fitness over Trump's. That is especially concerning because it's less of a fluid issue. So while the economy could theoretically improve considerably from now to November, it's much harder to envision a large shift in voter perception with regard to Biden's mental fitness.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So, again, a long way to go. But Trump versus Biden 2.0 appears to be off to a much different start than the first iteration. Yeah, things looking very different this go around. Cabot, thanks for reporting.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: A Biden administration parole program has landed hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the United States with most of those immigrants going to Republican states Meanwhile a judge has just released dozens of illegal immigrants connected to a riot on the U southern border. Here to discuss the impact of Biden's immigration parole program and this latest court decision is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hey, Tim, first remind us, what is immigration parole and how are these immigrants coming into the U.S.?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, President Biden supports immigration parole because he says expanding legal pathways into the U.S. will reduce illegal immigration over the southern border. One of the ways he's expanded those legal pathways is through the use of international flights. Immigrants from certain approved countries may apply for parole in the U.S. and then take a direct flight and get into the country as long as they can afford the price of the ticket, though there are NGOs that help out with that. And how many immigrants have actually taken advantage of this program and where are they coming from? The program itself is fairly discreet, but Todd Benzman of the Center for Immigration Studies, we've had him on the show several times, conducted his own analysis of where these immigrants are from and how many.
--:-- Tim Pierce: According to his report at CIS, at least 386,000 migrants have flown into the country since the program began in October of 2022 through February of this year. A total of nine nationalities are eligible for it. It began with Venezuelans before it was later expanded in January of 2023 to include Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Colombians. Later that year, it was expanded again for Guatemalans, El Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Ecuadorians. So it's been opened up to a growing number of countries. Where are these immigrants landing? Which states are they being brought into? From what Benzman could glean from the data, 90% of them have gone to either Texas or Florida. Those two states are governed by arguably the two most vocal critics of Biden's border policies.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Florida is by far the biggest initial recipient of immigrants through this parole program. Benzman reports that 326,000 have at least touched down at the International Airport in Miami, where they're either processed and released or continue on to somewhere else in the U.S. Whether they stay in Florida or continue on to another destination isn't shown in the data that Benzman looked at. Houston is the next most popular destination, with nearly 22,000. California and New York were other relative hotspots, but again, nowhere close to the numbers that Florida has seen come through Miami.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So Texas and Florida seeing the majority of these immigrants initially, but we have no idea where they travel to afterwards. Right. Okay, let's move on to this decision by a court in El Paso to release these alleged rioters. What happened there? We reported a couple weeks ago on hundreds of illegal immigrants that rushed the border in Texas and injured several National Guardsmen. 222 immigrants were jailed and criminally charged over the incident. Over the weekend, El Paso Magistrate Judge Humberto Acosta ordered that the immigrants be released on their own recognizance and accused the district attorney's office of being unprepared to pursue a case against each migrant.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The judge also disregarded an unusual request from an El Paso public defender to keep the immigrants jailed. The attorney was concerned that releasing the immigrants would mean defense lawyers would have trouble talking to the people they were tasked to represent. So are all of these immigrants out on the street now? It doesn't appear so. The court said all the immigrants would remain in custody if Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested a hold on their release. According to the court, officials did file for each of the accused to be turned over to ICE and then placed in deportation proceedings.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Quite a ruling from that judge. Tim, thanks for joining us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Due to high oil prices, President Biden has canceled plans to restock the U strategic petroleum reserve. The decision comes after the administration significantly depleted the stockpile ahead of the 2022 midterms to try to combat soaring gas prices. Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacomo.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So Amanda, Biden's Energy Department will not move forward to replenish the SPR. What's the administration saying about that?
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Well, it comes down to spiking oil prices, which are currently at a five-month high. The administration said it was going to purchase 3 million barrels of oil in April, but has pulled out of that plan as the price of a barrel has now spiked to above $85. They want to purchase the oil only if it's under $79 a barrel. The Energy Department said it was, quote, keeping the taxpayers' interests at the forefront when it decided to pull out of the purchase.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now remind us, what is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve intended for and why was it drawn down by President Biden? Yeah, the reserve was created in the early 1970s after the Arab oil embargo triggered an energy crisis. It's supposed to protect Americans against sudden supply chain issues or some other emergency. Under Biden, the SPR was depleted in unprecedented fashion. We went from 638 million barrels to around 360 million barrels, and that's a 40-year low.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Biden authorized the release of a record 180 million barrels from the reserve back in March of 2022. At the time, Biden said he had to do this to combat the, quote, Putin price hike, pinning those high gas prices on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He also contended that the move was not political, though he did tell the Associated Press at the time that his approval rating seemed to be moving in the opposite direction of gas prices.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Republicans, unsurprisingly, were pretty furious about the SPR release, finding it political and about the midterms. Florida Senator Marco Rubio said at the time, Our oil reserves do not exist to win midterms. They exist to help this country in an emergency or in the midst of a storm. And another interesting note on all this, when Trump was in office in 2020, he did propose to buy 77 million barrels for the SPR when oil prices cratered to around $25 a barrel. Again, right now they're hovering above $85.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: At the time, though, Democrats in Congress blocked funding for that purchase, dismissing it as a subsidy to big oil companies. So here we are two years out from President Biden releasing all of that oil and Americans are still struggling at the pump. How is the administration handling that messaging? Well, the price of gas is again surging. According to AAA, the national average is $3.55 a gallon. CNN reported just last month that these prices are higher on a year-over-year basis and on an upward trend that is expected to continue in the coming months.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: As for the administration, they've continued to boast about the economy being on the mend and the rate of inflation coming down. On the other side of the aisle, though, Republicans have pinned a lot of this on Biden for a number of reasons, including burdensome regulations and really limiting domestic production. Well, fuel costs are always an important issue for Americans, particularly when the economy is so top of mind.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Amanda, thanks for reporting. You're welcome. Thank you for listening this morning. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you love our show and stand with that mission, consider subscribing, giving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend. Thanks for waking up with us.
