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--:-- Host: The longest actor strike in Hollywood's history is finally over, and the union leaders are declaring victory. This is the biggest contract in our industry ever, and we crossed the B word, so it's a billion-plus dollar contract. But will the studio's concessions end up costing American viewers? I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, November 10th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Host: Israel continues to escalate its operation to take down Hamas as the Biden administration pushes for a pause. We talk with a reporter on the ground in Israel about the latest from Gaza. And hundreds of thousands of migrants have streamed through the Darien Gap on their way to the U.S. We hear from a reporter who traveled to the treacherous pass. These guys could be anybody. You don't know who you're looking at when you're looking at these men that are coming over here. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- Host: Hollywood is officially back in business. The longest actor strike in entertainment history, which followed on the heels of an historic writer's strike, has finally come to an end. But the new contracts could end up costing audiences. Here with more on the deals is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Megan, this deal came down to the wire. What was the significance of this deadline? Yeah, it definitely did. Basically, the word was if the studios and actors union hadn't reached a deal by the end of the business day on Wednesday, that was going to mean that we, the audience, weren't going to get a new TV season in the spring and none of those big 2024 summer movies either. So one insider told me that if the actors had not decided to accept what the studios called their last best offer, the results would have been catastrophic for Hollywood as a whole. So George Clooney, Tyler Perry, and other A-list actors reportedly offered to pay millions more in union dues to help end the strike, so they must have agreed with that.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, full details on this new three-year contract haven't been released yet, but the actors seem to have done very well. So they scored the highest wage increase in 40 years and a 100% increase in performance bonuses for those high-budget streaming series and movies. And they also received full AI protections. Overall, the union is valuing this deal at more than a billion dollars. And speaking for the studios, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos put it this way, We didn't just come toward you, we came all the way to you. The actors also seemed to view it that way. This was Reuters talking to a group of cheering actors, including actress Frances Fisher and strike captain BJ Lang right after they heard the news. Oh my God, the sacrifice is great, but the gains, because we have a contract, it better than the last five contracts that we ever had in SAG in SAG Africa
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, how are the studios going to actually pay for this? Yeah, that's a great question because along with the bonus payouts and higher royalties that they also gave the writers earlier this year, this is a huge new cost. And according to sources that spoke to the Wall Street Journal, Netflix is planning to raise prices in a few months to help cover them. Meanwhile, Discovery Plus has already announced a $2 increase to its ad-free tier. But that said, I'm also hearing from some insiders that in some ways, the strikes have been a great deal for Netflix and some of the other streamers. Basically, the company's investors have loved them because spending has been down. So that's brought profitability up.
--:-- Megan Basham: But I mean, doesn't Netflix need new content continually to keep their audiences happy? You know, not as much as you might think. Essentially, the platform invested heavily in international content. More than half of its scripted series are now being produced overseas and its licensed shows also have a long shelf life. So it picked up rights to the old NBC legal drama, Suits with Meghan Markle earlier this year. And that became the number one most streamed shows across all the streaming platforms for months. And overall, these strikes have caused the expiration of some expensive creator deals that studios wanted to get out of. One creator told me that studios and streamers were able to offload almost all of their overall deals and are now reactivating and renegotiating those that they want to keep. He actually said that they froze his deal by arguing unforeseen catastrophe, and now they're offering him a fraction of its original value.
--:-- Megan Basham: He told me this, quoting, I was told by multiple deeply connected people from the very beginning that the strikes would run through Q3 at a minimum and wouldn't end until Netflix wanted them to. The hypothesis has now been tested and things have turned out exactly as predicted. So you're seeing a lot of jokes floating around out there about net spionage, basically that the union bosses are actually covert Netflix agents. But still, there's no getting around it. These new writers and actors union deals will cost Netflix now, which will depress profitability going forward. And the streamers overall have struggled to become profitable. So because of that, the journal estimates that overall, the cost of ad-free subscriptions to the major platforms has gone up by about 25%. So maybe just a little remedial economics lesson there that whatever costs companies incur as a result of settling strikes, well, those are to some degree eventually going to be passed on to consumers.
--:-- Megan Basham: Right, I used to subscribe to all the platforms. Now I'm pretty stingy about it. Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Host: Amid continued pressure from the White House to pause its campaign against Hamas, Israel continues to hold firm, pushing deeper into Gaza to take out terrorist targets. Joining us now from Israel is Daily Wire correspondent Cassie Dillon.
--:-- Cassie Dillon: So right now, I'm actually on the border looking into Gaza, watching explosions, and explosions that are louder than what we've been seeing the past week. Since the war has begun, there's been over 9,500 rockets launched from Gaza towards Israeli civilians. Yesterday, we were at an IDF base and we met with soldiers who were preparing to go into Gaza. Morale is high and many of them told us that they are ready to fight. On Wednesday night, Israel did a counterterrorism operation in the West Bank city of Janine and has been stepping up preemptive operations there to avoid opening another front There has been tremendous pressure from several countries including the U for a pause or ceasefire The White House claimed Thursday that Israel had agreed to a four-hour pause, but that claim was quickly dismissed by Israel.
--:-- Cassie Dillon: What do you know about that situation? The Israeli government has been very clear about this. They said they will not have a ceasefire until all hostages are returned, but they have agreed to some tactical local pauses to allow for humanitarian aid. They've also been opening up human corridors over the last few days to allow civilians from the north part of the Gaza Strip to flee to the south. Also this week, there was international outrage regarding reports that several journalists accompanied Hamas on their October 7th massacre. Have the outlets responded? Many of the outlets seem to be sort of brushing off the news, claiming that the people in question are just freelancers and have also worked for Israeli outlets. CNN, the Associated Press, and Reuters said they had no advanced knowledge of the attack, but said they were unsure if their freelancers did. CNN also announced that it formally cut ties with one of the freelancers, but said there's no reason to doubt the journalistic accuracy of the work he has done to them.
--:-- Cassie Dillon: Now, on a personal level, you attended a funeral for a 21-year-old Israeli-American, Sergeant Rose Lubin, who was killed during a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. Tell us about the attack and the victim. Rose was killed in an incident where a 16-year-old terrorists attacked her with a knife outside the old city of Jerusalem. During the funeral, we learned a lot about Rose. She's from Atlanta. Her family called her a happy free spirit who's very caring and even said that she decided she wanted to move to Israel and join the army when she was only five years old.
--:-- Cassie Dillon: Because Rose is my big sister, because she's my first friend, because we are both one of each other's best friends, I can guarantee Rose would not want to watch all of to sit around and give up. When Rose would meet new kids on the playground, she explained to them that they could be friends now because she was going to be moving to Israel when she turned 18 and joined the Israeli army. We got to know the fighter she was. We got to know the person she was. Our Rose, thank you. Thank you for fighting like a lioness. Thank you for providing a bigger terror attack with your body.
--:-- Host: Thank you for bringing us this report from On the Ground in Israel. And please continue to be safe and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much.
--:-- Host: The Darien Gap is a major thoroughfare for immigrants traveling from South America to the United States. Foot traffic at the crossing has boomed during the Biden administration. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about immigrants' journey to the U.S. southern border.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Sure. The Darien Gap refers to the roughly 100-mile-wide stretch of land that connects Panama to Colombia. It's densely forested, and the only way through is to hike over miles of difficult and wet terrain. The gap has become a major thoroughfare for illegal immigration in recent years. According to Panama's government, nearly 250,000 migrants passed through the gap last year. A decade ago, that number was just a few hundred. And while many immigrants come from Venezuela, Colombia, and other parts of South America, some are nationals of countries such as Afghanistan, China, and Syria.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Right. We're seeing more and more reports of immigrants coming from the Middle East and China. What's the trip like for those passing through the gap? Well, it can be very treacherous. To learn more Morningwire spoke with a journalist who has made the trip and saw firsthand how immigration in that part of the world works. Muckraker founder Anthony Rubin and his brother spent about three weeks traveling through Ecuador and Colombia and then into the Gap and Panama. The most popular routes which are also the cheapest began in the Colombian port town of Nacokli, where migrants find a boat and sail to either Acondi or Cabragana on the Colombian side of the Darien Gap. From there, immigrants have about a five-day hike through the forest and into Panama. Rubin took a third route that took him from Acondi a little further up the coast into Panama.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Here's how he explained it. What I did is I took the route that the more wealthy illegal aliens are using, which is a route where basically you get smuggled by boat from Colombia already into Panamanian territory. Then from, and you land in a town called Coreto, which is not really a town. It's more like, it's a native village. Then from there, you trek through the Darien Gap while already in Panamanian territory. And it's a shorter route and it's a bit safer. The reason why it's more expensive, though, is because you have to pay a boat smuggler to take you into Panamanian territory in the middle of the night. And that's the route that a lot of the Chinese are using. There were also Syrians and Afghans that were using that. Basically, anybody that can afford it is going to take it because it's a lot safer.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, just to be clear, Rubin took the route that many illegal immigrants take, but he had all his passport and papers in order. So he didn't break any laws during this trip. It was purely a journalistic exercise. Rubin said that one of the things that stood out most to him was the number of military-age men crossing. Including several from Syria. Syria is one of four countries that promote state-sponsored terrorism. And I ran into, for example, a group of very angry, military-aged Syrian men. There was no women with them. There was no children with them. Just military-aged men, extremely agitated when I put the camera on them.
--:-- Tim Pierce: I encaptured them twice, once before I went into the jungle at this staging place that I told you about, and once when I exited the jungle. And before I went into the jungle, I tried filming them. They got very angry with me, so I just turned off the camera, and I didn't bother them again because when you're in the jungle, that's no man's land. If they want to do something to me in there, you know, anything could happen. So I waited. And then when we got out of the jungle and we got to a refugee camp, I saw them pulling up and then I put the camera on them again. And that actually kind of went viral on Twitter. Very angry.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Ruben described the Darien Gap as a sort of no man's land. The only person you can rely on is yourself. And for Ruben, his brother, it's worth pointing out that they were well supplied with expensive electronics and camping equipment that would have tempted any would-be criminals. Here's Ruben describing one of the camps he stayed at. The first camp that you reach is basically a landfill slum in the middle of the jungle. If you can imagine, these caravans come through, and they all sleep at the same kind of campground, and they all leave their garbage there. And they all defecate there and piss everywhere. And then they march out, and the next group comes. And they stomp over everything, get muddled over everything, and they leave. And so eventually you just left a landfill, and so that's where you sleep. You know, but anyway, we reach this camp and you got people coming up to you that are desperate. They don't have any water. Like, do you have any extra water? You have any extra? I'm like, I and I have to keep it on the hush hush, because if I let people know I have a water purification, a water pump, I'm going to get swarmed. And so you just kind of have to keep it on the hush hush. But you could tell you could see the trend and you could see how very easily the situation could go from calm to extremely desperate.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Sounds like quite a harrowing experience. Tim, thanks for joining us. Glad to be on.
--:-- Host: That was Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
