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--:-- John Bickley: The economy's slide into recession is prompting more financial worries for Americans and more political fallout. We discuss how the administration is responding, and we talk to an expert about whether a soft landing is still possible. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, August 1st, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In just a few years, TikTok has changed the social media landscape. What or who is driving the changes? And is this the end of social media as we knew it?
--:-- John Bickley: And demands for a special counsel investigation into Hunter Biden's business dealings ramp up as new evidence emerges, including White House visitor logs when Joe Biden was vice president.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- John Bickley: As of this month, we've had a 40-year high inflation at 9.1%. Throughout history, gold has maintained its value better than any other investment in the world. Text WIRE to 989898 today for a free zero-obligation info kit on holding gold in a tax-sheltered retirement account. Again, text WIRE to 989898 and secure the gains you've made while you can.
--:-- John Bickley: As Americans continue to struggle under the weight of record inflation, News of a recession has further rattled markets and left consumers more worried than ever about the future of the economy. Here to discuss the impact of a recession and the administration's response is Daily Wire's senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Cabot, much of the conversation in recent days centered around whether the U.S. was in fact in a recession. What's the latest there?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, the numbers don't lie. By every relevant definition, we are in a recession. To that point, here's how Kenny Polcari, a market strategist and CEO of Case Capital Advisors, described the situation to Morningwire.
--:-- Kenny Polcari: Yes, the economy is slowing. We've got now two straight quarters of negative growth. Under any other circumstance would be considered a recession. If it were a Republican administration, they'd be screaming recession. So it's still a recession. And yes, I believe we're in it.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So how is the Fed responding to this? Do we expect to see that soft landing they've been talking about?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, as inflation has continued to rise, the Fed has consistently raised interest rates in an attempt to slow the economy down and basically restrict the amount of money flowing into the economy. We've talked about on the show how their strategy has been to pull off this soft landing where inflation subsides and the economy sort of gently returns back to normal.
--:-- Kenny Polcari: I don't see how the Fed can pull off a soft landing. I don't think you can use soft and landing in the same sentence anymore. They could have pulled off a soft landing had they begun this in April of 2021 when CPI blasted up from 1.6 to 3.1 percent in one month, when it blasted right through that 2 percent range where they told us for months, once it hit 2 percent, they were going to change course.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Shifting gears a bit we talked last week about the White House response to the recession news What are we hearing out of the White House now?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well they been adamant that despite the two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction that the U.S. is not in a recession because they say unemployment is still low and consumer spending is still relatively high, which is true. But most people say that they're just blatantly changing definitions for political gain.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For example, back in 2008, Brian Deese, who's currently President Biden's chief economic advisor, but at the time worked for Obama, said, quote, of course, economists have a technical definition of a recession, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. But here he is last week saying the complete opposite. Two negative quarters of GDP growth is not the technical definition of recession. It's not the definition that economists have traditionally relied on.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Keep in mind, one reason the White House is so desperate to avoid this recession talk is because of where they stand with voters. According to Gallup, President Biden has the lowest average approval rating of any president in modern history at this point in their first term, even worse than Jimmy Carter. And according to the numbers, the economy is the number one factor driving that wedge.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So don't expect them to change their message anytime soon on the recession.
--:-- John Bickley: Cabot, thanks for reporting. Anytime. That's Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- John Bickley: Coming up, how TikTok is transforming social media. hiring right now. Just go to Indeed.com slash wire. Indeed.com slash wire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire. You need Indeed.
--:-- John Bickley: Gen Z has made TikTok the dominant social media app of a new generation, leaving older platforms struggling to match its growth. Now Facebook and Instagram are restructuring their algorithms in an attempt to compete. Here to tell us what kind of shifts we're seeing in the social media world as a result of Gen Z preferences is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Megan, when I look at all the media coverage out there about the social platforms, the overarching narrative we seem to be seeing is that they're all kind of chasing the TikTok model.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, that is exactly right. And so we have to say that any conversation on this topic should probably start with how TikTok is performing relative to the rest of the tech industry.
--:-- Megan Basham: So right now, other social media platforms are really starting to struggle in unprecedented ways. Meta, the parent company for both Facebook and Instagram, just revealed in its earnings call Wednesday that the company experienced a revenue decline this quarter, and that was a first in its history.
--:-- Megan Basham: And to go along with that, Facebook has started dropping users for the first time as well. As a result, we're actually hearing about potential layoffs, which is something that would have been unheard of a couple of years ago.
--:-- Megan Basham: In the meantime, Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter are all facing challenges as well. In Snapchat's case, things have actually become so bad, you're seeing headlines about its stock being a, quote, cash bonfire.
--:-- Megan Basham: And so when you look at it, what you're seeing is that it's being driven in part by Gen Z, which has been flocking to TikTok instead. Nearly half of 13 to 19-year-olds say they use that app every day.
--:-- Megan Basham: And based largely on the strength of these young accounts, in just a few years, TikTok has amassed a billion users, and it's now Google's most visited site.
--:-- Megan Basham: So what's so uniquely great or fun about TikTok? Well what very different there is that the user experience is focused on interacting with people you already know, that original Facebook model. Instead it's based on discovering content from strangers with shared interests.
--:-- Megan Basham: So one of the things Instagram and Facebook are doing is shifting their algorithms to prioritize videos from influencers, celebrities, and unconnected accounts to try to push them to go viral.
--:-- Megan Basham: Facebook is also breaking its homepage into two tabs now. So when you log on, you'll see content the algorithm suggests. If you want to see what your friends and groups you follow are up to, you have to click on a separate tab called feeds.
--:-- Megan Basham: Something similar is happening at Instagram. If you notice, when you log on now, your feed is going to be dominated by reels, which is kind of just another word for those short videos that built TikTok's brand.
--:-- Megan Basham: So this was Instagram head Adam Masseri talking about that on Tuesday. I do believe that more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time. If you look at what people share on Instagram, that's shifting more and more to videos over time. If you look at what people like and consume and view on Instagram, that's also shifting more and more to video over time, even when we stop changing anything.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, after that, though, two of the biggest accounts on Instagram, Kim Kardashian and her sister Kylie Jenner, posted identical messages asking the platform to stop trying to copy TikTok. So that prompted a wave of backlash, and Instagram retreated somewhat, saying that they were rolling back some of those changes now and would, quote, regroup.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, what about Facebook? Are they doing anything to earn back that market share? Yeah, so Zuckerberg and Meta have gone on the PR offensive against TikTok, emphasizing that the platform poses some unique privacy and propaganda risks because its parent company, ByteDance, is Chinese.
--:-- Megan Basham: So while the controversy over TikTok CCP associations haven't slowed growth so far, if these revelations continue to come out about that and if U.S. lawmakers get serious about addressing the issue, that could very well provide an opening for some of these U.S.-based social media companies to make some inroads with Gen Z.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, Megan, you know how I feel about TikTok. I think it's melting our brains, but thank you for bringing us this story.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, my pleasure. That was Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- John Bickley: The New York Post has obtained new communications between associates of Hunter Biden sent in the aftermath of their 2020 laptop story. White House logs unearthed by Fox Digital show 14 instances of then-Vice President Joe Biden meeting with Hunter's business partners.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The new information reveals alarm in Hunter's circles in the wake of the laptop story breaking. One associate, a former British spy, James Giller, was asked if the Bidens would make them, quote, collateral damage in defending themselves against the story.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And a nickname came up that will sound familiar. Joining us to discuss is columnist David Marcus.
--:-- David Marcus: Hi, Dave. So what was this nickname?
--:-- David Marcus: Good morning. Well, the epithet in question here is Big Guy. In a story Miranda Devine broke, Giller used that name in reference to President Joe Biden saying, quote, if they lose, honestly, I don't think that the big guy really cares, unquote.
--:-- David Marcus: Which was to say that if Biden lost in 2020, the laptop story would go away. It's significant because on the laptop itself was a reference to 10 percent of profits from a venture going to a the big guy. And it been alleged that this also referred to Joe Biden who claims that he never even talked to Hunter about business dealings much less profited from them
--:-- David Marcus: What else did we learn from these new communications about the reaction to the laptop story?
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah I mean it notable that there was so much concern from Hunter associates that they could be liable or that there could be fallout from the laptop You have to remember that at the time, the Biden campaign wouldn't deny it was Hunter's laptop, but also wouldn't confirm it. Much of the media ran with the story that the laptop had hallmarks of Russian disinformation. The New York Post was banned from Twitter.
--:-- David Marcus: But what we see here is that while this lie was being very publicly spread, people in the Biden circle were already circling the wagons. It's pretty damning stuff.
--:-- David Marcus: The other news was that Joe Biden met over a dozen times with business partners of Hunter. What's going on there?
--:-- David Marcus: Well, I mean, that's the question, right? This story shows a wide range of people financially tied to Hunter going to the White House to meet with Joe. We already know of other meetings and pictures of the president with these people. But it's just another piece of evidence that Biden must have talked about Hunter's business. If there's not a smoking gun here, there is certainly a growing minefield. And the White House is running out of places to step.
--:-- David Marcus: Some, including Peter Schweitzer, have suggested that meetings were even held that evaded logs. So there's a lot here. The former Attorney General Bill Barr is now calling for a special counsel investigation into all of this. He told the Federalists that all these new revelations, quote, warrant adding the protections of special counsel status to assure that key decisions are made, quote, independently without political favor.
--:-- David Marcus: The question is, will Merrick Garland, the current AG, take action? Well, as Barr says, there's enough evidence to warrant it at this point. And the political circumstances certainly merit it. But it's hard to see Garland making the move, at least before the election.
--:-- David Marcus: This all comes as a federal grand jury has just wrapped up in Delaware in its own two-year investigation of Hunter Biden. Are we any closer to learning the results of that?
--:-- David Marcus: But so we're told. There was reporting last week that things were coming to a head. And as you said, the grand jury has ended. So a new one would have to be impaneled to continue, which means starting over. The investigation is into alleged tax evasion, money laundering, failing to register as a foreign agent. So, I mean, it's serious stuff.
--:-- David Marcus: There are some fears that a plea deal could be reached, in which case the particulars of the case might never become public, including any that may or may not implicate whoever the big guy is.
--:-- David Marcus: There's so much news seemingly each week about Hunter Biden. Why is there so much coverage on him right now?
--:-- David Marcus: Listen, covering up a big story is like shaking a can of soda. Once the lid comes off of it, it goes everywhere. You know, we haven't even touched on Senator Chuck Grassley suggesting the FBI might have had a hand in keeping the Hunter stories quiet. Now that everyone has stopped collectively pretending that none of this is real, there's a backlog of revelations. And many Americans are finding out for the first time about a real parade of horribles. They're floating to the surface.
--:-- David Marcus: Definitely a politically tenuous situation here.
--:-- John Bickley: David, thanks for joining us today.
--:-- David Marcus: That was Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.
--:-- John Bickley: Other stories we're tracking this week. President Biden announced Saturday that he once again tested positive for COVID. The White House says he is asymptomatic, feeling fine and working in isolation. The death toll from flooding in Kentucky reached 26 people on Sunday. Governor Andy Beshear said that the number is expected to rise.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for listening to Morning Wire. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you love our show and you stand with our mission, please consider subscribing, leaving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend.
--:-- John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.
