--:-- John Bickley: Amid growing political fallout from the special counsel report, an overwhelming majority of Americans now believe President Biden is too old for a second term.
--:-- Georgia Howe: There's no other way to read this. He's not going to do debates. He is old, and it's never going to get better.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, February 12th, and this is Morning Wire. A wave of layoffs and declining audiences have some warning that major media is facing an extinction-level event.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Billionaires who have invested in these newspapers are finding that these businesses, they're very hard to run in the age of the Internet, and they don't like losing money.
--:-- John Bickley: And Israeli troops discover a Hamas military compound directly underneath the headquarters of the UN's aid agency in Gaza.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Just text WIRE to 989898 and Birch Gold will send you a free info kit on gold. That's WIRE to 989898 today.
--:-- John Bickley: By almost all accounts, President Biden just had one of the worst weeks of his presidency, leading critics and allies alike to question the state of his reelection chances.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, a new poll finds that an overwhelming 86% of American adults think Biden is too old to serve a second term as president.
--:-- John Bickley: Special counsel Robert Herr's long-awaited report on Biden's mishandling of classified documents seemed at first glance to provide some good news for the president.
--:-- Georgia Howe: He was recommending no criminal charges, but the bad news was the report's damning picture of Biden's memory and mental faculties.
--:-- John Bickley: The report prompted a hastily arranged presidential press conference and massive political fallout.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to discuss that fallout is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.
--:-- David Marcus: Hey, John. So a lot to unpack here since that presidential presser, including this rather stunning new polling. What do we need to know?
--:-- John Bickley: Morning, David. First off, that the impromptu evening presser happened at all shows how seriously the White House takes the issue of Biden's cognitive acuity.
--:-- David Marcus: As you reported here, the president seemed quite angry that Herr had included these accounts of his mental condition, including the inability to say what year his son Bo died and confusion over when exactly he was vice president.
--:-- John Bickley: In defense of himself, Biden glaringly got some key facts wrong, saying all the documents in his home were under lock and key when the report showed that some were in broken boxes behind his Corvette.
--:-- David Marcus: Reviews of Biden's performance at the podium were reminiscent of those for the film version of Cats, John.
--:-- John Bickley: And White House counsel, Press Secretary Ian Samms, he had to take to the briefing room Friday to try to clean it up.
--:-- David Marcus: What was Sam's approach to the revelations that seemed to show that the president, as recently as October, really was struggling to remember some very basic things?
--:-- John Bickley: He was very careful, but tried to express some of that same anger at what he gently suggested might have been a political motivation for her to write what he wrote.
--:-- David Marcus: He very vaguely posited that the material might have been included to balance out the lack of charges against Biden, but he didn't say the accounts were false or inaccurate.
--:-- John Bickley: This is dicey for Democrats because they have spent years now mocking Republicans who suggest that this same Department of Justice is politically motivated in going after Donald Trump.
--:-- David Marcus: But the alternative is to all but admit that concerns about Biden fitness are fair and warranted.
--:-- John Bickley: Right. Rocking a hard place there.
--:-- David Marcus: Speaking of those concerns, we have this new ABC Ipsos poll finding 86 percent of American adults think Biden is too old to be running again.
--:-- John Bickley: And we're even hearing now from some leading Democrats openly acknowledging the problem.
--:-- David Marcus: Is a floodgate breaking here? It could be.
--:-- John Bickley: We saw Hillary Clinton, of all people, come out and say that Biden's age is a legitimate issue and that he should lean into his experience as a kind of flip side to that coin.
--:-- David Marcus: Meanwhile, longtime Democrat strategist James Carville, who in fairness has been raising concerns about Biden for a while, cited the president skipping the free publicity of a Super Bowl interview as a sign that everything is not OK.
--:-- John Bickley: And Nate Silver, a polling analyst and founder of FiveThirtyEight, he's viewed as pretty neutral, said on X, quote, You don't demonstrate your seriousness that Trump is an existential threat to democracy by going through the motions to re-nominate an 81-year-old with a 38% approval rating who 75% of voters think is too old without giving anyone a choice because that's just how things are done.
--:-- David Marcus: He's citing the older WAPO poll from back in September, by the way.
--:-- John Bickley: Needless to say, these are some pretty brutal assessments from prominent left-leaning voices.
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah. What options at this point does the White House and the Biden campaign, for that matter, have to try to reverse this?
--:-- John Bickley: Or at this point, is the narrative of a kind of floundering Joe Biden baked into the electoral cake?
--:-- David Marcus: Some of Biden's younger social media influencers are going with the argument that, OK, Biden might be old, but he won't destroy the country like Trump will.
--:-- John Bickley: So expect a lot of that.
--:-- David Marcus: But one day to circle on the calendar as far as all this goes is March 7th.
--:-- John Bickley: That is when Biden is set to deliver the State of the Union address, which is a taxing primetime performance that can't be avoided.
--:-- David Marcus: But Biden maybe can keep his head down between now and then.
--:-- John Bickley: But the speech will be a moment where either he looks better and assuages some fears as the campaign season opens or it could go badly, in which case look for Democrats alarm level to go from orange to red in a hurry.
--:-- David Marcus: Well, March is coming very soon.
--:-- John Bickley: Indeed. Dave, thanks for joining us.
--:-- David Marcus: Thanks for having me.
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--:-- John Bickley: Major media outlets have seen mass layoffs and declining audiences in recent months.
--:-- Georgia Howe: This has led many analysts to wonder what's going wrong and can the bleeding be stopped?
--:-- John Bickley: Here with more is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Megan, who is laying off staff and what's happening with the readership metrics?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, the pain definitely seems to center on long-established legacy outlets.
--:-- Megan Basham: So if we look specifically at layoffs, the Washington Post cut about 240 staffers back in December.
--:-- John Bickley: And then the next month, the LA Times slashed about 20% of its newsroom, which was one of the largest layoff rounds in the company's history.
--:-- Megan Basham: And we should keep in mind when we think about this that the company is 143 years old.
--:-- John Bickley: And then we have what appears to be the death of one of the most iconic brands in the media industry, Sports Illustrated.
--:-- Megan Basham: So after nearly 80 years it recently laid off pretty much all of its workforce And most analysts are speculating that this could be the end of that publication
--:-- John Bickley: So the editor of the Texas Tribune told The Atlantic that what we're seeing could be an extinction-level event.
--:-- Megan Basham: And is this mostly the result of just loss of audience? I mean, that's definitely the key driver.
--:-- John Bickley: If you look at recent Pew surveys, they've shown that readers and viewers have been shifting away from traditional media like local TV and newspapers.
--:-- Megan Basham: But even digital traffic is down 20% for the top 50 newspapers, which includes the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post.
--:-- John Bickley: So all the biggies.
--:-- Megan Basham: And naturally, a fall in advertising revenue is going to follow that.
--:-- John Bickley: So to give you one example, the Washington Post and L.A. Times reportedly lost a combined $150 million in 2023.
--:-- Megan Basham: But we have also seen the demise of the newer, edgier media brands like the feminist news site Jezebel.
--:-- John Bickley: It recently had to close up shop entirely. Its parent company, Vice Media, has gone through a bankruptcy and restructuring that led it to also cut several of its shows.
--:-- Megan Basham: So really, we're just seeing contractions all over the place, not just with those legacy outlets.
--:-- John Bickley: So what are the theories for what's driving the decrease?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, I mean, certainly social media has been massively disruptive to the news business, but so have podcasting and Substack.
--:-- John Bickley: But we also have to look at public trust, which is another part of the puzzle here.
--:-- Megan Basham: By the end of last year, Gallup found that Americans' faith in the media to report accurately and fairly was at an all-time low.
--:-- John Bickley: Only 32% said they have a great deal of trust in the media.
--:-- Megan Basham: While 39%, a record high, said they have no trust in the media at all.
--:-- John Bickley: So this was Emma Tucker, the Wall Street Journal's editor-in-chief, addressing this problem at the World Economic Forum last month.
--:-- Megan Basham: If you go back really not that long ago, as I say, we kind of, we owned the news. We were the gatekeepers and we very much owned the facts as well.
--:-- John Bickley: If it said it in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, then that was a fact.
--:-- Megan Basham: Nowadays, people can go to all sorts of different sources for the news and they're much more questioning about what we're saying.
--:-- John Bickley: So it's no longer good enough for us just to say, this is what happened or here's, this is the news.
--:-- Megan Basham: We have to explain, almost like explain our working.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, it's worth noting who's driving this latest dip in trust.
--:-- Megan Basham: Republicans' trust in the media has long been low, as we all know, but the numbers for Democrats and independents have especially dropped 18 and 13 points respectively in the last five years.
--:-- John Bickley: So I'd say that doesn't bode well for the media's immediate prospects.
--:-- Megan Basham: Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- John Bickley: Anytime.
--:-- John Bickley: This weekend, the Israeli military discovered a tunnel system operated by Hamas terrorists directly beneath the United Nations headquarters in Gaza.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The news comes amid separate allegations that numerous UN employees took part in the terror attacks on October 7th.
--:-- John Bickley: Here with the latest is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Hey, Cabot. So a stunning discovery in Gaza. What do we know so far?
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, another damning piece of evidence against the UN that the Israelis say points to at least some form of collaboration between the agency and the Hamas terrorists operating there.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Remember, a few weeks ago, Israeli intelligence revealed that at least 12 UN employees working in Gaza had direct ties to the terror attacks on October 7th.
--:-- John Bickley: And at least six of those workers actually joined Hamas terrorists in their assault.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And now the Israeli military says it discovered a sprawling Hamas tunnel system underneath the United Nations Relief Works Agency. or UNRWA headquarters in Gaza.
--:-- John Bickley: The subterranean complex that stretched for at least a quarter mile is lined with rooms full of weapons, vehicles, and rows of computers and electrical equipment
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Israeli officials say the system served as a communications hub for Hamas terrorists and importantly that it drew its electricity directly from the UN power supply itself Wow
--:-- John Bickley: So how has the UN responded to this pretty damning discovery?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well they denying having any knowledge of the tunnel existence
--:-- John Bickley: The UN, which evacuated the headquarters in mid-October, issued a statement saying the discovery warrants an independent inquiry, but added that it, quote, does not have the military and security expertise nor the capacity to undertake military inspections of what is or might be under its premises.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So they're pleading ignorance, but the Israelis are not buying that argument.
--:-- John Bickley: They say it would have been nearly impossible for the tunnels to have escaped notice and claim that such a vast and complex construction project right under their noses would have surely been discovered by someone.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And more importantly, someone would have almost certainly noticed the jump in electricity usage once those tunnels were operational.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, this latest development puts even more pressure on the UN.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Tell us more on that front.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, the United Nations, and more specifically, their Relief and Works Agency, was already under fire after last month's report on staffers taking part in the attack.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But as the scope of their alleged involvement with Hamas comes into focus, that pressure is really heating up.
--:-- John Bickley: According to Israeli intelligence, 10% of the agency's 12,000 employees in Gaza have ties to Islamist militant groups, while 23% of all male employees had direct ties to Hamas.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That is compared to 15% of males in Gaza who fit the same criteria.
--:-- John Bickley: So Israel says those numbers are proof the agency is even more radical and involved with Hamas than the average population of Gaza.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right.
--:-- John Bickley: And this isn't the first time that UNRWA has been accused of working with terror groups, correct?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right. That's a good point.
--:-- John Bickley: So for years, the United States was the single largest funder of the agency, donating more than $350 million annually as recently as 2017.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But in 2018, President Trump ordered an end to U.S. funding, saying the agency was, quote, irredeemably flawed.
--:-- John Bickley: According to the Trump administration, UNRWA was exacerbating the refugee crisis in Gaza, and fomenting extremist sentiments among the Palestinians.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Trump officials pointed to UN-funded schools with anti-Semitic curriculum and the number of agency staffers involved directly with Hamas as evidence of what they called a biased and dangerous agency that was unworthy of American support.
--:-- John Bickley: But in 2021, the Biden administration restored funding to the group in a move that was initially praised by the Palestinians, but as you can imagine, criticized by the Israelis.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, though, in the wake of this latest string of developments, The U.S. has put a temporary hold on funding for UNRWA, while the State Department conducts an investigation into their role in supporting Hamas.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, a pretty harsh spotlight shining on the U.N. right now.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- John Bickley: Anytime.
--:-- John Bickley: Another story we're tracking this week. In an overtime thriller in Las Vegas last night, the Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl 58 over the San Francisco 49ers.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The win earns Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes his third Super Bowl ring and second in a row.
--:-- John Bickley: After the 49ers went up three in overtime, Mahomes led the team down the field and threw the game-winning pass to wide receiver McColl Hardman to pull out the 25-22 victory.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The game had something for everyone, including a streaker, a halftime performance with Usher on roller skates, and of course, lots of footage of Taylor Swift cheering on Chiefs tight end Travis Kelsey.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
--:-- John Bickley: Black Rifle Coffee just announced a massive new partnership with the UFC that started with a huge donation to the Hunter 7 Foundation.
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