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--:-- John Bickley: This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID, and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info. And if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.
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--:-- John Bickley: The Biden administration announces what it's calling the most significant gun regulations in decades. How do the new rules tighten restrictions and why are gun rights advocates sounding the alarm? They're just using misunderstandings and misnomers and charged language to try to enforce stricter gun control. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, April 12th, and this is Morning Wire. The U.S. continues its streak of record low unemployment and solid job growth month to month. So why are many analysts saying it's actually smoke and mirrors? And President Biden hints that he may take executive action to secure the border as he continues to lose public support on the issue. We're examining whether or not I have that power. There's no guarantee that I have that power all by myself without legislation. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: The Biden administration has finalized a new rule to greatly expand background check requirements for gun sales. Critics say the rule is a backdoor to universal background checks and a national database on gun transactions. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the new rule and what this means for gun owners. Hi, Tim. So what did the Biden administration announce yesterday?
--:-- Tim Pierce: The White House touted it as the largest expansion of the background check requirement in decades. Here's Attorney General Merrick Garland announcing it yesterday. Today, the Justice Department is issuing one of the most significant gun regulations in decades. Pursuant to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the regulation expands the definition of who must obtain a license and conduct a background check before selling firearms. It will also close the gun show loophole. Under this regulation, it will not matter if guns are sold on the internet, at a gun show, or at a brick-and-mortar store. If you sell guns predominantly to earn a profit, you must be licensed and you must conduct background checks.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right, so a full court press from the White House to publicize this rule. Right Garland spoke about closing the so gun show loophole in that clip. What does he mean there?
--:-- Tim Pierce: What the attorney general mentioned actually has very little to do with gun shows. Critics say that the term gives the impression that there is something special about gun shows that allows otherwise illegal gun sales to take place. That's not the case. Gun sales at gun shows are regulated under the same rules as sales online, in gun stores, and anywhere else. Businesses must be licensed, and they must run a background check on every customer. What the loophole, as Garland called it, really refers to is transactions between private individuals. Now, the regulations on private deals can vary by state, but as far as federal rules go, there's not much regulation beyond that the seller should be reasonably sure that the buyer won't use the gun for something illegal.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The new rule would place a lot of uncertainty around those transactions. As the White House's own fact sheet states, The final rule clarifies that even a single firearm transaction may be sufficient to require a license if there is other behavior to suggest commercial activity. So it may require a license. Now, the White House says this regulation will save lives. How significant is it?
--:-- Tim Pierce: That's a good question. Morning Wire spoke with Brandon Herrera. He's a popular gun commentator running for Congress in Texas as a Republican. Here's what he said. A lot of these stricter background checks, the mental health checks and things like that are either A, already instituted, or B, if they were instituted, would not have solved the problem. Because the vast majority of these people have no felonies on record. They have no history of mental illness. They would not be flagged in any system that was proposed as a person that would be denied a firearm. So really, this just cracks down on the average everyday American and puts more hoops for them to jump through without actually solving anything.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, this rule, which we should note is the Biden administration's interpretation of a law, is almost certain to be challenged in the courts. So the final implementation could be a long way off. But still some hefty rules in store for gun owners looking to sell if it's enacted. Tim, thanks for joining us.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me on.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: A new report ranking the best cities to find work shows a geographic and political correlation between the nation's hottest job markets. Here to break it down is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips. So Cabot, a really fascinating snapshot here of the much-discussed labor market. Tell us about these findings.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, so each year the Wall Street Journal teams up with Moody's analytics to release a report ranking the best and worst job markets in the country. Coming in at number one this year was Salt Lake City, Utah, which benefited from a booming tech hub, low tax burden, and natural scenery. Salt Lake is followed by a trio of Florida cities, Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa. Our home city of Nashville fell from the top spot last year, but still cracked the top 10, along with Oklahoma City, Miami, Austin, Seattle, and Dallas. Now, notably, eight of the 10 hottest markets are in the South, with Texas and Florida dominating the rankings for the second straight year. According to the report, a big reason there is that these cities have relatively affordable housing markets compared to larger metropolitan areas in the Northeast and out West.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now something that might jump out to people is there seems to be a political correlation here. Yeah one can help but notice that of the top 10 cities nine of them are in red states At the same time, eight of the bottom 10 were from blue states. And that same trend is also seen when you look at states with the fastest growing populations and also the hottest housing markets. Those on the right say it's proof that their economic policies are more popular and that red states, which typically have lower tax burdens than their blue counterparts, encourage growth.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: To that point, it's worth noting that seven of the top 10 cities are in Florida, Texas, and Tennessee, each of which have no state income tax. Now, detractors of that theory say the results have less to do with politics and more to do with the rise of remote work, which allows Americans the chance to move to places with warmer weather. But if that were the case, you'd expect to see booming labor markets in California, a state that did not have a single city in the top 25, despite having the country's largest workforce and arguably best weather.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So let's talk about the labor market specifically. What are we seeing there? Well, it depends on who you ask. The White House and Democrats have been shouting from the rooftops for the last year that the economy is historically strong. Biden has routinely touted the unemployment rate, which sits around 3.8% nationally, as proof. And historically speaking, that is remarkably good. The same goes for the raw number of jobs being added each month. In March, that number was around 300,000, which again is pretty solid. But skeptics say that if you dig into those numbers, they're smoke and mirrors.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, what's the flip side? So first, it's important to remember that the Labor Department does not distinguish between full-time and part-time jobs in those reports. And if you dig into the data, all of the net jobs added in the last 12 months were part-time. For example, the quarterly census of employment and wages found that in the last 12 months, 920,000 part-time jobs were added to the economy. But over that same time frame, the number of full-time jobs actually fell by more than a quarter million. All told, since President Biden took office, part-time hires have risen at six times the pace of full-time work.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So yes, Americans are able to find work, but at this point, it's rarely a full-time gig. And there's also the question of who exactly is being hired for those jobs. As we've discussed before, according to Federal Reserve data, employment among native-born Americans has actually fallen by 651,000 jobs over the last year, while foreign-born workers have picked up 1.2 million jobs. So all of the job gains over the last year have come from non-native workers. And one more note, if you look at the last 12 months of data, the rate of new businesses opening up fell by 4.5%, while the rate of business closers rose 24%. So some troubling numbers kind of hiding in there.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Anytime.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: President Biden has indicated that he may be very close to signing long-anticipated executive orders to quell the border crisis as his polling on the issue continues to crater. The about-face has been rumored for months, but this week the president took to Spanish-language television to strongly hint that the action is coming soon. and Axios is now reporting such moves could come by the end of the month. Here to discuss these potential executive actions and their political timing is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus. Hey, Dave. So first, what is Biden reportedly proposing here?
--:-- David Marcus: Morning, John. So according to the reporting at Axios, the administration is looking at Section 212F of the Immigration and Nationality Act, The same provision Trump often used to take certain actions the most significant of which would be to deny automatic amnesty to migrants arriving at the border Officials would have much broader authority to deny asylum claims which the White House hopes will lead to lower numbers in border encounters, as well as a decline in the sheer numbers of migrants overwhelming American cities.
--:-- Georgia Howe: As you mentioned, this has been expected or at least teased of late with many Democrat strategists warning that the border crisis is a real electoral albatross around Biden's neck. But at the same time, there are far left Democrats who will be very angry if Biden does basically anything to return to Trump's border policies. Speaking of anger at Trump's border policies, Biden himself, when he took office, had some pretty strong words for his predecessor's approach. How can he square that if he does actually adopt many of them?
--:-- David Marcus: Look, back in 2021, Biden was calling these policies, quote, dangerous and quote, inhumane. We all remember when Trump was president, the invectives hurled against him and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez weeping outside of a detention facility. And more recently, just in recent weeks, Biden and the White House have said they simply don't have the power to take executive action and that Congress must act instead. That position has apparently changed now, and Biden is apparently willing to risk being overturned by the courts to secure the border just as he is defying the Supreme Court on student loan debt. So why now? Is this in response to high-profile incidents like the tragic murder of Lake and Riley at the hands of an illegal immigrant? Or is this owing to deeper, broader political trends?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. There has to be time for these changes to be implemented and to have a noticeable impact by October when voters start going to the polls. So there's always been that runway or horizon. But recent events and the persistence in the polls, I mean, many of which show almost 70 percent of Americans disapprove of Biden's handling of the border. It's clearly played into this decision as well, as does the fact that immigration is rising on the list of issues voters are concerned about precisely because of cases like Lake and Riley's, as well as drug overdoses, criminal gangs crossing into the U.S. and even potentially terrorism.
--:-- David Marcus: Listen, this is a major policy reversal. it can't be done without eating some crow, the White House and the Biden campaign appear to think that slice of humble pie is more palatable than the electoral consequences of a broken southern border.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, it would seem so. If we, in fact, see some big changes here from Biden, how would that impact Republicans' messaging? Would that take a key issue off the table?
--:-- David Marcus: There's likely to be a bit of a mix of what took you so long to go along with this is clearly a cynical political ploy. As far as the border as an election issue goes, the GOP will point to Biden's inaction for three years when there wasn't a presidential election as a hint of what four more years of Biden-Harris would mean for the border. And of course, some of this will depend on just how effective the executive actions prove to be.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Right. And regardless, it's hard to see this issue being wrestled away from Trump.
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Dave, thanks for joining us.
--:-- David Marcus: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with 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. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.
