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--:-- John Bickley: The NFL is back, and FanDuel's got everything you need to play your game. From same-game parlays to live betting. Right now, new customers bet $5 and get $300 in bonus bets if you win. 21-plus in president select states. 18-plus in Kentucky and Wyoming. Must be first online real money waging. $5 deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at FanDuel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.
--:-- John Bickley: After years of opposing President Trump's efforts to construct a wall at the southern border, the Biden administration is now moving to build the wall. Why is the administration waiving dozens of federal laws? And why are Democrats now trying to secure the border?
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Daily Wire, Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, October 6th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: The wife of Senator Bob Menendez killed a man in a car accident in 2018. That's your statement that you were driving this way, the guy came from this way, and he ran into your vehicle. He jumped on my wheelchair. Okay. Now prosecutors say the new Mercedes she received after the incident was part of a bribery scheme.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And in the latest shift towards more LGBT acceptance, Pope Francis implies that priests may have the authority to bless same-sex unions.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- John Bickley: The Biden administration is tapping into an executive power not used since the Trump administration to sidestep several environmental rules and construct some parts of the border wall.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hi, I'm Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- John Bickley: So this is a conversation we didn't see coming, frankly. Where is Biden's new wall going?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Starr County in South Texas. The Department of Homeland Security published a notice in the U.S. Federal Registry this week that said there is an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads at the southern border to prevent unlawful entries into the United States.
--:-- John Bickley: The notice refers specifically to Star County, one of 21 counties in the Rio Grande Valley sector, which, according to DHS data, has seen at 245,000 illegal crossings so far this fiscal year.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Once it's finished, this project should add up to another 20 miles of wall to what was constructed under the Trump administration.
--:-- John Bickley: All right, so another 20 miles. How is the administration getting this done? It's not free, and they're having to skirt some laws, correct?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Right. So first, the money has already been appropriated by Congress. That happened in 2019. Now, typically, these sorts of projects also have to undergo costly environmental reviews, but the DHS notice points to a 1996 immigration law that allows the president to waive regulatory reviews and protects it from legal challenges to rush construction.
--:-- John Bickley: In total, the Biden administration is waiving 26 federal laws to start construction as soon as possible, including the Endangered Species Act, National Fish and Wildlife Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.
--:-- Tim Pierce: This has, of course, angered environmental groups that are typically pretty friendly toward Biden. The Center for Biological Diversity, for instance, put out a statement that called the project a horrific step backwards for the borderlands.
--:-- John Bickley: But of course border hawks are saying the opposite.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Right Now this is getting even more attention in part because Biden campaigned on no new border wall What did we hear from him back then?
--:-- John Bickley: This is quite the reversal Here's him in 2020 making that promise. There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration, number one. Number two, what I'm going to focus on and the fact is that somebody in this group written a lot about the border. I'm going to make sure that we have border protection, but it's going to be based on making sure that we use high-tech capacity to deal with it. Not another foot.
--:-- Tim Pierce: He was very emphatic back then. How was he justifying this reversal?
--:-- John Bickley: Essentially, he says he had no choice. The money was already appropriated, and all his attempts to redirect that towards something else failed.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Here's the president being asked about it on Thursday. The border wall, the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money. They didn't. They wouldn't. And in the meantime, there's nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what is appropriate. I can't stop that.
--:-- John Bickley: But that doesn't address the issue of sidestepping dozens of laws. And interestingly, despite what his Homeland Security Department wrote in the notice, the president suggested that this bit of border wall won't impact border security at all.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Do you believe the border wall works? No.
--:-- John Bickley: Press Secretary Corrine Jean-Pierre echoed the same message during the White House press briefing yesterday.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So the facts are this, this is not new. These funds were appropriated in fiscal year 2019 under Republican leadership. And DHS is required by law to use the funds for appropriated purpose.
--:-- John Bickley: And before we wrap up, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has gone on a four-day trip south of the border in response to this immigration crisis his city is facing.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, he's traveling south of the border to try and persuade immigrants not to come to New York City when they get to the U.S.
--:-- John Bickley: He gave an update on his trip from Mexico City on Wednesday. Just landed in Mexico City. It was a great flight. And this is just the beginning of the, you know, really the journey of trying to be on the ground and understand, you know, the whole flow of migrant and asylum seekers.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, we're seeing a lot of 180s on the border in recent months.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: A new twist has emerged in the corruption case of Senator Robert Menendez. The indictment against him claims that a co-conspirator gave a new Mercedes to Menendez's wife after she killed a man in a 2018 car accident.
--:-- David Marcus: Morning. Back in 2018, Arslanian, who is also a defendant in the bribery case, was driving her car when she struck a 49-year-old pedestrian named Richard Koop, who died almost immediately.
--:-- John Bickley: It's unclear how fast Arslanian was driving, but her car was badly damaged and Koop's body was flung to the sidewalk. Police arrived at the scene and they let her go, determining she wasn't at fault. No breathalyzer was given.
--:-- David Marcus: This ties into the bribery case because a businessman who has also been indicted in that case, Jose Uribe allegedly paid Menendez to influence a prosecutor by giving Arslanian a new 2019 Mercedes
--:-- John Bickley: All right so the Mercedes was part of a bribery scheme That what alleged here
--:-- David Marcus: Now, the New York Times did the sort of meat of the reporting on this, but other journalists have gotten involved and highlighted a lot of details, including New York Post's Miranda Devine.
--:-- John Bickley: What have we learned so far?
--:-- David Marcus: Devine went through a few different reports about the accident, and aside from expressing shock that no alcohol or drug test was administered, also pointed to reporting from the New York Times that a witness said police seemed aware of who Arzlanian was, which is to say the girlfriend of a powerful senator.
--:-- John Bickley: Another detail is that police recordings appear to show a man who identifies himself as a retired police officer saying he came to the scene as a favor for a friend.
--:-- David Marcus: You're retired, he said? Yeah, from where? Back in there. Oh, okay. She's not. Yeah, no, no. That's why I said I wanted to be with you at all. I don't even know. I checked my buddy's wife, who's friends with her, and he said, could you do me a favor and take her up there because her friend just got in the car after you? Gotcha. So I don't even know.
--:-- John Bickley: In addition, attorneys for Coop say there is video of Arslanian moving her car around the body without attempting to give any aid to the man she had just slammed into.
--:-- David Marcus: It paints a picture that looks like special treatment and an indifference to human life.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah.
--:-- David Marcus: There's, of course, two sides of this case, the legal and the political. How does this fatal wreck story impact the case on either front?
--:-- John Bickley: It seems unlikely to impact the criminal case at all, but politically, it's pretty damning for Senator Menendez, who is resisting calls even from prominent Democrats like Garden State Governor Phil Murphy and his fellow Senator Cory Booker, to step down.
--:-- David Marcus: It's possible those calls could get louder as this story breaks into public view.
--:-- John Bickley: You know, when you're trying to survive a political scandal, the idea is to keep your head down. And this is pretty much the opposite of that.
--:-- David Marcus: It looks like just another example of Menendez abusing his power at a time when he can least afford that.
--:-- John Bickley: Are we likely to see Menendez change his mind on resigning? Could the Senate take action to remove him or does he appear to be settling in for the long haul no matter what?
--:-- David Marcus: It's hard to say. Senate action is unlikely without a conviction. but this kind of thing really can make it harder for Menendez to do his job.
--:-- John Bickley: It results in people not only not wanting to work with him, but frankly, not wanting to be seen with him. He's in a very precarious position, but honestly, in the short term, his fate is in his own hands.
--:-- David Marcus: In the long term, his fate will be in the hands of a jury of his peers, and if they find against him, he will have bigger things than simply losing his Senate seat to worry about.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, an already troubling case just getting even darker.
--:-- David Marcus: Indeed.
--:-- John Bickley: Pope Francis made comments last week that many believe opened the door to Catholic blessings on same-sex unions.
--:-- Megan Basham: So, Megan, let's start with the Pope. His comments certainly stirred up a lot of controversy, but it kind of feels like we've been here before with Pope Francis, no?
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, it does. And in the past, I think the Vatican was fairly quick to say that the Pope was being misinterpreted. But we're not really seeing that this time.
--:-- Megan Basham: And that could be because these weren't just off-the-cuff comments that he made to reporters, as we have seen with similar headlines in the past.
--:-- John Bickley: So a couple of weeks ago the German Catholic Church held this sort of rainbow event where the crowd was singing All You Need Is Love from the Beatles and priests blessed a large group of same couples
--:-- Megan Basham: Five conservative cardinals submitted official questions to Pope Francis asking him to clarify whether these blessings of same-sex unions are permitted in the Catholic church.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, on Monday, the Vatican released the Pope's response that said the church can't only judge and exclude and that priests should, and I'm quoting, focus on God instead of ideological battles.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, he also said that pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing that do not convey a wrong idea of matrimony.
--:-- John Bickley: So a little vague, but certainly it is a softer stance from the 2021 statement from a Vatican official that unequivocally said that same-sex blessings are not permitted.
--:-- Megan Basham: And it is worth noting that Pope Francis has since removed that conservative official and reportedly replaced him with one more open to gay unions.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, at the top, John noted that the Catholic Church is not alone here. We're also seeing similar moves from other mainline denominations.
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, you know, this seems to follow a similar chain of events in the Anglican Church earlier this year, where various Anglican churches flouted official doctrine on same-sex unions.
--:-- John Bickley: And then the Archbishop of Canterbury publicly backed them.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then with evangelicals, you're also seeing some movement. Although they are very different in some ways because there's no single hierarchy there, they do tend to move incrementally through influence of well-known personalities.
--:-- John Bickley: It is really hard to find a more influential evangelical leader than Andy Stanley.
--:-- Megan Basham: So just to give you some context, his Atlanta church, North Point, sees roughly 38,000 attendees across eight different campuses every weekend.
--:-- John Bickley: Preaching Magazine ranked him number eight on its list of the 25 most influential pastors of the last 25 years.
--:-- Megan Basham: So a couple of weeks ago, his church held a conference branded as being for the parents of LGBTQ children.
--:-- John Bickley: Two of the speakers were men married to other men.
--:-- Megan Basham: And according to attendees, pretty much all of the presenters besides arguably Stanley himself were LGBTQ affirming.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, how was the conference received?
--:-- Megan Basham: Not well. It prompted a lot of criticism.
--:-- John Bickley: Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president, Albert Moeller, who is himself massively influential in evangelicalism.
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, he said that Stanley's conference represented a, quote, departure from biblical Christianity.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, Stanley responded in a sermon last Sunday saying that he's never subscribed to Moeller's brand of Christianity, didn't explain what he meant by that, but he did insist that his church adheres to a New Testament ethic that marriage is between a man and a woman, but he didn't say much beyond that.
--:-- Megan Basham: I spoke to Dr. Moeller about Stanley's comments, and this is what he told me.
--:-- John Bickley: He contradicts that statement about the affirmation of biblical marriage by making very clear that the church is open to same-sex couples, even with something like same-sex marriage.
--:-- Megan Basham: I find that very category incompatible with the gospel and with the teaching of the Christian church unbroken for nearly two millennia.
--:-- John Bickley: It proves there's more than one way to chart a liberal trajectory.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, very true.
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--:-- John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.
