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--:-- Host: We did our job, rolled up our sleeves, got it done. We're really proud of that effort. A budget bill, an Oval Office showdown, and a split decision by the Supreme Court. If you go and apply to be a charter school and you're a science-based school, you can get in. And then you come in and you say, oh, we're a religious school. It's like, oh, no, can't do that. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, May 23rd, and this is Money Wire.
--:-- Host: Details emerge about the man who gunned down a young couple outside a Jewish museum. He was from Chicago, affiliated with some far left-wing organizations, and those organizations very active in anti-Israel, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests. And Colorado just made misgendering a discriminatory act. Parents are pushing back. We'll see lawsuits. We will see ballot measures. We will see people not complying with the law across the board. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Host: It's been a busy few days in Washington with big news coming on the budget bill, South Africa, and even the Supreme Court. Here with a dispatch from our nation's capital is Daily Wire Deputy Managing Editor Tim Rice. So what's the latest in D.C.?
--:-- Tim Rice: Yeah, good morning, guys. Certainly the biggest news of the week is that early yesterday morning, the House of Representatives passed a comprehensive tax and budget package, what the president has been calling the big, beautiful bill. This is a huge win for President Trump, who pushed congressional Republicans to pass a single bill rather than several smaller pieces of legislation. It's perhaps an even bigger win for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who not only rallied his caucus to this seemingly impossible task, but did so by his self-imposed Memorial Day deadline, which many people thought was impossible. The bill passed the House 215 to 214, with every Democrat voting no and a handful of Republicans dissenting as well. The legislation now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate, who Trump hopes will wrap things up by July 4th.
--:-- Tim Rice: Well, certainly a major legislative achievement for the GOP. Now, what exactly is in the bill that makes it so big and beautiful? Well, John, what isn't in this bill? Russ Vogt, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, joked yesterday that there was so much good stuff in the legislation, it was impossible for him to single out the most important part. All of them are being exponentially furthered in this bill. And I think what is really an important story that we will keep talking about is the extent to which we have ended fiscal irresponsibility and futility by not being able to pass big reductions in mandatory savings that make total sense.
--:-- Host: Votes write that there almost too much to cover but let me do my best. The bill raises the debt limit by $4 trillion and funds Trump's priorities on border security, energy, and national defense. It extends the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year. It also defunds Planned Parenthood and blocks federal dollars from funding transgender procedures and more. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Here's former Trump senior economic advisor Steve Moore speaking about the bill shortly after it passed.
--:-- Steve Moore: This is a huge victory for prosperity, for lower taxes. We go to the Senate. I think the Senate can actually improve on this bill. Do I love everything in this big, beautiful bill? No. There are some things I think that can be improved. But I want to remind people, one of the reasons this is so important, and this was a giant hurdle to get over is this will help avert a $4 trillion tax increase on January 1st. And I want to remind all your viewers, I mean, this is despicable. Every single Democrat on the House floor yesterday, every single one of them voted for a $4 trillion tax increase.
--:-- Host: Now, we also had what you could call an Oval Office showdown this week. Tell us about this meeting with Trump and the president of South Africa.
--:-- Tim Rice: Yeah, Trump hosted South African president Cyril Ramaphosa in an Oval Office meeting. They wanted to talk tariffs, trade, and more. Remember, this came on the heels of the White House welcoming 59 white South African farmers to the United States. Those farmers claim they're fleeing an anti-white genocide in their home country, something the South African government strongly denies. But Trump came prepared to have that conversation with Ramaphosa, at one point dimming the lights in the Oval Office to play videos of anti-white rhetoric in South Africa.
--:-- Tim Rice: We have thousands of stories talking about it, And we have documentaries. We have news stories. Let me see the articles, please, if you would. And excuse me, turn the lights down. A revolution demands that at some point there must be killing because the killing is part of a revolution. But we're starting with this whiteness. We're cutting the toes of whiteness.
--:-- Host: And if that's not enough in D.C., we also have the Supreme Court ruling. It was a split decision. Tell us about that.
--:-- Tim Rice: That's right. Yesterday, the court handed down a rare 4-4 decision on whether or not Oklahoma could open the nation's first religious charter school. We don't know why, but Justice Amy Coney Barrett abstained from voting, which is what caused the tie. Now, because there was no majority, the court did not issue a written opinion, and we don't know how the other justices voted. But that also means that this case does not become federal precedent, and the court will likely have to take up the issue again sometime in the future. So we can expect a sequel at some point in the Supreme Court.
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--:-- Host: Two Israeli embassy staffers were gunned down in Washington this week in what officials are calling an act of terrorism. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips has the latest on the tragedy. So Cabot, a heinous crime in our nation's capital. What do we know?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, on Wednesday night, the American Jewish Committee was hosting a celebration at the Capitol Jewish Museum, just blocks away from the U.S. Capitol. As the event ended a lone gunman was waiting. He opened fire killing 26 Sarah Milgram and 30 Yaron Lashinsky both of whom worked at the Israeli embassy and were also in a relationship. According to family members, Yaron had purchased an engagement ring last week. He planned to propose to Sarah next week on a trip to Jerusalem.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Shortly after opening fire, the gunman, 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez entered the museum and told attendees to call the police. Footage taken at the scene shows him holding up a red keffiyeh, and while he was handcuffed, he chanted, two words. FBI Director Cash Patel said the incident was an act of terrorism, but officials now believe that Rodriguez did act alone. Shortly before the attack took place, Rodriguez published a manifesto online titled, quote, Escalate for Gaza, Bring the War Home.
--:-- Host: In recent years, Rodriguez was heavily involved in far-left political activism. For example, he took part in numerous anti-Israel marches and demonstrations, and he worked at times with the PSL, or Party for Socialism and Liberation. And this attack has drawn attention to an uptick in anti-Semitism more broadly. Right, so following the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7th and the subsequent military response by Israel, we've seen an unprecedented uptick in anti-Semitic violence and harassment here stateside. And Jewish leaders have long been warning that growing pro-Hamas sentiment on college campuses and in the media would inevitably lead to attacks like this one.
--:-- Host: To that point, here's Jonathan Epstein, a recent graduate of Columbia University, who was a witness to last night's shooting, talking with CNN.
--:-- Jonathan Epstein: What I saw in his eyes, I mean, I went to Columbia for grad school, and I saw the same thing in his eyes as I saw in the eyes of all the protesters at Columbia. Nothing different between him and them. But they did not create this horrific shooting. They did not, you know, sort of, they didn't shoot. They created, they gave permission. They gave the permission. And they have called for this. They have called for Intifada revolution, which is the same thing he yelled last night.
--:-- Host: Now, we spoke with Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Here's what he had to say about that connection between campus protests and the violence we saw this week.
--:-- Mark Dubowitz: If the Ku Klux Klan and white hoods was on America's college campuses targeting black students, this thing would have been shut down in three hours. There would have been zero tolerance across the academy for any of this. The fact that this is targeting pro-Israel students has been tolerated. And as a result, it has only intensified and only become more violent. And then the manifestation of this is what happened in Washington, D.C.
--:-- Host: And the Trump administration also says the Democrat Party's embrace of these pro-Hamas activists has contributed to the rise in anti-Semitism we've seen. Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt responding to a question yesterday from Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olehan.
--:-- Caroline Levitt: Do you or President Trump have a message to politicians like Ilhan Omar, who only this morning explicitly avoided condemning this act of terror? It's despicable. And frankly, we have seen a rise in anti-Semitic protests of pro-Hamas, protests of terrorist sympathizers. We saw them on our college campuses and we've seen the Democrat Party turn a blind eye and in some cases actually embrace such anti-Semitic illegal behavior.
--:-- Host: And for their part, Israel expressed shock and outrage at the attack. Prime Minister Netanyahu called it, quote, the terrible price of anti-Semitism and wild incitement against Israel. Well, our prayers are with their family. Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Absolutely.
--:-- Host: Misgendering is now officially an illegal discriminatory act under Colorado law. Colorado Democratic governor signed this into law last week but not before Colorado parents came out in force to oppose it Daily Wire investigative reporter Mairead Alordi is here with more. Hey Mairead, so first tell us about this bill.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: Hi, John. Yes, so Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed this bill quietly on Friday without any fanfare. The House Bill 1312 officially made misgendering a discriminatory act under Colorado law. This applies to places like workplaces and schools. The law is drastically pared down from its original version, which said parents in custody battles who misgender or dead name their child were guilty of coercive control and could lose custody of their child.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: Under Colorado law, coercive control is a serious category that includes things like threatening to kill someone. But the custody part is not in the bill, thanks to Colorado parents who came out in force to fight it. More than 700 Coloradans signed up to testify against this bill and tens of thousands more signed petitions against it. Still, the new law bars Colorado courts from cooperating with other states' laws that protect children from parents who want to give them transgender hormones or surgeries. It also requires schools that have dress codes and policies about names to allow children to use a transgender name or wear the school uniform of the opposite gender.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: The bill also allows people to change their gender marker on their driver's license three times up from just once. We spoke to the Colorado House Minority Leader Rose Puglisi about the bill. This bill was an attack on parental rights basically said that if you did not, the government had the right to interfere in how you raise your children. And I think that was a real issue. Basically, if you did not subscribe to a certain ideology, if you wanted to exercise your God-given right as a parent to raise your children in the way that you wanted, that you could actually jeopardize custody of your children.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: And this is an issue that transcends party lines. It doesn't matter if you're a Republican, and a Democrat and unaffiliated, nobody wants the government to be raising our children or telling us how to raise our children. Fuglisi said Colorado's Democratic majority was able to use House rules to shut our voices down. So I think that that also engaged people because they felt like even their representatives couldn't have that conversation. So a lot of pushback from residents of a solidly blue state, which is pretty significant.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: So the child custody part was removed, but parental rights advocates are still concerned, correct? They are. We spoke to Erin Lee. She's executive director of Protect Kids Colorado. She warned that Colorado Family Courts and CPS already favor the gender-affirming parent, but she said this bill was a turning point.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: I do think this is an absolute turning point, and we'll see organization of these grassroots orgs like we've never seen before in Colorado. I do think it's the turning point. We also spoke with Pastor Jay Chase Davis of the Well Church in Boulder, who organized two rallies at the Colorado Capitol against the bill.
--:-- Mairead Alordi: I think that's what's most revealing right now is they've kind of put their cards on the table. The House Democrats all voted in favor of the pre-amended version of this bill. So their agenda is out in the open, cast out of the bag. They've let known their intentions. Christians need to get involved. We don't need to be afraid of getting involved politically. We don't need to be afraid of all the names they're going to call you. Just stand for God's truth. Stand for the truth of reality in the public square.
--:-- Host: And I think there's a lot of positive momentum that can come from that. And I think we can be an inspiration to one another. And by the way, Colorado has other controversial bills on transgender ideology coming down the pike, including one that would ban health insurers from limiting so-called necessary transgender treatments. This is clearly an example of how the parental rights fight is not going away anytime soon.
--:-- Host: Mairead, thanks so much for reporting. Thanks, John.
--:-- Host: Before you go, we're on YouTube now. Watch and subscribe to the video version of our show on the Morning Wire channel. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more news you need to know.
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