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--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm in a congressional foreign funding battle in a looming government shutdown. President Biden convenes a meeting with top leaders from both chambers. What's stopping Congress from reaching an agreement?
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, February 28th, and this is Morning Wire. A Daily Wire investigation finds medical schools say they're hiring surgeons based on DEI rather than qualifying metrics. The focus on race as the criterion for employment or education is against the law. And a revealing new report details the CIA's role in Ukraine's intelligence operations and how it shaped the war.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. much, much more.
--:-- 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. Head over to BlackRifleCoffee.com and use promo code WIRE.
--:-- Georgia Howe: President Biden convened a meeting of top congressional leaders on Tuesday, urging both parties to agree on separate deals to avert a partial government shutdown and offer renewed aid for Ukraine.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Hey, I'm Cabot Phillips. Well, two things. The fate of President Biden's long sought after Ukraine package and a federal budget deal that will prevent a shutdown from happening.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll start with the latter. The initial deadline for a deal was all the way back in September. But when Congress repeatedly failed to agree on a bill, they kicked the can down the road three separate times, passing temporary funding measures that kept the lights on a few months at a time. But the latest measure expires this week. And without a new deal, a partial government shutdown will begin March 1st. And a full one begins on March 1st.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: With the clock really ticking down, President Biden hosted a meeting with the four most important lawmakers in Congress, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Mitch McConnell, and Speaker Mike Johnson. All right, so all the big wigs got together. What's the holdup on a deal at this point?
--:-- Georgia Howe: So back in January, Speaker Johnson and Majority Leader Schumer agreed on a tentative $1.7 trillion spending bill with the understanding that they'd hash out the final numbers and policy writers included at a later date. And that's where the rub is. Because Republicans hold that razor-thin edge in the House, if a bill is going to pass, there must be either total agreement among the GOP or bipartisan support, two things that are hard to come by in DC right now.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: They really are. Hardline conservatives in the House are well aware of that predicament, and also the leverage it gives them. To that point the powerful House Freedom Caucus is pushing Speaker Johnson to amend that spending bill before it comes to the floor for a vote Among other things they want to see a reduction in top government spending increased funding for border security and the removal of funding for the World Health Organization and several U.N. agencies.
--:-- Georgia Howe: They've urged Johnson to let a shutdown happen if Democrats don't agree to those demands. But Johnson has been adamant that a shutdown will not happen. Here he is speaking at the White House after that meeting with President Biden.
--:-- Mike Johnson: We believe that we can get to agreement on these issues and prevent a government shutdown. And that's our first responsibility.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For his part, Majority Leader Schumer offered a rather ominous warning to Speaker Johnson after the meeting, calling on him to get Republicans on board with the agreement.
--:-- Chuck Schumer: We said to the Speaker, get it done. History is looking over your shoulder. And if you don't do the right thing, whatever the immediate politics are, you will regret it.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now let's get to the other big debate in Washington. This one over, continued funding for Ukraine. What's happening there?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, the key word there is continued, as the U.S. has already sent more money to Ukraine than nearly every country in Europe combined. But President Biden has continued his push for another aid package that includes $60 billion more for Ukraine. That package, which also includes tens of billions for Israel and Taiwan, passed the Senate already earlier this month by a 70 to 29 vote. But it's yet to be voted on in the House.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Speaker Johnson has repeatedly made clear that his chamber would not pass the measure unless Democrats agreed to address the border crisis in a meaningful way. During Tuesday's meeting at the White House, Johnson pressed Biden on what exactly the endgame is for Ukraine and also how long America would go on funding the war if it continues to drag on.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And one other interesting wrinkle here. The Biden administration is already looking into other ways to fund Ukraine. On Tuesday, White House spokesman John Kirby said they were, quote, exploring the option of reallocating more than $300 billion in frozen Russia funds for use in Ukraine.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So even if Congress will not authorize funding, President Biden may still find a way to send more money to Ukraine.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: 36,000 businesses have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle. Download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance absolutely free at netsuite.com slash morningwire.
--:-- Megan Basham: So I'm here with Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham. So Megan, what did this investigation find?
--:-- Georgia Howe: So Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro reviewed the training materials and some other records at a number of hospitals. And he found that some top hospitals have admitted to abandoning key metrics when hiring surgeons. Some of their medical staff say that they're also disregarding research provided by white doctors.
--:-- Megan Basham: Here's Shapiro breaking the story on his show this week. All you care about when you go into the doctor is, is my doctor good at the medicining? Is my doctor good at taking care of me and making sure that I am healthy? I mean, this is an area where meritocracy should be the only thing that counts. But surgery is now being impacted by DEI.
--:-- Georgia Howe: One of those top hospitals is Duke University. During an internal DEI training session surgical resident Vignesh Rahman told trainees that his quote heart sinks when he has to treat patients who watch Fox News or who wear MAGA hats And he said that one of the things he likes best about his job is that his patients are majority non This is what Rahman said about the university push to hire non medical staff We sort of had to confront the history of the institution, the history of our department, the walls of white men that are draped across our hallways. And that's when we started to started to think that maybe something should change.
--:-- Megan Basham: I think the most important thing we've done is really systemic changes to our recruitment process to try to recruit diverse residents to our program. So part of this has involved transitioning to completely holistic review process, abandoning, you know, all sort of metrics and screens.
--:-- Georgia Howe: On social media, Ramon posted that he He doesn't want to, quote unquote, amplify the academic work of white men. Now, is this actually legal at a research hospital? I mean, the Supreme Court recently ruled against race-based admissions. Seems like it could be a civil rights violation.
--:-- Megan Basham: Right. And I did ask North Carolina Representative Dan Bishop about that. Duke, of course, is a North Carolina school. And Bishop is a former civil litigator who is currently running for attorney general.
--:-- Dan Bishop: Employers do have a wide range of criteria they can consider. You don't have to hire a physician on the basis of his or her confidence if you're reckless enough not to. But what you can't do is use race, sex, national origin, religion, or anything that would be a proxy for them as the basis of hiring decisions or promotion or any other kind of decision about employment terms and circumstances. You also cannot permit a hostile work environment to exist in your place of employment around any of those characteristics.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And he adds that he expects to see some patient lawsuits against hospitals who are using these kind of DEI hiring practices.
--:-- Megan Basham: Has Duke responded to the upset over these comments? So far, the hospital has not made any public statements about it, though the videos with Ramon's DEI training have been taken down.
--:-- Georgia Howe: As far as accountability, Bishop says this controversy proves that we need to focus more on enforcing the civil rights and anti-discrimination laws that are already on the books rather than passing new laws.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The CIA has developed deep ties to Ukraine's intelligence community over the past decade. Kiev has played a pivotal role in monitoring Russia, while the U.S. has provided training and state-of-the-art technology and facilities for Ukraine's spy masters.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to talk about the CIA's ties to Ukraine and how the American intelligence community has impacted the war with Russia is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce. Hey, Tim. So how has this relationship shaped the war?
--:-- Tim Pierce: It's been pretty significant. Some Ukrainian officials even say the CIA's help was invaluable in the war's early days when the Russian military threatened Kiev. Since then, the CIA has played a major role in pointing out military targets for the Ukrainians to hit or keeping the Ukrainians informed of the types of weapons Russia is using In a more indirect way the CIA has also empowered Ukraine to take action deep inside Russia Ukraine special forces have carried out dozens of assassinations against Russian officials activists, propagandists. A lot of people who Ukraine has said have contributed to the war effort in some way.
--:-- Georgia Howe: One of the most high-profile killings was that of Daria Dugina, the daughter of the well-known Russian nationalist and philosopher Alexander Dugin, also known as Putin's brain. Another failed attack resulted in a couple drones crashing onto Kremlin grounds and starting a small fire.
--:-- Tim Pierce: While the CIA hasn't had a direct hand in any of the violence, it's hard to say whether Ukraine would have the ability to carry out these attacks without the CIA's training and technology.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, what's the history between our CIA and Ukrainian intelligence agencies? The current relationship stretches back a decade, but most of what we know about it has only recently come into the public view in a lengthy report in the Washington Post published last year and then another in the New York Times this week.
--:-- Tim Pierce: According to the Times, the partnership began back in 2014 under the Obama administration and after former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russia leader, was ousted from office and fled the country along with top intelligence officials.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In the aftermath, the new spy chief enlisted the help of the CIA and the UK's MI6 to help restore some order. It took a couple of years to build up trust, but after Ukraine provided intercepted information that helped pin the explosion of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on Moscow, the foundation of the relationship was set.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The CIA went on to help fashion a Ukrainian intelligence agency and train a special forces unit. And how strong was this relationship? Were there ever tensions between the two?
--:-- Georgia Howe: There were tensions early when Ukraine would use its CIA-trained special forces to attempt lethal operations against Russian targets. The U.S. was worried about provoking Russia, but after Russia took the Crimean Peninsula, Ukraine wanted to take more decisive action.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The operation certainly caused angst among U.S. officials, but they don't appear to have significantly impacted the relationship. The information Ukraine could provide to the U.S. was way too valuable.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In total, the CIA built up 12 secret bases along the Ukraine-Russia border. After Russia invaded Ukraine under President Biden, And the White House took some of the restraints off the relationship and allowed agents to work with Ukrainians to carry out lethal operations inside the country.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Final question. What about the money invested into this? How much has the U.S. invested in Ukraine's intelligence community?
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's not clear. One Ukrainian intelligence official told The Washington Post only that the investment was in the millions of dollars.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, it raises the question of what else the CIA is up to that we have no idea about.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: No problem. Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Another story we're tracking. President Biden handily won the Democratic primary in Michigan last night, despite a grassroots effort to vote uncommitted over the president's handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
--:-- Kevin: The uncommitted contingent exceeded expectations, but was not enough to undermine an otherwise strong showing for Biden. President Trump likewise won the GOP primary by a convincing margin over Haley.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Michigan marks Trump's fifth straight primary win.
--:-- Kevin: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.
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--:-- Kevin: Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
