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--:-- Host (John Bickley): The movement to decouple from China is growing among lawmakers and the American people. We're hoping to make the American people and our colleagues aware of the threat we face. We discuss what steps are being taken to cut ties with China and new exclusive polling showing how Americans feel about it. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, March 1st, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): The trial of South Carolina attorney Alec Murdoch is wrapping up with closing arguments expected this week. We discuss the case that's captivating the nation.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Mr. Griffin, I didn't shoot my wife or my son anytime, ever.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): And a battle is brewing in New York over Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul's budget, which would empower state officials to force suburban areas to build low-income housing where they don't want it.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Producer Brandon: Hey guys, producer Brandon here. Black Rifle Coffee is fueling Americans before they go out and do epic things with their lives. Led by a team of military veterans, the guys at Black Rifle Coffee are hyper-focused and hyper-vigilant in everything they do. Lucky for you, they're obsessed with making great coffee. Because every great adventure starts with a great cup of coffee. Go to BlackRifleCoffee.com and use promo code WIRE for 10% off your purchases and your first coffee club order. That's BlackRifleCoffee.com, promo code WIRE. Black Rifle Coffee, America's coffee.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Days after the U.S. Energy Department said they believe COVID likely originated in a Chinese lab, Congress held a primetime hearing to address America's relationship with China. As a bipartisan push to decouple from the communist nation has gained momentum.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Joining us to discuss is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: All right, Cabot, we'll get to the efforts to decouple from China in a second here. But first, tell us about this hearing in Congress last night.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, given how fractured D.C. is right now, anytime you see leaders on both sides of the aisle working together on an issue, it's noteworthy. And in this case, there's little disagreement from either party that America needs to step up their response to what they're calling the China threat.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: On Tuesday evening, the newly formed House Select Committee on China held its first hearing, with lawmakers hearing testimony from national defense experts and human rights activists victimized by the communist regime there.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So why is this happening now? What does this timing tell us?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So the obvious answer is the spy balloon incident last month, and that certainly was a catalyst for building a sense of urgency among lawmakers. But the reality is that this has been building for some time.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Supporters of the crackdown say this problem has really been brewing since the 70s, when American leaders first opened relations with China. The hope at the time was that America would benefit from a cheap labor pool and mass manufacturing while simultaneously exporting democratic values and capitalism to China for their benefit.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But critics of that plan, including Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher, who chairs the committee, say it failed and simply allowed China to rake in profits while hollowing out the U.S. working class and suppressing human rights across Asia.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: We spoke with Representative Gallagher yesterday. Here's what he told us.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Of course, they grew more repressive at home and aggressive abroad. And until we understand the threat that we're dealing with, we will not have a successful policy going forward. We still have people clinging to naive delusions about the CCP.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So the basic idea is it was a mistake to let China into the global economy because it only made them more powerful and did little really to reform their human rights and other abuses.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, that's the point they make.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So what kinds of steps have we seen taken by the U.S. to this point?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, there have already been a number of economic steps taken to push back on Chinese influence. For example, President Trump implemented a series of steep tariffs on Chinese imports like steel and electronics.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And then President Biden reportedly secured a deal last month with Japan and the Netherlands that would restrict the export of high-tech chip-making machinery to China.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That deal was not made public, but is clearly part of an effort to undercut Beijing's chip production.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So there have been economic efforts made to this point, but a growing number of lawmakers on both sides are now calling for things to go a step further.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And that's where the idea of decoupling comes in.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right. So supporters of the idea say it's time to erect barriers between the U.S. and China. Otherwise, they'll have no incentive to change.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: They say that during the Cold War, we never would have imported billions of dollars in Soviet goods each year and that our relationship with China should be viewed the same way.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, obviously, that's a hugely consequential step. Many businesses claim the only way they can really make a profit is by outsourcing their production to China.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And there are plenty of investors who say they should be free to invest wherever they choose.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But the growing argument from supporters of decoupling is that it's a national security issue.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Because every business there is essentially state-controlled, they say that every dollar invested in China is a dollar that will eventually fund a government trying to sabotage the U.S.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: On that note, Virginia's Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin recently shut down production of a multi-billion dollar Ford automotive plant because it was part of a joint venture with a Chinese company.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here he is with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News Sunday.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: We went to work to fully understand what was going on between Ford and a company called Cattle that is not just influenced but controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and to not allow them to use a Trojan horse structure to gain access to taxpayer incentives that were put into the Inflation Reduction Act.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: This should be American supply chain that's trusted, not one that's outsourced to the Chinese Communist Party.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And that comes as Youngkin announced his intention to sign a bipartisan bill restricting Chinese companies from purchasing U.S. farmland in his state, something we've seen from a number of other governors this year as well.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And it's worth noting, steps like this have become increasingly popular among the general public.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: A new Trafalgar poll exclusive to Morning Wire shows that 74 percent of Americans say it's inappropriate for any taxpayer money to be invested in companies with ties to China.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So growing momentum here to combat China at home and abroad.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Kevin, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime. That's Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Hey guys, producer Brandon here. I used to have one heck of a time getting to sleep at night due to shoulder pain, but then I found MedCline. The MedCline patented pillow system cushioned your body in a supremely comfortable sleeping position that's clinically proven to provide effective acid reflux and shoulder pain relief.
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--:-- Host (John Bickley): Alec Murdoch, a member of a powerful South Carolina legal dynasty, has been on trial for the alleged double murder of his wife and son.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): For five weeks, the cases gripped the nation and already has a Netflix special.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Here to discuss the trial is Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short.
--:-- Ash Short: So Ash, first off, give us some background on why this case is getting so much press.
--:-- Ash Short: Well, not only is this a gruesome murder with a lot of confounding elements, it also involves a very high family.
--:-- Ash Short: The defendant Alec father grandfather and great worked as South Carolina version of a district attorney for the state low country region.
--:-- Ash Short: The problems really began in 2019 when Alec's youngest son, Paul, was involved in a boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach.
--:-- Ash Short: Paul was allegedly drunk at the time. While Alec was not directly involved in the incident, it was seen as the beginning of Murdoch's undoing.
--:-- Ash Short: Following the boating incident, investigators would uncover a web of financial crimes perpetrated by Alec, including stealing millions of dollars from his clients, which led to his law firm forcing him to resign.
--:-- Ash Short: The same weekend he resigned, in June 2021, Alec's wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, were found murdered at the dog kennels on their family estate.
--:-- Ash Short: A year later, Alec was charged with the murders.
--:-- Ash Short: Now, keep in mind, he was already facing dozens of charges related to drug and financial crimes.
--:-- Ash Short: So what evidence links Alec to the murders?
--:-- Ash Short: The main thing is that Alec lied to police for two years about his whereabouts at the time of the murder.
--:-- Ash Short: He insisted that he never went to the kennels that day, but cell phone evidence taken from Paul's phone just minutes before the murders contains Maggie and Alec's voices.
--:-- Ash Short: When testifying in his own defense last week, Alec admitted to lying, but said he did so out of paranoia because of his opioid addiction.
--:-- Ash Short: The family's former housekeeper also testified that she was asked to clean the family home the morning after Murdoch's wife and son were murdered.
--:-- Ash Short: She also said Alec seemingly tried to tell her he was wearing something different on the day of the murders rather than the polo she remembered.
--:-- Ash Short: And what is the defense saying?
--:-- Ash Short: They have said that Alec was at his ailing mother's home at the time of the murders and insists that whoever killed Maggie and Paul must have been targeting Paul over the boat crash.
--:-- Ash Short: Alec and other defense witnesses said the family had been receiving death threats related to Paul.
--:-- Ash Short: The defense also brought a ballistics witness who testified that the wife and son were shot with two different types of guns and that the shots were fired by a person with much shorter stature than Alec Murdoch.
--:-- Ash Short: The defense says this points to multiple assailants.
--:-- Ash Short: Here's a clip from that testimony.
--:-- Ash Short: Whether there was one or two shooters who murdered Maggie and Paul on the night of June 7th, what's your opinion?
--:-- Ash Short: My opinion is the totality of the evidence is more suggestive of a two-shooter scenario.
--:-- Ash Short: The defense also says there was no motive for Murdoch to harm his family, but that he had a lot of enemies due to his financial crimes.
--:-- Ash Short: Murdoch's surviving son, Buster, also testified that his father was distraught after the murders, and multiple witnesses have said the crime scene wasn't properly secure, with dozens of people able to walk through it the morning after the murders.
--:-- Ash Short: To give you an idea of how gruesome this crime scene was, here's Murdoch's brother discussing cleaning up the crime scene after the police left.
--:-- Ash Short: Y'all can imagine what I experienced. It had not been cleaned up. I saw blood. I saw brains. I saw pieces of skull. I don't know what I was saying. It was just, it was terrible.
--:-- Ash Short: There's also the matter of unexplained hair and DNA found at the crime scene.
--:-- Ash Short: Maggie was allegedly found with strands of brown hair in her hand, while Alec has strawberry blonde hair.
--:-- Ash Short: She also had DNA under her fingernails that does not belong to Alec, neither of which have been explained.
--:-- Ash Short: Well, an interesting case, and we're going to be watching for the verdict.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Ash, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Ash Short: You're welcome.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): That was Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): New York Governor Kathy Hochul is under fire for two controversial planks of her 2023 budget, which she laid out last month and could have a major impact on the suburbs.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Here to talk about is columnist David Marcus.
--:-- David Marcus: Hey Dave, what are these budget proposals that have suburbanites so concerned?
--:-- David Marcus: Good morning. There are two issues at play here, one involving housing, the other involving public transit.
--:-- David Marcus: On the housing front, Hochul wants 800 new affordable housing units built and she wants those spread throughout the state, importantly including suburban areas.
--:-- David Marcus: This is something that suburbanites and the politicians who represent them have been opposed to for myriad reasons including home values, crime, and education.
--:-- David Marcus: Under Hochul's plan, if a locality fails to meet her housing goal, the state could overrule local zoning policies by fiat and force the changes through.
--:-- David Marcus: This really has a lot of people up in arms as these suburbs really jealously guard their ability to self-govern when it comes to housing and zoning.
--:-- David Marcus: Are the critics of Hochul's plan offering alternatives to the low-income housing issue? Do they even agree that this is actually a problem that needs a government response?
--:-- David Marcus: I asked Staten Island Republican City Councilman and former State Representative Joe Borelli about that very thing.
--:-- David Marcus: Here's what he told me.
--:-- David Marcus: She's trying to solve a housing problem where a housing problem doesn't exist by building housing there rather than come up with a serious proposal to renovate existing vacant apartments to push forward a plan to renovate some vacant office space into more housing and focus really on areas of the city where housing is at a premium because of the lack of market rate units.
--:-- David Marcus: So what Pirelli and other critics are really pointing out here is that Hochul and progressives in general really want to transform suburban living by making these areas more densely populated.
--:-- David Marcus: They view this as greener as it leads to less reliance on cars and more use of public transit.
--:-- David Marcus: And they also just sort of see it as equity, their new catchword. They want to open up suburban living to poorer New Yorkers, whether the current residents want that or not.
--:-- David Marcus: Speaking of public transit, that's the other piece of Hochul's budget that's sparking a lot of backlash.
--:-- David Marcus: With ridership down since the pandemic, there's a huge shortfall in funding for the MTA, which operates the subway trains and buses.
--:-- David Marcus: How does Hochul want to close that gap?
--:-- David Marcus: This problem is enormous. In 2016, about five and a half million strap hangers took the subway each weekday.
--:-- David Marcus: That was down to 2.3 million in 2021. And it's still only at about 60 percent of prior levels.
--:-- David Marcus: Meanwhile, over the next two years, federal COVID relief money will dry up, leaving a shortfall in the billions with a B.
--:-- David Marcus: Aside from the obvious problem of workers not commuting into Manhattan, there's a slew of other issues, including crime, which is way up.
--:-- David Marcus: The trains are quite dirty and there are fewer express trains or really trains at all.
--:-- David Marcus: So wait times are up. It's sad because the New York subway system was quite recently one of the world's finest and a real treasure.
--:-- David Marcus: There's a long, long way to go to get back to that.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): David, thanks for joining us.
--:-- David Marcus: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): That was Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Another story we're tracking this week. The Chicago mayoral election took place on Tuesday, and for the first time in 40 years, the city's mayor failed to win re-election.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Incumbent Democrat Lori Lightfoot, the first Black woman and openly gay mayor of Chicago, was resoundingly defeated, failing to gain enough votes to move on to the runoff.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Democrat Paul Vallis, a moderate who ran on a tough-on-crime platform, closed the day with a strong lead over the other eight candidates, and that includes progressive Democrat Brandon Johnson, who came in second.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): The race was dominated by the issue of violent crime, which plagued the city under Lightfoot.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Vallis will face off against Johnson on April 4th.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
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--:-- Host (John Bickley): The U.S. blew through the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling last month, and still the White House refuses to reduce spending.
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