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--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Morning Wire. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley, and I'm here with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, July 12th.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- John Bickley: Wait times at Disney theme parks are reportedly way down as would-be park-goers opt to spend money elsewhere. Disney Plus numbers are dropping. The movies are tanking at the box office. They just had another bomb with Indiana Jones and the theme park attendance is down. What's driving the apparent shift away from the house of Mouse?
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's right, John. We're going to dive into that story in a minute. But first, let's talk about the Department of Justice. DOJ charges against a man who claims to have information regarding alleged Biden family corruption have been revealed after he claimed the government was attempting to target him.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley, and I'm here with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, July 12th.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- John Bickley: Wait times at Disney theme parks are reportedly way down as would-be park-goers opt to spend money elsewhere. Disney Plus numbers are dropping. The movies are tanking at the box office. They just had another bomb with Indiana Jones and the theme park attendance is down. What's driving the apparent shift away from the house of Mouse?
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's right, John. We're going to dive into that story in a minute. But first, let's talk about the Department of Justice. DOJ charges against a man who claims to have information regarding alleged Biden family corruption have been revealed after he claimed the government was attempting to target him.
--:-- John Bickley: Analysis of wait times at Disney theme parks indicates attendance is significantly down. Industry watchers are blaming price hikes, the poor economy, and the company's involvement in politics. Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham joins us now to tell us about Disney's downturn.
--:-- Megan Basham: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- John Bickley: So the Wall Street Journal broke the news about lower attendance at Disney. What did their report say?
--:-- Megan Basham: So the Journal spoke to touring plans, and that's a company that tracks attendance by analyzing the wait time data on those Disney mobile apps. So they noted that in 2022, the average time visitors spent in lines was 31 minutes. In 2019, it was 47 minutes. Well, this year on the 4th of July, which is typically a very high attendance day due to those Disney special fireworks extravaganzas, it was only 27 minutes. So that's really striking.
--:-- Megan Basham: And maybe a little bit more striking is that Disney World is now offering up to a 40% discount for Christmas bookings at Disney hotels. And that's another period that in the past has been really peak for Disney with those premium prices. And then anecdotally, you're hearing from a lot of annual pass holders who visit Disney World all the time, and they're reporting that they've never seen it this empty. And that includes in 2021 when the Disney parks were still recovering from that long pandemic shutdown.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, this is critical to Disney's overall health because in recent years, that parks division has been the company's primary revenue driver. It has been the most profitable and it covers divisions like streaming that have actually been losing a lot of money. So the big question is, why are the Disney parks suffering? Is this a sign that the economy is cooling or is it more than that?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, I do think it's that, but I also think there's a confluence of issues that we're seeing. So previous CEO Bob Chapik raised ticket prices by as much as 9% and the parks also started charging for extras that used to be free, things like fast passes and self-parking at the hotels. When previous CEO Bob Iger returned out of retirement, he acknowledged that those new parks pricing models had probably angered some consumers.
--:-- Megan Basham: During a Q&A session at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media and Telecom Conference back in March, he said in our zeal to grow profits we may have been a little too aggressive. And he also said that the company needs to be smarter about pricing to maintain Disney brand value of accessibility.
--:-- Megan Basham: So given inflation and an overall tough economy right now, families who might have chosen to visit Disney World may just be deciding that that luxury pricing isn't really worth it. But there is also, I think we have to note, a degree of dissatisfaction with the actual product. Fans have been complaining on those Disney fan sites about lower standards. They're discussing amongst themselves that the parks aren't as clean as they used to be and that the attention to customer service seems to have dropped.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then you have those political perceptions. So many on the right, as we know, have accused the company of, quote, going woke due to its catering in particular to the LGBTQ movement. A couple of recent examples are the Parks employees, which Disney calls cast members. They started allowing what they call gender-inclusive hairstyles and tattoos. Those are things that certainly would have been unthinkable in the past.
--:-- Megan Basham: Videos have gone viral showing male employees dressed as women in the Bibbidi-Bobbidi boutique, which if you're not familiar, that's a princess makeover service that typically caters to little girls. Disney also changed the names of those cast members. Instead of fairy godmothers in training, they're now known as fairy godmothers apprentices.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has been in something of a showdown with Disney. And he said on the Buck and Clay show this week that the drop in attendance is proof that Disney's LGBTQ messaging is hurting the company with its key customer base.
--:-- Megan Basham: And he's arguing that Disney World employees aren't happy about that. The sad part about it, guys, is when we were having this fight with Disney in 2022, most of the employees in their Orlando area theme parks, they agreed with us. I won Osceola County for the first time a Republican's done in a generation by seven percent, which is where the majority of Disney employees live.
--:-- Megan Basham: So this is really a cadre of woke executives in Burbank trying to impose this agenda down on the rest of the company.
--:-- John Bickley: Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime.
--:-- John Bickley: The Department of Justice unsealed an indictment this week against a man who claims to have information about Biden family corruption. American-Israeli energy expert Gal Luft, the DOJ says, is guilty of being an unregistered foreign agent, arms trafficking, and making false statements to U.S. investigators.
--:-- Greg Wilson: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- John Bickley: So Greg, Luft releases this video detailing what he says is the government's attempt to target him for blowing the whistle on alleged Biden corruption. A few days later, this indictment comes down accusing him of multiple crimes.
--:-- Greg Wilson: Well, Luft is the executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, and that's a nonprofit think tank that focuses on the connection between energy and security. He was arrested in Cyprus back in February, but he jumped bail before he could be extradited by U.S. authorities, who he believes brought charges to keep him quiet about the alleged Biden bribery scheme.
--:-- Greg Wilson: So if any of my crimes are real and serious and this is not just political prosecution why did the U need to sneak up on me during a short visit to Cyprus? And why did the DOJ choose to unseal the indictment on November 1st, 2022, the very same week of the midterm elections?
--:-- Greg Wilson: Could this have anything to do with the fact or the fear that once Republicans gain control over Congress and begin to investigate, their cover-up would be in full display.
--:-- Greg Wilson: In the video published last week, Luft says he became aware of the scheme through his work representing the Chinese energy company CEFC. That's the company that reportedly paid Hunter Biden and the president's brother James $4.8 million in a failed effort to establish a Chinese-run liquid natural gas port in Louisiana.
--:-- Greg Wilson: Luft says he met with the FBI in Brussels in 2019 to sound the alarm, but later found himself targeted on trumped-up charges. Now, according to Luft's timeline, that meeting would have occurred just before President Biden announced his White House bid, correct?
--:-- Greg Wilson: That's right. And it's not known if the feds did anything with the information, and it doesn't seem to figure prominently in the plea deal recently offered to Hunter Biden over tax charges.
--:-- Greg Wilson: And perhaps oddly, the unregistered foreign agent charge is for Luft's work with CEFC, which Hunter and James Biden also appear to have worked for without being registered. Neither of them has been charged under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
--:-- Greg Wilson: Right. Luft was also charged with arms trafficking. What do we know so far about that particular charge?
--:-- Greg Wilson: Well, prosecutors say he acted as a middleman to help Chinese companies buy weapons. Luft says that traces back to a 2018 email in which he agreed to help an arms dealer friend find out if an unnamed company could supply weapons. He says he wasn't paid and never even followed up.
--:-- Greg Wilson: He's also accused of promising China he would coach a high-ranking, unnamed U.S. official to advance its interests. Is there any chance at this point that Luft actually testifies before Congress?
--:-- Greg Wilson: The chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, has been quite vocal on this case. When the charges were unveiled Monday, he expressed astonishment. He is still hoping to get Luft in front of his panel, which has uncovered a maze of more than 20 shell companies through which he says the Bidens moved tens of millions of dollars from foreign entities like CEFC.
--:-- Greg Wilson: But even though Comer considers Luft a credible witness with important information, the odds that he'll step forward may have just decreased. Comer doesn't seem to think the indictment was coincidental. He said, quoting, it's just amazing that the Department of Justice moves so quickly against some people.
--:-- Greg Wilson: Well, this is a rather wild sequence of events with some very serious allegations being leveled here on both sides. Let's hope we get some clear answers.
--:-- John Bickley: Greg, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Greg Wilson: That was Daily Wire Managing Editor Greg Wilson.
--:-- John Bickley: Americans across the country are experiencing historic weather conditions from thousand-year floods to brutal heat waves.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, first off, tell us a little bit about the flooding that we're seeing in the Northeast.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: So what we saw in the Northeast was you had between 8 and 10 inches of rainfall over a very short period of time, like 24 hours or less. Over much of Vermont, parts of New Hampshire, Eastern Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, causing significant flooding on already saturated grounds.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: The other issue too wasn't just how much rain came down to begin with but it was the rapidity with which it fell. We saw rainfall rates at times exceeding four inches per hour. For example, at West Point in Orange County, New York, they saw 6.96 inches, just shy of seven inches in three hours time, which we know, based on advanced statistics, is a once-in-a-thousand-year rain event for that short of a duration.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: And there's not a surface in the world that can handle that much rain so quickly. And so we've seen significant flash flooding. We've seen many mudslides, some communities isolated. And unfortunately, it'll take a while to recover.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: Now, is there any relief in sight? How many days are we expecting the rain to continue?
--:-- Matthew Capucci: Fortunately, there has been some relief. The issue comes Thursday, Friday, and Saturday when the winds become more southerly as our next storm system approaches, which will pump moisture northwards once again, setting the stage for downpours. They won't be nearly as widespread, but with these downpours, with these thunderstorms, a quick one to two plus inches worth of rain can fall in some areas, adding insult to injury.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: And again, the ground is like a sponge. It can't hold any more water. That can be very problematic for areas that are beleaguered and already dealing with a lot.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: One of the things that really impressed me with the rainfall in the Northeast was how widespread it was. Oakland Gardens on Long Island, just outside of New York City, saw 9.3 inches worth of rain in just a day's time. Jalfont, Pennsylvania, 8.88 inches. So again, two or three months worth of rain in a short window of 24 hours or less.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: Part of the reason, a fully saturated sounding to like eight miles in height. What that means is basically the atmosphere in the bottom eight miles was holding as much moisture as it possibly could, leading to more rain, more efficient rain processes, meaning the raindrops didn't evaporate at all on their way down.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: And as a result, the same storm system could dump a lot more rain than it otherwise ordinarily would.
--:-- John Bickley: Now I want to talk about the Southwest. So we have Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Southern California, and they are experiencing some extreme heat.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: Instigating the heat in the South and the Southwest has been a very large sprawling heat dome or a ridge of high pressure. It's like a magic force field. It's pushing a jet stream farther north. It's pushing storm systems away. So we have nothing but sunshine and hot, dry, sinking air.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: What really impresses me, though, is the longevity with which this is occurring. El Paso, Texas, for example, is entering their 26th day in a row with highs topping 100 degrees. And realistically, over the next week to 10 days, we're forecasting like 105 plus every single day, which is their longest streak on record, beating the 23 consecutive days in 1993.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: Phoenix has logged 11 days so far at or above 110. That's likely to continue as well. Death Valley could approach 130 degrees.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: So really how widespread is very significant across the South and the Southwest. Then we turn to places like Florida. Miami saw a heat index of 110 degrees on Monday. Part of the reason they're seeing such bad heat indices or feels like temperatures is because of a marine heat wave. Off the Southwest Peninsula of Florida, they're seeing water temperatures of 95 to 97 degrees. Imagine that. That's fluxing moisture into the atmosphere, making like a steam bath.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: And so otherwise bad temperatures are combining with this excessive tropical humidity to make for dangerous conditions outside.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, Matthew, thanks so much for coming on.
--:-- Matthew Capucci: Hey, thank you. My pleasure.
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--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.
