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--:-- John Bickley: Yet another cache of classified documents was found at President Biden's Delaware residence over the weekend, and now authorities say they may broaden their search. How do the latest developments change the case? And how are Democrats in the White House responding?
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, January 23rd, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: A protest in Atlanta over a so-called cop city erupted in violence on Saturday. We discuss what sparked the rioting and who the mayor says is to blame. And the World Economic Forum concluded their high-profile conference of world leaders in Davos on Friday. What new policy agenda items took center stage? Plus, a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California, leaves at least 10 people dead and 10 more injured.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: On Friday, authorities with the Justice Department uncovered additional classified documents during a search of President Biden's private residence in Delaware.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here with more on what was discovered and what the consequences could be is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So we've been talking for the last two weeks about the growing number of classified documents that have been found at properties owned and used by the president. Well, over the weekend, we learned that another batch was found. On Friday, the Justice Department conducted a 12-hour-long search of Biden's property in Delaware and found at least six documents marked classified. Those documents date back to his time as vice president and also as a U.S. senator. DOJ officials also took a number of other materials and handwritten notes that they think could contain classified information as well, so that number could grow even more.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For those trying to keep track at home, that is now the fifth separate instance in which classified materials have been found. And one other thing we learned this weekend, DOJ officials are now reportedly considering whether they want to conduct searches at a number of other locations related to the Biden family. So this whole saga appears far from over.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: How has the White House responded to this latest development? Well, the message has shifted a bit. Originally, their stance was that Biden had done nothing wrong, and so he had nothing to hide. It sort of felt like they were downplaying the situation as a whole. But now that this scandal is continuing to grow, they are changing their tune a bit. And they've started to stress two main things. First, that Biden is cooperating fully with the DOJ and FBI. That's a message that we're hearing repeatedly from the White House. And second, that if he did break the law, it was completely unintentional.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: On Thursday the president broke his silence on the matter and gave his first comments to the press. We fully cooperating looking forward to getting this resolved quickly. I think you going to find there nothing there. I have no regrets. I'm following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do. It's exactly what we're doing. There's no there there.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: He went on to say that it, quote, bugs him that people are focused on this story and not other stories that he says Americans are more concerned about. But keep in mind, those comments did come a day before this latest batch of documents was found. So we'll see if he keeps that same message this week.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So to his point, what do Americans think of this story? Do we have any data on that yet? Yeah, there was an ABC Ipsos poll that came out on Sunday, which showed 64% of Americans believe that Biden's handling of classified documents was inappropriate. Just 34% said he handled things appropriately. Now, it is worth noting an even larger share of Americans, 77% say that former President Trump also acted inappropriately with his own handling of classified documents.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So there seems to be some bipartisan agreement that both presidents are at fault. Now, Biden and his team have tried to distance themselves from the Trump case, saying they're totally different cases because Biden proactively alerted authorities when documents were found and Trump did not. But Republicans, for their part, have been quick to note how Biden called Trump, quote, totally irresponsible for keeping those classified files at home. And now he's done the same. So they say, again, it's hypocritical.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: What sort of broader political fallout are we seeing from this? Are Democrats continuing to stand behind the president? Well, look, long before the story came out, there were whispers in D.C. that many Democrat leaders did not want Biden to run again and had been hoping for a way to get someone else on the ticket in 24. A story like this that has only intensified as it's gone on is more than just a headache for the administration. It could also be viewed as baggage that makes him a liability for re-election.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So keep an eye on how party leaders respond. Are they rushing to stand by him or are they keeping their distance? On that note, here's Democrat Senator Dick Durbin on CNN calling the president out. There's a standard that we follow when it comes to members of Congress and classified information. The door to my office is closed. The person who presents the document to me takes it out of a locked briefcase, hands it to me and watches as I read it. When I finish reading it, he takes it back and puts it in the briefcase and leaves the scene. I mean, that's how carefully we review these documents.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: To think that any of them ended up in boxes in storage one place or the other is just unacceptable. We saw even harsher criticism from Democrat Senator Joe Manchin, who responded to Biden's no-regret comment by saying that Biden should have, quote, a lot of regrets about the situation. So keep an eye on whether statements like that intensify or if party leaders rally around the president. That will say a lot.
--:-- John Bickley: That's Daily Wire's senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Coming up, a shootout between an activist and police sparks rioting in Atlanta.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: A riot erupted in Atlanta over the weekend over the death of a 26-year-old environmental activist who died in a shootout with police last week. Manuel Esteban Paez Tehran was camping on the site of a $90 million safety training center for first responders when Georgia State Police tried to get the activist and dozens of others to move. Authorities say the activist shot an officer in the abdomen before police returned fire killing him.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to talk about the riot and the development that activists have called Cop City is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Sure, it's really a couple of things. On its face, it'll be a $90 million training center for Atlanta police and firemen to better prepare them for emergencies. The center's plans have been described as state-of-the-art, and it will include training setups such as a driver safety course in a mock village. The other part of this is Atlanta officials are hoping the new building will bring back morale. The police force has seen a steep drop in morale since the George Floyd riots of 2020. The city's police force is short on officers and officials are hoping the investment will attract more recruits.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And what specifically are the activists' complaints about it? So there's several parts to that as well. The first objection is environmental. The training center is to be built on 85 acres that used to be part of an old prison farm but has since been turned into forest land. Dozens of activists have camped out on the site for over a year now to protest cutting down the trees.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Critics also don't like the center's ties to the police force. As you mentioned, activists have derisively named the new development Cop City and say the project is militarizing law enforcement. These activists are already distrustful of police. They say authorities are lying about the 26-year-old activist killed last week. They believe that the cops shot him unprovoked and that the officer that was hospitalized could have been shot by his fellow officers.
--:-- Tim Pierce: There are also gripes from residents who live near the site who say they don't want to hear the sounds of explosions and gunshots going off all day. All right, and so now we're seeing rioting. What happened over the weekend? Yeah, things really devolved. The protest began as a demonstration against Cop City and as a memorial for the environmental activists killed last week. But violence quickly followed. Riders broke shop windows, torched a police vehicle, and threw Molotovs and fireworks.
--:-- Tim Pierce: It looked very much like the Floyd protests. Police arrested six people on Saturday and charged them all with domestic terrorism, among other crimes. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens has blamed the violence on outsiders. Here's him on Sunday describing what took place. They had explosives. They burned down a police car. They broke windows. They had businesses. And so our police department, along with our state and federal partners, took swift action within two blocks and brought that situation under control. And the violence stopped, and those six individuals were arrested.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And it should be noted that these individuals were not Atlanta or Georgia residents. Most of them traveled into our city to wreak havoc. Well, let's hope we've seen the last of the violence over this.
--:-- John Bickley: That was Daily Wire's Tim Pierce.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, drew to a close on Friday. By the end, world leaders in attendance began to focus on some new issues not typically associated with the event.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to tell us about some of these new areas of policy that are becoming a priority for the WEF is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, that's very true. And I would characterize those new areas of focus as, say, obstacles or frameworks for enacting those other preferred policies that we're more familiar with at Davos. So, for example, there was a major panel that focused on what WEF leaders called right-wing disinformation that's disrupting trust.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Richard Edelman, who is the CEO of the international PR firm Edelman, said he's experienced sadness that the public now distrusts global nonprofits because they receive support from well billionaires. And he blamed people on the right for spreading conspiracy theories about the work that those organizations do.
--:-- Megan Basham: So here what he said and I just going to quote my hypothesis on that is right groups have done a really good job of disenfranchising NGOs. They've challenged the funding sources. They've associated you with Bill Gates and George Soros. And he then went on to say that it's making it difficult for NGOs to address issues like COVID, climate change, and racial injustices.
--:-- Megan Basham: But he especially emphasized that many people are reacting negatively now to the concept of ESG investing. And he offered this advice based on his expertise. When they, and in that case, he was referring to the right, hit you and they're inaccurate, hit back, don't take it.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, aside from right-wing disinformation, what else was discussed? There was a lot of focus on how AI can be employed for digital tracking on issues like COVID spread or measuring carbon emissions. Al Gore in particular gave a presentation on, this is a bit of a mouthful, climate tracking real-time atmospheric carbon emissions or climate trace.
--:-- Megan Basham: And I spoke with independent journalist Larry Taunton last week, who was reporting on the ground from Davos. And here's what he said about that. The past few years, let's say, they've been putting a lot of emphasis on IoT, that is to say the interconnectedness of things. That means right down to you, Megan, with a brain chip connected to, let's say, not just your smartphone or your TV or your car or your oven, but also to government, where they can keep an eye on you and track you in any given moment.
--:-- Megan Basham: And all this, of course, will be sold under the guise of safety. So something like that will naturally spark concerns among the public. But Taunton says the WEF sees a lot of potential in this kind of technology.
--:-- Megan Basham: I will add that at least on the WEF's website, you'll find a number of op-eds and other papers discussing how digital tracking needs to be weighed against privacy concerns. And then Taunton also told me that Elon Musk's presence loomed pretty large, even though he was not in attendance. And that was because he's seen as disruptive to the goal of controlling what kind of information users have access to online.
--:-- Megan Basham: I mean, there is a certain obsession with Musk and from their point of view, the threat he poses to quote unquote, this or miss information. Just one example of how that's playing out. Facebook and YouTube banned a video posted by the Canadian right wing media company Rebel News, where they were actually in Davos asking Pfizer CEO Albert Berla about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID vaccine. Only Twitter left that video up.
--:-- John Bickley: That was Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Another story we're tracking this week. At least 10 people are dead and 10 more have been hospitalized after a mass shooting during a lunar New Year celebration in a Los Angeles suburb late Saturday night.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The shooting occurred in a dance studio in Monterey Park, a predominantly Asian community about 10 miles east of L.A. The suspect, identified as a 72-year-old Asian man, attempted a second shooting in a dance hall in Alhambra, but was disarmed by two people.
--:-- Georgia Howe: On Sunday, police engaged in a standoff with the suspect who was located in a white van in Torrance. The man who police confirmed is the suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
--:-- John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know. Thank you.
