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--:-- John Bickley: In the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton, the Southeast works to pick up the pieces. Well, we didn't have much, but what we had, I'd say about 90% of it, we were able to wash the mud off of and take to storage. We were much more fortunate in some. We sent a reporter to survey the damage firsthand and speak to residents who were left homeless.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, October 11th, and this is Morning Wire. New inflation data shows that prices continue to rise, but at a slightly lower rate. I think in terms of thinking that inflation is going to be over and out of our lives anytime soon, that's not a bet I would be willing to make.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And CBS News is under fire on several fronts after accusations of deceptive editing and reprimanding a host for asking tough questions. What is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place and not any of the other states out there?
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned with the news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: Two major hurricanes have hit the U.S. in the past two weeks. Hurricane Milton battered Florida this week as recovery efforts for Helene are still in full swing. Here to talk about the hurricane recovery efforts is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So, Tim, Milton hit Florida less than two weeks after Helene. How are the recovery efforts going in Florida?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been giving frequent updates on the situation in the state. Here's what he said yesterday about recovery efforts after Milton so far. Some of the worst case scenarios did not come to pass. Still enough to do a lot of damage, but in terms of our assessments and being able to bounce back, I feel confident we're going to do that as a state.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So fortunately, Milton was not as bad as it could have been. It made landfall as a Category 3 and knocked out power to about 3.4 million homes and compounded on damage done by Helene. Now, the recovery effort is underway in Florida. The state is used to being hit with hurricanes, and power has already been restored to hundreds of thousands of homes. But search and rescue operations are still underway, and the full extent of the damage has not yet been determined.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, regarding Hurricane Helene, you recently took a trip to see the damage in eastern Tennessee and North Carolina. How are the recovery efforts going in those parts of the country?
--:-- John Bickley: It's still a huge mess, and it looks like it will be that way for some time. Some of the estimates I heard were that the recovery process could take years between rebuilding roads and other public infrastructure not to mention private property houses businesses and barns The damage is so extensive in some areas that it really difficult to picture how it will all come back together
--:-- Tim Pierce: The response varies based on the location. In Asheville, North Carolina, for instance, some of the people I spoke with mentioned that emergency services were unavailable for several days after Helene hit. Here's Asheville resident Sheila Surrett blaming North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper for the late response.
--:-- Sheila Surrett: I think he might have waited a little too late to bring in what he needed to. The governor of Florida has already got everything set up. He's prepared. He's got his troops set up. They brought in cots, everything for the troops and all these volunteers and FEMA and all the service workers to sleep on. They didn't do any of that here. I mean, it was days later. And see, that tells you the difference between a Republican governor and a Democrat governor, because they are going to get things done.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, there's been a lot of questions around the federal response to Helene. How has that been?
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, Morning Wire spoke to Heritage Foundation visiting fellow Brian Kavanaugh, a former Homeland Security and FEMA official. He said that while FEMA's response may have appeared to be slow, there are several complications that made its response to Helene in North Carolina and Georgia much slower than in Florida.
--:-- Brian Kavanaugh: I think the big failure here and one that can't be overstated is the failure of visible leadership from the government. And that's everything from the governor of North Carolina to the Homeland Security Advisor, the vice president, the president, the administrator of FEMA. Where were they in the run up to what happened in North Carolina through the flooding on Saturday and Sunday? There's not a lot they can practically impact, but the optics of being there, of being visible and having command of the situation conveys a lot to the public about confidence. And I think we just completely did not see that.
--:-- Tim Pierce: He also noted that the agency, according to a government report last year, is about 35 percent understaff. And that could really hinder the agency's capabilities. Recovery in these places could take a year or much longer.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, it's clear there's still a lot more work to do to restore the areas and they're going to need a lot of help. Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me.
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--:-- John Bickley: According to a new report Thursday, Inflation once again cooled more slowly than expected last month, as prices remain elevated across the board. Here to break down the numbers and what they mean for the economy is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So new inflation data we have here. What did we learn this week?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, we learned that the Consumer Price Index, which tracks the overall cost of goods and services, rose by 2.4% last month. That just means prices were 2.4% higher than the previous September. Now, as with most economic reports, there is good and bad news, depending on who you ask. As for the good, 2.4% is the lowest inflation reading we've seen in three years, while the price of gasoline fell 4% from a month earlier. But the bad news is that inflation compounds on itself. So even if you see a headline saying inflation is slowing, that does not actually mean that prices are going down. They're just rising slower than before. Because inflation was above 5% or 6% for much of the last three years, Overall prices are now 21% higher than they were when President Biden took office.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For more on that I spoke with Carol Roth a former investment banker and New York Times bestselling author The concern from Main Street is obviously what happening on a day basis that even though we seeing some disinflation some slowing in the inflation rate they're not seeing deflation. They're not seeing the costs of items come down. And so that means on a compounded basis, as their wages have not kept pace with it, that it's harder and harder for them to keep pace with the increasing costs, even if it's growing at a slower rate.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, we also got a new jobs report this week. Where do we stand now on employment numbers?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, according to the latest numbers from the Labor Department, last month our economy added a whopping 254,000 jobs, exceeding expectations by more than 50%, while unemployment fell from 4.2 to 4.1%. Now, again, that sounds great, but there are plenty of economists urging caution. First, when it comes to the unemployment rate, much of that drop can be attributed to the fact that fewer Americans are actively seeking work or have left the labor market altogether. And perhaps more importantly, there is plenty of reason to be skeptical about the actual numbers that we're getting in these reports each month.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The inflation and jobs reports are not truly reflective of the entire economy. They are based on surveys of wholesalers, businesses, and employers. Because of that fact, the numbers can end up being way off once the fuller picture of the data actually comes in, which is typically months later. For example, in August, the Labor Department initially reported that from April of 2023 to March of this year, the economy added 2.9 million jobs. But in August, they quietly released a revised report saying the real number was actually only 2.1 million. That means they'd overestimated the number of jobs added by more than 800,000. That is significant. That's actually the second largest revision in history. The only bigger one came in 09 when obviously the U.S. was in the major recession.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here is Roth on why the government numbers are so often wrong these days. There is more guesstimates and modeling and adjustments that are going into data. And then, you know, there's always the concerns about politicization as well. But as I always say to American citizens, you believe your eyes and ears and your experience. You are seeing people around you getting laid off if you're going to the grocery store and prices are higher. Those are very valid, real-lived experiences. And just because someone comes out and says the economy is great doesn't mean that what you're saying isn't true.
--:-- John Bickley: So some seemingly positive news on the economy. But as we have seen this year, those numbers can be deceiving. So sometimes the numbers do lie.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Kevin, thanks for reporting.
--:-- John Bickley: Anytime.
--:-- Voiceover: CBS News is making headlines this week for a number of stories. Most notably, its decision to selectively edit Kamala Harris's 60 Minutes interview. Here with more is Daily Wire deputy managing editor Tim Rice.
--:-- Tim Rice: Hey, Tim. So it's never good news when a news outlet becomes the story. That's what's happening here. What's going on?
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, good morning, John. All is not well at the Tiffany Network. Earlier this week, it came to light that CBS re-edited Kamala Harris's 60 Minutes interview, where she gave a highly criticized response to Bill Whitaker's question about whether or not the White House has any sway or influence over the Israeli prime minister's handling of the war.
--:-- Tim Rice: Here's her unedited answers, which aired as a teaser for the interview on Face the Nation.
--:-- Kamala Harris: Now, the work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles, which include the need for humanitarian aid, the need for this war to end, the need for a deal to be done, which would release the hostages and create a ceasefire And we not going to stop in terms of putting that pressure on Israel and in the region including Arab leaders But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening. Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of Many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.
--:-- Tim Rice: But what aired afterward was extremely different. Take a listen.
--:-- Kamala Harris: The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles. But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening. We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.
--:-- Tim Rice: So very different and much more succinct than her actual answers. But people quickly noticed the switch and immediately began criticizing CBS. Former President Trump slammed the network for slicing and dicing the interview, saying he's never seen anything like it. After being flooded with requests for comment, including from the Daily Wire, the Harris campaign finally responded to Variety's question about the interview by saying simply, we do not control CBS's production decisions and refer questions to CBS.
--:-- John Bickley: So a bit of passing the buck there. Yeah, certainly not the best look for CBS. And this is not the only reason the network is in the news this week, correct?
--:-- Tim Rice: Yeah, that's right. CBS is also getting blasted for punishing one of its anchors, Tony DeCoppo, for pressing author Ta-Nehisi Coates about his new book in which he compares Palestinians to African American slaves and blames Israel for the conflict in Gaza.
--:-- Tony DeCoppo: When I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist. And so then I found myself wondering, why does Ta-Nehisi Coates, who I've known for a long time, read his work for a long time, very talented, smart guy, leave out so much? Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Why not detail anything of the first and the second intifada, the cafe bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits? And is it because you just don't believe that Israel, in any condition, has a right to exist?
--:-- Tim Rice: That pushback on Coates' vilification of Israel reportedly sparked a massive internal rebellion at CBS. In response, the network made DeCopal spend an hour with their in-house race and culture unit. DeCopal was reportedly lectured about the tone and body language he used during his interview with Coates, and he later apologized to the staff for his handling of the interview.
--:-- Tim Rice: Any voices from CBS actually standing up for DeCoppo? Only a couple. CBS chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford called Coates' account one-sided and noted that, as journalists, we are obligated to challenge that worldview so that our viewers can have that access to the truth or a fuller account. And on Wednesday, Sherry Redstone, chair of Paramount Global, which owns CBS, defended DeCoppo, saying he did a great job with the interview and that CBS made a mistake reprimanding him.
--:-- Tim Rice: And now to add insult to injury, in an appearance on Trevor Noah's podcast, Coates said that DeCopal's co-anchor Gail King gave him a heads up about the questions she would ask during their interview, another potential violation of journalistic ethics for CBS.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, so safe to say this might be the worst week for CBS since Dan Rather left.
--:-- Tim Rice: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- John Bickley: Anytime. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
