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--:-- John Bickley: This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID, and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info. And if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.
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--:-- John Bickley: As President Biden goes to Hollywood to drum up celebrity cash and support, Trump goes to Detroit to make his pitch to black voters. We've done more for, and I say this proudly, more for the black population than any president since Abraham Lincoln. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Monday, June 17th, and this is Morning Wire. An illegal immigrant with ties to criminal gangs is arrested for the murder of a Maryland mother of five. He did not come here to make a better life for himself or for his family. He came here to escape the crime he committed in El Salvador.
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--:-- John Bickley: And Republicans call foul after CNN announces its rules for the first presidential debate. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: The Biden and Trump campaigns are ramping up their efforts to compete for the support of high-profile donors and key voter groups, laying out divergent plans on the economy and immigration. Here are the latest developments from the dueling campaigns as Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Hey, Cabot, so a busy and important few days on the trail for both candidates. What did we see this weekend?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, campaign season has ratcheted up dramatically in recent days this weekend, giving us a preview of what November will look like as President Biden headed to Hollywood for a high-profile fundraiser. We'll get to that in a little bit. But first, Donald Trump held a large rally in Florida before heading to Michigan this weekend for a series of rallies, most notably an event at a black church in Detroit. That was where he officially launched the Black Americans for Trump group, pairing with Florida Republican Byron Donalds and former HUD Secretary Ben Carson.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Trump laid out his pitch to black voters, saying that he had done more for their community than any president since Abraham Lincoln. We achieved the lowest African-American unemployment rate and the lowest African-American poverty rate ever recorded, ever, ever recorded during my four years. Black Americans saw their largest increase in homeownership on record. There's never been anything like it. We gave record funding to historically Black colleges and universities. You all know that.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: During that event, we also heard from Lorenzo Sewell, a Detroit pastor who went viral for these comments about Trump's appearance at his church. President Trump, I'm so humbled that you would be here. President Obama never came to the hood, so to speak, right? President Joe Biden, he went to the big NAACP dinner, but he never came to the hood. So thank you. Thank you. You're humbled. Really nice. Thank you. My honor. And one more thing, just before that visit, Trump also scored a notable endorsement, that of Kwame Kilpatrick, the former Democratic mayor of Detroit.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Remember, in 2020, Trump won around 10 percent of the black vote. The latest polling shows him now around 20 percent this election. So if that holds or really it's even close to that, it would be the strongest showing among black voters for any Republican in modern history and importantly, make it much more difficult for Biden to win states like Michigan and Georgia both of which have large numbers of black voters.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now speaking of Biden let get to that highly publicized fundraiser over the weekend in LA
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, the president held a star-studded Hollywood fundraiser Saturday night with George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jimmy Kimmel, Barbra Streisand, and perhaps most notably, former President Obama. The former president had really kept his distance from the Biden administration throughout the last few years. But as Trump began to surge in the polls, he has taken a far more active role in the Biden campaign this year.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For his part, Biden warned that Trump would bring, quote, retribution to the White House and said the next president would likely appoint two new justices to the Supreme Court. Here he is taking aim at the court, which he claimed is worse than ever. The Supreme Court has never been as out of kilter as it is today. I mean, never. The fact of the matter is that this has never been a court that's been this far out of step.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The Biden campaign has been touting the numbers from this fundraiser. They say it brought in around $30 million. Now, in a normal campaign, that would be a jaw-dropping number. But as we've noted here, since Trump's conviction last month, his campaign and allied groups have simply rewritten the fundraising record books, bringing in nearly $300 million last month.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: All that to say the Biden campaign had a good night on Saturday, but they will need a dozen more events just like that one to surpass what the Trump camp brought in in the last 30 days alone.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, we also saw the White House curiously take a jab at Trump's age this weekend.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, this was interesting. So on Friday, Trump celebrated his 78th birthday. Now, the Biden campaign has done everything possible to avoid drawing attention to the president's age. But this weekend, they rolled out a new approach addressing that issue head on.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: On Friday, Biden tweeted, quote, happy 78th birthday, Donald. Take it from one old guy to another, age is just a number. So essentially he's saying, yes, I'm old, but so is Trump. And while the two men are separated by just three years, the reality is that voters are clearly more concerned with Biden's age. The latest New York Times polling shows that 73% of voters believe Biden is too old to be an effective president. For Trump, that number is around 40%.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And no doubt that issue is weighing on the Biden campaign far more heavily than his rival.
--:-- John Bickley: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
--:-- John Bickley: Authorities made an arrest last week in the brutal rape and murder of a mother of five that took place last year in Maryland. Officers said the man arrested is an illegal immigrant with a violent past that includes at least one other murder. Here to talk about the case and reports of new immigration orders from President Biden is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hey Tim, so first, how did authorities find this murder suspect?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Essentially, it was a lucky break. He was caught allegedly trespassing in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and then identified by authorities as the suspect wanted for the rape and murder of Rachel Morin in Maryland last year. The suspect, Victor Martinez Hernandez, is a 23-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador with gang ties.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Morin's mother, Patricia, took part in a press conference on Saturday announcing the suspect's arrest and thanked law enforcement. I am so grateful that they have brought us to this place because at some of the points during this, I didn't think that we were ever going to have an end, that it was going to be a cold case. So I would like to applaud them.
--:-- Tim Pierce: A powerful moment there. Now, the suspect entered the country illegally not long before the murder and just after another suspected murder, correct?
--:-- Tim Pierce: That's right. Martinez Hernandez is wanted in El Salvador for the murder of a woman in January February 2023. From what investigators could piece together, he entered the U.S. illegally the next month in February 2023 The next month he allegedly broke into a home in Los Angeles and assaulted a young girl But he was still at large in August when he allegedly attacked and murdered Rachel Morin as she was out jockeying.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hartford County Sheriff Jeff Gaylor led Saturday's press conference and blamed Morin's death on President Biden's immigration policies. And I want to now direct these comments to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and to every member in both chambers of Congress Here in Hartford County, we are 1,800 miles away from the southern border, and the American citizens are not safe because of failed immigration policies.
--:-- Tim Pierce: This is the second time in just two years that an innocent Hartford County woman has lost her life to a criminal in our country illegally. And in both cases, they are suspects from El Salvador with ties to criminal gangs. Should not be happening.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, authorities in Texas were also celebrating the arrest of another suspected criminal last week who's in the country illegally. What happened there?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Not just a suspected criminal, but one of the state's most wanted. The Texas Department of Public Safety said Thursday that it had arrested the fugitive at the top of the state's 10 most wanted criminal illegal aliens list. Officers arrested 38-year-old Victor Hugo Cho Gonzalez in Fort Worth. Shogun Zalz is a Mexican national wanted in the U.S. for aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child by sexual contact. He was removed from the U.S. once back in 2016 after he was convicted of driving under the influence with a child and causing bodily injury to a family member.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now this comes as President Biden has reportedly looked at a major change in legal status for potentially hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. He's planning to offer them what's called parole in place. What do we know about that?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Right. According to NBC News, Biden could sign an executive order to grant legal status to about half a million immigrants by Tuesday. The expected order will apply to illegal immigrants that are married to U.S. citizens and have been living in the U.S. for at least a decade.
--:-- Tim Pierce: As you might expect, Republicans are sounding the alarm over this expected unilateral move from Biden. And former President Trump hammered the issue at a campaign event this weekend, promising to end what he called the Biden migrant invasion. We have people that came into our country illegally and they're living in hotels and even luxury hotels and our veterans are lying in the streets.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, immigration continues to be the issue that most clearly differentiates these two campaigns.
--:-- John Bickley: Tim, thanks for joining us.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Good to be on.
--:-- John Bickley: The first presidential debate is looming next week and not everyone feels the rules CNN announced over the weekend are fair to all sides. Meanwhile, a number of media outlets claim that President Biden isn't the only candidate showing signs of cognitive decline. Here to discuss is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So, Megan, let's start with CNN's rules for this debate that will take place on June 27th in Atlanta coming up quick. What are they and how are Democrats and Republicans feeling about them?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, you know, I'd say that most of these rules are pretty standard stuff. The debate is going to last 90 minutes and there will be two commercial breaks during that time. the candidates won't be allowed to interact with their respective staffs. They also aren't going to be allowed to bring pre-written notes or props to the podiums, of course, though they can have pen and paper to take notes. So really nothing noteworthy there.
--:-- Megan Basham: But what is significant is that this debate will not have the standard studio audience that you typically see. And that matters, of course, because the audience in presidential debates often represents the viewers at home and their cheers or jeers can give an immediate sense of just how the candidates answers are being received by Americans So given that Joe Biden is the most unpopular president in 70 years that decision would seem to favor him.
--:-- Megan Basham: Even more controversial is that CNN says it will mute the candidates' mics to prevent crosstalk whenever it's not their turn to answer a question. And the network is promising that moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will, quote, use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion. All right. So it sounds like they could be pretty heavy with that mute button.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, it does. And we do have to remember that impromptu exchanges have really benefited Trump in the past. So if you think about his 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton, when Clinton said it's awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country, Trump shot back because you'd be in jail. And that very quick witted quip drew massive applause from the audience.
--:-- Megan Basham: So a lot of conservatives are saying that these rules are designed to protect Biden from being drawn into the kind of direct exchanges that could leave him either confused or struggling to reply. On the other side, Democrats are generally voicing approval for these rules, saying that they're going to force Trump to engage with proper decorum.
--:-- Megan Basham: Speaking of quick-witted, the last couple of weeks have seen further evidence of President Biden's cognitive struggles, but a number of media outlets are making a point of reporting that there's reason to doubt Trump's mental fitness.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, so I think it's fair to say that the last couple of weeks have been incredibly rough for the Biden camp on that score. For example, at the G7 summit in Italy last Thursday, cameras caught Biden aimlessly wandering off during a skydiving demonstration. In fact, Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Maloney had to go over and diplomatically take his arm and guide him back to where the rest of the world leaders remained standing.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then at a Juneteenth celebration on June 10th, parts of a speech he delivered were basically entirely unintelligible. Here's a bit of that. She knows so long as she was denied our freedom can never be secured.
--:-- Megan Basham: So it's really not surprising that pretty much all polls, including one that CBS just released a few days ago, find that the vast majority of Americans, two thirds at last count, say that President Biden does not have the mental fitness to serve another term.
--:-- Megan Basham: At the same time, though, media outlets like CNN, Rolling Stone and a number of others are pointing to a recent Trump speech in which he mixed up the name of the doctor who gave him a cognitive test more than five years ago. Dr. Ronnie Johnson. Does everyone know Ronnie Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor and he said I was the healthiest president he feels in history. So I liked him very much.
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, the actual name of the doctor is Ronnie Jackson. So that's led some outlets to call this a humiliating gaffe on Trump's part and to say that it's reason to question his mental fitness as well.
--:-- Megan Basham: But I play both of those clips so our listeners can judge for themselves how the mental acuity of the two candidates stacks up. Always good for voters to hear these things for themselves. And we'll get to do some of that at the debate if those mute buttons aren't abused.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, let's hope that they lay off of those.
--:-- John Bickley: Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.
