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--:-- Host John Bickley: New York City's mayor is denying any wrongdoing as he stands accused of federal corruption charges in a historic indictment. I look forward to defending myself and defending the people of this city as I've done throughout my entire professional career. What are prosecutors saying and who would fill in as mayor should Adams step down? I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, September 27th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Kamala Harris visits the southern border as more illegal immigrants are arrested for violent crime in states thousands of miles away. And as Border Patrol details horrific accounts of child exploitation, are Democrats enabling the problem? Children continue to be sent to dangerous locations with improperly vetted sponsors. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
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--:-- Host John Bickley: In a stunning development, New York's Democratic Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted as part of a sweeping federal corruption investigation. Here are the details as Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: A lot to get to from the Big Apple. What's the latest there?
--:-- Host John Bickley: Yeah, a wild scene yesterday in Manhattan as federal agents conducted a 6 a.m. raid of the mayor's Upper East Side mansion. Adams now faces five federal charges of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. In short, he's accused of soliciting and accepting bribes from business people and government officials in Turkey in exchange for favorable treatment in New York.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: According to that indictment, over the last decade, Adams allegedly accepted lavish gifts in the form of luxury hotel stays, free meals at high-end restaurants, theater tickets, first-class flights around the world on Turkish airlines. You get the idea. Adams then allegedly created false paper trails to make it look like he had paid for those gifts.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The indictment also includes damning messages from staffers of Adams who appeared to be in on the alleged scheme. For example, a Turkish airline employee tells an Adams staffer that he should stay at the Four Seasons in Istanbul. When the staffer says, quote, it's too expensive, the employee responds, why does he care? He is not going to pay. His name will not be on anything either.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The Adams staffer then responded with one word, super. And it wasn't just gifts. There were also campaign contributions, correct? Right. That's the other big part here. The indictment alleges that Adams coordinated with individuals in Turkey to funnel money into his campaign. Essentially, they allegedly transferred the funds to legitimate New Yorkers who then passed on those donations as their own.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And because New York City has a program that actually matches small campaign contributions with public funds Adams allegedly received million in fraudulent taxpayer money towards his campaign. Here's U Attorney Damian Williams: As we allege Mayor Adams took these contributions even though he knew they were illegal And even though he knew these contributions were attempts by a Turkish government official and Turkish businessmen to buy influence with him.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, in exchange, Adams allegedly returned the favor by offering preferential treatment to the Turkish government throughout the years. For example, in 2021, a Turkish official told Adams that Turkey's president was visiting New York soon and they wanted their new consular building to be open in time. Despite the fact that the 36-story skyscraper was still under construction and not yet up to code, Adams responded by allegedly threatening to fire an FDNY official if he did not approve the building's fire inspection.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Days later, that Turkish skyscraper passed inspection. All right, so it's that easy. So how has the mayor responded to this indictment. Yeah, according to Adams, the Biden administration is retaliating against him for blaming the migrant crisis on them. I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target. And a target I became.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Despite our police, when the federal government did nothing as its broken immigration policies overloaded our shelter system with no relief, I put the people of New York before party and politics. So what comes next for this case? Well, Adams has called for an immediate trial, quote, so New Yorkers can hear the truth. He's vowed that he's not going anywhere, but sticking around could prove difficult.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Adams has the lowest approval ratings of any New York mayor on record, around 28 percent. And under his tenure, the city has faced higher crime and a rising cost of living. And while he blames Biden for the migrant crisis, the city has still directed millions of dollars towards hotel rooms and other accommodations for illegal immigrants in the city. That has outraged a lot of residents there.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, if Adams does in fact resign or is removed by New York's governor, Kathy Hochul, the city's public advocate, Jermaine Williams, would become acting mayor and a replacement would then be selected in a special election later this year. One more note, that election would draw a wide swath of candidates, most notably disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo, who reportedly told allies that he is planning to run in next year's primary, whether Adams resigns or not.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Things are moving fast in New York. We'll see if Adams sticks it out.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
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--:-- Host John Bickley: Crime linked to migrants is causing chaos in neighborhoods across the U.S. The issue has even reached as far as Nantucket Island. Here to discuss the crime wave is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So, Tim, we've gotten used to seeing migrant crime stories, most recently associated with gang activity. But this week we have some reports coming out of some places very far from the border.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Yeah, there's a few stories that have gained national attention in the past few days, mostly out of the Northeast. Obviously, that's nowhere near the southern border, but thousands of immigrants have traveled there in the past few years on their own and on government-funded buses.
--:-- Tim Pierce: This week, immigration officials arrested six illegal immigrants on Nantucket in Massachusetts, which is a sanctuary state. The suspects were charged with rape or for sexual assault. In three of those cases, the victim was a child. At least four of the six suspects entered the US as gotaways, meaning they managed to evade border enforcement.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Then in Brooklyn police evicted over 30 immigrants living together in one home after a brawl broke out over the weekend. Thankfully nobody died but a handful of people were hospitalized with knife wounds. Neighbors told the New York Post that they had complained to authorities about the house for months. They said the migrants were always up late with loud parties, but law enforcement never took any action until Sunday's brawl.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And these stories aren't unique. We've seen similar cases across the country as neighborhoods are left to handle an influx of destitute foreigners. Just one data point on that. Illegal immigrants are estimated to have cost New York City $5 billion over just the last two years, and that estimate could double next year.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, immigration has become a key issue for voters, and both candidates are attempting to get the edge on this. First, what are we hearing from Vice President Harris? Right. Well, let's not forget Harris is nominally the border czar of the Biden administration, or at least was assigned that role in 2021.
--:-- Tim Pierce: She sat for her first one-on-one network interview on Wednesday and immigration was one of the issues that came up, specifically how she plans to help local communities that feel ignored and buried under a flood of immigrants. Here's Harris: And my pledge is that when elected president, I will bring that bill back and I will sign it into law.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And we need a comprehensive plan that includes what we need to do to fortify not only our border, but deal with the fact that we also need to create pathways for people to earn citizenship. She's referring to a border bill that already failed to pass Congress earlier this year. That bill would have allowed 5,000 illegal entries per day before requiring the border to be shut down.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, under her tenure as VP, the Biden administration expanded parole opportunities for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, known as CHNV parole. It includes a mass flight program to transport those nationalities into and around the U.S. There's also the CBP1 app, which basically fast tracks immigrants entry into the U.S.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Harris has refused to say directly what she plans to do with those programs should she win the White House. The bill that failed Congress did include a provision to end the app, though. Harris is expected to visit the border later today, so we could hear more on her immigration plan then.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, what about former President Trump? Yeah, Trump is promising to roll back those Biden administration parole programs. Here's what the former president told Fox News' Bill Malugin: I would revoke it and they get out. The app is bad. But what the worst is, is the flights. Because, you know, they tried to say, oh, we're going to toughen up the border a little bit. They had planes flying over the border loaded up with illegal migrants, people that shouldn't be in our country, going to the Midwest, going to all places because everything is now a border state.
--:-- Tim Pierce: He's also promised the largest deportation program in U.S. history. On that point, he said he'd threaten countries such as Venezuela and China with tariffs unless they agree to take back their nationals living illegally in our country. So it sounds like Trump is sticking to his signature hardline stance and Harris is attempting to thread the needle a little bit.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Border Patrol agents are sounding the alarm about increased child exploitation at the southern border, where children as young as eight years old have been found drugged and recycled by smugglers. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are working to loosen oversight on child migrant sponsorship protocols. Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta-Giacomo.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Hey, John. Yeah, Border Patrol sources are telling the New York Post that in just recent weeks, authorities have rescued numerous children at the border from smugglers. In one instance, a woman had two children with her, ages eight and 11, whom she drugged with sleeping pills The woman was not related to the children but she tried to pose as their mother She showed authentic birth certificates However they were not for the children she had with her
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: In another case border agents rescued a child who had similarly been heavily dosed with sleeping aids to prevent him from speaking to authorities Those traffickers had birth certificates for other children, too. So this appears to be a pattern. Unfortunately, yes. What's happening is smugglers are using children numerous times or recycling them to pose as family units to gain entry to the U.S.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: One Border Patrol source told the Post that at the height of an immigration influx, they had to let family units in. He said after a while, agents noticed that the same children were cycling through, but with different parents. He said, quote, I hate thinking about it because there were thousands of kids and who knows where they all ended up.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: In one firsthand account reported by Muckraker, a young girl said children were taken from a holding facility in California at three o'clock in the morning to be placed with sponsors they didn't know. She also said kids who asked to be sent back home were denied that request. Here's one minor who ended up homeless talking about her experience with the sponsor.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: She would tell me that if I didn't have money for rent, that she would kick me out. She talked to the lady who raised me, my mom, and she started telling her that if I didn't give her what she wanted, we were going to be in trouble. And to this day, she's still charging me $4,000 for my trip from Honduras.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: There have been reports for years now about migrants wearing wristbands that correspond with how much money they owe cartels for helping them get to the U.S. Senator Ted Cruz criticized Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last year during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. You've turned these cartels into multibillion-dollar criminal organizations, and these are modern-day leg irons because these are children being sold into sex slavery.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Now, we also have Senate Democrats who are working to loosen oversight of child migrant sponsorship. What are they trying to do exactly? Right. And just to back up for a minute here, we learned last year that there were initially 85,000 unaccompanied migrant children unaccounted for by HHS who've been lost. That number is now much higher, estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Right. Due to the migrant influx, the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement has been overwhelmed. And Republicans say the department is prioritizing the speedy release of migrant children over their safety. Republicans say this is being done for optics because the Biden-Harris administration doesn't want migrants, especially children, in holding facilities.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Remember, Democrats and legacy media called those cages under Donald Trump before it was pointed out that they were used under Barack Obama. Republicans want more vetting and to slow things down so children don't end up lost or exploited. There are some shocking reports that HHS, for example, has connected children with sponsors who have ties to notorious gangs like MS-13 or potential trafficking rings.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Senate Democrats, though, they want the process to move along even faster, arguing that this is more humane for unaccompanied children migrants. Under the Democrats' Children's Safe Welcome Act of 2024, HHS would have to make its decision about whether to release the child to a proposed sponsor within just seven days of receiving an application.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Agency whistleblowers say that timeline doesn't give enough time for any reasonable background check, and this will likely result in children being sent to live with labor and sex traffickers or gang members. One would hope that we'd agree on the urgency to try to protect children.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Amanda, thank you for reporting.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: You're welcome. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
