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--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Morning Wire. I'm John Bickley, and I'm joined by my co-host Georgia Howe.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us, everyone.
--:-- 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.
--:-- Georgia Howe: 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.
--:-- John Bickley: President Biden pleaded with House Democrats on Thursday to approve his $1.8 trillion spending bill, saying the success of his presidency is on the line.
--:-- Georgia Howe: No one got everything they wanted, including me. Despite President Biden's personal pleas, progressive Democrats are already saying the spending bill includes major gaps.
--:-- John Bickley: What exactly is included in the final framework? And does it have support in the White House and the Senate?
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, October 29th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Florida's attorney general sued the Biden administration and NASA this week over Biden's vaccine mandate for federal contractors, claiming it's unlawful.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here we are. We said we'd take action, and we are. This lawsuit has been filed. We think that we can hopefully get a preliminary injunction and be able to protect people's jobs from this mandate coming in.
--:-- John Bickley: We'll take a closer look at Florida's arguments against the mandate and its implementation, as well as other legal action the state is taking against the administration.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And newly released data from Border Patrol reveals that the number of migrants who attempted to cross illegally into the U.S. this year was the highest ever recorded.
--:-- John Bickley: We'll take a look at those numbers and the factors that led to skyrocketing illegal immigration.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- John Bickley: This show is sponsored by Birch Gold Group. Inflation is destroying the dollar. Birch Gold Group can help you protect your IRA or 401k with a precious metals IRA.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Text WIRE to 989898 to claim a free info kit on physical gold and silver. There's zero obligation.
--:-- John Bickley: Text the word WIRE to 989898 to protect your savings today.
--:-- Georgia Howe: After months of fierce debate on Capitol Hill, President Biden went to Congress Thursday to rally support for what he hopes is the final version of his massive social spending package.
--:-- John Bickley: The new bill still contains many of the president's campaign promises, but it has been stripped of many of his party's most progressive elements.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here are the latest on this ongoing battle is Daily Wire managing editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So first off, Cabot, how do we get to this point? So it's important to zoom out and look at this big picture.
--:-- John Bickley: Right now, there are two bills that President Biden is hoping to get through Congress, and their fates are kind of tied together.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The first is the mostly uncontroversial infrastructure bill. This includes a trillion dollars in funding for things like bridges, roads, hospitals. You get the picture. It's passed a vote in the Senate, but is currently being held up in the House by Democrats who want to wait to see exactly what's in the second bill.
--:-- John Bickley: That's the much more controversial social spending package. This one includes many of President Biden's campaign promises, like universal preschool, Medicare expansion, climate change measures, basically a progressive wish list.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, that bill can only pass with unanimous support from Senate Democrats, which they didn't have their first go-around. Remember Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema both said the trillion price tag was just too high.
--:-- John Bickley: So now President Biden has come back with a new framework for the bill. And this time it's going to be $1.75 trillion.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now President Biden has been open about how desperately he wants this thing to pass. On Thursday, he reportedly told House Democrats that the fate of this bill would determine his legacy and also the outcome of the 2022 midterms.
--:-- John Bickley: So a lot at stake here.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Indeed. Now, we saw some pushback from Democrats when the new framework was announced by President Biden.
--:-- John Bickley: What can you tell us there?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, far-left Democrats in the party are not happy with those cuts to the social spending bill. And some of them are now threatening to withdraw support from the infrastructure bill, basically as payback, until they get their say on the social spending bill.
--:-- John Bickley: Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren cheered that move, saying the House should not vote on one bill until both have reached a point that Democrats agree on.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Speaker Pelosi, though, disagrees. She met with House Democrats on Thursday and tried to pressure them into supporting the infrastructure bill, whether they liked the social spending bill or not.
--:-- John Bickley: She reportedly told them not to, quote, embarrass the president by voting against it.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But ultimately, that vote did not happen, mainly because a failed infrastructure vote in the House would be bad optics for Democrats.
--:-- John Bickley: So now they're going to wait on developments with the social spending bill, see which direction things go.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That vote could end up being today or a month from now. We just don't know.
--:-- John Bickley: Okay, so back to that social spending bill, even with the price reduction, $1.75 trillion is, you know, still a hefty price tag.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: How is this going to be paid for? There's been some conflicting messaging on that front.
--:-- John Bickley: Initially, the White House said the plan would cost nothing. This package, the reconciliation package, would cost zero dollars.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But obviously that money has to come from somewhere. $1.75 trillion is almost 10% of our country's entire GDP.
--:-- John Bickley: And as White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain himself pointed out, in today's dollars, this package is worth twice as much money as FDR's entire New Deal plan.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So when the White House says the cost is zero, basically what they mean is that they have a plan for where the money will come from, not that they have it right now.
--:-- John Bickley: In this case, it'll be a corporate tax increase, a new tax on stock buybacks, and maybe most controversially, a 15% global minimum tax, which would apply to companies' overseas earnings.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, we actually took a look at that on the show recently.
--:-- John Bickley: Right, and the White House also says they'll be giving even more funding to the IRS to help them crack down and make sure that no one is underpaying on their taxes.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That's expected to raise another $400 billion in tax revenue to help fund this.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, the Biden administration has consistently said these measures will only impact wealthy Americans, but many economists disagree.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: They've pointed out that these types of measures often result in fewer job openings and higher costs for consumers as businesses essentially look to offset the money they're losing to the federal government because of higher taxes.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, well, when you're talking about huge sums of money like this, it's inevitably going to impact a lot of people's wallets.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right. Thanks for the update, Cabot.
--:-- John Bickley: Absolutely. That's Daily Wire managing editor, Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Coming up, Florida sues the Biden administration over vaccine mandates. You can get this show and all of the content you love wherever you are, all on the Daily Wire app.
--:-- John Bickley: Even if you're not a Daily Wire member, you'll be the first to know what's trending with mobile notifications for the latest news, and you'll get content from all your favorite Daily Wire shows.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you.
--:-- John Bickley: The state of Florida is suing the Biden administration and NASA over vaccine mandates for federal contractors The lawsuit is the latest filed by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Republican Governor Ron DeSantis who last month also filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration catch and release policies at the southern border.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to discuss the lawsuits is Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short.
--:-- Ash Short: Sure. So Biden's vaccine mandate states that federal contractors must require vaccinations and get their workers vaccinated by December 8th.
--:-- John Bickley: DeSantis and Moody are saying that mandate is unlawful and they're suing not only the administration and NASA, but also NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and other White House officials, including in the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Defense.
--:-- Ash Short: And so what exactly is the issue that Florida's suing over?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, Florida argues in its lawsuit that NASA and others who contract in Florida and follow Biden's vaccine mandate would be interfering with Florida's employment policies and threaten the state's economy.
--:-- Ash Short: The state argues that the vaccine requirement would force the state to require certain state officials get vaccinated due to their federal contracts.
--:-- John Bickley: DeSantis had previously called for a special session of the state legislature to ban vaccine mandates, and he's been outspoken against them.
--:-- Ash Short: He announced the lawsuit in a press conference this week. We also cannot have the federal government coming in, exceeding their power.
--:-- John Bickley: Some of the stuff that they're doing with the federal, they're really rewriting contracts and they're transforming normal contracting into basically public health policy.
--:-- Ash Short: And that's not anything Congress has ever authorized.
--:-- John Bickley: All right. So Florida says President Biden's mandate is unlawful. What's the state's argument for that?
--:-- Ash Short: The lawsuit says the Biden administration misread a statute. It says gives it the authority to compel workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine or lose their job.
--:-- John Bickley: A Florida official said that statute does not authorize the federal government to, quote, use its contracts to impose social policy not authorized by Congress.
--:-- Ash Short: Governor DeSantis also says that many employers aren't honoring religious and medical exemptions.
--:-- John Bickley: And this isn't the first major lawsuit the state of Florida has filed against the Biden administration.
--:-- Ash Short: Can you tell us about the immigration case?
--:-- John Bickley: Right. So about a month ago, the state filed a lawsuit saying the Biden administration's catch and release policies at the U.S.-Mexico border violate federal law.
--:-- Ash Short: The lawsuit argues that Florida is harmed by the policies when illegal immigrants released by the administration arrive in the state, which hurts its, quote, quasi-sovereign interests and causes it to, quote, incur millions of dollars in expenses.
--:-- John Bickley: The lawsuit says U.S. code requires immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally to be detained until a decision is made about whether they will be allowed to enter the U.S.
--:-- Ash Short: This rule, the lawsuit says, applies even if the migrant is claiming asylum. An exception in the rule allows releasing illegal immigrants immediately, but is supposed to be used on a case-by-case basis for, quote, urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.
--:-- John Bickley: Florida argues the administration is either violating the law or abusing that exception.
--:-- Ash Short: Thanks for keeping us informed.
--:-- John Bickley: Anytime. That's Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The number of illegal immigrants who attempted to cross the southern border this year was the highest ever recorded. The U.S. Border Patrol reported more encounters with illegal immigrants this year than in any previous year in U.S. history.
--:-- John Bickley: The Daily Wire's reporter, Ben Johnson, has the numbers behind those headlines.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Thanks for joining us, John.
--:-- John Bickley: So the new totals were just released and they're historic. Exactly How many people did Border Patrol say tried to cross the southern border this year
--:-- Ben Johnson: Border Patrol agents say the number of illegal immigrants they encountered at the U border this fiscal year reached a total of 1.7 million.
--:-- John Bickley: That includes about 147,000 unaccompanied minors and 1.1 million single adults.
--:-- Ben Johnson: The total number is more than any time since the government began tracking that number.
--:-- John Bickley: This year's record breaks the previous all-time high set in 1986 and a close second in 2001.
--:-- Ben Johnson: In each of those years, a little under 1.7 million people entered the U.S. illegally.
--:-- John Bickley: Numbers of that size can be hard for us to appreciate.
--:-- Ben Johnson: To put that in perspective, if you were to take one person for each of those illegal encounters and set them in a barren spot in the desert, it would instantly become the fifth largest city in the country in terms of population.
--:-- John Bickley: That's larger than Phoenix or Philadelphia.
--:-- Ben Johnson: So a big city's worth of migrants entered the country in a single year.
--:-- John Bickley: Right. But it also does not include people who successfully entered the country without being detected, so-called gotaways.
--:-- Ben Johnson: This summer, that number surpassed 1,000 people a day.
--:-- John Bickley: 1,000 a day. So in reality, the number of illegal crossings is much higher.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Definitely. What are some of the biggest concerns here with this degree of illegal immigration?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, illegal immigration is inherently troubling because no one knows who's crossed the border.
--:-- Ben Johnson: We do know drug cartels and human traffickers control the entrance routes, and they've smuggled a record-breaking 11,000 pounds of fentanyl into the country this year.
--:-- John Bickley: We know at least 19,000 of the people apprehended were wanted criminals.
--:-- Ben Johnson: That doesn't take into consideration the toll that every new citizen places on U.S. infrastructure, school systems, hospitals, and other critical services.
--:-- John Bickley: So this number, the 1.7 million, it obviously doesn't cover the calendar year 2021, but rather the fiscal year starting last September.
--:-- Ben Johnson: So some of these people entered during President Trump's administration. Yes, about 296,000 to be specific.
--:-- John Bickley: But The Washington Post reported that the number of illegal entries every month, and I quote, skyrocketed in the months after President Biden took office.
--:-- Ben Johnson: At its highest point this summer, law enforcement officials encountered about three times as many undocumented migrants a month as they had before January.
--:-- John Bickley: You said that we haven't seen numbers close to this since 86 and 2001. Any common factors in these years?
--:-- Ben Johnson: You could argue that. All three of these surges were linked to the belief that the U.S. would soon grant amnesty for all, or at least some, illegal immigrants.
--:-- John Bickley: On the other hand, illegal entries fell to a 46-year low during the first year of the Trump administration when he promised more vigorous immigration enforcement.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Well, the president and Democrats still hope to create a path to citizenship, so it seems like it'll be likely to continue to impact the situation.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks, Ben.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: That's Daily Wire reporter Ben Johnson.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Another story we're tracking this week. In an effort to combat the growing supply chain crisis, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis encouraged cargo companies stranded outside the ports in Los Angeles to reroute their cargo ships to ports in Florida.
--:-- John Bickley: The governor highlighted capacity at all of Florida's ports, as well as incentives for companies who decide to ship their cargo through Florida.
--:-- Georgia Howe: If you liked this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five-star review.
--:-- John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.
--:-- John Bickley: If you like this podcast, subscribe to our Morning Wire newsletter available exclusively to Daily Wire members. Get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
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