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--:-- John Bickley: The U.S. takes emergency action as Haiti descends further into chaos. How is Florida working to prevent the crisis in Haiti from spilling into the U.S.? And what's the latest on the ground in the violence-plagued country? I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, March 18th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Florida is bracing for a surge in illegal immigration from Haiti after the country's prime minister announced his intent to resign last week. Ariel Henry said he would step down after a band of Haiti's most influential gangs orchestrated a coup and took over control of large portions of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hi, thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So U.S. officials are very concerned here about the trouble in Haiti and how it might affect or overwhelm border security. What's going on there?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, Haiti has effectively fallen into the hands of its powerful criminal gangs. Life in Port-au-Prince has become a series of street battles, mostly between gangs and what's left of the government's forces. Any semblance of law and order has collapsed, the city is scarred by fires, and human remains are a common sight. In fact, Haiti may already effectively be a failed state.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here's Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz questioning a group of senior Defense Department officials last week.
--:-- Matt Gaetz: So what's the difference between Haiti and a failed state? It's telling, right? We can't really identify them because the gangs are in charge, The government has been thrown out. And as a Florida man, I'm deeply concerned about this wave of people that we're about to have, that we are having, coming from Haiti. And it will accelerate.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The unrest in Haiti has concerned defense officials that a flood of Haitians may come to Florida and overwhelm state resources. Here's Gates again, this time questioning Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs Rebecca Zimmerman.
--:-- Rebecca Zimmerman: So what are we doing to prepare for that wave and to ensure that these people are not paroled into the United States as the administration has done with people on the southern border but instead are repatriated back at the dock at Port Congressman we doing a number of things to ensure that we keeping track of the situation and we're prepared. At the moment, we have not yet seen large numbers, what we would characterize as a maritime mass migration. But we are alert to that. We are alert to that possibility.
--:-- Georgia Howe: If that's a real possibility, and clearly it is, what's being done to prepare for it?
--:-- Rebecca Zimmerman: Well, the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense are coordinating on patrols of Florida's coasts. Governor Ron DeSantis also has surged men and vehicles to the coast. He announced last week that state law enforcement agencies would deploy over 250 additional officers and soldiers and over a dozen air and sea craft to the southern coast of Florida.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right, so DeSantis taking aggressive action. Who is in charge in Haiti right now?
--:-- Tim Pierce: That would probably be a man named Jimmy Charizier, known as Barbecue, allegedly, for his history of burning people alive in their homes. Charizier leads a federation of criminal gangs known as the G9 Family and Allies, and he has tried to topple the government in Haiti for years. His gangs have now taken over most of Port-au-Prince. Whether or not Charizier wants to take political power after his coup is still an open question.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What's next for Haiti? What is the path forward for the government or what's left of it?
--:-- Tim Pierce: In theory, government authority will be handed over to a U.S.-backed transitional committee that will steer the country back toward democratic elections. Given the state of things right now, though, it's difficult to see how that happens anytime soon. So the crisis in Haiti only just beginning here.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Tim, thanks for joining us.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: Legacy media outlets in the Biden campaign sounded the alarm over the weekend after Donald Trump predicted a bloodbath if he does not win in November. Here to discuss the controversy is Daily Wire culture and media reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Megan, all over the legacy press, there were headlines about Trump promising a bloodbath if he loses the election. It was all very ominous. What was the context there?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, you know, what's going on is a battle over an election narrative happening in real time. So one would hope that the full context, in this case the full video, would be the winner here. Right, not always the case. Unfortunately, no, it's not. But this all revolves around comments that Trump made during a rally in Ohio on Saturday.
--:-- Megan Basham: So during this event, Trump was talking about China's aggressive moves in the auto industry and the impact that that's having on the economy. Here's the full clip.
--:-- Megan Basham: China now is building a couple of massive plants where they're going to build the cars in Mexico and think, they think, that they're going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border. Let me tell you something to China. If you're listening, President Xi, and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal. Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you're building in Mexico right now, and you think you're going to get that, you're going to not hire Americans, and you're going to sell the cars to us now, we're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line. And you're not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath. For the whole, that's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That'll be the least of it. But they're not going to sell those cars.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, as you mentioned at the top, legacy outlets and the Biden campaign zeroed in on that bloodbath phrase, basically portraying it as ominously as possible while leaving out that crucial context that it would be an economic bloodbath.
--:-- Megan Basham: A few examples of some headlines from what were once America's most trusted news outlets. NBC News reported, Trump says there will be a bloodbath if he loses the election. CBS used almost the exact same phrasing reporting quote Politico Ohio campaign rally Trump says there will be a bloodbath if he loses November election Politico framed it in the same way again quoting Trump says country faces bloodbath if Biden wins in November. And Politico's subhead notably claimed that it was unclear what the former president meant exactly.
--:-- Megan Basham: And that's a good summary of how most of these outlets reported on the comments. They either kept this contextless or they muddied the context by saying his comments weren't clear. But all kind of echoing a similar framing.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, essentially. And as many conservatives have pointed out, also echoing the Biden campaign. So what kind of statement did the Biden campaign put out?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, the Biden-Harris campaign quickly released a statement Saturday night saying that it shows Trump has a, quote, affection for violence. So immediately taking a description and framing it as a threat. The Biden campaign then went on to claim that Trump said there'd be no more elections if he isn't elected and that Trump wants, quote, another January 6th.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, Nancy Pelosi was on CNN Saturday night furthering that characterization. He's even predicting a bloodbath. What does that mean? He's going to exact a bloodbath? There's something wrong here.
--:-- Megan Basham: But it's worth noting that Biden used the phrase bloodbath on the election trail himself in 2020 during the Democratic primaries, specifically referring to Bernie Sanders' campaign style.
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, a few days in, though, it sounded like there was starting to be some blowback for that characterization. Tell us about that.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, there has. As The Daily Wire reported, you have voices, both liberal and conservative, slamming the media over this. Many are pointing to the dictionary definition of bloodbath, which can mean, quote, a major economic disaster. That, of course, fits perfectly with the context of Trump's comments about the auto industry.
--:-- Megan Basham: And Trump's team, unsurprisingly, responded. The Make America Great Again Super PAC released a memo titled, Biden and the media team up to spread a desperate lie. And it highlighted blowback to this misleading framing. A spokesman for the group, Alex Pfeiffer, said that Joe Biden is allowing China to take over the car industry and Americans are being laid off left and right. It's an economic disaster that only President Donald Trump can turn around.
--:-- Megan Basham: Again, that's from that memo. And Trump advisor Jason Miller slammed Politico, lamenting that, quote, the future of American journalism is bleak. He also asked when the outlet will be issuing a retraction.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, some elected officials also weighed in, including Republican Senator J.D. Vance. He tweeted out, quote, Donald Trump said that a bloodbath would happen to the American auto industry if Biden kept on promoting Chinese-made EVs. He is, of course, 100 percent correct. All other reporting about his bloodbath comment is complete propaganda. The media should be ashamed.
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, it's all very reminiscent of the 2012 Sarah Palin campaign when they had the targets over certain districts. Yes. If you remember that.
--:-- Megan Basham: Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime.
--:-- John Bickley: Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis has been permitted to stay on the 2020 election interference case against former President Trump. following a controversial ruling from a Georgia judge. But Willis is not out of the woods yet, facing numerous investigations over alleged misconduct. Here to discuss is Daily Wire senior editor and now father for the first time, Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Welcome back, Cabot. So first, what exactly did the judge rule?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, so quick refresher. Judge Scott McAfee had been looking into the possible disqualification of D.A. Willis and her entire office after it came to light that she had a romantic relationship with the man she chose as special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, and possibly misused taxpayer dollars as part of that affair.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, after investigating the matter, Judge McAfee sort of split the baby in his ruling suggesting Willis lied on the stand and acted with a quote tremendous lapse in judgment And importantly he said he did find an appearance of quote impropriety However, the judge also said that he found that the defendants failed to prove a conflict of interest. With that in mind, he ruled that Willis could resign from the case along with her whole office or that Wade could step aside and that the case could move forward.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, unsurprisingly, Willis remains at the helm, but Wade has since resigned from his position.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, nobody's surprised by that turn of events. That ruling sparked a lot of reaction. What are we hearing about the ruling itself and where it puts the case now?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, definitely worth noting. There were plenty of critics outraged by the judge's decision. They questioned how a DA appointing a man she was having a secret affair with could possibly not be a conflict of interest.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Critics also said the fact that Wade was punished, but Willis maintained her position, was illogical and disjointed. To that point, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley compared it to finding two thieves in a bank vault, but only hauling one of them off to jail.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here he is on Fox News. They both testified in the same way. They were the two parts of this relationship. And yet only one of them was disqualified. And so that's going to lead to these questions. I mean, well, why should Willis escape that same penalty?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, in terms of what this all means for the case, even though Willis does maintain her position, the judge's scathing remarks towards her are being viewed as a win for Trump. CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, for example, says they opened the door for a series of appeals that will further delay this case, likely, importantly, until after Election Day.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Today was a very good day for Donald Trump. This case is going nowhere. This case is never going to trial before the election. You know, it's an embarrassment, all of this. I mean, Fannie Willis has hung on, but this case is going nowhere very quickly.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Trump's legal team responded to McAfee's decision by saying they would use, quote, all legal options available to fight to end the case, which they said, quote, should never have been brought in the first place.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, focusing back to Willis, she's still in some very hot water over all of these allegations. What's happening on that front?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, she is not out of the woods yet. The Georgia State Senate has created a special committee to investigate her alleged misconduct. That committee cannot directly punish her, but they're clearly hoping to uncover more misconduct and further damage her credibility.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And remember, Republicans in Washington are also getting involved. The powerful House Judiciary Committee has begun investigating Willis for allegedly misusing federal funds. That committee subpoenaed her back in February for documents related to the case. And last week, Chairman Jim Jordan threatened Willis with contempt of Congress if she did not fully comply, giving her until March 28th to do so.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And on top of all of that, there was also reportedly a 23-page grievance report filed against Willis with the State Bar of Georgia. outlining numerous ethics rules that she's allegedly violated during her tenure.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So in a year where Willis herself is also up for re-election come November, the DA prosecuting Trump is under growing fire.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right, a lot on the line for Willis here.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
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