--:-- [Upbeat music plays in the background]
--:-- Host: The NFL is back, and FanDuel's got everything you need to play your game. From same-game parlays to live betting. Right now, new customers bet $5 and get $300 in bonus bets if you win. 21-plus in president select states. 18-plus in Kentucky and Wyoming. Must be first online real money waging. $5 deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at FanDuel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.
--:-- [Music transitions to a more serious tone]
--:-- Host: The federal trial of Hunter Biden has begun, and First Lady Jill Biden spends her birthday in the courthouse with her stepson. Hunter Biden has been very candid about his drug use, and there's really no question that he purchased the firearm. So the defenses are going to be limited. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with guest host Emily Jashinsky, DC correspondent at UnHerd. It's Tuesday, June 4th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Anthony Fauci faces questions in Congress again, but continues to deny wrongdoing despite compelling evidence. There's all kinds of stones that could be unturned, but ultimately the buck stops with Anthony Fauci, who's in charge of the place.
--:-- Emily Jashinsky: And two New York City cops are lucky to be alive after being shot by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, all while the Biden administration allows hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers to stay in the country without a hearing. He entered through Eagle Pass, Texas back in July of 2023. So we know that he entered the country illegally.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- [Music transitions to a more upbeat tone]
--:-- Host: Black Rifle Coffee is a veteran founded company that's doing their part to honor the last of the greatest generation who fought at D-Day while they're still here with us. Co-founder Evan Hafer and his team will parachute into Normandy in World War II uniforms with a series of jumps from June 4th to June 6th. A portion of every purchase you make at BlackRifleCoffee.com goes to support veteran and first responder causes. From providing funding and equipment to first responders to helping veterans fight cancer, your money goes a long way toward giving back to those who serve our nation. Visit BlackRifleCoffee.com to learn more.
--:-- [Music transitions back to a serious tone]
--:-- Host: On Monday, members of the First Family appeared in a federal courthouse for the start of Hunter Biden's gun trial. Here are the details of the case and how it could impact the election is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Hey, Cabot, so another high stakes trial kicking off this week. Get us up to speed here.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, on Monday, the trial against President Biden's son, Hunter, got going in a Delaware courtroom. The first son faces three felony charges and stands accused of illegally purchasing and owning a handgun in 2018 after lying on a federal firearms application.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, at the time, Hunter had been in and out of rehab for crack cocaine addiction, but when he filled out that background check, stated that he was not, quote, addicted to any narcotic drug or other controlled substance.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: 11 days after that gun was purchased, you'll remember Hallie Biden, his brother's widow, who was his romantic partner at the time, found it and threw it in a dumpster near his home, telling him in a text message that she was, quote, scared he would use it.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: If convicted, Hunter faces a maximum sentence of 25 years, but it is unlikely he would spend any real time behind bars given his lack of prior convictions.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: As the trial kicked off, the younger Biden was joined in the courtroom by First Lady Jill Biden, along with his half-sister Ashley.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, this trial almost didn't happen because of a highly controversial plea deal, correct?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right. Hunter was almost let off the hook for these felonies after his father's Justice Department offered him a plea deal if he agreed to admit to lesser misdemeanor tax charges.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But a federal judge blew the whistle on that deal, forcing the DOJ to actually bring this case to trial So here we are Yeah So what do we expect to hear over the next few weeks
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well much of the trial will center on intimate details of Hunter personal life and addiction including his relationship with his father and others in the Biden circle which obviously is a concern for the White House.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: To that point, we'll hear testimony from the first son's ex-wife, who is currently locked in a separate legal battle with Hunter over unpaid alimony.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Biden's lawyers will reportedly argue that the forms he filled out were tampered with and that the gun seller did not follow the proper steps during the purchasing process.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So they're saying it's someone else's fault. They also plan to argue that Hunter did not actually lie on those background check forms because in his mind, he believed he was no longer addicted to crack cocaine given a recent rehab stint.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But that will be a very difficult argument to make thanks to a litany of evidence compiled by Hunter himself.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For example, one photo on his laptop that was taken just four days before he bought the gun shows Hunter asleep with a crack pipe in his mouth.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Two days later, text messages show him coordinating an apparent drug deal outside of a 7-Eleven.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And just as damning is Hunter's own memoir, where he states that he was, quote, smoking crack every 15 minutes around the time of the firearm purchase.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And it's worth noting here that this is not the only trial Hunter will be involved in this year.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, if this one wasn't enough of a headache for the Biden campaign in September, right before Election Day, Hunter will go on trial again, this time in California, where he faces nine federal charges, including three felony counts related to tax evasion.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: In that case, according to prosecutors, Hunter engaged in a years-long scheme to avoid paying at least $1.4 million in federal taxes.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: They also say he filed fraudulent returns. He faces a maximum of 17 years behind bars there.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, unlike the House investigation into Hunter's overseas business dealings, these trials do not necessarily implicate President Biden directly, but they are still likely to weigh on his campaign as we inch closer to election day.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, well, another historic trial here that could impact the election. Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime. If you need a better way to simplify your business finances, then you need to check out Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Businesses that use RAMP save an average of 5% in the first year. And now you get $250 when you join RAMP. Just go to RAMP.com slash wire. That's RAMP.com slash wire. Cards issued by Sutton Bank and Celtic Bank, member of FDIC. Terms and conditions apply.
--:-- [Music transitions to a more serious tone]
--:-- Host: Dr. Anthony Fauci testified on Capitol Hill yesterday on his role in the U.S. response to COVID-19. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here with more.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hey, Tim. So first, we heard a lot about NIH senior advisor David Morins during the testimony yesterday. Who is he and how is he connected to Fauci?
--:-- Tim Pierce: So Morins was a top advisor to Fauci. As revealed in now publicly released emails, Morins had extensive conflicts of interest as a top health official in the government dealing with the grantee organization EcoHealth Alliance.
--:-- Tim Pierce: EcoHealth is run by Peter Dezak and is at the center of the gain-of-function allegations. Dezak has since been banned from receiving any grants due to not properly reporting dangerous research related to his work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
--:-- Tim Pierce: In one of those emails, Morin's wrote, quote, we are getting FOIA'd nonstop. So it's most important that Tony, referencing Anthony Fauci, not have anything on the record that could come back to bite.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Morin's also suggested Fauci used private communication to cover up the trail, a claim Fauci denied.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Pressed on Morin's emails by GOP Congressman John Joyce, Fauci distanced himself from his longtime advisor Morin's and accused him of violating policy.
--:-- Tim Pierce: What you saw, I believe, with Dr. Morin's was an aberrancy and an outlier. From your senior advisor for 20 years The title is senior advisor We wrote scientific papers together He advised me as I mentioned Are your senior advisors not trusted staff Now Fauci described Morin as an aberration at the health agencies, but that may not be accurate.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Morningwire spoke to former World Health Organization expert committee member Jamie Metzl, author of the new book, Super Convergence.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Metzl, who worked for President Clinton and is a self-described progressive Democrat, said this about the culture at the NIH.
--:-- Tim Pierce: There's a bit of an inherent conflict of interest at the NIH between being the government agency that gives grants and the government agency that reviews the grants that it has given.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So certainly there was an element of clientitis that we saw in the Morin's email exchanges with Peter Dezak, where Peter Dezak was their guy, and he was working on projects that were supported not just by the NIH, but also by USAID and the Defense Department.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So these bureaucracies have some interest in protecting grantees because they have an interest in protecting themselves.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Another big topic at the hearing was the lab leak hypothesis and whether or not Fauci had a hand in trying to suppress it early on, as evidence has suggested.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, Fauci insisted yesterday that he's never ruled out the possibility of the lab leak hypothesis.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, he has dismissed conspiracy theories about it. Here he is claiming he's never suggested it's inherently a conspiracy theory and then floated a straw man claim.
--:-- Tim Pierce: I don't think the concept of there being a lab leak is inherently a conspiracy theory. What is conspiracy is the kind of distortions of that particular subject. Like it was a lab leak and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak. Thank you. That's the conspiracy.
--:-- Tim Pierce: As for Fauci's claim that he hasn't painted it as a conspiracy theory, critics say that's not what the record shows.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Here's Metzl on the issue. So Dr. Fauci, what he said today is that he was always open-minded to the possibility of a research-related origin. And when he was criticizing conspiracy theories, he was only referring to these crazy allegations of bioweapons or other kinds of things.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And there certainly were crazy allegations, but I didn't think that was a fair reflection of the spirit of his comments in 2020.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Republicans were obviously pretty combative with Fauci during that hearing. What was the reaction afterward?
--:-- Tim Pierce: So Morning Wire debriefed with Congressman Jim Jordan afterward. Here's what he had to say.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, this Moran's guy who worked for Dr. Fauci was trying to not comply with FOIA and trying to, looks like, hide information. And maybe the reason they were doing that is because everything they told us turned out to be false.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So needless to say, Republicans remain very skeptical of Fauci's explanations.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, indeed. Tim, thanks for joining us.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Good to be on.
--:-- [Music transitions to a more serious tone]
--:-- Host: The gunman accused of shooting two New York City cops this week was revealed to be an illegal immigrant from Venezuela who entered the country in 2023 through Eagle Pass, Texas.
--:-- Host: Bernardo Castro Mata, a 19-year-old living in a taxpayer-funded migrant shelter near LaGuardia Airport fired at two cops who attempted to stop him from driving a motorized scooter the wrong way down the street.
--:-- Host: Here to discuss the case is Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short.
--:-- Ash Short: Ash, a really disturbing and nearly fatal case here. First, what exactly happened?
--:-- Ash Short: So early Monday, two NYPD cops saw Mata riding the scooter and attempted to pull him over but he hopped off and fled The officers The police pursued him and he pulled out an illegal gun and began firing at them striking 26 Christopher Abreu in the leg and his 26 partner Richard Yeruso in the front of his bulletproof vest.
--:-- Ash Short: That's the only reason he's alive today. Mata was also injured. One of the officers shot him in the ankle and he was taken to a local hospital for surgery.
--:-- Ash Short: Now, one of the really frustrating aspects of this case is that the illegal immigrant accused in this shooting, This isn't his first serious alleged crime, correct?
--:-- Ash Short: Right. He's also a suspect in several robbery investigations in Queens, including one where a woman was allegedly attacked and her credit cards were stolen.
--:-- Ash Short: Here's Joseph Kenney, chief of detectives, during a press conference after the shooting.
--:-- Ash Short: Kenney explained the rise in robberies using motorized scooters. These crimes include shootings, robberies, and phone snatches. Year to date so far this year, we have over 80 robbery patterns citywide involving incidents where the perpetrators are riding motorized scooters or motorcycles.
--:-- Ash Short: That's over 80 robbery patterns alone encompassing over hundreds and hundreds of incidents.
--:-- Ash Short: Several robbery investigations, yet he was out on the streets. Right.
--:-- Ash Short: And as Morning Wire has reported here before, this isn't the only attack on cops that we've seen by people in the country illegally either.
--:-- Ash Short: Right. There have been a number of incidents that have made national headlines recently.
--:-- Ash Short: In February, a 15-year-old in the country illegally, also from Venezuela, was arrested after he allegedly shot a security guard and police officers during a robbery attempt in Times Square.
--:-- Ash Short: Also in February, an illegal immigrant from Jamaica shot three police officers in D.C., leading to an hours-long standoff.
--:-- Ash Short: He was eventually arrested. And in March, a 19-year-old illegal immigrant from Guatemala was released by ICE, even though he was charged with the murder of a Florida police sergeant last year.
--:-- Ash Short: And that doesn't include the murders and attacks on U.S. citizens who aren't cops.
--:-- Ash Short: So despite what some political and media figures say, this isn't that rare of an occurrence. Not really.
--:-- Ash Short: And many expect it to continue to get worse under the Biden administration.
--:-- Ash Short: In fact, we've just learned that the administration has quietly closed nearly 350,000 asylum cases over the past two and a half years without ordering those claiming asylum to be deported or granting them what they seek.
--:-- Ash Short: The administration has also handed out millions of work permits to those who have come to this country illegally, in many cases even bypassing laws requiring them to live in the U.S. for six months before applying for a permit.
--:-- Ash Short: We've been hearing for months now that President Biden is planning some sort of executive order to start to address the border crisis as the election approaches.
--:-- Ash Short: What's the latest there?
--:-- Ash Short: Well, this week, Biden is expected to sign an executive order that would ban those who enter the country illegally from claiming asylum once they're caught.
--:-- Ash Short: The problem is whether or not the administration will actually enforce such a ban.
--:-- Ash Short: The administration's records so far on this suggest it won't. In fact, it has consistently worked against governors who have tried to enforce federal law.
--:-- Ash Short: Right, well, here on Morning Wire, a lot of those battles have been covered, especially in Texas.
--:-- Ash Short: Ash, thanks for the reporting.
--:-- Ash Short: You're welcome. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.
--:-- [Music transitions to a more upbeat tone]
--:-- Host: Is your business selling a little or a lot? Shopify helps you do your thing. However, you shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business from the launch your online shop stage all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage.
--:-- Host: Shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers with the internet's best converting checkout which is 36 better on average compared to the other leading commerce platforms.
--:-- Host: Get a one dollar per month trial at shopify.com slash morningwire. That's shopify.com slash morningwire.
