--:-- [Upbeat music fades out, and the host, Georgia Howe, speaks]
--:-- Georgia Howe: 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 news theme]
--:-- Georgia Howe: Violent rhetoric and attacks on ICE agents are on the rise as Democrats try to paint deportation efforts as evil. But are Americans buying it? Would you support a new government program that would deport all people living in the U.S. illegally? And that finds majority favor. That finds six in ten.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Georgia Howe. John is off this week, but Cabot Phillips is here. It's Friday, July 11th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Thanks for having me, Georgia.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The man prosecuted by the Biden DOJ for his text-to-vote-for-Hillary meme just had his conviction overturned. Now he's turning the tables on the people who targeted him.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I think it's egregious. I think that it's weaponization and politicized justice. And I think it's misconduct.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And from hiring wars to impersonations of top government officials, The race for AI dominance has reached a fever pitch.
--:-- [Music transitions to a business theme]
--:-- Georgia Howe: They started making these like giant offers to, you know, a lot of people on our team. You know, like $100 million signing bonuses.
--:-- [Music transitions back to the news theme]
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It's an interesting time for business with tariff and trade policies shifting constantly, supply chains, fueling the squeeze, and cash flows tighter than ever. If your business can't adapt in real time to these rapidly changing conditions, you're going to find yourself in a world of hurt.
--:-- [Guest speaker, NetSuite representative, speaks]
--:-- NetSuite Representative: NetSuite by Oracle gives you the total visibility you need across everything from global shipments and tariff impacts to real-time cash flow through their AI-powered business management suite that's already trusted by over 41,000 businesses.
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--:-- NetSuite Representative: NetSuite helps you instantly identify what's stuck in your operations, understanding exactly what it's costing you, and figure out how to pivot fast when you need to make changes.
--:-- NetSuite Representative: Tame the chaos with NetSuite. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, download the free e-book, Navigating Global Trade, Three Insights for Leaders at netsuite.com slash morningwire.
--:-- [Music transitions to a news theme]
--:-- Georgia Howe: ICE agents are under attack across the U.S. as they carry out President Donald Trump's deportation agenda. The rise in violence has now sparked calls to tone down the rhetoric as political battles rage over immigration.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about threats to ICE agents, as well as the latest setback to Trump's immigration agenda in the courts.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hey, so first off, where is the danger to ICE agents coming from? Well, lately, it's been more random and for that more dangerous.
--:-- Tim Pierce: At an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, a group of people clad in black military-style clothes used fireworks to lure out ICE officers while a gunman waited in the woods. One ICE agent was shot in the neck. He's thankfully expected to recover.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Ten of those perpetrators have been charged with attempted murder. It was a planned ambush with the intent to kill ICE corrections officers. Make no mistake, this was not a so-called peaceful protest.
--:-- Tim Pierce: In Oregon, three more people are facing charges after they allegedly assaulted officers at an ICE facility in Portland. The officers were kicked, punched, and attacked with an incendiary device.
--:-- Tim Pierce: In McAllen, Texas, two police officers and a Border Patrol agent were hospitalized after a gunman fired dozens of rounds into a Border Patrol facility.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And also this week in San Francisco, anti-protesters attacked ICE agents in an apparent attempt to stop their black van from leaving an area.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, what the White House response to this been? Well, first, the administration has pointed out that these attacks just aren't serious but they're becoming more common as well.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Here's Border R, Tom Homan on Fox News. The attack on ICE officers, you've covered it many times, is up nearly 700 percent now.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The radical against the men and women of ICE is skyrocketing, especially by members of Congress. We have senators, we have congresspeople that compare ICE to the Nazis, compare ICE to racism, and it just continues.
--:-- [Music transitions to a news theme]
--:-- Georgia Howe: For example, here is L.A. Mayor Karen Bass comparing deportations to kidnappings.
--:-- Georgia Howe: People are walking down the street, a car will pull up, no license plate, men will jump out, completely mask, pull guns on whoever it is, and take them away.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Aside from the fact that this is unconstitutional? How do we know the difference between this and a kidnapping?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Some say this radical rhetoric is actually part of a larger strategy by Democrats to provoke ICE and cut down support for Trump's most popular issue.
--:-- [Guest speaker, Andrew Woolworth, speaks]
--:-- Andrew Woolworth: The idea of trying to provoke an overreaction on the part of ICE is part of the strategy. The attacks may be having effect because Trump's overall approval on immigration appears to be falling recently.
--:-- Georgia Howe: For their part, Democrats want to ban ICE agents from wearing face coverings during operations.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We don't live in a country, an authoritarian country, where we have secret police who are masked, who are intimidating, who are scaring people. That's the stuff of authoritarian states.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Of course, that legislation will never get the president's signature.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here's Trump. It's sort of funny when people picket in front of Columbia, in front of Harvard, and they have masks on, more than masks.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I mean, you can't see anything. Nobody complains about that. But when a patriot who works for ICE or Border Patrol puts a mask on so that they won't recognize him and his family so they can lead a little bit of a normal life after having worked so hard and so dangerously. There's a problem with that.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, I want to ask you about a court ruling coming out of New Hampshire this past week relating to Trump's order on birthright citizenship.
--:-- [Guest speaker, Tim Pierce, speaks]
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, the judge granted class action status in a case that was brought by just one pregnant immigrant.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So the order applies to all potential babies born in the United States, regardless of the parents' legal status.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, it's worth noting that this decision may run afoul of a recent Supreme Court decision blocking nationwide injunctions in cases of birthright citizenship. That's how the administration sees it anyway.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Attorney General Pam Bondi has already hit this case in particular as an attempt to run around the Supreme Court.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, very interesting if they're going to give unborn babies a right.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Good to be on.
--:-- Georgia Howe: You know that nagging feeling about the doctor's appointment you've been putting off forever? Maybe it's that dentist cleaning you're now six months overdue for. Whatever it is, today might actually be the day to stop procrastinating.
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--:-- ZocDoc Representative: With ZocDoc, you can find and book the right doctor entirely online, and honestly, you'll probably have an appointment booked before the end of this ad.
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--:-- ZocDoc Representative: They've got over 100,000 doctors across every specialty you can think of, mental health, dental, primary care, urgent care, you name it.
--:-- ZocDoc Representative: The best part is you can filter for exactly what matters. Doctors who take your insurance are nearby and have great ratings from actual patients.
--:-- ZocDoc Representative: Most appointments happen within 24 to 72 hours, but you can often get same day slots when you need them.
--:-- ZocDoc Representative: So stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to ZocDoc.com slash wire to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.
--:-- [Music transitions to a news theme]
--:-- Georgia Howe: A Trump supporter who was prosecuted by the Biden DOJ over memes he posted online had his case tossed by an appeals court scoring a major victory for free speech.
--:-- [Guest speaker, Amanda Prestigiacomo, speaks]
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Hey, Amanda. So we've been covering this case from the very start on Morning Wire.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Just remind our listeners first of who Douglas Mackey is, and then tell us about his legal win.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Yeah, so Douglas Mackey had a popular pro-Trump account on Twitter, now called X, during the 2016 election, just days after Joe Biden took office in 2021.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: The Biden DOJ arrested Mackey and prosecuted him over memes he posted four years prior. One of the memes in question mocked Hillary Clinton supporters and said they could text their vote and avoid the polls.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Similar jokes were made online about Trump supporters. The DOJ claimed this was a mass conspiracy, voter suppression and election interference.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Mackey was facing 10 years in prison. He was eventually convicted in New York City and sentenced to seven months behind bars.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now, he was able to avoid jail time as he appealed the case. And on Wednesday, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed Mackey's conviction, and they directed a lower court to enter a judgment of acquittal.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: I was able to speak to Mackey yesterday about this big win. I didn't expect that it would be such a resounding victory.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: It's extremely rare for a case, number one, to be overturned on appeal. Number two, it's extremely rare for the circuit court, the appeals court, to actually overrule the jury and say, no, the verdict was wrong.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: That's extremely rare and just goes to show how weak and non-existent the government's case against me was.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: All three of the judges sided with Mackey, and one of the judges, by the way, was appointed by Joe Biden.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And though a conviction at one time was secured, the case has largely been viewed as politically motivated.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: I asked Mackey why he thought the Biden DOJ went after him specifically.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Well, they targeted me, number one, because I supported Trump, but number two, because, you know, I had a lot of influence at the time.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And number three, they actually, Senator Klobuchar actually blew this meme up, put it on the Senate floor and said, well, Russia must have done this. Russia, you know, Russia did this.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So there was actually a Russiagate angle where they thought that if they arrested me and some other people for posting these memes, that they would somehow uncover some kind of Russian conspiracy theory, which ultimately only existed in their minds.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Though Mackey was ultimately acquitted, this legal saga was more than four years of his life, and it really took a toll on him and his family and his friends, he told me.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: For example, Mackey said his wife was pregnant during the trial and she actually had an emergency C-section while he was being sentenced in New York City.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Financially, Mackey said his legal fees totaled north of a million dollars.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now, moving forward, Mackey plans to file a civil lawsuit against the DOJ.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: He shared some details with us about that coming lawsuit.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: As the circuit court ruled, this case was brought without sufficient evidence. They didn't have any evidence of an actual conspiracy.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And that's just the first problem with the case. There are multiple. Based on that, we have to assume that they brought this case for political reasons, because why else would you bring this case?
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: I think that it's weaponization and politicized justice, and I think it's misconduct.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So, look, the damages are a lot. I mean, if we're talking about just purely legal fees, we're talking $1 million to $1.5 million that I had to raise.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And I spent a lot of my own money.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: I'll note that President Trump has personally talked about this case as an example of political persecution.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: And a White House policy advisor also cited Mackey's case when he was discussing Trump's executive order to end the weaponization of the federal government.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Mackey's team is confident that they'll be able to obtain a favorable outcome with this coming lawsuit.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, and a lot of First Amendment activists viewing this ruling as a victory for free speech.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Thanks so much for reporting.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: You're welcome.
--:-- [Music transitions to a news theme]
--:-- Georgia Howe: The race to develop advanced artificial intelligence is heating up and some tech giants are sparing no expense.
--:-- [Guest speaker, Michael Whitaker, speaks]
--:-- Michael Whitaker: So Michael, who are the leaders in the AI space right now? Well, right now, despite some effort from foreign companies and foreign governments, US companies definitely lead the field.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: There are some prominent newcomers like OpenAI and Anthropic, but many of the established firms also have a very strong presence in this field.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Everybody who is anybody wants to have a piece of the AI pie. We're talking Apple, NVIDIA, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, the list goes on.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Apple generally has underperformed many of its peer competitors in this sector. That being said, they do have a lot of expertise building smartphones and personal computers.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: They've spent much of their research efforts attempting to develop smaller AI models that can be integrated into their own hardware.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: So an AI tool could be on the phone or on the computer as opposed to being reliant upon an outside server connection.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: That little widget appears to have caught Mark Zuckerberg's attention. The Meta CEO reached out to some of Apple's top talent in an attempt to poach them for his own AI research lab.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Ruming Pong, the head of Apple's AI model research, has been poached for a cool $200 million to go work at Meta.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Sam Altman of OpenAI says his employees have received similar offers. They started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team. $100 million signing bonuses, more than that comp per year. That's crazy.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: And I'm actually, it is crazy. I'm really happy that at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: So 200 million for one employee is pretty astounding.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Now, another headline relating to AI just from this past week relates to deep fakes and phishing.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: So what is phishing? It's very similar to phishing, except with more virtual components, more AI.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: And it is a growing concern. We've all gotten robocalls or text messages asking for our driver's license or our social security number.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Hopefully we have the sense not to answer those. No judgment. But a growing number of these efforts are using deepfake voices to not only get personal information from individuals, but to compromise security at the highest levels of government.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Earlier this year in May, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had her contact list compromised.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Somebody had the bright idea to use a deepfake AI to impersonate her and reach out to congressmen, senators, senior business figures in an attempt to glean whatever information they could from those channels.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: The FBI put out a warning that month, letting people know that if you are contacted by a senior official, you should not automatically assume that is an authentic message.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: There was a similar case in the State Department where Secretary of Everything, officially Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was impersonated in a similar manner.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: The fakers were able to reach out to at least five people through Signal and other channels using text messages and voice messages that remarkably resembled what Rubio may have said based on his speech patterns, his voice, his cadence, even the word choice he might use.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: This is pretty sophisticated. But the trouble is, voice cloning isn't difficult, so there are no obvious suspects.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: At this point, almost anyone can do it.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Roll the tape.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Several companies offer free or cheap software that can convincingly replicate a person's voice and cadence with as little as 30 seconds of sample audio.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Anyone who has ever spoken in public or answered the wrong phone call could easily be spoofed.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Most of this answer was delivered by an AI, although to be fair, Michael already talks like a large language model, so he's pretty easy to copy.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: That was hurtful and unnecessary.
--:-- [Guest speaker, Leah Siskind, speaks]
--:-- Leah Siskind: You don't need much technical knowledge to learn how to produce these audio fakes. And what they'll do is they use AI to look for patterns in your accent, your tone, your pitch, your breathing patterns, all within that 30-second audio clip.
--:-- Leah Siskind: And from that, they'll be able to produce a very realistic mimic of your voice.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Well, very unnerving, especially for people who speak on podcasts for a living.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Thanks for reporting.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Thanks for having me and not replacing me with my AI double, who's cheaper.
--:-- Michael Whitaker: Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And if you're watching on YouTube, please like and subscribe.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.
