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--:-- Georgia Howe: Good morning, and welcome to Morning Wire. I'm Georgia Howe, and I'm here with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley.
--:-- John Bickley: Good morning, Georgia. Welcome back to Morning Wire.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: The rate of inflation has slowed, but prices still aren't coming down, and big banks are upping their warning about a recession. The fact that we have lower inflation does not mean we have lower prices, and that's what Americans really need today to have any kind of relief.
--:-- John Bickley: That's right, Georgia. And we're going to dive into the details of that in just a minute.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, August 15th, and this is Morning Wire. New documents reveal that Hunter Biden tried to broker a massive deal for the foreign company Burisma and asked a U.S. official for help. The fact that they have now run the bus over the president and he's no longer their liability anymore, the facts are starting to emerge from these departments.
--:-- John Bickley: And we're going to talk about that in just a minute. But first, let's get to the news you need to know.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: A key measure of inflation, the Consumer Price Index, rose at 2.9% this week. That's the first time it measured below 3 percent since 2021. And the Biden-Harris administration is touting that number as a success.
--:-- John Bickley: Here's White House Council of Economic Advisors Chair Jared Bernstein speaking on Wednesday.
--:-- Jared Bernstein: The momentum is certainly in the right direction. Inflation is reliably coming down. We have a record of disinflation, meaning slower inflation, that is now 60% or a little bit more than that off of its peak. And so this is a consistent trend that's moving in the right direction.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But these numbers mean inflation is still rising just at a slower rate.
--:-- John Bickley: Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips joins us to discuss. Hey, Cabot, so what should average Americans make of these numbers?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, while the White House and the Harris campaign may point to these numbers as a sign of progress, experts are not so sure.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I spoke to Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antony, who says that just because inflation is off the 9% record high we saw in 2022, it does not mean that we're out of the woods yet. Prices are still rising, and last month they rose faster than the average American's weekly paycheck did.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That, frankly, has been emblematic of the entire economic history of the Biden-Harris administration. And Tony says voters should be wary of any politicians saying the cooling consumer price index means that inflation is somehow in the past.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, if inflation was in the past, then we shouldn't have 2 inflation readings. We should have 0 inflation readings. Of course, that's not what's happening. And the reason for that is because we continue to have these excessive levels of government spending. We're going to borrow about $2 trillion this year. I mean, this is absolutely insane, but this is where we are.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, inflation is obviously a big issue for voters. Could these numbers actually move the needle ahead of Election Day? Well, it's certainly a possibility. And Tony says this week's inflation numbers, quote, essentially guarantee that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates before the end of the year.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, the big question there is if those cuts become before the election. If that does happen, he says it would likely seem to the American people to be more political. They are cutting into an election cycle for the purposes of temporarily juicing the economy.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Inflation is not trending towards the 2% target of the Federal Reserve. It's trending towards right about where we are, 2.9% or 3.0%. So you can't tell me anything other than politics is at play here. It certainly is not based solely on monetary policy.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Vice President Harris is expected to focus on rising prices in the coming weeks. And she's really trying to distance herself from these economic woes we've seen in the last few years.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Do these new inflation numbers help her? Well, they certainly could. But the broader problem for Harris is that she ultimately cannot separate herself from the Biden-Harris administration. Inflation is still up relative to before Biden and Harris took office, especially in places where Americans really feel sticker shock.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Since last year, for example, rent is up 5%, household energy costs up 4%, and car insurance is up 18.6%. And that's on top of the fact that prices more broadly from three-plus years ago are now up 30-plus percent.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So all of this inflation is compounding. And what about unemployment? We've seen Wall Street really worried about weak labor market numbers. How will that issue affect Harris?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, when I spoke to Antony, he mentioned that the historically low unemployment rate, which Democrats have talked about quite a bit, is, in his words, deeply misleading, as it's in large part due to the millions of people who never re-entered the workforce after COVID.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And one more troubling sign, several of the big banks, including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have upped the likelihood of a recession. J.P. Morgan economists say there is a 35% chance the U.S. economy enters recession before the end of the year. That's up from their last projection of 25%.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So a bit of a mixed bag, some positive signs. However, the more you dig, definitely plenty of warning signs as well for the U.S. economy.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: It's going to be fascinating to watch what happens in the coming weeks.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, let's talk about Hunter Biden's apparent foreign agent activity. New documents reveal that Hunter Biden tried to broker a massive deal for the foreign company Burisma and asked a U.S. official for help.
--:-- John Bickley: And we're going to talk about that with Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So, Tim, what was Hunter Biden after in relation to this project and Burisma?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, the New York Times reported this week that while he sat on the board of Burisma, Hunter Biden wrote a letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy. Now, according to Hunter's attorney, Abby Lowell, the president's son just wanted help with an introduction. Burisma was looking into a potential geothermal project in Sicily, and so Hunter wanted help getting a meeting with Sicily's president at the time.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Lowell told the Times that Hunter asked various people about making a connection, but no meeting occurred, no project materialized, no request for anything in the U.S. was ever sought. Only an introduction in Italy was requested.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, in the past, we've seen evidence that government officials were uncomfortable with Hunter's foreign business interests. Was that the case here as well?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, The Times reported that an official in the U.S. embassy in Rome said he wanted to be careful about promising too much to Hunter. In a memo, he noted that Burisma is a foreign company and said that to protect ourselves, the U.S. government should not be actively advocating with the government of Italy outside of the proper process.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, another part of the story that looks suspect is the timing. The Times reports that it filed an open records request for these documents in June of 2021. The State Department eventually released thousands of documents in response, but very few of them dealt directly with the center of the Times' requests.
--:-- Tim Pierce: That was Hunter's entanglements between U.S. officials and his business interests overseas. This latest revelation involving the ambassador to Italy came from a document released the week after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The State Department has suggested that the timing was coincidental, but the coincidence does seem strange. Well, and deserves more questions if there was, in fact, some sort of cover-up around Hunter Biden for political reasons.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, back to Hunter's entanglements. Could this run afoul of U.S. laws around foreign influence?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Right. This has been a serious concern of legal experts and Republicans who have investigated Hunter's influence peddling. And in fact, prosecutors with special counsel David Weiss outlined in a court filing last week evidence that the president's son may have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARRA for short, in accepting payment from a Romanian oligarch.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here's George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley explaining that on Fox News last week.
--:-- Jonathan Turley: It's very frustrating for many of us who've been writing for years that we don't understand why there was not a charge under FARRA for being an unregistered foreign agent. This record is replete with contracts that would seem to meet the standard used in earlier cases.
--:-- Tim Pierce: During the Trump administration, you couldn't have an official go to Epcot without getting a FARRA charge from the Justice Department. It seemed to be one of the most ubiquitous charges coming out of that department.
--:-- Georgia Howe: With Hunter Biden, they have consistently ignored overwhelming evidence that he was receiving millions to influence policy. So now, after all that time, Weiss files this thing with the court saying, oh, well, yeah, we know that he was directing this stuff because he was getting money to influence U.S. policy from this Romanian.
--:-- Tim Pierce: It's like saying, you know, we can prove auto theft because we know he used it in the kidnapping. And the question is, why did you charge him on the kidnapping?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, Hunter has never been charged with violating FARRA, but that's also been a major gripe of the critics on the way Hunter's prosecution has been handled.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Right. Well, that's also in addition to the sweetheart deal that fell apart and the IRS whistleblower testimony on DOJ interference.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In 2023, Denver, a city of 700,000 people, had the most immigrants per capita arriving of any city in the nation. Here to discuss is Daily Wire investigative reporter Maraid Alordi.
--:-- Maraid Alordi: Hi, John. Well, we know that at least 50,000 migrants have arrived in Denver over the past two years. Most of these migrants arrive from Texas by bus. An insider reports Texas Governor Greg Abbott explained that a one-way ticket from El Paso to Denver is the cheapest option available.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We should note, too, that many areas of the southwest have felt tremendous pressure from illegal migrants, including neighboring Aurora, Colorado. The owner of an Aurora apartment complex claims a dangerous Venezuelan gang, Tren de Uragua, took over his building, which has now been evacuated by the city.
--:-- Maraid Alordi: That gang was labeled a transnational criminal organization last month by the White House. One of the residents says there is a huge crime problem. I know it's been shootings here, but it's not because of people from here. It's people from other places that come here looking for problems.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We've been monitoring reports about that extremely alarming development there. So going back to Denver, where is the city feeling the most pressure?
--:-- Maraid Alordi: Health care and housing for migrants have become huge strains. The city's only safety net hospital is Denver Health, which has been struggling since 2021. It shouldered most of the health care for migrants with over 20,000 visits at the peak of the crisis.
--:-- Georgia Howe: CEO Donna Lynn reported that the hospital lost $136 million in 2023 due to uncompensated care. Here's Lynn.
--:-- Donna Lynn: While I have tremendous compassion for what's going on, it's heartbreaking. It's going to break Denver Health in a way that we didn't even anticipate. Because our operating costs exceed what our revenues are. We are turning down patients every day.
--:-- Maraid Alordi: In recent months, the hospital has had to defer maintenance costs. It's reduced employee salaries and even closed beds. The city's considering a sales tax increase to raise $70 million a year to stabilize the hospital's finances.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It's also considering another to fund affordable housing, which is projected to bring in $100 million to subsidize 20,000 new housing units.
--:-- Maraid Alordi: So aside from raising taxes to maintain these services, does the city have a long-term approach to the migrants themselves?
--:-- Maraid Alordi: Well, Denver did come up with a blueprint in April, the Denver Asylum Seekers Program, and presented it as a long-term solution for the city. But it only provides services for up to 1,000 migrants and carries a price tag of $90 million.
--:-- Georgia Howe: For up to six months, the program offers participants free housing and food, medical and legal assistance, school enrollment, and a work readiness program.
--:-- Maraid Alordi: So that would cover a tiny fraction of the migrants, and we assume more are still arriving. Right. Where will they find that $90 million?
--:-- Georgia Howe: About half the money required to cover the program comes from budget cuts to city departments. One of the agencies losing the most money is the Denver Police Department. It faces a cut of nearly $8.5 million just months after the mayor cited historic increases in crime in the city.
--:-- Maraid Alordi: Another significant portion of this funding will come from vacant government jobs. Ironically, the most common request from migrants is for work. Officials acknowledge that Denver does have job openings, but few migrants have legal working status.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here's Mayor Johnston with the tough reality of the situation.
--:-- Mayor Johnston: The reality is people are going to have to look for work on their own without state support or federal government approval if we want them to support themselves. So our choices are either help them find a way to support themselves or have the state or the city commit to supporting them permanently on our own.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We don't have the city budget to do that permanently.
--:-- Maraid Alordi: Interestingly, the Denver hotel industry has carved out a legal loophole to unofficially employ migrants. Hotel management offers migrants unpaid internships. In exchange, they donate to private charities which provide free housing and food.
--:-- Georgia Howe: There are no signed agreements, and the hotels cannot officially require anything from their interns. Sources say the parties involved must be extremely cautious because these deals can be very gray.
--:-- Maraid Alordi: Yeah, sounds like it. Either way, it's hard to find a solution that doesn't incentivize more illegal immigration.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Maraid, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Maraid Alordi: Thanks, John. Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know. Just go to ramp.com slash wire. That's ramp.com slash wire. R-A-M-P dot com slash wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Cards issued by Sutton Bank and Celtic Bank, member of FDIC. Terms and conditions apply.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
