--:-- [Upbeat music fades out]
--:-- John Bickley: This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two-factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for 40% off. Terms apply.
--:-- John Bickley: Another legal battle is brewing over the deportation of half a million migrants allowed into the U.S. by Biden. They illegally entered our country and the president is not going to tolerate that. So we will continue to focus on deporting as many individuals as we can. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. Georgia Howe is off today. It's Wednesday, April 16th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: President Trump pulls the federal funding rug out from under NPR, PBS, and Harvard. Will it hold up in Congress and the courts? And why are the American taxpayers subsidizing a university that has billions of dollars in the bank already? And we certainly should not be funding a place where such grave anti-Semitism exists. And Mark Zuckerberg is back in the hot seat as Facebook is accused of antitrust practices and cozying up to China. Does the government have the power to force Meta to sell off WhatsApp and Instagram?
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- Brandon: Hey guys, producer Brandon here. I want to introduce you to Beam's Dream Powder. It's a healthy nighttime blend packed with science-backed ingredients shown to improve sleep so you can wake up refreshed. Dream is made with powerful all-natural ingredients such as reishi, magnesium, and L-theanine, among others. Try Beam's best-selling Dream Powder and get up to 40% off for a limited time. Head over to shopbeam.com slash wire and use code wire at checkout.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Border crossings continue to fall at a historic pace as president Trump takes new steps to prevent illegal immigrants from accessing taxpayer benefits. I'm Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Hey, so let's start with the latest attempt to block the administration's immigration order. Where does that stand now?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So, quick refresher. In recent years, the Biden administration enacted a controversial humanitarian parole program that offered legal status and two-year work permits to migrants from Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua. In total, more than 530,000 people from those countries took advantage of the program and flew directly to the US.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Back in March, President Trump moved to revoke legal status for those migrants, giving them until April 24th to leave the country or face deportation. But this week, a federal judge appointed by President Obama blocked that effort, saying the Trump administration must instead offer each migrant a case-by-case review before revoking legal status.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt addressed the ruling yesterday with strong words for the judge. Another rogue district court judge is trying to block the administration's mass deportation efforts with this latest injunction. We will fight this in the court of law.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, to the numbers from the border, we've seen a just stunning turnaround. What's the situation there now?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yes, the latest report from CBP confirmed that border crossings fell 95% last month compared to the same month last year. There were just 7,100 migrants apprehended across the entire month of March.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For context, that's about how many migrants came in every single day during Biden's term in office.
--:-- Tom Homan: We did in three weeks what Biden didn't do in four years. Right now, as you and I are talking right now, we have the most secure border in the history of this nation, and the data proves it.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And according to The New York Times, the White House is now seeking $45 billion in additional funding to construct new detention facilities so they can expedite their mass deportation effort.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And it's certainly worth noting, the American people continue to express wide support for the president's efforts on immigration. Latest polling from Harvard shows that 74% of Americans support deporting illegal immigrants who've committed additional crimes.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That figure includes even 63% of Democrats. And at the same time, 70% support closing the border and expanding security measures. Hard to find something Americans are so united on.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, as part of his effort to lock down the border, President Trump is also eyeing additional military support. What's he looking to do?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: A fascinating story here. So this week, the president is moving to give the Department of Defense control over hundreds of miles of the southern border.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For context, back in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt designated the land directly across from the border in California, Arizona, and New Mexico as federal property. It became known as the Roosevelt Reservation.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Historically, that land has been controlled by the Department of Interior. But now Trump is transferring it to the DOD, essentially making it part of a giant army installation.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That means migrants crossing the border illegally in those states can now be charged with trespassing on military property, which will make it easier for them to be deported.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, the left has long argued the federal law prohibits the military from protecting the border because generally service members are not allowed to take part in domestic law enforcement.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But by making this huge swath of the border military property, the Trump administration can now argue those troops are simply guarding a military facility, which just so happens to cover hundreds of miles of our border.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Pretty strategic move there.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, the president is also taking steps to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining taxpayer benefits. What's going on with that?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So on Tuesday, the White House announced that Trump would be signing a presidential memorandum to block those living here illegally from receiving Social Security benefits.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That move will also expand the number of fraud investigators combing through records to ensure that only American citizens are receiving not just Social Security, but also Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And this all follows news that the White House has already requested that the names of 6,000 illegal immigrants be added to Social Security's database of dead people.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The White House says those individuals have been receiving payouts despite having been convicted of additional crimes or even being placed on the terror watch list.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: One official told the New York Times the hope is that cutting the benefits will encourage them to self-deport. A trend we've seen pick up already.
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--:-- Megan Basham: President Trump is renewing his push to strip NPR and PBS of their funding, while also freezing over $2 billion in federal grants earmarked for Harvard. The moves have sparked heated debate, with supporters calling it a step toward fiscal responsibility and critics warning it threatens independent journalism and academic freedom.
--:-- Megan Basham: Here were the details. It's Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: Hey, Megan. So before we get to Harvard, I want to start with NPR and PBS. Conservatives have talked about defunding them for years now, but never really acted on it. Why now?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, you know, one thing I think they have the political winds at their backs as trust in the media is at an all-time low. So you have a lot of Americans who are sympathetic to the idea that we don't need to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on these entities that a lot of people view as very biased.
--:-- Megan Basham: President Trump specifically accused NPR of being a mouthpiece for the radical left. So he's calling on Republicans in Congress to introduce legislation that rescinds the funds that had been previously approved.
--:-- Megan Basham: So that mouthpiece for the radical left comment, what's the basis for that characterization?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, I think that the congressional hearings that were held three weeks ago provided plenty of fodder for why people are saying that. So during questioning of NPR CEO Catherine Marr, we learned that all 87, meaning 100 percent of NPR's board, are registered Democrats.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then Marr was also asked to defend some of her public statements. Have a listen to this exchange with Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee.
--:-- Megan Basham: Let me ask you, why did you call President Trump a fascist and a deranged racist sociopath in 2020?
--:-- Megan Basham: Congressman, I appreciate the opportunity to address this. I regret those tweets. I would not tweet them again today. They represented a time where I was reflecting on something that I believe that the president had said rather than who he is. I don't presume that anyone is a racist.
--:-- Megan Basham: She also acknowledged what she called mistakes in NPR's coverage. Now, as for whether this rescission proposal goes through, that's always a tough sell. And there will be a real uphill battle to get it through both the House and the Senate.
--:-- Megan Basham: So if you're betting, I guess it's not going to make it. But, you know, you never know with Trump.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, quickly turning to Harvard, then another showdown coming to a head here. Walk us through this $2.2 billion freeze.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, sure. So the administration froze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard after the university refused demands to overhaul its policies.
--:-- Megan Basham: And the White House is saying that a total of $9 billion in funding could ultimately be on the table. The White House also, through its Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, claims Harvard hasn't done enough to address antisemitism tied to radical anti-Israel and pro-Hamas campus protests.
--:-- Megan Basham: They demanded changes like banning face masks, which a lot of the protesters wear, and enforcing merit-based rather than race-based admissions.
--:-- Megan Basham: Harvard's president, Alan Garber, is rejecting this. He's calling it a violation of First Amendment rights and academic freedom.
--:-- Megan Basham: And he put out a statement saying no government, regardless of which party is in power, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can hire, and which areas study and inquiry they can pursue.
--:-- Tim Peer: FTC versus Meta Platforms Incorporated began in court this week. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat for his second day of testimony in the trial that risked breaking up his social media empire. Here to talk about the trial and the pressure on Zuckerberg from Congress is Daily Wire reporter Tim Peer.
--:-- Tim Peer: Say, Tim, so first, what is this trial about? It could be a massive blow to Meta.
--:-- Tim Peer: This case was originally brought in President Trump's first term, and it's taken over four years to work through the courts. The FTC says that Meta is a monopoly that has bought its way out of competing.
--:-- Tim Peer: The government argues that when Facebook paid $1 billion for Instagram in 2012 and then bought WhatsApp in a nearly billion deal in 2014 Facebook illegally cornered what the FTC calls the personal social networking market.
--:-- Tim Peer: According to the government, the only other major competitors to Facebook are Snapchat and an app called MeWe. Meta disputes this. It says the market is actually much larger and includes TikTok, YouTube, and X.
--:-- Tim Peer: For instance, when TikTok had an outage earlier this year, Instagram saw its usage spike, which suggests that people use the sites interchangeably.
--:-- Tim Peer: Another point that Meta has made is that by going after it, the Trump administration is helping the Chinese-owned TikTok even more after Trump earlier this month extended the pause on a congressionally approved ban on that app.
--:-- Tim Peer: Now, this trial is expected to go on for eight weeks, so there will be plenty more ahead. But if Meta loses, it could be forced to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp. And that would be a big loss, obviously.
--:-- Tim Peer: Now, the president and his allies in the past have been highly critical of Facebook. Social media censorship comes to mind. How does that play into this trial?
--:-- Tim Peer: Yeah, there are certainly plenty of people who see this trial as karma or retribution against Zuckerberg, from the censorship of conservative accounts to spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2020 election.
--:-- Tim Peer: Zuckerberg has reportedly tried to lobby Trump in the past few months to drop the FTC lawsuit. Zuckerberg visited the White House a handful of times and settled a lawsuit over Facebook's suspension of Trump over January 6th.
--:-- Tim Peer: Facebook agreed to pay $25 million for that settlement, $22 million of which will go toward Trump's presidential library. Despite all that, the trial has gone ahead anyway.
--:-- Tim Peer: And this isn't the only trouble Zuckerberg's having in Washington. He's also got Congress really looking into the censorship issue now. What's the latest there?
--:-- Tim Peer: Yeah, last week, Sarah Wynne-Williams testified to Congress about allegedly illegal ties Facebook has developed with the Chinese Communist Party.
--:-- Tim Peer: Wynne-Williams served as Meta's Director of Global Public Policy for nearly seven years until she was fired from the company in 2017.
--:-- Tim Peer: Here's some of her whistleblower testimony. Mark Zuckerberg pledged himself a free speech champion. Yet I witnessed Meta work hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party to construct and test custom-built censorship tools that silenced and censored their critics.
--:-- Tim Peer: When Beijing demanded that Facebook delete the account of a prominent Chinese dissident living on American soil, they did it, and then lied to Congress when asked about the incident in a Senate hearing.
--:-- Tim Peer: The willingness to censor was not the only troubling thing I witnessed. I watched as executives decided to provide the Chinese Communist Party with access to Meta user data, including that of Americans.
--:-- Tim Peer: Meta does not dispute these facts. They can't. I have the documents.
--:-- Tim Peer: Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter to Zuckerberg Tuesday demanding answers about allegations that Meta tried to silence and retaliate against Wynne Williams and how those allegations could amount to trouble for Facebook from the Security and Exchange Commission.
--:-- Tim Peer: So a lot of pressure on Meta and Zuckerberg right now. It seems like Zuckerberg's recent commitment to making Facebook a free speech platform hasn't really won it much goodwill at this point.
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