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--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm Georgia Howe.
--:-- Host John Bickley: And I'm John Bickley, Daily Wire's Editor-in-Chief.
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--:-- Host John Bickley: Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas visits the southern border just days before a House effort to impeach him is set to begin. He stood in front of my committee on multiple occasions and insisted that the border is closed and secure when everyone in America knows it's not true. Will Republicans have the votes necessary?
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, January 9th, and this is Morning Wire. House Republicans move to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress as new claims come to light about who was involved in his alleged influence-peddling schemes. We expect people to comply with our lawful subpoenas, regardless of what your last name is. And China's population is in steep decline. What's behind the low birth rate and what's the government doing to turn it around? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- Host John Bickley: For 35% off, plus a free fiber and spice in your first order as a preferred customer. That's balanceofnature.com promo code WIRE.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas visited the southern border on Monday, just days before Republicans' hearings to impeach him are set to officially kick off. Here to discuss the visit and the upcoming proceedings is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presses Giacomo.
--:-- Amanda Presses Giacomo: Hey, thanks for having me.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: So tell us about this visit from Mayorkas and the timing of this whole thing.
--:-- Amanda Presses Giacomo: Yeah, sure thing. So Mayorkas was very clearly trying to signal that he's working to handle the border crisis despite all of this widespread criticism. The very important backdrop, though, as Georgia mentioned, are these impeachment hearings that are starting tomorrow, just two days after this visit.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Here's Mayorkas addressing the crisis. With respect to your question about the December surge, that was certainly an extraordinarily high number of encounters. It coincides with a time when Mexican enforcement was no longer implemented. The Immigration Enforcement Agency in Mexico was not funded. It is what prompted President Biden to reconnect with President López Obrador, as he has done consistently throughout his administration.
--:-- Amanda Presses Giacomo: Mayorkas visited the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, the city's mayor, Rolando Salinas, actually commented on the timing of the visit. He said he was pleased to have Mayorkas come and see what's going on, but he said he's been pleading with the federal government for a long time to get some help. He also said it would have been nice for Mayorkas to visit a few weeks ago. That's when Eagle Pass saw a peak in the flow of migrants, and they were literally taking over large fields waiting to be processed.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Right. I saw reports on that Republicans are gearing up to impeach Mayorkas and that starts tomorrow. What can we expect?
--:-- Amanda Presses Giacomo: Republicans are going to make the case that Mayorkas is not enforcing federal immigration law and is therefore violating his oath to uphold the Constitution. They've said that this is a willful dereliction of duty. Mayorkas has blatantly lied about the border on multiple occasions to Congress under oath, and he's lied to the American people at least 58 times.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Here's Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson during an interview on Meet the Press. I believe Secretary Mayorkas is an abject failure, but it's not because of incompetence. I believe he has done this intentionally. I think these are intentional policy decisions that he's made, and I think there must be accountability for that. Secretary Mayorkas is not a good-faith negotiating partner. He is unwilling to enforce existing federal law. Why would we believe that he would do any new provision? He's lied to Congress repeatedly. He's lied to me personally.
--:-- Amanda Presses Giacomo: Republicans will no doubt also talk about crime and national security as it relates to the border. There are estimates as high as 8 million migrants who've been apprehended or crossed over our southern border illegally during Biden's tenure thus far. According to the Department of Homeland Security, there were a record-breaking number of encounters in 2022 in more fentanyl-related crimes in the past two years than in the past five years combined. Republicans also say that the flow of illegals found to be on the terrorist watch list has increased some 2,500 percent.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Do Republicans expect to be successful in this impeachment effort? What are their chances looking like?
--:-- Amanda Presses Giacomo: There's a tiny margin here that Republicans are working under if they want to get this done. We're talking a two-vote margin for dissent from Republicans possibly. But ultimately, yes, Republicans do seem confident that they will impeach Mayorkas. This is a winning issue for the GOP politically. I mean, even prominent Democrats have had to publicly admit that there's a border crisis that needs addressing. So Republicans and even moderate districts or those who've said they're uncomfortable with moving to impeach Biden, they've signaled that they're a yes on impeaching Mayorkas.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Wrapping this up here, what are some things being floated that can be done right now to fix this crisis?
--:-- Amanda Presses Giacomo: Well, Republicans would argue that enforcing existing law would be a start and then re-implementing some Trump-era policies that seem to have worked. Tom Homan, who was acting director of immigration and customs enforcement under Trump, he said on Monday that Congress passing H.R. 2 would make a huge difference. Here he is on Fox News. H.R. 2 is a recipe for success. And how do we know that? Because we did it under the last administration, the Trump administration. All the elements of H.R. 2 are important. You can't piecemeal, we'll take this piece, we'll take that piece, because they're all interrelated. You've got the whole parole policy that is being abused. You've got the asylum system being abused. You've got catch and release. You've got the Remain of Mexico. These are major pillars of HR2. It's like making a cake. You've got a recipe to make a cake. If you leave the elements out, like flour or eggs, that cake's not going to be very good. If the Democrats are serious, they really want to secure this border, they would accept HR2 and implement it because it has proven to work.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Amanda, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Amanda Presses Giacomo: You're welcome.
--:-- Host John Bickley: House Republicans published a resolution on Monday to hold Hunter Biden in contempt for his refusal to appear before Congress. Lawmakers sought Hunter's testimony late last year as part of the impeachment investigation into his father, President Biden. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to discuss.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So, Tim, we've been expecting this for a few weeks now. What does this mean for Hunter?
--:-- Host John Bickley: Right. Republicans said this would be the result after Hunter publicly defied a subpoena in a press conference on Capitol Hill a few weeks ago. Here Congressman James Comer chairman of the Oversight Committee talking last week on Newsmax on next steps for the resolution. So it going to be treated like any other piece of legislation. It's my understanding it will go through two committees of jurisdiction, the Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee chaired by Jim Jordan. So he and I work very closely together, especially in this investigation. The committees should pass those contempts out with at least a party-line vote, and then they'll be ready to go on the full floor. And I'm confident that the House Republicans want to hold people accountable.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The resolution came with a 19-page report. Is there anything new in there?
--:-- Host John Bickley: Not really. The report summarizes what we've learned through Congress's investigation into alleged Biden family corruption. From the Biden family's web of financial accounts to Hunter's business dealings and President Biden's brushes with Hunter's business partners. The report also details why Hunter's testimony is so important for two reasons, and those are for Congress's impeachment investigation into the president and to craft anti-corruption legislation as part of its oversight function. According to the report, the committees want information on whether President Biden either traded access or took official action in order to enrich or improperly benefit himself or his family.
--:-- Tim Pierce: But whatever the reasons for the subpoena, Comer isn't optimistic his resolution will be enforced. Here he was last week in an interview with podcaster and commentator Leo Terrell. You could imagine my expectation levels are low, but it's level and Merrick Garland is low.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Congressman Jamie Raskin, he's the top Democrat on oversight. He said in a statement that there's no precedent to justify a contempt charge in this case. The case being a private citizen who has offered to testify in a public hearing. Republicans say that Raskin has changed his tune from a couple years ago when he said this about witnesses to the January 6th committee. The lesson is, please tell your children out there in America, if you get a subpoena to go before Congress or you get a subpoena to go to the court, go. You have a legal responsibility to go.
--:-- Tim Pierce: On Saturday night, we learned that President Biden had direct interaction with yet another of Hunter's business partners. What can you tell us about that?
--:-- Host John Bickley: Right. According to a report in the New York Post, Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klischko was a, quote, core shareholder in a subsidiary of the now notorious energy company Burisma. According to the report, Klischko is believed to have met Hunter in 2012, a couple years before Hunter joined the board of Burisma. Klischko was then a core part in establishing Burisma Geothermal in August 2015, about four months before Klischko met with then-Vice President Biden during his trip to Ukraine in December 2015. One of the results of that trip was, as Joe Biden bragged about later, the ouster of Prosecutor General Victor Shokin, who had been investigating Burisma at the time.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So another significant finding that underscores the need for transparency on this.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Thanks for joining us, Tim.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: According to a stunning new report, China's birth rate fell dramatically last year, sparking new efforts from the Chinese Communist Party to spur population growth. Here with more on the impact of those declining birth rates and how Beijing is looking to counter it is Daily Wire's senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So, I can tell you that China's population is set to enter an absolute free fall as things currently stand. That's because new data from Beijing shows that last year, 9.5 million babies were born across the entire country, a country of 1.4 billion people, I might add. For context, in 2016, 18 million babies were born there. So the number of new births annually has been cut in half in less than a decade. That means that China's total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has over her lifetime, now sits at 1.09. Remember a 2 fertility rate is needed for a country to simply maintain its population year over year.
--:-- Host John Bickley: And that declining birth rate is already impacting the country population correct?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, you absolutely right. So last year, China's population actually shrank for the first time since the Great Famine there of the 1960s. And the rate of decline, while slow at the moment, is almost certain to accelerate as the country's population continues to age. At the moment, their population is projected to be cut in half by the end of this century. The UN, for example, projects their population to decline by 700 million by the year 2100, while other projections show them losing a billion with a B, people over that same time frame. It's just hard to fathom.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Yeah, it really is. So what's causing this decline?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, a big factor is China's now defunct one-child policy, which from 1980 to 2016 restricted most families from having multiple children over fears, ironically, of overpopulation. Yeah. That brutal policy created an enormous gender imbalance as millions of families aborted baby girls with the hopes of making their one child a son who carry on their family line and provide financial support long term. Now, as a result of that policy, China now has the largest gender disparity on earth by a wide margin with tens of millions more young men than young women.
--:-- Host John Bickley: There's also the fact that fewer people are getting married in China than at any point in recorded history. Last year, across the entire country, just 6.8 million couples registered to marry. That is half the number we saw as recently as 2013.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So again, just a major cultural shift that has Beijing scrambling right now.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Yeah, you can see why. What's being done to reverse all of this?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So the Chinese Communist Party is doing everything they can to encourage people to have children. In the past, the government would help cover hospital bills for new parents and offer paid parental leave, but only for married couples. Now, though, a number of provinces are offering that same funding for single mothers, something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago when mothers faced fines for having children out of wedlock. The CCP has also begun organizing state-funded speed dating events and pleading with college students to donate to sperm banks. On the Chinese equivalent of Valentine's Day, the government sent an automated greeting to young people saying, quote, wishing you sweet love and marriage at an appropriate age, let's extend the Chinese bloodline. They're now even subsidizing the cost of IVF treatments, which it's worth noting were not even legal in the country until 2001. They're also looking to crack down on activities that might make it harder to find a spouse. For example, last year, the CCP implemented mandatory time limits on video games for young people and also restricted the amount of money they can spend on gaming platforms.
--:-- Host John Bickley: So they're trying everything at this point.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, sounds pretty desperate.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Now, what sort of impact will this declining population have on China as a whole, as a country?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So yeah, that could be an entire episode on its own. But the timing of this crisis really could not be worse as China has been undergoing a major economic slowdown in recent years. Now, for years, they had the largest workforce on Earth and as a result became dominant in global manufacturing. But as their population growth starts to reverse and people age out of the workforce, there simply will not be enough new workers to replace those leaving. At the moment, there are five working age people for every one senior citizen. But 25 years from now, that ratio will be 1.6 to 1. And those retiring will begin to serve as a major drag on the economy. Remember, China has 166 million people over the age of 65. That is twice as many as any country on Earth. That aging population will only further exacerbate their economic woes at a time when fewer babies than ever are being born there. There are really converging crises going on right now for China.
--:-- Host Georgia Howe: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
--:-- Host John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
