--:-- [Upbeat music fades out]
--:-- Host John Bickley: This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID, and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info. And if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg vows to curb censorship on his social media platforms, calling Trump's re-election a tipping point on free speech. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas. And it's gone too far. What led to the change and how could it affect public discourse?
--:-- Host John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, January 8th, and this is Morning Wire. Donald Trump holds an extensive and newsworthy press conference outlining his second-term priorities. We're approaching the dawn of America's golden age. And DEI is off the menu as McDonald's scraps the controversial corporate policy.
--:-- Host John Bickley: The fact that everybody has some sort of connection to McDonald's means that when you see them do something, it feels like there's some extra power behind it. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- [Producer Brandon speaks in the background]
--:-- Producer Brandon: Hey, guys. My sleep in 2034 was awful. Tossing and turning all night, waking up exhausted. That all changed when I found Beam's Dream Powder, a science-backed, healthy nighttime blend for sleep.
--:-- Producer Brandon: Other sleep aids can cause next-day grogginess, but Dream contains a powerful, all-natural blend of reishi, magnesium, L-theanine, apigenin, and melatonin to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. Try Beam's best-selling dream powder and get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com slash wire and use code wire at checkout. That's shop B-E-A-M slash wire. Use code wire for up to 40% off.
--:-- Host John Bickley: The fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they've created. That was Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing that the companies' platforms, including Facebook, will no longer use fact-checkers to moderate content.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Here with more is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham. Hey, Megan. So the era of heavy-handed content policing at Facebook really began after Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Many Democrats and legacy media outlets began pressuring social media companies to crack down on what they called misinformation.
--:-- Megan Basham: That carried over to suppressing dissenting views on COVID, and eventually it came out that government agencies were actually pressuring these companies to censor specific users and outlets, including us here at The Daily Wire.
--:-- Megan Basham: Let's start with maybe an obvious question. Is Zuckerberg doing this now simply because of Trump's reelection?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, I would say there's no question that's what he's doing. So, you know, he was actually pretty transparent in his announcement that he sees the 2024 election as a message from the American people that this is a new era and that they want to see a return to free speech principles.
--:-- Megan Basham: He said that he plans to work with President Trump to push back on governments in Europe that are passing censorship laws and regulations. And he noted that the Biden administration actually worked against that effort during their tenure. And then he offered something of a mea culpa for letting his platforms become a big part of the problem.
--:-- Megan Basham: We've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech Now part of that simplification is community notes that allow for crowdsourced fact checks that simply add corrections or context to the bottom of posts rather than removing them or de them Zuckerberg also says that they're going to be promoting civic content again, so political content, because he believes that people do want to see that.
--:-- Megan Basham: And he said that the platforms are also going to get rid of some restrictions on hot-button topics like immigration and gender in order to allow more opinions to be expressed. And then this was a really interesting one. He said they'll be moving the content moderation team from California to Texas to help draw from a less biased talent pool.
--:-- Megan Basham: Is there a sense here that this will be part of a broader effort on Meta's part to embrace more political balance?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, I think so. I think what we're seeing, as my kids might call it, is a pretty clear vibe shift from Meta. So first we saw Zuckerberg donate $1 million to Trump's inauguration. And then Meta announced it was replacing its policy chief, Nick Clegg, who previously worked in British politics on the political left, with a known conservative, Joe Kaplan, who just last month appeared at the New York Stock Exchange with Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Trump.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then, this is a biggie, on Monday, Meta announced that major Trump booster Dana White would be joining the board. So with all of this and the community notes announcement, pretty clear Zuckerberg's not being shy and publicly trying to ingratiate himself with the new administration.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah. Now, we'd imagine that many individuals and media outlets that Meta has censored are still going to approach Zuckerberg's new position pretty cautiously, correct?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yes, definitely. And some are saying that, look, this is all well and good, but they do still want to see some real accountability for Meta's past censorship. One example is Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro, who celebrated the prospect of the change that's coming. But he did also stress that we actually need to see more than talk from Meta.
--:-- Megan Basham: A commitment to free speech by social media needs to last longer than whomever is in the office. And that has not been the case. That has not been the case. And Zuckerberg acknowledges as much. He acknowledges that Facebook literally changed its standards because of Joe Biden and Democrats in office.
--:-- Megan Basham: Molly Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist, also weighed in on X on Tuesday, demanding accountability for what Meta has done over the last eight years. I know a lot of people, including us here at The Daily Wire, are going to be watching very closely to see if Facebook's walk matches its talk.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime.
--:-- [Upbeat music starts playing]
--:-- Host John Bickley: Okay, business leaders. Are you here to play or are you playing to win? If you're in it to win, meet your next MVP. NetSuite by Oracle. NetSuite is your full business management system in one convenient suite.
--:-- Host John Bickley: With NetSuite, you're running your accounting, your finance, your HR, your e-commerce, and more, all from your online dashboard. Upgrade your playbook and make the switch to NetSuite, the number one cloud ERP. Get the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash morningwire. netsuite.com slash morningwire.
--:-- Host John Bickley: In a wide-ranging press conference on Tuesday, President-elect Trump offered new details on his second-term plans ahead of his inauguration in just 12 days. Here with the highlights is Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips. So Cabot, Trump touched on a variety of topics yesterday. What did we see?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, this is Trump's second press conference since Election Day. Trump, who campaigned on that promise to attract businesses from around the world, announced that Dubai development company DIMAC will be investing billion in the U building new data centers across the Sunbelt and Midwest with American workers.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here the company founder and CEO Hussein Sejwani We been waiting four years to increase our investments in U Now, with his leadership and his open strategy and policy to encourage businesses to come to U.S.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: After that major business announcement, Trump addressed a number of recent moves from President Biden, including his stunning last-minute decision to permanently ban offshore drilling across 650 million acres of federal waters.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I've been disappointed to see the Biden administration's attempt to block the reforms of the American people and that they voted for. They told me that we're going to do everything possible to make this transition to the new administration very smooth. It's not smooth.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Later on, Trump really set off a social media firestorm after making this announcement regarding the Gulf of Mexico. We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring that covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America. What a beautiful name. And it's appropriate.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, the president floated the idea of acquiring Greenland again. Was he serious?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, so Trump hinted at that idea during his first term, though it was never really clear how serious he was. But in recent months, he has revived that discussion and by all appearances is serious.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The president posted on Truth Social, Greenland is an incredible place and the people will benefit tremendously if and when it becomes part of our nation. We will protect it and cherish it from a very vicious outside world. We need Greenland for national security purposes. I've been told that for a long time, long before I even ran.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I mean, people have been talking about it for a long time. Now, those comments came as Trump's son, Don Jr., made a visit to Greenland, where he met with locals and toured sites, telling supporters there, quote, we're going to treat you well.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And it's worth noting, while the idea might sound crazy, there is some historical precedent. Following World War II, for example, Harry Truman attempted to acquire Greenland, offering Denmark $100 million for the island. Andrew Johnson also expressed interest in the plan back in 1867.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, for those wondering why Greenland, the island's location poses significant strategic advantages and would allow our military an important foothold in the Arctic Circle. And perhaps more importantly, Greenland is rich in natural resources, including rare earth minerals.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So before we go, this press conference comes amid some very important legal developments for the president. What's the latest on that front?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So for background, Trump is scheduled to be sentenced January 10th in the New York hush money trial involving Stormy Daniels. The president's legal team is in the process of appealing that conviction and filed a request Tuesday to delay sentencing until that appeal has gone through.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: They cited the unprecedented nature of the case and the Supreme Court's recent ruling on presidential immunity. But within hours of that latest request, a New York appeals judge struck it down, saying the sentencing must proceed on the 10th.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: While Trump initially faced up to four years in prison, presiding judge Juan Mershan has indicated that given the election results, he'll send Trump to a lesser unconditional discharge, meaning he is almost certainly not going to face prison, fines, or probation.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: We'll have to wait until Friday, though, to see the exact details of the sentence. Well, hopefully we're almost done with this legal saga. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Anytime.
--:-- [Upbeat music continues]
--:-- Host John Bickley: Fast food giant McDonald's is the latest corporation to roll back its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Here to discuss the reversal and the larger anti-DEI trend in corporate America is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta-Jacamo. Hey, Amanda. So McDonald's announced these changes earlier in the week. What exactly did they say they going to do?
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: So McDonald said they going to change three things First they no longer going to participate in third surveys focused on DEI Previously McDonald submitted data to the far activist group Human Rights Campaign That group rates companies on their LGBTQ plus policies.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: And what you were generally seeing was companies adding DEI-type policies to get a perfect score from HRC. The alternative to that was negative attention and often targeted boycotts. McDonald's will also axe its supply chain DEI pledge. That means all of McDonald's suppliers, all those businesses, they no longer have to sign on to DEI practices.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: Instead, McDonald's says they'll integrate discussions about inclusion with their suppliers as it relates to business performance. So a pretty big downstream effect just right there. And lastly, McDonald's will eliminate what they called aspirational representation goals, which suggests that there'll be a shift in hiring practices with a focus on performance instead of filling what are effectively quotas.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: All right, so a move away from these race-based policies. Why is McDonald's doing this now? What did they say?
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: McDonald's said they made these changes in light of the shifting legal landscape, and they specifically cited the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that found the consideration of race in college admissions at Harvard is in violation of the 14th Amendment. Basically, McDonald's doesn't want legal trouble for racial or sex discrimination.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: And there's also the specter of potential lawsuits from the incoming Trump administration, which strongly opposes DEI initiatives. But there's another reason for the timing of this change, and that leads us to conservative activist Robbie Starbuck. He's been credited with triggering DEI reversals from more than a dozen corporations.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: Starbuck says he reached out to McDonald's about their woke DEI policies just three days before they came out with their DEI changes. McDonald's is a huge win because obviously when you look out at the marketplace in the world, there's certain brands that are just so noticeable, everybody knows what it is, and they have a feeling associated to it.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: You've got these other corporations out there that are trying to decide what they're going to do next. And the more we get these cultural icon brands to change, the more likely it is that other companies change. Through investigative work, Starbuck and his team have exposed DEI practices from corporations like Toyota, Nissan, Lowe's, Tractor Supply, Walmart, and John Deere, just to name a few.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: And all of those companies have quickly and publicly backed away from those policies. According to Starbuck, the success of this anti-woke movement relies on harnessing the will of the so-called silent majority and making them silent no more.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: This election and before it was really the beginning of an awakening among the silent majority that being a silent majority is actually kind of a stupid thing to do. You need to be a majority that speaks up or else you cede ground to this tiny minority of people who are frankly just really crazy Marxist.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: All right, so we've seen more than a dozen corporations move away from these kinds of policies. Are we still seeing some high profile examples of companies sort of doubling down on DEI?
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: Yeah, there are a few. For example, Costco put out a statement last week about their commitment to DEI. Some important context, though, that statement was made in response to a proposal to evaluate the risk of Costco having DEI initiatives. Shareholders will vote on that next month, so we'll have to see how that vote goes and how Costco proceeds from there.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: And as for Starbuck, he says he's not stopping until DEI is gone. I think what you're going to see is companies go into multiple boxes. One will be a total elimination of DEI, and the other box will be an attempt to try to save it by renaming it and things along those lines.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: But we're going to sniff that out and we are going to make things very difficult for companies to do that. Just a few years ago, this would have been hard to imagine this many corporations moving away so publicly from these policies.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Jacamo: Amanda, thanks so much for reporting. You're welcome. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.
--:-- [Upbeat music continues]
