--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Morning Wire. I'm John Bickley, editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire, and I'm here with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, March 3rd.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us, John. Today, we're covering a lot of ground, from a shocking murder conviction to a scandal in the L.A. mayor's office and a population crisis in China.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: After a marathon six-week trial and less than three hours of deliberation, Alec Murdoch was found guilty of the double murder of his wife and son.
--:-- John Bickley: The state versus Richard Alexander Murdoch, defendant. Indictment for murder. Verdict guilty.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We take a look at the strongest evidence against the defendant and preview his sentence.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, March 3rd, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: For 600 days, former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti has been waiting to be confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to India. But a sexual harassment scandal could thwart his confirmation.
--:-- John Bickley: Naomi's treatment by Rick Jacobs, by Mayor Garcetti, and by others in his office has been horrific.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And after decades under the one-child policy, China is now desperate to stave off a population crash. What strategies are they pursuing? And why are China's young men fleeing the country?
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: All right, the defendant is remanded to the custody of the Collison County Sheriff's Department, and he may be taken away.
--:-- Georgia Howe: After less than three hours of deliberation, disgraced South Carolina attorney Alec Murdoch was found guilty Thursday of murdering his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul.
--:-- John Bickley: He now faces a minimum sentence of 30 years in prison.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Joining us to discuss is Daily Wire senior editor, Ash Short.
--:-- Ash Short: So Ash, this was an extremely fast decision from the jury. What evidence ended up convicting Murdoch?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, the prosecution argued on Wednesday that Murdoch was the only person with the means, motive, and opportunity to kill his family, and that he was at the crime scene within minutes of the murders.
--:-- Ash Short: They also pointed to the fact that Murdoch's extensive criminal activity was just coming to light right at the time of the murders.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The prosecution painted Murdoch as a man spiraling out of control and suggested that his wife was on the verge of confronting him about his secret drug addiction.
--:-- Ash Short: Here's a clip from the prosecution. This defendant, on the other hand, has fooled everyone, everyone who thought they were close to him, everyone who thought they knew who he was.
--:-- John Bickley: He's fooled them all. And he fooled Maggie and Paul too. And they paid for it with their lives.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, I've spoken to several people who've been following the trial pretty closely, and they were shocked that none of the jurors thought that there was any reasonable doubt.
--:-- Ash Short: What kind of evidence pointed to not guilty?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, the defense pointed out that there was no direct evidence to tie Murdoch to the crimes. No eyewitnesses, no murder weapon, no bloody clothing.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That alone you think would make this a really tough conviction
--:-- Ash Short: The defense also pointed out that the investigation was sloppy. Police failed to secure the crime scene. They never took fingerprints or foot and tire impressions.
--:-- John Bickley: They also failed to take DNA samples from Maggie and Paul's clothes, but they did take samples from Murdoch's clothes that night.
--:-- Georgia Howe: They also raised evidence pointing to multiple assailants, including the fact that Maggie and Paul were shot with two different weapons.
--:-- Ash Short: There was also some interesting unexplained physical evidence. For instance, there was brown hair found in Maggie's hand when she died, which couldn't belong to Alec or their son, Paul, who are redheads.
--:-- John Bickley: There was also DNA under Maggie's fingernails that didn't belong to Alec.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We still don't know who it belonged to.
--:-- Ash Short: On the other hand, cell phone evidence puts Alec at the scene of the crime just minutes before the murders took place. And he lied to authorities about not being there for years.
--:-- John Bickley: He blamed his lies on paranoia due to his alleged opioid addiction.
--:-- Georgia Howe: There's also the matter of the weapons involved. A rifle and a shotgun were used in the crimes, and it seems unlikely that a single killer would have used the two different weapons for each victim.
--:-- Ash Short: Well, there was also the really interesting angle regarding the victim, Paul, and some legal issues he was having.
--:-- John Bickley: Right. The murdered son, Paul, was actually being prosecuted for the death of a young woman from a few years before and had allegedly been receiving threatening messages relating to that death.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Paul was allegedly responsible for a boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach in 2019.
--:-- Ash Short: He had been indicted for causing her death and was facing prosecution at the time of his murder.
--:-- John Bickley: Another theory is that Alec's drug dealers may have targeted the family.
--:-- Georgia Howe: He was apparently using upwards of $60,000 worth of drugs per week at the time of the murders.
--:-- Ash Short: So this was a really messy case. And the final verdict may also have come down to poor presentation by the defense in the final arguments.
--:-- John Bickley: A lot of people on Twitter were pointing out that Murdoch's attorney, Jim Griffin, seemed disorganized and even half-hearted during the closing arguments.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In the end, the jury sided with the prosecution.
--:-- Ash Short: Well, it was a shockingly fast verdict.
--:-- John Bickley: Ash, thanks for keeping us up to date.
--:-- Ash Short: You're welcome.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire senior editor, Ash Short. Coming up, scandal in the L.A. mayor's office may sink Eric Garcetti's ambassadorship.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: President Biden's pick to head U.S. communications with India is in trouble. Former LA Mayor Eric Garcetti was first nominated to be ambassador to India almost two years ago, but lawmakers and the White House are about to lose patience with his failure to get through a Senate confirmation process.
--:-- John Bickley: Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to fill us in on the state of Garcetti's nomination and what 600 days without an ambassador to India means for U.S. foreign policy.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, this goes back to his time as mayor of Los Angeles. Lawmakers are concerned that Garcetti ignored inappropriate or possibly abusive behavior by one of his top advisors while in office, and they think that should be disqualifying.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But to some, it's still an open question if Garcetti knew about the alleged behavior of his former deputy chief of staff, Rick Jacobs.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The allegations against Jacobs range from making racist comments to sexual harassment.
--:-- John Bickley: The case has been investigated a couple of times now, but each investigation reached different conclusions.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Los Angeles tasked a city attorney to look into the allegations in 2020 after it was sued by one of Garcetti's security detail.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The police officer said Jacobs made numerous remarks about his physique and touched him in provocative and unwelcome ways.
--:-- John Bickley: Since the lawsuit, former staffers have come forward with their own stories about Jacobs' behavior.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Garcetti's former head of communications, Naomi Selegman, said last year that Garcetti's silence enabled Jacobs' predatory behavior.
--:-- Tim Pierce: We again and again and again saw him doing it, kissing people on the lips, grabbing people from behind, making inappropriate comments in front of the mayor.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, Jacobs, who is gay, defended himself to the city's investigator.
--:-- Georgia Howe: He said a kiss on the mouth was a common way to greet people as a gay man, as was his other questionable behavior.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, the city's report ultimately cleared Jacobs and by extension Garcetti of any wrongdoing.
--:-- John Bickley: But Republican Senator Chuck Grassley decided to look into the allegations himself after Garcetti was nominated to be ambassador to India.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Grassley's investigators concluded that not only were the accusations against Jacobs true, but Garcetti most likely knew about his advisor's misconduct and ignored it.
--:-- Tim Pierce: For example, there is even a picture of Jacobs grabbing another man's crotch right next to Garcetti included in the report.
--:-- John Bickley: Several credible whistleblowers approached my office about concerning allegations that he was aware of and enabled his deputy chief of staff, Rick Jacobs, to sexually harass several employees within the mayor's office.
--:-- Georgia Howe: They allege that Rick Jacobs made crude sexual remarks and gestures towards staff and others.
--:-- Tim Pierce: They allege that he made blatantly racist remarks towards Asians and other minorities.
--:-- John Bickley: Okay, so senators have had about 600 days to mold us over. What are they saying?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, it's not necessarily a partisan issue. Some Republicans, like Susan Collins, are open to an ambassador, Garcetti.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Then there are Democrats such as Mark Kelly, who seem to believe Grassley's investigators, and so they think Garcetti should be replaced.
--:-- John Bickley: What's clear is that Garcetti really wants the job, and he and his parents have hired a group of lobbyists to argue his case on Capitol Hill.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But Garcetti's aggressive lobbying has ruffled some feathers, too.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Kelly came out against Garcetti after a few power brokers reportedly threatened to cut him off from Democrat donors.
--:-- John Bickley: But this game of lobbying has been going on for, what, two years now. What's changed?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, the White House seems to think that it's make-or-break time for Garcetti.
--:-- Tim Pierce: If the Biden administration can't get their man through in the latest push, the president may pull Garcetti to get a less controversial person to fill that ambassador slot.
--:-- John Bickley: But for now, at least, the White House is standing behind their guy.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here's White House Press Secretary Corrine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday.
--:-- Corrine Jean-Pierre: You know, Eric Garcetti was voted out in a bipartisan way out of committee. And so clearly he has had bipartisan support, which is very important in this process.
--:-- John Bickley: And we encourage and look forward to the Senate, you know, moving forward with his nomination on the floor.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So why is this suddenly seen as such a pressing issue for the White House?
--:-- Tim Pierce: In short, it's tensions with China.
--:-- John Bickley: India is widely seen as a key ally in the East to counter China's influence.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And tensions between the U.S. and China have increased quite a bit recently.
--:-- Tim Pierce: You have uncertainty about Taiwan, constant trade disputes and concerns over TikTok, the spy balloon fiasco, and then suspicion over COVID and the pandemic.
--:-- John Bickley: The White House now seems to think it needs a Senate-approved official in New Delhi to shore up ties between the U.S. and India before things with China get worse.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, I guess we'll see if that guy turns out to be Garcetti.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Anytime.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- John Bickley: After decades of enforcing draconian measures like the infamous one-child policy, China is now scrambling to encourage a baby boom.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The move comes as the country faces a severe population crisis.
--:-- John Bickley: Here with more on how the Communist Party is trying to incentivize births is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So Cabot, what can you tell us?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, a decade ago, the idea of the Chinese Communist Party encouraging a new baby boom would be outlandish.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Remember, from 1980 to 2015, the country implemented a brutal one-child policy, which restricted the vast majority of Chinese families from having multiple children out of a fear of overpopulation.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The policy, which often relied on forced abortions and sterilizations, was hugely effective at slowing population growth, but for obvious reasons created a slew of other cultural, economic, and social setbacks.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right. So tell us about the impact of those laws.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, first, there was an enormous gender imbalance created.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Because of the cultural preference for male children, millions of families, we'll never know the true number, aborted female babies with the hope of making their one and only child a son who could carry on their family line and also provide financial support down the road.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That contributed to China having the largest gender disparity of males to females of any country on earth.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For much of the early 2000s, for every 100 Chinese girls born, there were 130 boys being born.
--:-- John Bickley: For more on that, I spoke to Fuxian Yi, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who's one of the leading experts on Chinese population trends.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: He told me the country currently has 30 million more young men than women, which is creating a crisis of young men unable to find wives.
--:-- Georgia Howe: As he described, that's led the parents of many young women in the country to demand enormous dowries in exchange for marriage.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And it's forced many men to leave the country in search of a wife.
--:-- John Bickley: So they ended up with a huge gender disparity and also a plummeting population, it sounds like.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Over the last three decades, China's birth rate began to plummet.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And then last year, for the first time since the widespread Chinese famines of the 1960s, the country saw a population decline.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Overall, there were fewer births in China last year than at any point since 1790.
--:-- John Bickley: The Chinese Communist Party is now going to great lengths to increase the nation's birth rate.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In the past, the government would help cover hospital bills for new parents and offer paid parental leave, but only for married couples.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, though, a number of provinces are offering the same funding for single mothers, something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
--:-- John Bickley: Mothers faced fines for having children out of wedlock.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Elsewhere, government officials are pleading with healthy college students to donate to sperm banks.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And the Chinese government has even promised to begin subsidizing much of the costs for couples seeking in vitro fertilization, which wasn't even legal in the country until 2001.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It all gives you an idea of just how seriously Chinese officials view this problem.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, from the government's perspective, there's also an economic side to this.
--:-- John Bickley: Tell us about that.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For decades, China had the world's largest workforce, which helped make them into a global manufacturing powerhouse as their sheer numbers gave a huge advantage to their economy.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But with such low birth rates, as older workers retire, there simply are not enough people to replace them.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And more importantly, as life expectancy goes up, we're talking about hundreds of millions of people who will soon need to be taken care of.
--:-- John Bickley: For context, in 2020, around 14% of the country's population was over the age of 65.
--:-- Georgia Howe: By 2050, that number is expected to be 35%.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right now, there are five working-age people for every one senior citizen.
--:-- John Bickley: By 2050, there will be 1.6.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Wow, so a real crisis if they don't turn it around.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- John Bickley: Another story we're tracking this week. As he had promised to do, Tennessee's Republican governor, Bill Lee, signed legislation on Thursday banning doctors from performing transgender medical treatments on minors, such as sex change surgeries and the use of puberty blockers.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Lee also signed another law restricting drag shows from taking place in public or in front of children.
--:-- John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
