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--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Morning Wire. I'm John Bickley, editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, and I'm joined by my co-host Georgia Howe. It's Monday, July 10th.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us, folks. We've got a lot to cover today.
--:-- John Bickley: That's right. President Biden will travel to Europe this week to meet with leaders ahead of a key NATO summit regarding Ukraine potentially joining the alliance.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I think it's premature to call for a vote because there's other qualifications to need to be met.
--:-- John Bickley: Why is the president opposed to the country joining and how is his decision to provide cluster bombs complicated the U.S. position?
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--:-- John Bickley: I'm joined now by Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips. Cabot, what can we expect from the president this week?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, Biden will first swing to the UK, first visit with King Charles, before sitting down with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Beyond the usual diplomatic topics, though, the key purpose of the trip is to rally support for Ukraine among European allies.
--:-- Georgia Howe: On Wednesday, Biden will head to Lithuania for the annual NATO summit, where he'll deliver an address urging allies to double down on their support of Ukraine.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: According to White House aides, the president will argue that the recent armed mutiny in Russia and Putin's apparent weakened state are evidence that the Western aid to Ukraine is working and that support for the war is a worthwhile investment.
--:-- John Bickley: But the reality is that he is facing growing fatigue among allies at home and abroad.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: While Biden has consistently said the U.S. will support Ukraine for as long as necessary, a number of European leaders and lawmakers in Washington are asking just how long that support can feasibly last, especially given the apparent lack of success during Ukraine's long-awaited counteroffensive.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, how has that counteroffensive played into the growing hesitance to offer more support?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: It's certainly playing a role. So throughout the winter, Western allies gave billions of dollars worth of weapons to the Ukrainians, and there was optimism with that support that they'd be able to regain much of the territory taken by the Russians.
--:-- John Bickley: But as this counteroffensive enters its second month, there's been little to show.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Remember, they're attempting to dislodge an enemy that's had now months to dig in, building endless miles of trenches and vast minefields.
--:-- Georgia Howe: While they have retaken a few small villages, the offensive has largely stalled.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And that has made it harder for Western allies like Biden to convince those on the fence about the merits of continued support.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, much of the focus at the summit will be on whether Ukraine should be admitted to NATO.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, since before the war began, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has urged Western leaders to allow Ukraine to join NATO.
--:-- Georgia Howe: He spent this week visiting member countries, courting leaders ahead of the summit, and did gain support from at least one country.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: This week, Turkish President Recep Erdogan said for the first time that Ukraine deserves membership, siding with a number of Eastern European countries who said the same.
--:-- John Bickley: But remember a country can only gain admittance to NATO with unanimous support from all member states and that is unlikely to happen.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Despite his support of aid to Ukraine, President Biden has consistently said that he opposes NATO membership as long as the war is still going on.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Over the weekend, he said he'd only support their admission after the war had ended.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The big concern here is that if Ukraine joins NATO now, other member countries, including the U.S., would be obligated to essentially join the war.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, this all comes after a very controversial decision to ship new weapons to Ukraine.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, on Friday, to aid their counteroffensive, President Biden approved a shipment of cluster munitions to Ukraine.
--:-- Georgia Howe: These are special artillery rounds that spray a huge number of small bombs called bomblets across wide areas.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: They're especially dangerous because they can be less precise than traditional artillery rounds.
--:-- John Bickley: And some of the bombs routinely fail to explode but remain live in the ground, turning into a sort of landmine and endangering civilians after the war ends.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Because of those concerns, more than 120 countries have signed an agreement banning their use, though the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine have not.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The White House faced backlash after the decision from human rights groups, who noted that last year, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki accused the Russians of committing war crimes for their alleged use of these very same cluster munitions in Ukraine.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that while the weapons may pose a threat to civilians, the greater threat to civilians is allowing Russia to win the war.
--:-- John Bickley: And it's worth noting, Congress does have a restriction on exporting any weapons with a higher than 1% dud rate, where a round doesn't explode.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The Pentagon says the rate for our cluster munitions is around 2.3 percent.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But President Biden overruled that restriction, invoking the Foreign Assistance Act.
--:-- John Bickley: So it gives you an idea of just how desperate the White House is to see Ukraine make progress in their counteroffensive.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, notable move there by the president.
--:-- John Bickley: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
--:-- John Bickley: Coming up, Texas rolls out an innovative way to slow down the border crisis.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Texas deployed the first sections of a floating barrier along the Rio Grande near the city of Eagle Pass on Friday.
--:-- John Bickley: The barrier is the latest in Governor Greg Abbott's multi-billion dollar effort to secure a state's border with Mexico.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here with more on the buoy blockade is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So, Tim, tell us about this new floating barrier.
--:-- John Bickley: So, Abbott signed legislation approving the floating wall last month, but Texas began putting the first units into place on Friday.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The wall is made up of hundreds of floating orange balls that are tethered together in a line parallel with the Rio Grande.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It's designed to deter immigrants from swimming across the river, which is a pretty risky strategy anyway.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Four immigrants drowned while trying to cross the river over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, including an infant.
--:-- John Bickley: Here's Texas Department of Public Safety Director Colonel Stephen McCraw introducing the plan last month.
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--:-- Tim Pierce: This was something that Border Patrol had already looked at, designed, and even tested.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And they looked at the risk mitigation. We don't want anybody to get hurt.
--:-- Tim Pierce: In fact, we want to prevent people from getting hurt, prevent people from drowning.
--:-- John Bickley: And this is a proactive way.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The initial line of buoys is being placed near Eagle Pass, Texas, one of the hotspots for illegal immigration.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The first stretch is supposed to be 1 feet or roughly the length of three football fields.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And it will cost about a million dollars.
--:-- John Bickley: A mile of the buoys will cost about five million.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now this has been a somewhat controversial plan.
--:-- Tim Pierce: What are critics saying?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Democrat Congresswoman Veronica Escobar appeared on CNN over the weekend and said the buoys would only lead to more deaths.
--:-- Tim Pierce: It is shameful. We are going to see more drownings.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We know that deterrence and tactics like this don't stop desperate people who are running for their safety.
--:-- Tim Pierce: It only causes more death.
--:-- John Bickley: And in fact, not just the death of migrants, but I'm very concerned also about the impact on Border Patrol agents and other Department of Homeland Security personnel whose job it is to help provide rescue operations for migrants and what this will do to their ability to do their job.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But we know that Governor Abbott doesn't care about federal personnel.
--:-- Tim Pierce: We've seen yet another death of a Texas National Guardsman.
--:-- John Bickley: It really is shameful.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, have the numbers at the border decreased at all this summer?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Numbers dropped off after the end of Title 42 in May and currently sit around 3,000 to 4,000 encounters a day.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's much lower than what it was earlier in the Biden administration, but still historically very high.
--:-- Tim Pierce: When President Biden took office in January 2021, for instance, that number was about 2,500 a day.
--:-- John Bickley: And we are still seeing thousands of gotaways crossing the border on a weekly basis and struggles with enforcement.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Department of Homeland Security inspector general released a report last week faulting Border Patrol for mistakenly letting an illegal immigrant on the FBI's terror watch list free into the United States.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So still a lot of problems at the border for sure.
--:-- John Bickley: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Democratic primary race for 2024 is shaping up with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. maintaining a sturdy 15 to 20 percent in most polling.
--:-- John Bickley: Although President Biden still boasts poll numbers well over 50 percent, the stubborn support for RFK Jr. has some in the Democrat Party increasingly nervous.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to discuss is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.
--:-- David Marcus: Morning, Dave.
--:-- John Bickley: Now that the shock has worn off of RFK Jr. being a legitimate candidate in the race, where do we stand and what explains his solid support?
--:-- David Marcus: Morning. So yes, the question when RFK Jr. initially made this splash a few months ago was if his support at about 20% would last or even grow.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So it hasn't grown, but it has been very steady.
--:-- David Marcus: And this is a disappointment to Team Biden that hoped his controversial takes on issues like vaccines would hurt him politically as they came to light.
--:-- John Bickley: That hasn't happened.
--:-- David Marcus: But what we still don't really know is whether the support for the Kennedy sky on is really about him or just about an alternative to Biden, who many Democrat voters are having some real concerns about.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Not the least reason being what appears to be his continuing mental and physical deterioration.
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah, that physical difference in age and energy seems to be something that Kennedy is really leaning into.
--:-- John Bickley: How effective has that been?
--:-- David Marcus: I don't know how effective it's been, but yes, we got the video of RFK Jr. pumping iron shirtless.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now there's a new one of him doing a backflip off a boat.
--:-- David Marcus: It's a lot of feats of strength, as it were.
--:-- John Bickley: And it's no secret that this is meant to highlight the fact that Biden seems to be struggling with age.
--:-- Georgia Howe: More than anything, what Kennedy seems to be doing is try to pressure, if not force, Biden to debate him.
--:-- David Marcus: But if we don't see substantial pressure from the party establishment on that, and we really haven't, it still unlikely that debate will take place.
--:-- John Bickley: It's hard to see that happening.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In recent weeks Kennedy has shown that he has an appeal to a certain segment of conservative voters as well as Democrats.
--:-- David Marcus: Why is this and can it help him in the primary?
--:-- Georgia Howe: It is strange.
--:-- David Marcus: And to be honest, I still don't have my head fully wrapped around it for a section of sort of the very online Twitter right wing.
--:-- John Bickley: He's taken on almost like a cult status.
--:-- David Marcus: It's not so much that they want him to be president, I think, but that they see him as an outsider.
--:-- Georgia Howe: He bucks leftist orthodoxy on the trans issue and vaccines.
--:-- David Marcus: On some level, he's one of these disruptor figures, not unlike Donald Trump, who is willing to be independent.
--:-- John Bickley: I will say, though, I'm not sure that this kind of support is going to help him with the average Democrat voter.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And the liberal media is trying to paint him now as the new right's favorite Democrat.
--:-- David Marcus: So if RFK Jr. doesn't have a legitimate shot at the nomination, is there still time for someone else, maybe a Gavin Newsom, to jump in?
--:-- John Bickley: Yes, but the window is starting to close for that, and we aren't seeing any major signs that an establishment Democrat will get in the race.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That really would be a game changer, especially on the aforementioned question of potential debates.
--:-- David Marcus: But for the moment, the party seems pretty set on Biden, especially since it looks more and more like Trump is going to be the opponent.
--:-- John Bickley: And that's still a matchup that Democrats like.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Finally, could an RFK Jr. or somebody else run a third-party campaign, and who might that help or hurt in a general election?
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah, there's a group called No Labels, which, without giving it a label, frames itself as kind of centrist.
--:-- John Bickley: They've hinted strongly at running a third non-Biden or Trump alternative.
--:-- David Marcus: But first of all, with the notable exception of H. Ross Perot in 1992, third-party candidates don't have much impact.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And second, even if there is one, it's likely to harm Biden more than Trump because it would be a place for never Trump Republicans to vote without having to pull the lever for Joe.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, with the indictments against Trump and the oldest incumbent we've ever had, this is already an election cycle like none other.
--:-- David Marcus: Dave, thanks for joining us.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Other stories we're tracking this week.
--:-- John Bickley: A Tennessee law that bans life-altering transgender procedures on children can take full effect after an appeals court overruled a federal judge's ruling that blocked it.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The appeals court's decision came after Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Scrametti filed a motion for an emergency stay.
--:-- John Bickley: The overruling judge says the injunction would have caused the state, quote, irreparable harm from its inability to enforce the will of its legislature.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And added that the law will help, quote, avoid irreversible health risks to Tennessee children.
--:-- John Bickley: And Angel Studios' new film, Sound of Freedom, which stars Jim Kavitzel and tells the story of a former government agent's efforts to combat child trafficking, has brought in over $40 million since opening in theaters on July 4th.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The film has earned an A-plus cinema score Warren currently holds a 76% positive rating among critics and a 99% rating among moviegoers.
--:-- John Bickley: If you haven't already, check out Morning Wire's interview with one of the film's producers and stars that aired July 3rd.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's when I decided to stop everything that I was doing in my life at the time so I can dedicate my life to end child trafficking.
--:-- John Bickley: I made a promise to God that I would dedicate everything to join this army of love, of brave people that are not afraid to raise their voices to defend those who doesn't have a voice, who defend those who can defend themselves.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's all the time we've got this morning.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
