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--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Tuesday, July 11th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's right, John. We've got a lot to cover today.
--:-- John Bickley: The 31 NATO countries are meeting in Lithuania for the organization's annual summit to discuss a range of issues, including whether or not Ukraine should be allowed into NATO, and what message the alliance will send to Ukraine as it battles Russia.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Monday evening, the NATO Secretary General said, "I am absolutely certain that we will have unity and a strong message on Ukraine."
--:-- John Bickley: However, Tuesday morning, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky slammed NATO for not moving faster to welcome his country into the alliance and for setting no clear timetable as to when it will be allowed in.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Vermont Governor Phil Scott told reporters Tuesday that widespread flooding still threatens his state after torrential rains triggered flash floods.
--:-- John Bickley: The state's capital is bracing for even more catastrophic flooding as a major dam near the city could give way to floodwaters, causing even more damage.
--:-- Georgia Howe: President Biden has already approved Scott's emergency disaster declaration opening up federal funding for the state.
--:-- John Bickley: Make no mistake, the devastation and flooding we're experiencing across Vermont is historic and catastrophic.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Floodwaters continue to rise in some places, like our capital city, and have surpassed levels seen during Tropical Storm Irene.
--:-- John Bickley: The good news is the rain has stopped in some areas, but that does not mean waters will immediately recede.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So far, crews in Vermont have rescued over 100 people from their homes and cars.
--:-- John Bickley: Former President Trump's legal team is calling for a delay in the classified documents trial until after the 2024 election.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Trump's lawyers said in a court filing Monday night, "The Pentagon announced this week that the last of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile was destroyed last week at a Kentucky munitions plant."
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--:-- Tim Pierce: In 1986 Congress ordered the destruction of America's chemical weapons and over a decade later the U.S. joined 192 countries in the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997 requiring their weapons' complete elimination by September 30th of this year.
--:-- Kingston Reif: Chemical weapons were first used on a large scale in the trenches of Europe during World War I, causing horrifying deaths through suffocation and devastating the nervous system.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Here's part of how the government destroys these weapons, as described by Kingston Reif, a Defense Department arms control expert.
--:-- Kingston Reif: The munitions are drained of the agent, and the agent is ultimately neutralized to a much lower level of toxicity, such that it's no longer a mustard agent.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And then the plant also destroys the mustard munitions via what are called static detonation chambers, which heat the munitions to the full weapon to very high temperatures and destroy them via thermal destruction.
--:-- Kingston Reif: At its peak, America's chemical weapons stockpile reached 30,000 metric tons, requiring the country to take decades to destroy the weapons while seeking the safest way to eliminate the chemical agents.
--:-- Tim Pierce: A watchdog group on Monday filed a complaint against President Biden's nominee for joint chief of staff chairman over his previous comments on diversity.
--:-- Tim Meads: The American Accountability Foundation filed a complaint against Air Force General C. Brown over his promotion of, quote, "race-based hiring ahead of a Senate hearing on Tuesday to consider his nomination."
--:-- Kingston Reif: That complaint cites comments Brown has made about hiring, quote, "for diversity and referring to the military as a white boys club."
--:-- Tim Meads: I purposely build my office, my front office, my team, diverse.
--:-- Kingston Reif: And in Oregon County's controversial plan to distribute tinfoil and straws for fentanyl users and glass pipes for meth and crack users has been halted.
--:-- Jessica Vega-Peterson: The pause comes after Portland's mayor and other officials sounded the alarm over the new program.
--:-- Kingston Reif: In a statement to KGW-TV, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega-Peterson said, "Our health department went forward with this proposal without proper implementation protocols."
--:-- Jessica Vega-Peterson: And in that light, I am suspending the program pending further analysis.
--:-- John Bickley: Those are your drive home updates this afternoon. To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire.com.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And for more in-depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to the latest full episode of Morning Wire every morning.
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