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--:-- John Bickley: Three European nations have announced their intention to recognize a Palestinian state further straining relations with Israel. Each of us will now undertake whatever national steps are necessary to give effect to that decision. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, May 23rd, and this is Morning Wire. The DOJ, FBI, and Homeland Security have all announced crackdowns on election interference and misinformation, but is it really a crackdown on conservatives in free speech? And the people of Portland have had enough, ousting one of the nation's most soft-on-crime DAs for his law-and-order opponent. I am committed that my office will always put victims as its number one priority. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
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--:-- John Bickley: Leaders in Ireland, Norway, and Spain announced Wednesday that they intend to recognize a state of Palestine. The move has already strained relations between Israel and Europe as the Jewish state continues its war against Hamas. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the fallout from the announcement.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hey John, so why did these three countries make this decision now?
--:-- John Bickley: Because according to them, a Palestinian state is the only way to peace in the Middle East.
--:-- Tim Pierce: That's right. Here's Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris explaining. We do so because we believe in freedom and justice as the fundamental principles of international law, and because we believe that permanent peace can only be secured upon the basis of the free will of a free people.
--:-- John Bickley: Both the Palestinian Authority, which governs Palestinians in the Judea and Samaria area, and Hamas, which before October 7th governed the Gaza Strip, celebrated the announcement. For its part, Israel immediately recalled its ambassadors to Ireland, Norway, and Spain. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it, quote, a reward for terrorism.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Right. Many critics of the three countries have echoed that thought, saying they're encouraging more terrorism. Now, this follows the International Criminal Court targeting some of Israel's top officials. What's the latest there?
--:-- John Bickley: Right. Some European countries, including an Israeli ally, have come out in support of the court. France's foreign ministry said it supports the International Criminal Court, its independence, and the fight against impunity in all situations. Belgium's government said it supports the work of the court and called the request for warrants an important step in the investigation of the situation in Palestine But Germany took a step back and said that the simultaneous ICC charges against Israel and Hamas officials has quote given the false impression of equivalence Within Israel, people rallied behind Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant. For his part, Netanyahu released a forceful statement against the charges.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Here's some of that. The outrageous decision by the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, to seek arrest warrants against the democratically elected leaders of Israel is a moral outrage of historic proportions. It will cast an everlasting mark of shame on the international court.
--:-- John Bickley: It's worth noting that France, Belgium, and Germany, even the non-existent state of Palestine, are all parties to the agreement that set up the ICC. So they have some stake in the court's legitimacy. The U.S. and Israel are not part of that agreement. Right. Now, over the past few days, some controversy has hit the news over the U.S.-built pier for Gaza that's supposed to be there to deliver humanitarian aid. What can you tell us about the situation?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, the pier at a cost of $320 million hasn't solved the principal issue of getting aid to Palestinians. The UN warned recently of famine-like conditions in Gaza if aid isn't distributed soon. The US is reportedly relying, at least in part, on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA as it's called, to get aid from the pier to Palestinians. There's a big issue with that, however. UNRWA has been compromised by Hamas. The agency actually lost a lot of funding recently for employing terrorists. More recently, UNRWA workers were caught on drone footage working openly with armed Hamas members. And then Israel's military reported this week that it found a weapons cache in an UNRWA facility.
--:-- John Bickley: A recent study by Israel's Ministry of Health tabulated how much aid was shipped into Gaza between January and April this year. It was enough for every Palestinian to eat an average of 3,200 calories a day. So the major problem really is that the aid that is delivered there isn't being distributed to civilians.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, it's clear that how the aid is being handled there just is not working.
--:-- John Bickley: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me.
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--:-- John Bickley: Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the DOJ is reconvening its election threats task force, But some Republicans say the DOJ's plan to investigate social media posts is a threat to free speech and that policing elections should be up to the states. Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham is here now with more.
--:-- Megan Basham: Hey, John. So to start, what reason did Garland give for reconvening the Election Threat Task Force?
--:-- John Bickley: Hey, Megan. Well, he said it's necessary to protect the safety of poll workers. And at the beginning of his announcement, he mentioned a few cases of threats against election officials. And he said that in the last three years, the DOJ has convicted 13 people for things like bomb threats and calls to shoot particular poll workers. So not good. But if you listen closely, his statement wasn't just about threats to the physical safety of election workers.
--:-- Megan Basham: Midway through his address, he said the DOJ intends to combat foreign disinformation that could disrupt the election. Protecting the right to vote was a founding purpose of the Justice Department. Today fulfilling that charge means confronting the full range of threats to our elections That includes our national security divisions and the FBI work to protect our elections from national security threats including malign foreign influence and cyber-enabled campaigns.
--:-- John Bickley: In that same press conference, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco brought up artificial intelligence. And she said that the task force is working to combat deep fakes, things like altered videos or impersonations of trusted figures. And then in relation to this, she specifically referenced social media posts that aren't necessarily threatening physical harm. Instead, she highlighted the much more, I think we could say, amorphous category of hate. And they're providing new avenues to recruit and radicalize with incendiary social media content that accelerates online hate and harassment.
--:-- Megan Basham: At the same time, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced last week that the DHS is also working with the FBI to respond to election threats like disinformation. And the FBI also said it's once again going to be investigating misinformation. So taken all together, a lot of Republicans are now crying foul.
--:-- John Bickley: And what's their objection to Garland's announcement specifically?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, for one thing, they say that it's part and parcel of the federal government's efforts to use the social media companies as proxies for censorship. North Carolina Congressman Dan Bishop referenced a court decision that came down May 3rd that forced the Department of Homeland Security to shut down a panel of intelligence experts that were advising on online disinformation. Republicans said the group was stacked with Democrats.
--:-- John Bickley: And when you dig deep, you do find that 98 percent of its members' political donations did go to Democrats. And two of its leading voices were former CIA director John Brennan and former director of national intelligence James Clapper, who both signed a letter claiming that the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation. And of course, it quickly became clear that the Post's reporting was true.
--:-- Megan Basham: And of course, it quickly became clear that the Post's reporting was true. So ultimately, Bishop said that these federal agencies are, and I am quoting, up to their old tricks again, and that when Garland says this task force is intended to combat maligned foreign influence, it's actually code for we're getting ready to censor political speech.
--:-- John Bickley: Okay, so you said for one thing there. So not just about censorship, what other things are Republicans objecting to?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, largely that policing elections has traditionally been a matter for the states. So just a few weeks ago, 16 Republican attorneys general sent a letter to the DOJ saying, again, quoting, it has no authority to dictate to the states in matters that concern their sovereign right to ensure safe, secure and free elections. Republicans worry that the federal government making a show of getting involved in elections opens up an avenue for the DOJ to do things like bar watchdog groups for monitoring the polling places, essentially that it would obstruct efforts to ensure transparency in the election process.
--:-- John Bickley: And I do think it's important to note again that the FBI and Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, always a mouthful to say that, I just say SZA, are saying once again that they're policing online disinformation that shows that they're not waiting on a Supreme Court ruling over whether the government leaning on big tech to remove or suppress content was even legal.
--:-- Megan Basham: And definitely a lot of fast-breaking developments in the censorship debates these days.
--:-- John Bickley: Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime.
--:-- John Bickley: I mean, rising crime and overdose deaths in the city, voters in Portland have ousted one of the country's most liberal district attorneys and yet another sign of backlash against far policies Here are the latest as Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Hey Cabot so a major changing of the guard that was forced by Portland voters here Tell us what just happened.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, we've talked this year about Democrat voters removing far-left lawmakers in deep blue cities, and now the trend has come to Portland, one of the most liberal cities in America. This week, incumbent Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt suffered a double-digit loss to Nathan Vaskets. Those results are surprising enough, given the fact that Schmidt won election just four years ago with 77% of the vote. But they're even more surprising given who he lost to. Vasquez is a lifelong Republican who only recently reclassified as an independent and campaigned on a tough-on-crime approach, something you wouldn't expect to gain traction in Portland. Not at all.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So what changed?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, Schmidt first won election in 2020 at a time when Black Lives Matter riots were just gripping the country and especially Portland. Now, at the time, Schmidt embraced those riots and demonstrations, which he said were, quote, necessary to get people's attention. And he even campaigned on not prosecuting those involved. And upon taking office, he followed through on that promise. His office dropped 90% of the cases against those arrested for riot-related crimes in 2020. He also implemented new bail reform laws that made it difficult to keep violent suspects detained and opted for probation instead of jail time for thousands of convicted criminals. And by any metric, the results of those policies were disastrous. The city broke homicide records in 2021 and 22, with the murder rate nearly tripling under his watch. And at the same time, homelessness skyrocketed and overdose deaths also hit record highs. And voters simply had enough.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, that appears to be so. And Portland is just the latest city to replace their far-left DA, correct?
--:-- John Bickley: Exactly. Definitely a trend here. Since 2020, when a wave of progressive DAs were elected with the backing of BLM, and it's worth noting tens of millions of dollars from liberal mega donor George Soros, a growing number have now been voted out. First, there was San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin who was recalled in 2022 after eliminating cash bail and refusing to prosecute a host of drug-related offenses. We saw similar outcomes in St. Louis, Baltimore, Chicago, and more challenges are coming. At the moment, far-left DAs in Oakland and Los Angeles are fighting for their political lives after, again, being propelled to office on similar platforms to the one we saw in Portland. So while these are technically all local races, they will have national implications. The Trump campaign is clearly looking to tie President Biden to these progressive DAs and the crime surge we've seen nationwide. And it appears to be working. Latest polling from The Economist shows that just 35 percent of Americans approve of Biden's handling of crime. And the unpopularity of these local DAs is clearly bleeding into that and playing a factor.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, it seems obvious voters are souring on those progressive crime policies. Now, switching gears, there were some other high-profile elections this week in Georgia. Tell us about that.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, two key figures in the state's election interference trial against Trump were on the ballot this week, and both prevailed. Controversial Fulton County DA Fannie Willis, who is prosecuting Trump, fended off a primary challenge and will remain in office. Remember, she's come under fire in recent months after revelations that she had a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, her lead prosecutor. And there is still a chance an appeals court could remove her from the case this year. Meanwhile, Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the Trump case, won his nonpartisan general election, defeating self-described conservative Democrat Robert Petito. While McAfee has drawn the ire of many in Trump world, he enjoyed bipartisan support throughout the campaign from Georgia lawmakers, including popular Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who first appointed him back in 2022.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, a fascinating and telling series of elections there, Cabot. Thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.
