--:-- Georgia Howe: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm Georgia Howe.
--:-- John Bickley: And I'm John Bickley, Daily Wire editor-in-chief. It's October 16th, and this is your Saturday edition.
--:-- Georgia Howe: U.S. officials inch closer to solving the mysterious Havana syndrome that's baffled the intelligence community since 2016. We'll hear about the latest directed energy attack and the emerging pattern that could give the CIA new clues.
--:-- John Bickley: That's right, Georgia. And we'll also discuss how a clandestine peanut butter sandwich handoff could land a married couple in prison for life. And Korean Netflix series Squid Game has taken the world by storm, becoming the most streamed show in the company's history in less than a month.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll discuss why Western audiences are flocking to Korean content and why critics are predicting a Korean wave in global pop culture. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
--:-- John Bickley: This show is sponsored by Birch Gold Group. Inflation is destroying the dollar. Birch Gold Group can help protect your IRA or 401k with a precious metals IRA. Text WIRE to 989898 to claim a free info kit on physical gold and silver. There's zero obligation.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In August, we talked about Havana syndrome, a mysterious medical ailment that has baffled experts and left dozens of Americans with debilitating brain injuries. This week, amidst another set of attacks against American diplomats and their families, the U.S. intelligence community is reportedly growing confident that they know what's causing the ailment.
--:-- John Bickley: Here with the details on this disturbing story is Daily Wire managing editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So, Cabot, you covered the story a couple months ago, but for those who didn't tune in, can you just give us a brief recap on what Havana syndrome is?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So back in 2016, U.S. diplomats in Cuba started reporting strange medical ailments, often after hearing an unbearable ringing sound in their ears. We're talking debilitating headaches, nausea, and even severe memory loss. Doctors said the symptoms were similar to those experienced by people with severe brain injuries, like a car crash victim or professional football player.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: At first, we thought the cases were isolated, but in the last five years, over 200 instances have been recorded by U.S. officials in China, England, Russia, and even Washington, D.C. And during that time, it's become clear that this is part of a targeted attack against Americans.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Okay, so now tell us about the attack this month. So one interesting thing about the attacks is that they often occur during important diplomatic events or briefly ahead of them.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For example, there were cases reported in Vietnam ahead of a visit earlier this year from Vice President Kamala Harris. And another back in 2019 in Vienna ahead of a visit from then-President Trump.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And that trend appears to be playing out again this week in Bogota, Colombia, where Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is set to visit. Over the last few weeks, over a dozen U.S. officials there and their family members have been struck with the ailment, and that includes children of diplomats.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Some cases were so severe that victims were actually medevaced out of the country. So it sounds like we might be getting a little bit closer, though, to the answer of who's behind all this or what's behind all this.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: What are the new developments? Yeah, for five years all of our top experts have been basically baffled as to what's behind this.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The State Department and CIA both created task forces to investigate and are now reportedly confident that the illness is caused by directed energy attacks more specifically directed pulsed radio frequency energy.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Basically, our experts now believe there's some kind of device that's shooting concentrated energy waves at our officials. And one of the scariest parts is that the waves are invisible and appear to do permanent damage to the brains of many victims.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, investigators are also increasingly confident that Russia is behind the attacks, but they don't yet have smoking gun evidence to prove it.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Do we have any answers about what the motive would be? So right now, investigators are looking into two main theories.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: First, that the intention is just to scare U.S. officials and send a message to our intelligence community that someone is able to go after them.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: One part of this that's particularly concerning from a national security standpoint is that a few of the victims are reportedly American spies who we thought were undercover.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The other theory is that the victims themselves aren't actually the target and that the radio waves are just technology used to strip information off of computers and phones from afar.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And the brain injuries are just a byproduct, but not the main objective. But again, we still don't really know for sure.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So beyond the investigation that you said the CIA has started, what other actions has the government taken, like on the foreign policy front, for example?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So from a foreign policy standpoint, there hasn't really been much. The main reason for that is just that we don't, again, have smoking gun evidence to prove who's behind it.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Keep in mind, this is a physical attack on American diplomats and officials and even children. And a lot of people view that as an act of war.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So experts are saying that the likely response would be either militarily or economically once we figure out who the culprit is, if they are found.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Domestically, Congress responded by unanimously passing a bill that will increase medical funding for victims and require the CIA and State Department to offer payments to those afflicted.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, this is a big step because in the earlier days of this crisis, people at the top of these agencies had reportedly been skeptical about the legitimacy of the attacks.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: President Biden signed the bill into law, and he actually said, quote, addressing these incidents has been a top priority of my administration.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So all the way up to the top, the government is now taking this very seriously.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, hopefully they can get to the bottom of it. Cabot, thanks for the update.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's Daily Wire managing editor Cabot Phillips. Coming up, the FBI accuses a couple from Maryland of attempting to sell nuclear secrets.
--:-- John Bickley: You can get this show and all of the content you love wherever you are all on the Daily Wire app even if you're not a Daily Wire member you'll be the first to know what's trending with mobile notifications for the latest news and you'll get content from all your favorite Daily Wire shows.
--:-- Georgia Howe: News broke earlier this week which involved a married couple in Annapolis, Maryland who are being accused by the FBI of treason and espionage.
--:-- John Bickley: Here to tell us more about this pretty wild story is Daily Wire's Ian Howarth.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Hi, John. So we briefly referenced this earlier this week, but it's definitely worth a closer look. What more can you tell us about this story?
--:-- Ian Howarth: A nuclear engineer for the U.S. Navy and his wife are both facing the chance of spending the rest of their lives in prison. They're being accused of trying to sell nuclear secrets to an unknown foreign power.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Jonathan and Diana Tebbe were arrested last weekend on espionage-related charges. and they appeared in court earlier this week.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Prosecutors are saying that they should be denied bail, not only because they're facing life sentences, but also because they're flight risks.
--:-- Ian Howarth: So they been arrested and charged with selling nuclear secrets What did this involve Based on the allegations laid out in the criminal complaint which was unsealed last Sunday Jonathan Tebbe reached out to an unidentified foreign country in the spring of 2020, offering to sell nuclear secrets.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Luckily, the package was intercepted by the FBI, and undercover federal agents started communicating with him last December.
--:-- Ian Howarth: He then allegedly tried to share nuclear secrets by hiding memory cards in things like peanut butter sandwiches and band-aid wrappers and leaving them at prearranged locations.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Okay, so what did his wife have to do with all this? She's being charged too, right?
--:-- Ian Howarth: Yeah, she was seen assisting with the drops, according to the FBI, as well as acting as a lookout for her husband.
--:-- Ian Howarth: She was a teacher at a private school in Annapolis, Maryland, but has been indefinitely suspended from her job because of these charges.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And what exactly are they being charged with? They're being charged with violating the Atomic Energy Act, or AEA.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Part of the AEA, which is relevant here, is that it restricts the disclosure of information related to atomic weapons or nuclear materials.
--:-- Ian Howarth: So if they're found guilty, this is obviously treason. We hear that term a lot, but how often does an accusation actually lead to a conviction?
--:-- Ian Howarth: Well, what's pretty worrying here is that it's actually not all that uncommon for people to be charged with some form of espionage, and that's often through the Espionage Act of 1917.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Chelsea Manning is one well-known example, who was convicted with six counts of the Espionage Act for passing classified documents to WikiLeaks.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Manning, as we'll remember, was given a 35-year sentence, which was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Another person connected to this particular case is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who's currently confined in a British maximum security prison.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And then there's Edward Snowden, who is also being accused by the US government of violating the Espionage Act, and he is now living in Russia under their protection.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And there are a lot of other less-known examples, such as Dongfang Cheng, a Chinese national who stole trade secrets relating to the U.S. shuttle program and Delta IV rocket, and he gave them to China.
--:-- Ian Howarth: What's worrying about the Tebby case, of course, is that we don't know, at least yet, who they try to sell these peanut butter nuclear secrets to.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks, Ian. My pleasure. Have a good weekend.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Daily Wire's Ian Howarth.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Korean groups have overtaken the pop music scene in recent years with K-pop bands like BTS and Blackpink dominating the Billboard charts.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, Korea is making a major mark on American television and film culture as well. Netflix Korean thriller Squid Game is currently the most popular show in the world and has become the most watched show in Netflix history.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to explain the trend and explore what may be driving it is Daily Wire entertainment reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So, Megan, for a lot of people, a Korean show like Squid Game becoming so popular in the U.S. kind of comes out of left field. So were you surprised by this?
--:-- Megan Basham: You know, honestly, not really. If you're someone who pays a lot of attention to entertainment, this is really part of a much bigger trend.
--:-- Megan Basham: Like John said, K-pop has become a cultural phenomenon, and Netflix has had a lot of success with other Korean series.
--:-- Megan Basham: So I'm thinking of something like this romantic comedy show, Crash Landing on You. That was from 2019. Now, it was also very popular in South Korea, but it also scored very big audiences in the US.
--:-- Megan Basham: And so that's probably about when I first noticed Korea's influence beyond pop music.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, as a critic, of course, people ask me all the time about the latest big Marvel or action movies, but suddenly I started getting emails from readers asking me to cover Korean shows like Crash Landing And of course there was the Korean film Parasite which was not only a big box office hit but it also won the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director in 2020 Right
--:-- Megan Basham: So to sort of encapsulate this for older listeners something you might compare it to is the British invasion of the 1960s It was more than just music with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
--:-- Megan Basham: It was something that also spread to films, James Bond's franchise, all those Julie Andrews movies. You also had television shows like the original Avengers.
--:-- Megan Basham: You even, if you remember, Georgia, well, you won't remember. You even saw it with fashion like the mod look, the Chelsea girls.
--:-- Megan Basham: Today, I would say you're seeing a similar wide influence with the Korean wave.
--:-- Megan Basham: Okay, so this trend has a name. It's the Korean wave. Yes, that is it. That's what it's called.
--:-- Megan Basham: Okay, so to zero in on Squid Game specifically, you said it's the most popular show in Netflix history. Why are people so obsessed with Squid Game?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, along with the Korean cultural phenomenon, for those who aren't familiar, it's also a thriller, a bit like Hunger Games.
--:-- Megan Basham: A group of people who, for various reasons, are deeply in debt, are duped into playing this series of games. If they win, they're in piles of cash. But if they're eliminated, they're really eliminated. They die.
--:-- Megan Basham: So that sounds pretty dark, and it is an adult show. But what it doesn't have is the same kind of hard R-rated content that we tend to think of now when we think of these prestige streaming series.
--:-- Megan Basham: There's a sex scene, but it's less explicit than something you might see, say, on Game of Thrones. And that same thing was true of Crash Landing Into You. It was a very clean, romantic series.
--:-- Megan Basham: And personally, I do think that's part of what's drawing people who maybe are getting a little weary with so much of that explicit content.
--:-- Megan Basham: Right. Right. I have also heard from some of the mainstream critics that they're saying there's some political themes in this show.
--:-- Megan Basham: So for example, they're saying it's anti-capitalist and that that might be playing into some of its popularity.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, I get what you're saying. I don't know if I would call it anti-capitalist though. I think that's debatable.
--:-- Megan Basham: But what it is, is it's anti-elite. It's anti-greed. And here we are in this moment where we're seeing a pretty sharp divide, right, between how classes are experiencing the pandemic.
--:-- Megan Basham: Something we saw in the Emmys, you had the masked staffers and then you had the rich and glamorous who didn't have to wear masks.
--:-- Megan Basham: So I think you're right in saying that that could be tapping into some of that resentment.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, do you think Squid Game is just a flash in the pan or is this going to be a long lasting trend in entertainment?
--:-- Megan Basham: Oh, I definitely think it's going to be a long lasting trend. After crash landing in Squid Game, Netflix is planning to invest $500 million in Korean content.
--:-- Megan Basham: And that's just in the remainder of this year. And these, you know, they're not typically expensive productions.
--:-- Megan Basham: So I think everyone's going to probably be talking about some other Korean show or movie like this in the near future.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right. Well, I'm halfway through Squid Game, so I thank you for not sharing too many spoilers.
--:-- Megan Basham: Megan, thanks for coming on.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for having me, Georgia.
--:-- Megan Basham: That's Daily Wire entertainment reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Those are our big stories for the day. If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts Spotify or wherever you're listening and give us a five-star review.
--:-- John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back next week with the news you need to know.
--:-- Georgia Howe: If you like this podcast get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at DailyWire.com slash subscribe use code morning wire to try a reader's past membership and get your first month for only 99 cents.
