--:-- [Upbeat music fades out, and the host, Georgia Howe, speaks]
--:-- Georgia Howe: The NFL is back, and FanDuel's got everything you need to play your game. From same-game parlays to live betting. Right now, new customers bet $5 and get $300 in bonus bets if you win. 21-plus in president select states. 18-plus in Kentucky and Wyoming. Must be first online real money waging. $5 deposit required. Bonus issued is non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at FanDuel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls for new elections in Israel and labels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an obstacle to peace. As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7th. What led to the public rebuke and how is Israel reacting? I'm Georgia Howe and John is on vacation. It's Friday, March 15th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: A rise in tuberculosis cases in California and a measles outbreak at a Chicago migrant center have medical experts calling for better border screening. And two key economic indicators come in hotter than expected, what it means for inflation and your grocery bill. Far more than housing, far more than gas. This is the critical economic issue and there's no really easy option for the Biden administration. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down and for his government to be dissolved on Thursday. Galy Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to discuss. So Tim, some pretty tough language from Schumer yesterday. What did he say?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, Schumer spoke from the Senate floor and delivered maybe the harshest criticism of Israel's government in his career. Schumer has always positioned himself as a friend of Israel, but his comments yesterday have raised concerns in the minds of many of Israel's leaders.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Schumer directed his fire at Netanyahu and called for his government to be dissolved and replaced in a new round of elections. At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision-making process about the future of Israel. He also threatened to cut off U.S. aid to Israel if Israel doesn't change course on Netanyahu and how it has prosecuted the war against Hamas.
--:-- Tim Pierce: If President Prime Minister Netanyahu's current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing U.S. standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, the White House has been very critical of Netanyahu recently as it tries to shore up its support from its left flank and Muslim communities in Michigan and Minnesota. In Israel war in Gaza Rafa is the last major terrorist stronghold And we learned yesterday that the Biden administration is trying to get Israel to forego full military operations and instead focus only on high targets the idea being that Israel used small, pinpointed strikes to take out Hamas leaders while potentially leaving the majority of its remaining forces untouched. Israeli officials seem to still lean toward full military operations to clear out the terrorists, however.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And how have Schumer's remarks been received? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the floor to condemn Schumer. It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of the democratically elected leader of Israel. This is unprecedented.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, will Schumer's pressure have any impact realistically on Israel's government? Not likely. Benny Gantz, who is Netanyahu's primary political opponent in Israel, said Schumer made a mistake and that only Israel's citizens will determine its leadership and its future. Any external intervention is incorrect and unacceptable.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, one of the misperceptions of Israeli politics is that the country is currently run by Netanyahu's government. It's not. The country has been run by a unity government, and Gantz is a co-equal with Netanyahu in the war cabinet.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Morningwire spoke to Aryeh Lightstone, senior advisor to the former U.S. ambassador to Israel. My first reaction is that this may be one of the most public betrayals of any ally in U.S. history. And that is without exaggeration.
--:-- Aryeh Lightstone: Whitestone pointed out that the policies being blamed on Netanyahu actually have broad support in Israel. He said Gantz made that clear to the Biden administration in a trip to the White House earlier this month. They brought Gantz to Washington, D.C. They didn't ask Beebe to come to Washington, D.C. They asked the leader of the opposition to see if they can convince Beebe to walk back. And then they discovered something shocking that Bibi does not have Bibi policies. Bibi is representing Israeli policies.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And when they saw that Gantz said that, they had such egg on their face because this was the moment to be able to call out and say Bibi is different. Now, Gantz comes back and what winds up happening? This is the greatest irony of all of these things. Since Gantz went to Washington, D.C., and Biden and now Schumer have publicly attacked Bibi, Bibi's numbers have skyrocketed and Gantz's numbers have plummeted.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, it sounds like either way, it's Israelis that are going to make this decision.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: My pleasure.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: A measles outbreak in the Midwest and a rise in tuberculosis in California has the medical community sounding the alarm. Joining us to discuss is physician and pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Dr. Human Hamadi.
--:-- Dr. Human Hamadi: Thanks for having me on.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, the California Medical Board recently sent out an alert to all doctors about, quote, a substantial increase in tuberculosis. What did that letter say?
--:-- Dr. Human Hamadi: That letter said to all doctors, which is, by the way, something that's a little unusual, this does not happen on a regular basis, that the state is experiencing a surge in tuberculosis cases. That's number one. Number two is that those tuberculosis cases are largely originating from people who have come here from outside the country. And number three and what is particularly alarming is that this tuberculosis that is coming into California and presumably the rest of the United States has about a 13 percent or higher death rate
--:-- Georgia Howe: Is there any way to screen people or what's the normal procedure for checking people for tuberculosis?
--:-- Dr. Human Hamadi: So that's a great question. Anytime someone wants to come into the U.S. on a visa or green card, a standard part of the process, among other medical assessments, is to perform a tuberculosis blood test. And in many cases, in addition to that, a chest X-ray to simply rule it out.
--:-- Georgia Howe: However, when someone doesn't have those, and especially if they're coming from endemic nations, which we're surrounded by, especially to the south of us, then there's a high chance that they could be bringing it in undetected.
--:-- Dr. Human Hamadi: Why is TB such a threat?
--:-- Georgia Howe: So it's a bit of a unique illness. Can you describe a little bit about how it progresses and why it becomes so intractable?
--:-- Dr. Human Hamadi: Yes. So tuberculosis is caused by a bacteria, not caused by a virus like COVID. And it's a particularly unusual type of bacteria that can reside in the lungs, sometimes asymptomatically with no symptoms at all, sometimes with just mild symptoms and can stay like that even with no symptoms for years or decades and at any point basically pop up and cause a horrific infection that chews up the lungs and causes the person who's infected to be spewing large amounts of bacteria every time they cough.
--:-- Georgia Howe: This is why it has a high death rate because it literally chews through the lung tissue and leaves nothing behind other than a gaping hole. The problem with tuberculosis is that we only have a few medications in our arsenal to try to defeat it. And those medications, even when they do work, can take many months to years of therapy in order to kill the bacteria.
--:-- Dr. Human Hamadi: The problem now is that we're seeing a lot of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, bacteria for which none of the drugs that we have available work or work well enough. And this is why I think we're seeing such high death rates suddenly. These death rates have never been seen before in this country.
--:-- Georgia Howe: How is it transmitted and how easily is it transmitted?
--:-- Dr. Human Hamadi: You generally have to be in relative close proximity with a person who's actively coughing in order to get tuberculosis. You can be in the same room in the same general vicinity. It's not necessarily easy to get, but once you get it, you have it and you have it for good.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, the CDC is investigating a measles outbreak at a migrant center in Chicago. Can you give us some insight into what's happening there?
--:-- Dr. Human Hamadi: So when you have people coming in who are not screened for having been vaccinated for measles, not being screened for having been infected with measles, all of a sudden you can be, again, bringing people in who could be carrying this and could be spreading it within their community of people who have zero vaccination rates. And this can pose a major public health threat.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, should the CDC be at the border testing the people coming across? What would be the solution for this?
--:-- Dr. Human Hamadi: Well, the solution we've already had for decades, which is to test anyone who is coming into the country. And without getting that testing done and getting a lot of different vaccinations checked as well, you simply couldn't get a green card to immigrate to the U.S. And at this point, with the large numbers who are streaming through our borders, it's basically impossible to test every single person, especially since so many are considered gotaways and are never even processed through the system.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right. Well, Dr. Hamadi, thank you so much for coming on.
--:-- Dr. Human Hamadi: Thank you. It's a pleasure.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was physician and pharmaceutical entrepreneur Dr. Human Hamadi.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Two economic reports this week show that inflation remains a problem for the American people causing them to pay more for everyday items Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacomo.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So Amanda this week two key economic indicators came in higher than expected Let's first look at the consumer price index. What did that show?
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So that report showed a rise of 0.4% in February from the previous month, and that was more than expected. This is largely due to the jump in the price of gasoline. Year over year, the CPI was up 3.2%. As a reminder, the CPI measures retail goods. So the essentials you're regularly purchasing like groceries, gasoline, and even rent.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: To give some perspective here, we have to keep in mind that the prices may not be rising as quickly as they were when inflation was 9%, but they're still rising on top of the previous years. Here's Gary Cohn, the vice chairman of IBM, explaining this concept. Not inflation has a compounding effect, meaning as you look at inflation year over year, you're adding up those numbers. You're not starting at a zero every year. So if we had 6 percent inflation last year, 7 percent inflation, and now we have 4 percent inflation, that's 10 percent inflation.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So if you take a basket of groceries at the beginning of 2020, just a simple basic basket that cost $100, it costs well over $125 today because they add up. they're cumulative. The Wall Street Journal actually compiled some of the price hikes of everyday goods since 2020. Deodorant, in some cases, spiked from under $4 to $7.99. Cooking oil increased by around $3. Paper towels went on an average of $5.76, and they now run around $8.22.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: According to NBC, your grocery bill is up an average of 25% since the beginning of 2020. I'll add that we're also seeing a spike in services. So car insurance premiums, for example, they're up an average of more than 20% since just last year. Since Biden took office, cumulative inflation is up around 18%.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now, we also received the producer price index report on Thursday. What did that show? The PPI showed a surge of 0.6% in February from the previous month. Now, that was double what economists expected. Annually, prices remain up 1.6%. The PPI shows inflation on the wholesale level. So we can expect that those increases will be passed down to consumers on the retail level. Right. I think they call that a leading indicator.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now, how is this playing out politically? What's the Biden administration saying? Well, there was actually some acknowledgement this week that the economy is an issue. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted that inflation is a far larger problem than the administration anticipated. Notably, Yellen called inflation transitory or short term back in 2021. Here she is walking that back just this week. I regret saying it was transitory. It has come down, but I think transitory means a few weeks or months to most people.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Amanda, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: You're welcome. Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: One, because your unique business deserves a custom solution, and that's NetSuite. Learn more when you download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist absolutely free at netsuite.com slash morningwire. That's netsuite.com slash morningwire.
