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--:-- John Bickley: This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two-factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for 40% off. Terms apply.
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--:-- John Bickley: While it's been all eyes on the 2024 presidential race, control of the Senate also hangs in the ballots and Republicans are feeling very optimistic. This is a guy who's probably the most liberal member of the United States Senate. He makes Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders seem reasonable. We break down the races to watch as the GOP aims to pick up several seats. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with our guest host this week, Katie Pavlich, editor at Town Hall VIP.
--:-- Katie Pavlich: Hey, Katie, good to have you on. So great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: It's Monday, May 13th, and this is Morning Wire. Following a streak of bad headlines for the president, the Biden campaign has enlisted the help of several celebrities from George Clooney to Julia Roberts. And the Biden administration has begun to revive its efforts to suppress so-called disinformation online, citing concerns about the presidential election. We have the details.
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--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: As the presidential race heats up, the battle for control of the Senate is also in full swing, with Republicans looking to take back the chamber in November. Here with a preview of what's at stake is Daily Wire's senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, so the presidential race gets most of the attention, but a handful of crucial Senate races are going to have an outsized impact on the balance of power in Washington. Of the 34 seats up for grabs this year, just 11 are currently held by Republicans, and none of those races appear all that close at the moment. That leaves Democrats to defend 23 seats, eight of which are considered toss-ups or are quite competitive.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: First, there's West Virginia, where Democrat Senator Joe Manchin is stepping down. That is viewed as an almost guaranteed pickup for the GOP, which would mean Republicans only need one pickup from there to win back the majority. So which states are most likely to decide things?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So beyond West Virginia, we will start with Montana, where Democrat incumbent John Tester is taking on Republican Tim Sheehy. Tester has already won three times, is the only Democrat holding statewide office in Montana, and also enjoys a massive fundraising advantage. So you would think he's pretty safe. But the presence of Donald Trump on the ballot is bad news for his re-election. Trump won Montana by 16 points last cycle, and Republicans are confident high voter turnout will trickle down the ballot and ultimately spell doom for Tester.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: There's a similar dynamic playing out in Ohio, where three-term Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown is taking on Republican businessman Bernie Moreno. Brown also has a significant fundraising advantage and is ahead slightly in the polls but Ohio looks less and less like a swing state these days and more like Trump country. He won there by more than eight points in 2016 and 2020. So again Democrats will have to pray that they can find those scores of voters willing to split the ticket.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, another state getting a lot of attention is kind of surprising, Maryland. What's the latest there?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah. So believe it or not, Maryland is also considered a toss up. That sounds crazy given the fact Biden won there by more than 30 points last cycle and is dominating in the polls again. But the GOP has a real shot at winning the Senate race because of one man, Larry Hogan. Hogan served two terms as governor in Maryland and left office last year as one of the most popular elected officials in the country with an approval rating around, get this, 80%. So he can clearly win over Democrats with his more moderate brand of conservatism. But it's unclear if Democrat voters will like the idea of electing him if it means giving Republicans control of the Senate.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: While a number of polls do show him with a double-digit lead, a recent Washington Post poll found that Maryland voters say they would prefer Democrat control of the Senate by a 20-point margin. But even if Democrats do hold on there, there are still plenty of other states where Republicans are knocking on the door.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, what are some of the other toss-ups? So, zooming out, virtually every 2024 battleground state is home to a Senate seat that Democrats are desperately trying to hold on to. Democrat incumbents are on the ballot in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, all states where Donald Trump currently holds the lead in the polls. Now, if he wins each of those states, Republicans down ballot are more likely than not to win with him. And then there are two battleground states, Michigan and Arizona, with vacancies left by departing Democrat and independent senators. Again, those are two states where Trump is currently in the lead. His presence just continues to loom large up and down the ballot.
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--:-- John Bickley: A-list celebrities and stars of the Democrat Party are aligning to support and hold fundraisers for Joe Biden as he fights to come back in the polls against Donald Trump. Here to talk about Biden's strategy is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.
--:-- David Marcus: Morning, John. Biden is tapping the likes of George Clooney and Julia Roberts from Tinseltown, as well as Democrat heavyweights like Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton, not just as surrogates, but as powerful moneymaking machines. Obviously, there's a lot of money to begin with in Hollywood. But you add on top of that, the fact that a fundraising event features big celebrities and people are motivated to attend or to pay more. Meeting these celebs is like a walking, talking PBS fundraiser tote bag.
--:-- David Marcus: Right now the Biden campaign already has an edge in cash on hand with million million as of March 31st to the Trump campaign 66 million. But outside groups have raised about 192 million for Trump compared to 87 million raised by outside pro Biden groups. So it's a little closer than it seems.
--:-- David Marcus: And who does this matter more for? Is the money race more important for Trump or Biden or do they both have basically the same need for cash to get their messages across?
--:-- David Marcus: I think you have to say that the money is going to play a much more vital role for Biden, in part because he's not proven capable of doing the kind of massive events that draw tens of thousands like Trump did in Jersey this weekend. This means the message has to get out with more and more expensive ads. In addition, Democrats say that they will make up the gap in swing states with their ground game, which is typically more robust than GOP efforts. But again, it's very expensive to target Biden voters and pay people to physically go reach them. And it's not 25 years ago when you're paying them for one day. There are weeks of early voting in most states. So we're talking about millions and millions of dollars.
--:-- David Marcus: On the other hand, money may be less important to Trump, but that having been said, some of what he raises is also going towards his legal fees.
--:-- David Marcus: Now, beyond just the money, how much do celebrity endorsements actually matter in a presidential campaign? It seems like every cycle, the vast majority of celebs always support Democrats. So does it really have an impact?
--:-- David Marcus: Democrats sure think so, especially in regard to battling against Trump. We can all recall the slew of celebrity videos from 2016 and 2020 that were basically like an anti-Trump version of Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon, including Kevin Bacon. I mean, as you say, it's almost every big star. But this is also where critics of the approach see some danger, especially at a time when Americans feel uneasy about the state of the country and the economy. There's certainly a possibility that having people who fly on private jets and walk on red carpets talking about how great the Biden administration has been could backfire.
--:-- David Marcus: And that's why they mainly tend to focus on the supposedly unique danger represented by Trump as opposed to touting Biden's record.
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah. The final question. Trump is not without his own celebrity endorsements. Who in Hollywood is backing him up and what message are they sending?
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah, there's Dennis Quaid, Roseanne Barr, Jon Voight, the actor, not the dentist. I mean, there's also Kid Rock. So, yeah, I mean, look, Trump's endorsement card looks a lot more like the old game show Hollywood Squares than an Academy Award after party. But Trump's an outsider, an anti-establishment candidate. He always has been. And so these endorsements kind of back that up.
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--:-- John Bickley: The FBI has confirmed that federal agencies are once again collaborating with social media platforms to remove and suppress posts they deem, quote, disinformation. The announcement comes as the Supreme Court is set to rule on whether such efforts violate the First Amendment. Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham is here now with more.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Megan, why is the FBI reviving this practice now?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, the explanation itself is likely to raise some eyebrows. According to Senator Mark Warner, who is chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, it's because the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is otherwise known as CISA, well, they're concerned about the spread of so-called disinformation ahead of the presidential election. They specifically cited the presidential election.
--:-- Megan Basham: So the Federalist the conservative news outlet reached out to the FBI last Wednesday about Warner comments and the FBI provided this statement I just going to read it The FBI remains committed to combating foreign malign influence operations, including in connection with our elections. That effort includes sharing specific foreign threat information with state and local election officials and private sector companies when appropriate and rigorously consistent with the law.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, CISA officials wouldn't say if they're specifically meeting with tech execs about content moderation, but they did say that they too are going to be having meetings on election security in the coming weeks. And as you said, the timing of this is pretty controversial to say the least, given that Republicans have characterized this as illegal coercion and they've petitioned the Supreme Court to put a stop to it.
--:-- Megan Basham: That's the case Missouri v. Murthy, in which Missouri and Louisiana are suing the federal government because, these states say, it pressured social media companies to censor conservative views and censor criticism of the Biden administration. And actually, at the district court level, a judge issued a preliminary injunction that stopped SZA, the FBI, and these other agencies from asking the tech companies to take posts down or suppress certain posts. The judge said that these actions could, and I'm quoting, arguably involve the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.
--:-- Megan Basham: So the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals largely concurred with that, but they did narrow the scope of the injunction. And that was when the Supreme Court took up the case. And so that is why this type of cooperation between the agencies and social media platforms can continue, at least for now. For now, potentially until we hear from SCOTUS.
--:-- Megan Basham: Do we know when that will be or how they're likely to rule?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, I try to make it a rule never to predict SCOTUS outcomes, but it is likely that we're going to have a ruling in mid to late June before the court recesses. And if you listen to the justices' questions during oral arguments in mid-March, it was clear that the conservatives on the court were pretty skeptical of the government's defense.
--:-- Megan Basham: For example, this was Justice Alito. And I see that the White House and federal officials are repeatedly saying that Facebook and the federal government should be partners. We're on the same team. Officials are demanding answers. I want an answer. I want it right away. When they're unhappy, they they curse them out. Would you do that to The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal or The Associated Press or any other big newspaper or wire service?
--:-- Megan Basham: So the question is whether the justices overall will believe that the government was coercing the tech companies or if they were merely making suggestions that the companies were free to disregard. If it was just the latter, then it's legal. But it is worth pointing out that the government is not really faring well on some related cases right now.
--:-- Megan Basham: So the Daily Wire, which of course produces this program, the Federalist and the state of Texas are all suing the State Department over claims that it violated free speech and freedom of the press rights. And that's stemming from an agency the State Department created called the Global Engagement Center that funded third party watchdog groups to create advertising blacklists, primarily of conservative news organizations.
--:-- Megan Basham: So the State Department tried to get that case thrown out, but last Tuesday, a federal judge denied that request and quoted part of the First Amendment.
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--:-- John Bickley: Anytime. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.
