--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Fed hikes rates, stocks rally, and the red-hot job market cools down. We have the latest on the state of the U.S. economy.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, September 8th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: A new report reveals that Twitter explored monetized pornography as recently as this spring. What derailed the plan? And how was the company explaining the move? And President Biden used a waiver to forgive all of the student loans of some government and nonprofit employees, with one teacher writing off almost half a million in loans. We take a closer look at the underreported program.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- Georgia Howe: While grocery store meat prices continue to rise, Good Ranchers has your back. Their inflation-proof model locks in your price the day you subscribe for the life of your subscription.
--:-- John Bickley: You got to go to goodranchers.com slash wire and get $30 off your order plus free shipping. That's goodranchers.com slash wire. Enter promo code wire at checkout. Good Ranchers, American Meat delivered.
--:-- Georgia Howe: After months of persistent inflation and stagnant wage growth, new data shows the labor market is beginning to cool off as the Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates even higher.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here with more on the state of the economy is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, according to the Labor Department's latest report, the red-hot job market that we've seen over the last six months is finally starting to cool off as employers added around 315,000 jobs in the month of August.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's about in line with projections and still well above pre-pandemic levels, but it's down nearly 40% from the month before, so a pretty significant drop-off.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Another interesting note from the report, the number of 25 to 54-year-old women in the workforce spiked last month, hitting their highest levels since 2000.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And while some celebrated the move as a step towards gender equality in the workforce, there were others who cautioned that it's likely the result of mothers having to leave the home to find work because of the rising cost of living.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Essentially, inflation has created sort of an all-hands-on-deck mentality for families to get by.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, what about inflation? Where do things stand there?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So the latest figures show inflation at 8.5%, which is an improvement from months before, but obviously it's all relative when you're talking about record rates.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And the big problem now is that wages grew just 5.2% over the last 12 months.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So even if most people are getting a 5% raise over the course of a year, they're just not able to keep up with the pace of inflation. Their money is worthless.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The other issue is that even if inflation does slow, much of the damage has really already been done because prices on common goods are now elevated anywhere from 10 to 15, even 20% in some cases beyond where they were a year ago, and wages have not risen enough.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So unless there's deflation, prices may stop rising, but for the most part, they won't be going down anytime soon.
--:-- Georgia Howe: How is the Fed responding to the latest economic developments?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right now, all signs point to another interest rate hike in the 0.5 to 0.75 range.
--:-- Georgia Howe: As we've talked about on the show, the Fed's main goal right now is to make it actually more difficult for people and businesses to borrow money because they want to slow the economy down with the overall hope of curbing inflation.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So is there any solidly good news on the economic front?
--:-- John Bickley: You're speaking my language, Cabot. You know I always trying to find reason for optimism.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well in this case the good news would probably be the trade deficit.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Commerce Department released their latest data on Wednesday and showed that in the month of July the U was able to increase exports by 3 and as a result cut the trade deficit by 12.6%.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Remember, a trade deficit occurs when a country imports more goods than it exports. And a large deficit can subtract from a country's GDP.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, we did still see a $70 billion trade deficit last month, which is well above pre-pandemic levels, but a step in the right direction.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, some economists fear that the reason the deficit was cut is because there was a decreased demand for imports due to higher costs and supply chain complications, and that it could actually be a sign that the global economy is heading in the wrong direction.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So even the good news here could be a bit deceiving. We just don't know yet.
--:-- John Bickley: Obviously, the economy is going to play a huge role in the midterms. What's the latest there?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, look, Republicans are clearly hoping the economy stays at the forefront of the national conversation because polling has consistently shown that voters trust them over Democrats when it comes to lowering inflation.
--:-- Georgia Howe: For example, a number of polls in August showed them with anywhere from an 8 to 12 point advantage when voters were asked which party they trusted with the economy.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So unless there's a massive economic turnaround in the next two months, you can expect to hear Republicans really hammering this issue ahead of November.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, it makes sense.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- John Bickley: Anytime.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Coming up, a recent report reveals Twitter's attempt to get into the porn industry. Do you like to be the first to know about trendy news and current events?
--:-- John Bickley: If so, you got to get the Daily Wire Plus app. Not only will you receive mobile notifications whenever something's happening, but you'll also have access to the best commentary to break it all down.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Download the Daily Wire Plus app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you.
--:-- Megan Basham: A recent report revealed that Twitter tried to increase its revenue base by monetizing porn on the platform. The story claims that the social media giant was looking to compete with the highly profitable pornography site OnlyFans, but had to back away from the plan due to its failure to police child pornography.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to give us the details on the report and how Twitter is handling this latest round of bad news is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So, Megan, another day, another negative news cycle for Twitter. You are reporting that there's now a new leak, and it's claiming that Twitter explored getting into the porn business.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What exactly did we learn?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, you know, some important context here is that while Twitter makes a lot of headlines due to how many journalists and politicians tend to use it, it's not actually particularly profitable.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So when it comes to revenue, so far this year, it actually comes in behind lower-profile apps like LinkedIn and WhatsApp, and well behind Facebook and TikTok.
--:-- Megan Basham: Plus, its stock has really been struggling. So in order to better monetize the site, this past spring, Twitter execs reportedly explored the idea of adopting a similar business plan to OnlyFans.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, this story comes from the online news outlet The Verge, and they say they reviewed 58 pages of internal documents and spoke to a number of current and former staffers who told them that Twitter's idea was to allow adult content creators to sell subscriptions and they would then take a healthy cut.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, according to the story, Twitter execs knew this was going to cost them some traditional advertisers, but their thinking was that the huge amounts of money that porn tends to generate would offset any of those losses.
--:-- Georgia Howe: To that end, they put together a team of staffers called the Red Team that were supposed to research the feasibility of this OnlyFans model.
--:-- Megan Basham: And what the team reported back is that Twitter has a problem with child pornography a direct quote from the leaked documents Twitter cannot accurately detect child sexual exploitation and non nudity at scale.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, even worse, according to The Verge, Twitter leaders have known for over a year that this was a problem, yet they haven't really made much effort to address it.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, how is Twitter responding to this?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, they aren't denying that they considered trying to monetize porn or that they formed a team to explore that option.
--:-- Megan Basham: A company spokesman told the Washington Post, it was just part of an ongoing and reflective dialogue.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And she said the Red Team project led the company to decide to prioritize elsewhere.
--:-- Megan Basham: But when it comes to exploiting children, she said Twitter aggressively fights it and has invested in technology to enforce a zero tolerance policy against any kind of child abuse.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, why is it that Twitter has had so many negative headlines in the past year compared to some of these other platforms?
--:-- Megan Basham: You know, that's a very fair question. And I think part of it is that Twitter was always designed to be, say, more of a rough and tumble platform than some of these other social media companies.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It allows anonymous users, for example.
--:-- Megan Basham: I sometimes joke that Twitter is Thunderdome compared to Facebook or Instagram.
--:-- Georgia Howe: If you have the right kind of temperament, that's actually part of its appeal.
--:-- Megan Basham: But it also means that it tends to draw more extreme and combative forms of self-expression.
--:-- Georgia Howe: People don't go there to post pictures of their family vacation.
--:-- Megan Basham: As Elon Musk said, in many ways, it does function as the 21st century town square.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It's a place where a lot of cultural and political ideas are debated and sometimes hotly debated.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, that can be a good thing, but the downside is it doesn't make it especially attractive to advertisers who by nature want to avoid controversy.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So that's led to Twitter's perpetual problem of how to make money on what it offers.
--:-- Megan Basham: And what we know so far is that neither Elon Musk nor pornography are going to provide the solutions for that.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right. Well, Megan, it seems like every week you give me another reason to not be on Twitter, but thank you so much for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: That's what I'm here for. Thanks, Georgia.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: We've heard a lot about President Biden's plan to forgive $10,000 in student loans for people making less than $125,000 annually. But the administration has quietly enacted a far more expansive forgiveness program for government and nonprofit employees.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to discuss is Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak, who recently reported on this for The Daily Wire.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Well, we've heard a lot about the $10,000 student loan plan, but this is a whole separate initiative that's a big deal and has really flown under the radar.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, or PSLF, has been around since 2007.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: It forgives all student loans for government employees after 10 years of following all the rules, like making payments on time.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But in October 2021, the Biden administration stopped enforcing those rules.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Opening it up to far more people than actually qualified.
--:-- Georgia Howe: They called this change a waiver.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: From its inception until then, the program only forgave a total of a billion dollars.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In the last 10 months alone, it's forgiven $10 billion, covering 150,000 workers.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Now, when most people think of a waiver, they think of a slight tweak, but this is a dramatic alteration here.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Does President Biden actually have the authority to change this program so drastically?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: This is definitely a loophole or a gray area.
--:-- Georgia Howe: One expert I spoke to said a change like that would typically require going through the rulemaking process.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Now, they've proposed making these changes permanent, but that hasn't been approved yet.
--:-- Georgia Howe: They are also citing coronavirus as a reason for it, but this expansion continues until next month, even though coronavirus isn't really hindering anyone from making payments at this point.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: All right. So who are we talking about here? Who's eligible for this program?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, so it's federal, state, and local government workers, plus nonprofits, which includes activist groups like the Center for American Progress, Planned Parenthood, and wealthy entities like Yale University.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: But perhaps the biggest beneficiary winds up being teachers, whose union is, of course, really tight with the Biden administration.
--:-- Georgia Howe: On Labor Day, the American Federation of Teachers, that's Randy Weingarten, took credit for forcing this expansion.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: It touted that one teacher used it to get out of paying $450,000 in student loans.
--:-- Georgia Howe: $450,000, half a million for one person.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Yeah, that's the truly remarkable thing about this program.
--:-- Georgia Howe: There literally is no limit. The average debt forgiven under these waivers is $60,000.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: You could stay in school for years, taking on necessary classes, and as long as you work for the government for 10 years at some point, it would go away.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Department of Education says people who qualify for the program currently have a combined $133 billion in loans.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: The Congressional Budget Office has pointed out the impact of this on the federal budget and suggested capping it at $55,000 per person.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Is there an income limit for this program for the government workers?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: No, there's no limit. You can get unlimited debt forgiven no matter how much money you make.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, one of the most frequently cited examples we have for the other program, the $10,000 in forgiveness, was that it might benefit teachers.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: But we now learned that there actually is another way they can get debt forgiven.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Public school teachers have qualified for this program in some form for a long time.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: So loan forgiveness was sold as a way to help them and also to help people who are really struggling.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But government workers have stable jobs. It seems like if anyone could pay their student loans reliably, it was then.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: And basically what this waiver now does is say that even if you didn't pay your loans on time when you were employed by the government, so you wouldn't have qualified for the PSLF under the real rules, we're just going to go ahead and forgive those loans anyway.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, it sounds like this is a lot of money we're talking about here.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: It is.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Luke, thanks for breaking that down for us.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Absolutely.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak.
--:-- [Closing music plays]
--:-- Georgia Howe: Other stories we're tracking this week. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping planned to meet next week in Uzbekistan, Russian officials said Wednesday.
--:-- John Bickley: Russia resumed shelling near Ukraine's Zaporizhia nuclear power plant on Wednesday, according to local officials.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The day before, the UN Atomic Watchdog Agency requested a safe zone around the plant.
--:-- John Bickley: Cleotha Abston, the man accused of kidnapping and killing young Memphis teacher Eliza Fletcher, was arraigned in court on Wednesday on murder charges.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Abston was ordered to be held without bond.
--:-- John Bickley: In an interview on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton said she won't run for president again.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation.
--:-- Georgia Howe: If you love our show and you stand with our mission, please consider subscribing, leaving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend.
--:-- John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- John Bickley: We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.
