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--:-- Georgia Howe: Good morning, I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Friday, August 26th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Morning Wire. Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: President Biden's plan to cancel hundreds of billions in student loan debt has been met with strong warnings from economists. Look, on the one hand, I understand the help that they're trying to give. On the other hand, I don't think it makes economic sense.
--:-- John Bickley: That's right, Georgia. While most Democratic leaders are celebrating the move, many economists are sounding the alarm.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to discuss is marketing strategist Kenny Polcari, managing partner at Case Capital Advisors. All right, Kenny, we have the most aggressive move we've ever seen by an administration on student loans. Does this move make sense economically?
--:-- Kenny Polcari: First of all, it sends a couple of different messages, right? Number one, that that is the responsibility in this. That's just number one. That's off the top. Number two, this is the largest presidential executive order, financial order, I think, in the history, if I if I read all this correctly.
--:-- John Bickley: So I think this is going to run into some challenges, right, because this was not this was not presented or passed by Congress. So I think that's a whole nother set of issues.
--:-- Kenny Polcari: But then the third part that I think is a real problem for people is what does it say to everybody else? that either took the loans and paid them off and worked through it and figured out how to do it, whether they had to get a second job or even a third job in some points for people to be able to pay this off.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So I think it sends the completely wrong message, but it does do the right thing for the progressive left because now it works to buy votes for them, for sure.
--:-- Kenny Polcari: Now, the Democrats, after months of internal fighting, managed to push through the Inflation Reduction Act that promised to ease some inflationary pressures. What does the student loan plan do to that effort?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, you know, you're going to argue that it's going to add to inflationary pressures because now instead of making their monthly payment towards their student loan, they're supposedly going to have more money to go out and spend.
--:-- Kenny Polcari: I think it does nothing but add to potential upside inflationary pressures. It's not going to add to inflationary pressures if they have to pay the student loan because they're going back to pay the student loan. They're not going out there buying more product or demanding more product or spending it in the economy, right?
--:-- Georgia Howe: So I think by reducing it and giving this you know giving this relief it going to actually add to the already current inflationary pressures
--:-- Kenny Polcari: Now this is all presented as the forgiveness of loans But what does that mean Is this just wiped out or is this something that the American people have to pay back
--:-- John Bickley: Bingo, you hit the nail on the head. It's not being wiped out. It's not like they poof and it's off the books and nobody knows. You and I and everyone else, all taxpayers are going to be responsible for pay. It's going to cost, they just estimated, anywhere between $300 billion and $600 billion. And I heard somebody this morning say it could approach a trillion dollars.
--:-- Kenny Polcari: You know, if everyone gets what they want, and who's really going to pay for it? We're all going to pay for it. We're paying for it with higher taxes. Who are they kidding when they say it's already paid for? It's not already paid for.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And so here's the other thing. What about the poor men or women that went to a trade school, that went to learn how to be, you know, how to service an air conditioner, how to be a plumber, how to be a master carpenter? What about all of them? I think it sends a really, really bad message to the nation.
--:-- Kenny Polcari: Now, we've mentioned inflation, and it's obviously been on everyone's mind this year. What do you see coming in the months ahead in terms of inflation?
--:-- John Bickley: So I see inflation is going to rear its ugly head again. I think last month we saw, you know, 0% in July. We saw the year-over-year figure come down two-tenths of a percent. That's great. It's still at 8.5%, which is four times higher than what the Fed wants it to be.
--:-- Kenny Polcari: But listen, we also saw oil fall 25%. Oil is now on its way back up. And the Saudis just said on Monday, the only way to protect and defend the price of oil is to cut production. So expect oil is going to go higher. And now we're moving into the winter. And then you have the whole European problem, right, with Russia and the war in Ukraine. And Russia is threatening to shut everybody off.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So I think energy is going to go higher again. And therefore, I think CPI and inflation is going to start to turn its ugly head up once again and actually surge higher versus, you know, moving lower the way they all want you to believe after one data point.
--:-- Kenny Polcari: So and then I think the Fed is going to be in a tough position, right, where they're going to have to get even more aggressive. And that's going to be the issue.
--:-- John Bickley: Kenny, thanks so much for coming on.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was marketing strategist, Kenny Polcari.
--:-- John Bickley: If you like this podcast, subscribe to our Morning Wire newsletter available exclusively to Daily Wire members. Get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at dailywire.com slash subscribe. Use code MORNINGWIRE to try a Reader's Pass membership and get your first month for only 99 cents.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Amid rising concerns about partisanship within the FBI, Republican Senator Ron Johnson sent a letter to the Justice Department this week that contained new claims by whistleblowers alleging FBI officials worked to downplay allegations against Hunter Biden.
--:-- John Bickley: More FBI insiders are blowing the whistle on the bureau, this time allegedly to GOP Senator Ron Johnson. Johnson said in a letter released Wednesday that multiple whistleblowers have come forward claiming that FBI brass smothered probes into Hunter Biden's laptop prior to the 2020 election, despite obtaining the damning laptop about a year before.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to go through the new allegations is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Sure, Georgia. Senator Johnson wrote a letter to the DOJ's inspector general on Tuesday claiming to have heard from multiple FBI whistleblowers about corruption in the Bureau's top brass. Johnson said that individuals with knowledge of the FBI's apparent corruption told his office that FBI officials forbade agents from looking at Hunter's laptop and digging into his background and business history.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, this has been alleged before in other whistleblower reports from Johnson and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley. What's new in the Johnson letter is the expressed reason why. According to Johnson, the whistleblower said FBI agents were blocked from investigating the president son because the FBI is quote not going to change the outcome of the election again
--:-- Tim Pierce: Unfortunately not but Grassley did characterize them as highly credible. We can surmise that there are quite a few FBI insiders not happy with the Bureau's mounting scandals.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Representative Jim Jordan said recently that 14 whistleblowers have contacted his office in the past year and a half over a host of issues, from the Bureau investigating parents at school board meetings to the ongoing saga with Hunter Biden.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Mike Howell served as general counsel to the Department of Homeland Security and previously led investigations into government misconduct as an attorney for Senate and House committees. I spoke to him about the recent whistleblower reports.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm happy to see there are a growing number of FBI officials willing to talk to the senators and to Congress. I think it's super important that these patriots inside the bureau who see what's happening up close and personally, are willing to do something to help fix it. It's absolutely out of control.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And for the Senate and the Congress to proceed with actual structural reforms, these whistleblowers are hugely important.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, the FBI is already defending its public image after the Trump raid. Do we have any recent polling on public trust in the FBI?
--:-- Tim Pierce: We do. Long-term data shows trust in the Bureau has been declining for decades, but recent polling suggests there may be a significant drop-off among independent and conservative Americans.
--:-- John Bickley: As for where things stand now, Convention of States Action and the Trafalgar Group released polling on this yesterday and found that America is pretty equally split. 47% respect the FBI for enforcing law and order, and 46%, including a majority of Republicans and plurality of independents, say the Bureau has become too political, corrupt, and cannot be trusted.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Howell said the Bureau's bad public perception is due to a double standard in its enforcement. They're very aware that their actions have a huge impact, and I think that's really at the the root of a lot of the problems we see with the lack of trust in the FBI and DOJ.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It's that, you know, they're overly cautious to not do anything that can be helpful to those on the right. And they feel that they have to go full bore if it's helpful to the left. And that's a pattern that's repeated itself over and over again and why they frankly lost the trust, not only of, you know, conservatives and Republicans, but over a growing, growing amount of Americans across the board.
--:-- Tim Pierce: All right. Well, thanks so much for coming on.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: That was Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In cities across the country, dangerous crime spikes have citizens on edge. Places like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and many others have district attorneys and other officials, many funded by George Soros, who have launched policies that critics say are fueling the crime wave.
--:-- John Bickley: In Philadelphia last week, a drive-by shooting near a recreation center full of kids resulted in over 100 shots fired. And according to some reports, residents say that the city is becoming a war zone. The City of Brotherly Love has a progressive DA, Larry Krasner, funded by Soros.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to talk about all of this is columnist David Marcus.
--:-- David Marcus: Good morning.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's actually a question Soros answered in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal a few weeks back. He wrote that he is concerned about crime and that the policies of these far-left DAs who he bankrolls are popular. To put it gently, this seems out of touch with reality.
--:-- John Bickley: In fact, we see recall efforts for these ineffective DAs across the country. And in general, widespread concern about basic safety in these cities. But, you know, reading Soros' account, you'd think everything was aces.
--:-- David Marcus: Given the crime numbers that we see what is it that these Soros DAs including George Gascon in Los Angeles who it looks like will survive a recall effort say they doing that will prevent this rise in crime especially given their reluctance to send criminals to jail
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah that really becomes the question What the DAs and the progressive activists who support them say is that there are better means of intervention with social workers or therapists that can reduce crime without what they view as the harmful effects of policing.
--:-- David Marcus: Now, maybe that's true, but it isn't so far. And it's leading to more and more people saying that we can't wait for these progressive ideas to start working while kids are getting gunned down on our streets. Right.
--:-- John Bickley: How ubiquitous has the Soros-backed prosecutor become? It seems like every week there's a story from some other city about crime rising and the progressive DAs are criticized for their soft approach.
--:-- David Marcus: Yeah, look, they're all over the place. One recent report showed that one in five or 20 percent of Americans live in a place with a Soros-backed DA, and that those DAs preside over 40% of the nation's murders.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Soros and other progressive groups have gotten very, very good at this. DAs' races are low-hanging political fruit. A little bit of money goes a long way. And in many of these cities, winning an often crowded Democrat primary assures ultimate victory because no Republican can get elected.
--:-- David Marcus: This is an approach the left is executing all over the country.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, there have been some success stories. Miami, for example, has seen its lowest homicide rate in decades. Its mayor, Francis Suarez, puts this down to increased police funding. And Miami also has an interesting DA.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Tell us about her.
--:-- David Marcus: Right. So Catherine Fernandez Rundle, a Democrat, has somewhat amazingly been the state's attorney for Miami-Dade County since 1993, right, when Nirvana was topping the chart. She's been reelected six times and she's not a woke progressive.
--:-- John Bickley: So Miami hasn't seen this kind of far-left reform that you see in cities like Philadelphia and Los Angeles, I think it goes to show that there are even a lot of Democrats, perhaps an increasing amount, who are not comfortable with the Soros approach.
--:-- David Marcus: With the recall efforts that we've seen and the greater attention being paid to crime in our cities and all of its negative effects, could a tide be turning against these progressive prosecutors? It's possible, but again, DA's races are not big sexy affairs, especially the primaries.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And it is somewhat related. Over the past decade or so, the decline of local newspapers has left a lot of city dwellers less informed about local government than they used to be.
--:-- David Marcus: I think in the short term, DA races are still very fertile ground for a far left that knows exactly how to farm it.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for joining us today, David.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.
--:-- John Bickley: Other stories we're tracking this week. The redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain a warrant to search former President Trump's Florida residence must be unsealed by noon today. The ruling was handed down on Thursday afternoon by the Florida federal judge presiding over the case.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered the Russian military to increase the number of troops by 137,000 to a total of 1.15 million Russian troops in Ukraine.
--:-- John Bickley: Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee landed in Taiwan for an unannounced visit on Thursday.
--:-- Georgia Howe: California is expected to approve a ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars. The ban would take effect in 2035.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for listening to Morning Wire. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you love our show and you stand with our mission, consider subscribing, leaving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, that's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.
