--:-- Georgia Howe: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, March 20th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with us. We have a lot to cover today.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We do. Let's start with why you should shop at Burlington. Maybe it's the deals that are new each time you drop by. Maybe it's the brand names you'll be shocked Burlington has in store. Or maybe it's the quality of the items, the amazing selection, and the newest trends. If you like to save, but also like to stay in style, Burlington is your answer. And the question you'll be asking yourself is, why go anywhere else? Burlington. Deals. Brands. Wow.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, let's move on to some of the news that's been making headlines. Elon Musk and Tesla are under attack by Democrats. They basically want to kill me because I'm stopping their fraud. And they want to hurt Tesla because we're stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's right. And a new Daily Wire exclusive investigation reveals just how deep the corruption went at a now shuttered federal agency. And a handful of judges are halting a number of Trump's executive actions, setting up numerous legal showdowns.
--:-- John Bickley: We have judges who are acting as partisan activists from the bench. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- [Sound effects: Upbeat music transitions to a news theme]
--:-- Georgia Howe: Hey guys, producer Brandon here. Balance of Nature fruits and veggies provide a convenient way to get your daily whole fruits and vegetables. Using a special freeze drying process, they transform fresh produce into easy to take capsules that you can bring anywhere. While not replacing a healthy diet, Balance of Nature works alongside your other healthy habits to support your wellness journey.
--:-- Brandon: I take these capsules whenever I'm traveling to ensure I get my daily fruits and veggies. Head to balanceofnature.com and use promo code WIRE for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer, plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's balanceofnature.com, promo code WIRE.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Elon Musk remains in the spotlight this week with attacks on Tesla facilities continuing nationwide and the tech mogul working to bring home stranded astronauts. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips has the details.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So Cabot, let's first start with the disturbing and growing trend of Tesla facilities being targeted. What's happening there?
--:-- Brandon: Yeah, this week alone, we saw a Tesla facility attacked with Molotov cocktails and firearms in Las Vegas. In that incident, the perpetrator spray painted the word resist across walls and doors. The day before, we saw a similar case in a dealership in Kansas City with multiple cars being set ablaze. There were separate attacks at dealerships and charging stations across Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington. The list goes on and on. And it's not just Tesla dealerships being hit. Dozens, if not hundreds, of individual owners have also been targeted.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Social media has been flooded in recent days with security footage of Tesla owners finding their cars keyed, spray-painted, or with busted-out windows. And Musk himself has received numerous credible death threats as well in recent weeks. In one case, an Indiana man was arrested after threatening to kill him. Police found multiple guns and ballistic vests in his house.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here's Musk talking with Sean Hannity about those attacks earlier this week. Tesla is a peaceful company. We've never done anything harmful. I've never done anything harmful. I've only done productive things. So there's some kind of mental illness thing going on here because this doesn't make any sense.
--:-- Georgia Howe: This week, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a statement saying the DOJ is treating attacks on Tesla dealerships and owners as domestic terrorism because of their political nature. Bonnie says perpetrators will be hit with five-year mandatory minimum sentences and there will be severe consequences for, quote, those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here she is on Fox Tuesday. If you're going to touch a Tesla, go to a dealership, do anything. You better watch out because we're coming after you.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now all of this comes as Tesla stock prices have taken a major hit. Walk us through the details on that front.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, since Musk took on a more prominent role in the Trump administration Tesla has been just hammered on Wall Street with nine straight weeks of losses. They're now down 53% from their all-time high back in December. Many on the left have celebrated that news, saying not only should folks stop driving Teslas, but they should sell their stock in the company as well.
--:-- Georgia Howe: At that point, here's former VP candidate Tim Walls yesterday. Saying on my phone, I know some of you know this on the iPhone, they've got that little stock app. I added Tesla to it to give me a little boost during the day. $2.25 and dropping.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt had this to say about Walls celebrating Tesla's stock fall. I think that's quite sad, but I think Governor Walls unfortunately is living a sad existence after his devastating defeat on November 5th.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And it's worth noting, Fox reported that at latest count, Minnesota, where Walls as governor, held more than 1.6 million shares of Tesla stock in its state retirement fund.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, we did have some good news for Musk this week, though. Tell us about his role bringing home the astronauts stranded on the ISS.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Definitely a wild story here. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were originally supposed to spend just eight days aboard the ISS, but they spent nine months trapped in space after their Boeing Starliner ship malfunctioned. Musk says that he immediately offered to rescue them with one of his SpaceX craft, but was rebuffed by the Biden administration. However, he says Trump gave him the green light to bring them home, and NASA partnered with SpaceX to go get them.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The pair, along with two other astronauts on the rescue mission, splashed down safely on Tuesday ahead of their return, one of those stranded astronauts, Butch Wilmore, had a message of thanks for Musk and President Trump. All of us have the utmost respect for Mr. Musk and obviously respect and admiration for our president of the United States, Donald Trump. We appreciate them. We appreciate all that they do for us and our human spaceflight for our nation.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, beyond the joy in bringing those two home safely, the saga marked a major victory for Musk as, again, it reaffirmed SpaceX's dominance in the field. Well, and just a significant accomplishment by itself.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Anytime. If you're waking up exhausted, that's no way to start your day. You need Beams Dream Powder, a science-backed, healthy, hot cocoa for sleep. Other sleep aids can cause next-day grogginess, but Dream contains a powerful, all-natural blend of reishi, magnesium, L-theanine, apigenin, and melatonin to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order eliminating or drastically shrinking seven small agencies and boards. The agencies include the United States Agency for Global Media, which funds state media like Voice of America, the Minority Business Development Agency, and four smaller boards. The Daily Wire's government efficiency reporter, Luke Rosiak, spent a year investigating the final target, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and uncovered some remarkable things.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Hey, John. So first, tell us what this FMCS is.
--:-- John Bickley: Hey, Luke. So the first thing to understand is that these are all, quote, independent agencies, which just means that their top person nominally reports directly to the president. But you got to keep in mind, they're so tiny that nobody, including the president, ever looks at them.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: I don't know that I've ever seen a more wild example of out of control on accountability than FMCS. This is an agency that prior to the pandemic had a nine-story office tower in K Street for only 60 employees Its hallways were lined with oil paintings of those employees and other artwork purchased from the boss wife with government funds
--:-- John Bickley: So a nine-story building for 60 people with their portraits on the wall. What did they use all that space for?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Good times, I guess. They built an in-house gym. They had a smoking lounge, showers in their office. This was an agency that was created to offer voluntary mediation services between businesses and unions. But plenty of private arbitrators already do that. So the main purpose of FMCS kind of became, as far as I could tell, just a slush fund for its employees.
--:-- Georgia Howe: They had an office in Honolulu, and basically they would just commit what seemed like fraud in a way that was shocking. I mean, they listed the boss, Scott Beckenbaugh, as being on a six-year-long business trip to D.C. said that his rent and all of his meals would be paid for by the government just for showing up for work every day. He wouldn't have to dip into his $174,000 salary. They put relatives on the payroll. They steered $1,500 a day contracts to friends.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Well, a lot of this sounds pretty clearly like fraud. Have there been any complaints to that effect?
--:-- John Bickley: Yes. And anytime a whistleblower or auditor, one of which actually I think wanted to make an FBI referral, raised issues, they would fire that person. One time they escorted a lady out of the building with armed guards for calling attention to the way they were using these purchase cards.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: One accountant wrote an email to the General Services Administration warning about how they were abusing those cards, and then director George Cohen forced her to write an email rescinding it.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, FMCS employees actually did something called unblocking their government purchase cards, which removed restrictions against abuse, and then used them to buy whatever they wanted. One leased a BMW, Another paid for his wife's cell phone and cable TV at his vacation home, including an extra package for the Golf Channel.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: They had a recreation fund, they called it, that they used to buy champagne and $200 coasters for that champagne. That sounds like a good time.
--:-- John Bickley: I have to read this quote from your story because it seems like employees were actually pretty open that this agency just existed for the benefit of its employees. One told you, and here's the quote, let me give you the honest truth. A lot of FMCS employees don't do a hell of a lot, including myself. Personally, the reason that I've stayed is that I just don't feel like working that hard. Plus, the location on K Street is great. Plus, we all have these oversized offices with windows. Plus, management doesn't seem to care if we stay out at lunch a long time. Can you blame me?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: This is the kind of thing you heard from the employees. Yeah. And, you know, listeners might be wondering, how did you spend a year investigating this agency was just abolished. Well, I made these findings a decade ago and nothing was done. This is stuff that's kind of been out there. And what's thrilling to me is that finally people care. Things that kind of have been an open secret in Washington for a long time. Now that Doge is in town, it looks like some of those things are finally changing. And the documented behavior of this agency makes it a lot harder to argue with Doge when it says that this kind of thing does occur in government.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, the examples in the story just go on and on. 18,000 at a jewelry store, a storage facility for pictures of a former employee's dog. Most people didn't even know this agency existed. Certainly makes you wonder how many more there are like this.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Yeah, I don't know if people are really going to want to know that answer. Probably true.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Luke, thanks so much for reporting.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Thank you, John.
--:-- John Bickley: We will continue to comply with these court orders. We will continue to fight these battles in courts. But it's incredibly apparent that there is a concerted effort by the far left to judge shop to pick judges who are clearly acting as partisan activists from the bench in an attempt to derail this president's agenda.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Press Secretary Caroline Levitt addressing what she calls activist judges. Here to help us make sense of recent judicial actions is Daniel Huff senior legal fellow at the American Path Initiative and former Trump White House attorney.
--:-- Daniel Huff: Hey, Dan, so you say these judges who have placed broad freezes on the Trump administration's actions, they're ignoring a key rule, the injunction bond requirement, and that effectively invalidates their orders.
--:-- John Bickley: The Trump administration is making the same argument now. So first, what is that requirement?
--:-- Daniel Huff: So what's important to understand here is that these are preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders. These are pre-trial orders. Now, because you're getting relief up front and they're blocking the government from acting up front, there are certain safeguards. And one in particular is 65C, which governs how courts operate. And what it says is that a judge may issue an injunction or temporary restraining order only if, only if the party seeking that restraining order posts bond to compensate the party that's being restrained from any damages or costs that it may incur should it later turn out that the injunction was invalid and that it had a right to do what it wanted.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So how does that work practically, such as with the USAID cases?
--:-- Daniel Huff: The short answer is in none of these cases, including the one you just mentioned, have the judges ordered a bond in an amount that is proper. The rule says that you have to post a bond and the judges have discretion to determine the appropriate amount. But that discretion is limited because the amount still under the rule must be an amount that is adequate to compensate the enjoined party here, the government, from the costs and damages that occur.
--:-- John Bickley: So it can't be zero and it can't be de minimis. And in the case you just referenced, I believe that the bond was set at $100.
--:-- Daniel Huff: Now, I don't know all the costs of bringing people back to work and giving them their laptops and so on and so forth, but I'm pretty sure at the level we're talking about, you know, thousands or at least hundreds of workers, it's a lot more than $100. So that one was improper.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, do you think most of these cases will escalate to the Supreme Court?
--:-- Daniel Huff: Yes, I do. And I think that that's probably part of the calculation of the department, the Justice Department, in terms of how they handle it. They think, well, we'll get this sort of fixed at the Supreme Court level. But, you know, there's a danger there, right? One is that the Supreme Court conservative majority has not always been reliable. And number two, these things take time. And in the meantime, momentum is lost.
--:-- John Bickley: I mean, think about the travel ban that President Trump put into place in his first term early on in the first few days. That was ultimately upheld on the Supreme Court. I think it was a year later. And that makes a very big difference in terms of the energy of an administration and the morale.
--:-- Daniel Huff: So there's real damage to waiting. Final question. In the end, do you think the Trump administration will succeed in most of these efforts to cut costs and waste?
--:-- Georgia Howe: I think that ultimately they will be successful more often than not, specifically because the conservative majority, which I've mentioned before, is sort of not always reliable. They are pretty reliable on executive power and sort of proper use of government funds. So I think they can ultimately prevail. But again, much time can be lost in the interim. So I hope that they take stronger action up front. And one way to do that is the injunction bonds. And President Trump has issued a memorandum ordering the agencies to do this. And Senator Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, recently wrote a letter to Attorney General Pambani urging her to push this point.
--:-- John Bickley: So I do hope that this is something that they pay more attention to because I think it can help them much more quickly than waiting for a Supreme Court decision.
--:-- Daniel Huff: Fascinating legal duels going on here, Dan. Thanks so much for joining us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
--:-- [Sound effects: Upbeat music transitions to a news theme]
--:-- Georgia Howe: And don't forget, if you're looking for a convenient way to get your daily whole fruits and vegetables, head to balanceofnature.com and use promo code WIRE for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer, plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's balanceofnature.com, promo code WIRE.
--:-- John Bickley: And if you're looking for a healthy way to fall asleep, get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com slash wire and use code wire at checkout. That's shopbeam.com slash wire and use code wire for up to 40% off.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
