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--:-- John Bickley: I'm telling him not to take the children because it's dangerous. Title 42 officially expired last night at midnight, and the massive flow of migrants continues to overwhelm our southern border.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We believe in legal immigration. We believe the strength of this nation is the rule of law. But when you break the rule of law, you break down society.
--:-- John Bickley: We have information from a frustrated Border Patrol agent, and we hear from White House officials on the humanitarian disaster.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, May 12th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: New evidence uncovered by the House Weaponization Committee shows apparent collusion between the CIA and the 2020 Biden campaign.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So you had what looks like someone in the CIA actively soliciting and recruiting people to sign on to the letter. And CNN faces blowback from viewers over their decision to host a town hall for former President Trump.
--:-- John Bickley: This insanity should be pulled off the air. Chris Lick, you should be ashamed of yourself. But the network's CEO is sticking to his guns.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Plus, amid pressure from the left, the Manhattan DA presses charges against the retired Marine involved in the death of Jordan Neely.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Immigration enforcement at the southern border has been overwhelmed this week. Tens of thousands of migrants have flooded the border, anticipating the end of Title 42, which was officially rescinded at midnight last night.
--:-- John Bickley: Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to tell us more. So, Tim, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has said he's been preparing for this moment for years now. How's that plan going?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, images and video coming from the border show migrants entering the U.S. by the hundreds, leaving vast piles of garbage and belongings. Many cross from camps in Mexico only to end up living on the streets of border towns such as El Paso.
--:-- John Bickley: The scene is ugly. Even Mayorkas recognizes that. Here he is at a press conference Wednesday.
--:-- [Audio clip of Mayorkas]
--:-- Tim Pierce: We have done all we can with the resources that we have and within the system that we are operating under.
--:-- John Bickley: Going back to October of last year, there were more than a million apprehensions, but then there were also more than 530,000 gotaways. That's roughly the size of the population of the city of Baltimore.
--:-- Tim Pierce: How can you say that the border is not open? So we removed, returned and expelled 1.4 million people last year. Ask those 1.4 million people if they think the border is open.
--:-- John Bickley: For days now, migrant apprehensions have topped over 10,000 a day, a rate that dwarfs previous numbers.
--:-- Tim Pierce: In response to severe overcrowding at border facilities, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz on Wednesday authorized agents to mass release migrants on parole, a legally questionable move that is already being challenged.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, parole is typically reserved for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. Parolees are released without a court date or a tracking device. They just need to check in with an immigration officer in the coming weeks.
--:-- Tim Pierce: One man holding his order to appear said he was definitely not going to do so DHS says that migrants are vetted and removed if they're dangerous or criminal, but it's not clear how strict that vetting actually is.
--:-- John Bickley: It's common practice for migrants to ditch their documentation before crossing the border, or they carry homemade documents identifying them as Venezuelan, which would ease their way through parole.
--:-- Tim Pierce: A border agent I spoke to was skeptical of the vetting process. He said, quote, we don't have time to look at tattoos or all the fraudulent documents we're seeing. It is an assembly line.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has formed a special unit of the Texas National Guard to also police the border. How's that effort going?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, they're trying. Videos from the border show members of the Texas Tactical Border Force putting up razor wire to block crossings and turning migrants back at the border.
--:-- John Bickley: Texas is really pushing the limits on what states are allowed to do under current immigration law. But there's also reporting suggesting that the state's efforts are being undercut by the federal government.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Todd Bensman is reporting from Mexico for the Center for Immigration Studies. He said that Border Patrol has created a controlled flow system where U.S. agents get Mexican immigration officials to chaperone migrants across the border into Border Patrol custody for processing.
--:-- John Bickley: It's supposed to keep Border Patrol from getting overwhelmed, but as Benzman points out, it's also facilitating illegal immigration as well.
--:-- Tim Pierce: This has been happening since this morning. Hundreds and hundreds of mostly Venezuelans think that the Americans are going to let them in. And as a matter of fact, the Americans are letting a lot of them in.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, the videos paint a really disturbing picture of what's happening down there right now. Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: A new report from a House subcommittee charges that the CIA solicited signatures and colluded with the Biden campaign in order to fast track an infamous letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story as a potential Russian disinformation plot.
--:-- John Bickley: Here to discuss the allegations about the potentially election influencing letter is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta-Giacomo.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Hey, John. So the House's Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released this report on Wednesday, and it accuses the CIA of colluding with the 2020 Biden campaign to effectively discredit stories on Hunter Biden's laptop that was first reported on by the New York Post as Russian disinformation and to specifically provide Joe Biden with a talking point against Donald Trump in the last debate before the election.
--:-- John Bickley: And where are these claims coming from?
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: So the report is based on congressional testimony of numerous former U.S. intelligence officials and says that the CIA directly solicited at least one signature and fast-tracked the letter to help the Biden campaign.
--:-- John Bickley: This letter was pushed out just weeks before the election in October 2020, and it claimed that Hunter's laptop had, quote, all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: It was signed by dozens of former intelligence officials, including former Obama CIA director John Brennan and former Obama DNI James Clapper.
--:-- John Bickley: It was Clapper who suggested the language in an email to former CIA acting director Mike Morrell writing quote I think it would strengthen the verbiage if you say this has all the classic earmarks of a Soviet slash Russian information operation rather than the, quote, feel of a Russian operation.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Morning Wire spoke to Republican Ohio Rep Jim Jordan, who chairs the weaponization subcommittee, about this bombshell report.
--:-- Jim Jordan: I understand this letter was part of this overall effort to suppress the whole laptop story. Remember the mainstream media was saying it was a Russian information operation, a hack and leak operation. Big tech was censoring and scaling back the ability to share and link to this story.
--:-- John Bickley: And then this letter from these former intel officials was sort of the final step.
--:-- Jim Jordan: So we uncovered all that in our investigation. So we know Morel and Antony Blinken, who is Biden's campaign advisor and is now the secretary of state, they're accused of having crucial roles in this letter's production and prompt distribution.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Tell us what we know about that.
--:-- Jim Jordan: Yeah, so Morrell has said that he started drafting this letter only after Blinken reached out to him about the New York Post's reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop.
--:-- John Bickley: The letter was apparently fast-tracked within hours and distributed to legacy media. Mr. Morrell says the Biden campaign wants us to share this letter first with the Washington Post and then other news outlets.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: So there was that kind of coordination where they were going to shop it around to mainstream media. All this was done to help then-candidate Joe Biden in his upcoming debate with Trump.
--:-- Jim Jordan: Mike Morrell said in the interview, he said, I did it because I wanted Biden to have something to push back on President Trump in the last debate because I knew President Trump would bring it up. And I wanted Joe Biden to win the election.
--:-- John Bickley: So he was just upfront about what was all political.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Will these intelligence officers, Blinken and others, be held accountable? This remains unclear right now, but Jordan and his committee are trying to do exactly that.
--:-- Jim Jordan: They were wrong. It wasn't a Russian information operation. The emails and the material on the laptop were, in fact, authentic.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, we continue to learn more about this letter and the implications are indeed pretty broad.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Thanks for reporting.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Thanks for having me.
--:-- David Marcus: CNN is facing harsh backlash from progressives in the wake of its town hall with presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday night.
--:-- John Bickley: Democrats of every stripe from politician to pundit slammed the cable news network's decision to provide Trump with this platform.
--:-- David Marcus: But the network did rake in 3.1 million viewers, their highest ratings in nearly a year.
--:-- John Bickley: Here to discuss is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.
--:-- David Marcus: Hey Dave, CNN drawing a lot of fire from the left here. What is the crux of their complaint?
--:-- John Bickley: Morning. The basic complaint, and we heard some of this even before the event, is that CNN gave Trump an opportunity to spread what critics believe are lies.
--:-- David Marcus: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that the network should be ashamed of itself. Notable Never Trumper Rick Wilson said that the town hall had, quote, lit a match to democracy.
--:-- John Bickley: And listen, these were some of the tamer comments. Right. It was really only minutes into the primetime special that Twitter lit up with lefties saying basically, you know, wow, this was a huge mistake.
--:-- David Marcus: Right. And many of those upset by CNN's decision cited the format of the town hall is one that really gave Trump all the advantages and set up moderator Caitlin Collins for failure.
--:-- John Bickley: Is that a fair dick?
--:-- David Marcus: I think it is, at least from their perspective. I mean the New Hampshire audience was all either Republican or independent and very clearly on Trump side I mean he was like the Red Sox at Fenway.
--:-- John Bickley: And it just set up Collins on this island where she kept trying to fact check him in real time And he would just dismiss her to the delight of the crowd.
--:-- David Marcus: Collins had no control. There was one very telling moment. She told Trump, quote, you can't keep saying the 2020 election was rigged, end quote. But the natural question is, or what?
--:-- John Bickley: Right, to which CNN just had no answer.
--:-- David Marcus: The only thing Collins could have done is ended the town hall. And it did end 20 minutes early, but very much on Trump's terms.
--:-- John Bickley: In fact, he held court on stage for several minutes after it was over.
--:-- David Marcus: Here's one notable moment from the debate. You know what? If I don't win, this country is going to be in big trouble. It's so sad to see what's happening. But no commitment there on accepting the results regardless of the outcome. If it's an honest election.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, CNN is under relatively new leadership from Chris Licht, who had promised to move the network back to the center.
--:-- David Marcus: He's also reportedly eyeing Caitlin Collins for a primetime position. How has the network responded to this blowback from what has been or was its core audience?
--:-- John Bickley: Licht's defended the decision, apparently even from harsh criticism at CNN itself.
--:-- David Marcus: He's basically saying whether one likes it or not, the audience at the town hall represents tens of millions of Americans and viewers are better off understanding that.
--:-- John Bickley: The author, Joyce Carol Oates, attacked CNN for going after what she called a one-time ratings bonanza.
--:-- David Marcus: But I think that misses the broader point, which is Licht sending the message that CNN is no longer simply the anti-Trump news network.
--:-- John Bickley: And that has always been his plan.
--:-- David Marcus: Now, there's also some criticism from the right, including Daily Wire's own Ben Shapiro.
--:-- John Bickley: He argued that the Republican primary town hall failed to focus on the issues that Republican primary voters actually care about.
--:-- David Marcus: Absolutely. I mean, Shapiro brings up Fauci and COVID, right? Criminal justice reform, a host of other topics where voters might draw a line between Trump and the other candidates in the race.
--:-- John Bickley: The 2020 stuff and the E. Jean Carroll stuff is not only not what resonates with GOP voters, but it's not even where most of Trump's opponents are focused.
--:-- David Marcus: If Trump is widely considered the winner and CNN the loser in all of this, Where does that leave Trump's challengers?
--:-- John Bickley: It is what it is. Trump had a good night. There were a few issues, such as abortion and the war in Ukraine, where Trump was pretty vague and may have left himself open to some attack.
--:-- David Marcus: But I think in general, the other camps just have to tip their hat, acknowledge that Trump put some points on the board, you know, and live the fight another day.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, round one in the books.
--:-- David Marcus: Dave, thanks for joining us.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for having me.
--:-- John Bickley: The Manhattan DA's office says they will charge the 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran in the death of Jordan Neely.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Daniel Penny, who put the homeless man who was threatening fellow subway riders and was wanted for prior assault, in a chokehold, and Neely died as a result.
--:-- John Bickley: Penny's lawyers say he will turn himself into authorities today.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- John Bickley: We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know. Bye.
