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--:-- Host (John Bickley): This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID, and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info. And if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): A New York Court of Appeals hands President Trump a massive victory, wiping out his half-billion-dollar fine. Wherever the line is for what's an excessive fine for these bookkeeping errors, whatever the allegations were, I think it was up to $600 million. That does seem excessive.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): I'm Daily Wire, executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, August 22nd, and this is Morning Wire. Texas is putting abortion pill providers on notice. Don't advertise, sell, or ship pills to the Lone Star State. I think that Texas will win this battle, and I hope other states enforce it. And flush with new cash, ICE is ramping up deportations, hiring agents, and adding detention centers. It's just common sense. If you're here illegally, you've already shown a predisposition to not respect the laws of the country.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Host (John Bickley): Head over to Shopify.com slash MorningWire. Again, that's Shopify.com slash MorningWire.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): In a stunning legal victory for Donald Trump, a New York appeals court has tossed out the $465 million civil fraud penalty against him. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here to break down this massive reversal and what comes next, say Cabot.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So a big win in the courts for Trump, this one worth half a billion dollars. What did we see yesterday?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, this is yet another remarkable turnaround for a man who last year was facing four separate indictments, hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and legal fees, and, oh yeah, life in prison. So quick refresher on this particular ruling. This case centers on the civil trial brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who accused Trump of inflating his net worth to obtain better loan rates and insurance terms.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Ultimately, a judge found Trump liable for fraud in that case, ordering Trump to pay nearly half a billion dollars in fines to the state. On Thursday, a New York appeals court threw out the fine, saying it was excessive and unconstitutional.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: For more on the ruling, I spoke with Ilya Shapiro, the director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute.
--:-- Ilya Shapiro: It means that the hundreds of millions of dollars that he was supposed to pay to Letitia James, he no longer has to pay. That is vacated completely, and there's further process. There are going to be appeals. Still up in the air whether he ultimately liable for his organization is liable for it but the amount is wiped off
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So in his opinion Thursday Justice Peter Moulton wrote that quote while harm certainly occurred it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion dollar award to the state
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, as you can imagine, Trump was thrilled by this ruling, writing on Truth Social, calling it a, quote, total victory in the fake New York State Attorney General Letitia James case. He went on to call it a, quote, political witch hunt in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And one of the judges, David Friedman, went a step further, agreeing with Trump's assessment, writing that Letitia James, quote, ultimate goal was not market hygiene, but political hygiene, ending with a derailment of President Trump's political career and the destruction of his real estate business.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The voters have obviously rendered a verdict on his political career. This bench today unanimously derails the effort to destroy his business. Very strong words there from this New York judge in support of Trump.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But for his part, Shapiro said he does not expect Attorney General James to be deterred by this ruling.
--:-- Ilya Shapiro: I expect Letitia James to say, look, the court allowed the convictions, some debate over the nomenclature, whether it's actually a conviction or a judgment of liability. But she's going to talk about the convictions are going to stand and we're just arguing about money. So ultimately, that's fine. And the court vindicated this and we'll have some more legal appeals to figure out exactly how much the Trump organization owes me.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So you've mentioned the appeals process. What does come next in that process?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So this ruling allows Trump the option of taking the initial fraud ruling to New York's highest court on appeal, where they could seek to have the entire case thrown out. Now, two of the five judges on Thursday went so far as saying that Trump deserves an entirely new trial.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But according to Shapiro, the Trump team may not want to actually start over.
--:-- Ilya Shapiro: I imagine the Trump team wants to run out the clock, but second best to dismissing it is forcing Letitia James to start over again. And so I think they would take that. But again, they're going to run this out as far as they can go. And at a certain point, it becomes such old, stale news that the business interests involved have been sold and resold and sliced and diced that it's unclear whether there's going to be a relevant claim to be had in the first place, even if you accept that Letitia James is using the statute correctly.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And as we talk about all of this, it's important to note the Trump administration, for their part, is bringing the fight to Letitia James outside of the courtroom.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The Justice Department is currently investigating whether her targeting of Trump violated his civil rights. There's also a separate probe into her personal finances, specifically whether she committed mortgage fraud as part of numerous real estate transactions around the country. And so the plot thickening there.
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--:-- Host (John Bickley): Republican-led states are ramping up efforts to restrict access to mail-order abortion pills like Mifepristim, which now account for nearly two-thirds of abortions in the U.S. Meanwhile, corporate America has become a battleground over the drugs. Here with the details is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So first off, Megan, which states are we talking about and what kind of actions are they taking with regards to these drugs?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, so we're seeing two major fronts here, Texas and Tennessee. Now in Texas distributing abortion pills via the mail is already illegal but there are some pro groups outside of the state that will still ship abortion pills there. So Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking further steps. He's issuing cease and desist orders to national organizations like Plan C and Her Safe Harbor, and he's demanding that they stop illegally shipping abortion pills into the state.
--:-- Megan Basham: And if they don't, he says Texas will sue. And then on top of that, the Texas legislature is considering a bill that would also allow individuals to sue manufacturers and distributors of abortion pills in other states for wrongful death or harm. And that's even if those states have shield laws that are ostensibly meant to protect those abortion groups from those very kind of lawsuits.
--:-- Megan Basham: This is what legal expert Jessica Levinson told CBS. That is a national implication. And there are plenty of legal questions about whether or not a state can do that, can say we're going to punish people who were otherwise subject to these so-called shield laws.
--:-- Megan Basham: I'm talking to you from California. We have one of those shield laws where we essentially try and protect providers who prescribe abortion pills. And those pills eventually will end up in states sometimes where abortion is illegal. So there's a lot of implications about whether or not the reach of this particular bill would, in fact, be legal.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then we turn to Tennessee. So their senator, Marsha Blackburn, has sent a letter to the DOJ asking them to investigate whether abortion pill manufacturers misrepresented the potential harm of these drugs to the FDA. Her letter, which is joined by two other Republicans, is pointing to a study that shows that mifepristone carries risks that are 22 times higher than previously thought, including severe complications.
--:-- Megan Basham: So that's potentially opening up the pharmaceutical companies to lawsuits as well. How are abortion supporters responding?
--:-- Megan Basham: So leading Democrats are unsurprisingly resisting this. California and three other states are calling on the FDA to actually ease restrictions on mifepristone. They say that it has a proven track record of safety. On Capitol Hill, Democrats are keeping pressure up on retailers. So senators like Patty Murray have asked pharmacies to clarify their positions on dispensing these drugs.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then in New York, Governor Hochul has vowed to protect abortion pill providers from any judgments coming from states like Texas, regardless of what kind of judgments they hand down. So that's the kind of state law clash that would typically end up before the Supreme Court.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, you mentioned retailers. We're seeing them get drawn into this fight as well, most recently with Costco. What happened there?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, so Costco just announced last week that they are no longer going to be carrying Mifeprestone in any of their 500-plus pharmacies, and they're citing low customer demand for that. Obviously, as we would expect, pro-life groups are applauding that.
--:-- Megan Basham: This is what Lila Rose of Live Action said on Fox News. Costco is where you go to buy in bulk, not to buy pills or death in a bottle. And so this is a major victory for pro-life Americans and for children in the womb and women, because Costco has chosen not to sell these deadly pills and to actually do what they do best, which is actually help families.
--:-- Megan Basham: And so we're celebrating this. And I think we also are sending a strong message to the chains that are selling deadly drugs, which are killing 600,000 children every year. And so we're urging CVS and Walgreens and other pharmacies to stop peddling in death. And for the FDA, Trump's administration, to pull the pill.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, Axios is reporting that pro-life groups are trying to bring the same kind of pressure to bear on other stores like CVS and Walgreens. But so far, both retailers say that they are going to continue carrying the pill. And Walgreens though does say that they not going to do so in states that are threatening lawsuits
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Well, we be watching to see what kind of legal action ultimately develops Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: My pleasure.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): President Trump is well on his way toward fulfilling his promise of mass deportations. The pace of deportations in August hit a high not seen in years after immigration arrests surged and new detention centers came online. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the state of immigration hate dumps.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So let's talk about deportations first. What is the latest on that front?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, the New York Times says that President Trump has started to rival the former deporter-in-chief Barack Obama. Of course, that comparison is a little misleading because the Obama-era deportations really consisted of aliens arrested at the border and turned back. In Trump's case, the border has been effectively closed to illegal immigration. So the current numbers really reflect people arrested in the interior and sent out of the country. All right, so real deportations, in other words.
--:-- Tim Pierce: What kinds of numbers are we looking at?
--:-- Tim Pierce: According to the Times, daily deportations have hit nearly 1,500 a day. Daily ICE arrests have fallen a bit under 1,000 a day now from a high of around 1,200 a day in June. The number of aliens held in detention has continued to tick up and is at a high right now near 60,000. But if deportations continue to outpace arrests, we should see that number tick down, which should be welcome news by the Trump administration.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The White House and the Department of Homeland Security have prioritized bringing new detention centers online, from co-opting Guantanamo Bay to contracting the privately run Delaney Hall. President Trump has also gotten help from the states. GOP governors are behind facilities such as Alligator Alcatraz in Florida and the Cornhusker Clink soon to come online in Nebraska.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And the president is having success overseas as well, getting countries to accept illegal aliens being deported from the United States. Uganda this week joined a growing list of African countries willing to take nonviolent illegal aliens who can't be deported back to their home countries.
--:-- Tim Pierce: As we've reported, the lion's share of these arrests do come in major cities, and Trump has just taken over one of them, D.C. How are things going there?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Yeah, a couple of days ago, the Wall Street Journal actually reported that nearly half of arrests made in D.C. since Trump took it over are of illegal aliens. The arrest numbers are higher now, but according to the Journal, through Tuesday, federal agents and D.C. police had arrested 465 people. 206 of those, or roughly 44%, were illegal aliens.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, immigration enforcement like that in other cities has generated backlash from local Democrats and activists. Los Angeles is the most stark example. There, Trump even called in the National Guard and Marines to protect ICE officers. But you've also got officials such as Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who had this to say on Tuesday.
--:-- Tim Pierce: To all the federal officials attacking communities that embody diversity, creativity, and moral clarity. We mayors said this in D.C. nearly six months ago, and I'll say it again today. You are wrong on the law and you are wrong on safety. Most of all, you are wrong on cities. The cities that live in your minds are totally foreign to the residents living in our cities.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Patricia Hyde, Boston's acting ICE field office director, was on Fox News on Wednesday and had this to say about Wu's comments.
--:-- Patricia Hyde: As far as, you know, the city of Boston and Mayor Wu not backing down, the men and women of ICE are not backing down. Unlike Mayor Wu, I was born and raised in Massachusetts. I grew up in Boston and I know what a safe Boston looks like. And this isn't it.
--:-- Tim Pierce: It's just unfortunate for Hyde that Trump can't take control of Boston's police force the way he's taking control of D.C.'s. Meanwhile, as we reported yesterday, ICE is promising to flood Boston with agents. So we'll see how that goes.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): Tim, thanks for reporting. Good to be on.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): And if you're watching on YouTube, please like and subscribe. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.
