--:-- [Upbeat music plays]
--:-- Georgia Howe: Iowans have spoken. After months of being courted by Republican presidential hopefuls, voters in the Hawkeye State overwhelmingly picked Donald J. Trump to be their nominee.
--:-- John Bickley: We want to thank the great people of Iowa. Thank you. We love you all. What a turnout. What a crowd. And I really think this is time now for everybody, our country, to come together.
--:-- Georgia Howe: How did the vote divvy up and how did the results change the campaigns going forward? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, January 16th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Several big players in the aviation industry have come under fire for their diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments after a handful of near-catastrophic incidents.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: One of the things we do is, for every job when we do an interview, we require women and people of color to be involved in the interview process.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And Taiwan loudly rejects China's demand for reunification and elects a new president who Beijing has branded a separatist troublemaker.
--:-- John Bickley: For the Chinese, the statement is clear. You just need to listen to their leader. There will be reunification at all costs.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- John Bickley: As we start this presidential election year, we should get ready. 2024 will be tumultuous. How are you protecting your savings? Consider diversifying with gold from the Birch Gold Group.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Former President Donald Trump took a big step towards securing the 2024 GOP nomination last night, scoring a victory in the first in the nation Iowa caucuses.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here with the latest from the all-important Hawkeye State is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So Cabot, big win last night for Donald Trump. What else did we learn?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, a resounding win last night for the former president, who dominated all year in the polls and also on election night. Rounding out the field behind him was Ron DeSantis in second at around 21%, followed by Nikki Haley at around 19%, and then Vivek Ramaswamy in fourth at 7%.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: In the end, though, Trump not only won by around 30 points, he also crossed over that all-important 50% threshold, giving him the largest margin of victory for any contested GOP caucus in the state's history.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: It was really Trump's night, no other way of putting it. Following his win, the former president thanked his opponents and called for unity in a move that could be interpreted as him saying the primary is now over.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: We want to come together, whether it's Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative, it would be so nice if we could come together and straighten out the world and straighten out the problems and straighten out all of the death and destruction that we're witnessing that's practically never been like this.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: It's just so important. And I want to make that a very big part of our message. We're going to come together. It's going to happen soon, too. It's going to happen soon.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And Trump not only secured first place in the polls, he also won the endorsement of Vivek Ramaswamy, who announced afterwards that he was dropping out after his fourth place finish.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And earlier tonight I called Donald Trump to tell him that I congratulate him on his victory And now going forward he will have my full endorsement for the presidency And I think we going to do the right thing for this country
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But it's worth noting, while the final result was a blowout, the evening was not without controversy. The moment voting began, a number of national media outlets, including CNN and NBC, called the race for Trump immediately.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: While their prediction obviously turned out to be accurate, it came before most voters had actually cast their ballots. Now, that outraged DeSantis and Haley supporters who said it could have influenced voters before they actually voted.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: A DeSantis spokesperson called it, quote, election interference, while the governor himself said it was part of a broader effort to hurt his campaign.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us. They spent almost $50 million attacking us. No one's faced that much all the way just through Iowa.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: They, the media was against us. They were writing our obituary months ago. They even called the election before people even got a chance to vote.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But I can tell you, because of your support, in spite of all of that that they threw at us, everyone against us, we've got our ticket punched out of Iowa.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So Trump gets on the board first, but let's talk about that battle for second place. What happened there?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, that's where we saw the only real suspense last night. Coming into the evening, the polls showed that Haley had the inside track for runner-up, but it was actually DeSantis who ended up exceeding expectations.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Remember, he was around 15% in the polls, but ended up with around 21%. That is critical for a candidate who really put all his chips on Iowa and could not afford a third-place finish.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So DeSantis lives to fight another day. It was, however, a more disappointing night for Haley, who many had predicted to come in second after she shot up the polls over the last few months.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Iowa, as we all know, is about expectations and the optics just are not great when you finish third after claiming to be the candidate with all the momentum.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Regardless though, Haley claimed the results showed that it was now a race between her and Trump.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I can safely say, tonight, Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, a week from today, we get to do it all again, but this time in New Hampshire, a state known for its more moderate streak.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, conventional wisdom says that would be good news for Nikki Haley, who, again, stumbled last night, but has consistently pulled well among moderates and independents.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Of all the early states, New Hampshire really looks like the only one right now where Trump's lead is more modest.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: In one CNN poll last week, for example, Haley was within seven points of the former president.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But that was before her somewhat disappointing third place showing last night. Now we'll see if that impacts the momentum she appeared to have in New Hampshire, or if DeSantis' second-place finish propels him forward in the coming weeks.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, the winner wasn't a huge surprise last night, but a lot of eyes were on that second-place spot.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
--:-- Megan Basham: The diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments made by major airlines are coming under scrutiny following several near catastrophes.
--:-- John Bickley: In the meantime, other business sectors are beginning to distance themselves from DEI.
--:-- Megan Basham: Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham is here now with more.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Megan, I remember some concerns were raised when a handful of prominent airlines first announced commitments to DEI back in 2021. Why is this back in the news now?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well certainly the Alaska Airlines flight from Portland to San Bernardino where a door plug actually fell off the plane mid is a major catalyst for all of this
--:-- Megan Basham: It ripped a hole in the side of the plane and it forced it to make an emergency landing Fortunately no one fell out But that of course turned a lot of attention to Boeing, the manufacturer of this plane, which was a 737 MAX 9.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Boeing has asked the airlines to inspect these planes for loose bolts. And it turns out that the 737 MAX line generally has had some problems.
--:-- Megan Basham: It was involved in two deadly crashes within five months back in 2019, and that caused all MAX 737 models to be grounded for around nine months.
--:-- Megan Basham: And those crashes were related to new flight control software.
--:-- Megan Basham: So now you have a number of critics, including Elon Musk, pointing to Boeing's new DEI commitments that tied incentives like bonuses to whether executives were hitting DEI targets along with safety and quality targets.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then there's Boeing's 2023 DEI report. It said that its goal was to achieve diverse interview slates for at least 90% of manager and executive openings.
--:-- Megan Basham: And it also said that it wanted those interviews to result in, quote, 47% diverse hires. It also began selecting supply chain partners, according to those DEI commitments.
--:-- Megan Basham: And Boeing isn't alone in this, correct?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, absolutely right. United Airlines, which also had a near crash with a flight from Hawaii back in December of 2022, is also coming under some pretty heavy fire.
--:-- Megan Basham: This is what United CEO Scott Kirby said back in 2021. We have committed that 50% of the classes will be women or people of color.
--:-- Megan Basham: Today, only 19% of our pilots at United Airlines are women or people of color. And by the way, from all the data I've seen, that's the highest of any airline in the country.
--:-- Megan Basham: And the DEI hiring commitments of the Federal Aviation Administration and Air Traffic Control, those two are coming under a pretty heavy microscope, given an increase in safety violations in recent years.
--:-- Megan Basham: Do we have any hard data to suggest that these issues are, in fact, stemming from new hiring criteria?
--:-- Megan Basham: No, nothing hard.
--:-- Megan Basham: And to be fair, some are pushing back against the idea that these problems were caused by DEI.
--:-- Megan Basham: You've got Mark Cuban, for instance, who has been out defending DEI.
--:-- Megan Basham: And he fired back at Elon Musk and Bill Ackman's criticism of it, saying that he believes it's a valuable hiring tool and that it's not to blame for the Boeing mishaps.
--:-- Megan Basham: But I do think you can say that this whole debacle is adding fuel to the fierce debate over DEI.
--:-- Megan Basham: You also have some in the airline industry saying that they believe weighing race or gender in hiring is illegal.
--:-- Megan Basham: Last November, for example, America First Legal, a conservative nonprofit, filed complaints against American, United, and Southwest Airlines with the EEOC.
--:-- Megan Basham: And that's just one of the many lawsuits along these lines since the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in college admissions last June.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, a couple of years ago after the George Floyd riots, it felt like DEI really steamrolled through corporate America.
--:-- Megan Basham: But lately, it feels like there's a lot more scrutiny. I'm thinking specifically of the Harvard saga.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, very true. And though I would say that the pendulum has already begun swinging back away from DEI to a certain degree, even before that Harvard controversy and these concerns over flight safety.
--:-- Megan Basham: But those events certainly did ramp it up.
--:-- Megan Basham: So when you look at all the scrutiny combined with the fact that a lot of DEI roles are now disappearing, it does seem like the corporate world is pretty well aware that there's been a shift in public opinion and we're seeing it adapting now.
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, public opinion and legal concerns. Yeah.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Taiwan chose as its president on Saturday the most anti of the candidates The election which some say is a repudiation of Beijing signals another four years of tense U.S.-China relations over Taiwan's future.
--:-- John Bickley: Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about Taiwan's election and how it could impact the region.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hey, Tim. So a significant result in Taiwan. First, what can you tell us about this incoming president?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Sure. Sure. So Lai Ching-Tai is currently Taiwan's vice president, and he won a three-way race on Saturday with just 40% of the vote.
--:-- Tim Pierce: As it relates to China, his win will be a continuation of Taiwan's current policy, and that is to keep China at a distance and maintain independence without provoking Beijing more.
--:-- Tim Pierce: For some hardliners, that may be a bit of a disappointment that this election wasn't a more direct repudiation of Beijing. But Lai won without a majority or a clear political mandate.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Here's Jason Su, a former Taiwanese legislator on the BBC, explaining more.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Opposition camp split into two parties, and the two parties' votes combined are over 60% of total votes. So you can see that this is a very unfortunate situation.
--:-- Tim Pierce: 60% of voters actually wanted a change of the government. But yet we now have a rather weakened president.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And I think it will be important to see how he will deal with a rather divided legislative yuan as well.
--:-- Tim Pierce: A lot of that dissatisfaction may be due to domestic issues. The Democratic Progressive Party, Lies Party, has been in control for eight years now.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And during that time, there has been some buildup of disagreement over domestic policies.
--:-- Tim Pierce: What does this election mean for Taiwan's relationship with the U.S.?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, the policy will likely remain the same. so Taipei will continue to get as close to the U.S. as it can.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Washington will decide how close that is. So far, the Biden administration has staked out a position of strategic ambiguity when it comes to China and Taiwan, which means that it won't commit to coming to Taiwan's defense in case China invades, but it won't rule it out either.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The U.S. still has interests in Taiwan. Importantly, some of the most sophisticated microchips in the world are made on the island, many of which end up in American military tech.
--:-- Tim Pierce: That tech is a lot of what gives the U.S. military an advantage over Beijing. But the Biden administration is also reluctant to get into open conflict with China, especially with wars raging in Ukraine and now the Middle East, and with the U.S. military low on supplies.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, China's president is clearly unhappy with this outcome here. What can we expect out of him in terms of response?
--:-- Tim Pierce: There's been a lot of speculation on this. A lot of people in Washington are concerned that Lai's election will still ramp up hostilities between China and Taiwan.
--:-- Tim Pierce: But Helen Raleigh, a senior writer at The Federalist, thinks she will take things slow.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Here's Helen on Fox News.
--:-- Tim Pierce: It's very likely that the Chinese government is not going to do anything too crazy immediately. But what they are likely to do is they're going to continue military intimidation, basically like sending fighter jets into Taiwan's south, declare the air zones on a daily basis, continue to conduct military drills, and also probably impose serious economic sanctions.
--:-- Tim Pierce: But over the long term, we should understand that regardless who in Taiwan is elected, that the communist China wants to take over control of Taiwan.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So Taiwan cannot have long last peace as long as that's the communist party's goal.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Right. No signs at all of the situation de-escalating.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Tim, thanks for joining us.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Good to be on.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
--:-- [Upbeat music continues]
