Ukraine Grain & DeSantis Campaign Shakeup | 7.18.23

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Georgia Howe: Moscow has walked away from an agreement that would allow Ukraine to continue exporting grain, just hours after an attack on a major bridge connecting Russia to Crimea. The last ship authorized by Russia was in late June. So since then, Russia has not authorized any ships to leave the Ukrainian ports. Why did Russia choose to end the agreement?

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Georgia Howe: I'm Georgia Howe. John Bickley is on vacation. It's Tuesday. July 18th, and this is Morning Wire. Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis is shaking up his campaign, firing some staffers and agreeing to more network media appearances in an effort to energize GOP voters. He's got to win Iowa or New Hampshire. If he doesn't win either of those two, he's out of the race. And new data shows that money management firms are distancing themselves from ESG. Could this lead to the end of the controversial practice? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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Georgia Howe: This week, Russia announced the suspension of an agreement on Ukrainian grain, just hours after a key bridge that links Crimea to Russia was bombed again by Ukrainian forces. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the latest.

Tim Pierce: So Tim, first off, what does Russia gain by canceling the Black Sea Grain Initiative?

Tim Pierce: The initiative was an agreement struck in July of last year that promised no restrictions on Russia or Ukraine's export of grains, fertilizer, and oil seeds. The agreement was mediated by the UN and Turkey to reduce the strain the war had placed on the global food supply. And it allowed Ukraine and Russia to trade millions of tons of agricultural exports on the world market. But the deal had difficulties for months. Russia had almost left it twice before negotiators were able to salvage it. That wasn't the case this time. The deal was set to expire, and now Moscow says it hasn't received what it was promised and wants a number of concessions before it will agree to another deal.

Tim Pierce: On the other side, Ukrainian MP Alexei Gontarenko says President Putin is bluffing and the world should ignore him. Their Black Sea fleet is weakened significantly. Their flagship missile cruiser Moscow is now a submarine on the bottom of the Black Sea. So in reality, they can't do anything if the world will say, no, we will ignore this and we will continue shipping. It's nothing about Putin.

Tim Pierce: Ukrainian President Zelensky has said he isn't worried about the grain shipments and that companies have told him they are willing to continue hauling Ukrainian grain, even though Russia will no longer guarantee safe passage. Now, what is Moscow asking for?

Tim Pierce: A number of things. Moscow wants its state-owned agricultural bank reconnected to SWIFT, the international messaging service that handles cross-border payments. Moscow has also complained that sanctions on key industry figures and a general aversion to doing business with Russia has constricted its ability to export goods so it not getting the kind of access to foreign markets that the deal promised And finally Russia wants an ammonia pipeline that runs from the Russian industrial city of Toljaty to a Ukrainian port near Odessa back online. A section of it was damaged in the war, possibly by saboteurs.

Tim Pierce: Now, speaking of saboteurs, what can you tell us about the reports of more explosions on that Russian-controlled bridge in Crimea?

Tim Pierce: Early Monday morning, two explosions rocked the Kirchstrait Bridge that connects Russian-occupied Crimea to mainland Russia. The bridge is a key piece of infrastructure for Moscow. It gives Russia direct access to the peninsula had annexed in 2014, and the bridge is part of the Russian military's supply route for its forces in southern Ukraine. Ukraine has taken credit for the attack, now the second time it's bombed that bridge. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said afterward, one broken Russian bridge means fewer broken Ukrainian lives. The damage to the bridge doesn't appear to be as bad as it was in October. The bridge consists of a highway running parallel to two rail lines. Russia had those rail lines up and running again Monday morning, though with some delays. The road is still knocked out, though, and Russia is telling people to seek alternate routes to cross.

Georgia Howe: All right, well, Tim, thanks so much for reporting. Thanks for having me.

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Georgia Howe: Coming up, the DeSantis campaign changes course. The Ron DeSantis presidential campaign, which has been stagnant in the polls since his announcement in May, is making some changes, leading observers to wonder if this marks a major pivot. Here to discuss is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.

David Marcus: So, David, what changes have we seen over the past few days and how important might they be in this cycle?

David Marcus: Good morning. It was announced that about 10 campaign staff were being let go as a belt-tightening measure. This despite DeSantis' very impressive recent fundraising haul of $20 million. The problem is about half of that money has already been spent. There are also concerns about donor fears over his lackluster poll numbers. I think the bigger news is that the Florida governor is set to appear on CNN for an interview with Jake Tapper tonight and also to appear on Megyn Kelly's podcast. And she's someone who's been pretty critical of his campaign. This is a bit of a 180 from a campaign that had previously boasted that it would do an end around traditional media and go straight to voters through means like social media.

David Marcus: So now he's giving interviews to legacy outlets after having avoided them pretty fastidiously for months. What does that tell us about the state of his campaign? Does this look like he's concerned about the poll numbers? I mean, he's addressed the polls recently in a radio interview and took the emphasis off the national numbers. This is a state by state process. We don't have a national primary. We're going to have Iowa. We're going to have New Hampshire. We're going to have South Carolina. There's two candidates that can win the nomination, Trump and me. And I would say that I'm the only one that could win both the nomination and the general election.

David Marcus: It's certainly an acknowledgement that what has been happening since his glitchy presidential announcement on Twitter isn't quite working. The problem with refusing to do legacy media really was that some of DeSantis' best viral moments are him going back and forth with critical reporters. That's an arena where he competes very effectively. And so to deny him those opportunities on the basis of punishing corrupt media or something, it may have been cutting off his nose despite his face.

David Marcus: Now two of the recurring knocks on the DeSantis campaign are that first it too online and that also he not proving to be likable with GOP voters Do you expect that these changes are going to address some of those concerns?

David Marcus: Yes, they exactly the narratives that the campaign seeks to counter There's been a lot of criticism, including from myself, about the amateur, often anonymous Twitter accounts that account for much of the campaign's messaging, as well as ads from outside PACs, such as a recent controversial one that was called anti-gay by the Log Cabin Republicans. The campaign wants to get back on TV to be the people who are defining the governor instead of allowing Trump to do it. And as far as likability goes, again, a combative interview is a place where DeSantis has always been compelling. So it feels like a decent bet.

David Marcus: Now, speaking of Trump, how has his campaign responded to these changes? Obviously, DeSantis is seen as his primary rival. Does it seem like they smell blood?

David Marcus: It's a Donald Trump campaign. It wakes up every morning smelling blood. But yes, I mean, they're trying to paint this as disarray and disorganization as a reason that DeSantis should drop out. That's almost certainly not going to happen. But we are seeing Trump and his surrogates keeping the fire aimed at the Florida governor and also kind of juicing the campaign of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. And at the same time, Chris Christie, who has been far more critical of Trump than DeSantis has been willing to be, is getting attention in New Hampshire. So there are a lot of dynamics for DeSantis to navigate here.

David Marcus: Now, finally, we're only about a month out from the first GOP debate set for August 23rd. If things don't change in the polling, how likely is it that Trump's going to be on that stage?

David Marcus: Honestly, the people I talk to don't see a lot of upside for Trump in debating as it stands now. His lead is commanding that there don't seem to be signs that he would be punished for skipping it by voters. Now, the wild card here is whether these changes in the DeSantis campaign can close the gap a bit. Trump is up about 30 points right now. If that gets down to 15 by August, yeah, Trump's probably going to be standing in the center of that stage.

Georgia Howe: All right. Well, David, thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me.

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Georgia Howe: New evidence suggests big money managers may be abandoning ESG and major companies are following suit. Joining us now is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.

Megan Basham: So Megan, before we get to the why, let's start with the evidence. What's the proof that ESG is losing steam?

Megan Basham: Well, the first serious indication for it came from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. Now, Fink has been known as a big booster of ESG, which, you know, quick refresher, stands for environmental, social, and governance. And that just means prioritizing typically left-wing social goals over financial returns. Just one example of Fink's activities in that realm, his annual 2022 investment letter said that BlackRock weighs how well companies uphold ESG values, like reducing carbon emissions, before deciding whether to invest in them. And that, of course, led to a lot of backlash, particularly on the right over the last couple of years.

Megan Basham: So during an interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival on June 25th, he said that he was, quote, ashamed to have become a focus of the ESG debate. And he said that that letter was never meant to be a political statement. Then just recently, he said this during an interview on Fox Business. Why not say ESG anymore? Because it's been weaponized by the far left and weaponized by the far right. And we lose the conversation. Look our job is to do what our clients are asking them to do And we do a very good job And despite all the narrative last year we were awarded over billion in net new assets

Megan Basham: But, you know, it's not just Fink. FactSet, a financial data tracking company, revealed that only 74 of the S&P 500 companies mentioned ESG during earnings calls that were held during the first quarter of this year. And that was the lowest rate in almost three years. Just to give you a little comparison there, ESG was mentioned 156 times in the last quarter of 2021. So more than twice what we're seeing now. RBC Capital Markets found that more than half of new sustainable funds, whose purpose is exactly that kind of ESG investing, have actually dropped the ESG label.

Megan Basham: So all of that has led some analysts to say that something drastic seems to be happening here. So what exactly is the drastic thing? Why are they backing off?

Megan Basham: Well, you know, the fact that even ESG-type funds aren't going to be using that label kind of says it all, I think. ESG has developed a serious image problem. Now, partly that's political, and partly it just hasn't been shown to provide value for investors. Either way, though, it's creating real pain for BlackRock and some of these big investment firms like Vanguard and State Street. Now, red states like Florida have pulled billions in public pension money from BlackRock over this. And in May, a coalition of 16 Republican states filed a motion to block these investment giants from being able to invest in utility companies. Now, that was because they had signed on to a net zero climate change initiative that called for fossil fuel use to be slashed dramatically by 2030 as part of that ESG philosophy. So for BlackRock, which is the world's largest asset manager, to say it's not going to be using the term anymore really does set the tone for the rest of the business world.

Megan Basham: So will they actually just continue the practice or is it just going to go on under a different term? Yeah, that's the big $9 trillion question. We do kind of need to separate the term from its meaning because, no, it is not clear that Fink and the other asset managers or those big companies are actually going to be abandoning the rationale behind ESG. They're just abandoning the term. In that same Aspen Festival interview, Fink essentially said that he is still committed to conscientious capitalism. And the inference there was that it means the same thing. So now you have to watch out for terms like that. But that said, as far as Fink goes, his message does seem to be changing a little bit depending on who he's talking to. Because in that same Fox Business interview, he stressed that while BlackRock is committed to investing in green energy, it, quote unquote, balances that by also investing in traditional fossil fuel companies. So I think that's pretty noteworthy that he felt it was important to highlight that, yes, BlackRock is investing in oil, which does seem like a new tone, though maybe a little bit of a misleading one because BlackRock does invest in fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, but it also used its massive stake in that company to oust two of Exxon's board members and replace them with two who were more committed to climate change reforms.

Megan Basham: So it sounds like jury is still out on the actual impact of these changes.

Georgia Howe: Thanks for reporting. Anytime.

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Georgia Howe: That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.