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--:-- John Bickley: Good morning, I'm John Bickley, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And I'm Georgia Howe. It's Friday, April 22nd.
--:-- John Bickley: The U.S. is increasing its military aid to Ukraine and taking in thousands of refugees.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And the United States and our allies and partners are moving as fast as possible to continue to provide Ukraine the forces that they need, the weapons they need, excuse me, the equipment they need, their forces need to defend their nation.
--:-- John Bickley: We'll discuss the details of the new refugee program and how it plays into the ongoing immigration crisis.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howe. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- John Bickley: This show is sponsored by Birch Gold Group.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Text the word WIRE to 989898 to claim a free info kit on physical gold and silver today.
--:-- John Bickley: Again, text WIRE to 989898 to protect your savings with Birch Gold today.
--:-- John Bickley: With fighting continuing in Ukraine, President Joe Biden spoke to the nation Thursday to discuss what the United States and other Western nations can do to help.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to tell us more is Daily Wire's Ian Howarth.
--:-- Ian Howarth: First, Ian, what did President Biden say in this address?
--:-- Ian Howarth: Well, in this address, which was brief and took place Thursday morning, the president announced $800 million more in military aid, adding to around $2.6 billion in total U.S. security assistance already committed to Ukraine by his administration.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Last week, I signed an $800 million package of security assistance to Ukraine that included new capabilities like artillery systems and armored personnel carriers, equipment that is responsive to Ukraine's needs and tailored to support the intensified fighting in the Donbass region.
--:-- Ian Howarth: This latest package includes the sort of supplies President Zelensky and his government have been desperate for.
--:-- Ian Howarth: We're talking heavy artillery, 144,000 rounds of ammunition, as well as drones for Ukrainian forces in the eastern regions of the country.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Biden also warned that he's approaching the end of authorized funds, so Congress would need to approve further rounds of assistance.
--:-- Ian Howarth: With this latest disbursement, I'm almost exhausted the drawdown authority I have that Congress authorized for Ukraine in a bipartisan spending bill last month.
--:-- Ian Howarth: In order to sustain Ukraine for the duration of this fight, next week I'm going to have to be sending to Congress a supplemental budget request to keep weapons and ammunition flowing without interruption.
--:-- Ian Howarth: After the short address, Biden was asked how long the U.S. can keep up this level of military aid for Ukraine.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Here's how Biden responded with a nod towards the international theme of his rhetoric throughout the war in Ukraine.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Well, we have the capacity to do this for a long time.
--:-- Ian Howarth: The question is, are we going to continue to maintain the support of the international community?
--:-- Ian Howarth: Now, aside from military aid, is the administration offering anything else to help Ukrainians?
--:-- Ian Howarth: Yeah, they are.
--:-- Ian Howarth: There's a concurrent program which is focusing on the growing refugee crisis which the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent into overdrive.
--:-- Ian Howarth: On Thursday Biden Department of Homeland Security also announced that U citizens as well as other groups will be allowed to financially sponsor Ukrainian refugees so they can come to the United States sooner
--:-- Ian Howarth: This will allow Ukrainians who qualify to be granted what known as humanitarian parole
--:-- Ian Howarth: So instead of waiting for the usual visa and refugee programs, which can sometimes take years, they can get in much more quickly and live and work legally in the country for two years.
--:-- Ian Howarth: This policy, named Uniting for Ukraine, is set to launch on April 25th.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Now, as we've covered recently, there is a serious immigration crisis going on right now.
--:-- Ian Howarth: So how does this new program play into that crisis?
--:-- Ian Howarth: Yeah, this policy appears to be taking the ongoing crisis at the southern border into account.
--:-- Ian Howarth: According to the Biden administration, this Uniting for Ukraine policy is meant to try and de-incentivize Ukrainians from traveling to Mexico to gain entry into the U.S. illegally.
--:-- Ian Howarth: For example, last month, U.S. Border Control processed a record 3,274 Ukrainians, which is a jump of over 1,000 percent from the month before.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And most of the nearly 15,000 Ukrainians who have entered the country illegally in the past three months came across the Mexican border.
--:-- Ian Howarth: But with this new policy in place from April 25th onwards, Ukrainians without the proper documentation will no longer be allowed to pass through that border.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Well, we'll have to see whether that incentive works.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Ian, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Of course. Thanks, Georgia.
--:-- John Bickley: That was Daily Wire's Ian Howarth. Coming up, Elon Musk secures enough funds to potentially buy Twitter.
--:-- Georgia Howe: You can get this show and all of the content you love wherever you are, all on the Daily Wire app.
--:-- John Bickley: Even if you're not a Daily Wire member, you'll be first to know what's trending with mobile notifications for the latest news, and you'll get content from all your favorite Daily Wire shows.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you.
--:-- John Bickley: On Thursday, Elon Musk announced that he's secured over $46 billion in funding as part of his plan to take Twitter private.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But Twitter's board still hasn't responded to his initial offer.
--:-- John Bickley: Here to provide insight into this ongoing power struggle is Carl Szabo, the vice president and general counsel of NetChoice and a professor at George Mason Law School.
--:-- Carl Szabo: So Carl, first, can you explain for us what we're seeing play out here?
--:-- Carl Szabo: Yeah, thanks, John. You know, I feel like I'm watching an episode of the TV show Succession or the TV show Billions with the way that this is kind of playing out.
--:-- Carl Szabo: So the first action that Elon Musk made was he made what was kind of called a bear hug or tender offer, where he proposed to purchase the company at $54 a share.
--:-- Carl Szabo: Currently, Twitter is trading around $47 a share.
--:-- Carl Szabo: So the idea behind this proposal was it was an offer so good that the board would actually be violating its fiduciary duties to the shareholders by rejecting it.
--:-- Carl Szabo: What we've seen since then is the board attempt to block this buyout by injecting what's called a poison pill.
--:-- Carl Szabo: What they mean by a poison pill is kind of what it sounds like. If you eat it, you will get sick.
--:-- Carl Szabo: And the sickness here that's been proposed by the board is if Elon Musk purchased Twitter, then the board will what is called dilute the shares.
--:-- Carl Szabo: Now, as Georgia mentioned, Musk has just announced that he's secured $46.5 billion, including debt financing from Morgan Stanley and other sources.
--:-- Carl Szabo: If the board continues to block his offer, does he have some other options here?
--:-- Carl Szabo: He does have a couple other options.
--:-- Carl Szabo: So if the board rejects his offer, there could be a lawsuit.
--:-- Carl Szabo: This would be brought actually by the shareholders for the board violating its fiduciary duty.
--:-- Carl Szabo: Elon Musk could go directly to the shareholders themselves.
--:-- Carl Szabo: Something like out of the movie Wall Street and ask them to just throw out the board and then he can make the offer again
--:-- Carl Szabo: He still has a third option where he can just go to the open market and try to buy out more and more shares
--:-- Carl Szabo: So this is not the only avenue that Elon Musk has available to him if it something he wants to pursue
--:-- Carl Szabo: And so far, it seems like he's willing to stay the course at his initial offer of $54.
--:-- Carl Szabo: What prompted Musk's offer in the first place is the issue of free speech.
--:-- Carl Szabo: Regardless of how this turns out, has Musk's buyout attempt been productive in terms of promoting free speech on Twitter?
--:-- Carl Szabo: You know, let's remember that when Elon Musk announced his 9% ownership of Twitter, they'd offered him a seat on the board.
--:-- Carl Szabo: And he ended up turning that down potentially because there were too many strings attached to it.
--:-- Carl Szabo: And that's kind of what led us to where we are today with the desire to make a total acquisition.
--:-- Carl Szabo: On the matter of content moderation, we've already seen the impact of Elon Musk's presence in this conversation.
--:-- Carl Szabo: For a long time, Elon Musk has called for an edit button on Twitter, and we heard shortly after his 9% announcement that Twitter would be instituting an edit button.
--:-- Carl Szabo: But what's really intriguing to see is kind of the 180 we've seen from Democrats and Republicans on the rights of Twitter to host and remove speech that it does or does not want.
--:-- Carl Szabo: You've seen people on MSNBC, The Washington Post, and even Saturday Night Live pundits calling it a threat to freedom of speech if Musk were to take over.
--:-- Carl Szabo: And you have Republicans on the other side saying, well, no, it's the right of a private business to decide what type of content it wants and wants to remove.
--:-- Carl Szabo: I think the important takeaway for all of us is that we don't want politicians dictating to any private entity, whether a business, whether an individual, what it has to say and what it cannot say.
--:-- Carl Szabo: That is at the heart of our First Amendment.
--:-- Carl Szabo: And it's illustrative for all of us that we should recognize that private businesses are the ones that should be making the decisions on what type of content is or is not appropriate.
--:-- Carl Szabo: Not politicians, not pundits, and not people on TV.
--:-- John Bickley: That was NetChoice VP and George Mason University Law Professor Carl Szabo.
--:-- John Bickley: Though the murder rate in Baltimore is soaring, the city is doubling down on a failed violence intervention program it calls Safe Streets.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Baltimore slashed its police presence back in 2020.
--:-- John Bickley: And despite a hasty attempt to refund the force, 2021 was the bloodiest year in decades.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Daily Wire investigative reporter Maraid Elordi is here with the details for us.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: So, Maraid, what does crime look like in Baltimore these days?
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Sure. So deadly violence in Baltimore continues to smash records.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: The murder rate has spiked to just shy of 100 homicides so far this year, about 10 more than this time last year.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: The victims range from teenagers to grandparents.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Deadly shootings are also sky high.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Over the Easter weekend alone, more than a dozen people were shot, at least one fatally.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: The violence is threatening to profoundly change the city, too.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: One of the safest areas of the city, Inner Harbor downtown, has started seeing deadly shootings nearby.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Now, economists are predicting that if violent crime continues to seep into previously safe zones downtown, the city may face long-term economic damage since downtown relies on tourism and people won't come if they don't feel safe.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Now, even before 2020, Baltimore was known for crime.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: But you saying the situation has deteriorated even in the last year. Definitely
--:-- Maraid Elordi: So tell us about the Safe Streets program. What is it and how does it work?
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Yeah so the Safe Streets program has been around since 2007 but now Baltimore is really leaning into it as an alternative to policing violent criminals.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Safe Streets uses what they call violence interrupters instead of police officers to spread an anti-violence message and encourage positive changes to individual behavior.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: The city recently conducted an internal review of the Safe Streets program, and the results were not encouraging.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: The review found that the program is disorganized and lacks oversight.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: It also found the program's workers, who regularly go into high-conflict situations unarmed, don't have adequate training to handle the dangerous situations they face.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: A majority of Safe Streets workers said they themselves have been victims of gun violence.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: In fact, three workers were killed within 18 months, including one in January.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Despite all of this, last week, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced an additional $10 million for the program.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Scott insisted that, quote, we know that it works, but they haven't had the support they needed.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: We should note here as well that violence intervention programs have been rolled out in several major American cities since the 90s, and they became more popular during the defund the police movement.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: But according to studies, there is not a whole lot of evidence to show they really work to lower gun violence or murders.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: One program in Pittsburgh is even linked with an increase in violent crime in certain neighborhoods.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: There was a lot of buzz around these types of programs during the summer of 2020, I remember.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: And Baltimore was also one of the cities to cut its police budget in 2020.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: How much did they cut in Baltimore?
--:-- Maraid Elordi: That's right. In 2020, Baltimore cut its police budget by $22 million.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: That effort was led by the current mayor, Scott, who was city council president at the time.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Last year, though, Scott ended up increasing the police budget by $28 million.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: The increase hasn't done much to curb crime, though, and the city is also facing a police officer shortage.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: The Baltimore Police Department even announced recently that it will start hiring civilians on its detective force.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Student activists at Johns Hopkins University, which is located in Baltimore, held sit-ins and protests in 2019 when the school announced that it was creating a private police force.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: The school delayed the move, but now says it's necessary to move forward with a private police force so the school can keep students safe.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Now, has Baltimore done anything to try to reassure residents about this crime problem?
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Well, Mayor Scott did issue a warning to criminals last month, which was a particularly bloody one for the city.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Scott said Baltimore has a longstanding issue with crime and that it's not just up to the police department to solve the problem, it's up to the community, too.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Meanwhile, Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison called the ongoing violence frustrating and disheartening.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Right, it's definitely one of Baltimore's biggest issues, and it sounds like it's getting worse.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Maraid, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Thanks, Georgia.
--:-- John Bickley: Another story we're tracking this week. Netflix stock collapsed 35% Wednesday.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The streaming giant says they will now crack down on people who share logins.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation.
--:-- John Bickley: If you love our show and you stand with our mission, please consider subscribing, leaving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's all the time we've got this morning.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.
