--:-- Host: Why shop at Burlington? Maybe it's the deals that are new each time you drop by. Maybe it's the brand names you'll be shocked Burlington has in store. Or maybe it's the quality of the items, the amazing selection, and the newest trends. If you like to save, but also like to stay in style, Burlington is your answer. And the question you'll be asking yourself is, why go anywhere else? Burlington. Deals. Brands. Wow.
--:-- Host: VP Vance unveils an aggressive America First artificial intelligence policy as the battle for Open AI's future intensifies between two tech titans. We will fight for policies that ensure that AI is going to make our workers more productive and we expect that they will reap the rewards with higher wages, better benefits, and safer and more prosperous communities. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, February 12th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Host: Trump's clampdown on NGOs ramps up as Republicans introduce bills cracking down on religious groups that aid and facilitate illegal immigration. These groups have been operating in the shadows, funneling illegals deep into the U.S. interior. This bill puts a hard stop to that. And as Trump's Deputy Attorney General nominee appears before the Senate. Congressman Jim Jordan shares his plan to restore trust in the DOJ. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Host: World leaders, including Vice President J.D. Vance, gathered in Paris on Tuesday to discuss the future of artificial intelligence. The meetings come as tech billionaires Elon Musk and Sam Altman have engaged in a public AI-fueled feud. Here with the latest is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, world leaders and tech founders from across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East huddled Tuesday for the third annual AI Action Summit in Paris. Attendees led by French President Emmanuel Macron called for increased global collaboration that would foster a, quote, open, inclusive and ethical approach to the technology. Leaders from the EU used the conference to argue for AI decentralization. Essentially, they argued that America is hoarding AI tech and infrastructure and that the world would be better off if resources were spread to Europe and India. To that point, President Macron took a clear shot at Trump, saying Europe was ready for clean energy innovation that would power the future of AI. I have a good friend in the other part of the ocean saying, drill, baby, drill. Here, there is no need to drill. It's just plug, baby, plug. Electricity is available. You can plug, it's ready.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: At the end of the summit, 60 countries, including France, India, Canada, and China, signed a joint declaration calling for, quote, inclusive and sustainable AI that would, quote, protect human rights, gender equality, linguistic diversity, and protection of consumers. But notably, that declaration was missing the signature of two countries, the United Kingdom and the United States. And what was their reason for opposing? Well, the Trump administration has made clear that they view AI as an arms race between America and China and that heavy regulations regardless of their intention will hamper innovation and cause the U.S. to fall behind. Vice President Vance made that point clear during his address to the summit, his first appearance on international soil.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: To restrict its development now will not only unfairly benefit incumbents in the space, it would mean paralyzing one of the most promising technologies we have seen in generations. Vance went on to say that whether the EU likes it or not, America will be the leader on AI and the Trump administration will not agree to any measures that threaten that supremacy. He also stressed the importance of fighting back against any efforts to use AI to censor speech or certain political ideologies. We feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias and that American AI will not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship. America wants to partner with all of you. And we want to embark on the AI revolution before us with the spirit of openness and collaboration. But to create that kind of trust, we need international regulatory regimes that fosters the creation of AI technology rather than strangles it.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, the backdrop to all of this is the world's most powerful tech moguls, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, have been feuding. What's going on between them? Yeah, so for context, Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI, which now runs ChatGPT, back in 2015. At the time, it was technically a nonprofit. Now, Musk left the group in 2019 and started his own AI company, and in recent years has been accusing Altman of exploiting OpenAI's charity status while essentially running it as a business. He's gone as far as filing numerous lawsuits against OpenAI. And now he's taking a different approach and is trying to buy them outright. This week, Musk and a group of investors offered OpenAI's board of directors $97 billion for control of the company. Altman responded quickly saying, no thank you. I think he's probably just trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor. I wish he would just compete by building a better product.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, it's important to note Altman is in the process of turning OpenAI into a for-profit venture. And a big legal question is how much it's actually worth, because that would help determine how much compensation would go to the nonprofit and its investors. For obvious reasons, Altman wants the company valued as low as possible for those negotiations to save him money and allow him to keep more control. But Musk's bid, whether he accepts it or not, will almost certainly drive the value of the company higher and cost Altman in the end. So there are plenty of folks who question whether Musk's offer was legitimate or if he was playing a little 4D business chess. Well, this is the defining technology of our era. So a lot to watch in the next few years.
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--:-- Host: Republicans in the House and Senate are introducing bills to crack down on religious groups that facilitate illegal immigration This follows President Trump memo on Friday calling for a review of federal funds flowing to NGOs Here with the latest is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So, really what we're seeing is that Trump and his Republican allies are doubling down. They're making it clear that they're not going to be put off by statements from groups like World Relief or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that are decrying that funding freeze. So after a lot of negative coverage from the legacy media, this latest memo from Trump seems like a pointed response. He says that many NGOs are, quoting here, engaged in actions that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people. And he says that his administration isn't going to continue funding groups that undermine our national interest. So what these two bills really underline is that sentiment by attempting to codify Trump's policy into law.
--:-- Megan Basham: So on Monday, Congressman Lance Gooden of Texas reintroduced a bill that prevents NGOs from receiving taxpayer dollars unless the Office of Management and Budget has certified that they're not involved in human trafficking or smuggling. Here's what he told Morning Wire. This is not humanitarian work. It's a well-funded invasion of our country by the American taxpayer. This bill ends the scam and forces these groups to choose between federal money or illegal immigration, and they can't have both. And Senator Bill Haggerty of Tennessee introduced the Fence Act that strikes at the tax-exempt status of organizations that facilitate illegal immigration.
--:-- Megan Basham: And how are the NGOs responding? Well, as you'd expect, they're arguing more from religious standpoints rather than addressing these questions of legality or national interest. Pope Francis released a letter to the Catholic bishops that said that Catholics are obligated to disagree with any measure that associates being an illegal immigrant with being a criminal. And some Protestant church leaders are also criticizing Trump from the pulpit. The Reverend Duke Lackey, senior pastor at United Methodist Church in Raleigh, asked during his Sunday sermon why USAID funding can't continue while federal spending is being audited, and he suggested that the government is morally obligated to continue funding religious groups.
--:-- Megan Basham: I believe that one role of the government is to allow the church to do the work of the church. We need it. We can't go into a war-torn region safely. We need what the government can offer to do the work of the church. It's worth pointing out that even conservative denominations have seen a split between leadership and rank-and-file church members over this. Just yesterday, Daily Wire reporter Leif LeMayhew had a story about the Presbyterian Church in America, which is known for being very conservative. Their missions arm issued guidelines to illegal aliens on how to avoid detection by ICE. And when word got out, there was outcry and that page disappeared.
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, polling consistently shows Americans do think that we need to know how our money is being spent. So, you know, audits are good. Yep.
--:-- Host: President Trump is quickly reshaping the Justice Department with a series of key appointments, vowing to weed out corruption and end political weaponization. His choice for Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is currently being considered by the Senate Committee for the Judiciary. Here to discuss is Congressman Jim Jordan.
--:-- Jim Jordan: Congressman thank you so much for joining us.
--:-- Host: So the man tasked with defending Trump in many of his federal cases is Todd Blanche. He now Trump nominee for deputy attorney general. As chair of the House Weaponization Subcommittee, why do you believe he specifically qualified for this role?
--:-- Jim Jordan: Well, first of all, I think look at his background. I appreciate the fact that here's a guy who went to night school while he had a family. He's, you know, the discipline, the hard work. I think he's run marathons. He's just, I appreciate all that. I think that kind of work ethic and intensity is always important when you think about these critical positions.
--:-- Jim Jordan: And then he's seen it firsthand. I mean, he was President Trump's lawyer. He saw the weaponization of government firsthand because you can just look at what they did, whether it was Alvin Bragg, Bonnie Willis, Jack Smith, both in D.C. and Florida, total political operations against the president. And of course, Todd Blanche was there defending the president and arguing for equal treatment under the law and for those principles that are so important.
--:-- Jim Jordan: So he's exactly, exactly the kind of guy we need as the deputy attorney general, that key position that has so much influence on how the Justice Department operates. Now, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director nominee Kash Patel are key figures in this new Justice Department leadership team. What specific reforms do you expect from them and Blanche, if he's confirmed, to prevent this kind of political targeting we saw in the past administration?
--:-- Jim Jordan: Pam's already been confirmed. I think Kash is going to be confirmed. Pam's off to a great start. They're going to go to the simple, fundamental principle that our country's supposed to operate under. Equal treatment under the law. No political stuff. No, oh, our side gets treated one way, their side gets treated another attitude that we saw with the Biden-Garland Justice Department.
--:-- Jim Jordan: Equal treatment under the law. No politics. And remember, it was Kash Patel who first told us about how bad this was eight years ago when we got the memo that said that the Clinton campaign was targeting President Trump's Clinton campaign, paid the law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS, who hired a foreigner, Christopher Steele, put together the fake false document, the dossier, and they use that dossier to go get warrants to spy on President Trump's campaign. We learned it from cash. That's why the left is out to get him. But I think he's gonna make it as well, just like Todd and like Pam already has.
--:-- Jim Jordan: Now, closely related to Trump's vow to root out weaponization is his promise to weed out waste and corruption. And he's doing this largely through Doge. You've generally defended Doge and Elon Musk so far. Are there any areas where Musk and his team may be overstepping?
--:-- Jim Jordan: No, I think this is common sense. I think the American people view it this way. They're saying like, wow, we were spending our tax money on these stupid things. And of course the left, instead of attacking the stupid things and stopping the stupid things that taxpayer money is being spent on, they attack the guy who's exposing it. So they're going after Elon Musk, but I think the country deep down appreciates, oh, wow, President Trump said he was gonna do this. He's named Elon Musk and his team as the people he wants to do this. They're every bit as much federal employees as the bureaucrats, the career bureaucrats who the left always thinks actually runs the country.
--:-- Jim Jordan: But that's not how it works. And they're our system. It's not the career experts, the Dr. Fauci's of the world. It's not those guys who run the country. It's the people who put their name on a ballot and get elected. They make the decisions. And on November 5th, 77 million people said, we want President Trump making these decisions. And he has said he's going to use Elon Musk and his team. And God bless them for what they're exposing and showing. And the platform they have to really get that out there for the American people to see and understand. I think it's a good thing.
--:-- Jim Jordan: But there's no doubt the administration has been very effective communicating with the American people. So essential for success.
--:-- Host: Congressman Jordan, thank you so much for joining us. You bet. Thank you, guys. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
