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--:-- Host John Bickley: 2022 closed out with the worst year on Wall Street since the financial crisis of 2008. It was food, it was energy, it was utilities, right? So that hits the consumer and hits the average American very, very hard. How much did the market decline? And is a turnaround coming anytime soon? I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, January 2nd, and this is Morning Wire. The Department of Homeland Security says they don't have any records on hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants they were supposed to be tracking. How many cases is the agency tracking, and why are so many slipping through the cracks? And police have arrested a suspect in the November murders of four University of Idaho students. How were police able to link him to the crime, and what charges is he facing? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Host John Bickley: On Friday, markets closed for the final time in 2022, marking the worst year on Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis. Now, as the new year begins, investors say they're still worried that things could get even worse in 2023. Here with more on which industries suffered the worst in 2022 and what economists are predicting for the year ahead is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, this certainly will not be news to anyone who's been checking their 401k or mutual fund throughout the year. But 2022 was a brutal time for the markets. Across the board, all three major averages fell significantly. The Dow fell 8.8 percent. The S&P 500 was down 19.4 percent. And the NASDAQ fell 33% on the year. A big part of that is because the NASDAQ is comprised heavily of tech stocks, which had a really bad year. Overall, that is the seventh worst year since record keeping began in the early 1900s. That means last year was up there with the Great Depression and the dot-com bubble. Not the kind of list you want to be on. Not at all.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, for context, overall, stocks are still up about 19% since the start of 2019. Remember, 2020 and 21 both saw pretty massive gains. But this year erased a lot of that progress. All right, so seventh worst declines all time. What caused the drop? As always, there are a number of factors and it depends on who you ask, but we'll start with inflation. Obviously, as the dollar becomes less valuable, operating costs go up and profits come down, which just means less money for investors. But more importantly, the inflation we saw this year caused the Federal Reserve to really clamp down and raise interest rates to their highest point since the 1980s meaning money was harder to come by and the markets responded accordingly.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: On that note, I talked to Kenny Polcari a market strategist and CEO of Case Capital Advisors. It's very interesting, right? Because on the one hand, you could say that the Fed put us in this position and then we look at them to get us out of this position. And so I say that because by now, many of us realize that the Fed went on and stimulated for much too long. They kept rates at zero for much too long. So until they finally had to admit that they were wrong, that they misinterpreted, that in fact inflation wasn't transitory. And so now the Fed who put us in this position, we look for them to take us out. And so what's the role now? So now they're starting to do what they should have done.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So how long is the bear market expected to last? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but again, many investors say that things will likely continue to get worse, at least until recession takes hold and we bottom out, which would likely cause the Fed to begin loosening things up and lowering interest rates once again. Here's how Bakari put it. So I'm expecting to see the first quarter or into the second quarter of more volatility because I think the Fed's going to be faced with what to do next, right? I think by the late spring, early summer of 23, then we will start to see all these rate increases significantly slow the economy. We're going to see unemployment go higher, which just happens to be a byproduct of a slowing economy.
--:-- Host John Bickley: What sort of political reaction have we seen to all this? So one thing we constantly see over the years is that when the markets are up, politicians are quick to take their credit. But when they fall, they're often the first ones claiming that politicians have little influence over the market. And that is what we've started to see once again from the Biden administration as well. In 2021, when markets were up, here's what the president had to say. The stock market, the last guy's measure of everything, is about 20 percent higher than it was when my predecessor was there. It has hit record after record after record on my watch. So sort of taking credit there for how well things were going. But as things took a turn for the worse and the gains of 2021 were wiped out this year, the White House started to change their tune a bit.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Former Press Secretary Jen Psaki, for example, at the start of the year said, quote, the president does not look at the stock market as a means by which to judge the economy. And then later this year, as stocks continue to go down, current Press Secretary Karin Jean-Pierre had this to say. Nothing has changed on how we see the stock market. That's not something that we keep an eye on every day. So I'm not going to comment about that from here. So a little bit of political maneuvering going on there. You can expect to see Republicans highlighting that messaging shift as the year continues.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Cabot, thanks for reporting. Anytime. That's Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips. Coming up, ICE says it's missing key information on hundreds of thousands of migrants released into the country. The American Heart Association recommends four to five servings each of fruits and vegetables every single day. Now, that's no small task, especially given your busy schedule. Balance of Nature fruit and veggie capsules are a convenient way to consume essential nutritional ingredients on the daily. Go to balanceofnature.com and use promo code WIRE for $25 off your first order as a preferred customer, plus a free fiber and spice supplement. That's balanceofnature.com, promo code WIRE.
--:-- Host John Bickley: The Department of Homeland Security appears to not have any records on hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants it was supposed to be electronically tracking. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, told university researchers it couldn't respond to an open records request because it said it had, quote, no records on the migrants. Here to discuss the DHS monitoring program is Daily Wire's Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hey John, it had to do with ICE Alternatives to Detention programs. Those programs were started nearly 20 years ago as an alternative to alien detainment while their immigration cases are processed. Immigration courts are under a pretty long backlog, and any one immigration case could take years before a final order is issued. ICE created these programs to relieve some pressure on its crowded detainment facilities. Migrants who qualify for these programs are released into the United States under certain kinds of monitoring, such as mandatory check-ins with case agents or electronic monitoring with ankle bracelets. And just how many migrants are in this program? Hundreds of thousands.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The open records request was filed by researchers at Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, also known as TRAC. The researchers asked for information on every illegal alien enrolled in monitoring programs since October 2018. Syracuse Assistant Professor Austin Coker, who works on TRAC, said that the request covered over 350,000 migrants that ICE couldn't come up with a single record or data point for. Now, ICE did report in its end-of-the-year data last week that 321,000 migrants are currently enrolled in some kind of alternative to detention program. So the agency is keeping tabs on these aliens somehow, we just aren't sure to the extent.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Has the agency made a statement on the missing records? Have they offered any explanation here? Not from ICE, at least not yet. It's worth mentioning that this isn't the first time ICE's alternatives to detention programs have caused controversy. Earlier this month, the agency actually apologized for misreporting figures on the number of migrants it has released into the U.S. without any form of electronic tracking. As recently as November, the agency claimed on its website that it had released just 266 migrants from its custody without electronic tracking. An investigation by the Daily Caller News Foundation found that ICE had misreported that number. The real tally is nearly 50,000 migrants released. So the actual figure was about 180 times more than ICE had claimed on its website. The agency apologized on December 8th and blamed the misreporting on a miscalculation.
--:-- Host John Bickley: And how many immigration cases is ICE tracking in total? These release programs only make up a fraction of those cases, right? Right. According to data DHS released on Friday, ICE is tracking the cases of nearly 4.8 million migrants who could eventually be ordered out of the U.S. About 1.2 million aliens already have been. The number of cases ICE is tracking is reflective of the crisis at the southern border. The 4.8 million cases that ICE is tracking, that number is 29% higher than it was a year ago. Illegal aliens continuing to stream across the border is a big reason why. And if you're wondering if all these deportation orders have led to more actual deportations, they really haven't. ICE deported a total of just 72,000 people in fiscal year 2022. That's more than last year, but still low historically. We'll see where these kinds of numbers take us next year.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce. On Friday, police arrested a 28-year-old graduate student in connection with the murders of four University of Idaho students in mid-November. The Daily Wire is not naming the suspect, but he's reportedly a graduate student at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. which is just about 10 miles from the city where the students were killed. Here to discuss the chilling case and what we know about the suspect so far is Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short.
--:-- Ash Short: So Ash, what happened here? This is a really tragic case. Four friends, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogan, Ethan Chapin, and Zayna Karnodal returned home November 12th after attending various parties. Kaylee, Madison, and Zayna were all roommates, and Ethan was dating Zayna. All four undergraduate students returned to the off residence and at some point in the early hours of November 13th they were all stabbed to death Now six weeks later we finally have an arrest What do we know about the suspect? Well, the suspect was pursuing his PhD in criminology and criminal justice and had previously studied psychology at DeSalle University in Pennsylvania. While at DeSalle, the suspect reportedly worked as a student investigator for a survey exploring motives behind crimes. One question in the survey reportedly asked, why did you choose that victim or target over others? While another question asked, after committing the crime, what were you thinking and feeling?
--:-- Ash Short: We also know that the suspect is expected to plead not guilty to the crimes, and that he and his parents were reportedly shocked by his arrest. His attorney told media outlets that the suspect wasn't on the run and had driven across the country with his father a few weeks before his arrest, just as they had planned to do for some time. Now, what led the police to this particular suspect? We don't know the exact details at this time, since the probable cause affidavit is sealed until the suspect has appeared in an Idaho court. But we do know that police tracked the suspect to Monroe County, Pennsylvania, some 2,400 miles away from the University of Idaho and where the suspect is originally from. Police reportedly used genealogy records to find the suspect and cell phone records showed that he was often in the same area as the victims in the weeks leading up to the crime, appearing to stalk them. He also allegedly wore gloves during that time to avoid leaving fingerprints anywhere in public. The big question right now is whether he knew the victims and how he chose them, but we likely won't know all of the details until it goes to trial.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Right. Well, we are going to follow this case. Ash, thanks for reporting. You're welcome. That was Daily Wire senior editor, Ash Short. Other stories we're tracking this week. Authorities say the man suspected of carrying out a New Year's Eve machete attack on three police officers near Times Square may have been motivated by jihadist intentions. The 19-year-old suspect from Maine had no previous arrests, but was reportedly known to law enforcement after his family members warned authorities about his turn toward extremist Islamic ideology. All three officers are in stable condition, as is the suspect who was shot in the shoulder by one of the officers.
--:-- Host John Bickley: A baggage handler for American Airlines affiliate Piedmont Airlines died Saturday after being sucked through the engine of a jet. Authorities say the tragic incident occurred on Saturday afternoon at the Montgomery Regional Airport and is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. The body of Pope Benedict XVI, who stepped down in 2013 due to health concerns, will be on display in St. Peter's Basilica beginning today for mourners to visit. The funeral is scheduled for Thursday. The former pope passed away Saturday at the age of 95.
--:-- Host John Bickley: Thanks for listening to Morning Wire. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. 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. Well, that's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.
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