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--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Despite a better-than-expected quarterly earnings report, Disney CEO Bob Iger is telling 7,000 employees to clean out their desks. We have to have the right pricing, we have to have the right marketing, we have to have the right content. We look at Disney's rationale for the layoffs and how things stand as a whole in the house of mouse. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Friday, February 10th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: After years of consideration, the EPA has officially shut down hopes of mining a vast gold reserve in Alaska. We discuss the EPA's decision and how the tradeoff affects Alaska's economy. And the Penn-Biden Center has been at the center of President Biden's classified document scandal. What is the center's mission? Who funded the think tank? And who was on their hefty payroll? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Disney announced its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday, and while the numbers were better than expected, poor performance in some divisions prompted the company to announce it will be laying off 7,000 employees. Here to catch us up on how things stand at Disney is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So, Megan, I know Disney's been struggling for a little while, and that led the board to push out its last CEO, Bob Chapik, and bring back its former longtime CEO, Bob Iger. Does it look like Iger's been able to turn the ship around?
--:-- Megan Basham: You know, actually, given that Iger only came back a couple of months ago, I think it would be fair to say that he's benefiting somewhat from some of Chapik's efforts. Now, the parks division delivered the best numbers with a pretty healthy $2.1 billion in operating profit. And that's an increase of 36% from last year. And that's due largely to Chapex raising ticket prices and adding on some additional fees.
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, Iger actually criticized that and said he thought it was the wrong thing to do. So I think a lot of this optimism is actually based on Iger's promises to restructure. As John mentioned there, the first thing he's going to do is cut 7,000 jobs. And then the company is going to restructure into three divisions that will allow heads of each division to have more decision-making power. So we'll see an entertainment segment that covers film, television streaming, another one that covers parks and cruise lines, and then ESPN will be off on its own.
--:-- Megan Basham: And what else is going to be included in that restructuring? So Iger's also promising to reduce costs by 5.5 billion and he particularly zeroed in on Disney Studios and streaming. He admitted that the company's content has become what he called extraordinarily expensive and they have to find a way to maintain quality without blowing out those budgets.
--:-- Megan Basham: The big drag on the company is Disney which has never been profitable. We talked about this before about how its subscription rate was slowing. Well, this quarter, for the first time since the service debuted, it actually saw a net loss in subscribers. And so I think we can expect the lion's share of job cuts to come out of that entertainment division.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, there has been a perception in the past couple of years that Disney's brand is hurting with parents due to their insertion of gender and politics into their content. Do you think they're going to back off some of those themes?
--:-- Megan Basham: You know, I really don't think so. I spoke to a number of sources within the company, some of them at the executive level, and they tell me that they don't really see any plans to reverse course. In fact, I'm being told that Marvel fans are going to see that franchise leaning further into what some might call wokeness.
--:-- Megan Basham: This particular source believes it's going to be damaging to the brand's profitability, which has already been suffering somewhat. And we've also seen some massive flops in what were once Disney's most popular brands. Marvel movie The Eternals, which was heavily marketed as a celebration of racial and sexual diversity, tanked. So did the Toy Story sequel, Lightyear, which included a lesbian romance. And then just last week, this scene from the Disney cartoon series, The Proud Family, drew a lot of ire on social media.
--:-- Megan Basham: The slaves built this country. The descendants of slaves continue to build this. Slaves built this country. And we, the descendants of slaves in America, have earned reparations for their suffering. And continue to earn reparations every moment we spend submerged in the systemic prejudice, racism, and white supremacy. That America was founded with and still has not atoned for. Slaves built this country.
--:-- Megan Basham: But Iger did announce more sequels for Toy Story, Frozen, and Zootopia. So we'll probably be able to tell quite a bit from the content of those films.
--:-- Megan Basham: All right, well, it'll be interesting to see how families respond.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, my pleasure.
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--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Coming up, the EPA shuts down a highly lucrative mine.
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--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: The Environmental Protection Agency effectively vetoed a highly lucrative proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska last week. Alaska's Governor Mike Dunleavy has promised to fight the decision in court. Here to talk about the battle over Alaska's pebble mine is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So, this mineral deposit is in a rural area of the southern part of the state, and it contains vast amounts of rare minerals, particularly gold and copper. The fight over pebble has been going on for about two decades now, but the effort to develop the area has been going on a lot longer. The state of Alaska acquired the pebble mine area from the federal government in a land swap in the 1970s, and development of that area has been under consideration for about half a century.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And now the EPA has vetoed the plant. Is this the end for the Pebble Mine Project?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, it's at least a major setback, but Governor Mike Dunleavy has promised legal action. He been pushing the project since taking office in 2018 He even met with former President Trump about it and seemed to make some progress with federal regulators before backsliding We see what Dunleavy options are He said during a radio interview after the EPA decision that he hasn't ruled anything out. We're going to do everything we can to make sure that Alaskans determine Alaskans' destiny and that we have the opportunity to develop our resources responsibly.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And the developer behind the proposed mine is taking a similar tack. Executives at Northern Dynasty Minerals based in Vancouver called the EPA's action illegal. They said the company would pursue legal action to get the EPA's ruling reversed.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, what was the basis for the EPA's decision? The EPA used a rarely exercised power under the Clean Water Act to unilaterally block development because of the risk to the environment. This is just the third time in 30 years that the EPA has used that authority.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The EPA blocked Pebble because of the risk it poses to a nearby sockeye salmon fishery. The fishery in Bristol Bay is the largest salmon fishery in the world, and the Pebble Project's plan involved sending discharge from the mine into Bristol's watershed.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, that water would have been treated before its release and dispersed across three locations, all monitored for their water quality. But the EPA said even with those precautions, those discharges posed an unacceptable risk to Bristol Bay's salmon population.
--:-- Tim Pierce: EPA Administrator Michael Reagan called the fishery irreplaceable and a natural wonder. Reagan also touted the economic benefits of the fishery to the surrounding area. It is about a $1.5 to $2 billion a year business. The mineral deposit, though, is estimated to be worth around $400 billion. So in financial terms, the mine is a better deal for the state.
--:-- Tim Pierce: That, of course, would take decades to extract, but supporters say it could be done without disrupting the fishery. It's the precedent, but it's also the death of an opportunity that could have employed thousands of Alaskans in various jobs, directly in ancillary jobs, and the wealth that it would produce for the area out there.
--:-- Tim Pierce: You've got some small villages. The irony of a lot of these projects that are trying to be shut down is that they're located in some of the poorest areas of our state. What's the alternative for them? A check from the government?
--:-- Tim Pierce: That being said, the project is probably dead unless Alaska can figure out a way to save it in court or until a new administration takes over.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: All right. Well, Tim, thanks so much for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me.
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--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire's Tim Pierce.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: When Vice President Joe Biden left the White House in early 2017, it wasn't long before he landed a position as an honorary professor at the University of Pennsylvania. A year later, the university opened the Penn Biden Center, a think tank in D.C. touted as a beltway hub for advancing diplomacy by bringing together staff, students, and leaders all across the global stage. After classified documents were discovered at the center, concerns have been raised about the influence of foreign donors, particularly those from China, and the revolving door of university employees who made their way into President Biden's administration. Joining us to discuss is Daily Wire senior reporter Daniel Chaitin, who's been covering this story for us.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: Hey, John, thanks for having me.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: In a way, this think tank gave us all a bit of a preview for the Biden team that we see today. Now, a number of people who worked at UPenn and the Biden Center made the jump to government, including UPenn President Amy Gutmann, who is now U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Antony Blinken, who is Secretary of State. He served as managing director of the Penn-Biden Center. And of course, there's Biden himself.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: How long did Biden spend there and how much money did he make off his role there? Quite a bit, actually. UPenn reportedly paid Biden more than $900,000. He stayed with the university until April 2019. At that point, he took unpaid leave upon announcing his campaign for president.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: So not a bad deal there. What exactly did Biden do during his tenure? Doesn't appear he did all that much. His honorary professorship did not involve regular classes though he did show up for about a dozen public appearances on campus The Philadelphia Inquirer published an investigative report in 2019 that surmised Biden probably wasn paid so much for his lectures as he was and I quoting here for something less tangible, the prestige of associating with a former vice president and senator who had burnished his reputation as a global figure.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: But that didn't stop Biden from exclaiming last year that he worked as a, quote, full professor at UPenn for four years. That was a claim which PolitiFact determined was half true.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: Okay, now let's turn to the document scandal, which of course started with the discovery at the Penn-Biden Center. There's been a lot of questions about how donations to UPenn from foreign countries reportedly tripled in the two years after the Penn-Biden Center opened. How much money are we talking about there?
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: Well, we're talking about $61 million in gifts and contracts. That's between 2017 and 2019. Most of that money came from China. That's according to Education Department records reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: It's unclear now how much of that money went to the Senate during that time, but a U-Penn spokesperson told me that Think Tank never solicited or received any gifts from any Chinese or other foreign entity.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: Still, you see Republicans and others warning of Biden's potential for conflicts of interest, especially dealing with the multi-million dollar dealings of the president's son Hunter involving China and other countries.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: In light of the classified documents discovery, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer recently sent a letter to UPenn demanding records and communications, particularly those related to Chinese donors.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: Now, the attorney general appointed a special counsel last month to examine if anyone involved broke any laws. Do we have any idea yet who investigators are looking at?
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: Actually, yeah, we do. In fact, one person who was reportedly interviewed was a longtime Biden aide. Her name is Kathy Chung. She's been interviewed as an assistant who helped pack folders into boxes that made their way to the Penn-Biden Center.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: The Washington Post recently reported that Chung told investigators she was surprised any classified records would have been hanging around in Biden's office. But an insider said she did not check the folders upon packing them, although she had a top-secret security clearance at the time.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: By the way, Chung appears to have gotten the job with the help of Hunter Biden. That's what we've gleaned anyway from emails from that famous laptop. She's now Deputy to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over at the Pentagon.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Well, a lot of threads here still to pull. Danny, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Daniel Chaitin: That was Daily Wire senior reporter, Daniel Chaitin.
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--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Other stories we're tracking this week. In an emotional testimony before Congress on Thursday, former FBI Special Agent Nicole Parker testified that she personally witnessed the Bureau become, quote, politically weaponized over the course of her career as an agent.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: It was physically taxing and emotionally jarring. But I believed I was making an impactful difference. And every day I woke up and I embraced being an FBI Special Agent. until things changed. Over the course of my 12-plus years, the FBI's trajectory has transformed. The Bureau's mission had remained the same, but its priorities and governing principles shifted dramatically. The FBI became politically weaponized, starting from the top in Washington and trickling down to the field offices.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Parker's testimony came during the first hearing conducted by the new GOP-led Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which is investigating political bias in federal agencies.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Missouri's attorney general announced on Thursday that he's launched an investigation into the Pediatric Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital. The announcement came after a whistleblower alleged that the facility's practices are unsound and causing serious harm to children.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: The AG's office said that they've received a sworn affidavit from the whistleblower and documents that support her claims. 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. Thank you.
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