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--:-- John Bickley: This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two-factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for 40% off. Terms apply.
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--:-- John Bickley: Why are several people close to Walz sounding the alarm? I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, September 4th, and this is Morning Wire. The full 100 pages of the Covenant Shooters Journal have finally been made public. We analyze what's in the document and the controversy over its publication. And as a South American gang wreaks havoc in American cities, new data shows the mounting price tag of the border crisis. We shouldn't be forced to spend billions of dollars on people who aren't even supposed to be here. How much has illegal immigration cost American communities and taxpayers? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: Over 38,000 businesses have future-proofed their operations with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP. It brings accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one fluid platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. When you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next. Download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash morningwire.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Kamala Harris's running mate, Tim Walls, continues to face mounting allegations of stolen valor as former colleagues and now family members are going public with new criticism. Here to discuss is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So Cabot, this is a story that does not seem to be going away for the Harris-Walls campaign. Yeah, if anything, it is only gaining momentum. So a quick recap, as there are a few layers to this story. Walls served in the National Guard for 24 years, at one point deploying to Italy. But throughout his political career, he has heavily implied or even outright claimed that he served in combat.
--:-- John Bickley: That's right. And there's the now infamous clip of him saying he, quote, carried weapons of war in war. And there are numerous examples of him nodding along during interviews as he's introduced as a veteran of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And on top of that, when he learned his National Guard unit would be deploying to Iraq, Walls initially told his men he would be shipping out with them, but he instead retired, leaving them scrambling to replace their senior non-commissioned officer.
--:-- John Bickley: So how has the Harris-Walls campaign responded to these allegations?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, Walls says that his mistaken claims that he served in combat were nothing more than a grammatical error, as he put it. And to the latter accusation, Walls and the Harris campaign have vehemently denied that he was actually aware of his unit's looming combat deployment when he retired. They say the timing was nothing more than a coincidence.
--:-- John Bickley: However, a number of high guardsmen who served in Walls unit say that he is lying. They went on the record this week with Megyn Kelly to reiterate that Walls was aware of the deployment before opting to retire and even told them that he was going with them.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here's Command Sergeant Major Paul Herr speaking to that effect. He is, again, a liar, because he told me and other sergeant majors in the meetings that you can count on me. I will deploy with my unit. That's a morale crusher. It chews away at the fabric of the military and its ability to do its mission. It may not legally be wrong. It is morally indefensible.
--:-- John Bickley: And here's Command Sergeant Major Tom Behrens, the man who stepped up to replace Walls when he retired just before that deployment.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: When he quit in May, it was like the rumor went across the state that he had quit. And it was like, who the hell does that? I mean, it was just unbelievable that a CSM abandoned his troops. It's like losing the patriarch of the family, the quarterback of a football team.
--:-- John Bickley: I mean, literally what this guy did is he was like Tom Brady training until the Super Bowl, you know, getting to that point. And then the Super Bowl comes up and he says, you know, you second stringer, get out there and play because I might get hurt.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And it's worth pointing out Morning Wire also spoke to Barron's last month. Our listeners can find that episode from August 17th for a more in-depth conversation.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, and that's not the only controversy facing Walls at the moment either. Right. So this week, the New York Post published a series of Facebook comments made by Walls' older brother, Jeff, and they are intense.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Writing throughout the last few weeks, the elder Walls said he was, quote, 100% opposed to his brother's ideology before adding, quote, the stories I could tell, not the type of character you want making decisions about your future. He even went so far as adding that he was, quote, thinking long and hard about appearing on stage with Donald Trump to offer an endorsement.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, some have responded to these comments by saying the opinions of candidates' family members shouldn't really matter. For that reason, most legacy media outlets have not covered this story.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But plenty of other folks say that it is relevant insight and point out that some of those same outlets spent years giving airtime to relatives of Donald Trump who were willing to denounce him. We also saw plenty of the same coverage this year as members of the Kennedy family appeared on networks throughout the election, slamming RFK Jr.
--:-- John Bickley: Right. We saw a lot of focus from the legacy media on that.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So let's get to Wall's counterpart, J.D. Vance. What are we seeing from the Ohio senator?
--:-- John Bickley: Well, first, it remains to be seen whether Vance will have a net positive or negative impact on this race. Republicans say his story of overcoming poverty and addiction in Appalachia will resonate with those crucial Rust Belt voters.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: But it's worth noting his favorability ratings are considerably lower than Wall's Trump or Harris. He's about 10 points underwater right now.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, the Trump campaign argues that's due to overwhelmingly biased coverage from the legacy media, and they are taking an aggressive approach in response.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Rather than avoiding media interviews like Harrison Walls, Vance has said yes to virtually every invite. Since becoming the nominee, he has sat for 94 interviews, many of them it's worth noting on combative networks.
--:-- John Bickley: Campaign also says Vance has asked for as many events as possible to include Q&As and press conferences. Later this week, he will sit down with NPR and The New York Times.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, I don't think we can expect a friendly interview there, but it'll be interesting to see how it goes.
--:-- John Bickley: Yes, it will. Cabot, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Anytime.
--:-- John Bickley: A brief warning to listeners. The following may not be appropriate for younger ears. A journal written by the trans-identifying shooter who killed six at a Christian school last year, including three children, has been published. The publication of the journal by the Tennessee Star comes despite a judge ruling that it would not be released under public records laws.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Hey Luke, so what exactly is in this journal?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: About 10 journals were found in the shooter's room, but this one was found in her car and includes entries up to the day of that March 2023 shooting. It is what everybody thought it was, the depressed musings of a mentally ill woman fixated on negative left-wing ideas, particularly that children are sometimes born in the wrong body.
--:-- John Bickley: It also includes a lot of focus on the idea that whites have privilege that should make them feel bad.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: What's interesting here is how hard authorities fought to keep us from seeing it, and how a lot of what they said about its contents just doesn't seem to be true.
--:-- John Bickley: As people wondered whether this was an act of transgender terrorism, or at least a hate crime against Christians, authorities told the media she did not write about specific political, religious, or social issues.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: But that turned out not to be true. No, virtually the whole thing is about political, religious, or social issues. A month before the shooting, she drew a diagram with arrows between the words brain, white privilege, embarrassment.
--:-- John Bickley: In another section titled White Nothingness, she said, poor people resent this. My parents aren't rich, yet I still feel bad, cursed to be looked down upon.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: A lot of the writing is in the form of letters to a black girl who she had played basketball with back in middle school and who in reality barely knew her. The shooter fixates on what she calls the brown girl who she yearned for and laments that she did not have the body parts to have sex with her.
--:-- John Bickley: She wrote, quote, no brown girls, no love. I am nothing. Brown love is the most beautiful.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: She also railed against politicians and, quote, conservative religion and talked about gay killings and LGBTQ rights. One passage read, I wish death upon myself because the pure hatred of my female gender. With no rights, anybody's country is a dictatorship.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, her diagnosis of autism, which is something we wouldn't have known about if it weren't for the Tennessee Star releasing this, is important.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: A large portion of kids who think they're in the wrong body are actually autistic. Look, this journal is sad to read. You can't help but conclude that even if she got the sex change operation that she wished for, happiness would still elude her.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah. I know the Tennessee Star sued under public records laws, but a Nashville judge ruled that none of her writings would be released and even threatened the star's founder with contempt of court, correct?
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Yeah. There have been numerous strategies to try to keep this thing from coming out. Nashville PD initially said they would release it, but they backtracked after the FBI pressured them.
--:-- John Bickley: That's another notable element here. The FBI has no jurisdiction because they say it wasn't domestic terrorism or a hate crime, a decision that implied that her motivation wasn't political, even though it turns out these writings certainly are.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Then the effort to conceal this document took a really novel approach, claiming the shooter's writings are copyrighted. Of course, public records laws aren't the only way to get a document. The Star acquired this through sources.
--:-- John Bickley: Without the Star, we wouldn't know about a number of apparent policy failures. They've reported that two psychiatrists knew the shooter had homicidal ideation but didn't carry out their duty to warn.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: They also found that the U.S. Department of Education essentially bought the guns for her in the form of a $700 Pell Grant she took out in cash for supposed art school expenses.
--:-- John Bickley: It's hard to make policies to prevent shootings like this if we don't know the facts in the first place. Luke, thanks so much for reporting.
--:-- Luke Rosiak: Sure thing.
--:-- John Bickley: Massachusetts Republicans say their state has spent $1 billion on the migrant crisis with little explanation on how the money was spent. The state GOP is now seeking a detailed accounting Here to break down the numbers is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hey Tim, so what's happening in Massachusetts?
--:-- Tim Pierce: The Massachusetts Republican Party has now filed an open records request to get the dollar figures on how much the state has spent on illegal aliens.
--:-- John Bickley: It's very simple information. It's all taxpayer funded, and it's information Massachusetts residents deserve to know.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The Healy-Driskel administration, as well as the Democratic supermajority in Massachusetts, has completely botched every aspect of the migrant crisis in Massachusetts. Republicans allege that there is a $1 billion hole in the state's budget this year due entirely to illegal immigrants.
--:-- John Bickley: That's right. So $1 billion really unaccounted for. Do we have any data on the overall cost of illegal immigrants to U.S. taxpayers?
--:-- Tim Pierce: We do, at least on a national level. Before I get into the numbers, though, I should mention that analyzing something like this is tricky because illegal immigrants are difficult to track since they don't often self-identify as illegals.
--:-- John Bickley: Anyway, last year, analysts at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, known as FAIR, studied the net cost to taxpayers. They estimated that illegal immigrants have cost about $182 billion. dollars.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Take away the estimated 32 billion that they've potentially added to the treasury, and you come up with a net cost of over 150 billion dollars. Fair conducted the same study in 2017, and since then, the net cost has grown by about 35 billion dollars, with most of that being shouldered by state and local governments.
--:-- John Bickley: In addition to the cost of all this, there's also an intense strain put on communities. We're seeing an extreme example of that going on in Colorado right now. What can you tell us about that situation?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Right. Members of an international gang based out of Venezuela have reportedly taken over several hotels and apartment buildings in Denver suburb.
--:-- John Bickley: Here's Aurora Mayor Mike Kaufman on Fox News.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Somebody put them there and somebody funded it. Whether it's federal government or not, we're trying to find out who these gangs, in fact, kind of pushed out the property management through intimidation and then collected the rents.
--:-- John Bickley: We have now ongoing operations with a task force, local law enforcement, state law enforcement partners, and federal law enforcement partners. And arrests have been made, but these operations are still ongoing.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The gang members are reportedly affiliated with Tren de Aragua, or TDA, and Aurora officials have said that those buildings are now the scenes of gang-related sex trafficking.
--:-- John Bickley: Mayor Kaufman said that this is a direct result of the Biden-Harris administration's border policies.
--:-- Tim Pierce: I think we're a victim of a failed policy at the southern border because Venezuela does not cooperate with the United States in sharing criminal histories. You've had these massive waves of migrants coming across the border that asked for a political asylum. We're not adequately vetted. We're released into the country. The city of Aurora, we did everything we could to, quite frankly, keep them out of the city because it's not our problem.
--:-- John Bickley: This is a federal problem. This is a problem borne by the federal government.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And in the midst of this takeover by foreign gang members, local residents have complained that law enforcement has been next to no help with the situation.
--:-- John Bickley: Quite a dangerous situation for local residents to be in.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me on.
--:-- John Bickley: Hey, thank you for listening this morning. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you love our show and stand with that mission, consider subscribing, giving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
