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[0] In what one state attorney general called a major win for the liberty of job creators and their employees, President Biden's employer vaccine mandate has hit a significant roadblock from a federal court.
[1] On Saturday, an appeals court issued a stay halting the mandate.
[2] We'll look at the lawsuits that prompted the court order, and what's next for the Biden administration's highly controversial vaccine mandate.
[3] I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[4] It's Monday, November 8th, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] The long -debated infrastructure bill finally passes without the support of the Progressive Caucus.
[6] Who voted for the bill?
[7] What does it include in why did progressive Democrats reject the plan?
[8] And last week's election saw a red wave sweep across the country, including in deep blue cities and states.
[9] We'll look closer at what drove the down -ballot results and their significance for both parties.
[10] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[11] Stay tuned.
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[20] On Saturday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay, blocking the Biden administration's mandate from OSHA that forces all private employers with 100 or more workers to require them to be vaccinated for COVID or be tested weekly.
[21] So, John, you spoke with Daily Wire General Counsel Josh Hur about the court's ruling and about Daily Wire's lawsuit against the Biden administration over this mandate.
[22] Right.
[23] Can you just walk us through that mandate that was issued on Thursday?
[24] Yeah, sure, thanks.
[25] So as we discussed last week, the OSHA mandate has been in the work since President Biden announced it about two months ago.
[26] On Thursday, that rule was, finally issued, and it was even more punitive than initially expected.
[27] If a company fails to enforce this vaccine mandate, the government will find them $13 ,000 per occurrence.
[28] And if OSHA labels a company to be egregious or a repeat violator, it can find the company as much as $136 ,000 for every occurrence.
[29] So just to clarify for the audience, this would be for every employee, every time they're found to be in violation.
[30] Right, every time there's an infraction.
[31] So the emergency order is slated to go into effect on January 4th, but the court blocked it Saturday.
[32] Here's how Daily Wire General Counsel Josh Herr described the situation to me this morning.
[33] A panel of judges in the Fifth Circuit granted a temporary stay of the mandate.
[34] That case was filed by the state of Mississippi and a number of private businesses.
[35] The Fifth Circuit sits in New Orleans and covers the states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
[36] That court ruled that there are potentially, quote, grave statutory and constitutional issues with the mandate, and the government has until 5 o 'clock p .m. today to respond to that order.
[37] The case in the Fifth Circuit focuses on constitutional and statutory arguments, namely that the enforcement of the mandate would be unconstitutional and that it goes beyond the power that Congress delegated to OSHA.
[38] This came down after several entities filed lawsuits.
[39] As we've mentioned, the Daily Wire, which sued on Thursday, but also several religious groups as well as a coalition of 11 Republican -led states, which all sued Friday.
[40] The attorneys general in those states celebrated this as a major win against what they called unconstitutional overreach.
[41] And have we heard any response from the Biden administration over these suits?
[42] Yeah, we've had some.
[43] So the chief legal officer for the Department of Labor, Sima Nanda, said simply that OSHA has the authority to issue this kind of sweeping mandate.
[44] She's side of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which she says, quote, explicitly gives OSHA the authority to act quickly in an emergency where the agency finds that workers are subjected to a grave danger and a new standard is necessary to protect them.
[45] So a little room for subjectivity there, I guess.
[46] Yeah, there is.
[47] So what comes next?
[48] Yeah, so when both sides have filed legal briefs, the court will then decide whether or not to allow the rule to go forward or else grant a permanent injunction.
[49] Here's what Josh Herr told me is coming.
[50] We're expecting to see a slew of additional briefing in that case today and probably in the days to come, including by the Daily Wire.
[51] I'll tell you it's not surprising that a court would stay this mandate, in part because OSHA bypassed the ordinary period for public comment, which is intended to give them the opportunity to correct flaws in the rule.
[52] But what is a little surprising is how quickly the Fifth Circuit moved here.
[53] The mandate doesn't go into effect for about two months, but the court stated it in a matter of two days.
[54] That probably doesn't bode well for this mandate.
[55] In the end, the entire question at the heart of this is, does this mandate violate the Constitution?
[56] Is this indeed an overreach as many companies and states are saying?
[57] Or does OSHA actually have this kind of sweeping authority?
[58] Well, I think this is going to be one of the defining orders of the Biden administration.
[59] Yeah, it really is.
[60] We'll definitely be watching this very, very closely.
[61] Up next, the House finally passes that $1 .2 trillion infrastructure bill.
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[67] After months of intense debate, on Friday just a lot of, Before midnight, the House voted to pass the $1 .2 trillion infrastructure bill.
[68] The bill, which includes funding for bridges, hospitals and airports, as well as billions more for controversial climate change measures, will now head to President Biden's desk for final passage.
[69] Here with the details on how we got here and why it all matters is Daily Wire's Cabot Phillips.
[70] So Cabot, you've been covering this thing on the show for the last few months.
[71] Can you give us a quick recap?
[72] How did we get here?
[73] Yeah, this was sort of the culmination of a massive political battle.
[74] Not between Republicans and Democrats, but between far -left progressives and center -left Democrats.
[75] The fight really started when the progressive base said they'd only vote yes on this bill if they got what they wanted in the larger social spending bill.
[76] Remember, that's the one that includes trillions in funding for all sorts of Democrat agenda items.
[77] Right.
[78] As of Friday, a deal still had not been reached on that bill as the far -left progressives were basically refusing to lower the price tag.
[79] But Speaker Pelosi pushed forward anyway, basically daring Democrat members to defy her.
[80] She reportedly said behind closed doors that members were not to, quote, embarrass President Biden with a no vote on infrastructure.
[81] She announced they'd be holding a vote on that bill on Friday evening, no matter what, which did anger a lot of the progressive base, but evidently not to the point where enough of them would vote against the bill because it ended up passing 228 to 206 just before midnight.
[82] President Biden responded Saturday morning by calling it, quote, a monumental step forward as a nation.
[83] A House of Representatives passed an infrastructure investment in jobs act.
[84] That's a fancy way of saying a bipartisan infrastructure bill, a once -in -a -generation investment that's going to create millions of jobs.
[85] So the president obviously views this as a win, and he also mentioned that this was a bipartisan effort.
[86] So were there Republicans who supported this bill?
[87] It's a bit of a stretch to call it bipartisan.
[88] The bill was technically called the bipartisan infrastructure bill, so you'd think there'd be more support from both parties.
[89] But once this thing was tied to that larger far -left social spending bill, most Republicans refused to support it.
[90] House leader Kevin McCarthy actually warned members against voting yes, saying it was a vote for President Biden's radical agenda.
[91] So there were only 13 Republicans who ended up supporting it.
[92] On the Democrat side, only six members voted no. Those six were members of the so -called squad in the House, led by Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez, Rashida Tlib, and Ilan Omar.
[93] O 'Casio -Cortez said she voted no because she didn't trust that moderate Democrats would hold up their end of the deal and support the social spending bill.
[94] Okay, so now that we have the final text of this bill, can you tell us what made it in?
[95] So there are basically two parts of the bill.
[96] The first are things that traditionally have by the bill.
[97] bipartisan support in Congress.
[98] There's $550 billion for mass transit, airports, roads, and bridges, $65 billion for expanding broadband coverage, and billions more for the electric grid and water systems, standard infrastructure stuff.
[99] But it also includes $21 billion for, quote, environmental remediation, $47 billion for global warming measures that they're calling, quote, climate resiliency.
[100] And another $15 billion for low emission buses and electric vehicles, charging stations.
[101] That second part is what's upsetting a lot of Republicans.
[102] They say those things are more political and aren't traditionally considered infrastructure and so they should be in a separate bill.
[103] And what's the significance of this bill finally passing for President Biden?
[104] Just to put it simply, President Biden really needed this bill to pass.
[105] He's approaching one year in office and there hasn't really been a singular legislative accomplishment for him to point to.
[106] So this is big on that front.
[107] More importantly, for the president, though, it comes at a time when his approval ratings are sinking lower.
[108] They're right now in the high 30s and low 40s, according to most polls.
[109] So after a brutal few months for President Biden, we'll see if this starts to reverse that downward trend because he really needed something right now to point to.
[110] Right.
[111] We'll have to wait and see.
[112] Cabot, thanks for the update.
[113] Anytime.
[114] That's Daily Wires, Cabot Phillips.
[115] Last week's election saw Republicans win a series of races across the country, not only in Virginia, but in New Jersey, New York, and other blue states.
[116] Here to discuss what drove the down -ballot results in their significance is Henry Olson, Senior Fellow at the Conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center.
[117] Henry, thanks for joining us today.
[118] Thanks for having me out.
[119] First and foremost, we've seen last week's election results described as a red wave.
[120] Is this true or just wishful thinking from you know, battered down Republicans?
[121] No, I think it's very true that what we're seeing pretty much everywhere that had a partisan race on the ballot is Republican victories and very large Republican gains compared to the Biden margin in similar areas.
[122] In virtually every place that I can find those data, it's 10 to 15 points swing from Biden's margin to the Republican margin.
[123] And if that were replicated on election day, Republicans would gain between four, 40 and 60 U .S. House seats next year.
[124] We saw that kind of gap in Virginia, but you're noting that it's all over the country.
[125] Yeah, it is.
[126] The votes are still coming in in New Jersey, but right now it's a 2 .6 % Murphy win in a state which fired Lauren by 16, so it's a 13 -point shift, which is almost identical to what Yonkins was.
[127] You see it in the Long Island races.
[128] You see it in some of the Pennsylvania partisan races.
[129] it's pretty much everywhere that you're seeing a very similar 10 to 13, 10 to 14 point shift in favor of the Republicans.
[130] And that's just a massive repudiation of the Democrats.
[131] And what do you think this is?
[132] What drove this red wave against the Democrats?
[133] Look, I think that Joe Biden won election by saying he represented stability, competence, and moderation.
[134] And one year into his presidency, you see chaos, ineptitude, and liberalism.
[135] and the people who gave him his margin were moderate Republicans and moderate independents.
[136] They didn't want Trump, but they didn't want what they're getting.
[137] And they are telling the Democratic Party in no uncertain terms, stop giving us what you're giving us.
[138] We don't want it.
[139] What can we expect going into the midterms here?
[140] You know, the Democrats have a very difficult challenge, is that the Biden political coalition among voters is much different than the Biden political coalition.
[141] coalition on Congress.
[142] The Biden coalition among voters included lots of non -democrats.
[143] To maintain that, you need to be less aggressive, more incremental, and not to try to talk about transformational change.
[144] But what the Democratic Party wants is transformational change.
[145] And that's why you've had the massive spending bills, the emphasis on priorities that Democrats emphasize, but that middle of the road voters do not.
[146] And so if Biden were to do the political thing, he would move to the center.
[147] But that's going to cause problems with his Democratic Party in Congress who wants the transformational things.
[148] And how they manage it in the next year will go a long way determining whether they can claw back some of this ground or if we'll be looking at a massive red wave a year from today.
[149] Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
[150] Thank you very much for having me. That was Henry Olson, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
[151] Those are our big stories for the day.
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