Morning Wire XX
[0] In a massive blow to the Biden administration's vaccine agenda, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday against the OSHA mandate for private employers.
[1] The mandate, which would impact 85 million Americans, has been stayed, blocking the federal government from enforcing it.
[2] We'll talk to an attorney who helped lead the lawsuits against the administration.
[3] I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[4] It's Friday, January 14th, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] The saga of the Loudoun County School Rail.
[6] which rose to national prominence and galvanized parents across the country has finally come to an end.
[7] We'll hear from the investigative reporter who first broke the story.
[8] And the cable news world is suffering from a seismic shift in viewership, with ratings crashing across the industry.
[9] We'll look at the causes and the fallout from the cable news crisis.
[10] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[11] Stay tuned.
[12] We have the news you need to know.
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[18] On Thursday, the highest court in the land ruled against the Biden administration's OSHA mandate, which forces private employers to require their workers to be vaccinated or tested.
[19] Here to walk us through the court's ruling is Harmeet Dillon, the founder of Dillon Law Group, which has been working with the Daily Wire in its lawsuit against the administration over the mandate.
[20] So, Harme, the court has delivered a significant decision here.
[21] First, what are the high -level points from the court's ruling we should know?
[22] Well, I think people are asking questions about what are the different opinions here, and there's a majority opinion of six justices that's called per curiam.
[23] And I would say they used the narrowest ground possibly to reach their ruling that a stay was appropriate for this OSHA workplace mandate.
[24] And then there's a concurring opinion by justices Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito that is somewhat broader.
[25] And then finally, there is a dissent by the justices you would predict from the oral argument last Friday.
[26] Justice's Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer basically echoed the points that they made and they're questioning.
[27] So the bottom line of what the majority ruling of the court is, is that the occupational safety and Health Act does not clearly authorize a vaccine mandate, and that a vaccination is clearly unlike other occupational regulations, because it can't be undone at the end of the workday, like taking off a hard hat, which is one of the examples we heard in the oral argument.
[28] The court also noted, in its majority opinion, that there was a Senate vote on December 8th disapproving of this very order, and that was important in terms of congressional intent, and that finally this order will force the petitioners in this case, the plaintiffs, to incur billions of dollars in unrecoverable compliance costs, causing hundreds of thousands of employees to leave their jobs.
[29] So what about the concurring opinion from the conservative justices?
[30] What were the arguments there?
[31] Yeah, so the concurring opinion is led by Justice Gorsuch, joined by justices Thomas and Alito.
[32] These are, you know, considered to be the most conservative justices on the court.
[33] And they really focus on the big question that a lot of people were focusing on on Friday, who decides?
[34] And so that's the theme of their concurring opinion.
[35] They go into discussion of what's called the major questions test.
[36] And that's a doctrine that has to do with the administrative procedures.
[37] And if Congress did not clearly speak in assigning OSHA the decision -making power, such as a vaccine mandate, then the court's not going to simply, you know, let them sort of make it up as they go.
[38] And the concurring opinion points out that less than two years ago, OSHA told a federal court that the OSHA Act does not authorize OSHA to issue sweeping health standards affecting workers' lives outside the workplace, which is clearly what is before the court right now.
[39] And then the justices say something that may give some of your listeners pause, which is this is a type of regulation that, if appropriate, states could do or Congress could do, but it's not something that OSHA can do by itself.
[40] So the big question here, does this mean the private employer mandate is dead?
[41] Or is there some way it could be imposed in the future?
[42] Well, so effectively this is going to go back down to the Sixth Circuit.
[43] What your listeners should know, and it's a question I'm getting a lot it as an employment lawyer and a constitutional lawyer, it's still perfectly legal for employers to mandate vaccination in this country.
[44] I disagree with this, but under current federal law and the laws of most states, it is perfectly legal for employers to mandate this.
[45] So really, the people who are affected by this tremendous decision are people whose employers don't wish to force medical decisions on their workers, like the Daily Wire, like other major employers, Republican National Committee, and a whole host of private employers out there who said, we believe it should be up to our workers to make these private health care choices for themselves.
[46] Well, this is obviously a significant ruling impacting tens of millions of people, and it's definitely a win for those like the Daily Wire who stand against it.
[47] We'll be looking forward to the court's next move on it.
[48] Harmeet, thanks so much for talking with us.
[49] My pleasure.
[50] Thank you so much.
[51] That was Dylan Law Group founder, Harmeet Dylan.
[52] Coming up, the sentence is handed down in the Loudoun County School bathroom rape case.
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[56] The male student accused of raping a ninth grade girl in the girls' restroom in Loudon County, was sentenced Wednesday in juvenile court.
[57] The case made national news when the female victim's father was arrested at a school board meeting, where parents were speaking out against the district's transgender bathroom policy, a policy which allows male students in girls' restrooms.
[58] Dailywire's Luke, who broke the story that shook up the Virginia election, was in the courtroom.
[59] Luke, what happened in the sentencing Wednesday?
[60] Well, it was a packed courtroom with a lot of tears.
[61] The judge said the rapist was guilty of four crimes and ordered him to residential treatment until he's 18 years old.
[62] She also ordered him to be placed on the sex offender registry, something that will follow him for the rest of his life.
[63] That's the first time the judge has ever taken that step for a minor.
[64] The judge said that a psychosexual report on the offender was the most disturbing she's ever read.
[65] And I'm quoting, it scared me, it scared me for you, it scared me for society.
[66] Powerful statement there.
[67] Now, we're not using the name of the assailant because he's 15 years old.
[68] But a name listeners do know is Scott Smith, the father of one of the victims.
[69] What were the victim's reactions to the sentence?
[70] Scott Smith and his wife were in court, as was their daughter and the second victim.
[71] Scott told the court that ever since he was dragged out of that school board meeting in handcuffs, where he was angry after the superintendent helped secure passage of a new transgender policy, the case had torn his community apart with, quote, half of Loudoun County refusing to patronize his business after liberals accused him of lying about the rape of his daughter and the National School Board Association listed him in a letter that likened conservative parents to domestic terrorists.
[72] Right, the infamous NSBA letter, which we're now learning, may have been requested by the administration.
[73] Exactly.
[74] But on Wednesday, the rapist acknowledged that it was real.
[75] He looked his victims in the eye and apologized, quote, to you and you.
[76] He was ultimately taken away in leg shackles as his mother blew him a kiss.
[77] And the judge said she was cognizant that there were, was also a third victim, meaning it was actually worse than we previously knew.
[78] A third victim, and we just got that information Wednesday?
[79] Right.
[80] Another issue in the case was the role of Buda Biberi, a prosecutor who ran on a platform of reduced sentencing.
[81] She showed up in court and faced the victims, right?
[82] Yes, and as she looked on, Scott Smith told the court, quote, I questioned some of the decisions of the school system and the prosecuting office for allowing the second assault to happen.
[83] Biberai let the rapist out after the first incident and Loudoun schools transferred him to a new school without properly telling people about the rape which is how the second assault happened.
[84] The second victim provided a statement to the court where she said when a new boy transferred to her school and showed up wearing an ankle monitor she tried to show kindness to the new kid.
[85] She said she had no idea the ankle monitor was because of an arrest for rape in his previous school.
[86] She said he took advantage of her kindness.
[87] To prosecutors credit, they did pushed for the rapist to be added to the sex offender registry, which made Scott Smith happy.
[88] So is this the end of this disturbing Loudoun Rape saga?
[89] Not entirely.
[90] The school system said it would commission an independent investigation into how it handled all this in order to put community concerns to rest.
[91] But just before sentencing, we found out that the investigation is done, but that the school system is going to keep the results secret.
[92] So no transparency on this?
[93] No. With the change in the state's leadership, with a new Republican governor, will anything change?
[94] Well, Glenn Yonkin and his Attorney General have discussed several laws and actions specifically designed around this case.
[95] One would allow the state attorney general to step in and prosecute crimes where prosecutors seem to be refusing to enforce the law.
[96] Another is a state investigation into Loudon's handling of this event.
[97] Thanks, Luke.
[98] Thank you.
[99] Daily Wire investigative reporter, Luke Roziak.
[100] Cable News experienced a major disruption in 2021, with ratings down across the board.
[101] Among the key 18 to 49 demo advertisers care most about, CNN crashed a whopping 90 % from this time last year.
[102] Here to talk about just how bad these numbers are and what's driving them is Daily Wire Entertainment reporter Megan Basham.
[103] So, Megan, CNN's rating decline seems to be making all the headlines, but they're not alone.
[104] No, they're not.
[105] And I'm pretty sure that's a fact that their competitors would rather not talk about.
[106] Right.
[107] You know, while CNN is suffering the worst of that mass audience exodus, the other big players in the cable news game are taking some pretty big hits as well.
[108] So Fox, of course, is far and away the dominant force in the industry.
[109] It draws more viewers than MSNBC and CNN combined.
[110] But while Fox is comparatively the big ratings winner, it also saw some pretty big declines overall.
[111] So the conservative network is down 34 % from this same time last year in the primetime block.
[112] In fact, if you compare 2020 to 2021, it actually took a steeper drop than NBC, which was down 28 % year over year.
[113] So I think we have to look at this as more than just a left -right thing.
[114] I mean, that's definitely a component, but it's not everything.
[115] So what are the other factors?
[116] Just intuitively, the COVID coverage obviously brought a bump, and that might be dying down a little bit.
[117] Likewise, 2020 was an election year.
[118] So could this just be a normalization?
[119] Yeah, I think it could.
[120] I think that's definitely a part of it.
[121] It's understandable that the numbers would come down off the highs of that first year of COVID when, I mean, we were all sort of glued to our televisions trying to sort out the facts about the pandemic.
[122] And of course, the Trump administration was always ratings catnip.
[123] But if you go back before Trump came along, cable news was kind of on an overall downward trend, not super steep, but it was losing viewers.
[124] And he just took it on this wild roller coaster ride.
[125] conservatives liberals moderates everybody tuned in for that trump show so cable news saw these huge spikes that are now seemingly being matched by some equally huge drop -offs as john said CNN has lost 90 percent of its audience from its high early in 2021 that's kind of hard to wrap your mind around but again that's coming down from a spike in 2020 so the industry just isn't sure what this new normal is you get a sense of how unsettled the landscape is with some of these major departures and talent shuffling in recent months.
[126] So CNN showed Chris Cuomo the door over that unethical coverage of his brother, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, Brian Williams out at MSNBC, and rumors Joy Reid may be following him due to some low ratings.
[127] And, of course, Chris Wallace just left that plum roll as host of Fox News Sunday to move to CNN's streaming platform.
[128] So the same as the Big Four broadcast network started doing a few years ago, everyone in the cable game seems to be scrambling to figure out where they fit in this streaming revolution.
[129] Whereas before, streaming kind of seemed like an afterthought, suddenly these big networks have been turning their attention to it in a serious way.
[130] By that, I mean they're spending serious money on it.
[131] So you're seeing that with Fox adding its marquee name Tucker Carlson to the Fox Nation subscription service and launching a streaming weather channel.
[132] And that's to say nothing of the podcast revolution.
[133] Right.
[134] So across the board, it looks like the realignment in news media is real, and it's here to stay.
[135] Well, John and I sure hope so.
[136] Yes, we do.
[137] I bet you do.
[138] Megan, thanks for reporting.
[139] Anytime.
[140] Thanks, Megan.
[141] That's Daily Wire Entertainment reporter, Megan Basham.
[142] Another story we're tracking this week, the Red Cross is offering blood donors a chance to win tickets to the Super Bowl, as it faces its steepest blood shortage in over 10 years.
[143] The organization says there's been a 10 % overall drop in individuals donating blood throughout the pandemic.
[144] College and school blood drives have also gone down by over 60%.
[145] If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morningwire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five -star review.
[146] That's all the time we've got this morning.
[147] Thanks for waking up with us.
[148] We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.