Morning Wire XX
[0] The attorneys for Marine veteran Daniel Penny, who was indicted by a grand jury this week, are speaking out in defense of their client.
[1] If you look at some of the vitriol that has been directed against my client, Danny Penny, loaded disparagements like killer, racist, vigilante, we thought that it was very important that we have him counter that narrative.
[2] What do we know about the charges he's facing and the defense, his lawyers are building.
[3] I'm Daily Wire Editor -in -Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[4] It's Friday, June 16th, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] In a very public reversal, the Republican National Committee is now rallying behind mail -in voting.
[6] We're going to have to apply it state by state, but a lot of it's going to be our ground game.
[7] What's behind the new strategy and how is the group addressing voter concerns about election integrity?
[8] And big tobacco companies receive high marks from ethics watchdogs, while electric car makers receive failing grades.
[9] What's behind the seemingly wonky ratings, and how are they driving broader social agendas?
[10] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[11] Stay tuned.
[12] We have the news you need to know.
[13] A New York grand jury indicted 24 -year -old Marine veteran Daniel Penny on a charge of second -degree manslaughter on Wednesday.
[14] The indictment stems from a May incident when Penny fatally subdued a homeless man on a New York City subway.
[15] While the charges have not yet been unseen, Sealed, sources have provided more details, and Penny's lawyer and Penny himself have spoken out.
[16] Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce joins us to discuss.
[17] Hi, Tim.
[18] First, tell us what we know about the charges against Penny.
[19] Sure, Penny was reportedly indicted on second -degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges.
[20] Penny is facing up to 15 years in prison on the manslaughter charge and four years for negligent homicide.
[21] And Penny's attorneys spoke out after the indictment.
[22] What can we expect from them?
[23] Well, we expect them to plead not guilty when he's arraigned on June 28th.
[24] Statements from Penny and his attorneys suggest that he intends to make a self -defense case.
[25] Here's what one of his lawyers, Thomas Keneff, told Fox News.
[26] The standard in New York State is you don't have to wait until someone physically attacks.
[27] You don't have to wait until somebody's lying on the ground or worse.
[28] The standard is whether a reasonable person in my client's position would have feared imminent harm.
[29] And the reality is that it wasn't just my client who expresses how terrified he was by Jordan Neely's actions on the subway train that afternoon.
[30] His words, and that terror is corroborated by multiple civilian witnesses, innocent bystanders who were on the train, by individuals who actually came and assisted my client in restraining Mr. Neely because it was such a palpable fear that he had introduced into that situation.
[31] Penny released a video statement defending his actions and emphasizing the threatening behavior of Neely.
[32] I was listening to music at the time, and he was yelling, so I took my headphones out to hear what he was yelling.
[33] And the three main threats that he repeated over and over was, I'm going to kill you.
[34] I'm prepared to go to jail for life, and I'm willing to die.
[35] You know, this was a scary situation.
[36] Penny said that he got up and grabbed Neely to restrain him.
[37] Some people say I was trying to choke him to death, which is also not true.
[38] I was trying to restrain him from being able to carry out the threats.
[39] It's worth noting that Penny served four years in the Marines, so he's, He's been trained in lethal and non -lethal restraints.
[40] And eyewitnesses back up what Penny said about Neely's behavior.
[41] One woman who was on the train said that people were scared for their lives.
[42] She condemned Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for bringing the charges at all against Penny, whom she called a hero.
[43] Right.
[44] Her defense of him is something Penny himself highlighted in his statement.
[45] This case really came into the national spotlight because of the racial dynamics.
[46] Penny is white and Neely was black.
[47] How has race played into the case so far?
[48] Well, first, other than that circumstance, there isn't any evidence to suggest what happened here was motivated by race, so it's played no official role, legally speaking.
[49] Penny addressed the racism issue in his video statement this week.
[50] Here's how Penny saw it.
[51] Some people say that this was about race, which is absolutely ridiculous.
[52] I didn't see a black man threatening passengers.
[53] I saw a man threatening passengers, a lot of whom were people of color.
[54] A man who helped restrain Mr. Neely was a person of color.
[55] A few days after the incident, I read in the papers that a woman of color came out and called me a hero.
[56] I don't believe that I'm a hero, but she was one of those people that I was trying to protect.
[57] Well, we'll certainly cover this again when there are more developments.
[58] Tim, thanks for coming on.
[59] Thanks for having me. Coming up, we speak with the head of the Republican National Committee, Rona McDaniel.
[60] After losing the presidency in 2020 and a disappointing showing in the 2022 midterm elections, the Republican National Committee has decided to implement what they hope will be a, a winning strategy and is encouraging GOP voters to take advantage of vote by mail and early voting.
[61] Joining us to discuss this new initiative is Republican National Committee chairwoman Rana McDaniel.
[62] Rana, thanks so much for coming on.
[63] Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
[64] Now, the RNC recently launched a Bank Your Vote campaign.
[65] Tell us about that campaign.
[66] Yeah, we've launched a Banker Vote initiative.
[67] And really what this is is educating voters, making sure they're aware.
[68] that we have to take advantage of the laws as they are on the book.
[69] So during these early vote periods, during mail -in voting, we need to make sure that we're banking as many votes as possible before election day because we can't let Democrats have a head start.
[70] Now, obviously, we're always investing in this, but in some states, just culturally, voters don't like to vote early or they don't like to vote by mail, especially after 2020.
[71] So that's why we've launched this initiative with the NRCC, the NRCC, really to educate voters on the importance of getting those votes in early.
[72] And I certainly will say after 2020, we did see a cultural shift in some states, I'd say Pennsylvania specifically, where voters really became reticent to vote by mail.
[73] And after 2022, I think people are finally waking up, and we want to take advantage of that and educate them that you can track your ballot, that there are things you can do, that we're also going to protect your vote.
[74] We're going to have poll watchers and poll workers and lawyers on the ground during that entire early voting period, making sure that if you vote early, we will be watching it throughout the whole process.
[75] You touched on something that I want to ask you about.
[76] A lot of GOP voters are concerned about ballot harvesting and election integrity.
[77] Is that something the RNC is pushing for?
[78] Yeah, well, first of all, I don't like ballot harvesting.
[79] I think it's bad.
[80] I don't think it's good law to have people have different chain of custody and have somebody of thousands of ballots.
[81] to turn in.
[82] So we're going to continue to fight what we think are bad laws.
[83] We want voter ID.
[84] We don't voting months.
[85] We would rather have a voting day.
[86] So we're going to continue to fight the bad laws in the courts.
[87] But the reality is once elections come and laws are set, we have to deal with what's on the books.
[88] So states like California, where they have ballot harvesting, you know, we lost four house seats in 2018.
[89] And in 2020, we picked four up.
[90] We flipped four Democrat seats because we engaged in ballot collection and we picked up a fifth in 2022 in the Duarte seat.
[91] So we have to deal with the laws that we're dealt with, but it doesn't mean we're not going to fight bad laws.
[92] We're going to continue to do that.
[93] Now, you mentioned poll watchers.
[94] What's the grassroots effort there?
[95] It's massive.
[96] So many people don't know, but the RNC was under something called a consent decree for 40 years where we were not allowed to do any election day operations at all.
[97] We couldn't recruit poll watchers or poll workers.
[98] That ended after the 2020 elections.
[99] So we couldn't do it for the 2020 election, but for 2022, we could.
[100] And once we ramp that system up, we had 19 different councils in different states.
[101] We had 80 ,000 poll watchers and poll workers recruited.
[102] We shifted 100 % in counties that we knew we had issues with.
[103] And we're just going to keep ramping that up for 2024.
[104] And I think it's really critical when you know that a poll worker is sitting next to you counting the ballots, who's a Republican, that helps make sure everybody's knowing that their ballots are being safeguarded.
[105] I'm sorry, just unpack that a little bit.
[106] The RNC couldn't have poll watchers for 40 years?
[107] 40 years.
[108] Yeah, we were under something called a consent decree.
[109] It came from a New Jersey court order.
[110] The judge kept reupping it.
[111] We appealed.
[112] and actually the judge ended up passing away.
[113] We're not happy about that, but that's actually what ended the consent decree.
[114] So the 2020 election cycle, the RNC could not do any poll watching or poll working that was done by the Trump campaign or state party.
[115] 2022 was the first election cycle where we could do this in 40 years.
[116] Well, there will definitely be a lot of eyes on this in 2024.
[117] Rana, thanks for coming on.
[118] Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
[119] That was Ronna McDaniel, Chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.
[120] A new report reveals that tobacco companies are scoring high ESG ratings.
[121] Critics of ESG, environmental, social, and corporate governance scoring say this proves it's a deeply flawed metric that doesn't accomplish the goal of ethical investing.
[122] Here to tell us how tobacco companies are managing to achieve such high scores, and what that reveals about ESG investing generally is Daily Wire Culture Reporter, Megan Basham.
[123] So, Megan, ESG ratings are theoretically supposed to allow investors to invest their money in companies that are having a, quote, positive societal impact.
[124] So why would these companies score so high?
[125] Yeah, that is the question.
[126] So this report was published in the Washington Free Beacon, and what it found was that companies like tobacco giant Philip Morris scored an 84.
[127] And by contrast, the electric car company Tesla, which you would think would do pretty well on that E, environmental.
[128] only scored a 37.
[129] Now, that's astonishing when you realize that tobacco farming in production has a very high carbon footprint and causes deforestation and soil erosion and, you know, other negative environmental impacts.
[130] And then you look at the S, social.
[131] So cigarettes are the number one cause of preventable death in this country.
[132] As the beacon points out, they kill more than alcohol, illegal drugs, and car accidents combined.
[133] And tobacco costs the U .S. an estimated $2 ,000, $40 billion a year in health care costs.
[134] So that should be pretty bad.
[135] And yet Altria, one of the largest tobacco companies in the world, scored a 94.
[136] So what accounts for that high score?
[137] Well, a lot of it seems to center on how these companies are emphasizing diversity and inclusion.
[138] Philip Morris, for example, has taken pains to highlight its female tobacco farmers.
[139] Altria, meanwhile, touts their supplier diversity program, like here in this promotional video.
[140] diversity and inclusion is an important strategy for Altria.
[141] When you think about our strategy to maximize the core and innovate for the future, innovation plays a role in both aspects of that strategy.
[142] And it's important to have a diverse set of suppliers, a diverse employee base to help us think about things in a different way.
[143] Now you contrast that with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who's pretty famously said he's not interested in diverse hiring for diversity's sake.
[144] He just wants candidates that he feels are best qualified.
[145] So in the tech world, that's led to a lot of men working at Tesla, primarily white and Asian men at that.
[146] And then another way you're seeing these companies score high numbers is for their LGBTQ initiatives from groups like the human rights campaign.
[147] In fact, Altria has a perfect score from the HRC.
[148] So that's also how you see a cigarette company trouts an electric car company in ESG.
[149] And then there's also the fact that some metrics like the S &P Global quietly acknowledge that they score differently for different industries.
[150] So if a tobacco company can show that they're working toward greener farming practices, like moving away from synthetic fertilizers, even though they still have a greater environmental impact, they can still get higher numbers that way.
[151] So you can imagine that that is sparking a lot of criticism.
[152] Jonathan Berry, a managing partner at Boyden Gray and Associates, sued NASDAQ last year over its diversity requirements.
[153] And he has strongly criticized ESG, like at this Federalist Society event last year.
[154] We're supposed to believe that it's the market demanding policy changes that line up quite nicely with the Biden administration's top priorities.
[155] But it is not the market.
[156] It is artificial layers of money managers created by public and private regulators.
[157] In this way, ESG is a vehicle for ideological control of capital allocation.
[158] So I think we can expect this report to become one more data point in this very hot national and really international debate that we're having over ESG investing.
[159] Well, a major change is people are actually talking about this now.
[160] That's a change even from last year.
[161] Yeah.
[162] Megan, thanks for reporting.
[163] Anytime.
[164] Well, that's all the time we've got this morning.
[165] Thanks for waking up with us.
[166] We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.