Morning Wire XX
[0] The world's most influential search engine has been accused of suppressing information put out by GOP candidates ahead of the election.
[1] In seven of the 12 cases, the Republicans have been pushed to page two.
[2] We evaluate the claims and the evidence.
[3] I'm Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[4] Happy Halloween.
[5] It's Monday, October 31st, and this is Morning Wire.
[6] Georgia has turned into a purple state in recent elections, but Republicans are hoping to shift it back.
[7] to red.
[8] I want to try to unite people, bring people together.
[9] We hear from a candidate in the Senate race that's shaping up to be one of the tightest and most important in the country.
[10] And a new report reveals that the vast majority of the billions of dollars distributed to schools during the pandemic went unused.
[11] Where is that money now?
[12] And why wasn't it used as intended?
[13] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[14] Stay tuned.
[15] We have the news you need to know.
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[19] The world's leading search engine, Google, has been accused of intentionally suppressing search results about GOP candidates while promoting search results for left -wing candidates.
[20] Additionally, on Friday, the GOP filed a lawsuit against the tech giant for allegedly directing Republican candidates' emails to spam folders at much higher rates than Democratic candidates.
[21] Here to tell us more about the claims is Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham.
[22] So, Megan, Republicans are leveling these accusations.
[23] What kind of evidence do they have?
[24] Well, there's two parts to this.
[25] There's the search results, and and there's the emails.
[26] So to start with the search results, the conservative watchdog group Media Research Council tested search terms for Republican candidates on three different engines, Google, bang, and duck, duck go.
[27] And it specifically searched keywords related to the top 12 races that the website Real Clear Politics has highlighted as key to controlling the Senate.
[28] The MRC's analysis found that Google buried 10 of the 12 campaign websites for Republican candidates on the second page or even lower in the search results.
[29] Meanwhile, the sites of their Democratic opponents appeared on the first page and as organic results as opposed to paid results.
[30] So the MRC says the results for the other search engines, bang and duck, dot go, were much more even -handed.
[31] On Fox News, on Tuesday, MRC president Brent Bozell argued that Google is acting out of political bias.
[32] If you are somebody searching that Republican, that person doesn't exist.
[33] For all intents and purposes, the Republican candidate is a non -person, and that's Google who deliberately put them on page two.
[34] So the MRC issued a report on its finding saying that Google favors Democrat candidates over Republicans about 83 % of the time.
[35] And they say that random algorithm settings really can't account for the stark differences that they're seeing in the different results of these various search engines.
[36] And that's significant because Google is the biggest search platform in the world.
[37] world.
[38] It has more than 90 % of web searches performed using its service.
[39] So in a very meaningful way, the company has something of a monopoly on search results.
[40] And for that reason, the MRC is now calling on Congress to investigate Google's search bias and the impact they say it might be having on midterm elections.
[41] Now, has Google responded to the MRC report?
[42] Yes, they have.
[43] They put out a statement saying that they can't comment on specific claims without seeing the research, but they said that there's no validity whatsoever to these allegations of bias.
[44] And they also said that third parties have found that political ideology is not a factor in their search ranking systems.
[45] They also added that they don't and would never manipulate search results, modify their products, or enforce their policies in any way, promote or disadvantage any particular political ideology viewpoint or candidate.
[46] So that's their comment.
[47] Okay, so let's move on to the development on Friday, which seems even more serious because there's already been a lawsuit filed, what were the grounds for that suit?
[48] Well, as John mentioned, the RNC filed this federal lawsuit on Friday in California, and they're claiming that Google has violated several state laws regarding political discrimination and unlawful business practices.
[49] So the RNC says they've tracked Gmail inbox delivery for nearly a year now, and they discovered that at specific times each month that are known to be very important, to fundraising, Google has been diverting committee emails to spam folders.
[50] Now, the RNC said these emails would drop from around 90 % successful inboxing rate, and that's the term for how often an email reaches a user's inbox, to nearly zero during those significant periods.
[51] The committee says it tried to work with Google to resolve the problem, but that Google just gave them excuses and then eventually stopped answering.
[52] Now, were they able to establish that this wasn't also happening with Democratic campaign emails?
[53] They say that they were, yes.
[54] The filing pointed to a recent study out of North Carolina State that found Gmail labels campaign emails from Republican candidates as spam 68 % of the time, but it only does it 8 % of the time for their Democratic counterparts.
[55] They also tested whether it was happening with other email servers like Yahoo and Outlook, and they say they did not observe the same pattern happening.
[56] So MRC is basically accusing Google of election meddling.
[57] That's huge.
[58] Yep.
[59] All right.
[60] Well, Megan, thanks for reporting.
[61] Anytime.
[62] That was Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham.
[63] Coming up, with the Georgia Senate race among the country's closest, we hear from candidate Herschel Walker.
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[72] With Election Day nearly upon us, Morning Wire spoke with Herschel Walker, the Republican, locked in one of the nation's tightest and most important Senate races.
[73] Joining us now with the latest from the battleground state of Georgia is Daily Wire's senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
[74] All right, Caput, before we talk about our team's conversation with Walker, if you would, give us an update on the polls in Georgia.
[75] Well, after not leading in a single poll from mid -September to mid -October, Herschel Walker is now ahead in all three major polls coming out of Georgia over the last week.
[76] We talked about our exclusive Trafalgar poll last week that had him up two, then there was another from Fox that had him up three, and then a third from Rasmussen, where he led by five.
[77] And worth noting, all of those polls showed independent voters breaking hard for Walker.
[78] The Rasmussen poll, for example, had him up 14 points on that front.
[79] Now, we've been waiting to see how independent voters would break.
[80] Remember, they usually do not solidify their decision until the weeks before election day.
[81] And Republicans are thrilled by those numbers.
[82] Yeah, I'm sure they are.
[83] So for those who don't always trust polling, keep in mind, even if the polls are often off from the final numbers, one thing we know they do well is tracking momentum and voter trends.
[84] And in this case, we've seen every poll reflect a shift towards Walker, and that's just impossible to deny.
[85] Yeah, it definitely seems that way.
[86] Now, our team spoke with Walker about the race.
[87] What do you have to say?
[88] Well, we did reach out to both campaigns, but Warnock's team declined the interview.
[89] We asked Walker what he views as the biggest contrast between his campaign and Warnox, and it was interesting.
[90] He went straight to the issue of crime.
[91] I think crime is a huge problem in Georgia, whereas Senator Warnock seemed to have called on men and women that blue thugs and blue thugs bullies, and he don't believe in law enforcement.
[92] He believes in no cash bail.
[93] He believes in opening up the prisons, letting prisoners out, and I don't.
[94] And I believe in securing that border.
[95] He doesn't seem to want to secure the border.
[96] Walker also made sure to bring up his opponent's record of voting with President Biden's agenda.
[97] That's something we've seen from Republican candidates on debate stages across the country, and clearly a topic they view as a winning message.
[98] 96th of the time, he voted with Joe Biden.
[99] That's the problem right there.
[100] They seem to be headed in the wrong direction, but they don't seem to want to turn around or change, and things are not going to get better.
[101] They can't admit that we got a problem.
[102] Now, we also spoke to Walker about some of the elements of his personal life that have really become a hot topic in this race.
[103] Yeah, that has been one of the main things Democrats have tried to use against him.
[104] Walker's been accused of fathering multiple children out of wedlock over the last few decades, and there was also that huge story that he had allegedly paid for a woman's abortion.
[105] Now, while he denies that specific claim, he does admit that he's made mistakes in the past and calls himself an open book now.
[106] I've had my faults, but those folks of those things I've done, and I've been redeemed from those folks years ago.
[107] Anyone that had never fallen down and gotten up can never say that they're a true man. But I say, this is not about Senator one, not personal life, it's not about my personal life.
[108] What is about is whether you can represent, Georgia as a senator, and I hope people saw during the debate that I'm the one that could represent Georgia as a senator because I would always, always fight for the Georgia people.
[109] Before we go, there was a hot mic moment over the weekend that really had a lot of people talking.
[110] What happened there?
[111] On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was talking with President Biden on a tarmac outside Air Force One.
[112] Apparently, he did not realize he was near a microphone and started candidly discussing the state of the Georgia Senate race, saying that Democrats were going downhill.
[113] It's a bit tough to make out, but have a listen.
[114] The direct quote there is, quote, the state where we're going downhill is Georgia.
[115] It's hard to believe that they will go for Herschel Walker.
[116] So not the most optimistic message from a man who's obviously tracking this race very closely.
[117] Definitely not.
[118] Kappet, thanks for reporting.
[119] Any time.
[120] That's Daily Wire Senior Editor, Cabot Phillips.
[121] A new report by the Washington Post is shedding light on COVID funding for schools and revealing important information about how its use and lack thereof impacted students across the country.
[122] The federal funds were the biggest surge of emergency dollars in U .S. history, but now questions are being raised about how they're being used.
[123] Here to discuss is Daily Wire's Charlotte Pence -Bahn.
[124] Charlotte, walk us through these numbers here.
[125] What did this report find?
[126] First and background, last March, the Biden administration's American Rescue Plan led to public schools getting $122 billion.
[127] That was supposed to go towards helping them recover from the pandemic, and it went out fast.
[128] $81 billion was distributed less than two weeks after it became law.
[129] But schools haven't used a lot of the money.
[130] A Washington Post analysis of data from Edunomics show the school system said they spent less than 15 % of the COVID money during last school year.
[131] So less than 15 % that certainly raises a lot of questions.
[132] Is this happening everywhere?
[133] It depends.
[134] How much school spent differed between states and even local areas.
[135] But an alarming trend emerged.
[136] The places where kids learning has suffered the most, only.
[137] spent 5 % or less of the funds last year.
[138] Edgonomics estimated that public school students are 12 weeks behind in reading and 20 weeks behind in math.
[139] And that could take over $116 million to repair.
[140] And do we know why the money wasn't used?
[141] Well, it could be for many reasons.
[142] Education officials and experts said the time it took to get the money and the teacher shortage are factors, as well as districts wanting to make sure the funds last as long as possible.
[143] Keeping track of the money and how it's used can also be difficult.
[144] The reported percentage of what schools are spending is also just reflective of how much the district asks the state for.
[145] Schools have a lot of leeway with how they use the funds.
[146] At least 20 % has to go towards learning loss, but some have said they're buying new learning materials, furniture, and school resources.
[147] And at least 31 of the 100 largest districts are giving teachers bonuses.
[148] That comes from future ed, a Georgetown education research organization.
[149] There's also concern that the districts won't be able to keep up new practice.
[150] if they're improving education in ways that aren't sustainable.
[151] For example, lots of schools gave out laptops to every kid in 2020, but when the laptops stop working, they're going to have to find a way to replace them.
[152] Right.
[153] Now, we reported recently that kids are really behind in schooling after the pandemic.
[154] Right.
[155] Kids fall behind because of many reasons, especially if they didn't have someone to help them learn.
[156] But Wi -Fi was a huge factor, too.
[157] If kids didn't have good internet while they were stuck in their houses, they couldn't take classes online.
[158] Baltimore's budget includes buying hotspots for families, and some regions are putting the money towards tutoring.
[159] So some lessons seem to have been learned from COVID, but it remains to be seen how the money will help.
[160] Well, I think a lot of parents are certainly hoping this is all put to good use, and let's also hope there's a lot of oversight on this process.
[161] Charlotte, thanks for reporting.
[162] Thanks for having me. That was DailyWire's Charlotte Pence Bond.
[163] Other stories we're tracking this week.
[164] The man accused of attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband carried zip ties with him when he broke into the the couple's San Francisco home last week.
[165] That's according to a person briefed on the investigation.
[166] Police said the 42 -year -old suspect confronted Paul Pelosi in his home early Friday, while demanding to know where the House Speaker was.
[167] At least 151 people were killed and 82 others injured in South Korea Saturday night after a crowd of thousands of people surged into a narrow alleyway during a Halloween celebration.
[168] Officials say many were trapped and crushed by the crowd.
[169] At least 60 people died and many are feared injured after a cable bridge collapsed into a river in western India on Sunday evening.
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[174] We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.