Morning Wire XX
[0] Congressional Democrats are scrambling for votes to keep their agenda alive as several deadlines over the debt ceiling, the infrastructure bills, and government funding all come due this week.
[1] Will Democrats be able to push through their agenda without any Republican support?
[2] We've got the latest from Capitol Hill.
[3] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley.
[4] It's Tuesday, September 28th, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] A health care shortage in New York State looms as tens of things.
[6] thousands of hospital and nursing homeworkers will lose their jobs if they don't comply with the state's vaccine mandate.
[7] What is the state requiring and what impact might it have on a health care system already dealing with a staffing shortage?
[8] And social media giant Facebook has finally disclosed its new content guidelines, revealing which stories the platform suppresses.
[9] How will the new rules affect which posts you see and don't see in your feed?
[10] And did politics play a role in the new policies?
[11] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[12] Stay tuned.
[13] We have the news you need to know.
[14] This show is sponsored by Birch Gold Group.
[15] Inflation is destroying the dollar.
[16] Birch Gold Group can help.
[17] Protect your IRA or 401k with a precious metals IRA.
[18] Text wire to 9898998 to claim a free info kit on physical gold and silver.
[19] There's zero obligation.
[20] Text the word wire to 989898 to protect your savings today.
[21] Congress has begun a marathon week of consequential decisions about the amount of borrowing and spending.
[22] The House of Representatives will vote on raising the debt ceiling, keeping the government open and approving $4 .5 trillion in new spending by Friday.
[23] Here to walk us through what's to come is Daily Wire Reporter Ben Johnson.
[24] So, Ben, can you first to help us untangle some of the separate components on this week's agenda?
[25] Sure, there's a lot to digest here.
[26] This week's legislative calendar contains four big items.
[27] Two of them have to do with the way the government functions and two are major spending bills that could define President Biden's legacy.
[28] First, government spending authorization is scheduled to expire at 1201 Friday morning.
[29] If that happens, non -essential parts of the government will shut down until Congress authorizes new spending.
[30] And how is that different from the debt ceiling?
[31] The continuing resolution deals with what the federal government can spend.
[32] The debt ceiling determines how much you can borrow.
[33] Debt ceiling of $28 .5 trillion went into effect on August 1st.
[34] Since then, the government's been funding federal programs through what it calls extraordinary measures.
[35] Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that money will run out sometime in October.
[36] Congressional Republicans have said they would support a clean bill to fund the government, but Democrats paired government funding with a provision to raise the debt ceiling, so on Monday, Senate Republicans caused that bill to fail on a party -line vote, 48 to 50.
[37] What happens if the debt ceiling isn't raised this week?
[38] Nothing, at least for a little while.
[39] After the Treasury runs out of cash on hand, the federal government would still collect more than enough tax receipts to make the interest payments on the national debt, as well as Social Security, Medicare, and many other government programs.
[40] But the government would have to prioritize which bills are paid, and something would have to be excluded.
[41] That would probably mean freezing the salaries of some federal employees and putting others on furlough.
[42] Well, in addition to these measures, Congress is also weighing two historic spending bills.
[43] How are those related?
[44] Well, that's the controversy.
[45] Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to advance two bills this week.
[46] The first is the president's $3 .5 trillion build -back better act, which contains things like government -funded preschool and community college.
[47] The first piece fundamentally changed the structure and the nature of the economy in this country.
[48] The second is the trillion -dollar infrastructure investment in jobs act, which is mostly traditional infrastructure.
[49] Now, we've seen a lot of debate over the price of this bill, and even which of these bills the House should vote on first.
[50] Can you tell us a little bit about some of the objections?
[51] Those have mostly come from members of the House Progressive Caucus.
[52] Its chair, Representative Primaloggiapol, said its members will vote against the infrastructure bill unless the House votes on the President's bill to expand government programs first.
[53] Try us.
[54] I got more than half of the caucus who feels very strongly.
[55] We're going to deliver the entirety of the President's agenda to the President.
[56] On the other hand, nine more centrist House Democrats have said they will not vote for the $3 .5 trillion bill until the infrastructure bill has been signed into law.
[57] And the president's bill is running into Democratic opposition in the Senate.
[58] Senator Joe Manchin says $3 .5 trillion is too much money.
[59] And Senator Kirsten -Cinema opposes the income and corporate tax hikes the bill will likely contain.
[60] Unless the Democrats win almost all of these votes, the bill can't become law.
[61] And does Speaker Pelosi believe she can reconcile all of those?
[62] that by Friday.
[63] She said she's optimistic that the two sides will inevitably negotiate and pass a slightly less costly version of the Build Back Better Act, regardless this week shaping up to be a defining moment for the Biden presidency.
[64] Right.
[65] Thanks for reporting, Ben.
[66] Thanks, Georgia.
[67] That's Daily Wire reporter, Ben Johnson.
[68] Coming up, New York prepares to fire health care workers who won't comply with vaccine mandates and may use the National Guard to fill staffing shortages.
[69] What's better than getting Moink's delicious grass -fed and grass -finished meat delivered direct to your door?
[70] First, Moink is helping save the family farm.
[71] Second, they're giving you free bacon.
[72] Get free bacon for a year and eat like the family farm matters at Moinkbox .com slash morning wire.
[73] Tens of thousands of health care workers in New York are expected to lose their jobs this week as the state's vaccine mandate for health care workers goes into effect.
[74] New York's governor said she may combat the worker shortage by replacing unvaccinated health workers with the National Guard.
[75] Daily Wire investigative reporter Maraida Lorty joins to discuss.
[76] So, Marade, the governor is considering bringing in the military to deal with this potential staffing crisis.
[77] Yes, it sounds like an extreme step, but that's exactly what Governor Kathy Hockel said she may do if the worker shortage is bad enough.
[78] So the vaccine mandate for health care workers was announced last month by former Governor Andrew Cuomo.
[79] As of Monday, health workers at all hospitals and nursing homes in New York must have at least one dose of a COVID vaccine in order to avoid losing their jobs.
[80] However, tens of thousands of workers still haven't gotten vaccinated, meaning New York could be dealing with mass firings that leave health care facilities severely understaffed.
[81] And they're already dealing with staffing issues, right?
[82] They are, but last week, Hockel told unvaccinated workers that they have no excuses.
[83] What is looming for Monday is completely avoidable, and there's no excuses.
[84] On Saturday, the governor tried to prepare for a staffing emergency by releasing a plan that includes potentially deploying medically trained National Guard members to replace the unvaccinated workers.
[85] So do we have exact numbers on how many health workers are still unvaccinated?
[86] Well, as of last week, a good chunk of the workforce had still not gotten the shot, with 85 % of hospital workers in New York being fully vaccinated and about 15 % not fully vaccinated.
[87] Then among nursing home and adult care facility staff, they had 77 and 81 % that were fully vaccinated.
[88] So more than 20 % not fully vaccinated in some cases.
[89] Right.
[90] Estimates as of last week said that amounts to as many as 95 ,000 workers.
[91] 95 ,000.
[92] Wow.
[93] So has there been any pushback among health workers to the vaccine mandate?
[94] Yes, there has.
[95] Just as we've seen with many of these vaccine mandates that offer no option to test out.
[96] Some say they already have natural immunity.
[97] Some say they're worried about potential side effects, and others say that the mandate is a violation of their medical autonomy.
[98] In New York City, a vaccine mandate for all public school workers, and there are more than 150 ,000 in the city, was blocked by a legal challenge before it went into effect.
[99] So we may see something similar happen with this statewide health worker vaccine mandate.
[100] Okay, but in the meantime, health workers who don't want or can't get the vaccine have only one real option, right, leaving their jobs?
[101] That's exactly right.
[102] But one incredible detail from all of this is that the state labor department is saying that health workers who are fired because they refuse to get the shot will not be able to collect unemployment insurance unless they had a medical exemption.
[103] No unemployment insurance.
[104] Right.
[105] It's also worth noting, National Guard members are not the only ones who could be called in to replace unvaccinated workers.
[106] Hockel said she may also call in recent medical graduates and retirees to help.
[107] The governor also said she might ask for help from out -of -state health workers and even workers from out of the country.
[108] So one could argue that this is essentially a manufactured emergency.
[109] The state created a potential staffing shortage crisis by refusing to budge on the vaccine mandate.
[110] The health implications here are massive.
[111] Definitely.
[112] In fact, some centers are already planning to suspend both elective inpatient surgeries and turn away intensive care patients.
[113] Thanks for the reporting, Maraid.
[114] Of course.
[115] Investigative reporter Marais DeLorty.
[116] Last week, Facebook released its new content guidelines for suppressing posts on its platform, sparking more controversy over big tech censorship.
[117] Here to discuss Facebook's latest moves and how it fits into the broader political battle is Daily Wire's Ian Howarth.
[118] So, Ian, first, what did Facebook just announce?
[119] Well, last week, Facebook made their content distribution guidelines public.
[120] These guidelines are a list of policies which explain at least according to Facebook, how they downrank content.
[121] In other words, while Facebook's community guidelines explain what is and is not deleted from Facebook, their content distribution guidelines explain what is and is not suppressed on Facebook.
[122] And what kind of criteria are they using to make those decisions?
[123] The guidelines are very, very broad, which is part of the problem for a lot of people.
[124] There are almost 30 items split into three categories.
[125] The first category focuses on reacting to supposed user feedback.
[126] The second claims to incentivize the spread of so -called high -quality and accurate content, and the third seeks to provide users with a safer community.
[127] And while this might all seem pretty boring on the surface, it's the second category in particular, incentivizing high -quality and accurate content, which is triggering alarm bells for critics of big tech.
[128] And explain a little bit about what people are concerned about here.
[129] Sure.
[130] So the type of content that is suppressed based on these guidelines, guidelines which have been enforced for some time, by the way, and not revealed, is defined in a pretty subjective way.
[131] For example, deep down in the fact -checked misinformation section, the following line is hidden.
[132] Content predicted to be a misinformation is sent to third -party fact -checkers and may be temporarily shown lower in newsfeed before it is reviewed.
[133] So posts can be downranked before they're even confirmed as misinformation.
[134] Yes, and this is one example of why these guidelines are worrying those who are already concerned about anti -conservative bias on social media platforms.
[135] This line is effectively retroactively justifying the move by Facebook, and other big tech companies, by the way, during the run -up to the 2020 election.
[136] As you'll remember last October, Facebook's comms director and former press secretary for a Democratic senator, Andy Stone, announced that a New York Post story involving the alleged business dealings of Hunter Biden and now President Biden was eligible to be fact -checked and would be down -ranked in the meantime.
[137] Why is this important?
[138] well, not only was the story never debunked, it's likely true.
[139] 45 % of Biden voters in seven swing states knew nothing about the story, and over 9 % said they would have changed their vote for president had they known.
[140] So this is just one example among many of how powerful these sorts of control levers can be for social media companies and why many conservatives are sounding the alarm over these guidelines.
[141] Well, in this case, Facebook is imposing these guidelines independently, but there's also talk about government regulation.
[142] Yeah, this really falls into the attempt by some of the Democratic Party to impose certain levels of control over big tech.
[143] And these Facebook guidelines are arguably an example of this strategy in action.
[144] Back in July, for example, President Biden's Surgeon General called on big tech to impose consequences for users who violate platform policies.
[145] And more recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren has pushed Amazon to use this algorithm to throttle the sale of books, which she characterizes as spreading so -called COVID -19 misinformation.
[146] So when we put all of these stories together, it's clear that big tech is still at the center of an ongoing fight for what many are seeing as a battle for freedom of speech, both online and elsewhere.
[147] Right.
[148] Ian, thanks for the update.
[149] My pleasure.
[150] That's Daily Wires, Ian Howarth.
[151] Other stories we're tracking this week.
[152] Dozens of brawls and public disturbances broke out in Norway on Sunday as bars and restaurants filled with Norwegians celebrating the end of COVID restrictions.
[153] In an unexpected announcement, outgoing Prime Minister Erna Solbosolp said Friday, quote, It has been 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime.
[154] Now the time has come to return to a normal daily life.
[155] The FBI has reportedly asked for some of Brian Laundrie's personal belongings to help them with DNA matching efforts.
[156] According to the Laundry family lawyer, his relatives have complied with agency requests.
[157] The search for Laundry continues after the remains of his fiancé Gabby Petito were discovered and her death was declared a homicide.
[158] And a new report shows that more migrants may be making their way to the United States.
[159] According to Reuters, two Panamanian government sources said that up to 4 ,000 migrants, the majority of whom are Haitians, have gone through Panama heading to the U .S. If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five -star review.
[160] That's all the time we've got this morning.
[161] Thanks for waking up with us.
[162] We'll be back tomorrow with the news, you need to know.
[163] If you like this podcast, get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at Dailywire .com slash subscribe.
[164] Use code MorningWire to try a reader's past membership and get your first month for only 99 cents.