Morning Wire XX
[0] President Biden pleaded with House Democrats on Thursday to approve his $1 .8 trillion spending bill saying the success of his presidency is on the line.
[1] No one got everything they wanted, including me. Despite President Biden's personal pleas, progressive Democrats are already saying the spending bill includes major gaps.
[2] What exactly is included in the final framework?
[3] And does it have support in the White House and the Senate?
[4] I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[5] It's Friday, October 29th, and this is Morning Wire.
[6] Florida's Attorney General sued the Biden administration and NASA this week over Biden's vaccine mandate for federal contractors, claiming it's unlawful.
[7] Here we are.
[8] We said we take action, and we are.
[9] This lawsuit has been filed.
[10] We think that we can get a, hopefully get a preliminary injunction and be able to protect people's jobs from this mandate coming in.
[11] We'll take a closer look at Florida's arguments.
[12] against the mandate and its implementation, as well as other legal action the state is taking against the administration.
[13] And newly released data from Border Patrol reveals that the number of migrants who attempted to cross illegally into the U .S. this year was the highest ever recorded.
[14] We'll take a look at those numbers and the factors that led to skyrocketing illegal immigration.
[15] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[16] Stay tuned.
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[24] After months of fierce debate on Capitol Hill, President Biden went to Congress Thursday to rally support for what he hopes is the final version of his massive social spending.
[25] package.
[26] The new bill still contains many of the president's campaign promises, but it has been stripped of many of his party's most progressive elements.
[27] Here are the latest on this ongoing battle is Daily Wire Managing Editor Cabot Phillips.
[28] So first off, Cabot, how do we get to this point?
[29] So it's important to zoom out and look at this big picture.
[30] Right now, there are two bills that President Biden is hoping to get through Congress, and their fates are kind of tied together.
[31] The first is the mostly uncontroversial infrastructure bill.
[32] This includes a trillion dollars in funding for things like bridges, roads, hospitals.
[33] You get the picture.
[34] It's passed a vote in the Senate, but is currently being held up in the House by Democrats who want to wait to see exactly what's in the second bill.
[35] That's the much more controversial social spending package.
[36] This one includes many of President Biden's campaign promises like universal preschool, Medicare expansion, climate change measures, basically a progressive wish list.
[37] Now, that bill can only pass with unanimous support from Senate Democrats, which they didn't have their first go -round.
[38] Remember, Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema both said the $3 .5 trillion price tag was just too high.
[39] So now President Biden has come back with a new framework for the bill, and this time it's going to be $1 .75 trillion.
[40] Now, President Biden has been open about how desperately he wants this thing to pass.
[41] On Thursday, he reportedly told House Democrats that the fate of this bill would determine his legacy and also the outcome of the 2022 midterms.
[42] So a lot of state care.
[43] Indeed.
[44] Now, we saw some pushback from Democrats when the new framework was announced by President Biden.
[45] What can you tell us there?
[46] Yeah, far left Democrats in the party are not happy with those cuts to the social spending bill.
[47] And some of them are now threatening to withdraw support from the infrastructure bill.
[48] basically is payback until they get their say on the social spending bill.
[49] Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren cheered that move, saying the House should not vote on one bill until both have reached a point that Democrats agree on.
[50] Speaker Pelosi, though, disagrees.
[51] She met with House Democrats on Thursday and tried to pressure them into supporting the infrastructure bill whether they liked the social spending bill or not.
[52] She reportedly told them not to, quote, embarrass the president by voting against it.
[53] But ultimately, that vote did not.
[54] happen, mainly because a failed infrastructure vote in the House would be bad optics for Democrats.
[55] Right.
[56] So now they're going to wait on developments with the social spending bill, see which direction things go.
[57] That vote could end up being today or a month from now.
[58] We just don't know.
[59] Okay, so back to that social spending bill, even with the price reduction, $1 .75 trillion is, you know, still a hefty price tag.
[60] Yeah.
[61] How is this going to be paid for?
[62] There's been some conflicting messaging on that front.
[63] initially the White House said the plan would cost nothing.
[64] This package, the reconciliation package, would cost zero dollars.
[65] But obviously that money has to come from somewhere.
[66] $1 .75 trillion is almost 10 % of our country's entire GDP.
[67] And as White House Chief of Staff Ron Clayne himself pointed out, in today's dollars, this package is worth twice as much money as FDR's entire New Deal plan.
[68] So when the White House says the cost is zero, basically what they mean is that they have a plan for where the money was.
[69] will come from not that they have it right now in this case it'll be a corporate tax increase a new tax on stock buybacks and maybe most controversially a 15 % global minimum tax which would apply to companies overseas earnings yeah we actually took a look at that on the show recently right and the white house also says they'll be giving even more funding to the IRS to help them crack down and make sure that no one is underpaying on their taxes that's expected to raise another 400 billion dollars in tax revenue to help fund this.
[70] Now, the Biden administration has consistently said these measures will only impact wealthy Americans, but many economists disagree.
[71] They've pointed out that these types of measures often result in fewer job openings and higher costs for consumers as businesses essentially look to offset the money they're losing to the federal government because of higher taxes.
[72] Yeah, well, when you're talking about huge sums of money like this, it's inevitably going to impact a lot of people's wallets.
[73] Right.
[74] Thanks for the update, Cabot.
[75] Absolutely.
[76] That's Daily Wire Managing Editor, Cabot Phillips.
[77] Coming up, Florida sues the Biden administration over vaccine mandates.
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[82] The state of Florida is suing the Biden administration and NASA over vaccine mandates for federal contractors.
[83] The lawsuit is the latest filed by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Republican Governor Rhonda Santis, who last month also filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration's catch and release policies at the southern border.
[84] Here to discuss the lawsuits is Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short.
[85] Ash, tell us a little bit about Florida's vaccine mandate suit.
[86] Sure.
[87] So Biden's vaccine mandate states that federal contractors must require vaccinations and get their workers vaccinated by December 8th.
[88] DeSantis and Moody are saying that mandate is unlawful and they're suing not only the administration in NASA, but also NASA administrator Bill Nelson and other White House officials, including in the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Defense.
[89] And so what exactly is the issue that Florida is suing over?
[90] Well, Florida argues in its lawsuit that NASA and others who contract in Florida and follow Biden's vaccine mandate would be interfering with Florida's employment policies and threatened the state's economy.
[91] The state argues that the vaccine requirement would force the state to require certain state officials get vaccinated due to their federal contracts.
[92] DeSantis had previously called for a special session of the state legislature to ban vaccine mandates, and he's been outspoken against them.
[93] He announced the lawsuit in a press conference this week.
[94] We also cannot have the federal government coming in, exceeding their power.
[95] Some of the stuff that they're doing with the federal contract.
[96] They're really rewriting contracts, and they're transforming normal contracting into basically public health policy.
[97] And that's not anything Congress has ever authorized.
[98] All right.
[99] So Florida says President Biden's mandate is unlawful.
[100] What's the state's argument for that?
[101] The lawsuit says the Biden administration, misread a statute, it says gives it the authority to compel workers to get the COVID -19 vaccine or lose their job.
[102] A Florida official said that statute does not authorize the federal government to, quote, use its contracts to impose social policy not authorized by Congress.
[103] Governor DeSantis also says that many employers aren't honoring religious and medical exemptions.
[104] And this isn't the first major lawsuit that the state of Florida has filed against the Biden administration.
[105] Can you tell us about the immigration case?
[106] Right.
[107] So about a month ago, the state filed a lawsuit saying the Biden administration's catch and release policies at the U .S.-Mexico border violate federal law.
[108] The lawsuit argues that Florida is harmed by the policies when illegal immigrants released by the administration arrive in the state, which hurts its, quote, quasi -sovereign interests and causes it to, quote, incur millions of dollars and expenses.
[109] The lawsuit says U .S. Code requires immigrants.
[110] who enter the U .S. illegally to be detained until a decision is made about whether they will be allowed to enter the U .S. This rule, the lawsuit says, applies even if the migrant is claiming asylum.
[111] An exception in the rule allows releasing illegal immigrants immediately, but is supposed to be used on a case -by -case basis for, quote, urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.
[112] Florida argues the administration is either violating the law or abusing that exception.
[113] Ash, thanks for keeping us informed.
[114] Any time.
[115] That's Daily Wire's senior editor, Ash Short.
[116] The number of illegal immigrants who attempted to cross the southern border this year was the highest ever recorded.
[117] The U .S. Border Patrol reported more encounters with illegal immigrants this year than in any previous year in U .S. history.
[118] The Daily Wire's reporter, Ben Johnson, has the numbers behind those headlines.
[119] Thanks for joining us, Ben.
[120] Thank you, John.
[121] So the new totals were just released, and they're historic.
[122] Exactly how many people did Border Patrol say tried to cross the southern border this year?
[123] Border Patrol agents say the number of illegal immigrants they encountered at the U .S. border this fiscal year reached a total of 1 ,734 ,686.
[124] That includes about 147 ,000 unaccompanied minors and 1 .1 million single adults.
[125] The total number is more than any time since the government began tracking that number.
[126] This year's record breaks the previous all -time high, said in 1986, and a close second in 2001.
[127] In each of those years, a little under 1 .7 million people entered the U .S. illegally.
[128] Numbers of that size can be hard for us to appreciate.
[129] To put that in perspective, if you were to take one person for each of those illegal encounters and set them in a barren spot in the desert, it would instantly become the fifth largest city in the country in terms of population.
[130] That's larger than Phoenix or Philadelphia.
[131] So a big city's worth of migrants entered the country in a single year.
[132] Right, but it also does not include people who successfully enter the country without being detected, so -called Godaways.
[133] This summer, that number surpassed 1 ,000 people a day.
[134] A thousand a day, so in reality, the number of illegal crossings is much higher.
[135] Definitely.
[136] What are some of the biggest concerns here with this degree of illegal immigration?
[137] Well, illegal immigration is inherently troubling because no one knows who's crossed the border.
[138] We do know drug cartels and human traffickers control the entrance routes, and they've smuggled a record -breaking 11 ,000 pounds of fentanyl into the country this year.
[139] We know at least 19 ,000 of the people apprehended were wanted criminals.
[140] That doesn't take into consideration the toll that every new citizen places on U .S. infrastructure, school systems, hospitals, and other critical services.
[141] So this number, the $1 .7 million, it obviously doesn't cover the calendar year 2021, but rather the fiscal year, starting last September.
[142] So some of these people entered during President Trump's administration.
[143] Yes, about $296 ,000 to be specific.
[144] But the Washington Post reported that the number of illegal entries every month, and I quote, skyrocketed in the months after President Biden took office.
[145] At its highest point this summer, law enforcement officials encountered about three.
[146] times as many undocumented migrants a month as they had before January.
[147] You said that we haven't seen numbers close to this since 86 and 2001.
[148] Any common factors in these years?
[149] You could argue that.
[150] All three of these surges were linked to the belief that the U .S. would soon grant amnesty for all, or at least some, illegal immigrants.
[151] On the other hand, illegal entries fell to a 46 -year low during the first year of the Trump administration when he promised more vigorous immigration enforcement.
[152] Well, the President and Democrats still hope to create a path to citizenship, so it seems like it'll be likely to continue to impact the situation.
[153] Thanks, Ben.
[154] Thanks for having me. That's Daily Wire reporter, Ben Johnson.
[155] Another story we're tracking this week.
[156] In an effort to combat the growing supply chain crisis, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis encouraged cargo companies stranded outside the ports in Los Angeles to reroute their cargo ships to ports in Florida.
[157] The governor highlighted capacity at all of Florida's ports as well as incentives for companies who decide to ship their cargo through Florida.
[158] 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.
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