Morning Wire XX
[0] Senator Chuck Grassley is demanding answers as to why Delaware's U .S. attorney hasn't investigated the bribery allegations against President Biden and his son, Hunter.
[1] What new details have emerged and how are federal officials responding?
[2] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley.
[3] It's Tuesday, July 11th, and this is Morning Wire.
[4] This week, several major outlets ran negative stories about President Biden's angry Oval Office outbursts and his refusal to acknowledge Hunter's illegitimate child.
[5] Anything in place you is a political liability ahead of the mid -term?
[6] It's a great asset.
[7] More inflation.
[8] What a stupid son of a. Is the legacy media turning on the president?
[9] And the center of gravity for America's GDP is moving into the sunbelt.
[10] For the first time ever, southern states have displaced the Northeast as America's economic powerhouse.
[11] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[12] Stay tuned.
[13] We have the news you need to know.
[14] U .S. attorney David Weiss sent a letter on Monday to set the record straight on his investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes.
[15] But Weiss's letter only seems to raise more questions about his role and his control over the investigation into Hunter.
[16] Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about Weiss as well as new questions raised by Senator Chuck Grassley.
[17] Hi, Tim.
[18] So Weiss is out challenging the story from two IRS whistleblowers.
[19] What's he saying?
[20] He wants to, quote, clarify an apparent misperception around.
[21] his prosecution of Hunter Biden.
[22] Weiss is, of course, referencing the whistleblowers to IRS agents who worked the Hunter Biden investigation.
[23] Those agents said that Weiss met with them in October of 2022 and said, quote, I'm not the deciding official on whether charges are filed.
[24] He also allegedly said he requested special counsel status after he was blocked from charging Hunter in D .C., but was denied.
[25] But on Monday, Weiss said he was never denied the authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction.
[26] He also said he never requested special counsel status.
[27] He only discussed receiving special attorney powers with DOJ headquarters.
[28] And he reiterated that he was promised unilateral authority to charge Hunter if it was necessary.
[29] All right, so Weiss sort of carefully countering the whistleblower's claims.
[30] Over in the Senate, Chuck Grassley has some questions for Weiss about one of his top assistants.
[31] What's going on there?
[32] Grassley peppered Weiss for more details over allegations that Joe and Hunter Biden took bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch.
[33] Grassley broke some news in his letter.
[34] The FBI apparently briefed one of Weiss's top prosecutors, assistant U .S. attorney Leslie Wolfe, over the contents of an FD.
[35] 1023 form.
[36] That's the same form that alleged Joe and Hunter took millions of dollars from the head of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.
[37] Grassley wanted to know what steps, if any, Weiss took to verify the allegations from the 1023, including whether Weiss tried to get a hold of 17 recordings the head of Burisma is said to have made of his conversations with the Bidens.
[38] Grassley also wanted to know why the IRS team investigating Hunter was not included in that briefing.
[39] Now, it's not clear how much effort has gone into investigating the claims in the 1023, but it's worth pointing out that Weiss on Monday said that the 1023 was part of an ongoing investigation.
[40] Okay.
[41] So Leslie Wolfe, the assistant U .S. attorney, has been at the center of quite a bit of controversy over the Hunter Biden investigation.
[42] Can you tell us more about her, Wolf?
[43] Sure.
[44] Her name appeared quite a bit in the testimonies of the IRS.
[45] whistleblowers.
[46] As IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley told it, she was always hindering the investigation or undercutting it in ways that seemed designed to help the Bidens.
[47] For instance, Shappley told Congress that Wolf told IRS investigators that they could not pursue any leads into Hunter's tax affairs that might also implicate Joe Biden, such as asking questions about who the big guy is.
[48] At one point, Shappley's team prepared an affidavit to search Joe Biden's guest house, where Hunter had lived for a time.
[49] But Wolf stopped them.
[50] She, She apparently told them that there was enough physical evidence to justify the search, but questioned whether the, quote, juice was worth the squeeze because of the optics of the search.
[51] Right.
[52] So she didn't want to do due diligence because of who the target was.
[53] That's the claim.
[54] Right.
[55] Shepley also testified to another time his team prepared an affidavit, this time to search a storage unit in Virginia that belonged to Hunter.
[56] He said Wolf stopped them again, but they appealed twice.
[57] And he said they could execute a warrant if the storage unit wasn't accessed for 30 days.
[58] And then that's when Wolf stepped in again.
[59] Shapley said, quote, no sooner had we gotten off a call than we heard Wolf had simply reached out to Hunter Biden's defense counsel and told him about the storage unit, once again, ruining our chance to get evidence before being destroyed, manipulated, or concealed.
[60] That sounds like Weiss needs to start clearing up a lot more misconceptions than he currently has.
[61] Tim, thanks for reporting.
[62] Thanks for having me. A spate of recent articles over the last few days have some observers wondering if the legacy media is starting to turn on President Biden.
[63] The Atlantic Magazine, the New York Times, and Axios all had pieces out in the last week that were roundly and unusually unfavorable to the Democrat president.
[64] Here to discuss the shift in coverage is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus.
[65] So let's start with the subject matter itself.
[66] How did these articles criticize Biden?
[67] Morning.
[68] All three were taking aim at very different faults of Biden or his presidency.
[69] The Times bashed him in a Maureen Dowd column for failing to recognize his seventh grand.
[70] born to his controversial son, Hunter.
[71] The Atlantic ran a column flat out saying, Joe, your 80, hang it up.
[72] And Axios broke a story yesterday about how the president yells at everyone in the White House and the staff is afraid of him.
[73] Needless to say, this is not the kind of glowing coverage that Biden has generally been feted with.
[74] And the story's taken together really blow a hole in the media's portrayal of Biden as a competent, gentle, grandfatherly figure.
[75] And remember, he came into office, vowing to eliminate disrespect.
[76] I'm not joking when I say this.
[77] If you're ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot.
[78] On the spot.
[79] Okay, so why now?
[80] What's driving this apparent shift in coverage?
[81] We see a few things.
[82] First and foremost, as we discussed recently, the window for a potential legitimate challenger to Biden, a Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer.
[83] It's closing.
[84] So for those Democrats or liberals, and the media who want that, it's time to fire all the cannons.
[85] But I also think there's growing worry, just given how frail he looks right now, how few public appearances he does, but even those who support him are concerned he might not be up to a general election, much less four more years in the Oval Office.
[86] Is this actually a message to the president's team?
[87] Is the Biden campaign itself part of the intended audience of these kinds of pieces?
[88] Oh, it absolutely is a message to Biden world.
[89] And it says that these issues, his age, his temperament, the entire Hunter Biden fiasco from kit to caboodle, are issues that even liberal outlets have to cover.
[90] They can't just pretend that when Joe Biden whispers, watch me, that that just makes all this go away.
[91] And we've seen flashes of this frustration in the past from the news media when Biden won't answer questions about classified documents or FBI whistleblowers.
[92] And that frustration could grow.
[93] It's not 2020.
[94] He can't campaign from the basement this time, and the water's starting to get choppy.
[95] We did see some movement on the issue of his granddaughter with news that Hunter will pursue contact with her presumably opening the way for Joe.
[96] Will that help?
[97] It can't hurt, but listen, this looks pretty politically motivated.
[98] Last week we found out that the four -year -old granddaughter knows that her grandfather is the president of the United States.
[99] anyone who even vaguely thinks about politics immediately thought, oh, so next October, there'll be a TV interview with a five -year -old girl saying, my granddad is president, but he won't talk to me. They can't let that happen.
[100] It's like out of a Charles Dickens novel.
[101] And then there was the whole thing about not letting the little girl use the Biden name, which looks especially bad given how often the president says things like, you have my word as a Biden.
[102] So this is still going to be messy.
[103] Yeah, sure, looks like it.
[104] Is there anything Biden can do to blunt these criticisms coming from his own side?
[105] Can his doubters be appeased?
[106] What he can do is be more out there in public, do more interviews and press conferences, do some actual campaigning, allow the media to, in his words, watch him.
[107] But that comes with risk for a president prone to gaffs and falls and all other sorts of mishaps when he does put himself out there more.
[108] Right now, though, that's looking more and more like a risk that the Biden.
[109] Biden campaign is going to have to take.
[110] Yeah, I guess there's dangers for Biden in both the basement and the stage approach.
[111] Dave, thanks for joining us.
[112] Thanks for having me. After gaining millions of new residents in recent years for the first time ever, Southern states now account for a larger share of the nation's economy than any other region.
[113] Here with more on the economic revolution in the South and what's behind it is Daily Wire's senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
[114] So Cabot, some surprising new data coming out.
[115] Tell us a little bit more.
[116] Yeah, so we've talked on the show about the population boom in southern states at the expense of those in the northeast and west, and now we're seeing another mass migration, this one financial.
[117] After centuries of dominating the nation's economy, the northeast from D .C. up to Philadelphia, New York and Boston, is no longer the largest economic contributor.
[118] That mantle now belongs to the South.
[119] According to a new Bloomberg report, this year, for the first time on record, southern states account for a higher percentage of the country's GDP than those in the Northeast.
[120] Six states in particular, though, are really driving the trend.
[121] We'll call them the southern six.
[122] Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, and the Carolinas.
[123] So a huge shift with wide -reaching implications.
[124] When did this start?
[125] Well, from a population standpoint, the trend towards the South has been decades in the making.
[126] In 1950, for example, 28 % of the country lived in the Northeast, while just 16 % lived in the South.
[127] By the mid -90s, that 12 -point discrepancy had disappeared.
[128] And by last year, 26 % of Americans lived in the South, compared to the United States.
[129] to 19 % in the northeast.
[130] So a flip had occurred over the last few decades.
[131] Now, historically, though, those transplants were overwhelmingly retirees, fleeing the north in search of warmer weather.
[132] But now, the migration includes Americans of all ages, and more importantly, it includes a seemingly endless stream of businesses.
[133] The turning point, though, was 2020.
[134] When COVID made remote work available for the majority of Americans, a million sold out states with lower taxes and fewer lockdown measures.
[135] And it's worth noting that influx was hardly a blip on the radar that disappeared when lockdowns lifted.
[136] It continued on into 2022 and shows no signs of slowing down.
[137] Experts say the gap is actually going to continue to widen in coming years.
[138] For example, last year, the six states gained the most new residents were all six of those in the Southern Six, and that is creating an economic explosion in the region.
[139] So how much of a wealth transfer are we talking about?
[140] Yeah, the numbers are staggering to say the least.
[141] According to new IRS data, in 2020 and 2021 alone, the Southeast gained $100 billion and new income, while the net loss for northeastern states was $60 billion.
[142] But again, it's not just individuals taking their income there.
[143] According to census data, a record number of corporations have relocated to those southern states bringing even more tax revenue and job opportunities with them.
[144] Now, what are the specific factors that are driving the shift?
[145] Yeah, it's interesting.
[146] There are some who say that weather is the big issue.
[147] Like we mentioned earlier, people have sought out Sunbelt states for decades now.
[148] But if that were the case, you'd expect a state like California to be leading the way.
[149] but they lost nearly half a million residents last year.
[150] Right.
[151] We've talked about that quite a bit on this show.
[152] Yeah, exactly.
[153] And when you look at the data more closely, it becomes obvious that weather does play a role, but the bigger factor by far is economic.
[154] Nationwide, there is an indisputable correlation between a state's economic freedom and the rate of population and business growth.
[155] For example, the average southern state ranks eighth in the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom Index, while the average northeastern state ranks 33rd.
[156] Similarly, the Nonpartisan Tax Foundation has a list ranking each state's business climate based on taxes and other operating costs.
[157] Their bottom five performers are all in the Northeast, New Jersey, New York, D .C., Connecticut, and Maryland.
[158] By contrast, that same list as Florida, which saw the most growth at number four in the average of the other southern states at 17th.
[159] And if you look at taxes, the trend again continues.
[160] A separate tax foundation study shows that the average state and local tax burden in northeastern states is 12 .4 % of new.
[161] net state product.
[162] In those southern states, it's 8 .8%.
[163] And in a tight economy, that can be the difference between being in the black or the red.
[164] So sort of explains the business migration we're seeing.
[165] Well, Cabot, you and I both migrated to Tennessee, so this all checks out.
[166] We love the volunteer state.
[167] We love it.
[168] That was Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
[169] Another story we're tracking this week.
[170] The Justice Department on sealed charges against American -Israeli energy expert Gao Luft on Monday.
[171] Luft, who is in hiding, alleged in a video statement last week that he is being targeted by the DOJ over his knowledge of the Biden family's dealings with China.
[172] Prosecutors have charged Luft on eight counts, including acting as an unregistered foreign agent, trafficking in arms, violating U .S. sanctions against Iran and making false statements to federal agents.
[173] Thanks for waking up with us.
[174] We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
[175] I don't know.