Morning Wire XX
[0] A legal showdown is brewing in Texas as the Biden DOJ threatens to sue Governor Greg Abbott over his construction of a floating border wall.
[1] Last year, there were hundreds of migrants that are drowning.
[2] I'm glad it's getting some attention.
[3] Why are critics calling the border situation inhumane?
[4] And how is Abbott responding to the Justice Department's threats?
[5] I'm Daily Wire, editor -in -chief John Bickley with Georgia Howell.
[6] It's Monday, July 24th, and this is Morning Wire.
[7] In the name of combating climate change, the Biden administration has made another move to crack down on gas appliances.
[8] This time, water heaters and portable generators.
[9] What are the new restrictions and when do they kick in?
[10] And the box office blew up over the weekend with the release of two very different blockbusters.
[11] How did the satirical comedy Barbie and historical drama Oppenheimer capture the public's attention and dollars?
[12] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[13] Stay tuned.
[14] need to know.
[15] The Department of Justice has threatened legal action against Texas over Governor Greg Abbott's floating wall.
[16] Abbott deployed the barrier on the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass earlier this month in order to deter immigrants from crossing the river.
[17] Here to discuss the coming court battle over the border is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
[18] Hi, Tim.
[19] First, what is the basis for this legal threat against Texas?
[20] The Justice Department says that Abbott violated federal law against blocking rivers for boat traffic.
[21] The legal threat came in a letter from Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim and U .S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas Jamie Esparza.
[22] They wrote, quote, The State of Texas actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risk to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government's ability to carry out its official duties.
[23] The letter accuses Texas of violating the Rivers and Harbors Act, which prohibits obstructions in navigable U .S. waters.
[24] It also said Governor Abbott failed to get approval for the 1 ,000 -foot -long floating barrier from the U .S. Army Corps of Engineers.
[25] All right, so the Biden DOJ is accusing Abbott of overstepping his state -level authority.
[26] How has the governor responded to this legal threat?
[27] He's not backing down.
[28] He posted a statement on Twitter heading into the weekend that ended saying, we'll see you in court, Mr. President.
[29] The governor suggested that Texas was forced to act by President Biden's failure to enforce immigration law.
[30] Abbott blamed Biden's policies for encouraging illegal and dangerous behavior by immigrants who swim across the Rio Grande instead of showing up at a lawful point of entry.
[31] Now, Abbott has been under attack from critics who say that his approach to border security is inhumane.
[32] What are the claims there and what are Texas officials saying about that?
[33] Yeah, those allegations picked up last week after an email from a Texas state trooper to his superiors at the Texas Department of Public Safety leaked to the press.
[34] In the email, medic Nicholas Wingate described what he said was the inhumane treatment of migrants at the border.
[35] He described dozens of incidents where immigrants were seriously hurt or died, attempting to navigate the river and razor -wire boundaries deployed by Texas.
[36] He also said Texas troopers were ordered to push children back into the river and to deny immigrants' requests for water in the Texas heat.
[37] The Texas Department of Public Safety has since launched an investigation into the email's claims, so we'll see what the investigation turns up.
[38] In the meantime, the allegations are being used to accuse Abbott of cruelty along the border.
[39] Here's former Democratic presidential candidate Beto O 'Rourke.
[40] So far this year, 26 asylum seekers, including infants and children, have died.
[41] Many of them have drowned.
[42] Greg Abbott has blood on his hands.
[43] U .S. Congressman Tony Gonzalez pushed back against those claims on Sunday.
[44] Gonzalez appeared on CBS's Face the Nation and said the tragedies that the border are the product of a broken immigration system and that the fault lies with those trafficking people over illegally.
[45] I think you're seeing how desperate a situation is happening in Texas.
[46] But what I'm seeing is people are getting injured along the border.
[47] People are drowning, certainly in that river.
[48] I would much rather see not one person's step foot in that river, vice going through these obstacles and other areas.
[49] Now, the Biden administration has been touting a decline in illegal immigration over the last few months.
[50] What's the latest on the numbers?
[51] Are they really down?
[52] Gonzalez says that illegal immigration has dropped, but the numbers are still way up compared to past administrations.
[53] The numbers are absolutely down, but we're still on for 100 ,000 people coming over illegally a month.
[54] These are still historic numbers.
[55] They are down.
[56] I'd much rather see the administration instead of focusing on illegal immigration because right now, nine out of ten people that claim asylum aren't going to get asylum.
[57] So stop sending them down this dead end road.
[58] I should also note that illegal immigration tends to fall this time of year.
[59] Foot traffic generally slows south of the border when it gets hot in the summer and a decrease in illegal immigration.
[60] isn't necessarily a decrease in total immigration.
[61] Right, we're seeing the largest numbers in history.
[62] Tim, thanks for reporting.
[63] Thanks for having me. Coming up, the war on appliances adds another battlefront.
[64] The Biden administration continues to crack down on household appliances in its effort to combat climate change.
[65] Joining us with the details is Daily Wire researcher Michael Whitaker.
[66] So Michael, tell us about these new proposed regulations.
[67] Hey, John.
[68] So this is part of a larger trend from the administration.
[69] In 2022, Biden officials took more than 100 regulatory actions against household appliances, including dishwashers, air conditioners, refrigerators, really the list just goes on and on.
[70] Then on Friday, the Department of Energy announced new efficiency standards for water heaters, many of which are powered by oil and natural gas.
[71] The Department claims that the new rule will speed up adoption of new electric powered water heaters, which are more expensive to install.
[72] And gas generators are also coming under more restrictions, correct?
[73] That's right.
[74] The Consumer Product Safety Commission proposed a new rule that would cut the amount of carbon monoxide portable gas generators could emit.
[75] Smaller generators would have to cut their emissions by about 50%.
[76] And larger models may need to cut by as much as 95%.
[77] The commission claims that the rule change is being driven by safety concerns.
[78] They say 85 Americans are killed each year as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by portable generators.
[79] The rule would give manufacturers six months to create new designs.
[80] That process typically takes years.
[81] So a very tight turnaround.
[82] What are the potential effects of these changes in terms of costs?
[83] Well, they could be massive.
[84] According to the Department of Energy, water heating accounts for about 13 % of residential electricity use.
[85] And according to the Washington Free Beacon, portable generators are used by more than 5 million American families.
[86] These kinds of generators are also very popular in places where extreme weather can temporarily take down the grid, extreme cold, hurricanes, etc. While installing the new systems will initially be more expensive, officials argue that the more efficient devices will save Americans $128 billion over the next three decades and reduced carbon emissions by more than half a billion metric tons.
[87] What about the power grid?
[88] Isn't there a concern that pushing people onto the electric grid will actually strain it?
[89] Oh, definitely.
[90] California, which has increasingly pushed for green energy, saw widespread blackouts in 2022.
[91] And according to one watchdog group, two -thirds of people living in North America face an elevated risk of blackouts this summer.
[92] as much of the U .S. faces record high temperatures.
[93] Climate activists say that those record high temperatures are a result of human activity, and that limits on carbon emissions are the only way to stabilize the system in the long term.
[94] But critics say that the government is pushing too far and too fast.
[95] They say that the market is far better at raising energy efficiency than regulation.
[96] Democrat Joe Manchin, who chairs the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, made a similar point to Fox News.
[97] Manchin said, quote, you cannot eliminate your way to a cleaner environment.
[98] If you want a clean environment, you have to do it through technology and innovation.
[99] President Biden, on the other hand, has repeatedly affirmed that he sees climate change as an existential threat to the U .S. and the world.
[100] The climate crisis doesn't care if you're in a red or blue state.
[101] It's an existential threat.
[102] We have an obligation not to ourselves, but to our children and grandchildren to confront it.
[103] On the right, attitudes are quite different.
[104] The Republican frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, has made no sense.
[105] secret of his support for fossil fuels.
[106] I will drill, baby drill.
[107] You know the expression.
[108] Well, we can definitely expect energy to be a major issue going into 2024.
[109] Michael, thanks for reporting.
[110] Thanks for having me. Barbie and Oppenheimer both saw massive returns at the box office this weekend, significantly outperforming expectations.
[111] Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham, is here now with more.
[112] So, Megan, I don't recall ever seeing so many memes and such aggressive marketing around two films, as I've seen over the past month, with these two movies.
[113] And one theme that the media and social media kind of focused on was the gender war narrative around the two films.
[114] There seemed to be this expectation that only one would come out on top.
[115] Was that wrong?
[116] Yeah, it was very much wrong.
[117] And I think a big part of that was this holdover from what you might call pandemic thinking.
[118] There's been an assumption that except for those big marble -type franchises that audiences would never returned to theaters in that same way again.
[119] And I think that both of these two films prove that not only are they going to return, they're apparently getting pretty sick of the franchises.
[120] So Barbie opened to $155 million, and that was the biggest opener of the year.
[121] It beat monster franchise films like Guardians of the Galaxy and even Avatar.
[122] It also marked the biggest debut for a female director.
[123] And then you've got director Christopher Nolan's Magnum Opus Oppenheimer.
[124] And it seemed like it might be a tough sell in theaters, given that it's very heady, intellectual, material.
[125] The movie runs more than three hours.
[126] But right now, it's tracking to put up one of the biggest opening weekends ever for an R -rated release.
[127] And that's really saying something when you consider that the other films on that list have tended to be those more traditional summer popcorn movies, things like Deadpool and The Matrix Reloaded.
[128] So between them, Barbie and Oppenheimer scored the four.
[129] biggest box office weekend in history and the biggest since the COVID era dawned.
[130] So it looks like all of those Barbenheimer memes that you're referencing that, you know, have really been trending for a while now.
[131] They may have known something that industry watchers didn't.
[132] So what was it about these two movies that drew so many people to the theaters?
[133] Well, you know, I think the biggest thing studios are going to be looking at here is that neither was a sequel and neither was connected to an established franchise.
[134] There's no action.
[135] stars.
[136] There's no superheroes.
[137] And we've definitely started to see some softening in those kind of films.
[138] And then just to throw my own analysis on top of this, because I have spent a lot of years covering Hollywood, I think it's interesting that while there's now some discussion around Barbie's feminist themes, it was very sort of stealth feminist.
[139] Warner Brothers didn't feature that angle at all in the marketing.
[140] And visually, director Greta Gerwig very much leaned into the traditional feminine appeal.
[141] So you contrast that to some of those, you know, girl power remakes of guys' flicks that overtly promoted the fact that they were recast with women, things like Ghostbusters or Oceans Eight.
[142] Those flopped.
[143] So star Margo Robbie just kind of touched on that on CNN.
[144] What we wanted to do about with those conversations is kind of honor the legacy that the 64 years of Barbie has, you know, created, you know, and also bring it into today's day.
[145] know, have culturally relevant conversations.
[146] As for Oppenheimer, I think moviegoers have felt somewhat starved intellectually, and then you combine that with an anxiety that's really very palpable in our culture right now about where technology is taking us with these developments like AI.
[147] As with the Manhattan Project, there's very much a sense that we're opening a Pandora's box.
[148] Director Christopher Nolan said on CNN, he's hearing that from a lot of people who work in tech.
[149] And they look to his story to give some kind of guide.
[150] as to how the relationship between science, technology, and government, and society should function.
[151] And I don't know whether Oppenheimer's story has answers to that.
[152] It certainly raises the questions and in a way that I think we will find quite chilling.
[153] So the success of both of these films may very well, at least I hope, spur Hollywood to maybe change some gears.
[154] Well, I did see Oppenheimer on Friday.
[155] I still haven't seen Barbie, but we're going to discuss when we've both watched both of them.
[156] Megan, thanks for reporting.
[157] Anytime.
[158] Another story we're tracking this week.
[159] Hunter Biden's lawyer is demanding a congressional ethics watchdog review of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green's conduct from a hearing last week.
[160] During a House Oversight Committee hearing, the Georgia Republican showed censored but explicit pictures of the president's first son with women reported to be prostitutes.
[161] Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
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[164] All right, 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.