Morning Wire XX
[0] Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls for new elections in Israel and labels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an obstacle to peace.
[1] As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7th.
[2] What led to the public rebuke and how is Israel reacting?
[3] I'm Georgia Howe and John is on vacation.
[4] It's Friday, March 15th.
[5] And this is Morning Wire.
[6] A rise in tuberculosis cases in California and a measles outbreak at a Chicago migrant center have medical experts calling for better border screening.
[7] And two key economic indicators come in hotter than expected, what it means for inflation and your grocery bill.
[8] Far more than housing, far more than gas.
[9] This is the critical economic issue, and there's no really easy option for the Biden administration.
[10] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[11] Stay tuned.
[12] the news you need to know.
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[21] Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down and for his government to be dissolved on Thursday.
[22] Galey Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to discuss.
[23] So Tim, some pretty tough language from Schumer yesterday.
[24] What did he say?
[25] Yeah, Schumer spoke from the Senate floor and delivered maybe the harshest criticism of Israel's government in his career.
[26] Schumer has always positioned himself as a friend of Israel, but his comments yesterday have raised concerns in the minds of many of Israel's leaders.
[27] Schumer directed his fire at Netanyahu and called for his government to be dissolved and replaced in a new round of elections.
[28] At this critical juncture, I believe a new election is the only way to allow for a healthy and open decision -making process about the future of Israel.
[29] He also threatened to cut off U .S. aid to Israel if Israel doesn't change course on Netanyahu and how it has prosecuted the war against Hamas.
[30] If President and Prime Minister Netanyahu's current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing U .S. standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.
[31] Now, the White House has been very critical of Netanyahu recently as it tries to shore up its support from its left flank and Muslim communities in Michigan and Minnesota.
[32] In Israel's war in Gaza, Rafah is the last major terrorist stronghold.
[33] And we learned yesterday that the Biden administration is trying to get Israel to forego full military operations and instead focus only on high value targets.
[34] The idea being that Israel use small pinpointed strikes to take out Hamas leaders while potentially leaving the majority of its remaining forces untouched.
[35] Israeli officials seem to still lean toward full military operations to clear out the terrorists, however.
[36] And how have Schumer's remarks been received?
[37] Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the floor to condemn Schumer.
[38] It is grotesque and hypocritical for Americans who hyperventilate about foreign interference in our own democracy to call for the removal of the democratically elected leader of Israel.
[39] This is unprecedented.
[40] Now, will Schumer's pressure have any impact realistically on Israel's government?
[41] Not likely.
[42] Benny Gantz, who is Netanyahu's primary political opponent in Israel, said Schumer made a mistake in that only Israel's citizens will determine its leadership and its future.
[43] Any external intervention is incorrect and unacceptable.
[44] Now, one of the misperceptions of Israeli politics is that the country is currently run by Netanyahu's government.
[45] It's not.
[46] The country has been run by a unity government, and Gantz is a co -equal with Netanyahu in the war cabinet.
[47] Morning Wire spoke to Ari A. Lightstone, senior advisor to the former U .S. ambassador to Israel.
[48] My first reaction is that this may be one of the most public betrayals of any ally in U .S. history, and that is without exaggeration.
[49] Lightstone pointed out that the policies being blamed on Netanyahu actually have broad support in Israel.
[50] He said Gantz made that clear to the Biden administration in a trip to the White House earlier this month.
[51] They brought Gons to Washington, D .C. They didn't ask B .B. to come to Washington, D .C., see, they asked the leader of the opposition to see if they can convince Bibi to walk back.
[52] And then they discovered something's shocking that Bibi does not have Bibi policies.
[53] Bibi is representing Israeli policies.
[54] And when they saw that Gantz said that they had such egg on their face because this was the moment to be able to call out and say Bibi is different.
[55] Now, Gantz comes back and what winds up happening, this is the greatest irony of all of these things.
[56] Since Gons went to Washington, D .C. and Biden and now Schumer publicly attacked B .B .B. numbers have skyrocketed and Gantz's numbers have plummeted.
[57] Well, it sounds like either way it's Israelis that are going to make this decision.
[58] Tim, thanks for reporting.
[59] My pleasure.
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[66] A measles outbreak in the Midwest and a rise in tuberculosis in California has the medical community sounding the alarm.
[67] Joining us to discuss is physician and pharmaceutical entrepreneur Dr. Humann Hamaddy.
[68] Dr. Humaddy, thanks for coming on.
[69] It's a pleasure.
[70] Now, the California medical board recently sent out an alert to all doctors about, quote, a substantial increase in tuberculosis.
[71] What did that letter say?
[72] That letter said to all doctors, which is, by the way, something that's a little unusual, this does not happen on a regular basis, that the state is experiencing a surge in tuberculosis cases.
[73] That's number one.
[74] Number two is that those tuberculosis cases are largely originating from people who have come here from outside the country.
[75] And number three, and what is particularly alarming is that this tuberculosis that is coming into California and presumably the rest of the United States has about a 13 % or higher death rate.
[76] Is there any way to screen people or what's the normal procedure for checking people for tuberculosis?
[77] So that's a great question.
[78] Anytime someone wants to come into the U .S. on a visa or green card, a standard part of the process, among other medical assessments, is to perform a tuberculosis blood test, and in many cases, in addition to that, a chest x -ray to simply rule it out.
[79] However, when someone doesn't have those, and especially if they're coming from endemic nations, which we're surrounded by, especially to the south of us, then there's a high chance that they could be bringing it in undetected.
[80] Why is TB such a threat?
[81] So it's a bit of a unique illness.
[82] Can you describe a little bit about how it progresses and why it becomes so intractable?
[83] Yes.
[84] So tuberculosis is caused by a bacteria, not caused by a virus like COVID.
[85] And it's a particularly unusual type of bacteria that can reside in the lungs, sometimes asymptomatically with no symptoms at all, sometimes with just mild symptoms, and can stay like that, even with no symptoms for years or decades.
[86] and at any point, basically pop up and cause a horrific infection that chews up the lungs and causes the person who's infected to be spewing large amounts of bacteria every time they cough.
[87] That is why it has a high death rate because it literally chews through the lung tissue and leaves nothing behind other than a gaping hole.
[88] The problem with tuberculosis is that we only have a few medications in our arsenal to try to defeat it.
[89] And those medications, even when they do work, can take many months to years of therapy in order to kill the bacteria.
[90] The problem now is that we're seeing a lot of multi -drug -resistant tuberculosis, bacteria for which none of the drugs that we have available work or work well enough.
[91] And this is why I think we're seeing such high death rates suddenly.
[92] These death rates have never been seen before in this country.
[93] How is it transmitted and how easily is it transmitted?
[94] You generally have to be in relative close proximity with a person who's actively coughing in order to get tuberculosis.
[95] You can be in the same room in the same general vicinity.
[96] It's not necessarily easy to get, but once you get it, you have it and you have it for good.
[97] Now, the CDC is investigating a measles outbreak at a migrant center in Chicago.
[98] Can you give us some insight into what's happening there?
[99] So when you have people coming in who are not screened for having been vaccinated for a measles, not being screened for having been infected with measles, all of a sudden you can be, again, bringing people in who could be carrying this and could be spreading it within their community of people who have zero vaccination rates, and this composed a major public health threat.
[100] Now, should the CDC be at the border testing the people coming across?
[101] What would be the solution for this?
[102] Well, the solution we've already had for decades, which is to test anyone who is coming into the country.
[103] And without getting that testing done and getting a lot of different vaccinations checked as well, you simply couldn't get a green card to immigrate to the U .S. And at this point, with the large numbers who are streaming through our borders, it's basically impossible to test every single person, especially since so many are considered gotaways and are never even processed through the system.
[104] All right.
[105] Well, Dr. Hermatty, thank you so much for coming on.
[106] Thank you.
[107] It's a pleasure.
[108] That was physician and pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Dr. Humann, Two economic reports this week show that inflation remains a problem for the American people, causing them to pay more for everyday items.
[109] Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta Giacomo.
[110] So Amanda, this week, two key economic indicators came in higher than expected.
[111] Let's first look at the consumer price index.
[112] What did that show?
[113] So that report showed a rise of 0 .4 % in February from the previous month, and that was more than expected.
[114] This is largely due to the jump in the price of gasoline.
[115] Year over year, the CPI was up 3 .2%.
[116] As a reminder, the CPI measures retail goods, so the essentials you're regularly purchasing like groceries, gasoline, and even rent.
[117] To give some perspective here, we have to keep in mind that the prices may not be rising as quickly as they were when inflation was 9%, but they're still rising on top of the previous years.
[118] Here's Gary Cohn, the vice chairman of IBM.
[119] explaining this concept.
[120] Inflation has a compounding effect.
[121] Meaning as you look at inflation year over year, you're adding up those numbers.
[122] You're not starting at a zero every year.
[123] So if we had 6 % inflation last year, 7 % inflation, and now we have 4 % inflation, that's 10 % inflation.
[124] So if you take a basket of groceries at the beginning of 2020, just a simple basic basket that cost $100, it costs well over $125 today because they add.
[125] add up.
[126] They're cumulative.
[127] The Wall Street Journal actually compiled some of the price hikes of everyday goods since 2020.
[128] Deodorant in some cases spiked from under $4 to $7 .99.
[129] Cooking oil increased by around $3.
[130] Paper towels went on an average of $5 .76, and they now run around $8 .22.
[131] According to NBC, your grocery bill is up an average of 25 % since the beginning of 2020.
[132] I'll add that we're also seeing a spike in services.
[133] So car insurance premiums, for example, they're up an average of more than 20 % since just last year.
[134] Since Biden took office, cumulative inflation is up around 18%.
[135] Now, we also received the producer price index report on Thursday.
[136] What did that show?
[137] The PPI showed a surge of 0 .6 % in February from the previous month.
[138] Now, that was double what economists expected.
[139] annually, prices remain up 1 .6%.
[140] The PPI shows inflation on the wholesale level.
[141] So we can expect that those increases will be passed down to consumers on the retail level.
[142] Right.
[143] I think they call that a leading indicator.
[144] Now, how is this playing out politically?
[145] What's the Biden administration saying?
[146] Well, there was actually some acknowledgement this week that the economy is an issue.
[147] Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admitted that inflation is a far larger problem than the administration anticipated.
[148] Notably, Yellen called inflation transitory or short term back in 2021.
[149] Here she is walking that back just this week.
[150] I regret saying it was transitory.
[151] It has come down, but I think transitory means a few weeks or months to most people.
[152] Well, it's definitely something I think about every time I go to the grocery store.
[153] Amanda, thanks for reporting.
[154] You're welcome.
[155] Thanks for waking up with us.
[156] We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
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