Morning Wire XX
[0] It's been five years since the Me Too movement swept across the Western world.
[1] But there are signs that the movement's influence has waned.
[2] I mean, I would be jumping for joy if Me Too would have done anything.
[3] We look at the legacy of Me Too and what the youngest generation has to say about its future.
[4] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley.
[5] It's November 5th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire.
[6] Declining test scores and controversial content in classrooms have made education a top -line issue.
[7] for many parents.
[8] They built our education house on sand versus on rock, and when the storm came, it made it even worse.
[9] We talk with Virginia Governor Glenn Yonkin about the conservative movement to revive trust in education.
[10] And a new report shows that businesses are leaving California at an accelerating and unsustainable rate.
[11] What's causing the exodus and where the company's going?
[12] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[13] Stay tuned.
[14] We have the news you need to know.
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[20] It's been five years since accusations of sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood sparked the Me Too movement.
[21] Now, as disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is currently on trial for a second time in Los Angeles, some evidence suggests that the movement's legacy may not be as enduring as many activists hoped.
[22] Here to provide some context and analysis is Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham.
[23] So, Megan, Me Too was one of the biggest cultural juggernauts of the last few years.
[24] We certainly saw it make a lot of headlines and a lot of people were held accountable.
[25] I'm thinking, of course, of big names like Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer, CBS Chief Les MoonVez.
[26] But we're starting to see some headlines saying that the world is moving on from Me Too.
[27] Why is that?
[28] Yeah, we are.
[29] And I think there are a few reasons for that.
[30] One is that in 2017, the kind of allegations we were talking about were very clear cut.
[31] We had accusations of rape, things like drugging women, of really egregious sexual harassment at work.
[32] So I think at that point, people across the political aisle were on board, and they agreed that there needed to be a reckoning for that kind of behavior.
[33] But then as the movement progressed, the claims became somewhat muddier.
[34] Some of them seemed to involve women upset over sexual acts that were consensual, but where they didn't feel that the men involved behaved as respectfully as they might have wanted.
[35] We saw that, for example, in the case of comedian Aziz Ansari.
[36] There, the woman conceded that she did agree to oral sex, but she regretted it later.
[37] And then even more polarizing was that lawsuit between actress Amber Hurd and Johnny Depp.
[38] We'll all recall that in 2018, at the height of the Me Too movement, Hurd presented herself as a victim of domestic abuse in an op -ed for the Washington Post, and she received a lot of support in Hollywood for that.
[39] Depp was effectively canceled and he lost huge movie contracts.
[40] But when a jury finally got the chance to see all of the details, they concluded that Herd was lying.
[41] So now we're starting to see some polling that reflects some skepticism.
[42] A lot of people are saying they think that Me Too went too far.
[43] And then last month, a new Pew survey found that only about half of Americans say they support the Me Too movement now.
[44] That number was around 64 % in 2018.
[45] And among those who say they now oppose it, the top reasons given were that they don't think it respects due process and that it doesn't weed out false accusations.
[46] Well, there's also a bit of a generational shift.
[47] There's been some reporting that Gen Z just isn't as focused on this as millennials were.
[48] Right.
[49] And in the latest polling on issues that Gen Z cares about, sexual harassment and assault don't make the list at all.
[50] Instead, they say they're concerned about things like jobs, the economy, cost.
[51] of living.
[52] In a recent special on NBC's Meet the Press, some young college women were saying that their perception is that Me Too was about protecting famous women.
[53] It was never Me Too when something happened on a college campus.
[54] It wasn't Me Too when someone just went to work at a regular corporate office.
[55] It's not Me Too when maybe it's a black man saying that he was assaulted.
[56] And then there's no question the movement took a huge reputational hit last year.
[57] That was when news broke that leaders of a Hollywood founded Me Too group called Times Up helped New York Governor Andrew Cuomo discredit an accuser.
[58] In that case, a host of A -list women kept quiet about the revelations that included Eva Longoria, Natalie Portman, Emma Stone, Reese Witherspoon, really top -level people.
[59] So you saw a lot of accusations of hypocrisy stemming from that.
[60] Now, is it possible that some people just think the Me Too movement accomplished what it set out to do and just maybe it's not needed anymore?
[61] Yeah, I think that's possible.
[62] And I think that is a positive angle that you can look at this through.
[63] One more thing that that Pew poll that was released just a few weeks ago found was that about 60 % of people say that when people report harassment or assault at work now, they're more likely to be believed.
[64] And even among those who oppose the Me Too movement, that was still the majority view.
[65] Well, it's always interesting to benchmark the feminist movement over the years because it just really shows how fast the culture can change in such a short time.
[66] Megan, thanks for reporting.
[67] Yeah, anytime.
[68] That was Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham.
[69] Debates over parents' rights and new reports showing a significant decline in students' performance in recent years have put education at the forefront in the upcoming election.
[70] Joining us to discuss is Virginia Governor Glenn Yunkin, who made education reform a centerpiece of his campaign last year and now his governorship.
[71] Governor, welcome.
[72] First, we've recently received the national report card showing students really struggling on a national level and all the key subject matters.
[73] This is obviously concerning.
[74] Do you think this is more about the pandemic response or is it something deeper?
[75] Let me back up and just put it into context about how horrific and heartbreaking these results were, particularly in Virginia.
[76] So when we look at fourth grade reading in math, Virginia fell further than any other state in reading, three times.
[77] further than the average and was tied for last with Maryland.
[78] And this decline is a decline that started before the pandemic.
[79] Decisions made by previous administrations had put Virginia on a downward path.
[80] And these decisions were clear.
[81] They reduced the accountability by blurring what accreditation means.
[82] We have 85 percent of our schools today that hit the high accreditation standard, and yet we had horrific test scores all year.
[83] And by the way, these NAEP scores are just the next and very loud alarm bells that have been ringing all year on tests taken last year.
[84] And so these scores should be a wake -up call for the nation.
[85] And we've got to get to work.
[86] We started on January 1st with my first executive order, which first targeted making sure we do not have divisive teaching practices in the classroom and get the politics out and get reading and math and history and science back in the classroom.
[87] We passed a bipartisan bill in the Virginia Literacy Act to make sure that all K through third graders can learn to read.
[88] This is critical.
[89] And particularly when you see that these averages that the NAEP scores represent reflect even worse performance in the economically disadvantaged communities where English could be a second language with kids with disabilities and black communities and Hispanic communities, This is just a moment for the nation, and particularly Virginia, to wake up.
[90] Now, you've passed a series of measures to address a lot of issues in education.
[91] One of them is requiring parental consent if a child wants to be referred to as a different gender.
[92] How much pushback have you gotten for those parents' rights policies?
[93] Well, let me begin with getting parents back, not just at the table, but at the head of the table in their children's lives, was at the heart of the movement last year that Virginians stood up.
[94] expressed in electing me. And by the way, it wasn't Republicans versus Democrats.
[95] It was Virginians.
[96] We won the majority of the independent vote.
[97] Democrats walked across the aisle and did something nobody expected, and at the heart of it was a government that had forgotten that they worked for the people.
[98] And so we passed a bipartisan bill to allow parents to decide whether their children wears a mask.
[99] We passed a bipartisan bill to make sure that there's transparency in the classroom materials.
[100] And if the materials are sexually explicit, and they don't with your family values, you can ask for those materials to be removed from your child's curriculum.
[101] And we now are working to make sure that in this most important decision where a child is questioning their birth gender, that there can be no exception to the fact that parents have to be involved in that decision.
[102] And a previous administration had done an immense wrong to parents and to families by excluding parents from that decision specifically.
[103] Kids deserve a parent in their life.
[104] Parents have a right to be in their children's lives, not to the exclusion of a trusted teacher or trusted, trusted counselor, but that decision must be made with parents.
[105] And the reality, of course, is this is not controversial.
[106] And we see huge, huge support for this front.
[107] Yes, there are a bunch of special interest groups who are disagreeing, but children do not belong to the state.
[108] They belong to families.
[109] Final question.
[110] How much do you think education is going to play a role in Tuesday's elections?
[111] I think it's going to play a huge role in the midterm elections.
[112] We've seen systematically across Virginia and across the nation, this effort to water down expectations, to change curriculum away from critical reading and critical math and critical history and critical science, to topics that aren't preparing our kids for life and to push parents out of their children's lives.
[113] And this concerted effort that has gone on across the nation has brought people together.
[114] Not Republicans versus Democrats, but parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings.
[115] And we're seeing it reflected in the polls.
[116] I think that there's a clear understanding that common sense here has to get back in the classroom.
[117] All right, Governor, well, thank you so much for joining us.
[118] That was Virginia Governor Glenn Yonkin.
[119] Companies have been leaving California in increasing numbers over the last few years, prompting a lot of questions about the state's deteriorating business environment.
[120] A new report from the Hoover Institution highlights the mass departure of companies from the state and the policies that could be contributing to the shift.
[121] Here to discuss is DeLuars Charlotte Pence -Bahn.
[122] Charlotte, what did this report say?
[123] So the report looked at over 300 California business headquarters that moved away from the Golden State between 2018 to 2021.
[124] It found that the amount of companies leaving has gone up significantly over that time.
[125] Last year, the monthly average of California headquarters leaving was around twice as much as it was in 2020 and 2019, and it was about three times as high as four years ago in 2018.
[126] All right, so sort of an exponential increase there.
[127] Where are these companies going?
[128] The leading states that are taking in these companies are Texas, Tennessee, Nevada, Florida, and Arizona.
[129] The report also looked at other types of data to examine the shift.
[130] This included the number of new capital projects, which are places like factories, call centers, back offices, and other facilities.
[131] Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Illinois, and North Carolina were the top states for new projects like this.
[132] We've reported on a lot of issues that have plagued the state, but are there specific reasons discussed in the report as to why these companies are feeling they need to leave?
[133] A lot of it has to do with policy.
[134] The report said that high taxes, regulations, and high labor costs are all contributing to the exits.
[135] But the other side is just the high cost of living for Californians.
[136] These aren't just big businesses leaving either.
[137] Small companies are moving as are Fortune 1 ,000 companies.
[138] 11 of those left in the time period studied.
[139] The departure of small businesses from the state can have a really significant impact on local economies and make it less desirable for people to live in certain regions.
[140] This can hurt school funding and community development, which takes us to the next point.
[141] We're seeing that businesses aren't the only ones leaving.
[142] People are packing up and moving too.
[143] After the 2020 census, California lost one of its house seats in Congress for the first ever.
[144] The state's net domestic migrations was 34 ,000 10 years ago.
[145] But last year, it was 277 ,000.
[146] How are the state's political leaders responding to these rather significant losses?
[147] Well, Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom is still touting the state's success despite these numbers.
[148] Last week, California made headlines because its GDP is now set to become the fourth largest on the planet ousting Germany.
[149] But its GDP has actually gone down this year.
[150] It went down 9 .5 .5.
[151] in the first quarter of 2022 and another 0 .5 % in the second quarter.
[152] A state report pointed to declines in salaries this year from what it said were unusually high levels at the end of last year.
[153] Well, lots of trends to watch out west.
[154] Charlotte, thanks for reporting.
[155] Thanks for having me. That was DailyWire's Charlotte Pence Bond.
[156] Another story we're tracking this week.
[157] Benjamin Netanyahu is now Prime Minister of Israel for the third time after the previous PM conceded Thursday, and his coalition holds a 64 -seat majority.
[158] Here's Daily Wire contributor, Yehuda Levy, on what Beebe's return to power means for Israel.
[159] Israelis at their core are just fed up with the constant elections and the constant political stalemate.
[160] With Netanyo back in power and with a vast majority, this will mean stability, security, and most importantly, a national pride of a Jewish state.
[161] That's all the time we've got this morning.
[162] Thanks for waking up with us and check in on this feed or the DailyWire YouTube channel tomorrow for the latest episode of ElectionWire.