Morning Wire XX
[0] New inflation numbers have stunned economists and sent shockways throughout the political world.
[1] Why are some calling this a nightmare scenario?
[2] And where will Americans feel the price spikes most?
[3] I'm Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[4] It's Friday, October 14th, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] An NBC reporter is facing backlash for raising questions about Democrat John Federman's mental fitness after the Senate candidate's first in -person interview since his stroke.
[6] Because of his stroke, Veteran's campaign required closed captioning technology for this interview to essentially read our questions as we asked them.
[7] And Lester, in small talk before the interview, without captioning, it wasn't clear he was understanding our conversation.
[8] We have the details behind the debate over ableism versus journalistic integrity.
[9] And the George Gascon Recall Committee has requested a formal review of the failed petition to remove the controversial district attorney.
[10] Why do they say the process was tainted?
[11] Thank you for waking up with Morning Wire.
[12] Stay tuned.
[13] We have the news you need to know.
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[18] Yesterday, the Labor Department announced that a key inflation tracker had spiked to a four -decade high, triggering a volatile market reaction and proving once again that inflation is not slowing down.
[19] Here with the latest on where the price increases are being felt most and what it means for Americans is Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips.
[20] So, Cabot, what's the latest on inflation?
[21] Well, as Forbes put it, it is a, quote, nightmare scenario.
[22] The so -called core measure of the consumer price index, which basically tracks the cost of the most basic goods, saw its largest spike since 1982.
[23] It was up 6 .6 % compared to this time last year.
[24] Now, economists are especially concerned by high inflation on this core measure because it signifies high prices on things like health care and housing, which usually take a lot longer to see any sort of decrease in pricing.
[25] To that point, housing costs also saw their highest increase since the early 1980s.
[26] Now, which other products are seeing the high prices?
[27] Well, take your pick.
[28] I mean, it's really across the board.
[29] Airline tickets are up 42 % in the last year.
[30] Eggs are now up 30%, electricity, 15%, bread 14%, furniture 10%, and used cars up 7%.
[31] And it gets even worse when you remember that the real hourly earnings rate, the metric which tracks wage growth compared to increases for cost of living, has been negative for 18 straight months now.
[32] It's also worth pointing out that inflation is hitting areas in the market that have typically been viewed as safe havens for more cautious investors.
[33] For example, bonds have had their worst year since, get this, 1931, aka the Great Depression.
[34] They've fallen 11 % this year alone.
[35] Now, just to clarify, this is year -on -year inflation from September of last year.
[36] when we already started seeing spikes in inflation.
[37] Exactly.
[38] So rates were already increasing as of 2021.
[39] If you look at the last two years, you know, altogether, it's even worse than it sounds.
[40] Now, what's been the latest response from the federal government to remedy this?
[41] Well, for starters, the new figures almost guarantee that the Fed will implement another large interest rate hike at their meeting next month.
[42] The Social Security Administration announced Thursday that recipients would be receiving an 8 .7 % increase in their payment.
[43] next year.
[44] That is the largest increase we've seen in more than four decades and follows the already massive 5 .9 % increase that they granted earlier this year.
[45] Keep in mind, 42 % of elderly women and 37 % of elderly men rely on Social Security for at least half of their income each month.
[46] And they say inflation is just rising quicker than their Social Security payments can keep up with.
[47] Now, obviously, this is close to midterms and everything has a political tie -in right now.
[48] How does this factor in?
[49] Yeah, you bring up a good point.
[50] This was the final inflation report before election day.
[51] So Democrats were hoping it would show some signs of things going in the right direction, but obviously it showed the opposite.
[52] There's just no denying it.
[53] This report comes at the worst possible time for Democrats, as early voting in some battleground states is just getting underway.
[54] Biden's chief economist Brian Dees appeared on CNN.
[55] Have a listen.
[56] The United States is in a better and stronger position to take this challenge head on than virtually any other country in the world.
[57] That's in no small part because of the policies that we've put in place.
[58] Brian, just telling Americans that things aren't as bad here as they are around the world really isn't a reassuring statement.
[59] And how are Republicans responding to this news?
[60] As you can imagine, they've been quick to point out that President Biden has been predicting for months now that inflation was going to go down, and we just have not seen it.
[61] And another message we've seen from the right has sort of been, I told you so.
[62] They say that they warned Democrats throughout the past two years that passing trillions of dollars worth of new spending bills would make inflation worse and expect to hear more on that as Election Day approaches.
[63] All right, Cabot, thanks for reporting.
[64] Anytime.
[65] That was Daily Wire Senior Editor, Cabot Phillips.
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[70] NBC news reporter Dasha Burns is taking heat from left -leaning media for a description of her interview with Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Federman this week.
[71] Federman is still recovering from a stroke he suffered just prior to the primary this year and is having issues with auditory processing.
[72] Here to talk about it is columnist David Marcus.
[73] So, Dave, what did Burns say and why are people so upset about it?
[74] Good morning.
[75] Burns said on air that before the closed captioning got up and running, Federman had a hard time understanding the small talk they were engaged in.
[76] It comes at a time in his race against Republican Mehmet Oz when there's growing pressure for him to release more medical records about his current condition.
[77] Clearly, and I think responsibly, Burns thought it was newsworthy that the candidate had this difficulty.
[78] Many liberals and Federman allies took exception to this and openly attacked Burns.
[79] Even her own network questioned the reporter segment.
[80] Since then, other journalists who also dealt with Federman came forward and said they had a different experience.
[81] Yeah, and Savannah, that's completely fair that that was their experience.
[82] We can only report our own.
[83] I will say it's important to note that according to the campaign itself, our team was the first to be in the room with Federman for an interview rather than via remote video conference.
[84] And myself, my producer, and our crew did find that small talk before that captioning was difficult because of those auditory processing issues I mentioned.
[85] Who were some of the folks who were a part of this backlash?
[86] Did they think that Burns was not telling the truth or that she shouldn't have said anything about it?
[87] There's a mix, actually.
[88] A few left -wing journalists like Molly John Fast and Kara Swisher, who suffered a stroke herself in 2011, left on to Twitter to say they had recently interviewed Federman and he was fine.
[89] it's not clear how those interviews were conducted, but others, like the hosts of the view, who also chimed in on this, believed the incident occurred, as Burns describes it, but that she broke protocol or ethics by disclosing something off the record, which is not how that works.
[90] There are also claims of ableism that any concern about his speech or comprehension is tantamount to anti -disabled bigotry.
[91] I mean, a lot of spaghetti got thrown against the wall, although basically all of it suggesting that Federman's condition is not a big deal.
[92] The ablest argument is interesting, but this isn't a physical handicap we're talking about here.
[93] This is cognitive impairment, right?
[94] Right.
[95] Fetterman's allies argue that this use of close captioning devices is really no different than if a blind or deaf senator needed assistive technology.
[96] But a blind or deaf senator can still make unimpaired decisions.
[97] How is that argument sitting with his opponent, Oz, and with voters?
[98] I mean, it really circles back to the medical records, Certainly, Oz and Republicans and some independent voters have real questions about whether this is something that is purely mechanical or if there is a cognitive aspect to it.
[99] And without the records, it's mostly been guesswork.
[100] Meanwhile, Democrats, for the most part, have rallied round the flag and say this isn't a problem.
[101] And that anyway, by January, when he would take office, he should be significantly better.
[102] Well, it's hard to know how these kinds of conditions will advance.
[103] Is it unusual for the media to have to accommodate a candidate to this degree?
[104] It feels like we're maybe an uncharted territory here in terms of the debate set up.
[105] Yeah, I mean, it really feels uncharted.
[106] Although questions of health and fitness are common in campaigns, I think the suddenness of the stroke and its effects has the news media on its heels, balancing.
[107] For example, as Burns did, respect and discretion with newsworthiness.
[108] And even opinion columnists have had to blunt their elbows a bit because this kind of stroke is somber and it's a serious thing.
[109] But I think that unlike, say, the news media hiding FDR's wheelchair, you can't hide this.
[110] He's clearly reading a not engaged one -on -one.
[111] And look, it's a fair thing for voters to consider.
[112] Now, this is one of a handful of toss -up states that could sway control of the Senate.
[113] The race, which Fetterman has led throughout, has tightened of late down to about two points in some polls.
[114] Do we have a sense of how this might impact the outcome?
[115] We don't really know yet.
[116] We might soon.
[117] But as the election gets closer and closer, there's only going to be more.
[118] more attention on Federman's condition.
[119] Whether he chooses to release more records or not, it's up to him to convince the voters of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that he's fit to serve.
[120] David, thanks for coming on.
[121] Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire contributor, David Marcus.
[122] The group that organized the recall effort against Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon announced this week that it plans on suing the county's registrar of voters, alleging that voter rolls were artificially inflated and some of the signatures were falsely invalidated, resulting in the recall being tossed out.
[123] Joining us to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Brandon Drey.
[124] So, Brandon, we've covered this on the show that the recall effort against Gascon over his progressive or soft -on crime policies was thrown out after a bunch of signatures were invalidated.
[125] What is the recall campaign arguing here exactly?
[126] Hey, Georgia.
[127] So they're arguing two things, that the bar was set too high for the total of voters and too many of the signatures were invalidated.
[128] The campaigns committee said in a press release that independent and nonpartisan analysts estimated that L .A. County active voter rolls were overshot between at least 200 ,000 and 500 ,000 voters when county officials initially set the bar of valid signatures for the recall to qualify.
[129] Now, the committee officials say the registrar's counting process was, and I'm quoting here, seriously flawed, resulting in substantial errors, the wrongful invalidation of many valid signatures, and the disenfranchisement of thousands of Los Angeles County voters.
[130] How did they come to that conclusion?
[131] Well, last month, the committee began conducting a review of the invalidated signatures with volunteer attorneys.
[132] Now, if you remember, a huge percentage, about 28 % of them were thrown out.
[133] We've never seen that high.
[134] a percentage before.
[135] It's usually more around 15%.
[136] So a couple of things were discovered in the review process.
[137] First of all, they claim 39 % of the signatures were improperly invalidated signatures.
[138] So, for example, some signatures collected were marked as non -matching, despite showing similarities to the signatures on file, whereas others were marked invalid due to more concerning things like duplicate signatures or the wrong address.
[139] Now, the committee also pointed to what they're calling bloated voter rolls.
[140] They say that led to a threshold that was unfairly high to begin with.
[141] Unpack that for us.
[142] So the original requirement was set at 566 ,857 signatures to qualify, which was 10 % of all Los Angeles County active voters.
[143] But according to the campaign's initial review, the number of qualifying signatures should have been set anywhere from 515 ,000 to 546 ,000.
[144] Now, even with all those signatures thrown out, they still had 520 ,000 deemed valid.
[145] In other words, they may have had enough to meet the real threshold.
[146] Now, the Recall DA George Gascon Committee, they said that they would file an injunctive relief as early as next week.
[147] If that happens, what do we expect the registrar's office to do?
[148] So I reached out to them and a spokesperson told me that they have not seen the petition for relief yet, but when and if it is received, they would respond accordingly.
[149] But officials from the recall have accused the registrar's office of placing, quote, arbitrary and capricious limitations on the review process, which limits the number of hours, workstations, and number of reviewers that would help them determine whether the invalid signatures are legitimate.
[150] And what kind of timeline are we looking at here for any kind of real action?
[151] Well, the recall committee said that with the current restrictions imposed by the registrar, the process would take more than a year to review the invalidated signatures.
[152] So Angelinos, who want Gascon out of office, are likely looking at a long time before any potential recourse against his policies.
[153] And critics continue to sound the alarm about his policies, making criminals feel emboldened and residents feel unsafe.
[154] Brandon, thanks for coming on.
[155] Thank you for having me. That was Daily Wire reporter Brandon Dre.
[156] Before we go, we want to let you know about a new show, election.
[157] election wire that's airing on this feed on YouTube and dailywire .com this Sunday.
[158] Election Wire, which features John and Cabot Phillips, offers the latest election news and is going to air every week leading up to the election.
[159] All right.
[160] Well, thanks for waking up with us.
[161] We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.