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[0] Democratic senators are celebrating Katanji Brown -Jackson's confirmation as the first black female justice on the Supreme Court.
[1] But some Republicans have doubts about her record.
[2] She is a nice person.
[3] She is well -educated.
[4] But I'm looking for someone who will rule in favor of America's future.
[5] And I don't see that in this judge.
[6] Which Republicans voted to support the justice?
[7] And how could the midterms affect Biden's next Supreme Court?
[8] Court pick.
[9] I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howl.
[10] It's Friday, April 8th, and this is Morning Wire.
[11] New York City continues to be a more dangerous place to live.
[12] From shootings to shoplifting, we have details on why the violence is escalating.
[13] And Elon Musk's purchase of nearly 10 % of Twitter's stock is just the latest example of shareholder activism.
[14] We explore how shareholder meetings are becoming the new frontier for political activism.
[15] Companies themselves are voluntarily saying that we will not accept a board member unless they add to our diversity metrics, that NASDAQ, the stock exchange where most technology companies are listed, are saying that you cannot go public on NASDAQ unless your board is sufficiently diverse.
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[26] On Thursday, Katanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the Supreme Court.
[27] Here to explain how the votes broke down by party, as well as the implications as we approach the midterms, is DailyWire's Ian Howarth.
[28] Ian, first off, tell us about this confirmation.
[29] Yeah, as we expected, the U .S. Senate confirmed Judge Katanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme caught on Thursday.
[30] His vice president, Carmelah Harris, announcing the decision.
[31] On this vote, the a's are 53, the nays are 47, and this nomination is confirmed.
[32] Three Republicans joined the 50 Democrats in the Senate to confirm Jackson, who was celebrated by many as the first black woman on the Supreme Court.
[33] The Republicans who voted to confirm now Justice Jackson were Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins.
[34] Now, Romney's vote was the surprising one here, correct?
[35] Yeah, his decision was particularly unusual because he previously voted against Jackson when she was nominated to the appeals court for the D .C. circuit less than a year ago.
[36] But on Monday, Romney released a statement confirming his intent to vote in favor of Jackson, saying that he believed she more than meets the standard of excellence and integrity.
[37] On the other hand, Senator Lindsay Graham voted against Jackson's nomination, having previously voted in favor when she was nominated to the appeals court.
[38] He explained why this would be the first time he'd vote against any Supreme Court nominee, noting that he expected a Democrat president to appoint left -leaning judges to the federal courts, but that the Supreme Court is, quote, different from the circuit court.
[39] Now that you're talking about the Supreme Court, you're making policy, not just bound by it.
[40] And it's worth noting that after the announcement, it looked like Romney was the only remaining Republican who stayed to applaud Jackson's nomination as other GOP centers filed out of the room.
[41] So let's talk more about the Republican reaction here.
[42] With the midterms coming up, it's possible that control of the Senate will be back in Republican hands.
[43] How could things change if President Biden nominates another suburb?
[44] Supreme Court pick.
[45] Yeah, this is really where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell comes in.
[46] A few days ago, his team circulated a memo titled The Case Against Judge Jackson's Elevation to the Supreme Court, which criticized her prior judicial experience and her, quote, inability to answer basic questions.
[47] The memo focused on three points.
[48] First, her dodging of questions regarding court packing.
[49] Second, her supposed inability to explain her judicial philosophy, and finally, her sentencing record, especially regarding child pornography offenders, which many critics have labeled as being far too soft.
[50] For example, in one child pornography case, Jackson sentenced someone who pled guilty to possessing videos and images of children engaged in sex acts to just three months in prison when the federal sentencing guidelines recommended eight to ten years.
[51] But now, with Jackson being nominated regardless, the focus has moved on to, as you said, what happens if the GOP takes back the Senate?
[52] McConnell has been pretty clear and warned Biden that if Republicans do win back control of the Senate, any nominations will have to move to the center if he wants to fill another Supreme Court vacancy if one opens up.
[53] And Lindsay Graham was even more clear on the subject, saying that Jackson would not have been confirmed if Republicans held the Senate.
[54] So with the midterms fast approaching, it's likely that the potential for another Biden Supreme Court pick will be used as a real motivating factor for Republicans come November.
[55] Yeah, and as they say, elections have consequences, so we'll see how things shake out.
[56] Exactly.
[57] Thanks for the update, Ian.
[58] That was Daily Wires, I mean Howarth.
[59] Coming up, New York City's crime wave shows no signs of subsiding.
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[63] New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio cut a billion dollars from the city's police department in an effort to bring equity.
[64] Two years later, the city's experiencing a massive crime wave.
[65] Here with more on what police say is causing the spike and how New Yorkers are responding is Daily Wires Cabot Phillips.
[66] So, Cabot, just how much of a crime surge are we looking at here?
[67] Well, according to the NYPD, in the first three months of 2022, there's been a 44 % increase in crime across the board.
[68] Shootings were up 14%, rapes were up 16%, and shoplifting is up 81%.
[69] Now, the spike really began in 2020, and at the time, many elected officials in the city said the wave was just the result of economic angst and uncertainty caused by COVID.
[70] But now as we're coming out of lockdowns, crime is still trending up noticeably.
[71] And the problem has gotten so bad that New York Mayor Eric Adams actually went to Washington, D .C. this week to ask President Biden for federal support.
[72] So what do we know about the cause of this spike?
[73] Well, some progressive leaders in the city say there's a nationwide crime surge right now, and that, Typically, when times are hard economically, crime goes up.
[74] And to a certain extent, they are right, but the spike in New York goes beyond what we're seeing nationally by a pretty wide margin.
[75] Critics say that in large part, it's because of two things.
[76] The city's move to cut funding to the police and zero bail policies.
[77] During the height of the Black Lives Matter and defund the police movement in 2020, former mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would be cutting a billion dollars from the NYPD budget, as part of an effort, in his words, to quote, prioritize our community's most in need.
[78] and create a fairer city for all.
[79] Around that time, the city also passed a series of no bail laws to combat what they called racism in the criminal justice system.
[80] Right.
[81] We talked about that on the show a good bit.
[82] Yeah, and critics, including many NYPD officials, say that that policy and others like it have since allowed thousands of criminals to simply be released back onto the street after they've been arrested.
[83] For example, one anti -gun crime unit made 135 arrests in a three -week period last month, and 90 % of those arrested were released back.
[84] back onto the street.
[85] And across the board, almost without fail, every criminal we see in the stabbings and shootings that are taking place is someone who's been arrested in the previous months, but released in large part because of these zero bail policies.
[86] This week, NYPD Commissioner Kishan Sewell addressed that point.
[87] It's clear what we are confronting.
[88] A perception among criminals that there are no consequences, even for serious crime.
[89] We need tangible changes with a balanced system that puts victims first.
[90] And it's also worth pointing out where the crime is happening specifically.
[91] This surge is impacting tourist and business areas that have typically been immune to more serious violent crime in the past.
[92] And in the last few months alone, we've seen multiple people killed or injured in stabbings in and near Times Square and multiple violent attacks at subway stations right in the heart of Midtown where typically tourists are staying.
[93] And that might not be slowing the number of tourists going to the city, at least yet, But it is having an impact on the number of New Yorkers who say they're preparing to leave the city.
[94] Right.
[95] There was a poll that came out that showed just how deeply this issue was affecting New Yorkers.
[96] Tell us about that.
[97] Yeah, we've talked on the show about the mass exodus of people leaving New York for places with less crime and lower tax rates, specifically Texas and Florida.
[98] But the issue has become even more pronounced in recent months.
[99] One recent poll found that 59 % of New Yorkers agreed with the statement, quote, My family would have a better future if we left New York City permanently.
[100] That's a 12 % jump compared to the same time last year.
[101] And the number one reason people listed for potentially wanting to leave was crime.
[102] 41 % said poor public safety is the main reason they would want to leave.
[103] And inflation and the rising cost of living came in second at just 19%.
[104] So clearly, crime is playing a major role in potentially driving New Yorkers out of the city.
[105] Right.
[106] New York's not the only state with this problem.
[107] Cabot, thanks for reporting.
[108] Anytime.
[109] That's Daily Wires, Cabot Phillips.
[110] Billionaire Elon Musk's purchase of nearly 10 % of Twitter's stock and his new membership on the platform's board of directors has stirred up more debate about free speech online and the rise of shareholder activism.
[111] We spoke with best -selling author and entrepreneur Vivek Ramoswamy about the broader implications of all this.
[112] So Vivek, we've got Elon Musk getting invited onto Twitter's board this week.
[113] First, how significant is this development?
[114] I think this is pretty interesting because he's paving a path that I think might be the most promising path for driving cultural change in corporate America and in the market more generally.
[115] It is not through divestments or through boycotts.
[116] It is actually through representing the voice of everyday citizens and everyday shareholders as a shareholder, including in the boardroom.
[117] And so that's what I think is so interesting about the move.
[118] I don't know whether Elon Musk is actually going to be able to, with a 9 .2 % stake and one board seat, tilt the scales at Twitter by very much.
[119] But I think that he has paved the path for a really interesting mechanism that I predict we're going to see a lot more of is shareholder activism address the problem of the marriage of progressive orthodoxy and big business.
[120] So you're describing effectively a positive or proactive move rather than a defensive one, adding influence as a shareholder rather than, say, staging a boycott.
[121] Exactly.
[122] And this is a big part of what the ESG movement has done.
[123] A lot of people focus on the so -called ESG environmental social governance factors movement in capital markets as being focused on not investing in gun manufacturers or whatever.
[124] That's a small part of it.
[125] The real issue isn't that firms like BlackRock, that's the world's largest asset manager who manages over $10 trillion dollars of American citizens' money, the real problem is not that BlackRock is divesting from companies like Exxon.
[126] The real problem is that they're invested in companies like Exxon and they vote for actually new boards of directors, as they did last year voting for three new board members, that changed the purpose of that company from being about drilling oil to being about doing something else.
[127] They say drill less oil, do something else.
[128] Well, guess what?
[129] I think that that is distorting the behavior of companies across corporate America, in part because BlackRock and State Street and Vanguard, those are the three largest asset managers, they don't actually represent the shareholders.
[130] They're not the shareholder.
[131] They're the stewards of other people's money everyday citizens' money.
[132] What makes the Elon Musk move really interesting is he's showing up as an actual shareholder with his money.
[133] Now the top shareholder of Twitter, who's going to say that I actually, as the shareholder and owner of the company, want to see that company heading in a different direction.
[134] And Musk here is really countering the ESG movement.
[135] For those not familiar with that term, ESG, can you define it for us?
[136] Yeah, so it is basically a three -letter acronym that is designed to bore you into submission, to lull you into submission, and it is successful in doing that for most Americans.
[137] But what it basically means is it is a political ideology that says that companies are supposed to take action to advance particular agendas, environmental factors, like fighting climate change, that regardless of what governments say, companies need to behave in a certain way to fight climate change voluntarily.
[138] Now, we can talk about how voluntary this really is, but that's the theory, an advocate of the ESG movement will tell you that it is through the market itself that we need to solve that problem.
[139] Or solve historical systemic racism.
[140] through the so -called S, social factors, the quota systems that you see on boards for racial and gender and sexual orientation -based quotas.
[141] What ESG does is said, forget the political process.
[142] Let's just do this, get this done through the market where people work, where they bank, where they invest, where they work, and we can achieve that worldview without the pesky constraints of the Constitution or the lawmaking process that stop us from achieving a more just world if politics is going to stop us and the Constitution is going to stop us the checks and balances are going to stop us.
[143] Let's just do it through the market instead.
[144] That's really what this is all about.
[145] Well, Vivek, thank you so much for talking with us today.
[146] Yeah, glad to be honest, as always.
[147] That was entrepreneur and best -selling author, Vivek Ramoswamy.
[148] And to hear more about ESG, tune in Sunday for a deep dive on the movement.
[149] Other stories we're tracking this week.
[150] Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced Wednesday that his state will be providing charter buses to send illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington, D .C. And the first entirely private astronaut team going to the International Space Station is set to launch today from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket by SpaceX.
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