Morning Wire XX
[0] Explosive testimony from Uvaldi officials reveals new details about how police responded to the tragic school shooting.
[1] The officers had weapons.
[2] The children had none.
[3] The officers had body armor.
[4] The children had none.
[5] The officers had training.
[6] The subject had none.
[7] One hour, 14 minutes and eight seconds.
[8] That's how long the children waited and the teachers waited in rooms 111 to be rescued.
[9] I'm Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[10] It's Wednesday, June 22nd, and this is Morning Wire.
[11] The FDA gives emergency use authorization for the COVID vaccine for children under age five.
[12] But Florida refuses to help the White House with the vaccine rollout.
[13] Doctors can get it.
[14] Hospitals can get it.
[15] But there's not going to be any state programs that are going to be trying to, you know, get COVID jabs to infants and toddlers and newborns.
[16] And Disney's new Pixar film, Lightyear, Disappointing.
[17] at the box office.
[18] Is the problem toy story fatigue or politics?
[19] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[20] Stay tuned.
[21] We have the news you need to know.
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[32] Nearly a month after the massacre in Evaldi, Texas that left 21 dead, a state investigation concluded yesterday that the response of police that day was a, quote, abject failure that cost the lives of students.
[33] Now, as new evidence, further contradicts the story told by local law enforcement.
[34] Outrage against the Uvaldi Police Department is building.
[35] Here with more on the findings of the investigation and the legal ramifications is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
[36] Cabot, another chapter here in the devastating tragedy.
[37] What's the latest?
[38] Well, after a month of investigating, we're finally starting to get the full picture of how Yuvaldi police responded to the shooting.
[39] And it's damning.
[40] On Tuesday, the state senate held a special committee meeting focused on the tragedy.
[41] and the bottom line is that Yuvaldi law enforcement not only failed to follow protocol during the shooting, but also appeared to offer a false account of what really happened.
[42] First, we learned that 11 law enforcement officers, several armed with rifles, were in the school within two minutes of the shooting starting, but took another hour and 13 minutes to breach the classroom.
[43] Here's Ian McRaw, head of the Texas State Police.
[44] The law enforcement response to the attack at Rob Elementary was an abject failure and anecdotical to everything we've learned.
[45] over the last two decades since the Collapine Massacre.
[46] Three minutes after the subject entered the West Building, there was a sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract, and neutralize the subject.
[47] Now, it's worth noting some of the officers gathered in the hallway outside the room that day did reportedly want to enter the classroom immediately.
[48] According to officials, some specifically asked, are there still kids in the classrooms and said if there were, they needed to go in immediately.
[49] But investigators say other officers told them that they would only enter once they were ordered to do so, which, again, as we talked to on the show, they were ordered to stand by because they were treating it more like a hostage situation than an active shooter.
[50] Now, the investigation also revealed that some of the key elements of the original story from law enforcement now appear to be false.
[51] Tell us about that.
[52] Yeah, it appears that a number of statements made by Yuvaldi police following the shooting were either misleading or simply false.
[53] Texas Governor Greg Abbott said a few weeks ago that he'd been misled by police, so we already knew that some of what they initially claimed was wrong, but yesterday we learned even more.
[54] For example, one key part of their story was that they couldn't enter the room of the shooting because the door was locked and that they had to wait until a school administrator gave them a key.
[55] Well, we learned yesterday that not only did they have door breaching equipment, that would have made a key unnecessary in the first place, but also that the door was never even locked and that responding officers had not tried to open it.
[56] Police officials had also said one reason that they didn't enter sooner was because they didn't have protective gear and we're outgunned.
[57] But security camera footage from inside the school shows that police had protective shields and a number of rifles for more than an hour before they breached the room.
[58] We also gained further insight into the key questions surrounding all this, why officers fail to enter the classroom sooner.
[59] According to McCraw, police on scene were ordered not to breach the room by the officer in charge at the scene.
[60] The only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from ending room 111 and 112 was the on -scene commander who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children.
[61] The on -scene commander reference there is Pete Aradondo, the chief of the school district police department.
[62] Now, since the shooting, Aradondo has tried to distance himself from the situation, claiming that he didn't consider himself in charge at the scene.
[63] But McRaw offered quite a rebuke to that, saying, quote, if you're going to issue commands, if you're going to direct a, action.
[64] You're the on -scene commander.
[65] Defenders of Evaldi police have said that Texas DPS officials should have been the ones taking control at the scene when they arrived.
[66] But according to McCraw, command is typically given to the ranking official of the agency that has jurisdiction.
[67] In this case, that would have been Eauldi police.
[68] So we're starting to get some answers this week, but more than anything, they're just raising a whole new set of questions that have a lot of parents in Eauldi and around the country, really furious.
[69] Right.
[70] It's easy to see why.
[71] Cabot, thanks for reporting.
[72] Any time.
[73] That's Daily Wire Senior Editor, Cabot Phillips.
[74] Coming up, Florida in the White House, Spar, over vaccinating young children.
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[78] The war of words between the White House and Ron DeSantis heated back up this week as the Florida governor accused the Biden administration of lying about his state's COVID vaccine policies.
[79] The dust up came after Biden's press secretary, Corrine John Pierre, told reporters that Florida had changed course and would order recently approved vaccines for children ages six months to five years old.
[80] But according to DeSantis, Florida has done no such thing, and in fact recommends against vaccination for that age group.
[81] Here to discuss is columnist David Marcus.
[82] All right, David, so how did this confusion arise?
[83] It seems as though the White House misunderstood a Florida decision to allow practitioners and hospitals to order a COVID vaccine for this young age group, to mean the state itself was ordering the jabs.
[84] In fact, DeSantis's Surgeon General has publicly come out against the FDA's decision to recommend shots for this age group.
[85] All right, so they're against the shot.
[86] How will this play out?
[87] what are the practical implications of the governor and a state declining to recommend to parents and their kids to get this vaccine?
[88] Well, importantly, the vaccine will be available for that age group.
[89] Any pediatrician could administer it to any kid.
[90] The real difference is whether the state will mandate it in the case of schools and daycares, for example.
[91] And if they will create programs, you know, be it vaccine centers or, you know, add campaigns to encourage Floridians.
[92] I think DeSantis is crystal clear that neither of those things, things is going to happen.
[93] Now, what about parents?
[94] Where do parents stand on this question of vaccinating their young children?
[95] Is this something that parents seem eager for?
[96] Some do, but overall, no. Poll show only about 20 percent of parents are ready to go get their kid vaxed right now.
[97] Some want to wait and see.
[98] Others flat out say no. And this, of course, is why those who support the shots want to see a vigorous get -out -the -vaccines campaign.
[99] On the other hand, people just aren't as concerned about COVID as they were last year.
[100] Right.
[101] Now, these spats between President Biden and Governor DeSantis are becoming something of a regular feature in the political landscape.
[102] Are these stories good for DeSantis?
[103] Do they bolster his standing in terms of 2024?
[104] The short answer is yes, absolutely.
[105] If you want to run for president, and let's be clear, we don't know that DeSantis does, but if you do, drawing fire from the sitting guy is a great place to start.
[106] It creates a Biden versus DeSantis' narrative.
[107] And it just gets his name out there more.
[108] Both sides may win here.
[109] Biden gets a villain and DeSantis gets his name into paper.
[110] All right.
[111] And so the question of Trump, where does that leave former President Trump if DeSantis is emerging as basically the Republican standard bearer on these big issues like COVID mandates?
[112] It's a good question.
[113] Just as there have been murmurs on the left about maybe replacing Biden on the ticket in 2024, some prominent conservatives are urging voters to look to DeSantis as a kind of Trump without the drama.
[114] Meanwhile, the former president is focused on the midterms and clapping back at the January 6th committee.
[115] But look, you know, underestimate Donald Trump at your own risk.
[116] He's still a major force in the party.
[117] One thing on this, though, is that Republicans probably want to wait to have this fight until after the midterms.
[118] If there has to be a civil war, they'll want it after what they hope is their big red wave.
[119] Yeah, that makes sense.
[120] David, thanks for joining us today.
[121] Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire contributor, David Marcus.
[122] Pixar's Light Year put up a surprisingly poor performance at the box office this weekend, bringing in only 51 million, much lower than previous films in the Toy Story franchise.
[123] Culture reporter Megan Basham joins us now to put those earnings into perspective and analyze what may have gone wrong with the film.
[124] All right, Megan, let's start with the context.
[125] 51 million probably doesn't sound bad to a lot of people.
[126] Why is this a problem for Pixar?
[127] Well, the first thing you have to look at when it comes to box office predictions is what they originally were.
[128] So studios typically try to under promise and over -deliver when it comes to earnings projections.
[129] Because, of course, that way they get to sit back and watch all those sweet, the movie beat expectations headlines roll in.
[130] Right.
[131] Well, in Lightears case, analysts were projecting about a $70 to $75 million opening.
[132] So likely Disney, Pixar's parent company, thought they had a good chance of beating that.
[133] Then, if you look at that number in the context of Pixar success in general and the Toy Story franchise in particular, you see that it's really not doing well.
[134] So Pixar has traditionally been one of the few golden brands where audiences will turn out for a movie, specifically because it's a Pixar movie.
[135] People don't do that with something like Warner Brothers or Paramount.
[136] So Lightyear is one of Pixar's lowest earning movies behind 2017's Cars 3, which came in at $53 million.
[137] Then there's the fact that the Toy Story films have been Pixar's highest earning franchise by far.
[138] The last movie in the series, Toy Story 4, well, it opened to $121 million.
[139] Well, it's a pretty stark difference there.
[140] Okay, so let's talk about causes now.
[141] Why is Lightyear struggling to find as big an audience as other big Pixar movies?
[142] Well, to start, I think that while this movie is part of the Toy Story franchise, it's sort of a prequel origin story about how the astronaut Buzz Lightyear became a toy in the first place.
[143] So you have to note that the story and characters may have had less appeal to young audiences.
[144] And then to compound that issue, Pixar went with a different actor for the voice of Buzz.
[145] Now, the reasoning was that Tim Allen was playing the toy, but Captain America star Chris Evans is playing the real astronaut.
[146] But families know Alan.
[147] They like Alan.
[148] So hearing someone else's voice in the trailers may have dampened their interest.
[149] And then there's the big elephant in the room.
[150] And that's the lesbian kiss and relationship that Disney had first cut from the film.
[151] So when the company became embroiled in controversy over its reaction to that Florida bill, the parental rights in education earlier this year, Pixar employees publicly complained that Disney execs wouldn't let them include that kiss.
[152] Right, and that's a particularly sensitive time for the company because of all those negative headlines.
[153] Right, exactly.
[154] And you'll probably remember that Disney did a host of things to appease LGBTQ activists.
[155] They held an employee town hall in which execs promised to feature more queer content in Disney shows and films.
[156] And shortly after that, it was revealed that the lesbian kiss was re -inserted into Lightyear.
[157] So this was star Chris Evans talking about the large amount of media coverage, both positive and negative, that that kiss has now received.
[158] It's tough to not be a little frustrated that it even has to be a topic of discussion, that it is this kind of news.
[159] The goal is that we can get to a point where it is the norm and that this doesn't have to be some uncharted waters, that eventually this is just the way it is.
[160] So I don't think we can talk about light year fizzling without discussing this element.
[161] And it does seem reasonable to assume that a lot of families, whether it was because of the kiss directly or because of overall negative press surrounding Disney's activism, they just decided to skip this one.
[162] What will be the fallout here?
[163] Do you think Disney will be more hesitant about including LGBT characters in the future?
[164] You know, I think probably so, but I think they're going to be very careful and very quiet about it.
[165] So in the short run, it will be a real blow if Lightyear's business doesn't pick up.
[166] because Pixar was reportedly planning to turn it into a spinoff sci -fi franchise of its own.
[167] So I think now, yeah, those sequels look unlikely to happen.
[168] Yeah, it appears so.
[169] Megan, thanks for coming on.
[170] Anytime.
[171] That was Daily Wire Culture Reporter, Megan Basham.
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