Morning Wire XX
[0] The summit of the Americas took place in Mexico City this week, but according to reports, the topic of immigration did not take center stage.
[1] President Biden discussed ways our countries can continue to work together and to address irregular migration, so that conversation certainly happened.
[2] Why is Biden being accused of whitewashing the border crisis and what new policies, if any, came out of the trip?
[3] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley.
[4] It's January 13th, and this is your Saturday edition.
[5] of Morning Wire.
[6] China's growing influence on U .S. colleges and universities has some professors and academics warning about national security.
[7] They make friends.
[8] They try to appeal to Chinese students, the nationalistic pride of China, to get them to give sensitive information.
[9] We speak to a college professor about his concerns.
[10] And as more children are diagnosed with childhood obesity, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends aggressive treatment options.
[11] What are they prescribing and will they work?
[12] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[13] Stay tuned.
[14] We have the news you need to know.
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[23] President Biden met with Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday, but the pair reportedly did not address illegal migration in the formal cabinet meeting.
[24] According to reports, the two leaders ran out of time and weren't able to get to the issue.
[25] Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
[26] So Tim, let's first start with the president.
[27] trip to the border.
[28] Why are critics saying that the optics and messaging from that trip were sanitized or whitewashed?
[29] Yeah, they're essentially saying Biden saw the border, but largely avoided the areas that really showcased the crisis.
[30] Part of that was because the Border Patrol did a massive cleanup prior to the visit.
[31] So areas that were previously overrun with migra camps looked clean and orderly.
[32] Video obtained by NBC News showed border agents waking aliens up in the middle of the night for their asylum papers and arresting those without documents.
[33] Local police tore down some of the homeless encampments and forced migrants into different parts of the city.
[34] The Border Patrol Union said Biden might as well have traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, and called it El Paso, alluding to how much better the city looked after the massive cleanup.
[35] Biden's tour never took him by the starkest examples of the migrant crisis, such as the crowds of migrants sleeping outside El Paso's Sacred Heart Church.
[36] He also never saw the makeshift migrant camps at El Paso's airport.
[37] or Greyhound bus station before they were dispersed.
[38] Biden reportedly did not encounter a single migrant during his time in El Paso, which observers say is a wild misrepresentation of the situation residents are dealing with.
[39] Now, were the migrant camps cleaned up in anticipation of this visit?
[40] No, the cleanup was an initiative taken by the city.
[41] But critics say it would have been easy to seek out the areas where migrants had been moved to, but the administration chose not to.
[42] As for the cleanup, law enforcement told reporters that the measures were taken to cut down on criminal behavior among the city's homeless migrants.
[43] Officers said that drug dealing and theft were growing problems that put both migrants and Al Paso residents in danger.
[44] And has the White House responded to those accusations?
[45] Yeah, White House Press Secretary Corrine Jean -Pierre was asked by Foxes Peter Ducey about Biden's trip on Wednesday.
[46] And she said the lack of migrants in El Paso was due to a sudden drop in illegal migration in the El Paso area prior to the president's visit.
[47] Why didn't President Biden want to see what's really going on at the border?
[48] He did see exactly what's going on at the border.
[49] He didn't talk to any migrants and he didn't go anywhere that people actually cross illegally.
[50] Why not?
[51] But he met, he went to the migrant center, which was a critical place to be when you think about the partners who are our partners who are helping support the migrants on the ground there.
[52] There happened to be no migrants at the facility at the time that he visited.
[53] But let's...
[54] Because El Paso has been crushed.
[55] The shelters are full.
[56] There are overflow migrants sleeping in the streets, and then it's just a coincidence that suddenly the president shows up.
[57] Well, let me talk about what's going on in El Paso, right?
[58] El Paso did go down significantly prior to the president's visit by about 70%.
[59] Now, the following day, President Biden traveled to Mexico City to sit down with Mexico's president.
[60] What did they discuss?
[61] The two presidents met at a summit in Mexico City this week.
[62] According to Bloomberg news, they talked about supply chains and drug smuggling, but they, quote, ran out of time before their teams could discuss the unprecedented wave of migration hitting the United States southern border.
[63] Biden officials claim that two presidents privately spoke about migration prior to the summit, but it's not clear what was said during that meeting.
[64] All right.
[65] Well, Tim, thanks for reporting.
[66] That was Daily Wires, Tim Pierce.
[67] A growing number of voices are sounding the alarm over the national security threat posed by China's influence on higher education in the U .S. The issue was again highlighted this week amid reports that more than 50 million in Chinese donations were given to the University of Pennsylvania, which founded the Penn Biden Center for diplomacy and global engagement.
[68] Here to discuss his political science professor and former homeland security official, Nicholas Giordano.
[69] Welcome.
[70] So, Nicholas, in your recent op -ed for The Daily Wire, you said that American universities have actually become one of the greatest threats to national security because of foreign influence, especially that of China.
[71] What sorts of trends are we seeing?
[72] China has built one of our most sophisticated intelligence gathering operations that the world has ever seen.
[73] And they look at college campuses as the perfect opportunity to gain intelligence, steal research, and try and identify targets that could potentially give them sensitive information down the road.
[74] When we look at college campuses and universities as a whole, it's not like these people are trained in national security or homeland security.
[75] We've seen dozens of cases over the course of the last several years of Chinese intelligence agents actually getting student visas attending these colleges and universities throughout the country.
[76] And we're talking about colleges and universities like MIT, Columbia, NYU.
[77] And then they have access to research that's going on on the college campuses.
[78] They have access to the student body.
[79] They work closely with some of the professors.
[80] We had a case, Dr. Charles Lieber of Harvard.
[81] where he was actually paid $50 ,000 as a quote -unquote strategic scientist for the Wuhan Institute.
[82] So we see the threats that exist, and yet colleges haven't done anything about it, largely because it's a cash cow for them.
[83] They receive an enormous amount of money from foreign students that are coming to the United States, and China has the largest population of foreign students, $300 ,000.
[84] And then the contributions that the Chinese government and Chinese businesses, give to the universities and their endowments.
[85] What has China worked out in terms of formal partnerships with universities?
[86] Well, one of the things that was a conversation a couple of years ago was the idea of Confucius institutes.
[87] These are institutes that are put on college campuses, and it's basically to spy on Chinese students to make sure that they're not becoming too Americanized.
[88] But it's also a way that China can manipulate the messaging.
[89] When a country is giving billions of dollars to universities, they're doing so for a reason.
[90] They're not doing it at a goodness of their heart.
[91] They're doing it to curry favor and gain influence.
[92] And when they do that, they have a say over the curriculum development.
[93] They have a say over what's being taught.
[94] And a lot of it has to do with trying to influence the narrative where you won't hear the criticisms of the communist regime of China or the abuse of the Saudi Arabian government because they're another one that contributes an enormous amount of money to the.
[95] university campuses, where they'll temper the criticisms that exist.
[96] Now, the government accountability office released a study outlining the dangers of technology transfer from universities to foreign countries, especially China.
[97] What did they find?
[98] So what happens is if you have Chinese intelligence agents that come over on a student visa, it's not like they're going into the liberal arts majors.
[99] They're majoring in biomedical, they're majoring in engineering.
[100] And these are the things that you have to worry about.
[101] because whatever type of innovation we make, if China gets access to that technology, they could put it out there first.
[102] And we know that trillions of dollars have been lost amongst the United States for things that we innovated where the Chinese government was able to intercept it and steal that technology and put it out first.
[103] What are universities in the U .S. government doing about this to protect intellectual property?
[104] Universities in the government aren't doing nearly enough of what it's going to take to actually protect intellectual property.
[105] I mean, while the FBI has warned the college campuses to be aware of what's going on, they haven't nearly held the meetings that they should have held to be able to teach professors and administrators how to identify potential intelligence agents, how to identify foreign espionage, what are the signs, and how do we bring that message to the student body as well to let them know what's going on?
[106] And the campuses do bear some of the responsibility.
[107] They have become wholly reliant on foreign funds, in some cases, as much as 30 % of their revenue is actually coming from overseas, that reliance has made them susceptible, where they're not really looking out for the threats that exist on the college campuses.
[108] So we need to try and figure out a way to make these universities less reliant on foreign students and foreign funds coming in, foreign donations, and really focus on getting Americans into these programs, into the STEM fields where it's science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
[109] I think that's a key.
[110] And I think we need an overhaul of the student visa program as well.
[111] Well, definitely an important and problematic development we're seeing in universities.
[112] Nicholas, thanks for joining us.
[113] That was political science professor, Nicholas Giordano.
[114] The American Academy of Pediatrics published new guidelines Monday endorsing an early and aggressive approach to childhood obesity, including both medication and in some cases, surgery.
[115] Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta Jocamo.
[116] So Amanda, these new guidelines seemed extreme to a lot of people.
[117] What exactly are they recommending?
[118] The guidance says pediatricians and other primary health care providers should offer obese children, 12 years and up, medication for weight loss.
[119] This would be in addition to better nutrition, exercise, and sometimes even counseling.
[120] The report added that severely obese teenagers, 13 and older, should be offered referrals to be evaluated for metabolic and bariatric surgery.
[121] Obviously, surgery is a drastic step, but according to the CDC, one in five children in adolescents are obese, and obese children are at risk for many of the same problems as adults, like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, which are both risk factors for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, joint pain, and breathing issues like sleep apnea and asthma.
[122] Still, the AAP's advice was alarming to some, because putting kids on drugs and especially putting them through invasive surgery carries significant risks, but it sounds like they feel obesity is a bigger risk for some kids.
[123] I spoke to childhood obesity expert, Dr. Miles Faith, a professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo, about the report.
[124] Here's what he had to say.
[125] This report does not overlook lifestyle changes when it talks about medication as an option, as a potential option, when it talks about surgery as a potential option, it's a package -based approach.
[126] Dr. Faith added that these recommendations, at the least, let parents know this is an option on the table for their child and said it's backed by research.
[127] Now, what did the report say about lifestyle?
[128] Yeah, lifestyle is very significant here, both as a cause and a solution.
[129] The Mayo Clinic highlights issues specifically too little activity and too many calories as the main contributors to childhood obesity, while adding that genetic and hormonal factors might play a role as well.
[130] Dr. Faith emphasized that parenting approaches are foundational to addressing childhood obesity.
[131] So our research and others, I would say, supports the role very clearly of nature and nurture.
[132] The debate many years ago used to be genes or environment, nature, or nurture.
[133] But I think the vast majority of research shows that it's both.
[134] So for families that are struggling with this, what are the most effective strategies?
[135] I asked Dr. Faith about this, and he told me the most research -supported approach is called family -based intervention, where research -based strategies are implemented.
[136] Using praise, using goal setting for very specific behavior changes, role -modeling it, keeping a diary, something called self -monitoring.
[137] And if we look at years and years and years of research, these very positive behavioral strategies seem to predict the best outcomes.
[138] The research shows that when parents aren't.
[139] on board and being positive role models, making some changes themselves, helping the family along, dealing with problem solving, and working it out.
[140] The children do better.
[141] So there's a strong family component.
[142] Dr. Faith really stressed to me that this ideally can be a whole family experience.
[143] Well, like most things, eating habits are learned at home.
[144] Amanda, thanks for reporting.
[145] Anytime.
[146] That was Daily Wire reporter, Amanda Presta Giacomo.
[147] Another story we're tracking this week, vaccination rates for kindergartners dropped again this year to 93%.
[148] The average vaccination rates for measles used to be 94 to 95%, but the rate did drop during COVID.
[149] That's all the time we've got this morning.
[150] Thanks for waking up with us.
[151] We'll be back tomorrow with more news you need to know.