Morning Wire XX
[0] A New York judge ruled that the city's vaccine mandate for public employees is unconstitutional.
[1] But the city says the mandate is still in place, and the legal battle is just beginning.
[2] I'm Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley with Georgia Howl.
[3] It's Wednesday, October 26th, and this is Morning Wire.
[4] The Michigan governor's race went from safe to toss -up.
[5] Could newcomer Tudor Dixon oust Gretchen Whitmer?
[6] Job creators want to expand in the state of Michigan.
[7] Mary and Gretchen Whitmer say she has helped them.
[8] She hasn't helped them.
[9] And a new poll shows Americans fear democracy is being threatened.
[10] But there's a surprising amount of bipartisan agreement on who is to blame.
[11] We look at some of the main drivers behind this trend.
[12] Plus, the first and only debate between Pennsylvania Senate candidates John Federman and Mehmet Oz took place on Tuesday night.
[13] The debate sparked renewed concerns about Federman's health since suffering a stroke.
[14] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[15] Stay tuned.
[16] We have the news you need to know.
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[21] A New York Supreme Court judge overturned the city's vaccine mandate for public sector workers on Tuesday.
[22] Here to discuss the court's ruling is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
[23] So Tim, let's start off with this decision's impact.
[24] Are these workers getting their jobs back?
[25] Yeah, the petitioners will be, for now at least.
[26] The lawsuit was brought by over a dozen sanitation workers.
[27] The judge's order entitles those workers to be reinstated and given back pay.
[28] The legal battle isn't over, though.
[29] Unlike in other states, the New York Supreme Court is not the highest court in the state.
[30] According to the city, it's already filed an appeal with the appellate division.
[31] The city also says the vaccine mandate for public sector workers is still in place despite the ruling.
[32] Now, the judge clearly found some major problems with the vaccine order.
[33] What do you have to say there?
[34] Judge Ralph J. Porzio wrote a harsh critique of the vaccine mandate.
[35] He said that, legally speaking, it qualified as arbitrary and capricious, and he accused a city of singling out public sector workers.
[36] Porzio also said the city's commissioner of health exceeded his authority and violated the state constitution's separation of powers.
[37] When did this mandate take effect?
[38] The mandate for public sector workers was instated in October 2021 by the city's health department.
[39] A couple months later, then Mayor Bill de Blasio followed the order up with a mandate covering private sector workers as well.
[40] The mandate sparked significant backlash.
[41] One of the most notable protests came from Probeauts, basketball player, Kyrie Irving.
[42] Irving plays for the Brooklyn Nets and was forced to sit out home games because of his refusal to get vaccinated.
[43] He was able to practice and play in road games, though, in states without vaccine mandates.
[44] Yeah, Irving's case made a lot of national headlines.
[45] Yeah, it did.
[46] New York City Mayor Eric Adams decided to create carve -outs for the private sector vaccine mandate in March.
[47] Adams exempted professional athletes, entertainers, and others from the mandate.
[48] Then in September, he announced the city would scrap the private sector mandate altogether.
[49] This put the choice in the hands of New York businesses.
[50] And it's imperative that we're asking them to continue to encourage their employees to get their vaccines and boost the shots.
[51] Our vaccinated workforce kept the city open and operating over 300 ,000 employees.
[52] It was crucial to put it in place, and we're keeping that in place.
[53] Judge Porzio said that the city was unfairly targeting public sector employees.
[54] He wrote that either there is a mandate for all or there is a mandate for none.
[55] He said that the city had authority to act initially because of the pandemic, but eventually measures adopted unilaterally in crisis need to be ruled back or legislated into law.
[56] If this ruling is upheld, what happens then?
[57] It opens a city up to litigation from all of the roughly 1 ,700 city employees laid off because of the vaccine mandate.
[58] Presumably, they'd all be entitled to the same damages received by the public sanitation workers who brought the lawsuit.
[59] So the city could be writing a bunch of checks here.
[60] Yep.
[61] Tim, thanks for reporting.
[62] Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wires, Tim Pierce.
[63] Coming up, a closer look at Michigan Republican candidate for governor, Tudor Dixon.
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[76] A double -digit advantage for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has evaporated in a matter of weeks as Republican nominee Tudor Dixon has enjoyed a meteoric rise.
[77] The latest poll from Michigan News Source and Trafalgar has her tied at 48 % with Governor Whitmer.
[78] Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Allorty, is here with the details for us.
[79] So Marade, Tudor Dixon is a political newcomer.
[80] What's her background?
[81] Hi, Georgia.
[82] Sure.
[83] So Tudor Dixon is a mother of four, and prior to launching her bid for governor, she anchored a weekly political commentary show on Real America's Voice, which is a right -leaning news network.
[84] Since launching her bid, she has had a pretty swift rise to the top of Michigan's GOP, as you noted.
[85] She got a big boost when five candidates, including two frontrunners, did not qualify for the primary ballot.
[86] According to Real Clear Politics, polling averages, incumbent Governor Gretchen Whitmer initially had a crushing 18 -point lead, but Dixon has been steadily gaining since the summer.
[87] And now, although Whitmer is still slightly ahead in some polls, Real Clear Politics is projecting the race will be a GOP pickup.
[88] Trump endorsed Dixon in July, and that endorsement was extremely important for her MAGA -style campaign.
[89] Trump's endorsement came after former education secretary Betsy DeVos, whose family is very powerful in Michigan GOP politics, wrote a letter to the former president urging him to endorse Dixon and telling him that Dixon is, quote, the only one who can stand toe to toe with Whitmer.
[90] DeVos's family supported Dixon financially, giving at least $4 million, which was another factor that helped catapult her to the front of a crowded primary.
[91] Okay, so Dixon has essentially run as an unapologetic MAGA Republican, but Michigan is traditionally a blue to purple state, so is that going to be a liability with Michigan voters?
[92] Maybe.
[93] Dixon has previously said she believes Trump won the state of Michigan in 2020, even though the official count shows he lost.
[94] In recent months, though, she's tried to distance herself from that stance, pivoting more to criticizing irregularities and the way Michigan handled voting.
[95] Here's Dixon on Fox News when she was asked about the issue in July.
[96] I've always focused on the way the election was handled and how we need to make sure it is secure in the future and that we don't have people looking back and saying we're questioning what actually happened.
[97] She also weathered some controversy during her career as a political commentator.
[98] On one occasion, Dixon described hijabs as oppressive garments.
[99] In 2020, she defended YouTuber Jenna Marbles after a 2011 video of Marbles surfaced in which Marbles was dressed up in blackface impersonating singer Nikki Minaj.
[100] Dixon stated that the Marble's impersonation video was clearly intended as comedy.
[101] Some outlets have also brought up the fact that Dixon endorsed a very conservative stance on abortion, saying the health of the mother is the only appropriate exception.
[102] However, on the campaign trail, she's endorsed exceptions for rape and incest.
[103] There's actually a ballot measure to enshrine the right to abortion in Michigan, and Dixon has said she will respect that if it passes, so it does seem like she's willing to compromise on the issue of abortion.
[104] Right.
[105] Well, let's talk about her campaign platform.
[106] What is she running on?
[107] Well, Dixon has focused very heavily on culture issues as well as the economy.
[108] She's spoken out against having biological males in girls' sports, She's also argued for getting race and gender ideology out of the classroom.
[109] Here's Dixon talking about the recent clashes between parents and schools.
[110] It's very interesting in the state of Michigan.
[111] Parents are rising up and saying they want education back.
[112] They want their students to have a chance.
[113] They want to go back to the basics in education, reading, writing, and math.
[114] And they're fighting back against this woke agenda in our schools.
[115] Dixon has also proposed policies to cut diversity, equity, and inclusion administrators from public schools and repurpose their salaries to pay for armed school security.
[116] So overall, Dixon is staunchly conservative on just about every issue, perhaps even more so than other Republicans running elsewhere in the country.
[117] Well, we'll have to see how Michigan voters feel about her on November 8th.
[118] Marade, thanks for reporting.
[119] Thanks, Georgia.
[120] That was Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Allorty.
[121] In a stunning new poll, nearly 60 % of Americans who fear democracy is under threat, say that the mainstream media is to blame.
[122] Democrats have sought to make the alleged threat to democracy posed by Republicans a centerpiece of their midterm platform.
[123] In this New York Times, CNN poll found that 71 percent of respondents do believe that there is a threat to democracy, but 80 percent of those say that the mainstream media is at least part of that threat.
[124] Here to break it down is columnist David Marcus.
[125] Hey, Dave, so do we know what's driving this?
[126] Good morning.
[127] Look, to some degree, it's coming from all sides and both parties.
[128] Of course, for years now, Donald Trump has called the news media the enemy of the people and fake news.
[129] And on the left, there are regular claims about the supposedly duplicitous nature of Fox News and other conservative outlets.
[130] There's not a ton of folks out there saying the media is doing great.
[131] And clearly, since it's a full 70 % of Americans who say that democracy is under threat, this isn't simply partisan.
[132] Both sides are very concerned about the future of the country and its government.
[133] How did the mainstream media stack up against other threats included in the poll like politicians and institutions?
[134] Oh, the media is in first, I don't know, maybe it's last place by a generous country mile.
[135] 28 % say Republicans are a major threat to democracy.
[136] 33 % say Democrats are.
[137] Federal government was 33, Supreme Court 27.
[138] That's the general range.
[139] So the media's 59 % is quite an outlier.
[140] Again, in these other examples, you can make out some clear.
[141] bipartisan differences, not here.
[142] It's often said that Americans can't agree on anything anymore, but they're pretty close and their disdain for and apparently actual fear of the media.
[143] Do we have a good sense of what people specifically view the threat posed by the media to be?
[144] I assume they don't think a bunch of news anchors are going to start a coup, so what is it?
[145] Look, Americans are savvy news consumers and they know we're living in an information age.
[146] If you can control the flow of information, you can have enormous impact on a whole host of issues.
[147] Some believe that media suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story could have swung the election.
[148] Some believe that using viral videos of crime makes the problem seem much bigger than it is.
[149] It really boils down to the press being a vital part of a functioning democracy.
[150] Because if voters are poorly informed, how can they arrive at good decisions?
[151] Right.
[152] Now, this is a New York Times poll.
[153] The Times itself was in the news in recent days as former opinion page editor James Bennett spoke very candidly about being forced out of his position for running a column by Senator Tom Cotton.
[154] That op -ed called for the use of the National Guard during the 2020 riots.
[155] What did he say the state of the paper is?
[156] He was remarkably harsh, in fact, and said that by buckling to the mob, the paper of record, quote, blew the opportunity to make clear that the New York Times doesn't exist just to tell progressives how progressives should view reality, end quote.
[157] Look, I know from having written for Bennett at the times that he was committed to ideological diversity, the paper just wouldn't allow it.
[158] It's hard to overestimate how brutal this condemnation is.
[159] He's basically calling it a biased newspaper, and it mirrors things we've heard from other former time staffers like Barry Weiss, who called it a hostile work environment and said that self -censorship has become the norm.
[160] So there are a lot of people in the industry now waving a red flag and saying, we have a big problem here.
[161] Another question in the poll that was intriguing asked whether respondents find QAnon theories and ideas believable.
[162] What did that one tell us?
[163] Right.
[164] Democrats have painted Q &ON as a kind of driving force behind the new right or conservative movement.
[165] This poll really shows the opposite.
[166] A mere 4 % believe this stuff.
[167] 37 % said they don't.
[168] And 56 % didn't know enough to say.
[169] One might say that the alleged prominence of this conspiratorial group in the GOP is itself just a conspiracy theory.
[170] Sounds about right.
[171] Thank you for joining us, David.
[172] Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire contributor, David Marcus.
[173] Another story we're tracking this week.
[174] A number of key midterm debates took place last night, including the first and only debate between Pennsylvania Senate candidates, John Federman and Mehmet Oz.
[175] The debate sparked renewed concerns over Federman's fitness for office.
[176] Here are a few of the notable moments.
[177] I believe if my doctor believes that I'm fit to serve, and that's what I believe is appropriate.
[178] And now with two weeks before the election, I have run the campaign, and I've been very transparent about being very open, about the fact where I use captioning.
[179] And I believe that, again, my doctors, the real doctors that I believe, and they all believe that I'm ready to be served.
[180] Follow up.
[181] I didn't hear you say you would release your full medical records.
[182] Why not?
[183] You have 30 seconds.
[184] No, again, my Dr. L. believes that I'm fit to be serving, and that's what I believe is where I'm standing.
[185] Fetterman also painted Oz as out of touch with middle and lower -income voters.
[186] And how can a man, you know, with ten gigantic mansions, you know, has, I'm willing to talk about a willing wage for anybody?
[187] Imagine a signal mom trying with two children trying to raise with them.
[188] At one point, he seemed to give a confusing answer about his stance.
[189] on fracking.
[190] Mr. Oz, I do want to clarify something.
[191] You're saying tonight that you support fracking, that you've always supported fracking, but there is that 2018 interview that you said, quote, I don't support fracking at all.
[192] So how do you square the two?
[193] I do support fracking and I don't, I don't, I support fracking and I stand and I do support fracking.
[194] Thanks for listening to Morning Wire.
[195] For more on the debates and their impact on the races, look for the new episode of Election Wire airing this Sunday, and check back this afternoon for our afternoon update.
[196] Thanks for tuning in.