Morning Wire XX
[0] Elon Musk informs Twitter that he's pulling the plug on their $44 billion deal, but Twitter's embattled board says they're not letting him back out.
[1] Can Musk get out of the deal?
[2] And how will the move impact Twitter's already teetering stock value?
[3] I'm Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[4] It's Monday, July 11th, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] Amid pressure from Democrats to take action after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, President Biden issued an executive order aimed at providing access to abortion.
[6] Does the order do enough to satisfy his own party, and will the measures stand?
[7] And the Labor Department releases the latest jobs report, and there's good news and bad news for the U .S. economy.
[8] We break down the numbers.
[9] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[10] Stay tuned.
[11] We have the news you need to know.
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[19] Just months after announcing his intention to buy Twitter for $44 billion, Tesla founder Elon Musk says he's terminating the deal.
[20] Now, the tech giant says they'll sue Musk to enforce the merger, setting up a legal showdown of epic proportions.
[21] Here were the latest on why the deal collapsed and how Twitter is hoping to preserve it is Daily Wire's senior editor Cabot Phillips.
[22] Cabot, let's start with a quick refresher on the deal and why Musk wants to pull out.
[23] So we all remember back in April when Elon Musk confirmed that he'd be paying $44 billion to take over Twitter and, in his words, make it the true home of free speech.
[24] Well, pretty quickly after that, things started to go downhill.
[25] Musk began publicly questioning the legitimacy of claims being made by Twitter leadership, and things came to ahead on Friday when Musk announced the deal was off because, quote, Twitter has not complied with his contractual obligations.
[26] Essentially, Musk says that Twitter has failed to provide him insight into the inner workings of the business, and he says he won't hand over $44 billion, you know, without some more assurances of the company's legitimacy.
[27] It is a lot of money.
[28] Exactly.
[29] What specifically are the concerns Musk has raised?
[30] Yeah, the main issue of contention appears to be just how many bot accounts are on the platform.
[31] Twitter has publicly claimed that only 5 % of their users are fake, but Musk has expressed doubt over those claims because the data they used to come up with the 5 % number is private to Twitter.
[32] Musk says that they're probably lying about the real number, which he thinks could be as high as 25%, and says he won't move forward until there's clear proof to the contrary.
[33] And he says he never got that proof.
[34] According to Musk attorney Mike Ringler, Twitter has ignored or rejected his request for information.
[35] information.
[36] And in some cases, they've, quote, claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information.
[37] And that was enough to get Musk to back out.
[38] That and a few other things.
[39] Musk is also accusing Twitter of breaching their merger agreement by providing false claims about the platform to the public.
[40] He even went as far as accusing Twitter of falsifying public disclosures, which obviously would be illegal.
[41] He also said the company fired a number of high -ranking executives without his permission and made fundamental changes to the platform after the deal had been agreed upon.
[42] That's important because he says that would be a breach of contract.
[43] And some of those are pretty serious.
[44] Yeah, they really are.
[45] How is Twitter responding to all this?
[46] They're standing firm right now.
[47] They've made it clear they plan on forcing must to go through with the deal.
[48] They're essentially saying that he may not love what he's seeing, but that he signed on the dotted line.
[49] And if he backs out, it'll be a breach of contract in his own right.
[50] To that point, the company says it's planning legal action against him and will file a lawsuit to try and force to deal through in court.
[51] And Musk is on the line for a billion dollars, correct?
[52] Right.
[53] Yeah.
[54] If he pulls out, there's a billion dollar termination fee.
[55] So what do we expect to see in this legal battle?
[56] It's going to be massive.
[57] There's no question about it.
[58] Now, typically in cases like this, you can sort of predict how the court will rule based on similar cases in the past, but that's not really possible here because there simply is no precedent for this happening with a deal this large, especially not with this type of contract.
[59] Musk is expected to claim the company lied to him about what they were offering, which we talked about before.
[60] And there's also a good chance he'll point to the company's declining stock price as further reason for backing out.
[61] Keep in mind, when the deal was first announced, Twitter stock soared to $51 and $70 a share, but since then it's fallen to $36 .81.
[62] Does that strategy appear likely to work?
[63] So again, we don't really know right now because we haven't seen anything on the scale, but there are a good number of legal experts who say that Musk is going to be fighting an uphill battle.
[64] Mainly because there have been so few instances of buyers being able to successfully back out at this point in a deal.
[65] For example, Professor Zohar Goshen at Columbia Law School told the Wall Street Journal that typically for a buyer to pull out in a deal like this, the business would have had to have lost at least half its value, which is not the case here.
[66] Others have also pointed out that Musk's argument about Twitter not providing him enough information to answer his questions on bots may not hold up in court because the contract technically only requires Twitter to provide whatever.
[67] information is reasonably required, which is obviously subjective.
[68] And even if Musk does succeed in pulling out of the deal, there's still a good chance he'll have to pay that $1 billion termination fee we mentioned earlier.
[69] So buckle up.
[70] We are in for a long, intense legal battle.
[71] It was a lot of money on the line here in the future of one of the world's biggest platforms.
[72] Indeed.
[73] Thanks for reporting, Cabot.
[74] Anytime.
[75] That's Daily Wire's Senior Editor Cabot Phillips.
[76] Coming up, President Biden issues an executive order on abortion.
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[80] On Friday, President Biden issued an executive order aimed at providing access to abortion.
[81] Here to give us the details on that executive order is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.
[82] Now, Megan, I know the White House is facing a lot of pressure from Democrats to take action on abortion, but constitutionally, it seems like there's not much he can do.
[83] What does this order contain?
[84] Well, for the most part, it centers on making sure women who live in states where abortion is limited or banned can travel to states where abortion is legal to get access.
[85] So right now, nine states have banned most abortions.
[86] That includes Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
[87] So those are the nine.
[88] Other states have implemented new restrictions, and around 12 more are also looking at introducing new restrictions that will significantly limit abortion in the near future.
[89] Now, on the flip side, you have states like California and New York that have expanded abortion access.
[90] And then there's also states like Oregon that are already setting up funds to help women travel there where abortion is still legal.
[91] So what the Biden administration is doing is promising to ensure the safety of abortion patients and providers through actions like setting up mobile clinics near the borders of states restricting abortion access.
[92] It also seeks to convene private pro bono lawyers to offer support to those people who may be crossing state lines to get an abortion.
[93] It also directs Health and Human Services Secretary Javier Bacera to ensure women are able to order those FDA -approved abortions.
[94] medications.
[95] Now, the Biden administration is also calling on the Federal Trade Commission, an independent body, to consider taking steps to protect the privacy of people who are looking for information about abortion services.
[96] And finally, the order creates a new task force to just overall explore the issue.
[97] Here was President Biden speaking about the order on Friday.
[98] This is a choice.
[99] This is a moment, the moment, a moment to restore the rights that have been taken away from us, and the moment to protect our nation from the extremist agenda that is antithetical to everything we believe as Americans.
[100] Now, I'm going to sign this executive order.
[101] Now, is this going to be enough to satisfy Democrats in Congress?
[102] No, I don't think so.
[103] So what this order doesn't do is provide new abortion care funds in states where abortion is legal.
[104] It also doesn't provide resources for travel assistance, for women who want to go to other states to get abortion.
[105] And that's something that a lot of Democrats have been calling for.
[106] And then there's also been calls for the administration to allow abortion providers to set up clinics on federal property in states where abortion has been restricted.
[107] But so far, the White House has refused to do this, saying that it would have, quote, dangerous ramifications.
[108] So President Biden has responded to calls from Congress to do more to protect abortion access by pointing out that they're the branch of government with the power to codify abortion rights into law.
[109] But right now, they just don't have the votes.
[110] But there's no question about the fact that the president does not have the power to declare a nationwide right to an abortion.
[111] Now, what about expanding the court?
[112] We have heard that option floated before.
[113] Yes, we have.
[114] And you have to say that those calls are certainly growing.
[115] A number of prominent House Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez and Ilhan Omar.
[116] They are pushing the White House to make that move.
[117] Cortez said that Democrats at least need to try.
[118] And then you have New York City Democrat mayor, Eric Adams, saying this recently at a press conference.
[119] We need to balance out this court before they do more harm than what they've done thus far.
[120] So far, though, the president said that he does not agree with that outlook and he's not going to expand the court.
[121] All right.
[122] Well, we'll see if he sticks with that.
[123] Megan, thanks for reporting.
[124] Absolutely.
[125] Anytime.
[126] That was Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham.
[127] Department of Labor data released Friday, job growth was strong last month as 372 ,000 more workers began receiving paychecks.
[128] The unemployment rate remained steady at 3 .6%.
[129] Jobs numbers for April and May were both revised down in the latest jobs report, but still showed solid growth.
[130] Average hourly earnings over the past year have increased, but inflation is wiping out those gains.
[131] Here to break down the jobs report and what it has to say about the economy is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
[132] Hey Tim.
[133] So, what?
[134] What does the report tell us about jobs?
[135] Good morning, John.
[136] So the June jobs report showed the labor market continuing to recover after tens of millions of Americans were forced out of work over two years ago.
[137] The report was actually surprisingly good in that the number of jobs added was over 100 ,000 more than economists expected, though, as you noted, both April and May saw downward revisions.
[138] The good news about June has not seemed to diminish fears of an oncoming recession, however, and many economists seem to think that the downturn will hit sooner rather than later.
[139] Now, obviously, inflation is the concern here.
[140] What do the numbers tell us on that front?
[141] that it's still sky high.
[142] As you mentioned, the average hourly earnings have jumped up over the past year 5 .1%.
[143] But while that seems like good news for workers, you have to factor in that inflation over the past year has run hot at 8 .6%.
[144] That means that even though workers on average are seeing larger paychecks, the amount they're able to buy, especially in terms of things like groceries and gas, it's actually quite a bit less than what they could purchase a year ago.
[145] Also, while the economy continues to gain workers, we know from other data released last week that the U .S. still has over 11 million job openings that employers can't seem to find a way to fill.
[146] For reasons that aren't clear to many economists, there are still millions of people that were pushed out of the labor market at the start of the pandemic that have not yet decided to return.
[147] And so while the labor market continues to recover, many experts are actually asking, why isn't it doing better?
[148] Now, you mentioned fears of an impending recession.
[149] Does this new report alleviate that fear at all?
[150] Well, not much, really.
[151] Economists are still expecting the U .S. to enter a recession next year at the latest.
[152] That red -hot inflation number we've been over is the biggest problem for the Federal Reserve.
[153] And Reserve Chairman Jay Powell said he wants to bring that under control, even if it means driving the U .S. into recession.
[154] The Fed is expected to raise interest rates by another 75 basis points at its next meeting at the end of the month, which is a relatively big increase for the past few years.
[155] But that won't be nearly enough to bring inflation down.
[156] I spoke with Kenny Polkari, founder of Case Capital Advisors about this.
[157] Here's what he had to say.
[158] They're going to raise by 75 in July.
[159] They're going to raise by at least 50.
[160] in September, and I would say by another 50 in December to bring us closer to 3 .3 .5 to 3 .75 % by the end of the year, that might start to kind of dent it.
[161] But look, if we go back to 1970 and 1980, the last time this country was in this type of inflationary environment, Paul Volcker, who was then Fed Chair, had a jam rate well up and above the inflation rate in order to arrest it.
[162] My fear is that that could be the position the Fed is going to find itself in this time as well.
[163] Well, that's certainly good information to keep in mind.
[164] Tim, thanks for coming on.
[165] Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire reporter, Tim Pierce.
[166] Other stories we're tracking this week.
[167] Amid an economic crisis in Sri Lanka, in which millions of citizens have been unable to buy food, medicine, and fuel for months, thousands of protesters swarmed the president's home this weekend, demanding his resignation.
[168] The U .S. Army has indefinitely suspended a retired three -star general from a consulting position pending an investigation into a tweet.
[169] The tweet mocked a post by First Lady Jill Biden lamenting the overturning of Roe v. In May, Virginia Governor Glenn Yunkin announced that state employees must return to work in person.
[170] Since that time, at least 300 state employees have reportedly resigned.
[171] Just 2 % of children under the age of 5 have received a COVID -19 vaccine since, since the CDC recommended it for children as young as six months old.
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