Morning Wire XX
[0] Months after a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration is still facing tough questions about the fallout and the human costs of their exit strategy.
[1] Why are some critics accusing the president of shirking accountability for the failures?
[2] And how are the citizens of Afghanistan faring now that the Taliban is back in power?
[3] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley.
[4] It's Thursday, December 16th, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] Police say teens are using apps like Snapchat to organize flash mob robberies.
[6] What does Snapchat have to say about the phenomenon?
[7] And are some Democrat politicians finally starting to take this trend seriously?
[8] And the NFL becomes one of the first organizations to require a third vaccine shot after 37 players test positive for COVID.
[9] Who will be mandated to get a booster?
[10] And why are players exempted?
[11] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[12] Stay tuned.
[13] We have the news you need to know.
[14] This show is sponsored by Birch Gold Group.
[15] Inflation is destroying the dollar.
[16] Birch Gold Group can help protect your IRA or 401k with a precious metals IRA.
[17] Text wire to 9 -9 -8 -98 -9 -98 to claim a free info kit on physical gold and silver.
[18] There's zero obligation.
[19] Text the word wire to 9 -8 -98 -98 to protect your savings today.
[20] Following the U .S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration is still experiencing widespread criticism.
[21] How is President Biden addressing this criticism?
[22] And what is the latest from Afghanistan following the August withdrawal?
[23] Here to discuss is Daily Wire's Ian Howarth.
[24] So, Ian, first off, tell us about President Biden's strategy when it comes to these tanking poll numbers we've seen since pulling the troops out in August.
[25] Well, just several months after overseeing a widely criticized withdrawal from Afghanistan, the president appears to be distancing himself from accountability regarding the human cost of the withdrawal.
[26] For example, on the subject of the 13 U .S. service members who were killed during an ISIS -K terrorist attack in the chaos outside the Kabul airport during the last few days of the U .S. evacuation, Biden argued that casualties were effectively inevitable.
[27] Everybody says you could have gotten out without anybody being hurt.
[28] No one's come up in the way never indicate to me how that happens.
[29] White House press secretary Jan Saki also had a feet held to the fire over the administration's foreign policy and refused to answer the question.
[30] So I would ask you, what does the administration consider your biggest achievement in foreign policy in this first year?
[31] And also what lessons have you learned from what is arguably the biggest failure, which is Afghanistan?
[32] You know, this is a great question.
[33] I want to be thoughtful about it.
[34] I want to talk to the president about it.
[35] And I'm happy to do that.
[36] And when she was asked about the Americans who are still stranded in Afghanistan, Saki tried to lord the numbers of Americans who have left since August, even though the numbers are far larger than the 100 to 200 by and discussed at the time.
[37] and when she was questioned on the administration's knowledge of Americans in the country, she tried to deflect with a joke.
[38] The United States does not track or put a tracker on American citizens traveling overseas, whether they're in Afghanistan or any country around the world.
[39] That would be quite a Fox News story, wouldn't it be, if we did that?
[40] We don't do that.
[41] And finally, when it comes to action from the Pentagon under President Biden, it was recently announced that there will be no punishment for officials responsible for a drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians in August, including seven children.
[42] John Kirby, who's the Pentagon Press Secretary, was asked on MSNBC if he understood the public reaction to the idea that, quote, you can get away with murder and nobody's punished for it.
[43] I do understand that.
[44] We appreciate that not everybody's going to support this decision.
[45] What I can tell you is we looked at this thing very, very comprehensively, and again, we acknowledged that there were procedural breakdowns.
[46] Processes were not executed the way they should have been, but it doesn't necessarily indicate that it, individual or individuals have to be held to account for that.
[47] So there seems to be a pretty consistent attempt to avoid responsibility for this withdrawal.
[48] What about what's going on in Afghanistan today?
[49] What do we have in terms of updates?
[50] Well, as we've discussed before, the people of Afghanistan are now living under truly dire circumstances.
[51] There's been a return of sex slavery, abuse of women in all areas of life, and the threat of complete economic collapse.
[52] What's pretty absurd here is that Afghanistan's foreign minister under the Taliban gave a rare interview and asked the Biden administration to show, quote, mercy and compassion and release $10 billion in frozen funds.
[53] And while the Taliban minister said that this money would be used to help the millions of Afghan citizens who are in desperate need, it's fairly obvious at this point that these funds, if Biden did unfreeze them, would go to no one else but the Taliban.
[54] Right.
[55] It's a tough situation because things really are desperate over there.
[56] It's one of the world's poorest countries.
[57] But the Taliban have shown time and again they really can't be trusted.
[58] Yeah, that's for sure.
[59] Ian, thanks for reporting.
[60] That's DailyWire's Ian Howarth.
[61] Coming up, police say thieves are using Snapchat to organize large -scale robberies.
[62] You can get this show and all of the content you love, wherever you are, all on the Daily Wire app.
[63] Even if you're not a Daily Wire member, you'll be first to know what's trending with mobile notifications for the latest news, and you'll get content from all your favorite Daily Wire shows.
[64] Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you.
[65] Retail outlets in cities like San Francisco and Minneapolis have been hit by a wave of smash -and -grab robberies, with young adults and teens reportedly using apps like Snapchat to coordinate the crimes.
[66] Here to explain more about this new form of organized retail theft is Daily Wire Entertainment reporter Megan Basham.
[67] So, Megan, like a lot of people, I've been seeing these videos of huge groups of young people flooding into stores and grabbing everything off the shelves.
[68] and before this month, I didn't realize that this phenomenon had a name.
[69] Well, yeah, and that's understandable because this is a pretty new thing.
[70] Organized retail theft has been officially on the book since 2008, but what law enforcement are describing as a kind of flash mob stealing is a new development.
[71] So what they're seeing is that a large group of anywhere from 40 to a few hundred thieves will swarm the store all at once.
[72] They smash windows and very quickly grab as much merchandise as they can.
[73] And what they'll then do is turn around and try to sell it online.
[74] Now, we've seen this sort of thing before in riots.
[75] For example, many people will remember the stores on Madison Avenue in New York being cleared out during those BLM riots of 2020.
[76] Well, the difference here is the robberies are reportedly being pre -announced on social media apps like Snapchat.
[77] The thieves like that platform in particular, because messages will disappear after a short period of time.
[78] So police say someone will announce a target and a time, and groups of kids see those messages and just show up.
[79] Wow.
[80] So as you might expect, a lot of stores that carry high -end goods like Nordstrom, Louis Vuitton, Best Buy, Lulu Lemon, all of those are getting hit.
[81] But so are more, let's say, humble stores, like Walgreens.
[82] So apps like Snapchat are inadvertently facilitating this.
[83] Have they made any public comments on it?
[84] Well, a spokeswoman for SNAP Inc said despite what law enforcement is reporting, the company itself isn't finding evidence of organized crime on its app.
[85] But she added that if it does, those users will be in violation of the terms of service.
[86] Now, in terms of lawmakers, what's their response been?
[87] Well, so far, this is somewhat localized to a handful of cities.
[88] And what these locations have in common is left -wing leadership.
[89] Now, despite that, most left -wing politicians have seemed pretty reluctant to address the issue.
[90] Last week, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez downplayed the trend.
[91] She told the Washington Times, quoting here, a lot of these allegations of organized retail theft are not actually panning out.
[92] Other Democrat leaders have suggested retailers themselves are at fault.
[93] This was Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot's recent response when she was asked about it at a recent press conference.
[94] Some of the retailers downtown in Michigan Avenue, I will tell you, I'm disappointed that they're not doing more to take safety and make it a priority.
[95] For example, we still have retailers that won't institute plans like having security officers in their stores, locking up their merchandise at night.
[96] Yeah, I mean, I can see why people were not happy with that response.
[97] No, and the Biden administration seems to be realizing that.
[98] The White House press secretary Jen Saki has blamed the pandemic as a, quote, root cause of the crime wave.
[99] When she was asked about Lightfoot and AOC's comments, she took pains to distance the president from them.
[100] Well, we don't agree.
[101] And I think our actions and the work that we have had in working with the Justice Department, the FBI and federal law enforcement show that we take, we've seen some of these extremely disturbing videos showing retail thefts and both major retailers as well as state and local leaders like Governor Newsom have identified this as a serious concern.
[102] Right.
[103] Well, I guess the main question now is what are they?
[104] going to do about it.
[105] Yeah, they haven't been real specific about that, so I guess we have to wait and see.
[106] Megan, thanks for reporting.
[107] Of course, anytime.
[108] That's Daily Wire Entertainment reporter, Megan Basham.
[109] On Monday, the National Football League became one of the first corporations to mandate COVID vaccine boosters for its employees.
[110] Here to explain more about the new requirement is Daily Wire sports reporter Joe Morgan.
[111] Joe, can you give us the details regarding the NFL's new booster shot requirement?
[112] Yeah, of course.
[113] So just to take a quick step.
[114] back, the NFL reported their highest number of positive COVID cases on Monday with 37 cases.
[115] Many teams are being impacted by players landing in COVID protocols.
[116] The protocols does kind of depend whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated, but it means that you are not allowed to practice or play with the team until you've either been away for a certain amount of days or tested negative.
[117] Tuesday, eight Cleveland Browns were placed in protocols and nine L .A. Ram players were also put into the NFL protocols.
[118] The league appears to be dealing with a COVID outbreak is really what we're saying.
[119] So Monday night, the NFL released a memo outlining that all Tier 1 and Tier 2 staff members must receive COVID -19 booster shots by December 27th in order to be effectively be considered fully vaccinated.
[120] The Tier 1 staff includes coaches and trainers, while the Tier 2 are front office members in football operation staff.
[121] Were these staff members already required to be fully vaccinated?
[122] Yeah, they were.
[123] So all NFL staff that come into contact with players are required to be fully vaccinated in order to keep their status as, quote, fully vaccinated, a boost.
[124] will be needed by the 27th of December.
[125] There is no vaccine mandate for players.
[126] I do want to make sure that we know that.
[127] It will be required for any individual that received their second Pfizer or Moderna shot to complete their primary vaccine series more than six months earlier or two months earlier if they received the Johnson and Johnson.
[128] The league is allowing an exemption for those who have high levels of antibodies and for those who have either tested positive for COVID -19 or receive monoclonal antibodies in the past 90 days.
[129] Okay, so some natural immunity exemptions.
[130] Yeah, which we have not seen all that much in the past.
[131] No, is COVID impacting other leagues or just the NFL?
[132] No, it's basically impacting all leagues at the moment.
[133] On Monday, the NBA announced that the next two Chicago Bulls games will be postponed due to 10 Chicago players being placed in the NBA's health and safety protocols.
[134] Last week, Chicago star, DeMarrozen, was entered into the NBA's protocols prior to Monday's matchup against the Denver Nuggets.
[135] Over the weekend, four more Bulls players were made unavailable.
[136] Stanley Johnson and Zach Levine were two of the players that were put into the protocols.
[137] They joined Kobe White, Javante Green, DeRosen, Matt Thomas, and Derek Jones, Jr. Tuesday night, Brooklyn net star James Hardin was entered into the NBA's health and safety protocols, making seven nets unavailable for Tuesday night's game versus the Toronto Raptors.
[138] The NHL had to postpone its Tuesday night game between the Calgary Flames and the Chicago Blackhawk.
[139] So really, it is spreading throughout all sports at the moment.
[140] Well, this is obviously a notable development in the NFL, as this is the most high -profile example of a corporation requiring boosters.
[141] Yeah, it is.
[142] I'm sure we'll have you on shortly for more updates.
[143] Thanks, Joe.
[144] Yeah, thanks, John.
[145] That was Daily Wire Sports Reporter, Joe Morgan.
[146] Other stories we're tracking this week.
[147] New York State's top ethics panel ordered Andrew Cuomo to pay the state $5 .1 million, which they argue he earned unethically while promoting his book, American Crisis, leadership lessons from the COVID -19 pandemic, while in office.
[148] The panel had approved Cuomo's ability to earn outside income from the book while in office, but in the past month revoked that approval.
[149] The panel now claims Cuomo violated pledges not to use state resources while producing the book.
[150] O .J. Simpson is officially a free man. According to a statement by his lawyer Tuesday, the 74 -year -old former football star turned murder suspect was discharged from parole at the beginning of December.
[151] Simpson has been living in a gated community in Las Vegas since his release from prison in 2017.
[152] Simpson was serving a sentence for crimes unrelated to the 1995 murders of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman.
[153] And Croker is ending some of its benefits for unvaccinated workers, such as paid emergency leave for two weeks if they get COVID, unless local policies obligate otherwise.
[154] According to the Wall Street Journal, it will also add a $50 monthly surcharge to the company health plan for some workers who are unvaccinated.
[155] If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening, and give us a five -star review.
[156] That's all the time we've got this morning.
[157] Thanks for waking up with us.
[158] We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.
[159] If you like this podcast, subscribe to our Morning Wire newsletter, available exclusively to Daily Wire members.
[160] Get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at DailyWire .com slash subscribe.
[161] Use code MorningWire to try a Reader's Pass membership and get your first month for only 99 cents.