Morning Wire XX
[0] I'm Daily Wire, editor -in -chief John Bickley, with Georgia Howl.
[1] It's Tuesday, July 11th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update.
[2] The 31 NATO countries are meeting in Lithuania for the organization's annual summit to discuss a range of issues, including whether or not Ukraine should be allowed into NATO, and what message the alliance will send to Ukraine as it battles Russia.
[3] Monday evening, the NATO Secretary General said, quote, I am absolutely certain that we will have unity and a strong message on Ukraine.
[4] However, Tuesday morning, Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky slammed NATO for not moving faster to welcome his country into the alliance and for setting no clear timetable as to when it will be allowed in.
[5] Vermont Governor Phil Scott told reporters Tuesday that widespread flooding still threatens his state after torrential rains triggered flash floods.
[6] The state's capital is bracing for even more catastrophic flooding as a major dam near the city could give way to floodwaters, causing even more damage.
[7] President Biden has already approved Scott's Emergency Disaster Declaration, opening up federal funding for the state.
[8] Make no mistake.
[9] The devastation and flooding we're experiencing across Vermont is historic and catastrophic.
[10] Flood waters continue to rise in some places like our capital city and have surpassed levels seen during the tropical storm Irene.
[11] The good news is the rain is in some areas, but that does not mean waters will immediately receive.
[12] So far, crews in Vermont have rescued over 100 people from their homes and cars.
[13] Former President Trump's legal team is calling for a delay in the classified documents trial until after the 2024 election.
[14] Trump's lawyers said in a court filing Monday night, quote, proceeding to trial during the pendency of a presidential election cycle, wherein opposing candidates are effectively, if not literally, directly adverse to one another in this action will create extraordinary challenges in the jury selection process and limit the defendant's ability to secure a fair and impartial adjudication.
[15] The Pentagon announced this week that the last of the U .S. chemical weapons stockpile was destroyed last week at a Kentucky munitions plant.
[16] Here with more as Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
[17] In 1986, Congress ordered the destruction of America's chemical weapons, and over a decade later, the U .S. joined 192 countries in the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, requiring the weapons complete elimination by September 30th of this year.
[18] Chemical weapons were first used on a large scale in the trenches of Europe during World War I, causing horrifying deaths through suffocation and devastating the nervous system.
[19] Here's part of how the government destroys these weapons, as described by Kingston Reef, a Defense Department arms control expert.
[20] The munitions are drained of the agent, and the agent is ultimately neutralized to a much lower level of toxicity, such that is no longer a mustard agent.
[21] And then the plant also destroys the mustard munitions via what are called static detonation chambers, which heat the munitions to the full weapon to very high temperatures and destroy them via thermal destruction.
[22] At its peak, America's chemical weapons stockpile reached 30 ,000 metric tons requiring the country to take decades to destroy the weapons while seeking the safest way to eliminate the chemical agents.
[23] A watchdog group on Monday filed a complaint against President Biden's nominee for joint chief of staffs chairman over his previous comments on diversity.
[24] Daily Wire writer Tim Meads has the story.
[25] The American Accountability Foundation filed a complaint against Air Force General CQ Brown over his promotion of, quote, race -based hiring ahead of a Senate hearing on Tuesday to consider his nomination.
[26] That complaint cites comments Brown has made about hiring, quote, for diversity and referring to the military as a white boys club.
[27] I purposely built my office, my front office, my team was diverse, and I hire for diversity.
[28] And in Oregon County's controversial plan to distribute tin foil and straws for fentanyl users and glass pipes for meth and crack users has been halted.
[29] The pause comes after Portland's mayor and other officials sounded the alarm over the new program.
[30] In a statement to KGWTV, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Peterson said, quote, our health department went forward with this proposal without proper implementation protocols.
[31] And in that light, I am suspending the program pending further analysis.
[32] Those are your drive home updates this afternoon.
[33] To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire .com.
[34] And for more in -depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to the latest full episode of Morning Wire every morning.