Morning Wire XX
[0] The American West is running out of water, and seven Western states are under the gun to strike a deal to share what's left.
[1] Why has the issue become so contentious and what happens if the states can't reach a deal?
[2] I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor -in -Chief John Bickley.
[3] It's Thursday, February 2nd, and this is Morning Wire.
[4] The FBI conducted a search Wednesday on President Biden's House in Rahobith Beach.
[5] This, as reports reveal, that the National Armed.
[6] archives were blocked from telling the public that classified documents were found back in November.
[7] We have the details.
[8] And the city of Seattle is being overrun by homelessness and drugs.
[9] They set up a tent.
[10] Immediately the first reaction for most people will be, oh, they're homeless.
[11] Let's leave them alone.
[12] We speak to a journalist covering the dual crises.
[13] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[14] Stay tuned.
[15] We have the news you need to know.
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[23] Seven Western states are working against the clock to strike a deal to divvy up dwindling water reserves from the Colorado River Basin.
[24] If the states can't work out a deal amongst themselves, the federal government says it will force a deal on them.
[25] Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to give us the latest on the Colorado River Basin and the negotiations on how to manage it.
[26] So, Tim, what's the issue?
[27] Well, a decades -long drought plus population growth.
[28] The American West is going through a period of rising temperatures and less rainfall.
[29] And as the land dries up, that's put a predictable strain on water resources.
[30] At the same time, the number of people living out West has grown a lot in 100 years and the demand for water along with it.
[31] And the legal framework, even though it's changed a lot over a century, is still based on an agreement that seemed a lot more promising in the 1920s.
[32] The river can't keep up with the current demand for water, so the federal government is pressuring the basin states to cut how much water they use.
[33] No small cuts either.
[34] The Department of the Interior has asked the seven basin states to collectively cut their water.
[35] allotments by 20 to 40 percent.
[36] Now, how are water rights currently determined?
[37] Western water law is pretty complicated, especially when it deals with water that crosses states' lines, or in this case, seven states' lines.
[38] But the gist is this.
[39] The Colorado basin is split into two halves, an upper basin consisting of parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and a lower basin with Arizona, California, and Nevada.
[40] Under a 1922 agreement, each half was guaranteed 7 .5 million acre feet of water from the Colorado River, and that allocation has remained essentially unchanged for 100 years.
[41] The federal government has demanded a roughly 20 % cut at the minimum to that 15 million acre feet total.
[42] Now, the upper basin states say they can't really cut from their allotment because the fact is that the drought has effectively cut their allotment by half already.
[43] They haven't been able to draw what they've been legally entitled to for a while because the water simply doesn't exist.
[44] That leaves the lower basin states, which really means Arizona and California, since Nevada doesn't use much water comparatively.
[45] Those two states are making a couple different arguments about how to divvy up the cuts, obviously trying to look after their own residence first.
[46] But the states are so far apart from agreement and there is so much at stake that it's unlikely that a consensus deal with all seven states has reached.
[47] Now, how close are they to reaching a deal or how close have they gotten?
[48] Earlier this week, they got six out of the seven with just California dissenting.
[49] The federal government gave them a January 31st deadline to reach agreement, and we've obviously blown past that.
[50] The same thing happened last year, and the Interior Department can only give the state so many chances before it'll be forced to craft a deal of its own and cram that down on the states whether they like it or not.
[51] The deal that failed this week offered cuts across the board, but also said that evaporation and runoff from transportation should be taken into account when totaling state's total water usage.
[52] Now, California is farthest downstream, so a deal like that affects it a lot more.
[53] Well, California didn't like that deal and says that based on the legal history of the Colorado basin, it has primary rights to the water because its claims to the Colorado were made first.
[54] So on legal grounds, the other state should have to cut first before California's allotment is even touched.
[55] After blowing past another deadline for an agreement, though, it's looking more likely that the federal government initiates the nuclear option and forces the states to agree to some plan to cut whether they like it or not.
[56] Expect strict regulations on water usage, farms to lose irrigation and run fallow, and generally a lot of pain for people who have built their lives around this river.
[57] All right.
[58] Well, Tim, thanks so much for reporting.
[59] Thank you.
[60] That was Daily Wires, Tim Pierce.
[61] Coming up, the FBI searches President Biden's private residence in Rahobit Beach.
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[70] FBI agents searched President Biden's home in Rojoboth Beach, Delaware on Wednesday, as part of a search for classified documents.
[71] That makes three known locations where searches have taken place in recent months.
[72] And now reports say that the National Archives were blocked from telling the public about the classified documents back in November.
[73] Joining us to discuss as Daily Wire Senior Reporter Daniel Chaiton.
[74] Hi, Daniel.
[75] So first, what do we know about this new search and what does this mean for the investigation?
[76] Well, this late new search shows that the Justice Department's investigation is expanding.
[77] Biden's personal attorney, Bob Bauer, released a statement Wednesday morning, announcing what he called quote, planned search at the president's beach house in Rahobith, where Biden spent the weekend a couple weeks back, by the way.
[78] Bauer put out a second statement after the search, announcing that no documents with classified markings were found at the property.
[79] However, he also noted the DOJ took some materials and had written notes that appeared to relate to Biden's time as vice president for further review.
[80] Okay, so no materials marked, classified, but some documents of interest.
[81] This latest search seems to have come out of nowhere.
[82] Do we know if this was a surprise to Biden to?
[83] Well, not according to Biden's attorney, Bauer.
[84] He said the search was planned ahead of time and in accordance with the agency's standard procedures.
[85] Now, we have seen a bit of a pattern in which the media and the public are in this constant game of a catch -up.
[86] That includes CBS News revealing just this week on Tuesday that federal investigators searched Biden's office at the Penn Biden Center months ago after Biden's legal team reported finding classified material there.
[87] Classified documents have also been found at Biden's home in Roebuth, and some of them date as far back as Biden's time as a senator.
[88] Right, so 14, 15 years ago.
[89] Meanwhile, we now have reports that the National Archives were actually blocked from revealing that the classified documents were found at the Biden Think Tech back in November.
[90] What do we know so far about this?
[91] Well, not much, but Congressman James Comer, who's the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is trying to get to the bottom of it.
[92] He said his panel conducted an interview at the National Archives General Counsel, and they learned the agency had prepared a statement on classified documents found at the think tank only to be blocked by the Justice Department.
[93] If you recall, we've been told the documents were discovered in early November, days before the 2022 midterm elections, but that discovery was only disclosed to the public last month.
[94] Here's Comer demanding answers during an interview Tuesday night on Fox.
[95] Nothing that Joe Biden's done with respect to Mr. handling these classified documents as normal, take into consideration that he's also being investigated for influence peddling with our adversaries around the world, and it's even more concerning.
[96] Have there been any other reactions from Congress to all this?
[97] Quite a bit, actually.
[98] The Senate Intelligence Committee was outraged last week, saying there were being, quote, stonewalled by intelligence officials after they received a briefing.
[99] The Justice Department followed up with a letter to committee leaders saying it's working with the Director of National Intelligence to give them something.
[100] Meanwhile, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter last month demanding a wide range of records and communications from the DOJ as well as the White House.
[101] The response he got was largely a rejection, which sets the stage for possible subpoenas.
[102] Jordan actually told CNN last week that lawmakers are, quote, definitely looking at asking for documents via subpoena.
[103] So, see where this goes.
[104] That sounds like there's more action coming from the GOP on this.
[105] Danny, thanks for joining us.
[106] was Daily Wire Senior Reporter, Daniel Chathen.
[107] Despite a recent crackdown, Seattle has been unable to get ahead of the growing homelessness and drug trade crisis.
[108] Joining us to discuss is Discovery Institute's senior fellow Jonathan Cho.
[109] Jonathan, thanks so much for coming on.
[110] So you're a veteran reporter in Seattle, and you're one of the few journalists who's been covering homelessness in Washington State.
[111] Can you just give us a broad overview of what you've observed happening there over the past five years or so?
[112] Well, it's a homeless crisis for sure.
[113] And I've only been in Seattle now for three years.
[114] But this has been going on before I even arrived to the city.
[115] And as we all know, COVID exacerbated everything.
[116] And there are also a lot of ongoing policies, quite frankly, that have just not been working.
[117] And one of them is something called Housing First.
[118] They basically say that stabilizing a homeless person, And then offering them services and helping them get better is the solution.
[119] Problem with that model is none of that is required.
[120] No requirements for addiction or a treatment.
[121] No requirements for mental health treatment.
[122] So what you're basically doing is housing a bunch of people and trying to build your way out of the problem, but all you're doing is moving the problems indoors out of sight, out of mind.
[123] Now, is this primarily affecting the downtown area?
[124] Well, this has always been in kind of the greater Seattle area, but you're starting to see it in kind of the outer ring suburbs now as well.
[125] But you have this industrial area called Soto, and there are RVs and tent encampments constantly popping up there.
[126] And once they're cleared or removed, they just simply move right back.
[127] But the problem is there is no plan or strategy in place to get in front of these encampments before they spiral out of control.
[128] So in other words, when one or two show up, it could be three, weeks to a month before the next sweep comes in.
[129] And by then, that encampments now 10, 15, 20, 10s.
[130] So it sounds like the new administration is cracking down on the homeless encampments.
[131] Would you say that citizens are broadly supportive of the city's current homeless management?
[132] Yes, absolutely.
[133] The mayor is now entering his second year in office, and by all accounts, the vast majority of Seattle still supports him.
[134] And while the vast majority of the reasonable people support the mayor and want them to be more aggressive with these homeless encampment removals.
[135] You actually have the fringe minority group of sort of these far left activists, groups like Stop the Sweep Seattle that are now undercutting the mayor's homeless strategy.
[136] The mayor is trying to encourage these homeless people to go into the shelter options available, but these activists are taking the homeless, putting all of their stuff in vans and cars, and moving them literally down the block.
[137] And the mayor can't do anything about that because that's perfectly legal right now.
[138] Now, you've reported that these tent cities don't necessarily always house homeless people, but are instead sometimes used as fronts for drug trade.
[139] How does that work?
[140] Yeah, that's been the worst kept secret in Seattle.
[141] So I go to these homeless encampment sweeps all the time.
[142] And at pretty much every encampment, the majority of people are doing drugs.
[143] And the drug of choice right now in the streets is fentanyl.
[144] And I've gone into these tents where they're showing me bags of blue pills, known as blues, you know, laced with fentanyl.
[145] So they openly say, yeah, of course I'm dealing drugs out here.
[146] And it's not just drugs.
[147] It's stolen merchandise, bottles of beer, clothing.
[148] But in many cases, a lot of these folks on the streets, they're not homeless.
[149] They have homes.
[150] Again, they're just using these as fronts and covers because at the end of the day, law enforcement can't go in and investigate this.
[151] These tents, based on city council laws, these are literally treated as dwellings.
[152] You need a warrant to go into these tents.
[153] So it's this vicious cycle that is ongoing and there's no end in sight.
[154] All right.
[155] Well, Jonathan, thanks so much for coming on.
[156] Thank you.
[157] That was Discovery Institute Senior Fellow, Jonathan Cho.
[158] Other stories we're tracking this week.
[159] A federal judge tightened Sam Bankman -Fried's bail conditions Wednesday, after SBF sent a text message to a former top executive of his failed crypto exchange FTX.
[160] The judge said the text was a, quote, material threat of inappropriate contact with prospective witnesses.
[161] SBF is barred from contacting current or former employees of FTX before a hearing next week.
[162] More layoffs have been announced in the tech industry as the cloud software business workday is going to slash hundreds of jobs firing around 3 % of its employee base.
[163] PayPal also announced.
[164] It announced Tuesday that it would cut 2 ,000 jobs or 7 % of its workforce.
[165] That's all the time we've got this morning.
[166] Thanks for waking up with us.
[167] We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
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