Morning Wire - Arlington Campaign Messaging & Hamas Murders Hostages | 9.3.24

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Trump and Harris wage a war of words over the former President’s visit to Arlington, Hamas executes six hostages including an American citizen, and Brazil’s left-wing government deals a massive blow to free speech. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Balance of Nature: Get 35% off Your Order + FREE Fiber & Spice Supplements. Use promo code WIRE at checkout: https://www.balanceofnature.com/ Lumen: Get 15% off your Lumen at http://go.lumen.me/Wire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trump and Harris wage a messaging war over the former president's visit to Arlington last week as they remain neck and neck in the polls. Why won't you return a call and explain to us how you call my daughter-in-law's death a success? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, September 3rd, and this is Morning Wire. Hamas executes six hostages, including an American citizen. How will the murder's impact calls for a ceasefire and how is the Biden administration responding? And Brazil's left-wing government deals a massive blow to free speech after banning social media platform X countrywide. It appears that we're in the midst of a global totalitarian crackdown that we should all be

very concerned could arrive here in the United States. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Hey guys, producer Brandon here. Balance of Nature is my go-to source for whole food ingredients. Balance of Nature takes fruits and vegetables, they freeze dry them, turn them into a powder, and then they put them into a capsule. The capsules are completely void of additives, fillers, extracts, synthetics, pesticides, or added sugar.

The only thing of Balance of Nature fruit and veggie capsules are fruits and veggies capsules. So go to BalanceofNature.com and use promo code Wire for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer, plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's Balanceofnature.com promo code wire. With early voting nearly underway in a number of states, the 2024. presidential race is less than 10 weeks away. Here with the latest on the race for the White House is Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips-A-Cabbit. So another packed weekend on the campaign trail. How are things looking now? Well, with 62 days to go, this race has never been closer. If you look at polling numbers in the seven battleground states, the average spread between

Harrison Trump is get this, 0.6%. Neither candidate has more than even a 2% lead in any of those battleground states, meaning this is a true toss-up. Now, Republicans are optimistic because polling did not really show any sort of meaningful bump for Harris coming out of the DNC. If anything, it was Donald Trump actually gaining some ground this week. They also point to the fact that polls have since 2016 underestimated the number of Trump voters. Now, for their part, Democrats believe Harris' most likely path to victory runs through the Rust Belt. Remember, if either candidate sweeps Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, they will take the White House. And while Harris is doing relatively well in Michigan and Wisconsin,

Trump has been showing signs of momentum in Pennsylvania. In response, the Harris campaign held an event there Monday night, where she was notably flanked for the first time on the trail by the man she replaced on the ticket, Joe Biden. Here she is in Pittsburgh last night. It's going to be a tight race to the very end. So let's not pay too much attention to those polls. Because as unions and labor knows best,

we know what it's like to be the underdog. And we are the underdog in this race. And it's worth noting. The fact Harris has waited this long to utilize the sitting president on the trail tells you Democrats are well aware of how unpopular he is. The Harris campaign has really been doing everything possible to tout her record as VP without reminding voters whose administration that she's been serving in for the last three and half years.

Right. Now this weekend we saw a significant dust up between the Harris and Trump campaigns regarding the anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal. What happened there? Yeah, as we reported last week, President Trump appeared at Arlington National Cemetery for a ceremony honoring the 13 Americans killed at Abbey Gate. After that event, he was invited by some of the Gold Star families in attendance to visit the gravesites of their children. And photos and videos of Trump consoling those families quickly went viral online, which drew outrage from Vice President Harris and the legacy media, who accused Trump of disrespecting fallen service members with his presence and with the pictures and videos that were taken.

Harris released a statement on social media Saturday, accusing Trump of, quote, disrespecting sacred ground all for the sake of a political stunt. But within hours, Trump responded by posting video testimonials from eight family members of those killed during the bot's withdrawal. And they had a unified message for Vice President Harris. Our kids were murdered because of your administration. You were not at Dover for the dignified transfer, and no time have you reached out to me to offer your condolences, to offer thank you for Karim's sacrifice and service. You have 13 families who have been waiting over three years to so much as get a phone call, to so much as hear our kids' names, settle out. You failed for three years and eight months to acknowledge our kids.

Where were you and Joe Biden on August 26, 2024? Nowhere near Arlington Cemetery. Those Gold Star family members then went on to refute Harris' accusation that Trump was politicizing the deaths of their children. We invited him to be there. These are the only memories we get to make with our son. And it is you who is playing politics and trying to detract from our memories made that day. President Trump has been there for us. He's been a rock for us.

He showed compassion for us. And he showed he truly cares for the families that truly do. know what the ultimate sacrifice really is. For their part, the Trump campaign also released a new ad this week, reminding voters of the VP's role in the Afghanistan debacle. Have a listen to that ad. Afghanistan. Yes. Were you the last person in the room? Yes.

And you feel comfortable. I do. She agreed with his decision-making 100%. That decision was to pull all of our military out first, to close down Bogram Air Base, to leave Americans' behind. Kamala Harris has touted her role on Afghanistan policy. Now she owns it too. On the issue of Afghanistan, we have seen a successful drawdown of the embassy and thankfully without any American casualties. So with just over two months to go until election day, expect to hear plenty more about Kamala Harris' role in that now infamous botched withdrawal. It was a very dark moment for the

country under this administration. Kavana, thanks for reporting. Anytime. is at the center of everything your body does, and optimizing your metabolic health helps with weight management, improved energy levels, better sleep and more. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. I love my Lumen. I just breathe into it first thing in the morning, and it tells me what's going on with my metabolism in real time. Take the next step in improving your health today. Go to lumen.m.me. slash wire to get 15% off your lumen. That's l-U-M-M-E-S-Wire for 15% off your purchase. Hamas terrorists have executed 23-year-old American-Israeli, Hirsch Goldberg, Poland, a high-profile hostage taking captive in the October 7th attack.

The American's body was found by Israeli forces underneath the city of Rafa, alongside the bodies of five other murdered hostages. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the situation in Israel. Hey, Tim. So first, what do we know about the killing of these six hostages in Gaza? Hey John, Goldberg, Pollan, and five other hostages appear to have been murdered just days before Israeli troops found their bodies in the network of terror tunnels underneath Rafa. Goldberg-Pollin was one of a handful of Americans who were taken captive by Hamas, and he was particularly well known. His parents spoke at the Democratic Convention in Chicago recently. President Biden said in a statement that he was heartbroken over Goldberg-Pollin's tragic and reprehensible death and promised that Hamas leaders will pay. Vice President Kamala Harris issued her own statement.

She also condemned Hamas saying, quote, the threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel and American citizens in Israel must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza. Now, the tenor of those responses sound a lot different than Harris and Biden's recent statements. What have we heard from them on the war? Harris has repeatedly taken a both sides angle, but has often put a lot of blame on Israel and even threatened consequences if they should continue to wipe out Hamas terrorists. Both Biden and Harris repeatedly pressured Israel to stay out of Rafa, the final stronghold of Hamas.

In fact, during a March interview with ABC News, Harris said Israel going into Rafa to weed out Hamas would be a, quote, huge mistake. Harris also threatened Israel by saying she was ruling out nothing in terms of consequences if Israel did continue to pursue terrorists in the city. Biden followed up Harris's threat several months later and actually froze a weapon shipment to Israel. And I'll just note a moment from the Minnesota State Fair that involved, Kamala Harris' VP pick Tim Walls and made headlines over the weekend. Wals was asked about the six

murdered hostages. Despite taking several questions before, the second he was asked about the hostages, he turned his back on reporters and was whisked away by staffers. Here's that moment. Thanks, everybody. He later put out a statement condemning Hamas, but that was a bit too little, too late to avoid criticism from walking away there. So it seems like there's some hesitancy in the Harris camp to address this situation off the cuff, at least. Aside for, from the statements, what actions are we seeing from the administration over this? We're actually seeing the administration take a different course than what those strong statements might suggest. The response from the U.S. has really been to increase pressure,

not on Hamas to deliver the hostages, but on Israel. Biden got back to D.C. this week after a two-week vacation to California and Delaware and blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for slow negotiations. Mr. President, if you think it's time for Prime Minister Netanyahu to be, more on this issue? Do you think he's doing enough? No. For his part, Netanyahu slammed the sentiment that Israel is at fault, though he said he doubted that Biden actually put the blame on the prime minister.

Here he is at a press conference on Monday. On August 28th, Deputy Head of the CIA said, Israel has shown seriousness. In its negotiations, it is now time for Hamas to do so. That was five days ago. What happened during those five days? What happened is one thing. Six of our hostages were murdered in cold blood.

After that terrible murder, I don't believe anyone serious can come and say, now make more concessions. You're not serious. Hamas is serious. The UK as well has pressured Israel by suspending some weapons exports. Now, clearly a coordinated campaign

to undermine Israel's commitment to wiping out Hamas. Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. Brazil's highest court ruled Monday that the Brazilian government is allowed to block the social media platform X. The government is threatening to find citizens $8,900 per day if they use it. Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham, is here now with more on Brazil's X ban. So, Megan, why has Brazil banned X?

So this began with a showdown between Elon Musk and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexander de Morice. To give you just a brief summary of how this has played out, a few months ago Marice had ordered X to censor accounts, primarily those in support of former right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, for allegedly spreading hate speech and disinformation. Well, Musk refused to do this because of his commitment to free speech and because he said Morice's request was in violation of the Brazilian Constitution. which explicitly protects political speech. Marais then threatened X's legal representative in the country with arrest, so Musk shut down X's offices in Brazil and removed his legal rep from the country. Then last Wednesday, Marais said that Musk had to appoint a new rep or face shutdown.

Well, Musk refused to comply with that order, posting on Friday that the Brazilian government was shutting down the number one source of truth in Brazil. Brazil then went ahead with the ban and the Brazilian court gave Apple and Google five days to block X on iOS and Android devices in the country and to remove it from app stores. Not only that, but Musk says the government also froze the accounts of his other company, Starlink, even though it has different shareholders, a different board and was given no warning. Now, has the Biden administration responded to any of this? You know, not directly, but there have been indications.

that it would actually be sympathetic with Brazil's position here. So obviously, we have been covering how the Biden administration pressured X and the various meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram to censor content, especially related to election security and COVID. And we have seen our government funding censorship efforts that have affected news companies like ours, Daily Wire, by trying to starve them of advertising revenue. Additionally, some U.S. federal agencies like the FD.

have also consulted with Brazil's government on methodology for policing online speech. This is what independent journalist Michael Schellenberger told Fox News about that just on Monday. The U.S. government under Biden and Harris have been funding censorship advocacy in Brazil. You know, the FBI went to Brazil to share information on how to censor. You know, we saw in the Twitter files the Brazilian government demanding that not only X, but every other social media platform ban sitting members of the Brazilian Senate, ban independent journalists. Similarly, the Biden administration hasn't sounded any alarms about the EU's new digital services

act that regulates online speech or the UK's police commissioner threatening to actually extradite U.S. citizens who fall afoul of their speech laws. So we really don't have any indication that the Biden administration is opposed. to other nations cracking down on social media speech generally. In fact, I'd say the opposite. So perhaps not surprising that they're not making any statements about what's happening in Brazil. Well, a very chilling development, as were the arrests in the UK. Thanks, Megan.

Anytime. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.