Morning Wire - Border Bill Drama & Neuralink’s First Implant | 1.31.24

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

The Senate moves ahead with bipartisan border legislation despite the house saying it’s dead on arrival, protestors face 11 years in prison after demonstrations outside an abortion clinic, and Elon Musk announces his company Neuralink has implanted their first brain chip. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Policygenius: "Get your free life insurance quote & see how much you could save: http://policygenius.com" Shopify: "Get a $1 per month trial at https://www.shopify.com/morningwire" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And sometimes, a smooth, silky latte just wins. It's exceptional but effortless. Like actually effortless. Simply press, brew, and explore. Nispresso, what else? Keep exploring at nespresso.com. While bipartisan negotiations over a border bill continue, many Republicans say it's dead on arrival. Instead of deterring immigration, they're literally incentivizing illegal immigration.

They're handing people a parole and a work permit day one that has to stop. When will the Senate share the full text of the bill? And can President Biden take unilateral executive action? I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howell. It's Wednesday, January 31st, and this is Morning Wire. All right guys. Ask you to leave property or I'm welcome the police. Have it true. Six pro-life protesters face 11 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines after being convicted of face act violations.

Is this a case of political targeting? And Elon Musk announces his biotech company has implanted their first brain chip. The first two applications we're going to aim for in humans are restoring vision. How does Neurrelink work? And is this the new frontier for humans? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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Republican Senator James Langford has been the GOP face of the legislation and is facing backlash for it, including a censure resolution from the Republican Party in his home state of Oklahoma. Here to discuss the bill, its prospects, and the fallout as Daily Wire contributor, David Marcus. Hey, Dave. So first off, what is in the bill and why are so many Republicans and in a particular Trump supporter as opposed to it? Morning. So we don't know exactly. The bill negotiated by Lankford, Democrat Chris Murphy, and independent Kirsten Cinema hadn't been released by Tuesday afternoon. But the top line item making news is that it would give President Biden the authority to shut down certain amnesty requests if the number of border encounters reached five to eight thousand on a given day or week, respectively. Republicans argue that this number is way too high, and also that

Biden already has the tools he needs to slow down illegal immigration, as his predecessor Donald Trump did. And frankly, they want to see those policies reenacted by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security before they're willing to entertain any comprehensive border reform. Right, remain in Mexico and other measures. Now, Trump has come out strongly against this bill on social media. Don Jr. has also railed against it, and Republicans like Langford for supporting it, what is the political calculus there? A cynic might suggest that no challenger to an incumbent president, which Trump almost is at this point,

wants to see big achievements for their opponent in a campaign year. But really, the fear here, and it's been explained by people other than Trump, including Senator Ted Cruz, is that, The bill could wind up letting more people in, and that even if it does curb the numbers as Biden seeks re-election, should he win, the Democrats would go right back to letting record numbers of migrants into the country. Here's some of what Cruz had to say. When Joe Biden came in, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. He inherited success, and he deliberately broke it. Democrats want these open borders.

So politics is a part of this, but it's not the whole story. Most members of the GOP House do not share Langford's trust that Democrats really do want to reduce illegal immigration. And that's why you see this angry backlash at him, as well as other Republicans backing the bill. House Republicans say the legislation has no chance of passing. Could that change? Could there be sweeteners for them, or is this thing dead in the water? According to Speaker Mike Johnson, this bill has zero shot at becoming law. Listeners will recall that at the end of last year, there was a lot of high-minded talk about a border bill being tied to Ukraine and Israel aid, some grand bipartisan package.

But that just didn't pan out at all. And not only is the GOP majority in the House very narrow right now, it's also fragile and fractious, as we saw from the ousting of Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year. Here's Representative Marjorie Taylor Green saying what it seems like most of her colleagues are thinking. There's no one in our conference that supports a border surrender. It supports a deal that lawmakers would actually vote for, that it would allow people to break our laws. 5,000 people a day, 1.8 million a year before the federal government secures the border. That's not a border deal. That's a slap in the American people's face.

And I'm really happy speaker talks and send it. But listen, at a time when the border is the top issue for many American voters and Biden is under. water on it, Republicans will keep it as fresh a news topic as they possibly can. Yeah, I'm sure they will. And the standoff happening in Texas is making sure of that right now. Yep. Dave, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. The Biden DOJ has successfully convicted six more pro-life protesters for violating the Face Act. The demonstrators now face 11 years behind bars and $350,000 in fines for protesting at abortion clinics. Here to discuss is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta Giacomo. Hey, Amanda. So catch us up on this case. What exactly were the protesters convicted of?

Hey there, John. So these six protesters were charged with the conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act and committing FACE Act violations. Yesterday, all six were convicted on both counts. The FACE Act criminalizes the use of force or threats of force that prevent someone from accessing an abortion clinic. These six pro-life activists on trial in Nashville were not accused of any violence, but they were charged after demonstrating. in a hallway on the second floor of an office building outside of an abortion provider in March of 2021. A live stream of that demonstration shows the group praying, singing hymns, in trying to convince women to not enter the clinic and not abort their babies. Some of the protesters are sitting in front of what looks like doors to the clinic and do refuse to move when asked to do so. Paul Vaughn, one of the men on trial, spoke to an ABC affiliate on the day of that protest.

Today what you saw was an act of biblical obedience. The Christians came together of several different denominations coming here to Mount Juliet to lay down their lives to rescue children that were scheduled to die at this abortion clinic today. There were a total of 22 demonstrators that day, and the Biden-D-OJ charged 11 of them with face-act violations. The six convicted Tuesday were hit with that additional conspiracy against rights charge. None of the demonstrators at the protests were charged with assault or assault-related crimes. Okay, so this trial wrapped up with closing arguments on Monday, and then after one day of jury deliberations came back with a guilty verdict. What do we know about how the trial went?

So defense attorneys argued that their clients were peacefully protesting, as is their right. As for the government, they argued the pro-lifers weren't actually protesters because they violated federal law and intended to do so. Their key witness in this case was one of the protesters who was initially arrested with the group, a 25-year-old named Caroline Davis, who took a plea deal. She testified that she changed her mind over time about the protests

and admitted that being indicted by the federal government, quote, terrified her. Sentencing is expected in July. Now, we've covered FASAC charges brought by the Biden administration before they've really ramped up during his tenure. And these have come with a lot of political controversy.

Tell us about that. Yeah, absolutely. Pro-Lifers and Republican politicians have claimed that Biden is weaponizing the face act against peaceful protesters because of their politics, their pro-life views. In another instance, anger erupted when the DOJ successfully convicted five progressive pro-life activists on face-act related charges over the summer. They were even thrown in jail to await their sentencing. Like the Tennessee 6, those activists face 11 years behind bars as well as those hefty fines. What's the political reaction been to all of this? On the Republican side,

lawmakers are working to repeal the FACE Act. Texas representative Chip Roy, who introduced such legislation in September. He said that free Americans should, quote, never live in fear of their government targeting them because of their beliefs. Roy actually pressed Attorney General Merrick Garland a few months ago about how the law is being applied and to whom, which is one of the main issues here. For context, the FACE Act is supposed to extend to the protection of pro-life pregnancy centers as well. Are you concerned that enforcement of the FACE Act has been biased towards

pro-lifers over anti-life processors, 126 to four, 126 times against pro-lifers versus four times for people who dare to question the issue of life. Biden, on the other hand, seems to be leaning into this pro-abortion positioning. We know his 2024 campaign team wants to continue to focus on abortion and the Trump era overturning of Roe v. Wade. Yeah, clearly abortion has become a key campaign rallying cry for Democrats. Yeah, certainly has. Thanks for reporting.

You're welcome. Elon Musk announced Monday that his company Neurrelink has implanted a chip into a human brain for the first time. The Tesla billionaire says the patient is recovering well and initial results are promising. Here with more is Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham. So Megan, obviously a groundbreaking announcement, not to mention pretty controversial. What do we know about Neurrelink's capabilities and this first test case? Well, this is a quarter-sized chip. and it's probably not as small as a lot of people might imagine.

It's designed to be implanted in the part of the brain that controls movement. And the idea is that it will interpret your neural activity so that you can operate a computer or a smartphone, really just by thinking about it. So a surgical robot implants the chip in the brain and it then records and sends brain signals to an app. And the goal for the initial round of testing is for patients to be able to control a computer cursor

or a keyboard with just their thoughts. advanced. Well, Musk didn't say how many neurons his device is currently detecting, but he did say that initial results show promising neuron spike detection. So what does it actually do for patients? Well, the initial application of the chip is intended to be in the medical field. So if the technology proved successful, it could help patients who've suffered from traumatic brain injuries or spinal cord injuries that have left them paralyzed or paraplegic. Here's how Musk described it last summer during an interview on X. It'll be about restoring functionality to people who've lost their connection between their

brain and their body. So you can imagine like if, say, Stephen Hawking could talk or communicate as fast as somebody with a fully functioning body. That would be amazing. And then the second application would be restoration of eyesight. So if somebody's gone completely blind, you can actually directly assimilate the neurons in the visual part of the cortex. But there's also less dramatic, but maybe more controversial possibilities, like helping

with mental focus. Well, helping paraplegics move and communicate. That's one thing. But boosting or just interfering with actual cognition seems like it would be rife with ethical issues. Yeah, absolutely. And depending on who you ask, myriad issues relating to that could become relevant in our lifetime.

So independent journalist Lee Fang has broken a number of big tech stories. And he has a story out this week about a new study sponsored by the Department of Defense. And the authors write that this technology could usher in, quoting here, a complex, high-threat landscape emerging where future wars are fought with humans controlling hyper-sophisticated machines with their thought. Now, Musk is making headlines for this technology right now, but Neurrelink is not actually the only company pursuing this, correct? That is correct.

They're definitely not. and I think you can view this as somewhat akin to the space race of the last century. Those DOD researchers warned that China is also working on brain computer interface technology, and several CCP organizations are reportedly developing brain control weaponry for use by the Chinese military. And then you have corporate rivals too, which is, you know, a little more pedestrian. Elon is not the only game in town here. There's a company called Cynacron that is hoping to bring a smaller chip that sits on top of the brain inside the jugular vein to market.

And then you also have Black Rock Neurotech. And it says it's already had some success with a similar device that's still in the testing phase. But they do say that their trial patients have been able to eat, send emails, and even control robotic arms with their thoughts. So it's probably just a matter of time for something marketable with one of these companies. Well, a very hopeful development for people with paralysis, but also kind of a Pandora's

box, it sounds like. Yeah. Megan, thanks for reporting. anytime. Thank you for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know. Is your business selling a little or a lot? Shopify helps you do your thing, however, you should ching.

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