Morning Wire - Danger in the Sky & Christianity Grows | 5.7.25

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

A massive shortage of air traffic controllers causes delays, cancellations and insecurity, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney discusses tariffs and U.S. statehood with President Trump in an Oval Office meeting, and a surprising rise in Christianity is occurring in the U.S. and Europe fueled by young converts. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. NetSuite: Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for FREE at https://NetSuite.com/MORNINGWIRE Shopify: Go to https://Shopify.com/morningwire to sign up for your $1 per month trial period and upgrade your selling today. ZocDoc: Find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. Visit https://Zocdoc.com/WIRE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

dire shortages of air traffic controllers create danger in the skies. The delays that we're now seen in Newark is what's going to continue to happen around the country. How are officials fixing the problems? I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, May 7th, and this is Morning Wire. Canada's new prime minister sits down with Trump after weeks of tough talk on tariffs and Canada becoming the 51st state. It's not for sale, won't be for sale, ever.

Never say never. Ever sin, ever. And after years of decline in the West, Christianity surges among millennials in Gen Z. One promising sign is the return of young men to church. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. What does the future hold for business?

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that's net suite.com slash morning wire. The Trump administration is rushing to modernize the FAA after years of chronic understaffing in a string of accidents and near misses on runways. Here with the details is Daily Wire Senior editor, Cabot Phillips. So Cabot, in light of recent events, a lot of people are feeling more leery of air travel. How big of an issue is this? Well, air travel still is the safest mode of transportation, but there's no doubt these concerns are real. We all heard about the deadly crash in D.C. a few months back when a military helicopter

collided with that commercial jet. But beyond that, every week at airports across the country, there are roughly a dozen close calls that go mostly unreported. These incidents are referred to as runway incursions by the FAA. For example, in the last few months alone, two planes at Reagan Airport in D.C. were forced to abort landings when helicopters entered restricted airspace. A few weeks before that, at the same airport, two planes clipped wings on a runway.

Similar incidents have been reported this year at Chicago's Midway, DFW, and Hertzfield Jackson in Atlanta. So this is a widespread issue. And perhaps most concerning on April 29th, air traffic controllers at Newark International experienced a systems outage. that knocked out their radar, leaving numerous planes, essentially flying dark. CNN obtained audio of that terrifying moment where controllers were unable to see or hear nearby pilots for 60 to 90 seconds. Have a listen.

No, you do not have a bravo clearance. We lost our radar and it's not working correctly. And we don't have a radar, so I don't know where you are. In that incident, it came amid existing air traffic controller shortages and equipment failures at Newark, which have led to now 14 straight days of significant delays at Newark. those were imposed by the FAA. And while Newark is dealing with the most serious issues right now, plenty of other airports are dealing with problems of their own.

So this really is a crisis in some ways. Yeah. What's causing the problems? Well, first is the ongoing FAA worker shortage. The administration says they are in need of 3,500 new air traffic controllers to hit their target number. For months now, existing controllers have been stretched thin, working mandatory overtime and even six-day work weeks.

But according to Duffy, arguably the biggest problem plaguing the FAA is outdated technology. Many of the administration's systems and computers are literally from the 80s. Some controllers still rely on floppy disks. For our younger listeners, you can Google what those are. And because the FAA tech is so old, Duffy says it's difficult to even find technicians who actually know how to operate and work on these systems. He's now calling for Congress to allocate tens of billions of dollars to fund a revolutionary overhaul of the FAA. We are going to radically transform the way air traffic control looks. We're going to build a brand new air traffic control system from new telecom to new radars to new infrastructure.

We're bringing on new air traffic controllers. This has been a problem in the decades coming and we're going to fix it. Now, some Democrats say the Trump administration is to blame. They argue that those cuts have impacted FAA preparedness. At that point, here's House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. We do know that the Trump administration has decimated the FAA in a variety of different ways and they've been doing this from the very beginning. They are breaking the federal government.

And while the Trump administration did cut about 400 FAA jobs, that amounts to less than 1% of the department's workforce. And according to a Transportation Department spokesperson, nearly all of those let go were probationary employees who'd been at the agency for less than two years. The White House for their part has been quick to note that FAA shortages began under President Biden. They argue that he put Americans at risk by lowering standards

to encourage the hiring of more minority air traffic controllers. Well, regardless of whose fault this is, it's a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Yeah. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. If you run a small business, you know there's nothing small about it.

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial period and start selling today at Shopify.com slash morningwire. Go to Shopify.com slash morningwire. Again, that's Shopify.com slash morning wire. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived at the White House on Tuesday for talks on trade, Ukraine, and Russia. Carney is one of dozens of world leaders who wants to negotiate a trade agreement with the U.S. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the latest on Trump's trade wars.

So how did this meeting at the White House with Carney go yesterday? Well, cordial but contentious might be the best way to put it. It started out with a press conference between the two leaders before talks began. Here's President Trump welcoming the Prime Minister to the White House. It's a great honor to have Prime Minister Mark Carney with us. As you know, just a few days ago, he won a very big election in Canada. And I think I was probably the greatest thing that happened to him, but I can't take a vote. The context here is that Carney and the Liberal Party beat out conservative leader Pierre Pollyette.

after the former liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tanked in popularity. Trump and Carney covered a few issues, but the chief one was clearly trade. Here's Carney and Trump. We are the largest client of the United States in the totality of all the good. So we are the largest client in the United States. We have a tremendous auto sector between the two of us and the changes that made have been helpful. You know, 50% of a car that comes from Canada is American. That's not like anywhere else in the world.

This is a very friendly conversation, but we want to make our own cars. We don't really want cars from Canada. And we put tariffs on cars from Canada, and at a certain point, it won't make economic sense for Canada to build those cars. And we don't want steel from Canada because we're making our own steel, or we're having massive steel plants being built right now as we speak. Canada is the number two trading partner for the U.S. behind Mexico, and the U.S. is Canada's largest trading partner by far. Right, and we're now several weeks into Trump's tariffs, another big U.S. trade partner. China is starting to really feel the effects there. We're seeing reports

about factory workers struggling. What's happening with that situation? Yeah, it could be the start of a grassroots push to force China to negotiate. According to Goldman Sachs, U.S. tariffs could wipe out 16 million factory jobs in China. Workers are already upset over missed wages and layoffs. It's not clear what pressure the communist government in Beijing feels over this. All we know for sure is that China hasn't come to the table yet. Here's Treasury Secretary Scott Besson in Congress Tuesday. As I've said before, there are 18 very important trading relationships. We are currently negotiating with 17 of those trading partners.

China, we have not engaged in negotiations with as of yet. So China is the only major holdout left. Speaking of major trading partners, Germany just elected their new prime minister. things are a bit shaky there. What's happening with that situation? Right. Friedrich Merz was just elected German Chancellor Tuesday afternoon, but there are already signs of weakness in its coalition. Mers failed to get a majority in the first round of voting the first time that's happened in modern German history. Now, Mers' Christian Democrats are seen as center right, but the coalition includes left-wing lawmakers as well at the expense of the right-wing alternative for Germany.

AFD, as it's called, is topping German opinion polls right now, even though German intelligence classified it as a threat to democracy last week. Now, the Trump administration took issue with that. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it tyranny in disguise. We'll see how long Mertz's coalition actually holds up. Tim, thanks so much for joining us. Good to be on. A surprising shift is taking place across the religious landscape

of both the U.S. and Europe. According to the new data, Christianity is seeing a notable rise in conversions, particularly among young adults. Here with the details is Daily Wire culture reporter, Megan Basham. So, Megan, after years of increasing secularism, we're now seeing some signs of what some experts are calling a Christian revival. What's going on? Yeah, I would say what's going on, Georgia, is that the rumors of Christianity's death have been greatly exaggerated because what we're seeing is some new information and data out of the Pew Research Center showing that Christianity has

actually seen a 12% uptick since 2022, and that's coming from both Catholics and Protestants. In some diocese, we're seeing as much of a rise as 72% in converts from 2023 to 2024. Meanwhile, when we look at Protestantism, particularly those evangelical and non-denominational branches, they're up 14% overall. And as we heard there at the start of the show, you're hearing pastors like Greg Lorry, who are the pastors of megachurches in California even, saying that they are seeing record levels of attendance and baptisms. Now, as John mentioned at the top, this isn't just in the U.S. Where else are we seeing this?

Yeah, the same trend is playing out in Western Europe, particularly Germany, France, Italy, Spain. Germany is reporting a 15% increase in Catholic conversions and a 10% surge in Protestant affiliations, especially among those Pentecostals and Baptists. Catholic pilgrimages, like the Scharter pilgrimage in France, that has seen record attendance over 15,000 participants last year. And you know, what's really interesting about this, Georgia, is that it's not coming from older generations who are just returning to church. It's actually coming from young adults. So even in places like Silicon Valley that are known for their secularism, we're suddenly seeing reports of young tech people returning to church, embracing Christianity. Vanity Fair recently did a lengthy

story on this on the tech titans that are adjoining churches. This is what Will Minidas, founder and CEO of medical AI company, Science I.O., recently told the Technology Daily podcast. But I also think in New York, there's incredible young Christian movement happening, like church of the city of New York is baptizing, you know, like a couple million people a week at this point. It's incredible how quickly this is going. So what's behind this trend? Are there specific events or societal changes that experts think are fueling this? Yeah. So a lot of sociologists are pointing to what they call a post-secular moment. Essentially what they say is that a lot of people are feeling unmoored by the rapid pace of political changes that we had seen

in recent years. And also, part of this is coming from the fact that we're seeing a rise in conservatism. And conservatives tend to be more religious. So as the country has turned to the right, we're seeing something of a more muscular public form of Christianity. And I would also say that for countries like France and England and also the U.S. to some degree, you have a lot of citizens who feel that their cultures are being erased by mass immigration. And so this is perhaps a way to try to re-shore up that Christian character of their countries. And, you know, what's interesting is that statistically what's driving this is young men. They are really the ones who are embracing church.

And that reverses a decades-long trend, really since time immemorial, where women were more religious. So really fascinating that now it's young men. Sociologist, Dr. Ryan Berg, who's known as an expert in this area, has written that young men, are rejecting the feminization of liberal churches in particular, and they're seeking the traditional worship of more conservative churches. Josh Abbottoy, executive director of American reformer, which is a Protestant journal that describes its mission as reinvigorating Christianity in America, told me that he is seeing unprecedented engagement from young men. I think that we're getting people who want very rigorous forms of Christianity. They want to go to a church

that asks a lot of them, that challenges them. They do not want a purely consumer relationship with their church. And they also don't want a church that feels comfortable and safe like some sort of benign consumer product. They want something that is transcendent and has authority. And to his point there, a 2023 report from the Baptist World Alliance noted a 12% rise in Germany with young men specifically, the appeal of biblical authority.

Well, anyone who's been following the Manosphere and Joe Rogan over the past year, year and a half, is probably not so surprised by this trend. Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more news you need to know. We've all been there. The nagging pain or persistent symptom that we know probably deserves medical attention,

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