Morning Wire - Durham Report Released & China Sentences U.S. Citizen | Afternoon Update | 5.15.23

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

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I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Monday, May 15th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update. Special Counsel John Durham has released his long-awaited report investigating the U.S. federal government's actions during the 2016 election cycle and its monitoring of the Trump campaign. Durham's team concluded that, quote, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion when it began Operation Crossfire Hurricane. That's the operation seen by many as the U.S. government spying on the Trump 2016 campaign. The report also said that Crossfire Hurricane investigators, quote, did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations contained in the

Steele reporting. The now infamous Steele dossier was initially used to gain legal permission to monitor the Trump team. We'll have more on the Durham report tomorrow morning. President Biden said over the weekend that he was pleased with how events unfolded at the southern border after the expiration of Title 42 late last week. The president was also asked if he has any plans to visit the border. Do you have any plans to visit the border? Not in the near term, no. No, just be disruptive, not anything else.

In reaction, Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochel threw cold water on the idea that there isn't a crisis and called upon the federal government to build camps to house the growing number of illegal aliens. They're bursting at the seams, and Mayor Adams is doing the very, the very best he can in a difficult situation. I ask the federal government to give us emergency funding. The Secret Service is refusing to hand over emails that identify visitors to President Biden's homes in Delaware. That's according to the New York Post. Here with Morris Daily Wire's senior editor, Kevin Phillips. The Secret Service denied a Freedom of Information Act request for the emails, saying they're not legally

required to make them available to the public, citing an appeals court ruling in New York regarding visitor information for former President Trump's residents. But according to the Post, that ruling has no bearing on current elected officials. House Republicans have been requesting the emails for months as they continue their investigation into the Biden family and alleged money-making schemes from his time as vice president. The president and Congress have yet to reach an agreement regarding the looming national debt default in just a few weeks. President Biden said Sunday that he remains hopeful that a debt-sealing agreement can be reached, while Senator Ted Cruz blasted the president for refusing to negotiate and leaving D.C. over the weekend instead of staying in town to address the

crisis. What we're left with is a bunch of young staffers in the White House, radical children who are perfectly willing to risk a default on the debt because they have no appreciation of the chaos and misery and damage a default would do. We should not default at our debt. Talks between the president and congressional leaders will likely resume on Tuesday at the White House. The Chinese government has sentenced a 78-year-old American citizen to life in prison on spying charges. John Xing-wan Liang was arrested and detained by Chinese security authorities more than two years ago. The life sentence adds further tension to the already strained relationship between China and the U.S. President Vladimir Zelensky ruled out peace talks with

his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, over the weekend. Zelensky is traveling abroad to curry favor with European officials, as you can be in the United States. Ukraine's counteroffensive gets underway. Here with more is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce. Zelensky told Italian leaders that Putin is an insane human and that the war is a joke for Putin. He also pushed back on critics who claim that Ukraine doesn't actually have a plan to win the war or to rebuild. Zelensky said that his country has proposed how to end the war while respecting the UN charter, international law, people, and values.

Over the weekend, Zelensky held meetings with Pope Francis, German Chancellor Olaf Schultz in Berlin, and French President Macron in Paris. On Monday, Zelensky arrived in London for talks with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. This room that we're standing in, Winston Churchill made many of his famous speeches in World War II from this room. And in the same way today, your leadership, your country's bravery and fortitude are an inspiration to us all. I look forward to us discussing what more we can do to support you in your country. First of all, thank you very much. You supported already a lot for us.

You did a lot to you, your government, and His Majesty, the King, and of course your people, your society. We're thankful from all our hearts, from Ukrainians, from our soldiers. Those are your drive-home updates this afternoon. To learn more about these stories, go to Dailywire.com, and for more in-depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to our latest full episode of Morningwire every morning.