Morning Wire - Federal Rates Pause & Blinken’s China Trip | Afternoon Update | 6.14.23

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

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I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Wednesday, June 14th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update. The Federal Reserve did not raise interest rates for the first time in 15 months on Wednesday, but experts say this could be a temporary pause to gauge how the Fed's plan to combat runaway inflation is working. The central bank has increased its key rate by five percentage points since March 2022 as part of its goal to get inflation below 2%. In turn, those hikes have caused higher costs for things like mortgages, auto and business loans, and credit cards. Here's Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Looking ahead, nearly all committee participants view it as likely that some further rate increases will be appropriate this year to bring inflation down to 2% over time. And I will have more to say about monetary policy after briefly reviewing economic developments. White House Press Secretary Karin-John Pierre has been accused of violating the Hatch Act,

a federal law blocking political appointees from using government resources for political campaign purposes. Daily Wire Senior Editor, Joel Needler, has the latest. The Office of Special Counsel, the government agency that enforces the Hatch Act, wrote in a recent letter that Jean-Pierre violated the law before last year's midterm elections by repeatedly referring to candidates as MAGA Republicans. Jean-Pierre defended herself this week. Do you believe that you violated the Hatch HACC with those comments about MAGA Republicans? So what I can say is at the time, I was given the sign-off, right, to use that terminology. No fines and penalties are recommended by the office, but those who violate the Hatch Act can be suspended from serving in the federal government for a limited period of time. In reaction to the federal indictment of former President Trump, Republican Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio threatened to block all Justice Department nominees until Attorney General Merrick Garland, quote, stops harassing his political opponents.

The senator went on to say that Trump's indictment is just the latest example of this form of abuse. I've heard from a lot of people that they're so frustrated as I am with the fact that Merrick Garland has used the Department of Justice for politics instead of law. And I think it's time we stopped just whining about this problem and debating this problem and actually do something about it. I think that we have to grind this department to a halt until Merrick Garland promises to do his job and stop going after his political opponents. The State Department announced today that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China this week to meet with senior Chinese officials. The trip was postponed due to the Chinese government-linked spy balloon that traversed the continental U.S. in February.

State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said in a statement that Blinken will discuss, quote, bilateral issues of concern, global and regional matters and potential cooperation on shared transnational challenges with the Chinese Communist Party. Bud Light is no longer America's top-selling beer. Year-over-year sales for Bud Light for the month ending June 3rd shows that the brand is down 24%. That's in wake of the nationwide boycott over Bud Light's embrace of trans-identifying influencer Dylan Mulvaney. According to the consulting firm Bump Williams, Mexican beer brand Modelo now tops the beer sales charts, capturing 8.4% of U.S. retail sales. Bud Light has dropped to 7.3% of sales. Shannon Phillips, the white Starbucks manager who was fired after her staff refused to let two black men use the bathroom in her store, has been awarded $25.6 million after she sued the coffee company for wrongful termination.

The incident occurred in 2018 at a Philadelphia Starbucks location, sparking national protests due to allegations of racism. The two men who were there on business were subsequently arrested for trespassing. Weeks later, Phillips claims that Starbucks began punishing white employees as part of its PR effort to show they were taking the incident seriously. On Monday, a jury agreed that Phillips was fired for being white, awarding her 25 million in punitive damages and 600,000 in compensatory damages. All right, 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 Morning Wire every morning.