Morning Wire - GOP Candidates Spar & Disney Audit Released | 12.7.23

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

The GOP presidential candidates debate again without Trump, the Disney Reedy Creek audit reveals abuses, and more incidents of antisemitism on college campuses. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Black Rifle Coffee: Hear Clint’s story at https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Birch Gold: Text "WIRE" to 989898 for your no-cost, no-obligation information kit Shopify: Get a $1 per month trial at https://www.shopify.com/morningwire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The fourth Republican presidential primary debate sees a much smaller field, but much higher stakes. Why am I the only person on the stage, at least, who can say that January 6 now does look like it was an inside job? Her donors, they make money in China. They are not going to let her be tough on China, and she will cave to the donor. She will not stand up for you. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, December 7th. And this is Morning Wire. Nine months after Florida Republicans ended Disney's self-governing structure,

an independent audit finds the company had enjoyed complete and unaccountable governmental power in the state. And after a fiery congressional hearing on campus hate, we take a look at what's really taking place at universities and communities across the country. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Four Republican presidential hopefuls appeared on the debate. debate stage last night in Alabama, hoping to make a splash in a primary race that's been dominated by former President Donald Trump.

Here with the highlights and what's at stake is Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips. So Cabot, the race for second place has increasingly come down to DeSantis and Haley. So let's get to the debate. Walk us through some of the highlights. Yeah, both candidates are certainly looking to coalesce the support of non-Trump voters. DeSantis is in second place nationally and then Iowa, but Haley is now nipping at his heels. after a very strong November. That recent momentum made her a clear target on Wednesday night

as everyone on stage went after her throughout the evening. In his opening answer, for example, DeSantis took aim at Haley for saying parents should have final say on the issue of medical treatments for trans-identifying kids. And you have other candidates up here like Nikki Haley. She caves anytime the left comes after her, any time the media comes after her. I did a bill in Florida to stop the gender mutilation of minors.

It's child abuse and it's wrong. she opposes that bill. Haley responded by accusing DeSantis of lying about her position in another exchange on the topic. Have a listen. If you're somebody that's going to be the president of the United States and you can't stand up against child abuse, how are you going to be able to stand up for anything? That is the truth.

I never said that. I said that if you have to be 18 to get a tattoo, you should have to be 18 to have anything done to change your gender. You said the law should stay out of it. For his part, Vivek Ramoswamy also went after Haley all evening, often with deeply personal attacks. At one point, he brought up her rising net worth since leaving office, holding up a handwritten sign that read, quote, Nikki equals corrupt. And then one moment that quickly went viral challenged Haley to a Ukrainian geography test. One thing that Joe Biden and Nikki Haley have in common is that neither of them could even state for you, three provinces in eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to actually fight for.

Look at that. This is what I want people to understand. These people have, I mean, she has no idea what the hell the names of those provinces are, but she wants to send our sons and daughters and our troops and our military equipment to go fight it. And while Haley to this point has taken somewhat veiled shots at Trump, she took a more direct approach at times last night. As much as everybody wants to talk about how Donald Trump had a good economy, $9 trillion in debt, he did just in four years.

And we're all paying the price of that, including, those mortgage prices. Later on, as candidates discussed Israel and the rise of anti-Semitism in America, dissentists brought up immigration, pointing to the cultural implications of mass migration in Europe and warning of what could happen in the U.S. if the southern border is not secured. Look what's happened in Europe. You have more anti-Semitism in Germany than at any time since Adolf Hitler. Why?

Because they imported mass numbers of people who reject their culture. Europe is committing suicide with the mass migration, and it's illegal and legal. Nikki Haley said the other day there should be no limits on legal immigration, and that corporate CEOs should set the policy on that. There needs to be limits on immigration. We should not be importing people from cultures that are hostile. And we also heard from Governor Chris Christie, who barely made the cut for the debate stage, but is currently polling fairly well in New Hampshire, where he sits in third place.

Christy went after everyone on stage, but reserved his strongest rhetoric for a man not on the stage, former President Trump. I want you all to kind of picture in your mind's election day. You'll all be heading to the polls to vote. And that's something that Donald Trump will not be able to do because he will be convicted of felonies before then and his right to vote will be taken away. You know, look, here's the bottom line. You can boo about it all you like and continue to deny reality. But if we deny reality as a party, we're going to have four more years of Joe Biden. Well, Iowa is just around the corner only five weeks away.

Yep, it's coming up quick. We'll see if this debate turns into any momentum for these contenders. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Anytime. It's been nine months since Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took action to strip Disney of its self-governing status. A decision that critics said was politically motivated. But a new audit shows there were serious problems with the self-governing Reedy Creek District. Wire investigative journalist Brent Schur poured over the 74-page report.

Welcome, Brent. So what did you find here? So when Ron DeSantis eliminated the Redy Creek Improvement District, it triggered an audit of the whole arrangement, which had been in place since Disney came to the state in 1967 to build what is now known as Disney World. One of the major conclusions of the audit is that Disney deceived Florida from the start, pulling what one of the lead auditors called a bait and switch. Disney promised to build a city around a single theme park,

complete with affordable housing, schools, hospitals, and all the other public services that communities need. Instead, it just built more theme parks, golf courses, hotels, and the only public services that it offers are geared towards serving tourists. The entirety of the 100,000 employees who work at the parks, which is mainly composed of low-age service industry workers, live in the surrounding counties, which is a huge burden on those taxpayers.

Yeah. Were there any consequences for failing to follow through on this initial promise? No. And the audit says that's largely thanks to the governing structure. Disney created a situation where it had complete control over who was regulating it. And I found this fascinating. The audit lays out that the district's board of supervisors had to be composed of landowners. But because Disney owns virtually all,

the land, it had to temporarily deed five-acre plots of land to whoever it wanted to serve on the board. When those terms were up, the plots of land would be revoked. So it's easy to understand why there was no oversight given the regulators were only in their positions because Disney put them there. In the words of the auditors, a board member would have known that he or she could lose the position by acting against Disney's interest. This created the potential for corruption. How else did Disney exert control over the government? Well, it wasn't only leadership. It was the district's rank-and-file employees

who were all made to feel like they were actually working for Disney. Every single Reedy Creek employee was given annual passes at Disney parks for both themselves, their family members, as well as massive discounts on Disney products, including Disney cruises. The audit says that these benefits were akin to bribes of public officials,

and it also found that Rady Creek was hiding them. It failed to report the benefits as part of their employees' taxable income. Was this Disney's plan all along? Was this what they were attending to do? It seems so. According to historical records reviewed by Donald Cochan, who's a law professor at George Mason and was one of lead auditors, Walt Disney himself wanted to make sure that Disney's corporate choices

were never subject to public accountability that comes with public elections, So despite what it told Florida, it never wanted permanent residents living in Disney World. And in the end, it worked out great for Disney. It grew to be not only the largest entertainment company in the world, but also one of the largest companies in the world. Last year, it made $82.7 billion. And more than the third of those revenues came out of the parks. It's a lot of money.

So how was the situation able to persist for so long? Well, the auditor is saying nobody really knew what was going. on. In fact, it claims to be the first ever substantive independent audit of Disney and Rady Creek. On top of that, Disney has been a third rail in Florida, and no politician until the current governor, Ron DeSantis, was willing to take it on. But this audit seems to back up what DeSantis was saying all along. This was corporate welfare, and Disney should live under the same laws as everybody else. Well, a fascinating audit. Thanks so much for pouring over it and bringing these details to us. Of course. That was Daily Wire, Investigative.

reporter, Brent Scher. Since Israel began its counteroffensive against Hamas, there's been a rise in anti-Israel protests and even attacks against Jews in cities across the U.S., especially on college campuses. Daily Wire reporter Cassie Dillon witnessed one such protest that turned violent at Boston's Northeastern University, and she's here to talk about that as well as some other incidents. Hi, Cassie. So what types of trends have we been seeing with these demonstrations? Well, anti-Israel demonstrations had been taking place at congressional hearings on college campuses

and even at the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting in New York City. And one of the latest attacks on Sunday night, a mob gathered around Goldie, a Jewish-owned falafel chain in Philadelphia. Take a lesson. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro condemned the group, claiming it happened because Goldies is owned by Mike Salomonov, who was born in Israel but raised in Pittsburgh. What we saw last night was not peaceful protest. The purposeful gathering, of a mob outside of a restaurant simply because it is owned by a Jewish person.

Well, that's anti-Semitism, plain and simple. In Williamsburg, Virginia, a Hanukkah menorah lighting celebration had to be canceled because the organizer of the Lovelight Placemaking Festival claimed a Hanukkah celebration would imply support for the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The festival offered to reinstate the event

only if it was conducted under a banner calling for a ceasefire. Now, we've all seen the college campus violence, and that was even the focus of a congressional hearing this week. What happened at Northeastern University? So at the campus center, as Jewish students were trying to attend a Shabbat dinner and Friday, they were confronted by an anti-Israel protest that had been going on all day, where demonstrators put up a sign calling to, quote, globalize the intifada. The antifada, by the way, meaning a violent uprising against Jews.

I spoke with many Jewish students who said they feel afraid on campus as these types of protests continue to unfold. I'm told the event was not sanctioned by the school, but that it went on for hours without the administration putting it to an end. Now, the Israeli government is showing journalists a video that compiles some of the atrocities from October 7th. You watched that video with some Arab activists. What was their reaction? Well, on Friday, I watched the 47-minute video compilation of Hamas atrocities. In the room with me was a group of Arabs from the Middle East who were peace activists and told me immediately afterward how it made them feel. Fatima Aharbi from Bahrain broke down into tears. Here's her describing what she saw.

I was shocked. I couldn't breathe most of the video that we watched. They were so joyful and cheering over dead bodies and they've been parading bodies without clothes. That's not the Islam that I knew my whole life. I think those scenes will always take in my mind. And I think that will help me always to advocate for peace that no children, no woman, no father deserve to see such scenes,

no matter what their religion are in nationality. Ruan Asman, who is Syrian and Lebanese, told me it was worse than the ISIS videos. The glee we've witnessed in the background cheering the death, the torture, the rape. The hardest bit for me to watch was the boys with their father. The moment the boys realized that their father has been killed, and the way the terrorists react to that, watching a small boy wishing he died, I think his childhood ended at that moment.

As a mother, I cannot carry on living as if something hasn't happened. Well, very powerful testimonies there. Clearly this video is having an impact on people. Cassie, thanks for reporting. Thank you. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.