Morning Wire - House Budget Bill Battle & NY’s Wildcat Strike | 2.26.25

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

The budget battle reaches a head in the House, a new report exposes extreme DEI initiatives within a federal agency, and corrections officers remain on strike in New York State. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Beam: Head to https://shopbeam.com/WIRE and use code WIRE at checkout for up to 40% off. Old Glory Bank: Go to https://oldglorybank.com/wire today to open your account and put your money in the hands of people you can ACTUALLY trust. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The votes. The ayes are 217. The nays are 215. Majority voting in the affirmative, the concurrent resolution is adopted. The budget battle comes to a head on Capitol Hill with Trump ramping up pressure on House members. What are the issues driving a wedge between lawmakers? I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley, with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, February 26th, and this is Morning Wire. A new bombshell report on the NSA's controversial DEI initiatives heightened screen. scrutiny on the federal agency. If you were at any private corporation, if you were doing this in the work chat, you would be packed up and gone within hours.

And New York's governor sends in the National Guard to run the prisons as thousands of corrections officers hit the picket lines. The general public does not know how dangerous this job has become. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. If you're waking up exhausted, that's no way to start your day. You need Beams Dream Powder. a science-backed healthy hot cocoa for sleep. Other sleep baits can cause next day groginess. But Dream contains a powerful all-natural blend of rashi, magnesium,

L-thianine, apigenin, and melatonin to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. If you want to try Beam's best-selling Dream powder, get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com slash wire and use code wire at checkout. That's shop, B-E-A-M-com slash wire, and use code wire for up to 40% off. House Speaker Mike Johnson has worked furiously to wrangle votes from Republicans to pass a crucial spending resolution that will help fund much of Donald Trump's domestic agenda.

Here to break down the budget battle in D.C. is Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot, Phillips, A. Cabot, so a contentious few days on the hill. Let's start with some details on what exactly is in this spending package. Yeah, I know, John, a lot of people hear the words budget resolution and their eyes gloss over. It's certainly not the sexiest topic. but it is hugely consequential. For weeks now, Republicans have been putting together a massive spending resolution that will lay the framework for funding some of Trump's big-ticket campaign promises. The heart of the plan contains three major focuses.

First, it calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, including renewing President Trump's 2017 tax cuts, and also paving the way to eliminate taxes on Social Security payments, tips, and overtime. Next, it includes a $300 billion increase in spending for defense, in the southern border. Finally, in its current stage, the resolution calls for around $1.5 trillion in future cuts to the federal budget, though it's not yet clear exactly where those cuts would come from. Right. Now, the big struggle here, of course, is within the GOP itself, with its razor-thin majority. Tell us about the fight to get this across the finish line. Yeah, because Republicans hold such a

small majority, they could only afford to lose a few votes to get this thing passed. That left Speaker Johnson scrambling to appease each wing of the GOP. The budget hawks want more cuts, the moderate support cuts, but want to protect Medicaid. The foreign policy hawks want cuts, just not for defense spending. You get the idea. Supporters of the resolution are basically saying don't make perfect the enemy of good. This moves us in the right direction. I spoke with Brandon Arnold, executive director of the National Taxpayers Union. He's in that camp. Here's what he had to say. In terms of what's achievable in Congress and gets this process going. of locking in Trump's tax cuts, most of which are going to expire at the end of the year.

This is a fantastic approach to doing so because it not only marries that important concept of getting taxes done, it also begins to chip away at the federal bureaucracy, at the waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government. Now, coming into Tuesday morning, it looked like everyone in the GOP caucus was finally getting on board, but a handful of hardline conservative members put their foot down, saying the plan was a good starting point, but did not offer enough guaranteed cuts. Leading the charge was Kentucky Republican Thomas Massey, who said there weren't enough assurances

that the resolution would actually cut spending. If the Republican plan passes under the rosiest assumptions, which aren't even true, we're going to add $328 billion to the deficit this year. We're going to add $295 billion to the deficit the year after that, and $242 billion to the deficit after that, under the rosy-esial. assumptions.

Night. Why would I vote for that? In the end, though, Massey was the only Republican who voted no. All the other GOP members who were on the fence, got on board, and the measure was passed 217 to 215. It was a major victory for Speaker Mike Johnson and for Donald Trump.

It's worth noting the president was on the phone all day calling Republicans on the fence, telling them to fall in line. That pressure campaign obviously helped. Now that the resolution has passed the House, the Senate will also have to approve it with a simple majority vote. And again, that could be difficult.

Here's Arnold explaining why. Right now, there's a lot of space between where the House is at and where the Senate is. The reason they're doing this kind of obscure arcane song and dance is because it obviates the need for a 60 vote threshold in the Senate. They can bypass the filibuster and get a bill to the president's desk with a simple majority in both the Senate and the House. So that gives us a lot more flexibility in a Senate, of course, that has 53 Republicans

and would be really, really hard to find seven Senate Democrats that want to see Trump's policies enacted into law. Well, a lot to keep an eye on in Washington. Cabot. Thanks so much for reporting. Anytime. Have you seen all those woke executives just now jumping on the bandwagon of freedom and liberty? Where were they when banks were sharing your data with big government and canceling patriots?

Remember who they really are and certainly don't trust them now with your money. Trust the FDIC insured bank that was created to protect your privacy, security, and liberty. Old Glory Bank. Co-founded in 2022 by Dr. Ben Carson, Larry Elder, and John Rich, Old Glory Bank now serves tens of thousands of customers in all 50 states. Head over to oldglarybank.com slash wire today to open your account and put your money in the hands of people you can actually trust. Newly disclosed documents revealed the extent to which DEI initiatives in the federal government have shifted the mission of key agencies, pushing

radical ideology and political targeting, including even agencies tasked with national defense. In an exclusive interview this week with Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro, the Manhattan Institute's Chris Rufo detailed evidence of troubling mission shift at the national security agency. Joining us to discuss is Daily Wire Deputy Managing editor, Tim Rice. So Tim, another bombshell report from Rufo, this time with co-author Hannah Grossman of the Manhattan Institute. What exactly are they alleging? Yeah, hey Georgia. So this is another rather shocking report about how government resources are being used or in this case abused. And as usual, Rufo and Grossman have the receipts. So as you noted, this has to do with the NSA, the National Security Agency, which is supposed to be

dedicating all of its time to the crucial job of, well, national security. But as Rufo and Grossman found, the agency has been officially allowing and even endorsing extremely radical and political biased groups, and that includes chat groups. Some whistleblowers with access to these chats, one current and one former NSA employee, provided Rufo's team with evidence of their content. And frankly, some of it is too not safe for work to detail on this show, but let's just say that it includes graphic discussions about gender transition surgeries, so-called bottom and top surgeries, specifically discussing them in terms of fetishes. And again, this is under officially endorsed chat rooms, and these conversations are taking place while the federal employees

are supposedly working. Now, are these discussions themselves actually endorsed by higher-ups? Yes, and Shapiro and Rufo underscore to that point. Here's Shapiro. The sex chats were legitimized as part of the NSA's commitment to, quote, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Activists within the agency used LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign employee resource groups to turn their kinks and pathologies into official work duties. According to the current NSA employee, these groups, quote, Spent all day recruiting activists and holding meetings with titles such as privilege, ally awareness, pride, and transgender community inclusion. And the NSA leadership supported every aspect of this, declaring the DEI was, quote, not only mission critical, but mission imperative. Yes, the mission of the NSA, monitoring foreign terror threats.

That mission would have been endangered if we did not have intelling chats between various agents discussing the pleasures of polyamory. Rufo also made clear that these federally funded groups engaged not only in not safe for work discussions with official approval, but also engaged in extremely partisan targeting of conservatives here in the United States, including Shapiro himself. These are intelligence officials that should in theory be focused on foreign adversaries, but they are very concerned about domestic politics. And so it's not just about their hormones, their genital surgeries. They have vitriolic feelings towards conservatives in particular. Two names that came up, of course, were Chaya Reichick of lives of TikTok fame and the one and only Ben Shapiro. And they were going ballistic. I mean, they said at one point that you should be expelled for the tribe for constantly spouting hate speech.

So again, clear evidence of political targeting. As we've documented on this show, the Trump administration is heavily focusing on weeding out just these kinds of DEI programs and activist groups. So they've been vowing to shut down exactly this kind of activity in federal agencies. Well, it won't go away overnight. Tim, thanks for reporting. You bet. Following a rise in violent incidents inside New York prisons, correction officers and sergeants from across the state are on strike over unsafe working

conditions, battling Democrat Governor Kathy Hochel for reforms. Here with more is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta Jacamo. Hey, Amanda. So first, give us some background. When did this strike start and what led up to it? So the strike started on the 17th with officers from two. two New York prisons striking over unsafe conditions. The movement quickly swelled in support and now nine out of ten officers, about 15,000 total

from 38 of the state's 42 prisons are now participating in the strike. Notably, the strike has not been sanctioned by the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, which is the government-affiliated Union for Corrections officers. That makes this a so-called wildcat strike. Governor Hockel has repeatedly called the strike illegal, citing violation of the Taylor Law. Now, as for the timing of all of this, officers say it's a long overdue response to Hockel and her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, ignoring their complaints about safety and mandated work shifts that, according to officers, can exceed 72 hours at times. Additionally, just days before the strike, officials locked down the Collins Correctional facility in Erie County due to an inmate uprising.

There was also a memo circulated by the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, the DOCCS, advising prison superintendents to effectively cut 30, percent of staff by the end of the month, though the DOCCS has since said that that would mostly apply to vacant positions. All right. So proposed staffing cuts to the already understaff, though some of these positions are vacant already. What exactly are officers demanding here? Well, first and foremost, they want prison reform legislation called the Halt Act to be repealed. That went into effect in 2022, and it mandates what proponents say are more humane alternatives

to solitary confinement, while also limiting which inmates can be placed in solitary. at all. Officers and their supporters say the legislation has not worked and it's made prisons less safe for everyone. They've cited DOCCS stats saying that since the HALT Act was implemented, there's been a 169% increase in inmate on inmate assaults, a 76% rise inmate on staff assaults, and a 32% bump in contraband cases. Officers have made it very clear that they want changes to be made to guarantee their safety. Those on strike have generally refrained from speaking to the media out of fear of attribution, but some have taken to message boards to voice their concerns. For example, a woman named Sarah Tompkins said that while she was working at Green Haven

Correctional Facility last year, an inmate tackled her to the floor and ripped out her hair. She provided photos of her injuries. A male officer also shared photos of on-the-job injuries, writing, quote, I got punched in the face three times in a 30-day span. Republican State Senator Pamela Helming said that earlier this month, a female officer at Groveland Correctional Facility was sitting at her desk. when an inmate attacked her. She was choked, punched, and kicked in the face. And a retired female officer said that she was sexually assaulted by an inmate in 2022 and never returned to work.

It's just horrifying. And what's Hockel's position on all of this? What has she done so far? So Hokel sued officers for the strike. And over the weekend, she directed state troopers to serve papers to hundreds of officers so far, threatening them with arrest. Here's Hockel at a press conference on Tuesday. Has anyone then arrested and if not? The proceedings, the proceedings have started. I think we have 380 people on the first list through the Attorney General's office and they're being served by state police as we speak. This is in violation of law. The Deputy Secretary of Public Safety added, quote, we will go and catch every single one of them until they return to work.

Now the governor has deployed 6,500 National Guard members to run the prisons during the strike. She's also working to consolidate inmates putting more inmates. inside each prison due to the lack of coverage. She's also taken away striking officers' health insurance, and the DOCCS is docking two days of pay for every day an officer remains on strike. So pretty harsh punishments there. And is there any end in sight? What's going on with negotiations?

Well, mediation between the two sides began on Monday with a reported offer from the state for two times the hourly rate for overtime, the nixing of that controversial staff reduction memo, and suspension to certain provisions in the Halt Act. Officers, though, are reportedly skeptical of promised concessions due to Hockel's comments and actions, and so far, no deal has been reached. So things don't get uglier before this is resolved. We'll be tracking what happens next. Amanda, thanks so much for reporting. You're welcome.

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