Morning Wire - House Speakership Contenders & Kaiser Healthcare Strike | Afternoon Update | 10.4.23

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

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I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Wednesday, October 4th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update. Congressman Kevin McCarthy is now the former Speaker of the House, and Congress must find a replacement. Here are the latest on who that might be as Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips. At the moment, two Republicans have officially thrown their name into the ring for the speakership. Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, a member of the Freedom Caucus and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, as well as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Other names floated in Washington include Oklahoma rep Kevin Hearn

and even former President Donald Trump. The GOP firm under address those calls Wednesday before heading into his third day of trial. A lot of people have asked me about it but we're leading my life from 50 points. My focus is totally on that if I can help them doing the process, then we do it. On that note, since the Speaker of the House

does not have to be an elected official, some sources have told the press they'd like to see former congressmen in 2022 New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldon fill the spot. Ultimately, it will take a majority vote in the House to secure the position, which could take a number of weeks. More than 7,500 healthcare workers across America began striking outside of Kaiser Permanente facilities today, demanding higher pay from the health and hospital giant. Patients, not profits. Patients, not profits. Nurses, ultrasound, and X-ray technicians and many more hospital employees say they're burnt out amidst a worker

shortage that began during the pandemic. Here's what one striker in California's Bay Area told KTVU. All of us frontline workers kept coming to our executives and letting them know, we need these positions backfilled. We need them filled again, but they were not listening to us. Now we're taking on the workload of two and three people. That's not safe. Kaiser issued a statement early today saying that the two sides, quote, are still at the bargaining table, having worked through the night in an effort to reach an agreement. This is the biggest strike in U.S. healthcare history. 55 Chinese sailors are believed to have died after their nuclear submarine got caught in a trap

intended to ensnare British subsurface vessels in the Yellow Sea. According to reports out of the U.K., the sub hit a chain and anchor obstacle used by the Chinese Navy to trap U.S. and allied submarines, and the crew appears to have died from hypoxia or lack of oxygen. China denies the reports. President Biden announced a plan today to give an additional $9 billion in student debt relief to 125,000 borrowers. The forgiveness is his latest attempt to wipe out student loan debt after the Supreme Court blocked his previous plan to unilaterally cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.

I believe the court's decision to strike down my student debt relief program was wrong, but I promised I wouldn't give up. Since then, my administration has been pursuing a new approach, grounded and under a different law. the Higher Education Act. My administration is doing everything it can to deliver student debt relief to as many as we can, as fast as we can. To date, the administration has canceled $127 billion of student loan debt. In an effort to continue aiding Ukraine's fight against Russia, the U.S. will be reportedly transferring weapons seized from Iran. The U.S. announced that it obtained these munitions on July 20th through

the Department of Justice's civil forfeiture claims against Iran's Islamic Islamic. Revolutionary Guard Corps. The most popular coffee chain in the world, Starbucks, announced that it will be closing seven of its San Francisco stores. The closures come as crime is surging in the city, though the company did not directly blame crime for its decision. Retail has plummeted in the city with companies like Nordstrom, Whole Foods, Target, and more have enclosed shops in recent years.

And Californians are paying their respects today to recently deceased Senator Diane Feinstein as she lies in state at San Francisco City Hall. Feinstein was 90 years old when she passed away last week after being a U.S. Senator for over three decades. 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 the latest full episode of Morning Wire every morning.