Morning Wire - Kidney Transplant Denied & Air Marshals Fly South | 12.13.22

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

A teen is denied a kidney transplant because she is unvaccinated, the Biden administration is diverting air marshals to the southern border, and we speak to a former ambassador of the Organization of American states who explains why China is gaining an advantage in Latin America. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.   Get 10% off your first order or Coffee Club subscription with code WIRE: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/   See how Podium can grow your business. Watch a demo today at https://podium.com/WIRE     Get a FREE matching Naturally Nude NIghty with your order: https://www.pajamagram.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

According to her family, a teenage girl is being denied a kidney transplant because she's not vaccinated. Duke is not treating us with any respect at all. We get the vaccine or we don't get a kidney. We speak to the girls' parents about how the family is reacting and what's next for the 14-year-old. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, December 13th, and this is Morning Wire. The Biden administration is diverting air marshals to the Southern Board. order. Why is the administration taking that action and what are the potential risks?

And we speak to a former ambassador of the Organization of American States who warns that communist China is gaining a dangerous advantage in Latin America. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Imagine the joy of pre-scheduled coffee delivery. Your favorite roasts at your door, when you need them. It's really the gift that keeps on giving. Right now, you can go to black riflecoffee.com and use promo code Wire for 10% off coffee, merchandise apparel, or when you sign up for a coffee club subscription. Stop your family's Christmas stockings with all the highest-grade coffee

roasted right here in America by veteran-led teams of coffee experts. Go to black rifle coffee.com with promo code wire for 10% off. According to one family, Duke University's Children's Hospital is denying a 14-year-old girl a kidney transplant because she has not received a COVID vaccine. The hospital says the vaccine is a requirement to be a candidate, it. Joining us to discuss is Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Allorty. So Marade, first off, tell us a little bit about this case. Hey, Georgia. So Yulia Hicks is 14 years old and has a genetic

kidney disorder that requires a kidney transplant. But according to her family, Duke Children's Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, is refusing to put her on the kidney wait list because she's not vaccinated against COVID. The family says this was not made clear to them until the 11th hour. They claim they were under the impression that the vaccine was recommended, but only later learned that it was required. Now, why does the hospital say that she needs to have this vaccine to be on the list? Well, according to a recorded phone conversation, the hospital says the vaccine requirement is related to a CDC recommendation. I reached out to the hospital for further comment and did not hear back. But other medical personnel I've consulted with say that hospitals generally want to maximize the chances of success for the transplant.

This often means implementing rigorous requirements to ensure the patient stays healthy during the process. This shot is one of many criteria in Ulyas case. Transplant patients undergo immunosuppression treatments prior to and during the surgery, so they're at higher risk for infections. And what was Yulia's parents' reason for opposing the shot? Well, they have a few reasons. They say Yulia has already had COVID, so she has natural immunity. They're also concerned about the drug's side effects, especially. especially due to Ulius compromised health.

And they have a religious objection to vaccines that use fetal cell lines during the research or manufacturing processes. The doctors at Duke say that the rules are not flexible. Here's part of a recorded phone call between Ulyas' parents in the hospital. I can't require you to do anything. Sure. I can recommend these things. But if you don't follow our recommendations, then Uliah can't be a transplant candidate

here based on our criteria number five, which is persistent non-reference with medication, dialysis treatment, or medical recommendations, and also based on number 10, which would be medical risk factors that make transplant surgery unsafe. And being unvaccinated to the CDC recommended vaccinations based on her age is part of that. Yulia's mom did note that Yulia is compliant with all of the other requirements, including daily dialysis. Here's Chrissy Hicks, Yulia's mother, talking about the situation. Being strong-armed by the medical community, denying us a life-saving treatment has been extremely stressful for our family. Basically in the last week since we found out it's upended our lives and turned it upside down.

Right now, Chrissy Hicks is looking for a different hospital that would be willing to perform the transplant without the vaccine. Our greatest need right now is to find a medical center that will perform the transplant without Yulia having the vaccination. We have some leads. So many people have reached out to us and we're so grateful for that. just are in the process now of trying to reach out to these centers and finding out which one will take Ulya. Again, we've had an overwhelming amount of people contact us saying that they want to see if they are Ulias donor, and we're so grateful for that. So we need to be able to have them go somewhere to be tested. So overall, an extremely difficult situation. Absolutely. Another

interesting wrinkle is that Ulias is adopted from Ukraine. She stayed with two families before she was adopted by the Hicks family. So she's had a tough path. Fortunately, the family's fundraiser has exploded since the media picked up Julia's story, and her parents say they are blown away by everyone's generosity so far. All right. Well, best of luck to Yulia and her family. Mairead, thanks for reporting. Thanks, Georgia. That was Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Allorty.

Coming up, the GOP calls out the Biden administration for sending air marshals to the southern border. If you're running a business and the only way to get in touch with you is via phone call, you may be losing customers. Podium helps your small business stay ahead of the curve with modern messaging that make it easy for your customers to connect with your business. From health care providers to plumbers, over 100,000 businesses are texting with customers through Podium. See how Podium can grow your business and watch a demo at Podium.com slash wire. Again, that's Podium.com slash wire. Podium, let's grow.

Congressional Republicans are calling out the Biden administration for its recent plan to send air marshals to the southern border. The Daily Mail obtained a letter from GOP rep Mike Carey to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorcas asking a list of questions about the proposed policy that would send some of the nation's 3,000 air marshals to the southern border, leaving far fewer flights with armed protection. Here to talk about it is columnist David Marcus. Hey, Dave, why is the Biden administration sending these air marshals to the southern border, and why are Republicans so worried about it? Morning.

The deployment really just speaks to how overwhelmed our. border security agencies are today. They already needed more manpower. And now as Title 42 is no longer being applied, there was a COVID-related measure that helped stem the tide a bit. The problem's poised to get much worse. What Republicans are upset about also is that in an extremely busy travel time, the number of air marshals actually doing the job they signed up for could be as low as an ace of normal staffing. And it's not just Republicans, as the Washington Examiner reported, air marshals themselves are threatening to just not go to the border and get fired. So this is a messy situation.

Yeah, it certainly sounds like it. Do we know what these air marshals would be tasked with doing down at the border? Or is this just a case of trying to get warm bodies on the scene? That's one of Representative Carey's questions, as well as how much this whole operation is going to cost, of course. There aren't federal agents, so I imagine they wouldn't be running the Chowell-Line. But yes, Carrie, and I guess the marshals would like to know specifically what they'd be there to do. And it speaks to larger concerns that the Biden administration is simply trying to hold the border together with spit and tape.

There's no clear plan. And he recently said he wasn't visiting the border because there are more important things. Right, that comment sparked a lot of backlash. This also comes at a time when newly independent Senator Kirsten Sinema and Republican Tom Tillis have floated a kind of trial-belie. for a more comprehensive reform of immigration. Does this kind of mess actually strengthen their hand? It's hard to say. Conservatives in particular have a lot of concerns

about the amount of amnesty in this proposed plan and frankly about actually achieving the kind of border security that it promises. Maybe you can broadly say that having a framework helps to define the boundaries of discussion or compromise, but so far this plan isn't achieving that. There are a lot more Republicans today as opposed to 10 years ago, who basically say that they aren't even talking about amnesties

or pathways to citizenship until after security is attained at the border. So on the other side of this, of course, is air travel safety. Should Americans be concerned about there being so many fewer air marshals on planes? Presumably they exist for a reason, right? And again, this is what Republicans are asking. For two years, we've seen reports of upticks in violence on planes, flight attendants in harm's way, fights breaking out. And those are things air marshals can deal with completely aside from their more basic purpose of protecting against potential terror attack.

Now finally, with Republicans about to take over the House again and gain significant investigatory abilities, many have targeted Majorcas, who's in charge of both the border agents and the air marshals, for potential impeachment. Could this add to their case? Yes. There's probably nobody on Biden's cabinet who the GOP knives are sharper for than Majorcas, in part because of the crisis on the border, but also his handling of the fake story about agents whipping migrants, where he really threw his own guys under the bus. So I do think that if Republicans want to start impeaching people,

Majorcas is very, very likely at the top of that list. Yeah, they're certainly not pulling any punches when it comes to how they speak about him publicly. Dave, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. That was Daily Wire contributor, David Marcus. The expanding role of communist China in Latin America has some experts sounding the alarm over the threat that poses to American interests in the region. Joining us to discuss is Carlos Trujillo, a former ambassador to the Organization of American States. So, Carlos, there are some stark differences between the current administration and the Trump administration and how they've handled Latin America.

What are some significant changes we've seen so far from Biden that are having an impact on that region? The worst changes you've seen is the recent announcement of the easing of sanctions against the communist regime in Venezuela and also the border policy. When the United States turns us back on democracy and human rights and eases sanctions against one of the most brutal totalitarian dictatorships in the hemisphere, it weakens democracy and human rights everywhere. I think at times they're very naive thinking that they're going to out-negotiate or they're going to out-smart Nicholas Maduro and the thugs were running Venezuela. And at the end of the day, the message we're sending to the rest of the region, especially with strong democratic actors, is that there's no consequences for poor behavior. We're going to spend more time trying to focus on cutting a deal with a totalitarian regime in order to extract energy for our production, even though we can produce it here in the United States, then defending democracy and human rights across the region. Another failed policy has really been the border policy. If you look at the Remain and Mexico policy, the third country safe agreements that were signed historically into the state,

Trump administration led to negative migration in the last months of the Trump presidency. What we see now at the border is at least 200,000 apprehensions every single month, month over month, and the chaos that that causes across the entire Central American and across really the region. When you have migrants traversing, when you have transnational criminal groups who are receiving a significant amount of pay, when you have guns and drugs and other items and contraband being moved across their border, that disrupts our security. but the security and the tranquility in the entire region.

Now, one of the issues that you've sounded the alarm on recently is how China is becoming more and more of a dominant political actor in Latin America. How does this all fit together? The current administration has really gone back towards a policy of appeasement in the region, a much more relaxed approach to the region, which has created an even bigger opportunity for China to come and be aggressive in debt-loading a lot of these countries, extracting natural resources, and pedaling influence and power. And one of the biggest tools we used under the Trump administration to combat that was a direct finance corporation.

Direct finance corporation would provide concessionary interest rates to developing countries and allow American businesses to compete across the region, also risk insurance. And it was predicated on if the deal made sense for the American taxpayer, if it was a fair deal, if it was a safe deal, If it advanced our interests, we would obviously support American companies in their competition across the region. Unfortunately, Biden administration has politicized the direct finance corporation. Now the new mantra there is much more driven on whether it has a social equity inclusion element or a climate element, rather than just if it makes economic sense for the host country as well as for the United States taxpayer and the private business who's risking their capital. All right, so that opens the door for China.

Well, it's a direct competition. It's a direct competition. When we would compete with DFC, China would bring their alternative. Our products were better. They were American made. Countries in the hemisphere want to do business with American businesses. They prefer American businesses over Chinese businesses, but we still have to compete. When we handicap ourselves because of social policies or climate policies, we're no longer competing.

And these countries, they're critical infrastructure, their hospitals, or emergency management, it still needs to be developed. So when we remove ourselves from the competition because of our own policies, the only other competitor in town is China. Well, Carlos, thank you so much for joining us. That was Carlos Trujillo, a former ambassador to the Organization of the American States.

Another story we're tracking this week. In a developing story, Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of now bankrupt Crypto Exchange, FTX, has been arrested in the Bahamas. The move comes after the U.S. shared a sealed indictment with the country's government. SBF is expected to be extradited to the U.S.

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. There's nothing better than new pajamas on Christmas morning. And there's no better way to do that than with pajamogram. Pajagram's naturally nude pajamas are so silky and smooth that both you and your spouse will love them. Order today and pajam will include a free matching naturally nude 90 with your order. That's a $75 savings.

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