Morning Wire - Senate Social Media Hearing & Mayorkas Impeachment Articles | 2.1.24

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Several social media company heads get grilled on Capitol Hill, a House Committee approved two articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and more allegations of plagiarism at Harvard have come to light. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Gravity Defyer: Get $30 off your order of $150 or more! Use promo code: WIRE at http://www.GDefy.com Netsuite: Take advantage of no payments and no interest for six months at Http://www.NetSuite.com/MORNINGWIRE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Several tech CEOs get grilled on Capitol Hill over their alleged failures to protect children on their social media platforms. I'm so tired of this. It's been 28 years, what, since the internet, we haven't passed any of these bills. And the reason they haven't passed is because of the power of your companies. We break down the contentious testimony from the Senate's Child Online Safety Hearing. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, February 1st, and this is Morning Wire. A House committee approved two articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his failure to secure the border. He's making it virtually impossible.

They say in their own words and they told us down on the border at Eagle Pass. It's impossible to do the job that they were trained to do. And Harvard is hit with yet another plagiarism accusation, this time involving its chief diversity and inclusion officer. Thanks for waking up with Morningwire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Good footwear is about more than just fashion. and G-D-D-D-D-Fy shoes are anything but ordinary. They aim to foster healthy body movements,

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Where Comfort meets innovation. A dramatic hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday as tech CEOs faced questions about the effects of social media on children. Families impacted by youth, suicides, and sexual exploitation cheered as Senate Judiciary Committee members grilled the chief executives of meta, TikTok, X, Snap, and Discord. Here with more is Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham. So, Megan, this may have been one of the most emotional Senate hearings I've seen. what did they address and what were some of the standout moments? Well, you know, this was a very wide-ranging hearing, and among the issues covered were child sexual exploitation, child pornography, also the question of material that promotes harmful, life-threatening behavior,

things like children purchasing drugs like fentanyl on apps like Snapchat, anxiety and general mental health impact, especially on teen and pre-teen girls. And it even returned to the issue that we've seen in previous tech hearings of data, privacy and Chinese ownership of TikTok. And I'll say that one of the most noteworthy factors may be the level of bipartisanship that we saw. So Republican senators, Lindsey Graham and Josh Holly were especially aggressive in grilling these CEOs. And Graham actually said that they have blood on their hands. But, you know, Democrat senators, Amy Klobuchar and Dick Durbin, were also aggressive. I really can't think of another issue in recent memory where we saw both

sides being so aligned. And then the other significant factor was the fact that families who blame social media for their children's deaths by suicide and overdose were in fact present in the chamber, and they openly cheered at some points. This gave rise to the most dramatic moment of the hearing when Senator Holly asked Zuckerberg if he wanted to apologize to the families. You're on national television. Would you like now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed by your product? Show them the pictures. Would you like, to apologize for what you've done to these good people. Why, Mr. Zuckerberg, why should you hide behind a liability shield? You can't be held accountable. Shouldn't you be held accountable personally? Will you take personal responsibility?

Senator, I think I've already answered this. So it may have been difficult to hear Zuckerberg. there as he was facing away from the microphones. But what he did was turn and address the parents sitting behind him and he said, I'm sorry for everything you have all been through. So very dramatic moment in a hearing that had no shortage of emotional moments, as you said, Georgia. And some have questioned how Zuckerberg's apology there could now be used in lawsuits against meta. Now, did he and or other CEOs push back at all against claims that they were actually responsible for that harm? To some degree they did, what they did was they highlighted proactive steps that they say they've taken to protect kids online. So Zuckerberg said meta has plans to

hide content that isn't appropriate for minors. And he said that his company is unrolling 30 new tools that will give parents more ability to protect kids when they are on these apps. But he also pushed back against the idea that the mental health crisis and teens and preteens is the fault of social media. Now, we sometimes see these explosive hearings, but they don't always translate into any actual legislative outcomes. Are there any concrete solutions being floated? Well, I think the most likely legislative result would be seeing more support for the Kids Online Safety Act. That's a bipartisan bill that requires social media apps to take what they call reasonable measures to prevent bullying, sexual exploitation, exposure to harmful materials, things like videos promoting anorexia or cutting.

And the platforms would need to protect children's private information. They would need to offer monitoring tools to parents. And they'd also need to offer more disclosure on targeted advertising and marketing. So Evan Spiegel, who is the chief executive of SNAP and Linda Yakorino, who leads X, both pledged to back that legislation. And that's noteworthy because lobbying groups for the tech companies have very much been working against that bill and against state-level legislation that imposes similar age and time restrictions on social media use. But Zuckerberg's and the CEOs of TikTok and Discord did not join that pledge. TikTok CEO said that they support the spirit of these bills,

but they have concerns about implementation. And that is fairly telling, perhaps indicating that meta, TikTok, and Discord at least, plan to continue lobbying to block these kind of bills. Well, I'd be interested to know how much revenue they anticipate losing if kids did limit their time on the apps. Yeah, that's a good question. Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime. NetSuite turns 25 this year. That's 25 years of helping businesses do more with less, close their books in days, not weeks, and drive-down costs. Manage risk, get reliable forecast, and improve margins. Everything you need all in one place. 36,000 businesses have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle.

Download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance, absolutely free at netsuite.com slash morningwire. That's netsuite.com slash morning wire. House Republicans have now taken a crucial step in their efforts to impeach embate-Haworthe. Here to discuss his Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips. Hey, Cabot. So GOP lawmakers have long vowed to impeach Majorcas,

and now they're one step closer. First, what happened yesterday? So the House Homeland Security Committee voted 18 to 15 along party lines to advance articles of impeachment against Secretary Marrakes. As we've documented here, the U.S. has experienced an unprecedented surge in illegal immigration, with 7.5 million people crossing the border under the Biden administration. For context, if all of those migrants formed their own state, it would be the 13th largest state in the country.

The impeachment charges say Marius has knowingly made false statements to come. Congress and obstructed congressional oversight of his department. Here's our speaker Mike Johnson speaking on Mayorkas from the House floor Wednesday. He's handicapping law enforcement. He's limiting their ability to catch narcotics like fentanyl. We will be moving forward swiftly on those articles. It's long overdue. But Secretary Mayorkas is only part of the problem because earlier this month, I released a

memo documenting 64, 64 specific actions that the Biden administration has taken to undermine our border security and to promote the mass release of illegals and dangerous persons into our country. All right, so the committee has now moved the impeachment effort forward. What comes next? Well, the articles will now head to the House floor where they'll likely be voted on at some point next week. Now, given their slim majority, Republicans can only afford to lose two votes in the House. If it does pass, it'll head to the Senate where a formal trial would be held. At that point, it will come down to whether the GOP can prove Majoricus is guilty of committing, quote, to high crimes and misdemeanors.

That is the key bar set for impeachment, and it's a difficult one to reach. Not only do Democrats control the Senate, making the odds of conviction relatively slim, but there's little historical precedent to go on as well. A sitting cabinet member has only been impeached and convicted once, and was all the way back in 1876. What is the secretary, Majorcas, saying in response to this impeachment effort?

Yeah, he sent a letter to the House, calling the impeachment a sham based on, quote, baseless and false claims. claims. He went on to tell Republican members that, quote, your false accusations do not rattle me and do not divert me from the law enforcement and broader public service mission to which I've devoted most of my career. Democrats in the House released a statement of their own, defending my orcas. To that point, here's Representative Benny Thompson, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee. The Committee on Homeland Security has distinguished itself

through serious legislative and oversight work under the leadership of both parties. Republicans' partisan rush to consider House Resolution 863 today is a betrayal of that hard-earned record. And look, it is worth noting here. There have been voices on the right who are urging House Republicans to drop the effort. Alan Dershowitz, for example, who represented former President Trump in his first impeachment trial, claimed the GOP was using, quote, double standards and called the charges vague. We heard a similar sentiment from legal expert Jonathan Turley, who it's worth noting has been called, as a Republican witness in numerous congressional hearings. He said there's, quote, no evidence my workers committed impeachable offense

and said Republicans have no cognizable basis for conviction. But for their part, House Republicans say that they have a duty to remove him, given the chaos at the border. Here's a closing argument we heard from Tennessee rep Mark Green, who really led the charge in the Homeland Security Committee. He has willfully and systematically refused to comply with the laws passed by Congress and breached the trust of Congress and the American people. The results have been catastrophic and have endangered the lives and livelihoods of all Americans.

So now we wait and see if the House votes to impeach next week. And after that, how the Senate trial proceeds. All right, more to come. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Any time. In the wake of the scandal involving now former Harvard president, Claudine Gay, the university is facing more plagiarism allegations. Harvard University's chief diversity officer appears to have plagiarized large portions of her academic work,

according to a complaint filed with the school. Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade Alorty, is here with the details. So Marade, tell us about these allegations. Hi, Georgia. While these allegations appeared in a complaint filed Monday with Harvard, Sherry Ann Charleston, Harvard's first ever chief diversity and inclusion officer

allegedly plagiarized parts of every publication she wrote, that's at least 40 times total, according to this anonymous complaint filed with the university, which was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon. The complaint says Charleston, quoted or paraphrased nearly a dozen other academics without proper attribution in her 2009 dissertation submitted to the University of Michigan. Also, Charleston's only peer-reviewed journal article written in 2014 with her husband lifted parts from a 2012 study her husband published,

presenting it as new research. We should note, her husband, Lovar Charleston, is the deputy vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Charleston herself was previously assistant vice provost for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and chief affirmative action officer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So she presented her husband's study and then passed it off as new? Yes, at least parts of it, if the complaints allegations are true. In the 2014 article, they authored, which was published in the Journal of Negro Education, even interviews with black computer science students from the 2012 study showed up word for word. The 2014 article also listed the same methods, findings, and descriptions of survey subjects as the older study.

That's according to the Beacon's analysis. This is a big problem because not only are you not supposed to recycle old research, especially data and conclusions, but the 2014 publication also added two new authors, Sherry Ann Charleston and Gerlando Jackson, who had nothing to do with the original study. Peter Wood, the head of the National Association of Scholars, told the Beacon the 2014 paper, quote, appears to be entirely counterfeit, and called it research fraud, pure and simple. So what's Harvard's response been? A Harvard spokesperson told the school's newspaper that Harvard has processes for handling research

misconduct allegations, but they, quote, do not comment on individual cases or on the existence of investigations related to research misconduct allegations. The spokesperson also praised the chief diversity officer and said she advanced the school's, quote, belief that everyone who comes to Harvard belongs at Harvard and whether a student, faculty, staff member, or researcher should have the opportunity to succeed. A spokesperson for UW Madison, where Charleston used to work, said the school has initiated an assessment in response to the allegations. It said it takes all allegations of research misconduct seriously. Now, this comes shortly on the heels of allegations against Claudeine Gay,

the former university president. So it sounds like more bad press for Harvard. That's right. As we mentioned earlier, these allegations do echo those against Claudeyne Gay, who stepped down as Harvard's president earlier this month. Gay was accused last year of dozens of instances of plagiarism in her published works. However, Gay still collects a $900,000 annual salary as a tenured faculty member at Harvard. Here's an interesting tidbit, too. As chief diversity officer, Charleston served on the presidential search committee that ultimately named Claudine Gay as president.

So overall, more PR woes for Harvard as it figures out how to respond to this situation. Absolutely. Marade, thanks for reporting. Thanks, Georgia. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.