Morning Wire - Stormy Daniels Testifies & Social Security Insolvency | 5.8.24

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Stormy Daniels faces off with Donald Trump in a New York courtroom, Israeli officials claim the U.S. kept them in the dark regarding the latest hostage deal, and a new report puts an expiration date on Social Security funding. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Fast Growing Trees: Get 15% off your entire order. Use Promo Code ‘WIRE’ at http://www.fastgrowingtrees.com Shopify: "Get a $1 per month trial at https://www.shopify.com/morningwire" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stormy Daniels faces off with Donald Trump in a New York courtroom as a federal judge postpones Trump's classified documents case indefinitely. Let's be honest, we're not having a trial before the election. I mean, that was sure beforehand, but it is absolutely certain now. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with guest host Batya Ungar Sargon, opinion editor at Newsweek. It's Wednesday, May 8th, and this is Morning Wire. Israeli forces take control of the Rafa Crossing Intest. Egypt as Israeli officials claim the Biden administration kept them in the dark regarding the latest deal.

We want to get these hostages out. We want to get a ceasefire in place for six weeks. We want to increase humanitarian assistance. And holes in the Social Security safety net widen as a new report gives the program just over a decade before the fund runs dry. The bottom line, unfortunately, is the same bottom line that they have every year, which is our two biggest government programs, Social Security and Medicare, are both the bottom line. headed towards insolvency.

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Did you know fast-growing trees is the biggest online nursery in the U.S. with over 2 million happy customers? Fast-growing trees has everything you could possibly want, including fruit trees, houseplants, and more.

They have the best deals and offer free plant consultations for life. I just stocked up on all my spring and summer blooms and all my plants arrived in great condition. Right now, as a listener of our show, you get an additional 15% off your first purchase when you use code wire at fastgrowing trees.com. Terms and conditions may apply. Former adult star Stormy Daniels took to the witness stand on Tuesday,

giving some of the most anticipated testimony thus far in Donald Trump's New York hush money case. Daniels claims that she had a sexual encounter with Trump and was paid to keep the affair quiet. Her testimony came the same day that a federal judge in Florida indefinitely postponed Jack Smith's classified documents case against Trump. Here to talk about all this is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus. Hey, Dave. So let's start in New York. It was Stormy Daniels in the spotlight there. What did we learn? Morning, John. It sure was. And Daniels, of course, is no stranger to spotlights. The direct testimony was handled by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, who started out by walking through Daniel's history in the adult industry, eventually moving into Daniels meeting Trump and the

alleged sexual encounter. Judge Juan Murphi, Mershon had warned at the start of her testimony that he didn't want things to get too salacious, but they did, leading to several objections from Trump's lawyers. And then after the lunch break, a motion for a mistrial, arguing that Daniels had crossed the line set by the judge himself in testifying to things like the former president allegedly not wearing a condom or standing between her and the hotel door, the judge did not declare a mistrial, but this could prove to be grounds for a future appeal. for once it was the prosecution, not Trump, who seemed to raise the ire of Judge Marshon.

Yeah. Now, during her testimony, Daniels said she was not interested in money when she signed an agreement to keep the alleged affair secret in exchange for $130,000 from Cohen. Do we have any idea how that played with the jury? I mean, no, not exactly, but reports from inside the courtroom suggested that Daniels, although nervous and talking very quickly, seemed to almost be performing. She cracked a few jokes, though apparently they didn't get laughs from the jury. Most people think 130 large is a lot of money. One has to imagine the jury will see it as part of her motivation. So we got some of the cross-examination before court ended on Tuesday.

What was the approach from Trump's attorneys? Trump lawyer, Susan Neckless, notably a woman, was frankly more aggressive towards Daniels than I think most observers expected. Right off the bat, she asked the former porn actress if her testimony had been. and rehearsed with prosecutors to which Daniels said no. She pressed Daniels on all of the deal itself. It was combative and clearly meant to shake the jury's confidence in Daniels as a witness. The bottom line for Trump's team is that Daniels has said an awful lot of contradictory things about all of this over the years. Their goal is to paint her as someone who was basically after money, and I expect they'll continue with that tomorrow.

Yeah, I'm sure they will. Meanwhile, there were two significant developments in the federal class of, documents case against Trump yesterday. First, it was abruptly postponed by the judge Eileen Cannon in a court order. She cited some significant questions still to be answered about handling classified documents. So no start date for that at this point. We also saw Congress take action about that case. What happened there? Representative Jim Jordan announced that Congress is launching an investigation into Jack Smith's handling of the classified documents. Donald Trump is accused of mishandling.

Smith's office had previously told the court that boxes found at Mar-a-Lago were unaltered, but on Friday admitted that some of the contents had been jumbled or mixed around, which casts in the question when the documents arrived at Mar-a-Lago, which ones were found together, all things that Trump's attorneys have argued compromised the prosecution. Trump wants the case thrown out. Don't hold your breath for that, but this is just another cloud over these Trump prosecutions. One almost might say stormy weather here. I wasn't going

through John, but there it is. All right, Dave. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Is your business selling a little or a lot? Shopify helps you do your thing, however, you chiching. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage

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Trust between the U.S. and Israeli governments fell after Hamas announced it had agreed to a new ceasefire proposal on Monday. The proposal finalized without Israeli input would leave what remains of Hamas intact. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the war in Gaza. Hey Tim. So Biden administration allies started to champion a ceasefire deal with Hamas on Monday. What happened? Right. Hamas said it agreed to a ceasefire proposal and immediately Biden allies began to spin it as a big

diplomatic win for the president. The problem is is that wasn't true. The deal Hamas agreed to has no chance of implementation unless Israel agrees to Hamas's survival, which the Israelis have repeatedly said is not possible. Here's White House spokesman John Kirby talking about that deal on Monday and saying the talks are still ongoing. There has been a response from Hamas to the hostage deal. We're currently reviewing that response, and we're discussing it with our partners in the region.

I won't be able to comment any further on this until we know where things stand. I hope you can understand that. I know everybody's curious about what's in this response, what the Israeli reaction to it is. I'm just not going to get ahead of the process. Obviously, Kirby didn't get into specifics, but reports say this has caused a major rift between Washington and Jerusalem. According to the New York Times, Biden administration officials say that the ceasefire proposal agreed to by Hamas only featured minor wording changes from the framework agreed to by Israel. But Israeli officials told Axios that to them, it, quote, looked like a

whole new proposal and that they felt Israel got played by the U.S. and other mediators. Do we know how the deal was negotiated? Well, Israel's team had agreed to certain parameters around hostage negotiations and a ceasefire weeks ago. But the Israelis drew a red line. any deal that would end the war before Hamas is destroyed. CIA director Bill Burns, who is the head of the U.S. mediation team, and his counterparts from Qatar and Egypt, reworked the deal over the weekend alongside Hamas negotiators. Burns never consulted Israel on the latest changes.

In fact, Israel didn't even know the proposal was being edited until Hamas said it had accepted it on Monday. But the truth is, all Hamas accepted was a proposal that it largely wrote. And now Israel feels like it was blindsided by its allies in the Biden administration. Right. Now, the U.S.-Israel relationship was already tense over Rafah. Can you give us the latest on that? Sure. Israel started a limited operation in Rafah on Monday after it had warned residents to evacuate north. Over a million Palestinians have been forced into Rafah over the course of the war, and Israel is trying to allow for civilians to get to humanitarian areas before it begins its full-scale attack on Hamas and Rafe.

Israel's work has been slow, though, in part because the Biden administration has been very particular about how Israel handles refugees. Washington is still on the fence over whether it supports Israel going into Rafah right now. The president doesn't want to see operations in Rafa that put at greater risk the more than a million people that are seeking refuge there. So you wouldn't support a limited operation in the rock. I think I've answered the question. On top of that, the Biden administration has reportedly paused an armed shipment to Israel. Kirby refused to comment on that when he was asked about that on Monday. Republicans have pitted themselves against Biden on this.

morning wire asked Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee for her thoughts on U.S. Israeli relations. If we want to help the Palestinian people, if we want to see a brighter future for them, we need to get rid of Hamas. It is troubling to me that the Palestinian people elected Hamas as their government. Hamas takes all the food, the medical supplies, the fuel for themselves. Let's get rid of Hamas. Let's let Israel do their job and the United States should stand in support of them. To that point, Israel seems ready to finish off Hamas, but one of its biggest hurdles to doing that so far seems to be reluctance on the part of Washington. Feels like things are going to get worse before they get better when it comes to U.S. Israel relations. Thanks for the great reporting, Tim.

Thanks, Batya. Good to be on. According to an alarming federal report, Social Security funding is now set to run out by 2035, as the number of beneficiaries continues to rise at a record pace. Here are the details on the disturbing report as Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips. All right, Cabot, so we see this pretty dire prediction for 2035. What are we looking at here? Well, it's not always the most exciting topic to discuss, but it's now abundantly clear that Social Security is heading towards a financial cliff.

That's according to the federal trustees overseeing the program. In a new report released this week, they warrant that without substantive reforms, the Social Security Retirement Fund will be insolvent within the next decade. According to their projections, that would result in a mandatory 21% cut in retirement benefits for tens of millions of recipients, and it would only get worse from there.

For more, here's Maya McGinnis, president of the Committee for Responsible Fiscal Budget, speaking with Fox. We know the trust funds don't have enough money to pay the benefits that have been promised. And that means when they run out in less than a decade for Social Security, if you are newly retired in Social Security, they are going to be across-the-board benefit cuts of above 20%. All right. So what's driving this projected shortfall?

There are quite a few factors. First, Americans are simply living longer than before. When the program was started in the 1930s, the average life expectancy was around 63. But today, that number is 79, which is obviously good news, but that means that not only are folks drawing more money for a longer period of time, but also that there are more beneficiaries than ever. Next year, the number of Americans drawing from Social Security will hit 60 million for the first time. That is around 20% of the U.S. population. Another problem is the ratio of workers to beneficiaries. When Social Security was first launched, there were 42 covered workers for every one beneficiary. Today, that ratio is three workers for every one beneficiary.

And as a result, it's now running in a massive deficit of around 180 billion. million annually. And by 233, that deficit is expected to more than double ballooning to $400 billion annually. So that problem is only going to accelerate in the coming years. Now, for context, over the next 75 years, the program is projected to pay out $25 trillion more than it's bringing in. 25 trillion. That is about equal to three-fourths of the entire national debt at the moment. Incomprehensible numbers at this point. What's being done to address the problem? Well, at this point, both Republicans and Democrats agree that the current program is not sustainable, but neither side really wants to touch it. The optics of telling the elderly you want to cut their benefits are not great, especially when you consider how much more active senior citizens are in the political process.

In 2020, 72% of those over the age of 65 voted. That makes them far in a way the most active age demographic and dwarfs turn out among younger Americans. So there's clearly a political calculus going on as neither side wants to turn off a highly-indexam. engaged portion of the electorate. President Biden has promised not to cut benefits, and President Trump, after briefly saying he's open to the idea, is now vowing the same. So it's sort of a political hop potato. Yes, indeed. So what are the policy proposals that are actually being discussed? So there are a few things on the table. First would be raising the age of Social Security eligibility to cut costs. That's a move more popular among Republicans. Now, supporters of that strategy,

note that life expectancy has now gone up 16 years since the program's inception, while the of eligibility has only gone up two years. But again, that's a tough sell with folks who've paid into the program for decades and are set to retire. For their part, Democrats generally say the solution is to keep the program as is and then make up the deficit through tax increases that they say will be targeted towards higher income Americans. On that note, President Biden has proposed a plan that would significantly raise payroll taxes on those earning over $400,000 and direct all of that revenue towards Social Security. But it would take substantial tax hikes to get anywhere close to fully funding the program, which are unlikely to pass Congress anytime soon. So for the time being,

both sides appear content to just kick the can down the road as a fiscal cliff approaches. And eventually there's no more road left. Kevin, thanks for reporting. Anytime. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.