Morning Wire - Teachers Unions Prioritize Politics

Episode Date: January 22, 2022

A new report finds a dramatic shift in teachers unions’ priorities, the latest on Prince Andrew's trouble and a review of President Biden’s first year. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Nespresso. Hear that, that's your next obsession. Every coffee, a new world. Every sip, a new taste. This is the new Nespresso. One touch, endless possibilities. Iced, flavored, long, short. Because some days call for that espresso kick.

And sometimes, a smooth, silky latte just wins. It's exceptional but effortless. Like actually effortless. Simply press, brew, and explore. Nispresso, what else? Keep exploring at nespresso.com. A new report found that teachers' unions are now raising tens of millions of dollars, and their leadership is using those funds to support causes that some critics say are completely unrelated to education.

We talk with the lead author of the report. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire, Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's January 22nd, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire. Galane Maxwell has been convicted on multiple counts of sex trafficking and now faces decades in prison, but she's not the only member of Jeffrey Epstein's inner circle that is, come into the spotlight. We'll look at the latest claims against British Royal Prince Andrew. And President Biden just completed his first year in office. How do you do? Well, we'll take a look at the numbers. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

This show is sponsored by Crowd Health. In honor of cancel culture, it's about time you cancel your health insurance. CrowdHealth is a new way to pay for health care. It's a community of people who care about enhancing freedom and reducing health care costs. No enrollment periods, no doctor networks, no surprises. Go to crowdhealth.com and enter code DailyWire for a special offer of $99 a month per person for six months. Crowd Health is not health insurance. It's a community-powered alternative. Terms and conditions may apply. A new report highlights some significant changes within the country's teachers' unions and some dramatic shifts in their priorities. Increases in campaign spending and political rhetoric in internal resolutions are among the findings of a new investigation into the groups

who advocate on behalf of U.S. teachers. Here are the details as Eric Eggers from the Government Accountability Institute, who issued the report. Morning, Eric. Good morning, John. So education is a hot topic in the country at the moment. The Chicago Teachers Union just agreed to come back to the classrooms. While you've got lawsuits across the country from parents over what they think is objectionable content being taught in classes, how does this new report speak to all that?

Right. So I think this new report would actually examine both the rise in campaign spending, on behalf of the American Federation Teachers and also the National Education Association. It also looked at the internal resolutions that the AFT had passed. And what it does is they actually reveal the organization's priorities. What the two data sources each show is actually how much more active the country's teachers' unions have become politically. And the shift that's occurred, which now has union leadership actually voicing consistent

support for a host of left-leaning social and political positions that you wouldn't typically associate with the education industry. Interesting. So let's start with the spending. What did you find and how does it explain some of the things we're seeing in the news in terms of classroom closures? So back in 2008, the NEA and AFT combined donated roughly $8 million to political campaigns or related entities. But by 2020, that number had increased dramatically up to more than 30 million. Whoa. And more than 99% of it actually goes to Democrats. Really? And this is why union leadership gets to help write CDC guidelines for school. school reopenings and why some unions were able to help keep schools closed, despite parental

opposition. Their financial clout, coupled with an intentional shift in organizational mindset, shed some light into how they've attained this new status. What do you mean shift in organizational mindset? Well, one of the report's key findings is actually an admission by the former head of the N.E.A. Lili Esclan Garcia, that the, quote, core business of the N.A. is no longer lobbying for things like pensions and health insurance, things that impact the day-to-day lives of the teachers they represent. Rather, Esklin Garcia said the new focus of the union is social activism and

political lobbying. So when Chicago teachers unions agreed to re-enter the classroom last week, Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, was explicit as the driving force behind the shift in position. And it wasn't a desire by teachers or union leadership to get back to work. I want to make sure that parents understand, we heard you. We're not staying. We're not standing here making this announcement without the parent activism, the parent voices, the parent demands that we heard. All that to say, unions have dramatically increased their political power, as reflected in both their financial and organizational priorities. And as we've seen, they're wielding that power, as we saw in Chicago, even when it's directly at odds with parents and

lawmakers. And what about what's happening in the classroom? We've seen lots of lawsuits throughout the country over things being taught in the classroom or things happening outside the purview of parents, what do you find regarding actual classroom content? So in reviewing the internal resolutions passed by the AFT, we found that a significant percentage of them actually featured advocacy for cultural or social positions that a lot of Americans might find divisive. In 2020, the American Federation of Teachers passed 34 resolutions. But of those 34, 16 of them advocated for some form of racial justice, things like calling for a Black Lives Matter in School Week. And another four of them actually supported increased sensitivity for gender and LGBT-related issues.

And while some people might think that that's totally appropriate, those are actually the exact same topics that are being taught at the local level that parents across the country are objecting to in some aggressive and legal ways, including lawsuits. Yeah, we've seen parents really getting engaged in their schools on a new level over the last year. They really have. Eric, thanks for reporting on this important story. Sure thing. That's Eric Eggers of the Government Accountability Institute

and co-host of the Drill Down podcast. Coming up, Prince Andrew is stripped of his royal titles. You can get this show and all of the content you love wherever you are, all on the Daily Wire app. Even if you're not a Daily Wire member, you'll be the first to know what's trending with mobile notifications for the latest news and you'll get content from all your favorite Daily Wire shows.

Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts, no matter where your day takes you. With Epstein Dead and Maxwell behind bars, the focus of the ongoing child sex trafficking case is now falling on British Royal Prince Andrew. Here to give us the latest on the Prince Andrews saga is Daily Wires Ian Howarth. So first off, Ian, how have things changed recently? Well, the big news when it comes to Prince Andrews specifically is that his last ditch attempt to have the civil case against him thrown out failed last week.

Prince Andrews' legal team had argued that he was released, from reliability by a previously secret 2009 agreement between his accuser Virginia Geoffrey and convicts his sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. However, when the $500,000 settlement was uncovered, it didn't mention Prince Andrew by name, only other potential defendants. But a New York judge rejected this argument, which means that Prince Andrew will be heading to court after all. And so what's the fallout from this decision? Just a few days later, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen, who is Prince Andrew's mother, had stripped him of his military title, and royal patronages. He also can't use the style, His Royal Highness, in any official capacity.

In a statement, Buckingham Palace said, quote, with the Queen's approval and agreement, the Duke of York's military affiliations and royal patronages have been returned to the Queen. The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen. This is just the latest example of Prince Andrew effectively being shunned from the royal family. However, the Queen isn't cutting off completely as it's been reported that she will still bankroll Prince Andrew's legal battle and help fund the cost of a settlement if needed. And are there any further updates on the Epstein-Mexwell story more broadly?

Well, as we were reported on Morning Wire this week, Jolet Maxwell has now decided to stop fighting to protect the names of eight men who allegedly had sex with underage girls procured by Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. These men are referred to in a 2015 civil lawsuit against Maxwell by Virginia Jifree, and now it's likely that these names will eventually be made public. And this is where it's important to remember that while Prince Andrew is one of the highest profile names at the moment, there are others who are skirting beneath the radar. Jafri has publicly accused other men of having sex with her when she was underage.

These men include billionaire hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, Clinton cabinet member Bill Richardson, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, and several others, including Alan Dershowitz, who served as Epstein's lawyer. They have all denied Jaffrey's claims. There are then multiple parts of this story which are largely being ignored by, the mainstream media. These include testimony that the FBI found a cashier of Epstein's sex tapes but didn't reveal what's on them. The fact that no one seems to know where Epstein's vast wealth came from or that Epstein was basically let loose after early investigations into his criminal behavior. Needless to say, Prince Andrew might be the face of the current story,

but there is an entire underworld beneath his notable name, which is largely being ignored by the wider media. Yeah, it sounds like there's still a lot more to learn about this case. Ian, thanks for the update. Thanks for having me. DailyWire's Ian Howarth. This week marks one year since Joe Biden's inauguration as the 46th president of the United States. The president said he outperformed expectations in 2021. Daily Wire reporter Ben Johnson asked a Republican congressional leader to go through the metrics, and he joins us here to share the results.

Good morning, Ben. Good morning. So first, Ben, what did President Biden cite as his greatest accomplishments in the last year? During the press conference on Wednesday, the president highlighted the number of people vaccinated against COVID-19, as well as the passage of the American Rescue Plan and his trillion-dollar infrastructure bill. But then he selectively cited economic statistics. We created six million new jobs, more jobs in one year than any time before. Unemployment dropped, the unemployment rate dropped to 3.9 percent. Child poverty dropped by nearly 40 percent. And for the first time, in a long time,

this country's working people actually got a raise. He also said he lowered insurance. premiums, and he implied that he fixed the supply chain crisis last year. Now, you spoke with Representative Kevin Brady, the ranking Republican member of the House Ways and Means Committee. What did he make of the president's account? Well, he had a much different take, as you can imagine. President Biden began his presidency to use a baseball analogy, standing on third base, and promptly stole second. Congressman Brady pointed out some of the economic facts the president left out of his

press conference. He is now 1.1 million a job short of his promises from the last COVID stimulus. Small business pessimism is at a 48-year low because inflation has been so high. In one year, President Biden took back all of the wage gains that families were seeing from the previous years under President Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. To expound on that, it's true that the economy added six million new jobs, but as we've discussed, that's slightly fewer jobs than the Congressional Budget Office projected before he passed $3 trillion in new federal spending. It's true unemployment is down, but that's because so many people have exited the labor market that stores can't find workers. Insurance premiums for employer-sponsored health care

plans increased by 4% last year. And it's true that wages rose 4.7% in 2021, but as the congressman alluded, inflation rose even more. practice, wages fell last year by 2.4%. Now, in real dollars, that's an average of $5,000 a year, $3,500 in higher prices, and $1,500 from what economists in the 70s called bracket creep. That's when inflation pushes taxpayers into higher tax brackets. As far as the supply chain is concerned, officials simply started finding ships that docked too long near the port, which made it appear that there was less cargo to unload. In fact, the number of ships idled at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach surged to a record-breaking 105 vessels earlier this month.

So you're saying here that there was some meaningful context left out of these statistics. Exactly. What other data would help put the Biden administration's first year into better perspective? Well, Biden once again defended his withdrawal from Afghanistan, which most American support, but he made no apologies for the bot strategy that left American citizens stranded and hunted by the Taliban. It's also important to highlight issues the president didn't mention at all, like, violent crime. Murders rose in at least 22 major cities in 2021, placing them at or near

record highs. The murder of police officers hit its highest level in years. A total of 346 officers were shot in the line of duty and 73 were killed. Biden said nothing about the highest rate of illegal immigration in U.S. history or the explosion of fentanyl overdoses which have eclipsed car accidents and suicide as the leading cause of death for Americans age 18 to 45. The most common question I get back home in Texas where I live is who's leading this country. Congressman Brady said all this is leading Americans to ask some hard questions. Well, I guess we'll have to see what the record looks like this time next year. Thanks, Ben.

Thanks for the opportunity. That's Daily Wires, Ben Johnson. Other stories we're tracking this week, NBC News is not going to send announcers to attend the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games in China over worries about COVID-19. The move comes amid concerns over cybersecurity for athletes traveling to China. And a bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt, which has stood prominently in front of the American Museum of National History in Manhattan since 1939, was removed just after midnight on Thursday morning. The statue, which will soon reside in North Dakota,

depicts Roosevelt on a horseback flinked by two figures, a Native American man and an African man. If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five-star review. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back next week with the news you need to know. If you like this podcast, subscribe to our Morning Wire newsletter, available exclusively to Daily Wire members. Get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at Dailywire.com slash subscribe. Use code MorningWire to try a reader's past membership and get your first month for only 99. sense.