Morning Wire - Tuesday | September 7, 2021

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

Six evacuation flights out of Afghanistan held up in an alleged “hostage standoff,” 2020 saw seismic shifts in taxes, and the trial of famous Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes begins. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hundreds of passengers trying to evacuate Afghanistan, reportedly including American citizens, are being prevented from departing in what some U.S. officials are calling a hostage situation. What do we know about the standoff over the flights? And what's the State Department doing about it? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, September 7th, and this is Morning Wire. A new report finds that 61% of Americans paid no federal income taxes in 2020. That's a 40% increase over last year. How did the COVID lockdowns impact taxes last year? And how has it changed the economic landscape?

And the trial of former billionaire and biotech CEO Elizabeth Holmes has begun. The case, which became the subject of a best-selling book, involves multiple charges of federal fraud and conspiracy. We'll take a look at the trial and the scandal behind it. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. This show is sponsored by MyBooky.

No matter who scores in the NFL season opener, you win. Head to MyBooky.orgie.org and select the lock of the season. Or enter their $100,000 super contest that's only $10 to join. Use promo code wire to double your first deposit and your winnings. Six evacuation flights out of Afghanistan have been held up in the northern part of the country and what some U.S. officials are calling a hostage standoff initiated by the Taliban. Here with the details is Daily Wire Managing Editor Cabot Phillips. Cabot, there's been lots of reports on this, some conflicting reports.

Tell us a bit about these flights. So from what we know right now, there are six charter flights stuck at Mazar-E-Sharif Airport in northern Afghanistan. These flights were organized by an NGO and reportedly include around 800 people. These are mostly Afghans who'd worked with the U.S. during the war, but they also include an unknown number of Americans. So what's going on here? Why are these flights being held up? As expected, there are differing accounts right now of who exactly is to blame here. According to a Taliban spokesman, this is nothing more than a mix-up with paperwork.

They say some of the passengers don't have the right visas and passports, so they're being held at hotels in the area until things are sorted out. They said the notion that they're holding anyone hostage is, quote, propaganda. But obviously, the Taliban has a clear history of lying to the outside world. Right. So the Taliban is calling it a mix-up, but this weekend's two other explanations started to emerge. The first is reportedly a hold-up by the Biden administration. Rick Clay, who helped organize the six flights with the Private Rescue Group Plan B,

told Fox News that the State Department had slowed things down. Clay says they have a manifest of the passengers on these flights, but took days to approve the flight and offer a spot for them to land. But sources familiar with the situation told the Daily Wire that even though the State Department has slowed the process, the Taliban is mostly the blame at this point. We're told they're making demands, including tens of millions of dollars, in exchange for allowing the flights to leave. And much of that account was confirmed on Sunday

by the top Republican on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, rep Michael McCall. He's been receiving classified reports on the situation, and he said the Taliban has indeed created a hostage situation. Here's what he told Fox News. And the Taliban will not let them leave the airport, and that's my concern, is they're going to demand more and more,

whether it be cash or legitimacy as the government of Afghanistan. Okay, so it sounds like it could be a true hostage situation. Yeah. How has the State Department responded? Well, according to an email they sent members of Congress, they've acknowledged that the flights are being detained by the Taliban, but refuted the claim that they had yet to approve their departure, and that's why they were being held up.

One State Department official told the Washington Free Beacon that they're basically just stuck between Iraq and a hard place here, because President Biden ordered all American personnel out of the country, they no longer have any presence on the ground. So they can't intervene and verify whether there are, in fact, Americans on board or not. That source also noted the lack of control over the airspace in the region without a U.S. military presence and all the problems that presented as well. Now, the Taliban have been claiming that they're supposedly reformed

and they're kind of trying to present themselves as a legitimate leadership body at this point. A hostage situation would clearly undermine that message. Yeah, since gaining power, they've been trying hard to convince the outside world that this Taliban will be more open-minded and tolerant than they were in the 90s when they had control. Back then, women were horribly oppressed and kept from school and work and non-Muslims were treated to second-class citizens. And from what we're told, there's sort of an internal power struggle raging right now among Taliban leadership. Some want to return to the way things were, while others supposedly crave legitimacy on the world stage and know that human rights. abuses won't get them there. So ultimately, the fate of these planes could offer some insight into which faction is winning that power struggle. But again, it's really difficult to take the Taliban

at their word at all. Right. Thanks for reporting, Cabot. Absolutely. Daily Wire managing editor, Cabot Phillips. Coming up, more than half of Americans paid no income tax in 2020. You can get this show and all of the content you love wherever you are 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 of your favorite Daily Wire shows. Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts, no matter where your day takes you. An estimated 107 million Americans paid no income tax to the federal government in 2020, according to a new report. That represents a massive increase in the number of citizens who are no longer taxpayers.

Here to tell us more as DailyWire's Ben Johnson. Thanks for joining us, Ben. My pleasure. How does the number of people paying federal income tax in 2020 compare with previous years? It's a seismic change. In 2020, 61% of all Americans paid no federal income tax, according to an estimate from the tax policy center. That's a 40% increase in one year. What factors played into this?

The biggest factor was unemployment. COVID lockdowns put tens of millions of Americans out of work, so they had no income to tax. Right. Changes in the tax code also. reduced Americans' tax liability. Those three rounds of stimulus checks of up to $3,200 a person were refundable tax credits. That means they reduced the total amount of tax owed,

and they didn't have to be paid back. The government also expanded tax credits like the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit, and tax write-offs for child care. So last year, many people ordinarily would have paid income taxes didn't know anything. So less income, less income taxes, and also more tax credits.

Exactly. Do economists think this is going to change in the coming years? They expect the tax picture to return to normal as soon as the economy does. These temporary tax changes are set to expire next year. So in 2022, the share of families paying no federal income tax should fall back to the typical 48% or two-thirds of single-parent households. Over the years, we've heard a lot of claims about billionaires paying zero income tax. How do taxpayers actually break down by income? Well, in short, the top earners pay almost all of the taxes, despite politicians, including President Biden, claiming the wealthiest Americans don't pay their fair share.

But it's time for corporate America, and the wealthiest 1% of Americans have just begun to pay their fair share. Just their fair share. The most recent IRS data we have is from 2018. The top 1% of income earners paid more than the bottom 90% combined. The top 1% paid 40% of all federal income. income taxes, the top 10% paid 71% and the bottom 50% of taxpayers paid less than 3%. Under our progressive income tax system, the wealthiest Americans are paying their share, and quite a bit more, to boot. Have we seen any correlation between tax brackets and political

views? Yes. Generally, the less taxes people pay, the more they favor government spending. When it comes to the size and scope of government, the wealthiest Americans and the poorest Americans look like mirror images of one another. The Pew Research Center found that 60% of families who made less than $30,000 a year favor a bigger government with more spending. 62% of families making more than $75,000 a year favor a smaller government with less spending.

Even though millions are paying no federal income tax, that doesn't mean they paid no taxes, right? Definitely. Most Americans pay a cornucopia of other taxes. In 2020, Americans paid $1.3 trillion in federal withholding, building taxes for Social Security and Medicare, $43 billion in gasoline and diesel taxes, $10 billion in taxes on alcohol, a dollar a pack and cigarette taxes. That doesn't include taxes, tolls, and fees from the state and local government down to the township and school district level. The IRS gets something out of everybody.

Thanks for walking us through that, Ben. Anytime. That's Ben Johnson, reporter for the Daily Wire. The trial begins this week for former billionaire and biotech companies Theranos, C.E. E.O. Elizabeth Holmes. Holmes was indicted on multiple charges of federal fraud and conspiracy. She's accused of lying about the ability of her company's technology to run numerous tests with just a few drops of blood. Here to discuss the case is Daily Wire Editor Ash Short.

So, Ash, a few years ago, Elizabeth Holmes was a Silicon Valley darling. She was all of her magazines, and then her company just completely imploded. Tell us what happened. Well, for years, Holmes sold Theronous and its blood. blood testing machines as breakthrough devices that would revolutionize the medical industry. She claimed her machines could run hundreds of tests with just a finger prick, eliminating the need for painful needles. She also claimed these tests could help people detect potential health problems and therefore save lives. None of that turned out to be true. It turns out that

Theranos' machines didn't work properly and could only run a small number of tests. Even then, the tests were highly inaccurate, leading some patients to believe they had serious illnesses when they didn't. It was eventually reported that Theranos was secretly using traditional blood analyzers to come up with many of its results to make it look like their machines were accurate. And how was that discovered? The company had a high turnover rate for employees, many of whom left because they realized what the company was doing and found it unethical and dangerous, but they were unable to speak openly about it due to non-disclosure agreements. Some of the people who questioned the validity of the company's claims, though, eventually reached out to investigative

journalist John Carreux at the Wall Street Journal, and he ended up blowing the lid off the whole company and writing a bestseller about it. Now, Ash, talk for a minute about how Theranos was able to operate for so long, you know, given that they weren't providing any evidence whatsoever that their technology worked. Holmes was very persuasive and charming. She was able to convince powerful people like Henry Kissinger and James Mattis to join the board, and she convinced Rupert Murdoch to invest more than $100 million in the company. When people saw those names, they assumed she must be telling the truth about her technology. It also seemed like people wanted to believe she had achieved what she claimed,

both because the technology would be so revolutionary and because she would be the first female Silicon Valley star. She was already being compared to Steve Jobs, who she used. completely idolized. Okay, so this was all about five or six years ago. Bring us to present day. Holmes has been charged with fraud and she's going to trial. Tell us about that. The trial officially starts this week and courtroom documents unsealed on August 28th show that Holmes is planning to accuse former Theranos president Ramesh Sunny Balwani, who she had a romantic relationship with, a physical and sexual abuse. She plans to claim that Sunny controlled how she ate and addressed, monitored her communications, and threw things at her, which she says impaired her

judgment. Well, she was also technically his boss at the time, so that kind of affects their dynamic, too. Do you think her defense will actually work? Maybe. According to Carrie-Rue's book, Sonny was seen as a tyrant around the office, repeatedly berating employees and taking pleasure in firing them over perceived offenses. But no one who spoke out for the book has said anything about Sunny mistreating Holmes. What's really interesting is that Carrie Roo discovered that when Theranos was beginning to crumble,

Holmes wanted to publicly claim she had been sexually assaulted while she was a student at Stanford University, but her advisors told her not to. Now she's claiming Sunny abused her throughout the Theranos saga, which is what she says led to her actions. And has Sunny responded

to those accusations yet? He's not happy, as you might expect. His attorneys called the allegation salacious and inflammatory and argued he and Holmes should be tried separately. And his attorneys argued that Holmes' abuse claims couldn't be used against him if he were tried alone. A lot of people are following this trial, including my whole family, actually. Ash, thanks for keeping us informed. Anytime.

That's Daily Wire editor, Ash Short. Another story we're tracking this week, President Biden's approval ratings have dipped in the wake of the Afghanistan withdrawal. As of this week, aggregate polls. Polster Real Clear Politics logged President Biden's average approval at 45% with 49% disapproving. Polster 538 logged the president's approval at 46% with 48% disapproving. If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, 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 tomorrow with the news you need to know. If you like this podcast, get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at Dailywire.com slash subscribe.