Morning Wire - White House Cocaine Investigation & Border Encounter Data | Afternoon Update | 7.13.23

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

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I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howl. It's Thursday, July 13th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update. Leaders of a Hollywood Actors Union voted Thursday to join screenwriters in the first joint strike in more than six decades, after talks of a new contract with the studios and streaming services broke down. Leaders of SAG AFRA say union leadership has voted for the work stoppage hours after their contract expired, and talks broke off with the Alliance of MotionPetra. pictures and television producers. SAG-AFTRA leaders also said they voted unanimously for a strike to begin at midnight.

Here's the president of the union, Fran Drescher. I cannot believe it, quite frankly. How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty that they're losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment.

We stand in solidarity, in unprecedented unity. The Secret Service says it's concluded its investigation into cocaine found at the White House without identifying a suspect. The federal agency made the announcement today after investigators reviewed surveillance footage and visitor logs. A source tells NBC News that the leading theory is that, someone on a tour left the illicit substance at the White House. The Secret Service said in a statement that they, quote, will not be able to single out a person of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the area where the drug was discovered.

Officials say no fingerprints or DNA were reportedly found on the bag of cocaine and surveillance footage was inconclusive. President Biden says he's serious about pursuing a prisoner exchange for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained in Russia for. for over 100 days. Gershkovich was arrested on espionage charges while on a reporting trip. He's being held at Moscow's Lefertovo prison, notorious for its harsh conditions. Earlier this month, the Kremlin suggested that it was open to a possible prisoner

exchange that could involve Gerskiewicz, but it underscored that such talks must be held out of the public eye. Speaking at a news conference in Helsinki, Finland, President Biden made clear that the U.S. is interested. Oh, I'm serious about prisoner exchange. I'm serious about doing all we can to free Americans being illegally held in Russia or anywhere else for that matter. And that process is underway.

The bodies of 87 people, including women and children, were found in a mass grave in Darfur, Sudan today, according to credible information obtained by the UN Human Rights Office. The victims are suspected to have been killed by Sudanese, paramilitary forces, and allied militia. The region has been plagued by ethnic, violence since April, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to neighboring countries. A report published Wednesday suggests Biden administration policies have curbed illegal

immigration to a two-year low since May, but is that what's really going on? Here's Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce with more. According to CBS News, Border Patrol agents arrested just over 100,000 illegal immigrants last month, down from 169,000 arrests in May. June's numbers are the lowest since February of 2021. Morningwire spoke with Laura Reese, director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center. And she said the border crisis is as bad as ever. But the way the data is being presented has changed. Here's Reese.

They are deceitful. The number of illegal and inadmissible aliens coming into the country is still just as high. But the administration is using a shell game and sending people through ports of entry instead of between ports of entry. and then declaring that an improvement on the border. And we know the numbers are about the same because when you look at nationwide GDP encounters, which includes numbers at the ports of entry, that number has steadily risen.

Federal regulators have approved the nation's first-over-the-counter birth control pill, allowing American women to obtain contraceptive medication as easily as they buy aspirin or eyedrops. The Food and Drug Administration cleared the once-a-day, to be sold without a prescription on Thursday. The manufacturer, Ireland-based Perigo, won't start shipping the pill until early next year. There will be no age restrictions on sales. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the maker of ChatGPT OpenAI for possible violations of consumer protection law. CNN reports that the FTC is seeking extensive records from the

company about its handling of personal data, its potential to give users inaccurate information. and its risks of harm to consumers, including reputational harm. The FTC probe seeks to investigate how the company obtains the data used to train its models, as well as the program's capacity to generate false misleading or disparaging information. After ticking down over the last few months, mortgage rates edged back up this week to just under 7%. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is now more than 6.9%, up from 6.8% last week and 5%. 0.5% a year ago and just around 3% the year before that. According to the Black Knight Home Price Index, prices for houses continue to climb as the number of listings tightens.

All right, those are your drive home updates this afternoon. To learn more about these stories, go to Dailywire.com and for more in-depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to our latest full episode of Morningwire every morning.