The Daily Signal - Biden Says He Will Debate Trump, Florida Will Not Follow Biden’s Title IX Change, Similarities Between College Protests | April 26

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Friday the 26th of April. Here are today's headlines. President Joe Biden says that he is willing to debate former President Donald Trump ahead of the November election. During an interview today with radio talk show host Howard Stern, Biden said he is happy to debate him. Here's the exchange shared on X by the RNC. I don't know if you're going to debate your opponent. I am somewhere. I don't know where.

Starting point is 00:00:43 I'm happy to debate him. Now, this is the first time that Biden has clearly said that he's willing to debate Trump this election cycle. X was ablaze with reactions and questions about what a debate between Biden and Trump might look like. The Heritage Foundation's director of the Tech Policy Center, Kara Frederick, was outnumbered today on Fox News when the news broke of Biden saying that he would debate Trump. and Kira responded to the news saying that she's guessing that the campaign will wait as long as possible to hold this debate. Take a listen. They're going to delay, delay, delay until most of those mail-in votes have been cast, you know, past July when most of the electorate has already voted by mail in that case. So they might do it nominally.

Starting point is 00:01:31 I don't know, as Tammy said, there's not enough uppers in the world at this point to get that man sentient. But at the same time, if they do it, it'll be very nominal. It'll be surface level. It'll be a data point, a check in the block when most of America has already voted because they know that Joe Biden cannot do this. He's incompetent, period. Trump has previously said that he is willing to debate Biden anytime, anywhere. So stay tuned. Back in the courtroom in Manhattan today, Trump was in court for day number four, specifically of arguments in his criminal case, alleging that he was involved in hush money payments.

Starting point is 00:02:08 David Pecker has been testifying this week and was cross-examined today. Pecker is the former publisher of the tabloid The National Enquirer. Pecker has been accused of trying to protect Trump by burying stories related to sexual relations that Trump had with two women. As The New York Times explains, The Inquirer's parent company paid Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to stay quiet about her alleged relations with Trump. And Mr. Pecker reportedly urged Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen to handle paying porn star Stormy Daniels. NBC News reports that while the prosecuting attorney Joshua Steinglass questioned Pecker, he asked Pecker, is that true, Mr. Pecker? Was that your purpose in locking up the Karen McDouglas story to influence the election?

Starting point is 00:03:01 Pecker reportedly replied yes and then added that the actual purpose was to acquire lifetime rights. so the story was not published by any other news organization. Trump's lawyer cross-examined Pecker today and tried to show that Peckers' actions were normal and common for the National Enquirer. The prosecution tried to show that what Pecker did was not common because while he might have suppressed stories for friends, it was not a common practice for a presidential candidate. Trump and the jury will be back in court on Monday as the case continues.

Starting point is 00:03:38 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says that his state will not comply with the Biden administration's new rule on Title IX. That new rule will allow men to enter female-only spaces and opens the door wide for men to compete in women's sports. Title IX requires education institutions to provide equal opportunities for women and girls within education and extracurricular activities. But what the Biden administration has done is redefined. sex within Title IX to include gender identity and sexual orientation. This places schools in a position where in order to not be accused of discriminating on the basis of sex, they will be required to open female-only spaces to men who identify as women. But DeSantish shared a video on X, saying that Florida has no plans to adhere to Biden's new definition of sex. Take a listen.

Starting point is 00:04:33 Florida rejects Joe Biden's attempt to rewrite title. Title IX. We will not comply and we will fight back. We are not going to let Joe Biden try to inject men into women's activities. We are not going to let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents. And we are not going to let Joe Biden abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us here in Florida. Biden's new rule on Title IX is set to go into effect on August 1st. but there are already reports of multiple lawsuits being prepared to stop this new rule from taking effect. The University of Southern California has canceled its main graduation due to pro-Palestine protests on campus. The graduation was supposed to take place on May 10th,

Starting point is 00:05:23 but the school said that the new safety measures in place would make it too challenging to hold such a large graduation. The protests that originally began at Columbia University in New York have now spread, not only to university campuses across America, but are now even popping up in Europe, places like the University College, London. Now, our colleagues here at both the Heritage Foundation and the Daily Signal have gone to some of these protests and seen for themselves what is happening on America's college campuses. So joining us now is Daily Signal columnist Jarrett Stetman, Heritage Foundation Digital Production Specialist Tim Kennedy, and Heritage's Social Media Manager, Christian Lisval. Thank you all so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

Starting point is 00:06:10 Thank you. Thanks for having us. So, Jared, I want to start with you. You are up in New York City, and you actually went earlier this week to New York University to find out what exactly was happening with protests there. What did you see? Yeah, so this protest was actually moved over to Washington Square Park after NYPD, cleared out some of the encampments. And so there was a gathering in the park, which was a nice

Starting point is 00:06:36 sunny day by the other people there in the sunshine reveling. But I saw a lot of interesting signs or a lot of interesting chance. Some of the more frequent ones were there is only one solution in defada revolution from the river to the sea. Palestine will be free. Many of these are, I think, quite common at other protests around the country. What I thought was interesting is that there were a of seemingly mass-produced signs being distributed to the crowd, including one that said resist colonial power by any means necessary in all caps. And so it is interesting to see how this protest, which I think is partially organic, seems to have a lot of outside influence, too, where you have mass-produced signs and a lot of outside influencers, besides just the students

Starting point is 00:07:23 and faculty who participated on the campus. And Tim, you went to the University of Pennsylvania, And that's something that in conversations we had after the fact you commented on that it seemed like not everyone present was necessarily a student, correct? Oh, not at all. I mean, I talked to University of Pennsylvania campus police, and they echoed as much when I noticed that there were a lot of people on the periphery who were kind of in this sort of Antifa-type garb. They're hiding their faces, wearing helmets. And that was very, there was a starch difference from the people within the camp. themselves who might be presumed students. And again, the police verified as much. There was a protest earlier in the day at City Hall. And there was apparently another demonstration at Temple

Starting point is 00:08:08 University, another university in the Philly region that had a little bit of some disruptive, maybe even violent tendencies and events. And so then after the City Hall protest, they then ran over to UPenn's campus. Okay. And at the University of Pennsylvania, did you talk to any of protesters, Tim? I did. And it was, I would ask them kind of these questions about, what do you doing here today? And, you know, are you an event organizer? And then it eventually transcended to, well, are you a student here? And almost every single one of them I asked would constantly rebuff me with, it's not your business. Or I might be, I might not be. And so they seem to be hiding that fact, which leads one to believe that they are probably not students at the university.

Starting point is 00:08:55 Really fascinating. Christian, you went to George. George Washington University here in Washington, D.C. How big were the protests there? And what are the similarities to what Jarrett experienced in New York and Tim in Pennsylvania? Similarities are certainly the structure of the protests and how they have so many resources, similar signs available to them. It certainly seems like that is being provided to them outside of student means, for sure. They had a health tent sent up, set up cases of water, food, lots of food that they were passing around to each other. Somebody's paying for all of this. And I don't typically know, as in my experience, as college students, being very affluent enough to

Starting point is 00:09:35 provide food for, to your other question, how many people were there. Hundreds of people gathered at one time. So those are certainly similarities. What stood out at George Washington University, which I hadn't heard yet in the couple of other protests that I've attended with Tim and other colleagues of ours is the explicit Marxism in this one at George Washington University, where the opposition to Israel was less so opposition to Jewish people per se, but to nations that they view as colonizers or settlers, the oppressors, as they were very adamantly talking about. And more specifically, in reference to the United States, they were very open about the fact that ultimately their goal is to tear down the United States and Western civilization as a whole.

Starting point is 00:10:19 That was more explicit at George Washington University than I heard it at other campuses. Well, gentlemen, thank you all for your coverage. We appreciate you all going out to check out the scene. And I want to encourage all of our listeners to check out the Daily Signal website. You have all and are writing pieces covering your experiences. And also make sure you're following the daily signal across social media platforms to get the latest coverage. Thank you guys so much. Be safe out there.

Starting point is 00:10:43 Thank you. Thank you. With that, that's going to do it for today's episode of the Daily Signals Top News. Thanks so much for being with us this Friday. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Join us right back here on Monday morning where the Daily Signals, Fred Lucas, is going to be sitting down with the president of the Capital Research Center, Scott Walter. They discuss his new book, Arabella, the Dark Money Networks of Leftist Billionaires Secretly Transforming America. And if you have a little time over the weekend,

Starting point is 00:11:13 sure to leave The Daily Signal podcast a five-star rating and review. We love hearing your feedback. And be sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new shows. Thanks again for being with us. Have a wonderful weekend. See you back here Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Kate Trinko. Producer are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - Biden Says He Will Debate Trump, Florida Will Not Follow Biden’s Title IX Change, Similarities Between College Protests | April 26

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