The Daily Signal - China and Russia Perform Military Exercises, Border Bill Fails, Israel Evacuates Civilians From Rafah

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Thursday, May 23rd. Here are today's headlines. The Senate voted today on a very contested border bill. The higher chamber voted on it for the first time back in February. It failed then, and it failed again today. On the vote, the yeas are 43. The nays are 50. Three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn, having not voted in the affirmative.

Starting point is 00:00:40 The motion is not agreed to. The bill was originally negotiated between Republicans and Democrats. Republican Senator James Langford, Democrat Senator Chris Murphy, and independent Senator, Chris and Sinema, originally negotiated that bill. But even Langford and Cinema voted against it today, criticizing the vote for being politically motivated. In total, 50 senators voted no, and 43 voted yes, which fell far below that 60-vote threshold that would have been needed to advance. the bill. Republicans have bashed this piece of legislation for doing little to nothing to secure

Starting point is 00:01:19 the border. Republican Senator Ron Johnson said the bill spends $20 billion to not secure the border, but to more efficiently encounter process and disperse illegal migrants. As written, the bill allows up to 5,000 illegal aliens daily to cross the border within a seven-day period. The bill's failure was anticipated following Republicans' outspoken criticism of it, and even if the bill had passed, Republican House leadership had already said it was dead on arrival in the House. Republicans in the House and Senate say that the answer to securing the border is a bill known as HR2. The Republicans in the House passed H.R. 2 a year ago, but the Senate has yet to take it up. If H.R. 2 were to pass, it would end catch and release, restart construction of the border wall,

Starting point is 00:02:10 and reinstate the Trump heir remain in Mexico policy, among other things. If Democrats are serious about securing the border, Republicans say they would pass HR2. The presidents of UCLA, Rutgers, and Northwestern University testified before Congress today. The House hearing was titled Calling for Accountability, Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos. Lawmakers questioned the college presidents on the pro-Palestine and anti-Israel protest that took place recently on their college campuses. And the Daily Signal's Tony Kennett covered that hearing today. He joins us now.

Starting point is 00:02:48 Tony, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. You watched the hearing today. You covered it. And there was some pretty lively exchanges during this hearing. Congresswoman Elise Stefani questioned Northwestern University's president, Michael Schill, about the agreement that the university came to with the pro-Palestine protesters. And Stefanik wanted to know specifically if the university,

Starting point is 00:03:12 had consulted Israeli students or faculty in formulating the terms of that agreement. Take a listen. No, I'm asking you about what the university put out. There is no mention of Israeli students or Israeli faculty. Isn't that the case? In the agreement that we reached that there wasn't Israeli students there or Jewish students there? Because they weren't consulted. Isn't that the fact?

Starting point is 00:03:38 Jewish and Israeli students were not consulted. Jewish and Israeli students were not consulted. students were not consulted with respect to the agreement. Exactly. Yield back. It was been impractical to do that, Representative Stephanic, with all respect. Tony, what exactly did you make of this exchange? Well, first of all, it was fantastic because what I wanted to see out of this hearing was

Starting point is 00:03:59 she'll get the majority of the attention, and he got that in spades. And Stefanik here did a phenomenal job because she would not let him do what I can say as a former academic, the kind of weasling out to answer the question. in the most perhaps politically convenient way possible. She wanted to know, did you include Israeli or Jewish students, who were, or Zionist students, whatever you want to call them, into your agreement? And the answer was no, he said, because that would be harmful or whatever.

Starting point is 00:04:27 And every time he was actually pushed and was not allowed to wriggle, he admitted that he did a horrible job of running this entire fiasco. So how exactly did these university presidents, not only the president of Northwest? Western University, but also of Rutgers and UCLA, how did they answer questions related to protecting the students on campus who are Jewish and who have maybe felt uncomfortable by these ongoing protests? So the answers that they gave were that, well, because it's over now, we did our jobs, which is a wild thing to say. It's, well, the encampments are gone now and that made students

Starting point is 00:05:04 feel safe. And the response from congressmen, on both the left and the right, by the way, for some of them, were why are you telling us that you protected Jewish students by removing the encampments while simultaneously knowing that you dragged your feet on closing the encampments? And all three of them tried to say, well, I got up at 6 a.m. for a phone call one morning. And each of them actually made that case. And none of the congressmen that I saw were buying it, whether it was Stefonic, whether it was Banks or whether it was Williams in New York grilling them over the Clary Act, which was incredible to see the response there.

Starting point is 00:05:43 So then what is the anticipated fallout when you have both Republican and Democratic lawmakers questioning these presidents and seemingly not being too satisfied with the answers? Do we think that we might see some of these presidents step back from their roles, even going as far as to step down? No, I don't believe that we're going to see that, although I do believe two things. Number one, according to the questions by Representative Williams from New York and also the article he was citing, which is my report about the Northwestern violations of the Clary Act, if the Department of Education does take a serious look at Northwestern, we could see she'll step down due to the potentially close to $100 million he could cost the university. but most likely what we're going to see is increased calls from Republicans to defund any federal investment in these universities as long as they hold these practices. Tony, thank you so much for your reporting on this. We appreciate it.

Starting point is 00:06:41 My pleasure. China has launched military drills around Taiwan just three days after Taiwan inaugurated its new president. China says its Air Force, Navy, and infantry will be involved in the drills running through Friday. China's state media says that the drills are a punishment for the separationist acts of Taiwan's independence forces. This is no doubt a reference to Taiwan's new president, Lai Ching-Tai. As Heritage Foundation, Asia analyst Michael Cunningham, told the Daily Signal during the podcast on Wednesday, President Lai delivered probably the most direct and the hardest line inaugural address we've seen towards China yet. In that speech, President Lai said that the Republic of China,

Starting point is 00:07:27 meaning Taiwan and the People's Republic of China are not subordinate to each other. While this is a known fact, Cunningham says that this is just not something that is set out loud for fear of upsetting China. The exercises today are a clear intimidation tactic that are intended to put Taiwan's new president on notice. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said today that Taiwan's armed forces stand ready to defend our country. We seek no conflicts, but we will not shy away from one. But China is not the only country engaging in military exercises that are intended to intimidate an adversary. Russia started drills this week to simulate the preparation of a launch of a nuclear weapon.

Starting point is 00:08:14 The drills are being carried out in Russia's southern military district, which is close to the border of Ukraine. This is the first time Russia has publicly announced drills involving a tactical nuclear weapon. Russia says the drills come in response to certain statements made by Western leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron recently said he won't exclude sending troops to Ukraine, according to reporting from the Associated Press. U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron has committed weapons to Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia. Kremlin spokesperson Dmiti Pepskov said that Macron's statement and others have led Russia to start the nuclear drill. Now, moving south on the globe, Israel has evacuated 950,000 people from the city of Rafa in the Gaza Strip.

Starting point is 00:09:05 The evacuation took about two weeks. Israel says Rafa is Hamas's last stronghold in Gaza, and they have made it clear that they do intend to conduct a strategic military offensive within Rafa. The Biden administration has criticized Israel for not having a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafa. Well, Israel did have a plan, and it appears to have worked. Israel is carrying out its military operations against Hamas in Rafah. The Jerusalem Post reports that the Israeli defense forces have encountered significant resistance from four Hamas battalions within Rafah, but the IDF said it has mostly taken them by surprise. The Post also reports that after initial early and more unified resistance, the impression is that

Starting point is 00:09:52 Hamas battalions have started a process of being taken apart, fleeing, or hiding to try to fight in a guerrilla-style battle at a later date. We'll keep you all posted as this continues to develop. But with that, that is going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for being with us here for The Daily Signal's top news. Make sure to check out tomorrow morning's interview edition. Rob Lewy is going to be sitting down with Scott Rasmussen. Also, make sure to hit that subscribe buttons. You never miss out on new shows from the Daily Signal. And if you would, take a minute to leave us a five-star rating and review. We love hearing your feedback.

Starting point is 00:10:26 Thanks again for being with us today. We'll see you right back here tomorrow morning for Rob Louis' conversation with Scott Russ Muson. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Louis and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit Daily Signal. com.

The Daily Signal - China and Russia Perform Military Exercises, Border Bill Fails, Israel Evacuates Civilians From Rafah

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