The Daily Signal - How GOP Could Win Senate, John Kirby Accidentally Hits ‘Reply All,’ NYPD Commissioner Resigns | Sept. 12

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: Recent polls indicate Republicans could win back the Senate.  White House National Security Council communications adviser John Kirby is in hot water after hitting “reply all” on a press email.  Southern Poverty Law Center union members have voted to oust their CEO. New York City Police Department Commissioner Edward Caban has resigned. The United Nations accuses Israel of violating international humanitarian law.  Relevant Links:  https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/09/11/no-confidence-far-left-smear-factorys-splc-union-votes-90-oust-president-mass-layoffs/  Listen to other podcasts from The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/podcasts/ Get daily conservative news you can trust from our Morning Bell newsletter: DailySignal.com/morningbellsubscription   Listen to more Heritage podcasts: https://www.heritage.org/podcasts Sign up for The Agenda newsletter — the lowdown on top issues conservatives need to know about each week: https://www.heritage.org/agenda Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Republicans are inching closer to gaining control of the Senate, and they might have Montana to thank for this. I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Thursday, September 12th. In 53 days, Americans will go to the polls to vote for not only who they want to be their president, but also who should represent them in Congress, as in the House and the Senate. Republicans currently have control of the House and Democrats have control of the Senate, But some recent signs are indicating that Republicans do have a chance to win back that upper chamber. For example, in West Virginia, independent Senator Joe Manchin is retiring, and the current West Virginia governor is a Republican, Jim Justice. He's running for that seat in the Senate,

and Justice is indeed heavily favored to win. In Maryland, there is a tight race between former Republican governor Larry Hogan and county executive Angela Osso Brooks. There is also a very close Senate race in Ohio and Michigan. The Cook Political Report tracks all of the swing races very closely. It's been conducting nonpartisan analysis of elections and campaigns for decades. And currently, the Cook Political Report tracks that Ohio and Michigan are the only two tops up races for the Senate. But that list used to include a third state, Montana. And just today, the report moved that Senate race in Montana from a toss-up race to one that now leans Republican. Senator John Tester is a Democrat. He's the incumbent in this race in Montana, and he's

facing off against Republican candidate Jim Sheehe. Sheehi is a former Navy SEAL, and even though Tester has held that Senate seat since 2006, recent polling shows that Sheehe has a credible lead over Tester. AARP polling indicates that Sheehe has a credible lead over Tester. AARP polling indicates that Sheehe has a six-point lead over Tester, in fact. The big difference for Tester in this election versus his last is that this election coincides with the presidential race and his last one didn't. If Republicans take Montana, political analysts say that there's a really good chance that Republicans will have control of the Senate. Stay tuned. Well, we all know that hitting reply all on an email can be a dangerous thing. And John Kirby just learned that for

firsthand. White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby is in some hot water. So here's the situation. August marked three years since that botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. And of course yesterday marked 23 years since 9-11 when the war on tear first began. Republicans have been very critical of the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan. And earlier this week, Fox News asked the White House if they wanted to respond to some of the United States. of that criticism. Specifically, there were four veterans that had issued criticism about that withdrawal from Afghanistan, and one of those veterans was for Republican Congressman Cory Mills. Fox News wanted to give the White House a chance to respond to that veteran criticism. The email chain was

forwarded to White House staffers on the National Security Council, including Kirby. Kirby hit reply all to the chain and wrote that there was no use in responding. He didn't realize that Fox News Digital was still on that email chain, and in fact, he responded to the reporter, writing clearly, I didn't realize you were on the chain. Congressman Mills told Fox, the bottom line is that the Biden-Harris administration chose politics over strategy, and Kirby, who I wouldn't trust to guard my grocery list, is now trying to cover for them. Southern Poverty Law Center union members have voted to oust their CEO. The far-left union issued a press release and its members expressed a lack of confidence in Margaret Wong and want SPLC to find a new CEO. The Daily Signals Managing Editor, Tyler O'Neill, is the author of Making Hate Pay, the corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He's been covering the SPLC for years, and he joins us now. Tyler, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. So first, I would just love clarity on why exactly the SPLC even has a union. Yes. So back in 2019, there was a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal at this civil rights, this wanted civil rights organization. And they fired their co-founder, their president stepped down. It was what you might call a big deal. And then a month after all that happened, the interim president, Karen Baines Dunning, who is now head of the board, she came out and compared the SPLC to the Underground Railroad as though nothing had ever happened. And they brought in Tina Chen, who was Michelle Obama's former chief of staff. She's kind of got this like fixer situation where they had her do an internal investigation. the results of which have yet to be uncovered.

Really? And the SPLC staff was apparently unhappy with the way that things were done. And they started the process of unionizing. They're unionized, by the way, with a big umbrella organization that also works with this group called Jewish Voice for Peace, which has been organizing. Yes, a lot of anti-Israel riots. and takeovers of Cannon House office building, getting a lot of people arrested. Maybe a little bit of action on college campuses as well. Yeah, yeah.

All right, so why now are SPLC union members so upset that they want to oust their CEO? So a couple of months back, the SPLC announced internally, and this is the weird thing about the left being so hyper-pro union that they even like unions at nonprofits, which, you know, what could go wrong, right? But the SPLC internally said, look, we're laying off a bunch of people. We're going in a new direction. And Margaret Huang went to one board, like the board of directors for the 501C3 and gave them one story. And according to the union, she went to the other board of directors for the C4 and gave them another story. And amid all of these layoffs, you know, the union was not happy.

the union claims that they're involved in union busting because the head of the union is included in the layoffs. And so what we're looking at here is a large restructuring, a lot of layoffs. And we don't know if it's because of budgetary reasons. Margaret Huang said that a budget shortfall was part of it, but then she didn't give that same message to the other side. So I'm like, what is really going on here?

naturally the SPLC did not respond when I reached out for comments because they never do. But what happened was the union says this is union busting. And the SPLC has not, you know, they're not firing their president and CEO. They said they're standing by her. So even though the voting union members have expressed, hey, we want her out, they're saying, no, we're not going to out her, she stays. Yeah, they're sticking with her. And so that kind of strengthens maybe a little bit of the union busting narrative.

I think Israel has a lot to do with this too, because the union not only is tied to Jewish voice for peace, but also came out with its own statement after October 7th. You know, after October 7th, you had most organizations in civil rights condemning the attacks or of course the really noxious ones coming out in favor of Palestine and Hamas, the SPLC was completely silent. The union decided that they'd had enough of the silence and they released their own statement where they very firmly condemned Israel. They said, you know, what we're seeing is the desecration of a people in Gaza, the beginnings of a genocide and like this very out there statement. The SPLC finally has a statement later and says, you know, we condemn the Hamas terror attacks.

Oh, and by the way, we condemn Israel for targeting civilians in their attacks. And I'm like looking at this going, what the heck is going? They're condemning Israel for targeting civilians. Israel didn't target civilians. So like, I go to X and I scream from the rooftops. And then lo and behold, the website changes. And suddenly they're no longer saying that Israel was targeting civilians. I'm like, oh, oh, that's funny.

But in any case, what you have is staff and union, very pro-Palestinian. Probably the donors and the development side are probably more pro-Israel because you're talking old established liberal Democrats. So like SPLC was founded with the George McGovern camp. campaign and the list of George McGovern donors and then the list of Jimmy Carter donors that Morris Dees was able to get. So a lot of the money is the old most likely pro-Israel money and the staff are the anti-Israel. So I think that plays a big role in this too. Okay.

Tyler, thanks for providing that background. This is a tangled web and white the rabbit hole. Thank you for exploring that with us. for all of our listeners, if you want more from Tyler on the SPLC, of course, follow his work at the Daily Signal,dailySignal.com, but also pick up a copy of the book Making Hate Pay the Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Tyler, thanks for time. Thanks, Virginia. New York City Police Department Commissioner Edward Cabin has resigned. Cabin has been serving as the New York City Police Department Commissioner for just over a year, but has served in the NYPD for decades. In his resignation letter, he writes, My complete focus has always been on the NYPD, the department, and people I love and have dedicated over 30 years of service to. However, the news around recent developments has created a distraction for our department,

and I am unwilling to let my attention be on anything other than our important work, or the safety of the men and women of the NYPD. while that news around recent developments that Cabin references involves a federal criminal investigation. Last week, Cabin's phone was seized as part of that investigation. Authorities specifically are investigating possible corruption in the New York City government, and one of those investigations does involve the Cabin family. The IRS is examining a nightclub security business that's owned by the commissioner's twin brother, James Cabin, that's according to the New York Times.

Cabin has not been charged with any crimes, and he has agreed to cooperate with authorities in the investigation. Today, the United Nations accused Israel of violating international humanitarian law. The accusation comes shortly after an Israeli strike in Gaza that killed 18 people in a school, including six United Nations relief and works agency workers. UN Security General Antonio Gautarez responded to the strike

writing on X, these dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now. The U.S. has cut off funding for the United Nations relief and works agency due to concerns that some of its employees had ties to Hamas. Israel says that its strike was targeting senior Hamas militants. Hamas claims there were no militants in the area that was struck. The school has been turned into a shelter and it was housing about 12,000 people. The U.N. release. and Works Agency was managing that shelter and the manager is reportedly one of the UN workers who was killed. The IDF holds that a significant number of those killed in the strike were Hamas terrorist operatives who took part in terrorist activities against the citizens of the state of Israel

and IDF troops. We're going to leave it there for today. Thanks so much for joining us here for the Daily Signal's top news. If you haven't, be sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on our shows, are morning interview editions or afternoon top news. Tomorrow morning, I am so pleased to be sitting down with the president of the Immigration Accountability Project, Chris Chimelensky. We discuss current news related to increases in crime carried out by illegal aliens and some of that drama going on in Springfield, Ohio. Make sure to catch that conversation tomorrow morning.

Thanks again for joining us today. If you have a moment, if you would, leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you like to listen. hearing your feedback. Have a great rest of your day. We'll see you right back here tomorrow morning for my conversation with the president of the Immigration Accountability Project. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Bluey and Katrina Trinko. Hosts are Virginia Allen, Brian Gottstein, Tyler O'Neill, and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, John Pop, and Joseph Von Spakovsky.

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