The Daily Signal - Hunter Biden on Trial, Harvard Ranked Worst for Free Speech, France Gets New Prime Minister | Sept. 5

Starting point is 00:00:00 The battle for swing states in this election is raging and Pennsylvania is on the forefront. I'm Virginia Allen and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Thursday, September 5th. Pennsylvania is a swing state. It's also a state with 19 electoral votes. Only four other states have more electoral votes. Texas, California, New York, and Florida. And none of those states are swing states. So needless to say, both former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, are spending a lot of campaign time and money in Pennsylvania. Trump was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania last night, where he participated in a town hall event with Fox News's Sean Hannity.

Starting point is 00:00:52 Fox News had offered the Harris campaign a debate with Trump on Wednesday night, but a town hall was held instead. This was supposed to be a debate. Right. So I would have preferred. I think he's a nice guy, but I would have preferred a debate. Thanks a lot. But this is the best we could do.

Starting point is 00:01:10 Sean. Trump spent a portion of that town hall discussing his position on the southern border and warning about the terrorist threat of the open border. More terrorists have come into the United States in the last three years and I think probably 50 years. There's never been anything like it. These people are so bad. They're so dangerous what they've done to our country is they're destroying our country and we can't let this happen. Trump also talked about his pro-fract. Packing position and blasted Harris for previously saying that she does not support fracking, though now Harris does say that she would not ban fracking. It's also been less than two months since Trump was shot in Pennsylvania, and the former president

Starting point is 00:01:55 received quite the applause when he mentioned the incident. Joe Biden would be a great president. I would be happier than being the worst president in the history of our country, because I want to see what's good for the country. been very happy. I have very nice places I could be. This is not easy. I got shot at. You know, I mean, I got hit. I got hit. I could have been all over that place I could have. But you know what? It's very simple. And it starts with make America great again. That's what we have to do. Next Tuesday, September 10th, Trump will have another opportunity to speak to the nation during his debate with Harris on ABC News.

Starting point is 00:02:39 So mark your calendars next Tuesday night. Hunter Biden was back in court today. The president's son faces federal charges for failing to pay his taxes. This case is being tried in Los Angeles. And jury selection began today. Opening statements are expected on Monday. Here with us to talk about the case is Mike Hal. He serves as executive director for the oversight project at the Heritage Foundation. Mike, thanks for being here first off. Thanks for having me. This is a big case. Explain what exactly the charges are that Hunter Biden is facing. So this relates to his tax crimes. Last trial that most people are familiar with related to his gun crime. And before that was a plea deal last summer in Delaware for both of those things that Biden's DOJ tried offering him that would absolve him for both of those crimes and anything related to how he made the money that he didn't pay taxes on, which is a ton of foreign corruption failing to register as a foreign agent, things connecting to his dad, the president.

Starting point is 00:03:42 the rest of his family. So it's a small slice of his culpability today in the tax crimes. And there's a lot of conversation about his memoir, correct, with this? Because there's information in that memoir that seems to not exactly do him any favors as far as proving that he's innocent. Yeah, that was a huge deal for the gun crime too. It's, you know, he wrote in his book how he was heavily addicted to drugs and you aren't allowed to, you know, buy a gun if you're addicted to drugs. lied about that on his gun form. This all spans the same time period where he was recklessly in a lot of business with CCP and other foreign adversaries to just generate money to pay off the Biden family.

Starting point is 00:04:24 And so that's what he did not pay taxes on. And ultimately, they're just charging him for these lower level crimes because they don't want to touch the stuff that goes to Joe. And that's why the big news today was that Hunter wanted to avoid a public trial and instead get something known as an offered plea, where he would basically say, you got enough to convict me, but I'm not going to tell you I'm guilty. And so that's what they're trying to figure out. Now, the government has indicated that they might not accept that. The judge still has to bless the whole thing. And, you know, so the world keeps spinning. We'll see what happens next.

Starting point is 00:04:57 What exactly is the defense saying? And what can we expect from them in the coming days, given what happened today? So the defense is basically saying, look, you got the goods on us, He got enough to convict us, but we're not willing to say we're guilty. Hunter maintains his innocence. So how about we avoid this whole trial spectacle? Because the trial invariably will bring up politically terrible things for the president, as which it should, because the president was involved in a multinational foreign pay to play scheme. So they want to avoid that spectacle and plea out before they get the huge spotlight of the trial.

Starting point is 00:05:31 And so now we'll see if the judge blesses that, if the government accepts it. Would a plea involve jail time? for Hunter Biden? Yeah, it's certainly good. I mean, he basically would accept that and then it would go to sentencing. He'll say, I'll take whatever the judge decides the sentencing should be. Obviously, a pardon would come into play. A lot of people, you know, talk about, well, Joe said he would never pardon Hunter, and, you know, he still maintains that, but they forget he basically already tried to pardon him last summer when they offered him the plea deal that would absolve him for everything and Joe for everything. So I'm sure if he is facing jail time, President Biden with nothing to lose and probably

Starting point is 00:06:09 pass the election would ultimately pardon him or maybe, you know, they'd pass the buck to Harris or something like that. Yeah, certainly a different political climate now that Biden is out of the race. Well, Mike, thank you for your work on this. Tell us how we can follow everything that the Oversight Project is up to. Absolutely. Get us on X at Oversight PR. It's the letters PR.

Starting point is 00:06:29 Awesome. Mike. Thanks for time. Thank you. Colleges are back in session across. the country. But as we know, not all colleges are created equal, and this especially applies when considering the issue of free speech. A new study out of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression surveyed over 58,000 students from 257 colleges and universities to decipher which colleges

Starting point is 00:06:58 rank best and worst for free speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is a nonprofit organization that's committed specifically to protecting free speech. And this year, their survey found that the University of Virginia is ranked first for free speech in the nation. Michigan Technological University is second, Florida State University third, Eastern Kentucky University fourth, and Georgia Tech is fifth. But even more noteworthy than who came in first is who came in last. At the very bottom is Harvard University. Also among the bottom, three schools for free speech are Columbia University and New York University. You may remember that pro-Palestine protests took place on all of the campuses of Harvard, New York University, and Columbia University last spring. The free speech

Starting point is 00:07:50 nonprofit says the bottom-ranked schools experienced a number of controversies involving the suppression of free expression. They also received significantly lower scores than the top five schools in administrative support, comfort expressing ideas, and tolerance difference, which measures the strengths of students favoritism when it comes to allowing liberal or conservative speakers on campus. The full report of ranked schools is in today's show notes if you want to check it out. A gunman opened fire near the Israeli consulate in Munich this morning. Police responded and shot and killed the man. The now deceased shooter, was an 18-year-old man who was living in Austria.

Starting point is 00:08:34 Police are investigating the incident as an attempted terrorist attack, but have not said what the shooter's motive might have been. The attempted attack came on the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. That attack left 11 Israeli athletes dead. According to the New York Times, news agencies in both Germany and Austria reported that the man who is from a Bosnian fan,

Starting point is 00:09:00 family was known to the Austrian authorities because of connections to Islamic radicalization. Tensions do remain high in the Middle East and across the nation as the war between Israel and Hamas continues. Next month will mark one year since October 7th in that attack that left 1,200 Israelis dead. Around 100 Israeli and some American hostages are still being held in Gaza. France has a new prime minister and he's conservative. His name is Michelle Barnier, and President Emmanuel Macron named him to the position after weeks of discussion as to who the new prime minister would be. In a statement from Macron's office announcing Barnier's appointment, the office said the new prime minister is tasked with forming a unifying government to serve the country and the French people. Michelle Barnier is the former European Union's Brexit negotiator.

Starting point is 00:09:59 He's 73 years old and he spent 50 years working in politics. His appointment comes after snap elections that left the French government quite politically divided. France now has a hung parliament. Barnier says his job now will require lots of listening, lots of respect as he seeks to bring some measure of unity to French politics. With that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks for joining us here for the Daily Signal's top news. You can catch our interview show tomorrow morning and every weekday morning. But tomorrow, I'm sitting down with Richard Stern and Robert Greenway as we discuss some major implications for the U.S. military and specifically what America's weak industrial base means for the strength of our military. Be sure to catch that conversation

Starting point is 00:10:46 tomorrow morning. And in the meantime, don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss out on any shows from the Daily Sittle podcast. And if you would, take a minute to leave us a five-star rating and review. you're right back here tomorrow morning for my conversation with Richard Stern and Robert Greenway. 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. To learn more or support our work, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - Hunter Biden on Trial, Harvard Ranked Worst for Free Speech, France Gets New Prime Minister | Sept. 5

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.