The Daily Signal - Oct. 7 Mastermind Is Dead, Harris Campaign Pleased with Fox News Interview, Biden Forgives More Student Loans | Oct. 17

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

TOP NEWS | On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: The mastermind behind the Oct. 7th terrorist attack on Israel has been killed.  Kamala Harris sits down with Fox News’ Bret Baier for an interview that aired last night. The Biden administration announces that it is forgiving another $4.5 billion in student loan debt.  Relevant Links https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/16/fbi-quietly-revises-violent-crime-data-now-showing-surge-instead-of-reported-decrease/  https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/10/16/whos-bankrolling-ballot-initiative-to-move-ohio-blue/  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

The leader of Hamas and mastermind behind the October 7th attack on Israel is dead. I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Sinal Top News for Thursday, October 17th. The mastermind behind the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel has been killed. Yawar Sinwar is his name, and he was the leader of Hamas, and unsurprisingly, was at the top of Israel's most wanted list. Today, the Israeli defense forces said that three terrorists were killed during, during an IDF operation in Gaza. Now the IDF has confirmed that one of those three people killed was Sinwar. Sinwar has been a part of Hamas for decades. He led Hamas's security arm for a while before he was arrested by the IDF in the late 1980s. He admitted to killing 12 people who were said

to be informants to the IDF. That action earned him the nickname the butcher. But he was released from prison in Israel in 2011 in a prisoner swap between Palestine and Israel. When he returned to Gaza, he quickly began to rise through the ranks of Hamas. In an internal power struggle, ABC News reports that Sinwar is widely believed to be behind the 2016 killing of another top Hamas commander, Mohamed Ishwidi. Sinwar then became the head of Hamas in Gaza and planned the attack on October 7th that left nearly 1,200 people in Israel dead. I spoke to the director of the Heritage Foundation Center for National Security, Robert Greenway,

and I asked him how Sinwar's death will affect Hamas and its terrorist capabilities in the future, and this is what he had to say. Well, I think first the loss is an encouragement to the Israeli population and it reinforces the government's path in Netanyahu's tactic to address the threat from Hamas. And as the architect of October the 7th,

his death has a seminal meeting to the victims of those that mourn the loss of someone in the attack, those that are waiting for the return of their surviving families as hostage members. And I think they can now begin to see light at the end of the tunnel. But it's not over yet because there still are remnants within Gaza and elsewhere, including Qatar, where elements of Hamas leadership remain. The question now is who's going to take charge? Not only that, but taking charge under difficult circumstances. There's less people around the table, but the table's gone.

And so the infrastructure that supported the transition is gone. just as it is with Hezbollah in Lebanon. So it's going to take time, I think, for them to settle. I wouldn't be surprised if the leadership now is completely removed outside of Gaza, where the threat is diminished. And so I suspect that we'll find out in the coming days who is the new leader and where that person physically resides. But most of the organization's been decimated within Gaza.

Israel and Hamas have been at war for over a year. And with Sinwar's death, Greenway says that Israel's main focus is likely now going to be on Hezbollah. Their attention now is almost exclusively on the threat from Hisbalah to the north, and they'll continue to prosecute that campaign, which spans the border into Syria, Iraq, and again, all things head back to Iran. And we're still waiting now for Iran's receiving the Israeli retaliation from the largest ballistic missile attack from one state against another just a few weeks ago. Greenway said that the conflict in the Middle East is not necessarily even close to an end, however. And when I ask him what would bring an end to this conflict in the Middle East, he said that that is going to require a change in policy on the end of the U.S. Because Israel would need more support from the United States in order to face Iran effectively.

And keep in mind, Iran is the one who is backing both Hezbollah and Hamas. We are 18 days away from the election and both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. are packing in the interviews and the rally speeches. Harris sat down with Fox News, Brett Baer, for an interview that aired last night. The first question that Bear asked was on the issue of border and immigration. How many illegal immigrants would you estimate

your administration has released into the country over the last three and a half years? Well, I'm glad you raised the issue of immigration because I agree with you. It is a topic of discussion that people want to rightly have. And you know what I'm going to talk about. Yeah, but you're just a number.

Do you think it's $1 million, $3 million? Brett, let's just get to the point. Okay, the point is that we have a broken immigration system that needs to be repaired. After some back and forth between Bear and Harris, Harris focused on former president Donald Trump's lack of support for a border-related Senate bill. The bill failed in the Senate and would have allowed 1.8 million illegal aliens to end. enter the country annually, but would also have put more Border Patrol agents on the border. Harris repeatedly harkened back to Trump's opposition to that bill during the first eight

minutes of the interview. And the first nearly 11 minutes of the interview was entirely focused on border and immigration. And on a somewhat related issue, Bear then played a clip of Harris saying that she would support prisoners having access to transgender surgery. Let's listen. This particular one from the Trump campaign has gotten a lot of attention. Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners. Surgery. For prisoners. For prisoners.

Every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access. So are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender? I will follow the law. and it's a law that Donald Trump actually followed. You're probably familiar with now it's a public report that under Donald Trump's administration, these surgeries were available to on a medical necessity basis

to people in the federal prison system. And I think, frankly, that ad from the Trump campaign is a little bit of like throwing, you know, stones when you're living in a glass house. The Trump aide say that he never advocated for that prison policy in no gender transition. Well, you know what? You've got to take responsible for what happened in your administration.

Yeah, no surgeries happened in this pregnancy. So would you still advocate for using taxpayer dollars for gender reassignment surgeries? I will follow the law. Harris was criticized by some on the political right for repeatedly deflecting questions and bringing up Donald Trump instead. They say the country is on the wrong track. If it's on the wrong track, that track follows three and a half years of you being vice president and president and president by and being president. That is what they're saying, 79% of them. Why are they saying that? If you're turning the page, you've been in office for three and a half years.

And Donald Trump has been running for office since... But you've been the person holding the office. Come on. You and I both know what I'm talking about. You and I both know what I'm talking about. What are you talking about? What I'm talking about is that over the last decade, people have become... The full interview was nearly 27 minutes. long. In one of the most notable moments of the night, Harris said her presidency would not be a continuation of Biden's presidency. At the end of the day, the Harris campaign did appear

pleased with Harris's performance during the Fox News interview. The Biden administration announced today that it will forgive another $4.5 billion in student loan debt. About 60,000 Americans will be informed in the coming weeks that their loans have been forgiven. So who exactly is eligible for this round of student loan forgiveness. Specifically, Americans who enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. President George W. Bush signed the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program into law back in 2007. The program allows some nonprofit and government employees to receive student loan forgiveness after 10 years. But the program had issues, and some borrowers thought that they were on track to receive loan forgiveness,

only to find out that because of a technicality in the law, they were not eligible. According to NBC News, before Biden took office, only 7,000 people had ever received the debt relief under the program. The program rejection rate was as high as 98% in some years. But Biden has relaxed the requirements on the law, so now more Americans can receive that loan forgiveness. President Biden has reportedly forgiven more student loan debt than any person. president in history. Meanwhile, some critics say that the student loan forgiveness is maybe an 11th hour election manipulation move. Now, let's hit some of our news flashes today. These are our quick hits. The House Freedom Caucus has a new leader. Maryland Republican Representative Andy Harris is

now leading the Conservative Congressional Caucus. He joined the Daily Signal's Sitdown podcast recently to discuss his leadership style. In a nutshell, Harris says that he's going to work to unify conservatives in the house. Next up, in a headline from the Daily Caller News Foundation, we have learned that the FBI has quietly revised its national crime data for 2022. The data now shows that violent crime actually increased instead of decreased, as was initially reported. That's according to reporting from real clear investigations. can check out today's show notes if you want to dive a little deeper into that story back to the election leftist activists are spending millions on a redistricting fight in ohio when ohioans vote this

november they will be asked to vote for or against an initiative that would change how the state elects members of congress and the state legislature the daily signal's fred lucas has a full report on this out in the daily signal you can check out today's show notes or just visit DailySignal.com to find the full story. The University of Nevada's women's volleyball team recently voted to forego playing San Jose State University because San Jose has a male on their team who identifies as a female. Now, the University of Nevada team has gained some attention for its decision to not play a team with a male player.

Former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown, and Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen all showed up for the University of Nevada Women's Volleyball game in Reno on Tuesday to show their support for the girls. With that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here for the Daily Seedal's top news. If you haven't had the chance, make sure that you check out our morning show. It's right here in this same podcast feed. And tomorrow morning, I am so pleased to be sitting down with Jeremy Tedesco and Ryan Bangert

of Alliance Defending Freedom to discuss the technical league. and free speech ramifications of AI technology. It's a fascinating conversation. Be sure to catch that tomorrow morning. Don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss out on our brand new shows. And if you would, if you like what you heard today, take a minute to leave us a five-star rating and review. We love hearing your feedback. Have a great rest of your Thursday.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow morning as we round out the week. The Daily Signal podcast is made possible because of listeners like you. Executive producers are Rob Blewey 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.