The Daily Signal - TOP NEWS | Biden’s Budget Proposal, Sen. McConnell’s Hospitalized China’s National People’s Congress More Twitter Files | March 9

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: President Biden announced his proposed budget Sen. Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized  Virginia Allen joins the show from Yuma, Arizona Updates on China’s National’s People’s Congress The latest Twitter files Link to Taibbi’s thread: https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830002742657027 Relevant Links 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm Samantha Escheris. I'm John Pop. And this is the Daily Signal Top News for Thursday, March 9th. Here are today's headlines. President Joe Biden released his budget proposal today. Bloomberg reports that the tax proposals, which are at the center of what the White House estimates, is a $3 trillion deficit reduction plan, will be immediately rejected by congressional Republicans.

However, as Bloomberg notes, the ideas set up Democrats' approach to the debt ceiling fight later this year, as Republicans are gearing up to ask for spending cuts. According to a White House fact sheet on Biden's budget, the president's budget details a blueprint to build on this progress, deliver on the agenda he laid out in his state of union, and finish the job. This includes continuing to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out by investing in America, lowering costs for families, protecting and strengthening Medicare and Social Security and reducing the deficit by nearly $3 trillion over the next decade by making

the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share and cutting wasteful spending on big pharma, big oil, and other special interests. E.J. Antony, a research fellow in regional economics here at the Heritage Foundation, tells us the White House proposed doubling of capital gains taxes adds insult to injury in a time of high inflation. It means that savers will be paying $12,000,000, twice the taxes on things that haven't actually gone up in value, but which have only increased because of inflation. Antony adds, other proposals may sound politically attractive in soundbites, but like most soundbites, they aren't very sound.

Quadrupling the tax on stock buybacks just means that corporations will use other means besides the sale of equity shares to raise capital, like selling bonds, for instance. Those bonds can be repurchased at a future date avoiding the tax. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized after falling on Wednesday evening. Fox News reports that McConnell was attending a private dinner at a Washington, D.C. hotel when he tripped. McConnell's communications director, David Popp, told ABC News this afternoon that Leader McConnell tripped at a dinner event Wednesday evening and has been admitted to the hospital and is being treated for a concussion. He is expected to remain in the hospital for a few days of observation and treatment. The leader is grateful to the medical professionals for their care and to his colleagues for their warm wishes.

We will keep you updated on any developments regarding the 81-year-old politician. As we've reported on this show before, the southern border crisis is both ongoing and unrelenting. Virginia Allen is joining us from Yuma, Arizona, where she is documenting the state of the U.S.-Mexico border. Virginia, thanks so much. Thanks, Sam. Good to be with you. with you as well. I do miss you in the studio, but I know you're doing very important work down there. So first and foremost, what are you seeing on the ground? Yeah, so we have been down here

for about two days now, and we've spent time actually at the physical border wall in Yuma, and it's been fascinating to see the difference between what happens at the border here during the day versus at night. So yesterday, we went probably around two in the afternoon, to what is referred to as the Yuma Gap, which is right along the Arizona's border with Mexico. There's a large gap in the fence, and migrants tend to cross right at that area. And there weren't any migrants there when we were there. Now, we did find a number of discarded IDs from Mexico, Peru, Cuba, found a credit card from Poland, money from the nation of Georgia, from Mexico, from Peru. And we're told that the reason why

illegal aliens discard those items before coming into the United States is because often they're kind of trying to shed that identity, especially if they're from a nation where they think they might be deported if they have identification proof of coming from a certain nation. So they throw those documents away before they come to the United States to claim asylum. Now then contrast that with what happens at night. So at 2.30 a.m. this morning, got up, went to the southern border, arrived there around three, the exact same location in Yuma. And there were probably about 150 illegal aliens that had just crossed that were lined up, waiting to claim asylum and be taken on a bus by Border Patrol to a processing center. and the contrast was just really wild.

So I asked Border Patrol, why are they crossing at night? Why not cross in the middle of the day if these are individuals that want to be apprehended and want to claim asylum? And they said, you know, honestly they weren't sure, but their best guess was that, you know, these individuals were a distraction from other nefarious activity, meaning that likely the cartels were maybe further down on the border, trying to bring drugs across other items and to push large masses of illegal migrants through at one point is a distraction and overwhelm Border Patrol so that they have to deal with the migrants

and are distracted so that the cartels can push through what they want to push through. Wow, that is really interesting. And I know from your reporting that you've been tweeting about, you've been tweeting a lot of great videos. We have some posted on the Daily Signal, Instagram as well. And when you were talking to these migrants, they were saying that they're from, you know, China, India, Peru, Cuba, really just from all over the world. And another video that you posted was about the gap in the border wall. So you were showing kind of this long video of, you know, part of the border wall that had been built and then this ginormous gap in the video. So can you talk a little bit more about this video and, you know, the state of the border wall itself?

Yeah. So I was told by a gentleman named Jonathan Lund, who's testified before Congress before. He's a district county supervisor in Yuma County. He says there are 11 gaps in the border wall in Yuma. So there's a lot of places where illegal aliens can still cross, cross the claim asylum, or where cartels will speak to slip through and cross. And, you know, there's material, though, down there. One of the videos I shared is just a bunch of iron rods, iron border wall that's sitting there.

It's been sitting there since the Biden administration took over but hasn't been used. And so when you talk about border security and, you know, the wall that was put up under President Trump, It's a very impressive wall. It's incredibly high. You know, you really, there's just no fusible way you could get over it. But that border wall is only effective if it's complete. There's also a ton of security measures that Border Patrol under President Trump had put in place, such as cameras and sensors and all of these things.

And those when President Biden took over, a lot of those were just shut off. So they still have some cameras up and running and operating, but the more advanced technology that was put in under Trump, that's just not working. And they've just shut that off. And so you have these large gaps that are being taken advantage of, both by those that don't want to be apprehended, those with the farthest intention, and by asylum seekers. And, Sam, you're absolutely right. We've been hearing for so long that we have illegal migrants coming to America from countries all over the world.

But to actually, I think, see that just on any sort of normal day, quote unquote, normal day at the border now, was really wild. I spoke with illegal migrants from China, from the nation of Georgia, from Colombia, from Peru. I didn't get to speak to her, but there was a woman as well. The Border Patrol confirmed was from Russia. Literally, nations from all over the world, multiple continents represented just on for Border Patrol, what is a normal Thursday morning. Yes, that is really not normal, but I guess it is the new normal, as you're mentioning down at the border. Virginia, thank you so much for joining us today.

I really appreciate it. And Virginia, we will continue monitoring your reporting of, the border crisis. Again, Virginia Allen, joining us from Yuma, Arizona. Thanks so much. Thanks, Sam. Look forward to be back in the studio with you soon. A new batch of Twitter files were released today in a lengthy tweet thread, journalist Matt Taibi posted what he labeled as the censorship industrial complex. Taibi says, but Twitter was more like a partner to government with other tech firms. It held a regular industry meeting with FBI and DHS and developed a formal system for receiving thousands of content reports from every corner of government. HHS, Treasury,

NSA, even local police. And emails from the FBI, DHS, and other agencies often came with spreadsheets of hundreds of thousands of account names for review. Often these would be deleted soon after. Taibi testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee today, where he further discussed the Twitter files. During his statement to the committee, Taibi said, what we found in the files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise and use machine learning and other tools to turn the internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role. Let's take a listen to some of the questions from Democratic rep Sylvia R. Garcia via

town hall. Mr. Tai B, I want to follow up a little bit on the ranking member's questions. What was the first time that Mr. Musk approached you about writing the Twitter files? Again, Congresswoman, that would... I just need a date, sir. But I can't give it to you, unfortunately, because this is a question of sourcing, and I don't give them. I'm a journalist. I don't review my...

It's not a question of source. It's a question of... No, that's a question of sources. Because you earlier said that someone had sent you through the Internet some message about whether or not you would be interested in some information. Yes, and I refer to that person as a source. So you're not going to tell us when Musk first approached you? Again, Congressman, when you're asking a journalist to reveal a source.

So then you consider Mr. Musk to be the direct source of all this? No, now you're trying to get me to say that he is the source. I just can't answer your question. He isn't. If you're telling me you can't answer because it's your source, well, then that only logical conclusion is that he is, in fact, your source. Well, you're free to conclude that. Well, sir, I just don't understand.

You can't have it both ways, but let's move on. No, he can. He's a journalist. No, he can't, because either Musk is the source and he can't talk about it, or Musk is not the source. And if Musk is not the source, then he can discuss his conversations with the source. You don't get to speak. And she's out of order. Because he's not recognized. General lady is not recognized.

He's not recognized. He's not said that. But he has said is he's not going to reveal his source. And the fact that Democrats are press. We will include a question. We'll ask him about his conversations with us. We will include a link to Taibi's tweet thread in the show notes. The Chinese Communist Party is hosting its annual National People's Congress. Xi Jinping directly criticized the U.S. and Western countries over what he described as containment and suppression

during a closed-door session on Monday with delegates from China's private sector. That's according to reporting from ABC News. Michael Cunningham, a research fellow in the Asian Study Center here at the Heritage Foundation, is joining us now to discuss. Michael, thanks so much. Thanks for having me. So first and foremost, can you tell us a little bit more about the National People's Congress and your thoughts on she's comments? Yeah, so the National People's Congress is a rubber stamp legislature. It meets every year, and then it has a standing committee that meets throughout the year to pass laws.

But the meetings going on right now are mostly focused on domestic policy. There are some statements, some press conferences related to foreign affairs. But basically what we are seeing unfold right now is the Chinese government put out basically its policy direction for the year ahead. It has announced some restructuring of government bodies that will be passed in the coming days. and it will appoint new government leaders. So this really is, I guess we could say, it's the finishing touches on She's consolidation of power, which he accomplished at the party Congress back in October.

So the party Congress saw him really consolidate his power, and now he's translating that into actual control over the government ministries and the cabinet as well. Also wanted to get your thoughts on comments from Xinjiang China's foreign minister. He said on Tuesday, when the U.S. says it wants to install guardrails and have no conflict in China-U.S. relations, it really means that the U.S. requires China not to fight back when hit or scolded. But this cannot be done. If the United States does not hit the brakes but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing. and there will surely be conflict and confrontation.

What do you think of this? Well, this is, it's pretty standard Chinese language generally. Now, they are engaging in Cold War against us and telling us we need to not have a Cold War mentality, of course. You know, because if two sides are fighting the Cold War, it's a lot harder to win than if only they are, right? And so you do get this kind of China wanting the U.S. to pretty much stand back and just let China continue to rise at our expense, as we had done for decades, essentially. Now, what is different about Qing Gong's statement, and I would say especially about Xi Jinping's statement that you asked me about previously, is that generally when the Chinese,

especially someone as senior as she, when they criticize the U.S. in an official statement, they criticize certain countries. They don't directly say the U.S. And so this is actually quite significant. We'll only really know in the months ahead as things develop what it really means, but it does seem that they're sort of taking off the gloves and they've decided, it seems, that the relationship is not going to get better, that there's not really any hope that things are going to improve in the short term, and that they are just embracing, I guess, the decline in U.S.-China relations. Well, Michael, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today.

When does the National People's Congress end? It should be ending on Monday. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. Thanks. And that I'll do it for today's episode of The Daily Signal podcast. Thank you for listening. If you haven't gotten a chance, please be sure to check out our morning show right here in the podcast feed where we interview lawmakers, experts, and leading conservative voices. Join us tomorrow morning for the Daily Signal interview edition. I'll be sitting

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