The Daily Signal - TOP NEWS | Jobs Report, Cartel Smuggling, Looming Financial Crisis, Saudi Arabia and Iran Ties, Julius Cesar Dad | March 10

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: U.S. adds 311,000 jobs in February  A dad dresses as Julius Cesar  SVB Financial is in crisis mode  Virginia Allen discusses updates from the border, including cartel smuggling routes. Virginia’s Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/Virginia_Allen5  Iran and Saudi Arabia reestablish diplomatic ties  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 John Pop. I'm Samantha Sherris. And this is the Daily Signal Top News for Friday, March 10th. Here are today's headlines. The U.S. added 311,000 jobs last month, according to a Labor Department report released today. The Dow Jones estimated the U.S. would add 225,000 CNBC reports. The unemployment rate also rose from 3.4 to 3.6%, while the labor force participation rate was at 62.2.2.000. 2.5% in February.

President Joe Biden tweeted about the news this afternoon saying, I'm happy to report that our economy created over 300,000 new jobs last month on top of half a million jobs. We added the month before. We've created over 12 million jobs since I took office more in two years than any administration created in the first four years. E.J. and Tony, a research fellow in regional economics here at the Heritage Foundation, reacted to the jobs report. He says February's job report showed more people rejoining the workforce, pushing up both the labor force participation rate and the unemployment rate. The Federal Reserve sees this as a positive move because the larger supply of workers

will lower inflation by keeping the price of labor down. And this also showed up in February's report as a decline in weekly earnings. The real solution to inflation is not to reduce the spending power of American families, but of Congress. Virginia Allen is joining us once again from Arizona. As you may recall from yesterday's show, Virginia is on the ground documenting the ongoing border crisis. Virginia is currently in Phoenix, Arizona. Virginia, thanks so much for joining us. It's great to be back with you today, Sam. So I want to dive right in because you've been getting some really interesting coverage and some videos that you've been tweeting, some photos that you've been sharing with us. I want to ask you about these cartel, smuggling routes. What's up with that? Yeah, so it's very interesting. I spent the majority of the day yesterday doing a ride along with Penel County Lieutenant LaPree, Chris LaPrie, and he showed myself and

one of my colleagues from the Heritage Foundation two different key smuggling routes that the cartels used in penal county. So what they do, they spend in between 10, 50, 15 days walking from Mexico, about 70 miles into the state of Arizona, through the desert. And then there's these specific locations where they wait for transport to come and pick them up. So these are individuals that are smuggling drugs and smuggling people. They are trying to avoid Border Patrol. They're not detected. They wear camouflage.

They carry camouflage backpacks. They carry large water jugs that are always black. They are non-reflective. It's like standard issue almost. So you go to these areas on these smuggling route where these cartel members wait to be picked up by other cartel members in vehicles. And all of the stuff that's discarded is the same. It's the same large black water jugs. It's the same discarded camouflage backpack and carpet shoes.

carpet shoes, they put over their shoes so that their footprints are not as detectable by Border Patrol, and it's harder for Border Patrol to track them. And I was interested to hear that there's sort of two different groups that are working for the cartels, smuggling in drugs, smuggling in people. You have the individuals who are the coyotes. These are permanent employees of the cartels. And then you have almost contractors. These are individuals who maybe have a criminal record, so they can't go and claim asylum at the border, but they want to get into America, but undetected by water patrol. So the cartels hire them, or they don't have to pay a fee to the cartels to be brought in. Maybe in their backpack, they're

carrying drugs. They're helping to smuggle people in. And then once they get into the United States, they disappear and come to a city near you. Wow, that is really fascinating. As I mentioned earlier, you've been tweeting a lot of videos. You've been sharing a lot of photos. I'll be sure to include a link to your Twitter account so everyone who's listening can take a look at your recent coverage. So I also wanted to ask you about your conversations with Pino County Lieutenant Chris LaPree. What did he share? Yeah, so it was so fascinating to get his perspective from law enforcement.

Because local law enforcement in Pino County, but in every border community and non-border community. Kepino County is actually about 70 miles from the border. So they're mainly dealing with smugglers, cartel members. These are people who do not want to be apprehended by border patrol. They want to go unnoticed. But that relationship is very close. The local law enforcement, they rely really heavily on border patrol.

But when local law enforcement pull over a vehicle that maybe they suspect is human smuggling and, you know, they pull that vehicle over. Let's say the vehicle, you know, the driver has a driver's license from Mexico, and, you know, there's no drugs in the car. It's just human smuggling. Well, local law enforcement, they don't actually have any authority to detain illegal migrants. So they pick up the phone. They call Border Patrol.

They say, hey, we've apprehended illegal aliens. Can you come pick them up? because we don't have authority to hold them. Well, Border Patrol is still maxed out right now, and their numbers are so short, and because they're having to process the thousands of individuals who are flooding across our southern border and claiming asylum, they often don't have time to drive 20 minutes, an hour,

and pick up these individuals. And so in those instances, local law enforcement, they have no other choice but to let these individuals go who they know are illegal and who they know are smuggling people into the country, but they don't have a choice. And Lieutenant LaPrie told me that at least 50% of the time, when they are pulling over cars that are smuggling people, they have to let them go.

They don't have any other choice because they don't have any legal ability to hold them. So, I mean, this is an issue that happens constantly, and he said it's so frustrating for myself. and my officers and for Border Patrol that they don't have the resources to do their job because our southern border is open. Wow, Virginia, thank you so much for joining us. Before we go, though, I just want to ask if you could share, you know, one or two of the most shocking things, takeaways that you've experienced so far while at the border. You know, I think both when six months ago when I went to Texas and with this trip, the amount of organization as far as the cartels. It's just really shocking to see how the cartels have figured

out very, very strategically, how to exploit our open border right now. And they are taking full advantage of it. They are the ones that are literally making millions, billions of off of these open border policies that we have seen under the Biden administration. And I just so feel for our Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, they want to be able to do their jobs, but they can't. Well, Virginia, thank you so much again for joining us. I am looking forward to having you back in the studio on Monday. Thanks so much.

And can't wait to see you. Thanks, Sam. I'll see you Monday. We have some more financial news for you. financial shares were halted earlier today amid reports the company's efforts to raise capital had failed with the company now seeking a buyer, Yahoo Finance, is reporting. SVB Financial is the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank. The Wall Street Journal reports that the panic surrounding SVB kicked off Wednesday

when the company said it would book a $1.8 billion after tax loss on sales of investments and seek to raise $2.25 billion by selling a mix of common and preferrable. stock. However, as the journal reports, that prompted fears across the banking sector that other institutions could be forced to take losses to raise cash with the four biggest U.S. banks losing $52 billion of market value Thursday. Now for some news across the world. Saudi Arabia and Iran will reestablish diplomatic ties after seven hostile years. CNN reports that the two nations are planning to reopen their embassies over the next two months, thanks to an agreement mediated by China. The countries will also re-implement a security pact for more than 20 years ago

that requires them to cooperate on terrorism, drug smuggling, and money laundering, according to CNN. A trade and technology deal from 1998 will also be re-implemented. Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of Foundations for Defense of Democracies, reacted to the news saying renewed Iran-Saudi ties as a result of Chinese mediation is a lose-lose-lose-lose for American interests. It demonstrates that the Saudis don't trust Washington to have their back, that Iran sees an opportunity to peel away American allies to end its international isolation, and it establishes China as the major domo of Middle Eastern power politics. And last, but certainly not least, a dad dressed as Julius Caesar at a school board meeting

earlier this week. Fox News reports that the dad dressed like this to drive his claims that a public school district is facilitating gender confusion. Now let's take a listen to some of the dad's comments via the Twitter account, Crisis in the classroom. I am Caesar, Julius Caesar of Rome, the emperor. I am also a female. Does anybody here believe that? That I am Julius Caesar. Anybody believe that? No? Of course not. It's ridiculous. I'm not a woman either. I'm here. as a father. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to The Daily Signal's top news.

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