The Daily Signal - TOP NEWS | Senate FTX Hearing, IRS Targets Conservatives, Biden Hosts Macron, Apple Calls off Twitter Ban, Sen. Warren on Twitter, Florida Divests from BlackRock | Dec. 1

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down:  Senate hearing on FTX collapse Democrat senator urged IRS, DOJ to target conservative groups President Biden meets with French President Emmanuel Macron  Apple backs down from banning Twitter on app store Sen. Elizabeth Warren comments on Musk’s Twitter changes  Florida treasury to divest assets from BlackRock Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm Virginia Allen. I'm Samantha Sherris. And this is the Daily Sleasonal Top News for Thursday, December 1st. Here are today's headlines. U.S. Senators have kicked off the first hearing on the recently bankrupt cryptocurrency firm, FTX. The chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Rosten Benham, testified before the Senate Agriculture Committee panel this morning. The committee questioned Benham about the collapse of FTX and whether it could have been avoided. with more government oversight. Here's what Benham had to say, per Yahoo Finance. We are here today because the latest events involving FTX lay bare the consequences in demand accountability.

As I have stated publicly many times before, I strongly believe that we need to move quickly on a thoughtful regulatory approach to establish guardrails in these fast-growing markets of evolving risk, or they will remain an unsafe venture for customers and could present a growing risk to the broader financial system.

Failure to act will leave consumers who have made investments in digital commodities largely unprotected. Unlike other federal financial regulators, the CFDC lacks the necessary and direct authority to write rules and to oversee this marketplace. Instead, we may only reach it through more limited authority activated when fraud or manipulation has already occurred. While we can and do hold perpetrators accountable when we find fraud or manipulation, for the victims of the scheme, it's already too late. too late. Democrat Agriculture Committee chairwoman Senator Debbie Stabenow and Republican ranking member Senator John Booseman presided over the hearing. Before the collapse of FTX, the two senators introduced a bill that would regulate cryptocurrency markets. Booseman said in his remarks that the sudden bankruptcy of FTX shows the need for a regulatory framework. He says that his proposed

legislation known as the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act would offer such a regulatory framework. But the Wall Street Journal reports that former FDX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and his company backed this legislation, which raises questions about his influence over the bill. My colleague Fred Lucas reports that a conservative watchdog group obtained 176 pages of correspondence between Democrat Senator Sheldon White House of Rhode Island and the Irish. The documents were obtained by the American Accountability Foundation through a Freedom of Information Act request. Lucas reports that in a January 19th, 2021 document, White House asked IRS Commissioner Charles Reddick to revoke the tax-exempt status of Turning Point USA because the conservative organization held an event

at then-President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club without masking and social distancing. White House told the IRS chief, organizations that knowingly put in danger minors entrusted to their care should not enjoy the benefits of tax-exempt status. Accordingly, I urge the IRS to review whether it should revoke Turning Point USA's tax-exempt status. American Accountability Foundation President Tom Jones told the daily signal on Tuesday, it's abundantly clear that White House is trying to take the 87,000 new IRS agents, and put them to work investigating me and my friends because he doesn't like their politics. President Joe Biden welcomed President Emmanuel Macron of France to a meeting at the White House today. The Wall Street Journal reports that the two presidents are discussing at least two critical issues,

tensions over the war in Ukraine, and Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which funnels billions of federal dollars into green energy companies. Macron has been critical of the Inflation Reduction Act, expressing concerns that the plan will benefit the U.S. at the expense of France's economy. Biden told the press, neither he nor the U.S. make any apology for the Inflation Reduction Act. Macron reportedly said yesterday that Biden's legislation is super aggressive to European companies. Biden said today that there's tweaks he can make that will funnily make it easier for European companies. It was never intended to exclude.

Biden released a White House statement earlier today, citing the state. the leveling inflation rates and an increase in income this October as evidence that his inflation reduction plan is working. Biden and Macron's meeting will close with a 300-person dinner on the White House lawn. Elon Musk said yesterday that Apple is not going to remove Twitter from the app store. Just a few days before, rumors had surfaced that Apple and Google were threatening to remove Twitter from the app store. In a tweet yesterday, however, Musk posted a picture of the Apple campus after meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook. Musk wrote, good conversation, among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the app store.

Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so. Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts shared her thoughts on Elon Musk changes to Twitter with a Fox News reporter yesterday. Here's the exchange. Republicans say that Democrats are picking on Elon Musk. Elon Musk is doing just so. But do you think that users have a right to freedom of speech, even if what they're saying is wrong or offensive? I think that one human being should not decide how millions of people communicate with each other.

One human being should not be able to go into a dark room by himself and decide, oh, that person gets heard from, that person doesn't. That's not how it should work. Florida is divesting its assets from the investment firm BlackRock for its over-eastern, emphasis on environmental social and governance or ESG standards. Florida's chief financial officer Jimmy Petronis said in a press release today that the state will be divesting $2 billion worth of assets from Black Rock. Petronis wrote, it's my responsibility to get the best returns possible for taxpayers.

The more effective we are in investing dollars to generate a return, the more effective will be in funding priorities like schools, hospitals, and roads. anticipating a major recession this next year and the Fed's hike on interest rates, Petronus wrote, I need partners within the financial services industry who are as committed to the bottom line as we are, and I don't trust BlackRock's ability to deliver. Petrona cited BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's January letter in which he touted the company's ability to shape society with ESG priorities. BlackRock told the daily signal that it was surprised by the Florida's CFO's decision, given the strong returns, BlackRock has delivered to Florida taxpayers over the last five years.

BlackRock added, we are disturbed by the emerging trend of political initiatives like this that sacrifice access to high-quality investments and thereby jeopardize returns, which will ultimately hurt Florida citizens. Florida is one of a growing number of states, including Louisiana and Missouri, to divest assets from BlackRock. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal's top news. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our morning show right here in this podcast feed,

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