The Daily Signal - TOP NEWS | Senate to Vote on Debt Ceiling, Hunter Biden In Middle of Gun Debate, Twist In Trump Classified Document Investigation | June 1

Starting point is 00:00:01 I'm Virginia Allen. I'm Samantha Sherris. And this is the Daily Signal Top News for Thursday, June 1st. Here are today's headlines. Last night, after months of discussion, debate, and compromise, the House passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling and reduce federal spending. Yays are 314. The nays are 117. The bill is passed. The bill would suspend the current debt limit of $31.4 trillion. until January 1st of 2025. That's about two months after the presidential election on November 5th, 2024, meaning the current Congress won't have to deal with a debt limit fight again. The bill does not include as many cuts to federal spending as Republicans wanted, but it does rescind roughly

Starting point is 00:01:03 30 billion of unspent COVID-19 relief funds. It also completely funds veterans medical care as promised in the president's budget for fiscal year 2024 and puts an end to the pause in student loan repayments. Borrowers will have to start paying on their student loans again in August. The bill passed with support from Democrats and Republicans, but more Democrats ultimately backed it. There are currently 222 Republicans in the House. 71 of those Republicans voted against the bill.

Starting point is 00:01:38 There are 212 Democrats in the House. and just 46 voted against the bill. Four members did not vote. Now the bill is headed to the Senate. The bill is expected to face some opposition from both Republicans and Democrats, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says there is no margin for error. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says Congress has until Monday to pass the spending bill or risk default on the debt. Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell says he will support the bill without delay. But if Senate leadership allows senators to introduce amendments to the bill and those amendments pass, then the bill would have to head back to the House for a vote. The Senate may hold a vote on the bill as soon as tonight.

Starting point is 00:02:26 Stay tuned. Today is June 1st, the first day of what has been dubbed Gay Pride Month, but a professor at Princeton is working to rebrand the month. Princeton professor, Robert P. George has declared June Fidelity Month. George is also a board member of the Heritage Foundation, the parent organization of the Daily Signal. Marion Webster defines fidelity as being faithful. While George says no one gave him permission to declare June Fidelity Month, he is advocating for dedicating June to the importance of fidelity to God, spouses and families, our country, and our communities.

Starting point is 00:03:04 George wrote on his Facebook that he's inviting any organizations which you are involved, or in which have influence to recognize and celebrate Fidelity Month to put out a statement or hold an event like hosting a speaker on the importance of any of the values we need to restore. If you are interested in learning more, check out the link in today's show notes for Tyler O'Neill's reporting on Fidelity Month. Hunter Biden appears to be in the middle of a debate on the Second Amendment, but he's on the side of protecting gun rights. To understand what is going on here, we have to rewind to 2018. This is a time when Hunter Biden has admitted that he was often using crack cocaine, but the younger

Starting point is 00:03:51 Biden also purchased a gun in 2018 and federal law prohibits drug users from owning guns. The Justice Department is investigating the situation, but here's where things get interesting. The Supreme Court issued a ruling on the Second Amendment about a year ago. That ruling calls into question the constitutionality of the law that prohibits drug users from owning guns. So if the Justice Department chooses to prosecute Hunter Biden over his ownership of a gun while using crack cocaine, Hunter's lawyers say they will pull on the Supreme Court's pro-gun ownership ruling. This is the same ruling that President Joe Biden has, labeled an affront to common sense and the Constitution.

Starting point is 00:04:39 The Justice Department investigation is ongoing, so stay tuned. An audio recording of former President Donald Trump indicates that Trump was aware of the fact that he took classified documents from the White House. CNN broke the story last night. The audio recording is from the summer of 2021. The recordings were obtained by federal prosecutors but have not been released to the public. According to CNN, the recording indicates that Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House.

Starting point is 00:05:12 Trump's comments on the recording seemed to suggest that he would like to share the information in the classified documents with whomever he was meeting with, but was aware of his limitations to declassify records after his presidency. The recording is reported to include Trump's comments on having classified Pentagon documents about a potential attack on Iran. You will all remember that last August, the FBI conducted a raid on Mar-a-Lago and found multiple classified documents in the former president's possession. Trump has defended his possession of the documents. Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb joined CNN to discuss the situation and said the recording harms Trump's defense of his possession of classified documents.

Starting point is 00:05:57 It further enhances the obstruction case because it eviscerates the two defendants. that Trump has put forward, you know, the first being that merely by taking documents, he declassifies him, or that he has the authority if he's playing with the ducks in the hot tub to declassify him in his own mind. Those are out the door now because he's admitted that he understood there were restraints on what he could do with documents. As of this recording, Trump has not publicly responded to the reporting on the audio recording. Two conservative activists have just launched a Jewish coalition against leftist billionaire George Soros. Josh Hammer, the senior editor at large of Newsweek, and Will Scharf, a candidate for Attorney General of Missouri,

Starting point is 00:06:48 say opposing Soros is not anti-Semitic. So who is George Soros? The American Jewish Committee refers to Soros as having been born Jewish. He is a businessman and philanthropist and has given billions of people. billions away in support of left-wing causes. Today, he's estimated to be worth $6.7 billion. Hammer and Sharf say the new group Jews against Soros exists to stand against the work of the leftist philanthropist. The group's website reads, we are Jews who have had enough of George Soros and his malign leftist influence on American politics. We are Jews who are also sick and tired of the

Starting point is 00:07:33 left accusing anyone who criticizes Soros of being anti-Semitic. Let us be very clear. There is nothing anti-Semitic about condemning George Soros. There is nothing anti-Semitic about identifying the many ways that George Soros and his network of organizations fund the radical left. And they go on to say that leftism isn't Judaism. And being anti-leftist is not the same thing as being anti-Semitic, period. It's time for Jews all over. America to stand up against George Soros. Elon Musk says Twitter made a mistake when the social media platform informed the Daily Wire, it would not support the streaming of the movie What is a Woman on Twitter.

Starting point is 00:08:16 About a year ago, the Daily Wire and political commentator Matt Walsh released the documentary, What is a Woman. The documentary dives into the transgender movement and answers the question, what is indeed a woman? The Daily Wire asked Twitter if they could stream the film, What is a Woman? stream the film what is a woman on Twitter for 24 hours. Twitter said yes and offered the Daily Wire a package to host the movie on an event page on Twitter. Then Twitter reviewed the film and according to the Daily Wire's Jeremy Boring, the platform told the Daily Wire that they could no

Starting point is 00:08:49 longer purchase the package and Twitter would no longer provide any support to the promotion of the film. In other words, Twitter would limit the reach of the film so people would not see it on their feeds. Twitter would also label it as hateful conduct because of what the social media platform said is misgendering in the film. Twitter erupted with the news and ultimately Twitter CEO Elon Musk weighed in. Musk responded to Jeremy Boring's post detailing the situation. Musk said this was a mistake by many people at Twitter. It is definitely allowed, referring to the documentary airing on Twitter. Musk continued, whether or not you agree with using someone's preferred pronouns, not doing so is at most rude and certainly breaks no loss.

Starting point is 00:09:37 The Daily Wire is hosting an event on its Twitter page tonight to discuss the alleged censoring of the film, What Is a Woman. And with that, that's going to 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 where we interview lawmakers, experts, and leading conservative voices. Join us tomorrow morning for The Daily Signal interview edition. Kyler O'Neill is sitting down with Amir at VV and Dov Lippman for two conversations on Israel.

Starting point is 00:10:08 Also, make sure you subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you get your podcast and help us reach even more listeners by leaving a five-star rating and review. We read and appreciate all of your feedback. Thanks again for joining us today. We hope you all have a great night. We'll see you right back here tomorrow morning. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you. by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Lewy and Kate Trinko.

Starting point is 00:10:36 Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheris. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geine, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - TOP NEWS | Senate to Vote on Debt Ceiling, Hunter Biden In Middle of Gun Debate, Twist In Trump Classified Document Investigation | June 1

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