The Daily Signal - TOP NEWS | Trump Flies to NYC, China Spy Balloon Captures Military Data, Documentary Reveals Why Republicans Opposed McCarthy | April 3

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

On today’s Daily Signal Top News, we break down: Former President Donald Trump is expected to present himself at the district attorney’s office Tuesday afternoon following his indictment.  We now know what information the Chinese Spy balloon gathered as it flew across the U.S.  Floridians no longer have to obtain a concealed carry permit to carry a gun in the state. The Daily Signal releases a documentary revealing why some Republicans opposed Rep. Kevin McCarthy. Relevant Links https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/03/did-biden-try-to-block-chinese-spy-balloon-from-compromising-us-military-secrets-expert-demands-answers/ 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 Virginia Allen. I'm Samantha Sherris. And this is the Daily Signal Top News for Monday, April 3rd. Here are today's headlines. Former President Donald Trump arrived in New York this afternoon. Trump left Maralago earlier today. He's spending the night in Trump Tower and will appear in court in New York City tomorrow following his indictment. Trump was indicted by a grand jury last week. The indictment follows months of investigation into supposed hush money payments. made to porn star Stormy Daniels. He allegedly paid Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, to cover up an affair. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg headed that investigation into Trump. Many Republicans are calling the Trump indictment politically motivated. Congressman Andy Biggs joined OAN and said Bragg is weaponizing his office against Trump. I think it is an abuse of power. It undermines the rule of law.

And I mean, we could really elaborate on this, but what they're doing is they are attacking him for political purposes. And I really believe that puts the entire country in jeopardy. And we've seen weaponization before. But I'm not sure we've seen this level of weaponization where you are trying specifically. This guy campaigned on trying to take out President Trump. And I'm just disgusted by it. Trump is expected to present himself at the district attorney's office tomorrow afternoon. Trump will be fingerprinted and processed. He will then be taken to a courtroom in the same building.

There, the sealed indictment will be opened for the first time, and Trump will learn the specifics of the charges he is facing. The Secret Service will accompany Trump during the whole process on Tuesday. CNN reports that Trump is not expected to be handcuffed, and he might not take a mugshot, since there are concerns over the photo being leaked, and since everyone already knows what Trump looks like, it doesn't seem necessary. After the charges are unsealed, it is expected that Trump will be released. New York City police have been preparing for Trump's arrival in the city and for protests that are expected to take place on Tuesday. Police have put up barricades around Trump Tower and closed roads around the Manhattan criminal courthouse. Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Green

says that she will be in New York City to protest on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Trump 2020. presidential campaign appears to be benefiting financially from the current situation. Since Trump was indicted last week, the campaign raised more than $4 million. Trump is expected to return to Mara Lago tomorrow, where he will give a campaign speech. We now know what information the Chinese spy balloon gathered as it flew across the U.S. According to an exclusive report from NBC, the balloon successfully gathered intelligence from several sensitive American military sites. It flew over some sites multiple times in a figure-eight path. The balloon was being controlled from China, and it is reported that the information the balloon was

collecting on the American military sites was sent back to Beijing in real time. Two current senior U.S. officials and one former senior administration official told NBC that the intelligence China collected was mostly from electronic signals, which can be picked up from weapon systems or include communications from base personnel rather than images. It appears that the Biden administration was aware of the balloon's ability to collect information as it flew over military bases. The senior officials told NBC that China could have gathered much more intelligence from sensitive sites, if not for the administration's efforts to move around potential targets and obscure the balloon's ability to pick up their electronic signals by stopping them

from broadcasting or emitting signals. The balloon entered American airspace at the end of January and then traveled across the U.S. before being shot down over the Atlantic Ocean in February. Heritage Foundation Research Fellow in the Asian Study Center, Michael Cunningham, said that if it's true that the balloon was gathering intel and sending it back to China in real time, then the Biden administration has a lot of explaining to do.

Cunningham added, if the administration really tracked the balloon as it entered U.S. airspace around Alaska as it claims, then they probably had opportunities to shoot it down safely before it traverse the entire United States and collected this information. Cunningham says he wants to know if the administration successfully jammed its transmission, did they even try, or did they just watch it hover over sensitive military sites and transmit data to China? Senator Ted Cruz of Texas responded to the report writing on Twitter, this is what happens when you have an administration that treats national security crises as PR challenges.

To read more analysis on the China spy balloon, check out the link in today's show notes. Floridians no longer have to obtain a concealed carry permit to carry a gun in the Sunshine State. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill earlier today to make Florida the 26th state to adopt the constitutional carry legislation. The bill passed in the Florida Senate 27 to 13 last week. NRA Institute for Legislative Action interim executive director Randy Kozik told Fox News Digital that this NRA spearheaded initiative empowers Floridians to exercise their Second Amendment rights without undue bureaucratic barriers, affirming the fundamental right to self-defense. Florida residents can still acquire a concealed carry permit if they want to, but it is not required for citizens 21 years of age and up.

Finland has voted out its left-wing prime minister. Over the weekend, Finland held its election for prime minister. Sennamarin and her Social Democratic Party lost re-election coming in third behind two conservative parties. The race was close. The right-leaning National Coalition Party won 20.8% of the vote. The Finns party, known for being a nation first party, won 20.1% of the vote, and the Social Democratic Party took 19.9% of the vote. Similar to the U.S., Finland has been dealing with economic challenges like inflation. So economic issues largely drove the election, which is one of the likely reasons why voters shifted toward the more conservative parties. The election comes just days before Finland will officially join NATO.

On Tuesday, Finland will become the 31st NATO country. The Finnish foreign minister says that Finland is focused on support for Ukraine as the war continues. Finland shares a border with Russia, so the move is significant given Russia's continued invasion of Ukraine. Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow in International Affairs and National Security, Victoria Coates, says Russian officials are less than pleading. by Finland's adoption into NATO. And finally, today, we are remembering back to January when a group of 20 Republican House members refused to vote for California Congressman Kevin McCarthy

as Speaker of the House. Here at the Daily Signal, we wanted to know why. Why did 20 Republicans refuse round after round to vote for McCarthy? So, we asked them. And tomorrow, we're releasing a documentary that answers that question. Let's take a moment to listen to the one-minute trailer

and what some of the leading GOP members had to say for why they couldn't support McCarthy as Speaker of the House. The reading clerk will now call the role. Bids. It's money and power that control this town. Bishop of North Carolina. All we're talking about chaos and dysfunction in Washington because Republicans didn't sit down like Democrats.

Crane. It's like this cold-a-sac agreed in corruption and it just keeps going around and around. Gates. I felt like it doesn't even matter which party wins the majority because both sides are working for the same lobbyists. Luna. I had a reporter that basically accosted me in the hallway saying really vile stuff. Perry.

One member came up to me and said, your presence disgusts me. Roy. So maybe the American people need to know the truth. need to know the truth. And it's extraordinary what happens when you tell the truth in this town. People go, what the hell are you doing? Why would you do that? The fact is, what we want? Because we were telling the truth. Sam, you covered the McCarthy race for Speaker of the House here at the Daily Signal, and you produced this documentary. Talk a little bit about your conversations that you had with lawmakers and what stuck out to you for the reason why these 20 Republican lawmakers

chose not to vote for McCarthy as Speaker of the House. Thanks, Virginia. One of the biggest takeaways from this documentary was how long these members were working to actually make these changes. And I think when we look back at January for many of those who tuned in on the first day of the speaker race on January 3rd or even if you heard reports on maybe January 1st or January 2nd, you might have thought that it started that week, that was the beginning of this negotiation process. But what's really important for people to know is that as As lawmakers discussed in the documentary, this fight goes all the way back to last summer, and it became especially important after the midterms when Republicans didn't have that red wave as they were expecting. And listening back through some of the concessions or the wins that these 20 Republicans were able to negotiate throughout the process was really interesting to me. We heard a lot about these concessions throughout the week, and just to name a few,

Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania mentioned that it's a first. first time ever that Congress adopted a single subject rule. Representative Cheproy of Texas talked about having the motion to vacate while Representative Matt Gates of Florida talked about never wanting to legislate via an omnibus bill again. And yeah, so it's really interesting to hear the different perspectives from the congressman, but change was definitely at the heart of all of their arguments. Well, and I love that it's such a holistic documentary that you're covering so many different perspectives from different lawmakers who had a lot of similar concerns. But how many lawmakers are we hearing from and who are we hearing from this documentary? Yes, so we'll be hearing from a total

of seven lawmakers, seven of the 20. And as I mentioned, Representative Chip Roy of Texas, Matt Gates of Florida, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, representatives Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Dan Bishop of North Carolina, and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida. And when this comes out, tomorrow on that is April 4th, Tuesday. Where can we find the documentary? How can you watch it? Yes, so you can watch it on the Daily Signal YouTube page, Daily Signal, Instagram, Facebook, and we will also have an article about it on the website. Excellent. Well, thank you, Sam. Thanks for all of your hard work on that,

and we look forward to watching this documentary. But with that, we're going to leave it there for today. Thanks so much for joining us here on 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 the leading conservative voices. Be sure to join us tomorrow morning for more conversation on what's happening with Finland joining NATO. I'm going to be sitting down with Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow in International Affairs and National Security, Victoria Coates, to discuss Finland joining NATO and what we know about the imprisonment of the Wall Street Journal reporter in Russia. Lots to break down there.

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 listening. Have a great night, and 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 Luey and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, Signal.com.