The President's Daily Brief - August 24th, 2022. Biden to Announce Student Debt Relief. CDC Admitted They Failed Us During COVID Response, We Have the Data to Back Up Their Guilt.

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

It’s August 24th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ First, Joe Biden will likely announce today that he is canceling some of America’s student loan debt. But should he? And do people really need that debt relief? We’ll talk numbers, and why there might be a better way to help struggling students. As always, I’m keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put these two on your radar. First, the CDC admitted last week that they failed in their COVID pandemic response. We have data out this morning that show just how bad they failed, in this case, they failed America’s kids. Second, the United States has $7B of cash sitting a New York Bank that belongs to the Government of Afghanistan. Should we give it back to them? Joe Biden’s thinking about it. I’ll explain. And finally, the last thing before I let you go. A question from Kurt from somewhere in Mississippi. He’s seeing a suspicious pattern and wonders about the sources that I use for this podcast. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's August 24th. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA Officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. First up, Joe Biden will likely announce today that he is canceling some of America's student loan debt, but should he? And do people really need that debt relief? We're going to talk numbers and why there might be a better way to help struggling students. As always, I'm keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put these two on your radar. First, the CDC admitted last week that they failed in their COVID pandemic response. We have data out this morning that show just how bad they failed. In this case, they failed America's kids. Second, the United States has $7 billion of cash sitting in a New York bank that belongs

to the government of Afghanistan. Should we give it back to them? Well, Joe Biden is thinking about it. I'll explain. And finally, the last thing before I let you go, a question from Kurt from somewhere in Mississippi, he's seen a very suspicious pattern, and he wonders about the sources that I use for this podcast. But first, let's get started with today's main brief. We have lots of reporting out this morning that as early as today, Joe Biden will announce that he is canceling some student loan debt held by American borrowers. This has been something that Biden and others have been debating for a long time now, years. They have long wrestled with how much debt to forgive, who should receive it, and whether it's a good idea at all. So let's talk numbers that Biden

and his team are considering. We know that Americans owe an estimated $1.75 trillion in student loan debt. Now, conservatives have generally argued that people should pay that back themselves. It's their debt. They accrued it, so it's their problem. Democrats, however, well, they want either some debt forgiveness or total debt forgiveness. But regardless, but regardless of it's their debt. But regardless, Regardless, we should be clear about something here. Whatever is forgiven, it's not going to just go away. It will be transferred to America's national debt, which currently stands around $30 trillion. So what will Mr. Biden do?

What path will he choose? Well, reports suggest that he's looking at a plan that would cancel about $10,000 per qualifying borrower for a total program cost of $300 billion. Now, one caveat to that. you can't make more than $125,000 a year, or if you do, you won't qualify for any debt forgiveness. So if Biden announces this plan, there will be absolute immediate questions from lots of people. For instance, can he legally do this? Because legal scholars are saying that he lacks the authority without an act of Congress. But as the debate kicks off in the coming

days and weeks, there's something that I would encourage you all to consider. Now, the whole conversation here really revolves around one central question. Do these borrowers need debt relief? Not want debt relief. Do they need it? Because to state the obvious here, most people would probably want to have all of their debt erased. I mean, it would be nice to have your mortgage gone or your car payment waved away with a stroke of a presidential pen. So to answer this question about whether people need versus whether they just want debt relief,

the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia conducted a survey in May of this year, and they took a national sample, 13,423 borrowers, and they asked them, if you have to start making student loan payments again, will you be able to afford it? And 75% said, yes, they could make payments just as they have always done. But 86% said that, well, that's true, but I'd sure like some debt relief. So that seems to help answer the central question. The overwhelming majority of student loan borrowers in America don't need debt relief. But yes, they want it. Still, what the data also show is that about 20% of people are chronically struggling with their student loan debt

and probably won't be able to make future payments. In other words, there is a need. So folks, there is the snapshot of the data that we're working with. 75% of people do not need debt relief, but about 20% could probably use some help. Now, reasonable people can debate what we should do here. So as you all think about and wrestle with what you would do if you were president, I want to offer you another solution. And it's not one that you're probably going to hear from either Joe Biden

or pretty much anybody in Washington, D.C. Right now, the U.S. Army and Navy will repay up to $65,000 of student loan debt. The National Guard? Well, they're up to 50,000. And the Coast Guard gives you 30,000. And by the way, you could probably squeeze even a little bit more out of the Army and the Navy because the Army in particular is short of their recruitment numbers, actually by pretty substantial amount this year. In other words, we already have a student debt relief plan in America. In fact, it's already been passed by Congress. So what I'm trying to say here, folks, is that we already have a student debt relief plan in America. It's already been passed by Congress, already been funded, and there's

no need for a real debate, no lawsuits, in fact. You just have to be willing to serve your country. So if we were in the White House this morning, I would offer you this advice, not so much a brief, just a reminder. During Jack Kennedy's inaugural address in 1961, he spoke to the nation about the great challenges of his time. And it's not really dissimilar from this time, actually. his America faced the Soviet Union and the evils of communism and our America faces China and those same evils of communism. And what Jack Kennedy said to his country back in 1961 is the same thing that I think we should be saying to our country in 2022. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Folks, we don't need a student debt

relief program. The data show that most borrowers don't need it, but for those who do, they already have a solution. Go to a military recruiter, be of service to your country. Do not ask for a handout. Coming up, ladies and gentlemen, a closer look at what's on my radar. Two quick briefs for you, one on the CDC and the other on Afghanistan, cash. We'll be right back. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage

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Welcome back to the PDB. As always, I'm watching a few other stories this morning. Put these two on your radar. First, last week, the CDC director finally admitted what many of its critics have long alleged. America's public health authorities profoundly failed to this country in their COVID-19 response. CDC director Rochelle Walensky said that she and her colleagues made, quote, pretty dramatic and pretty public mistakes, end quote. She went on to add that, quote, my goal, is a new public health action-oriented culture at the CDC that emphasizes accountability, unquote, amongst other things, by the way. Well, this morning, I'd like to share some data with you that, quite frankly, demand the accountability that Director Walensky is offering. Because what it says is that the CDC, the NIH, and others in America's government badly damaged America's kids, most especially our poorest kids. So here's that story. Research, at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and the University of Colorado School of Medicine,

they were wondering about the health of America's kids after the COVID-19 lockdowns. Specifically, they wondered about the lockdowns leading to a possible rise in type 2 diabetes in children. So to remind ourselves, type 2 diabetes is a chronic disorder that affects the body's ability to regulate and use and process sugar. And without treatment and control, it can cause heart disease, nerve and kidney damage. damage, impaired vision, and other irreversible injury to organs. Now, we have seen an increase in this disorder even before the pandemic, and it's largely been driven by the obesity epidemic. But researchers wondered if the lockdowns made it worse. So they identified 3,113 pediatric patients as

their sample, and what they found was heartbreaking and absolutely outrageous. The number of new cases of type 2 diabetes and kids increased 77% during the first year of the lockdowns. Now, boys were more affected than girls, they discovered, and black and Hispanic kids in particular were sickened at levels higher than any other ethnic groups. So why is that? Of course, why the increase at all, but most especially amongst minority kids. So here's what the researchers said. Quote, during the COVID-19 lockdown, children were removed from their normal day-to-day routines, like going to school, playing sports, and other hobbies. And not only were they less physically active, they were confined to their homes, and they

spent a lot more time watching TV, playing video games, or with other electronic devices, end quote. But what happened to minority kids in particular? Well, as data has long made clear, obesity rates in Hispanic and black households is greater than any other ethnic group. Black American adults experienced the highest rates of obesity in this country, about half of all adults in that category. And to Hispanic Americans, there are around 44% of their adults. In other words, kids of all stripes were damaged by the lockdowns, that's true, but most especially black and brown kids who adopted the eating and the exercise habits of their parents. In fact, the researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Colorado said as much, quote, Now is the time to focus on exercising and a healthy diet for your kids, end quote.

By the way, it's not just kids that were impacted by the lockdowns pushed by the NIH and the CDC. Consider this. The British Journal of Sports Medicine recently reported that regular physical activity is linked to a lower risk of ever getting infected with COVID to begin with. And if you do, their study showed that the severity of the infection was far lower with just three hours of exercise a week. But that's awfully hard to do when the CDC and people like Tony Fauci of the NIH locks down

the nation. We all remember what happened. Parks were closed. Hiking trails shut down. Jims shuddered. In California, do you remember this? The governor there, Gavin Newsom, he filled skateboard parks with sand so that kids

couldn't exercise or play. Now, I hope that we all remember that when we go to the polls in November. I know that I won't forget, and frankly, I won't forgive. Finally, this morning, Joe Biden is thinking about giving Afghanistan billions of dollars currently held in a bank in New York City. So here's why. Afghanistan has $7 billion in assets at the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in New York.

Now, all of that, however, has been frozen now that Afghanistan is led by Islamic terrorists, the Taliban, of course. So what to do with that money? Well, of the $7 billion that we have, half is tied up in lawsuits against the Taliban for their role in the September 11th tax. So that leaves $3.5 billion. The Biden administration says that they want to use those billions for, quote, the benefit of the Afghan people, and quote. But what exactly does that mean? Well, Biden is considering a few things.

One is a humanitarian effort that would help some 20 million people in Afghanistan that the United Nations is. saying faces starvation this winter. Details are light on this plan, but the money would be transferred into a proposed trust fund in Switzerland, and then disbursements would be made to the people directly, somehow bypassing the Taliban. Now, nobody's quite sure exactly how this would happen. The Taliban, of course, has our guns, and they will take whatever they want when it gets to the country. But this is generally the idea that Biden and his team are thinking about. So what would you do? Would you give it to the surviving family members of the 9-11 attacks, or would you send all or some of it back the Afghan people? Tell me what you think. Email me. The address, as always,

is PDB at thefirstTV.com. But regardless, this issue is going to get a lot more publicity in the coming months. Winter is going to set in, and the average person in Afghanistan is really going to start to struggle with food. In fact, millions already are. So expect to see more headlines very soon. And with that, one more thing before I let you go, a question this morning from Kurt in Mississippi. We'll be right back. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. One more thing before I let you go this morning. I got a question from Kurt from somewhere in Mississippi. He's seen a suspicious pattern and he wonders about the sources that I use for this podcast. So here is Kurt's question. Brian, your podcasts are excellent. On several occasions, though, I see that some of the information

that you provide gets published a few days later in other media outlets like the Wall Street Journal. Are they listening to your podcasts or do you all have some of the same intelligence sources? All right, Kurt, I'm going to let you and everybody else speak behind the curtain a little bit on how I put together this podcast. And then I'll tell you what I think might be happening with these other media outlets. So from Sunday morning through Thursday very late at night, I am scour. the news for things that hit two targets. First, national security events and second, events that directly affect you all. So let's talk about that first target. I look for mostly international news, some domestic, but almost always something connected to national security, because that's

the heart of the actual president's daily brief. And so I strive to give you those facts, the data, the logic, and then ultimately I defer to you all on what you would do. Okay, let's talk about about that second target that I am looking for, events that directly affect you all. So let me say this a touch differently. Why does Kurt and Mississippi care about any particular story? Because Kurt is a busy man and he's got maybe 20 minutes or so to spare. So as I look for news, I need to find a very clear and compelling connection between Kurt and his community and national security. So that means that I don't just grab whatever headlines and give them to you. I spend 12 to 17 hours each day looking for news and then writing editing and then I stop I look for breaking news I rewrite

I re-edit and then finally I record around 4 a.m. Eastern most of the research that I do is on the internet and sometimes I pick up a phone or I will meet with someone but regardless it takes me 12 to 17 hours a day and I take that much time because I want to give you the level of focus and detail that the president it gets to stay as true as I can to the actual PDB. Now, candidly, it's exhausting, and I am pretty much constantly tired drinking way too much coffee. But what I hope is that you all hear and see the work that I put into this podcast. And I think you guys do. Many folks have been so gracious to write me in support, encouraging me to keep going, and it has meant the world. Okay, Kurt, now let's dive into your question. Do others in the media have the same?

sources that I do, or are other media outlets taking what I produce and using it for themselves? Well, I don't know if we have the same sources. It certainly could be, but I do know that friends of mine in the media do listen to this podcast, and they have said with great love and affection, thank you for doing the legwork, Brian, I am now going to use what you have found. And you know what? I love that, because I don't own the news. I find it from lots of sources. We all in this world give and take. Plus, if I share little hidden nuggets of news with you before anybody else, well, that means that you've got everybody else beat. And that's the goal. Because that's what the president gets. They get a heads up on important issues to act or strike back just in the

nick of time before the other guy can. So that's my promise to you. And that's why I put so much my time into this podcast. By the way, I've got more to come on new PDB content, maybe an afternoon podcast for your drive home. Of course, a newsletter that we have long talked about and a video show on say YouTube or Rumble. And I've got a lot of plans in the works. We just need to grow the number of listeners that we have a bit more and then I can hire some people to help. But we're going to get there. Just a bit more time. But I'll tell you what, when we get there, we are going to have a lot of fun. And that ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. As always, we close out the show reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of

every good spy and every smart American. It's from John chapter 8, verse 32. And you shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you free. Good day.