The President's Daily Brief - May 11th, 2022. Illegal Protests Outside Supreme Court Judges' Homes. The US Commits $40 Billion to Ukraine.

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

It’s May 11th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. I’m your host and former CIA Officer Bryan Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. First up, Protests continue at the homes of multiple Supreme Court justices. The White House says that’s a good thing. We’re going to talk about what that means for the country. Your second brief, The US House passed a bill last night giving Ukraine nearly $40B, with one Republican Senator saying the money is going to the most important issue facing the country. We’re going to talk about whether that’s true. And as always, I’m keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. There’s a big jump in COVID cases and hospitalizations in New England States. But’s that’s actually very strange. We’re going to talk about why. All up next on the President’s Daily Brief. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's May 11th. 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. The brief you're about to hear is in the same spirit of the actual President's Daily Brief, which is a top secret summary of the most critical events in the past 24 hours, all delivered to the President each day by the nation's spymasters. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I am your spy and this is your brief. Here's what we're going to be talking about this morning. First up, protests continue at the homes of multiple Supreme Court justices, the White House says that's actually a good thing. We're going to talk about what that means for the country. Your second brief, the U.S. House passed a

bill last night giving Ukraine nearly $40 billion, with one Republican senator saying that the money is going to the most important issue facing the country. We're going to talk about whether or not that's true. And as always, I'm keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. There's a big jump in COVID cases and hospitalizations in the New England states. But that's actually very strange. We're going to talk about why. All up next on the President's Daily Brief. Your first piece of intel this morning, protests continue at the homes of Supreme Court justices. They're being led by pro-choice activists who are targeting those justices who will likely vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. And that, of course, would mean that

states, not the federal government, will get to decide whether abortions are legal. Now, so far, no one's been injured in the protests. Now, there have been violence. in cities and various places around the country that have targeted pro-life organizations, but nothing at the homes of the Supreme Court justices. But still, there are a couple of important developments that we need to talk about. First, while the protests at the justices' homes have been peaceful, at least as of this morning, they're still very much illegal. That's because there's a federal criminal code, it's 1507, if you want to look it up,

that says that any individual who pickets or parades with the intent on interoperable, interfering with or obstructing the administration of justice, well, that's breaking the law. Now, the code goes on to include anyone that's intending to influence any judge, and here's the important part, near a residence occupied or used by said judge. The penalty for committing this crime is up to a year in prison or a fine or both. So what we know is that the protesters are very much targeting judges, Supreme Court justices in this case, at their personal residences. And it's absolutely true that they intend to pressure or persuade or intimidate the justices into voting to keep Roe v. Wade. Now, when the White House press secretary was asked about this, specifically the federal code and that the Democrat protesters were apparently violating it, here's what she said.

Quote, I know that there's a lot of outrage right now, I guess. about protests that have been peaceful, but certainly we continue to encourage peaceful protests outside of judges' homes, and that's the president's position. In other words, she's advocating for people to violate federal law, or at least that's the reasonable conclusion here. Now, another journalist followed up on the original question, but she just dismissed that one out of hand. She said, yeah, but there had been protests at the homes of Democrat school board members about school curriculum, and there were also protests, she said, at the home of a Secretary of State in Michigan about voting issues. Again, the question was about the federal code here, which talks about targeting judges,

not school board members or politicians in Michigan. I think you get the point here. The president of the United States and his spokeswoman are both absolutely fine with his supporters breaking the law and targeting judges so long as they keep it peaceful. Now, as this was happening yesterday, there was a commentary offered by a television host. Her name is Joy Behar. She has a show called The View. Now, she is unabashedly a Democrat, and that's great. She has every right to express her opinions, just like anyone else.

But here's what she said about the protests. Quote, they show Justice Alito what it feels like to lose your freedom of choice, because now he can't leave the House very easily. So maybe that's a good lesson. for him. So to recap that, we have a pretty influential voice in the Democrat Party saying it's actually a good thing to take the freedom of a judge by targeting him because it teaches him a lesson. But that raises a question, and it's one that I want us to reflect on this morning. What exactly is the lesson that Joe Biden and Jensaki and Joy Behar want America and our judges

to learn about these unlawful protests? Well, it appears as though there are three lessons that they want us to learn, actually. First, if a judge rules against you or will likely rule against you, you can target them peacefully, but you can target them at their homes, in fact. Second, while, yes, targeting judges is against the law, so long as you're peaceful about it, it's fine. And that's actually what has transpired here, because there were no, and there are no local or state police arresting anyone. There's no FBI officers or marshals jailing anyone.

So yes, it's true there's a law against targeting judges at their homes, but there's no one enforcing it. And that leads to the third lesson. They're effectively arguing that laws are enforced based on the whim of a political party in power, and it's directed against whomever they like. And that doesn't matter if you're an average citizen or a Supreme Court justice. They can do what they'd like because they're in power. Now, this idea is not something that's new to me. It's something that I saw a lot of when I worked abroad for the CIA. Usually, I saw this in very corrupt nations and especially in very

tribal societies. In fact, I recall vividly one time I was posted in an African country where a senior opposition figure said to me that he couldn't wait for his party to get into power because that's when he'd take revenge on the other party. And that's really what this brief is all about. You see, countries exist only because a bunch of people get together and agree on a set of rules and rights, and then everybody has to abide by them, respect them. And that means if you violate those rules or you violate someone's rights, you get punished. That's the principle involved when we say that justice is blind. And it's also the whole point of our Constitution with laws and rights.

And as an aside, since we talk so much about immigration on this podcast, podcast, this idea of laws and rights, those are big reasons why immigrants, legal and otherwise, flock to our country. They come from places that have tribal societies like the one that I described in Africa. And it's those folks of all who really understand that once you lose that commitment to equal application of the law, you collapse into a tribal society. And then you are governed by a much older and much more cruel form of government. where might is right. So ladies and gentlemen, if you were the president this morning,

and I were briefing you on this situation, my counsel would be this. What you're seeing in America is what we see so often abroad. The foundation of our society built on the rule of law is cracking. The most senior of our leaders are encouraging their followers to break the law, to frighten judges such that the issue a different ruling. And the law enforcement officials who should be stopping it all are instead sitting on their hands because politicians have told them to do so. Now, what comes next? I don't know.

But if there were ever a time to pay very close attention to what's happening, to demand that your politicians reaffirm their commitment to the rule of law, well, folks, I think that time is now. Who cares about your poops? Ollie does. That's why Ali's. science-backed gut health lineup help support your family's regularity. From daily probiotics to fibergummies, your kiddos will love.

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Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Your second brief, the House of Representatives passed a bill last night, giving Ukraine nearly $40 billion in aid. Now, Joe Biden had only asked for $33 billion. but the House voted for another $7 billion, give or take. So let's actually break that down. There's about $25 billion for military equipment, and much of that money will go to American weapon manufacturing companies who make things like Stinger and javelin missiles.

There's another $8.5 billion, again, give or take, to support the Ukrainian economy, and that includes pension payments and salaries to Ukrainian government officials. There's also cash to Ukrainian farmers to help them pay for diesel and seed and fertilizer costs. And somewhere in that mix is also money to, and this is great, counter Russian disinformation and propaganda narratives. We'll see how that shakes out.

Now, there are a lot of things that we could discuss about this money. For instance, not a single penny of the $40 billion is actually paid for. We're issuing debt that we'll have to pay interest on, all of which gets added to our $30 trillion national debt. Now, we could also talk about how the 40 billion that we're giving to Ukraine is more certainly than what Joe Biden wants to give to most government agencies. It's more than the budget for the Department of Agriculture. It's more than the entire budget for the Department of Transportation.

And it's more than what our Customs and Border Patrol gets, more than ICE, which deportes illegal immigrants. It's a massive number, obviously. And finally, we could also talk about the fact that all of that military weaponry we sent, well, once it gets to Ukraine, it goes missing. And by that, I mean, that neither the Pentagon nor the CIA tracks whether those weapons are actually used or how they're used, or if instead they're sold on the black market. If you've listened to the PDB, I've briefed you on this very frightening issue before. But rather than talk about all those issues in depth, what I want us to focus on as a statement made yesterday by Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Here's what he said about the aid package. Quote, the most important thing going on in the world right now is the war in Ukraine. All right, I want you to put aside your party affiliation, and I want you to ask yourself if what he said is true, is there anything else that you're more concerned about in this country than Ukraine? Because if you're like most Americans, you're going to say, yeah, there are actually a lot of things that I'm more concerned about. Polling shows that most of us, no matter our party politics, think that our economy is the most pressing issue that this country faces, actually inflation, to be specific, but then wages. No other issue, not even Ukraine, comes close.

That's actually from a poll that came out five days ago, and it matches other polling that I've seen for many months now. By the way, even if you were to go down in these polls and look at the other concerns beyond the top one of the economy, the next issues of greatest concern for Republicans are the border, developing more gas and oil, crime in China. No Ukraine, right? For Democrats, their main issues after the economy are climate change and social equity. The point is, no matter your party, Ukraine is not the most pressing issue or important issue at all. So why then is it that our leaders in Washington, D.C. could be so wildly disconnected from the desires and the demands of the people.

Well, what Mitch McConnell and Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are saying this morning is that this fight in Ukraine is all about the future of democracy. In other words, as Ukraine goes, so goes America and every other Democratic country. But is that true? Do we need to spend another $40 billion dollars or democracy will somehow collapse? Well, that's not what the Germans are saying. And here's what I mean. They recently debated whether or not and how much aid to give to Ukraine. So the argument was whether they should give $1 billion or $2 billion, and that's about $1 to $2 billion. Now, they had a massive fight over those two amounts of $1 billion or $2 billion euros. It was very vicious. And it doesn't really matter what the ultimate number was that they settled on, let's say

two billion. Because ultimately it's a drop in the bucket as compared to what we're giving. And that's strange, isn't it? Because if you think about it, if democracy were really on the line, then Germany of all countries would perhaps be the most panicked, because Ukraine is quite literally in their backyard. This war and Russia would be existential threats. if this was really about preserving democracy. I mean, they'd certainly be coming up with more than $2 billion, especially seeing that we're committing over $50 billion. So something else is obviously going on here.

And I don't have the answer for you this morning as to exactly what that is. But we should be asking ourselves what it could be. And as we do, here's one thing to ponder. And it has to do with what I mentioned earlier. Of the 40 billion that we're giving Ukraine, 25 billion is going to weaponry. And much of that money will be paid out to American companies making all that military equipment. Now, this should start to ring a bell because on Monday I briefed you on some pretty incredible information.

We know that in the past five years, the five largest military contracting companies in this country employed on average 700 lobbyists each year. and that's more than one lobbyist for every member of Congress. Their goal obviously was to maximize revenue to get those congressional earmarks, for weapons and the people to support at that point the war in Afghanistan. Well, now that war is over, and so too is the revenue. So perhaps as we try to figure out why we're pouring tens of billions of dollars more into Ukraine, more than all other European countries, which actually border,

Ukraine and Russia? Well, maybe we should look a bit closer to home at that very lucrative relationship between our policymakers and those who manufacture our weapons of war. 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 on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at yamava theater.com, only at Yamaava resort and casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. Excema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with ebbglyse. A once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema.

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much like we're less concerned about flu cases unless they're sending more and more people to the hospital. And that's actually what's going on here. You see, the number of people with COVID ending up in hospitals is actually going up, but that shouldn't be the case. That's because Puerto Rico and New England have the highest vaccination rates in the country. About 83% of Puerto Rico's population is fully vaccinated, and that's higher than any state. Vermont comes in pretty close at 81% of its population fully vaccinated. So what exactly is going on here?

Well, according to Mark Levine, who is Vermont's health commissioner, it's because most Vermonters, although vaccinated, have never been infected before. In other words, people who have been previously infected are gaining a benefit that doesn't seem to confer with a vaccination. Again, I want to emphasize that Vermont's health commissioner is saying that it's this group of vaccinated but never exposed people that's making. making up most of the new cases and hospitalizations. Now, when we look at Puerto Rico, health authorities there say that the island was one of the earliest places to vaccinate

the big chunk of their population. And they're thinking is that because those vaccinations happened so long ago, the shots aren't really holding up well. They don't have much durability, so people need boosters. Well, that's according to Kenira Thompson, who advises the Puerto Rican and governor on COVID policies. So talk to your doctor about this, but what the data seem to suggest here, and what I'd encourage the president, actually, to consider if I were briefing him this morning, is that natural immunity, which means being previously infected, is both real and important, and we should consider it as we shape our public health strategy to manage COVID. There's another lesson here, and it's one in humility, because what's happening in Puerto Rico and

Vermont suggests that we have a lot to learn about the vaccines, who they benefit most, and how well they perform over time. Regardless, I'll keep you posted on this very important issue. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. A quick reminder, as you consider subscribing to the PDB, there are lots of platforms to consider. I've mentioned Apple and Spotify in the past, but IHeart is another good one. You go to iHeart.com, so that's I letter, and then heart.com, you click on the podcast and you search for the PDB there. Also, one other quick update. We're looking at adding a daily newsletter that corresponds to the briefs that I gave you.

You'd get that email each morning, plus the podcast, I suppose if you'd like. The benefit of reading the briefs is that you can see the original sources that I'm pulling from. You could click on them. And that way, you could do your own research and even fact check me. So if that's of interest, make sure. that you email me and then when you get that auto reply, it'll direct you on how to sign up for the daily newsletter. So please, please fill that out. Now, I should mention that the newsletter

isn't ready to go just yet. I imagine it'll start at some point this summer. But I'd love to get you signed up now and, candidly, to make sure that folks are interested in getting the newsletter before I'd go to all the trouble putting one together. So send me a note and get that auto reply and then follow the link to sign up for a future newsletter. Now, you know the email address. It's PDB at thefirsttv.com. And that's P as in presidents, D, as in daily,

and B as in brief, at thefirsttv.com. And with that, 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 good day.