On Sunday, Democratic presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with host Jake Tapper.
During the segment, which touched on various topics, Tapper asked Buttigieg about the ongoing feud between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and fellow Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI).
On Wednesday, Clinton appeared on David Plouffe’s “Campaign HQ” podcast, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-gabbard-smacks-clinton-she-knows-she-cant-manipulate-me-if-im-elected-president">seemed to claim</a> that Gabbard was a “Russian asset.”
Here are Clinton’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-gabbard-smacks-clinton-she-knows-she-cant-manipulate-me-if-im-elected-president">exact words</a>:
<blockquote>I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on someone who’s currently in the Democratic primary, and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She’s a favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far, and that’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she’s also a Russian asset.</blockquote>
A Clinton spokesperson later <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-gabbard-smacks-clinton-she-knows-she-cant-manipulate-me-if-im-elected-president">confirmed</a> that the former secretary of state was indeed speaking about Gabbard, telling CNN, &#8220;If the nesting doll fits.&#8221;
Buttigieg pivoted away from actually condemning Clinton when pressed by Tapper:
<blockquote>TAPPER: We&#8217;re running out of time, so I do want to flip to a different topic, which is the last Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, appeared to suggest that one of your fellow campaign nominees or campaign hopefuls, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, is a Russian asset.
[Tapper then played the clip of Clinton on David Plouffe&#8217;s podcast.]
TAPPER: So, Clinton&#8217;s spokesman confirmed that she was talking about Tulsi Gabbard there. Gabbard fired back, calling Secretary Clinton the “queen of warmongers,” “embodiment of corruption.” It went on from there. I know you don&#8217;t want to get in the middle of these two politicians fighting. But is it helpful to have the 2016 nominee suggesting that a congresswoman is a Russian asset?
BUTTIGIEG: I&#8217;d prefer to have the conversation be about policy, about what we&#8217;re going to do, and about how American lives are going to be different. When it comes to any of my Democratic competitors, that&#8217;s my focus, making sure that we make very clear the differences – and there are very real differences among us – and making it clear to voters what their choices are. That&#8217;s where I&#8217;d like to focus to be.
TAPPER: Right. But do you think Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset?
BUTTIGIEG: I don&#8217;t know what the basis is for that.
TAPPER: Well, I don&#8217;t either.
BUTTIGIEG: I consider her to be a competitor, somebody who I respect her service. I also have very different views than she does, especially on foreign policy. And I would prefer to have that argument in terms of policy, which is what we do with debates and what we&#8217;re doing as we go forward.
TAPPER: So when Donald Trump smears people, Democrats all stand up and say, you&#8217;re smearing someone. Stop it. Why don&#8217;t Democrats do that, to say that about Tulsi Gabbard? It seems like an obvious smear. I don&#8217;t see any evidence she&#8217;s a Russian asset. It seems like a wild accusation.
BUTTIGIEG: Yes, I think statements like that ought to be backed by evidence.</blockquote>
Buttigieg then swiveled to “corruption,” the “mixing of domestic politics and foreign affairs,” and the White House.
After the Democratic candidate concluded, even Tapper highlighted the non-answer. “An agile pivot from Mayor Pete Buttigieg,” Tapper stated.
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tA6FlMWh04Y?start=478" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen">﻿</iframe>
Following the brouhaha between Clinton and Gabbard, few Democratic presidential candidates have spoken out in support of Gabbard.
Andrew Yang tweeted: “Tulsi Gabbard deserves much more respect and thanks than this. She literally just got back from serving our country abroad.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Tulsi Gabbard deserves much more respect and thanks than this. She literally just got back from serving our country abroad.
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1185371843957526528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
When asked on Saturday about the internecine fight, Beto O’Rourke said: “Tulsi is not being groomed by anyone. She is her own person, obviously has served this country, continues to serve this country in uniform, in Congress, as a candidate for presidency. So, I think those facts speak for themselves.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/BetoORourke?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BetoORourke</a> on <a href="https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TulsiGabbard</a>: &#8220;Tulsi is not being groomed by anyone. She is her own person. Obviously has served this country, continues to serve this country in uniform, in Congress, as a candidate for presidency so I think those facts speak for themselves.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/dKnOVExx3H">pic.twitter.com/dKnOVExx3H</a>
— The Hill (@thehill) <a href="https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1185667486139764736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
Marianne Williamson also <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/marwilliamson/status/1185407428248006657">tweeted</a> her support, calling the claim against Gabbard “character assassination.”
As of publication, Gabbard stands at 1.2% in the polls according to the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">RealClearPolitics</a> national average of polling, while Yang, O’Rourke, and Williamson stand at 2.2%, 2.6%, and 0.6%, respectively.

Pete Buttigieg.

WATCH: Buttigieg Pivots When Asked About Hillary Clinton’s ‘Russian Asset’ Remark

Hillary Clinton

Pete Buttigieg

Russia

Tulsi Gabbard

In fiscal year 2018, there were approximately 396,579 apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the southern border of the United States, according to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/28/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/">Pew Research</a>. The organization estimates that there are roughly 10.5 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States today.
Despite efforts by the Trump administration to enhance border security, and by Republicans to draft legislation that would help resolve the crisis, little has been accomplished.
Although Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who represents Texas’ Second Congressional District, has only been in office since January 2019, he’s already made waves in multiple policy debates, including those which impact the illegal immigration and border crisis.
On Friday, I had the opportunity to speak with Rep. Crenshaw about these issues. In part two of this interview, Crenshaw discusses visa overstays, what to do with the millions of illegal immigrants already here, how Republicans can effectively communicate conservative ideas while progressives run the game, how to explain these ideas compassionately, and more.
Before reading on, make sure to check out part one <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-i-dan-crenshaw-on-how-to-solve-the-border-and-illegal-immigration-crisis">here</a>.
<blockquote>DW: Turning away specifically from the border, what can be done about visa overstays?
CRENSHAW: That&#8217;s an interesting question. I think for a lot of voters, they can&#8217;t even have that conversation until they feel like their border is secure. That&#8217;s always step one, because while you can deal with visa overstays, you still have this influx. It&#8217;s like bailing out a rowboat with a big hole in the bottom of it. You&#8217;ve got to fix the hole first, and then you&#8217;ve got to deal with the water that&#8217;s in there. That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re going to face, hopefully after we finally fix our border problems. The frustrating thing about that is I&#8217;ve laid out very clear solutions to fixing the border. We know exactly what to do, and we just need to do it.
Then we have to ask ourselves questions. Okay, what are you going to do with the estimated 10 to 20 million illegal immigrants here? Well, if they&#8217;ve been committing some crimes, been in and out of jail, I think the answer is easy. They should be deported. But what about those who aren&#8217;t? Okay, what about those who have been here for a while? They&#8217;re here illegally. They had a visa. They did it the right way, but they overstayed their visa? You&#8217;re not going to round them up and deport them. That&#8217;s not realistic. So, what do you do? There are a lot of ideas out there, and I&#8217;m not sure which one we eventually fall on, but it involves questions like, do they pay some kind of restitution? They broke the law. Shouldn&#8217;t they be punished for that in the form of some kind of fee or fine? Yeah, maybe that&#8217;s it. What should that fine be?
Those are the questions we have to ask ourselves. Then what do they get out of that? Do they get an extended visa? How long is that visa extended for? Is it a work visa? Should they ever be eligible for citizenship? I would argue probably not because they broke the law, and there&#8217;s no reason to give them a forward place in the line in front of legal immigrants who&#8217;ve done it the right way. There&#8217;s a sense of justice, I think. There&#8217;s the conversation about justice that we have to have here and intertwine that with our sense of reality about what can be done and what the best way forward is.
DW: How can Republicans effectively communicate these ideas to the public while the Democrats are essentially running the narrative game?
CRENSHAW: In all of the same ways that I already discussed. With social media. People like to see the videos on it. People like to have things explained in a conversational tone, and show them. I think that it just gains the trust of people. That&#8217;s why I would go to the border and create videos about that. You have to show them. You have to speak to experts, not just me repeating talking points. I&#8217;m actually talking to the people who deal with this every single day and providing the facts, and the American people are smart enough to sift through that.
DW: The Left often accuses conservatives of dehumanization on the immigration issue. How can conservatives offer solutions without appearing to dehumanize the situation?
CRENSHAW: That&#8217;s a combination of conservatives often using the wrong rhetoric, but also the Left, I think, improperly portraying our rhetoric as well. The consequences have been that it seems as if conservatives vilify illegal immigrants, which is actually why when I point to the problems of an open border, I never say, &#8220;Oh, it&#8217;s because of the drugs and the crime.&#8221; I never say that, because it&#8217;s too easy for the Left to say, &#8220;Oh, see? That&#8217;s how they see immigrants.&#8221; It&#8217;s not a good look, and it doesn&#8217;t help us solve the problem.
What I say is, listen, it&#8217;s unsustainable. We have almost a million people crossing illegally a year. It&#8217;s not sustainable, and it lacks respect for the sovereignty of our country and the management of our own borders. Also, it cuts in front of the line of legal immigrants. Sorry. None of that is good. None of that is moral. It&#8217;s not moral to cut in front of legal immigrants who wanted to do it the right way, so why should we reward that? It&#8217;s a better message so that we&#8217;re not vilifying people. Let&#8217;s assume they&#8217;re all great people. That&#8217;s not the question. The question is, do we have a system and do we enforce basic rule of law?
DW: So what is your hope over the next, say, decade of policy on this area?
CRENSHAW: My hope is just the solutions that I outlined earlier. You&#8217;ve got to fix the border first. We have very clear ideas on how to do that, and it really just comes down to a commitment to law enforcement. That&#8217;s what I want to see. Ten years is unfortunately the short term. If we can solve the border issues within the next ten years, then we can finally set the stage for a better conversation about overall immigration reform.
DW: Lastly, is there anything pertaining to the border discussion or immigration discussion that you would want our readership or the public at large to know that we haven&#8217;t talked about?
CRENSHAW: I would say this, actually. You&#8217;ve seen a drop in illegal immigration crossings over the last couple of months, and people should understand why that is. The first reason, maybe the most insignificant though, is the fact that it was hot out. It&#8217;s the summertime. There are fewer crossings during the summer. But more importantly was actually our relationship with Mexico. The Mexican government was doing more to secure their own border, and also the &#8220;Remain in Mexico&#8221; policy, which is probably the most important part.
The Migrant Protection Protocols, or the &#8220;Remain in Mexico&#8221; policy, basically allows government to send, I think, about 300 illegal immigrants per day back to await their claims in Mexico. When you do that, you&#8217;re creating a huge deterrent. So now there&#8217;s a chance – even if it&#8217;s a small chance – there&#8217;s still a chance that you might do all this work to cross the border illegally and then get sent right back to Mexico. Again, this feeds into the enforcement of our laws, and it creates a big deterrent when we actually do that. It was a small step that the administration was able to take despite no action from Congress, and we should recognize that work on the part of the administration.</blockquote>
I’d like to thank Rep. Crenshaw for taking the time to speak with me about such an incredibly important topic. For more information about and from Crenshaw, follow him on <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/RepDanCrenshaw">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dancrenshawtx/?hl=en">Instagram</a>.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-i-dan-crenshaw-on-how-to-solve-the-border-and-illegal-immigration-crisis">INTERVIEW (Part I): Dan Crenshaw On How To Solve The Border And Illegal Immigration Crisis</a>

Dan Crenshaw.

INTERVIEW (Part II): Dan Crenshaw On How To Solve The Border Crisis, And How Conservatives Can Get The Message Out

Dan Crenshaw

Illegal Immigration

Immigration

Media Bias

Southern Border

On Sunday, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney appeared on &#8220;Fox News Sunday&#8221; with host Chris Wallace.
During the segment, Wallace brought up the ongoing issue of impeachment with Mulvaney, claiming that a Republican insider told him that some in the party appear to be peeling away from the president:
<blockquote>WALLACE: There seems to be a growing number of Republicans in Congress who are, if not breaking with the president, distancing themselves from the president. You had Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader who wrote a scathing article about Syria this week.
[Wallace then quoted the McConnell op-ed: &#8220;Withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria is a grave strategic mistake and a strategic nightmare for our country.&#8221;]
WALLACE: House Republicans voted against the Trump policy in Syria 129-60, more than 2-1. And I talked to a very well-connected Republican in Washington this week, somebody whose name you would know well, who says that if the House votes to impeach and it gets to a trial in the Senate, there is now a 20 percent chance he believes – obviously, it&#8217;s just an estimate – now a 20% chance enough Republicans will vote with the Democrats to remove the president.
MULVANEY: Oh, that&#8217;s just absurd. But let&#8217;s deal with the issue of Syria.
WALLACE: No, let&#8217;s deal with the issue of whether Republicans – you&#8217;re losing your support.
MULVANEY: Same thing. This comment about a 20% chance, the person clearly doesn&#8217;t know what they&#8217;re talking about.
But talk about the reaction of the Republicans and Democrats up on the Hill to the decision in Syria, [the] president knew that was going to happen. He recognizes the fact that it&#8217;s not a politically popular in this town to make the decision that he made to move the troops out of Syria. He ran on it. He told people he would do this if he won, and he&#8217;s doing it now because he won.
WALLACE: Forgive me for interrupting, we are running out of time, I just want to ask you, though – is there any concern that the president is losing those support of Republicans in Congress?
MULVANEY: No, the president is extraordinary popular back home, more popular in the swing districts now that impeachment has started.
WALLACE: I&#8217;m talking about here in Washington.
MULVANEY: Yes, but they have to go home eventually as well. So, no. Do I have to understand that there are certain folks, especially the neoconservative wing of the party, who are upset about the Syria decision? I absolutely do. The president knew that was going to happen. Again, elections have consequences on foreign policy. That&#8217;s where we started this conversation, and that thankfully they do.</blockquote>
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The vote to which Wallace was referring took place on Wednesday. The House of Representatives voted 354 to 60 on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-votes-overwhelmingly-to-condemn-trumps-military-pullback-in-turkey">H.J. Res. 77</a> to condemn and oppose the president’s foreign policy decision regarding Turkey and Syria. Of the 354 &#8220;yea&#8221; votes, 129 were Republicans.
Wallace’s source isn’t the first person to claim that a certain percentage of Senate Republicans might vote for impeachment.
On September 26, former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pelosi-on-losing-the-house-in-2020-over-impeachment-doesnt-matter">told a crowd</a> at the 2019 Texas Tribune Festival that if the vote were anonymous, dozens of Senate Republicans would vote to impeach:
<blockquote>Somebody mentioned yesterday that if there were a private vote, [there] would be 30 Republican votes. That’s not true. There’d be at least 35 — or maybe more if it were a private vote, but that’s not possible.</blockquote>
The American public’s mood on impeachment appears to have changed markedly over the past several weeks.
A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/while-polls-favor-impeachment-inquiry-ken-starr-says-impeachment-doomed-to-fail">Politico/Morning Consult</a> poll conducted between September 24-26 asked: &#8220;As you may know, the 􏰀first step toward removing a president from office is impeachment. Do you believe Congress should or should not begin impeachment proceedings to remove President Trump from office?&#8221;
43% of respondents said &#8220;yes,&#8221; while 43% said &#8220;no.&#8221; 13% were unsure.
According to a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/poll-trump-losing-to-biden-warren-by-double-digits">Gallup</a> survey released on Wednesday, 52% of Americans want the president “impeached and removed from office” given “what [they] know at this point,” while 46% don’t want the president impeached and removed. 2% had “no opinion.” That’s a 7% swing since a Gallup asked a similar question in June.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/poll-trump-losing-to-biden-warren-by-double-digits">FOX POLL: Trump Losing To Biden, Warren By Double Digits</a>

Trump.

WATCH: Chris Wallace Cites ‘Well-Connected Republican’ Who Suggests ‘20% Chance Enough Republicans’ In Senate Will Vote To Impeach

Chris Wallace

Impeachment

Kurds

Mick Mulvaney

Syria

Turkey

On October 10, Fox News released a <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/429686638/Fox-News-Poll-October-6-8-2019">new survey</a> of 1,003 registered voters conducted between October 6-8, and the results aren’t good for President Trump.
The survey, which has a margin of error (MoE) of +/-3 points, asked:
<blockquote>If the 2020 presidential election were held today … how would you vote if the candidates were [Joe Biden and Donald Trump]?</blockquote>
50% of respondents selected former Vice President Joe Biden, while just 40% selected President Trump.
The survey asked the same question, but with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) taking the place of Biden. The results were just as bad for the president.
50% of respondents chose Warren, while 40% chose Trump. 49% chose Sanders, while 40% chose Trump.
All three Democratic presidential candidates are considered top-tier. According to the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">RealClearPolitics national average</a> of polling, Biden leads among Democratic voters with 29.2%, Warren comes in second place with 23.4%, while Sanders has fallen to third with 15.2% of the vote.
In a distant fourth and fifth Place are South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) with 5.8% and 5.4%, respectively.
Looking at the early primary/caucus states, Trump appears to be remaining competitive &#8212; though it must be noted that there are many fewer state polls than national polls, so the numbers are likely less stable and reliable.
In Iowa, Trump leads Biden 51% to 49% according to the latest poll from Emerson. While the president holds the same lead over Warren, the roles are switched when Sanders enters the picture. According to Emerson, Sanders commands 51% to Trump’s 49% in Iowa.
In North Carolina, a state Trump won by 3.6% in 2016, the margins are larger but still somewhat competitive. The RCP average has the president losing to Biden 51.5% to 44.3%, losing to Warren 47.8% to 47%, and losing to Sanders 50% to 46%. Only against lower-tier candidates like Harris and Buttigieg does Trump eke out a win in North Carolina.
In Wisconsin, a state Trump won by just 0.7% in 2016, the polls are looking grim for the president. The RCP average has Trump losing to Biden 49.5% to 40.5%, losing to Warren 45% to 43%, and losing to Sanders 46.5% to 42%.
National poll averages show all three frontrunner Democrats beating Trump by a minimum of 5%. The RCP average has Trump <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html">losing</a> to Biden 49.9% to 43%, <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_warren-6251.html">losing</a> to Warren 49% to 43.8%, and <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html">losing</a> to Sanders 49.3% to 44%.
While it must be noted that polling is a snapshot in time of a particular (if representative) sample of Americans, Trump’s standing, especially in state polls, can be instructive.
It’s possible that the ongoing talk of impeachment could be making an impact on the president’s popularity, and boosting the prospects of his rivals. According to a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/267491/congress-approval-support-impeaching-trump.aspx">Gallup survey</a> released on Wednesday, 52% of Americans want the president &#8220;impeached and removed from office,&#8221; which represents a 7% swing from a survey in June when only 45% said the same.

Trump pinching nose.

FOX POLL: Trump Losing To Biden, Warren By Double Digits

2020 Election

Bernie Sanders

Donald Trump

Elizabeth Warren

Joe Biden

In fiscal year 2018, there were approximately 396,579 apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the southwest border of the United States, according to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/28/what-we-know-about-illegal-immigration-from-mexico/">Pew Research</a>. The organization estimates that there are roughly 10.5 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States today.
Despite efforts by the Trump administration to enhance border security, and by Republicans to draft legislation that would help resolve the crisis, little has been accomplished.
Although Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who represents Texas’ Second Congressional District, has only been in office since January 2019, he’s already made waves in multiple policy debates, including those which impact the illegal immigration and border crisis.
On Friday, I had the opportunity to speak with Rep. Crenshaw about these issues. In part one of this two-part interview, Crenshaw discusses specific actions that need to be taken to secure the border, prior failures by politicians to reach a deal on immigration, the wildly divergent immigration philosophies of conservatives and progressives, and how social media can help Republicans reach voters.
<blockquote>DW: What is the first thing that the United States needs to do to fix the immigration crisis?
CRENSHAW: The Number one priority is to enforce the laws we have – if I had to say generally what we need to do. Enforcement is the key because enforcement is a deterrent and everything else follows from that.
Some reforms we need to make, the Flores Settlement, I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;re familiar with, says that we can&#8217;t hold any children, whether they&#8217;re with their parents or without their parents past 20 days. What this creates is a situation where we can never adjudicate the case. So whether that case is a 1325 violation, crossing the border illegally, or whether that is an asylum case, we can&#8217;t adjudicate it. We have a system that requires that we let family units go into the population, into the United States, before we can actually adjudicate their case. Then we have to rely on their goodwill to show up for their court case, and then agree to be deported when we say that, &#8220;Well, you don&#8217;t actually have a valid asylum claim,&#8221; or, &#8220;You are in violation of 1325.&#8221; People know this.
Here&#8217;s an important date to know. It was 2017 when Flores was actually redefined from the 1997 agreement to include family units. Before, it was just unaccompanied minors, but it became family units. This was a signal to everybody south of the border that they should bring a kid with them, and then they would basically be let go for sure inside the United States. That&#8217;s a huge deal. You have to hold people long enough to adjudicate those claims, and then you need to have the resources to adjudicate the clients. By that, I mean immigration judges and holding facilities in order to do that. Simply, I&#8217;m just saying that we need to enforce the law.
DW: What are the key problems with the border that, if addressed, would solve the immigration crisis (aside from enforcing law)?
CRENSHAW: The Flores settlement specifically would be, I think, the number one thing. Number two would be additional resources to adjudicate those claims – immigration judges and detention facilities. Number three, the technology and infrastructure for the border patrol to catch all the people who don&#8217;t want to be caught – wall and technology.
DW: Some claim that the Republican Party doesn&#8217;t actually care about the issue, but simply wants to have it as a weapon for future elections. What are your thoughts on that?
CRENSHAW: I just don&#8217;t agree with that premise at all. I&#8217;m not sure who says that. I can see that coming from the trackers on the Left who are trying to undercut our basic arguments, but I just don&#8217;t think [that’s valid]. The next question would be, &#8220;Okay, well you guys had the Senate, the House, and the presidency, and you didn&#8217;t solve this.&#8221; Well, the reason was there, and it&#8217;s a fair criticism – of course, not against me because I wasn&#8217;t there – but it&#8217;s a fair criticism. However, the reason it happened wasn&#8217;t because nobody wanted to solve it. The reason it happened was probably because we didn&#8217;t have 60 votes in the Senate, first of all. It&#8217;s not filibuster proof. Two, I think they tried to get too much out of that deal, and for maybe the more moderate Republicans, that was, I think, untenable. I don&#8217;t know the inside baseball of how those conversations played out, but I think we made &#8220;perfect&#8221; the enemy of &#8220;good,&#8221; and that&#8217;s the unfortunate part. But this theory that in secret Republican politicians don&#8217;t want this problem solved, that&#8217;s just complete nonsense.
DW: What do you believe is preventing Democratic politicians from really sitting down with Republicans to address the issue of immigration in any meaningful way?
CRENSHAW: We have two different philosophies. I think as a conservative, we generally believe in the sovereignty of a nation. That&#8217;s an important tenet of our belief system. The Democratic Party doesn&#8217;t hold that as strongly, at least, and as of recently, they&#8217;ve developed totally different policy goals. If you have the same goal, but different ways of getting to that goal, you can compromise. You can imagine a lot of policy issues where that&#8217;s true – alleviating poverty for instance. But when your goals are actually different, then it becomes impossible to compromise, so we get fought at every turn. When we were negotiating during the government shutdown, it was really unbelievable to see what Democrats would fight against, like more detention facility space for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). You have to question, why are you fighting against this? I mean, these are literal resources for law enforcement.
They&#8217;re not arguing against changing the law, they just want it to be enforced less. &#8220;What&#8217;s your end goal here?&#8221; You really have to ask that question. If your end goal is more illegal immigrants being free within the United States; when you don&#8217;t want to build any kind of barriers on the southern border – what is your end goal? That&#8217;s why there can&#8217;t be compromise, because it&#8217;s not clear what they want at all, and it&#8217;s changed radically over time. That’s something that I try to help Democratic voters understand, because Democrats, as voters, are not in favor of open borders, at least not in my experience, but the actions of their politicians, the Democratic politicians, are very clearly open borders. Even Tulsi Gabbard thinks so.
DW: Speaking of getting people to understand, you&#8217;ve used social media really effectively to break down ideology and issues, most recently with your border video on Instagram. You seem to be one of very few on the Republican side who really engage on social media like that. Is that something that needs to change if conservatism, specifically related to the border issue, is going to remain viable?
CRENSHAW: Yeah, I think so. I would love to see our Republican leadership do these videos a lot more. Not just our leadership, I mean our politicians, I mean our forward thinkers. Lay out the facts in a coherent way. Talk to the people, not at the people.
So, there&#8217;s a tone issue there that I think we could do better with. Simply just lay it out. Lay out the other side&#8217;s argument and then lay out why it&#8217;s wrong. That&#8217;s what people want to hear. What we often do instead is just repeat our own talking points, and it leaves people wondering, &#8220;Okay, but the other side said this. You didn&#8217;t address that.&#8221; Well, why don&#8217;t we just address it from the beginning? I&#8217;m always skeptical of just using talking points. I like to use the other side&#8217;s talking points, frankly, and then explain in layman&#8217;s terms why I disagree with those, and why they&#8217;re just fundamentally untrue. The purpose of using social media is to use it as a conversation with people. I think that&#8217;s what we try to do.</blockquote>
Stay tuned for part two of this interview, which will be released on Sunday. For more information on and from Rep. Crenshaw, you can follow him on <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/RepDanCrenshaw">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dancrenshawtx/?hl=en">Instagram</a>.
The Instagram video referenced above can be watched here:
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<p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/tv/B3pjdyaAau6/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">A post shared by Dan Crenshaw (@dancrenshawtx)</a> on <time style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;" datetime="2019-10-15T19:01:31+00:00">Oct 15, 2019 at 12:01pm PDT</time>
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INTERVIEW (Part I): Dan Crenshaw On How To Solve The Border And Illegal Immigration Crisis

On Friday evening, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) appeared on <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-suggests-russians-are-grooming-a-2020-democratic-candidate/">CBS News</a> and responded to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seeming to imply that she was a &#8220;Russian asset.&#8221;
<blockquote>CBS: What did you make of Secretary Clinton&#8217;s comments this week?
GABBARD: Let&#8217;s be clear about what this is about &#8230; that if anyone stands up and speaks out to end the regime change war policies our country has had for so long, the likes of which we&#8217;ve seen waged in Iraq, Libya, and ongoing in Syria, we will be labeled as foreign agents, we will be labeled as traitors to our country. So, really what this is, this is a message to every veteran in this country who has put their life on the line to serve our country, to every single American who believes strongly that we must end this long-standing foreign policy of being the world&#8217;s police and waging these regime change wars – which is really the legacy of Hillary Clinton – then we are traitors to the nation that we love. This is despicable on so many levels.</blockquote>
Gabbard was asked what she meant by the term &#8220;regime change wars.&#8221;
The congresswoman replied, claiming that the &#8220;long-held foreign policy of the United States, of which Hillary Clinton was a champion &#8230; for a very long time, of going around the world, acting as the world&#8217;s police, overthrowing and toppling dictators that we don&#8217;t like&#8221; is what she means by &#8220;regime change wars.&#8221;
Gabbard then claimed that the reason Clinton &#8220;and her minions&#8221; are attempting to &#8220;smear&#8221; her is because she opposes such foreign policy.
It was then brought up that Clinton never used Gabbard’s name in her remarks, but the congresswoman was having none of it. &#8220;Let’s not mess around here and pretend that it wasn&#8217;t something that it was,&#8221; Gabbard stated incredulously.
Despite attempts by the anchor to pivot the conversation, Gabbard stayed on message for the rest of the segment, noting that she is &#8220;running as a Democrat to take our party back, away from the control of people like Hillary Clinton and the warmongering and corrupt powerful establishment, and return our party into the hands of the people.&#8221;
&#8220;[Clinton is] doing this is because she knows that she can&#8217;t control me,&#8221; Gabbard concluded. &#8220;She knows that she&#8217;s not going to be able to manipulate me if I&#8217;m elected president, to be able to continue these warmongering policies that she has championed throughout her career.&#8221;
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The feud between Gabbard and Clinton blew up on Wednesday, when the former secretary of state appeared to claim that the Russians were &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-lights-up-hillary-clinton-for-suggesting-shes-a-russian-asset-the-queen-of-warmongers">grooming</a>&#8221; Gabbard during an appearance on David Plouffe’s &#8220;Campaign HQ&#8221; podcast.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on someone who’s currently in the Democratic primary, and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,&#8221; Clinton said.
&#8220;She&#8217;s a favorite of the Russians,&#8221; Clinton continued. &#8220;They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far, and that&#8217;s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not, because she’s also a Russian asset.”
Speaking with <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hillary-clinton-tulsi-gabbard-a-russian-asset-being-groomed-for-third-party-run">CNN</a>, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill confirmed that the former secretary of state was indeed referring to Gabbard. &#8220;If the nesting doll fits,&#8221; Merrill reportedly stated.
Gabbard responded on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tulsi-gabbard-lights-up-hillary-clinton-for-suggesting-shes-a-russian-asset-the-queen-of-warmongers">Twitter</a> on Friday, calling Clinton the &#8220;queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long.&#8221;

Tulsi Gabbard.

WATCH: Gabbard Smacks Clinton: She Knows She Can’t ‘Manipulate Me If I’m Elected President’

On Wednesday, the United States House of Representatives passed <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-joint-resolution/77/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22actionDateChamber%3A%5C%22116%7CH%7C2019-10-16%5C%22+AND+%28billIsReserved%3A%5C%22N%5C%22+OR+type%3A%5C%22AMENDMENT%5C%22%29%22%5D%7D&amp;r=43&amp;s=1">H.J. Res. 77</a>, titled: &#8220;Opposing the decision to end certain United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria.&#8221;
The resolution, which passed 354 to 60 (129 Republicans voted for the resolution along with 225 Democrats), reads in part:
<blockquote>Whereas thousands of Syrian fighters, including Syrian Kurds, fought courageously with the United States against the brutality of ISIS throughout Syria, liberating nearly one-third of Syrian territory from ISIS’ so-called “caliphate”&#8230;
Whereas Turkey has historically threatened, forcibly displaced, and killed Syrian Kurds, including during military operations in the Afrin District&#8230;
Whereas, during the counter-ISIS campaign in Syria, the SDF captured thousands of ISIS fighters, including foreign terrorist fighters from around the world who pose threats to our allies in the region &#8230; Whereas the SDF has warned the United States and international community that a Turkish incursion into Northeast Syria would significantly decrease the SDF’s ability to combat ISIS and to continue providing security and management for ISIS detainees and their family members&#8230;
Whereas an abrupt withdrawal of United States military personnel from certain parts of Northeast Syria is beneficial to adversaries of the United States government, including Syria, Iran, and Russia: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress—
(1) opposes the decision to end certain United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria;
(2) calls on Turkish President Erdogan to immediately cease unilateral military action in Northeast Syria and to respect existing agreements relating to Syria;
(3) calls on the United States to continue supporting Syrian Kurdish communities through humanitarian support, including to those displaced or otherwise affected by ongoing violence in Syria;
(4) calls on the United States to work to ensure that the Turkish military acts with restraint and respects existing agreements relating to Syria; and
(5) calls on the White House to present a clear and specific plan for the enduring defeat of ISIS.</blockquote>
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have condemned President Trump’s decision to pull American troops from northern Syria, allowing Turkish forces to move into the area.
On October 6, the White House released an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-85/">official statement</a>, which noted that following a phone call between Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Trump, &#8220;Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria.&#8221;
The press release went on to state that the U.S. military would &#8220;not support or be involved in the operation.&#8221;
The president defended the move in a tweet: &#8220;As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I&#8217;ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over the captured ISIS fighters and families. The US has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
&#8230;.the captured ISIS fighters and families. The U.S. has done far more than anyone could have ever expected, including the capture of 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. It is time now for others in the region, some of great wealth, to protect their own territory. THE USA IS GREAT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1181232251390042118?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
During a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-orders-u-s-forces-withdraw-further-syria-esper-says-n1065516">recent interview</a>, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper stated that approximately 1,000 American troops will be withdrawn from northern Syria. <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/trump-orders-u-s-forces-withdraw-further-syria-esper-says-n1065516">NBC News</a> reports that according to two U.S. military officials, only 300 troops are set to remain at the al-Tanf garrison located near Syria’s southeast border with Lebanon and Iraq.
The Turkish advance has led to death and chaos in the area.
The <a href="http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=144050">Syrian Observatory for Human Rights</a> claims that more than 250,000 civilians have been displaced in the days following the Turkish advance, and as many as 71 civilians have been killed.
<blockquote>The death toll among the Syria Democratic Forces, military councils and internal security forces since the start of the Turkish military operation on Wednesday afternoon have risen to 158, while the number of deaths among Syrian factions loyal to Ankara and the pro-Turkey cells killed in the attacks and clashes with the SDF during the same period reached 128&#8230;</blockquote>
The <a href="https://www.apnews.com/7e90fd08a89e49d9bcae6a85a131a64a">Associated Press</a> reports that &#8220;hundreds of Islamic State families and supporters escaped from a holding camp in Syria amid the fighting between Turkish forces and the Kurds.&#8221; The camp is located in the subdistrict of Ain Issa.
Amidst the chaos of the Turkish advance into Syria, there are fears that Kurdish forces currently guarding thousands of ISIS detainees might have to abandon their posts in order to join the fight, possibly giving the detainees room to flee their cages.
During a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-gen-mattis-says-isis-will-resurge-if-we-dont-keep-the-pressure-on">recent interview</a> with ABC’s &#8220;This Week,&#8221; former Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis appeared to echo such fears, saying that &#8220;if we don’t keep the pressure on, then ISIS will resurge.&#8221;
One of President Trump’s loudest critics on this issue has been Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who, during a Wednesday interview on CBN, said he would become the president’s &#8220;worst nightmare&#8221; if things didn’t change.
&#8220;I am looking to President Trump to change this. I will do anything I can to help him, but I will also become President Trump’s worst nightmare,&#8221; Graham told host Pat Robertson. &#8220;I will not sit along the sidelines and watch a good ally, the Kurds, be slaughtered by Turkey and watch Iran move into Syria and become another nightmare for Israel. This is a defining moment for President Trump. He needs to up his game.&#8221;
Graham added that if the United States pulls out of Syria, the Islamic State (ISIS) will return and Iran will &#8220;take over.&#8221; The Senator then implored Trump to be more like Reagan and less like Obama, and &#8220;stand up to Erdoğan,&#8221; or face losing in 2020.
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Also on Wednesday, Trump addressed Graham, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-says-lindsey-graham-would-like-to-stay-in-the-middle-east-for-the-next-thousand-years">saying</a>: &#8220;Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years with thousands of soldiers and fighting other people’s wars. I want to get out of the Middle East.&#8221;
But Graham isn’t the only Republican lawmaker questioning the president.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has also condemned Trump’s move, saying that while we cannot stay in &#8220;foreign theaters forever &#8230; we still have major national security interests in Syria.&#8221;
The senator stated that ISIS cannot be allowed to regroup, adding:
<blockquote>It would also be DISGRACEFUL if we sat idly by while Turkey slaughters the Kurds, as public reports suggest that Turkish leader Erdogan explicitly told President Trump he intends to do. Kurds risked their lives—for many years—to fight alongside us.
Our enemies and rivals (Iran, Russia, etc.) don’t abandon their allies; if we want allies to stand with America in the future, we shouldn’t either. Honorable nations stand by their friends.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Our enemies and rivals (Iran, Russia, etc.) don’t abandon their allies; if we want allies to stand with America in the future, we shouldn’t either. Honorable nations stand by their friends.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/1181275477815824384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 7, 2019</a></blockquote>
On Thursday, Sen. Graham and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) introduced <a href="https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/558353c0-2323-4ea1-8545-637af1cbf7e0/graham-van-hollen-turkey-sanctions-bill-outline.pdf">legislation</a> that would severely sanction Turkey as a whole, as well as Turkish leaders specifically.
Graham and Van Holden’s legislation includes sanctions against those who would engage in the sale of military equipment or services with Turkey, and &#8220;prohibits the sale of U.S. defense articles, services, technology, [and] materials to the Turkish Armed Forces &#8230; [as well as] ammunition sales and transfers to the Turkish Armed Forces,&#8221; reads the summary text from Sen. Graham’s website.

Trump and Erdogan.

House Votes Overwhelmingly To Condemn Trump’s Military Pullback In Turkey

Lindsey Graham

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

U.S. House of Representatives

Unfortunately, for many years, Republicans have been on the &#8220;losing&#8221; end of the poverty debate. Democrats have taken the spotlight with talking points pertaining to income inequality, the shrinking middle class, and programs for the poor &#8212; but conservatives have just as much to say about reducing poverty.
On Thursday, I had the opportunity to speak with Whitney Munro, the Vice President of Communications for the Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative-leaning public policy organization focused on &#8220;using work to lift people out of dependency &#8230; and to empower them to take control of their futures,&#8221; according to their official website.
In part one of this interview (which you can read <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-i-foundation-for-government-accountability-talks-about-the-conservative-approach-to-fighting-poverty">here</a>), Munro discussed the messaging issues plaguing the Republican Party when it comes to poverty, why progressives seem to hold all the cards in the debate, and what policies conservatives can advance.
In part two below, Munro speaks about misleading claims against their proposals, the pervasiveness of welfare abuse, workforce issues, student loan debt, and more.
<blockquote>DW: There&#8217;s a Vox article that claims the FGA is trying to push over three million people off of food stamps. What is your response to those types of pieces from left-leaning sources?
MUNRO: You&#8217;ve gotta love Vox. So, when we hear things like that &#8212; the reality is yes, if our reforms are passed, some able-bodied, working age adults would be removed from the food stamp rolls if they chose not to work, train, or volunteer for 20 hours a week. We&#8217;re not asking for the world. We&#8217;re saying, &#8220;Hey, if you are able-bodied, you are working age, you don&#8217;t have young children at home, you’re not taking care of an elderly parent, you don&#8217;t have a disability, you need to be trying to work, train, or volunteer 20 hours a week.&#8221; If you do that, you can keep your benefits. It&#8217;s very common that when people hear that, they&#8217;re like, &#8220;Wait, you&#8217;re not actually just taking people randomly off food stamps? You&#8217;re just saying, here&#8217;s a requirement for able-bodied, working age people who should, in theory, also have this goal for themselves in mind?&#8221; [This is a] requirement that Congress passed in 1996 and Bill Clinton signed and around 80 percent of Americans support but just isn’t being enforced.
DW: Can you talk about how pervasive welfare abuse is?
MUNRO: One of the things we hear from people on a regular basis is that welfare fraud doesn&#8217;t exist. We&#8217;ve done studies, and almost every single state – looked at asset requirements, looked at income requirement – we’ve found people who are getting food stamp benefits, as well and other types of welfare programs, who have won the lottery, who have assets of more than a million dollars in the bank, who are taking their food stamps and EBT cards and selling them on the streets.
One of the law enforcement officers that we worked with in the past actually went <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w183fOHXG0">undercover for six months</a> in Jacksonville, Florida, and was on a street corner pretending to be homeless to document people selling their EBT cards for drugs.
190 people in that town alone were busted because of welfare fraud, waste, and abuse in the drug trade, and then exchanging it for beer or different things at grocery stores. We find it everywhere. If you go on Craigslist, there’s story after story of people posting, &#8220;Hey, I have an EBT card. I’ll trade you for this, or this, or cash.&#8221; It&#8217;s everywhere, and some of the reforms that we work on put in place stopgaps for that.
Even if state systems just talk to one another. For example, if someone wins the lottery, the state knows that database should be crosschecked with people who are getting public benefits to make sure that no one who has won the lottery is still receiving food stamps years after the fact when they have those assets in the bank.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9dl9Ot29sU">Rob Undersander</a> was a Minnesota millionaire who was volunteering with elderly populations in his community, helping them navigate state aid programs, when he realized that there was not an asset test for food stamp enrollment. So he thought, &#8220;Well, gosh! I&#8217;m going to see if I can qualify.&#8221; He had more than a million dollars in real estate assets, and he did, and he collected them, and then he went to the state and said, &#8220;Hey, I shouldn&#8217;t be allowed to collect food stamps, but under your law, I am allowed to.&#8221; So, he&#8217;s also been trying to raise the awareness that that’s not fraud; that’s what the law is allowing people to do because there are not systems in place to check those things.
DW: Is there anything that we haven&#8217;t touched on in the interview that you&#8217;d want our readership to know?
MUNRO: FGA founder Tarren Bragdon started this organization eight years ago really around the idea that there are a lot of opportunities out there for people to better their lives and take a step up from where they are. It’s some of the things that we&#8217;ve discussed &#8212; the work requirement for benefits, because we actually believe, and unlike what the Left would tell you, that those safety nets need to be there for the truly needy, and they need to be there for the disabled, for those who are unable to help themselves, for poor children, for the elderly, for people who find themselves in temporary periods of hardship. When we are allowing millions and millions of able-bodied, working age adults to collect benefits, that means those programs are not serving the people that they were truly intended for.
We’ve covered things like the Medicaid waiting list where there are people who should qualify for Medicaid benefits, but Medicaid expansion has crowded them out and provided benefits to working age adults who are capable of working.
We say that the power and dignity of work is the number one way for people to improve their lives.
On the flip side, we&#8217;ve also done a lot of work in workforce issues. So we&#8217;re looking at what barriers are in place preventing people from working. We&#8217;ve worked on occupational licensing reform. We had a fresh start initiative to help people who come out of jail to be able to get licenses to work if they were a nonviolent offender who maybe just wants to be a barber, or a cosmetologist, or a massage therapist. What can we do to make sure that they are in the workforce and not in dependency or, even worse, back in jail or prison.
We’ve looked at lobbying boards and the type of cronyism that exists to stop people who are new to a profession &#8212; veteran, veteran spouses, young people. We really do focus on that aspect of things as well. It&#8217;s not just looking at entitlement programs, it&#8217;s looking at those barriers to work that exist for people once they are active and getting them back into the workforce, and other ways that licensing laws just don&#8217;t make any sense.
On the health care front &#8212; how can we help people get access to affordable yet quality health care? We&#8217;ve worked on association health plans, and short-term plans. We are involved in Telemedicine and direct medical care &#8212; ways to open the market up so that people have choices and opportunities, and the cost of health care isn&#8217;t the thing that&#8217;s restricting their opportunities.
How is student loan debt and this problem affecting millions of Americans, and what are the actual solutions? Because the solution to the student loan debt problem is not, &#8220;Let’s forgive everyone&#8217;s debt&#8221; or &#8220;Let’s make college free for everyone to attend.&#8221; That’s actually a really bad band-aid that would bankrupt the country and not hit the problem at the core of where it lives, and so we&#8217;re currently looking for those solutions. We know this is hurting a generation. No, we don&#8217;t want this problem to continue, but we also know the solutions on the table aren&#8217;t the ones that we need.
So how do we provide transparency and accountability so that students make the right choices, so we can extend access to vocational education, and career and technology education, and really promote alternatives to that four-year-college set goal for those who can&#8217;t afford it [and] don&#8217;t want to go there, and then that, in turn, would help prevent some of the dependency that we see occur.
That’s a long-winded answer to kind of tell you, we&#8217;re looking at this from all sides. We&#8217;re trying to think from different perspectives, and outside the box. We believe that these solutions actually exist and that they&#8217;re powerful and that they work. We&#8217;re always looking for that next opportunity to help people.</blockquote>
I’d like to thank Ms. Munro for speaking with me about such a vital issue. For more information about the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) and their policy ideas, you can visit their official website <a href="https://thefga.org/">here</a>.

Charity line.

INTERVIEW (Part II): Foundation For Government Accountability Talks About The Conservative Approach To Fighting Poverty

Conservatism

Economy

Federal Government

On Sunday, CBS’ “Face the Nation&#8221; host Margaret Brennan played a Saturday-taped interview with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
During the segment, Brennan asked Cruz if he believed it was appropriate for President Trump to ask China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Cruz replied, &#8220;Of course not.&#8221;
<blockquote>BRENNAN: So, China&#8217;s a surveillance state.
CRUZ: Yeah.
BRENNAN: Is it appropriate for President Trump to be saying China should look into the Biden family? Is that appropriate?
CRUZ: Look, of course not. Elections in the U.S. should be decided by Americans, and it&#8217;s not the business of foreign countries, any foreign countries, to be interfering in our elections.</blockquote>
Brennan followed up by asking the senator about Ukraine, and specifically Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani:
<blockquote>BRENNAN: Even Ukraine? I mean when you&#8217;re talking about some of this, I mean do you think that, say, the president&#8217;s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who&#8217;s been talking about China, who&#8217;s been talking about Ukraine. Do you want to hear him testify about this sort of shadow foreign policy?
CRUZ: Listen, foreign countries should stay out of American elections. That&#8217;s true for Russia. That&#8217;s true for Ukraine. That&#8217;s true for China. That&#8217;s true for all of them. It should be the American people deciding elections. I don&#8217;t know what Rudy&#8217;s been saying. I do know though that we should decide our elections. It should be the American people making those decisions.
BRENNAN: And you do want him to testify before your committee?
CRUZ: I think it [would] make a lot of sense for Rudy to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. That&#8217;s ultimately a question for the committee chairman, Lindsey Graham, but I&#8217;d like to see Rudy testify. Yes.</blockquote>
Cruz’s comments come less than two weeks after the president suggested to reporters that China should investigate the Bidens.
Standing before a gaggle of press outside the White House on October 3, Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rubio-on-trump-saying-china-should-investigate-biden-i-dont-think-its-a-real-request">said,</a> &#8220;China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.&#8221;
When asked a followup question about whether he’d spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president replied:
<blockquote>I haven’t, but it’s certainly something we can start thinking about because I’m sure that President Xi does not like being on that kind of scrutiny where billions of dollars is taken out of his country by a guy that just got kicked out of the Navy. He got kicked out of the Navy &#8212; all of a sudden, he’s getting billions of dollars. You know what they call that? They call that a payoff.</blockquote>
The next day, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was asked about the appropriateness of such a remark. The senator <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rubio-on-trump-saying-china-should-investigate-biden-i-dont-think-its-a-real-request">stated</a> that it was his belief that President Trump was essentially trolling the media with his China remark. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rep-jordan-i-dont-think-americans-believe-trump-thinks-china-is-going-to-investigate">echoed</a> Rubio’s sentiment just days later during an interview on ABC.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) had a decidedly different take on Trump’s remarks, as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-calls-mitt-romney-a-fool-and-suggests-he-should-be-impeached">previously reported</a>:
<blockquote>In a written statement to the <a href="https://www.omaha.com/news/nation/morton/americans-don-t-look-to-chinese-commies-for-the-truth/article_d229258d-0d9d-5fdf-800a-7c74f6f5c253.html">Omaha World-Herald</a> regarding Trump’s China ask, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said, “Hold up: Americans don’t look to Chinese commies for the truth.” He added, “If the Biden kid broke laws by selling his name to Beijing, that’s a matter for American courts, not communist tyrants running torture camps.”
However, Sasse also accused Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) of “running a partisan clown show in the House.”</blockquote>
The suggestion that the president’s remarks were a troll of the media are somewhat undermined by the following two tweets sent on October 3 and 5:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
As the President of the United States, I have an absolute right, perhaps even a duty, to investigate, or have investigated, CORRUPTION, and that would include asking, or suggesting, other Countries to help us out!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1179925259417468928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>As the President of the United States, I have an absolute right, perhaps even a duty, to investigate, or have investigated, CORRUPTION, and that would include asking, or suggesting, other Countries to help us out!</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1180484483147059200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!</blockquote>
After the initial exchange regarding appropriate presidential behavior, Cruz further noted that the Justice Department &#8220;should investigate violations of law &#8230; if there’s credible evidence of a violation.&#8221;
<blockquote>BRENNAN: So the president is often talking about the need to look in to Joe Biden. If he is so concerned, would it be in any way appropriate for him to bring it to his own Justice Department instead of talking about foreign countries looking into his political rival?
CRUZ: I have long advocated that the Justice Department should enforce the law, should investigate corruption, should investigate violations of law, regardless of party.
BRENNAN: But to be clear, you&#8217;re not calling for the Justice Department to investigate the Biden family?
CRUZ: Look, I believe the Justice Department should investigate violations of law. If there&#8217;s credible evidence of a violation of law, yes, they should investigate, and I&#8217;ll tell you what I have called for. I think President Trump wisely released the transcript of his conversation with the Ukrainian government. I think that was good because a lot of what the Democrats had been raising, alleging an illegal quid pro quo, was not in fact backed up by the transcript. But I think actually the administration should do the exact same thing for Joe Biden. That it should release the transcripts of Joe Biden&#8217;s conversations with Ukraine. Use the same standard for President Trump and Joe Biden and let the American people read the transcripts and decide.</blockquote>
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ICke5cvgbOY?start=270" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Ted Cruz.

WATCH: Cruz Agrees It’s Inappropriate To Say ‘China Should Look Into The Biden Family’

China

Ted Cruz

Ukraine

On Sunday, ABC’s &#8220;This Week&#8221; played a Saturday-taped interview with former Secretary of Defense General James Mattis.
During the interview, host Chuck Todd asked Mattis about the ongoing situation with Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Mattis asserted that &#8220;if we don’t keep the pressure on,&#8221; a reemergence of ISIS is &#8220;a given.&#8221;
<blockquote>MATTIS: Well, what we see is the continued reliance that we have on allies. The fight against ISIS was fought largely by the Syrian Democratic Forces. We have lost, during several years of fighting in Syria, for example, less than a dozen troops, each one a tragedy, but the Syrian Democratic Forces, primarily the Kurds, have lost well over 11,000 killed, over 23,000 wounded. So, you see how we are fighting this enemy, doing it in a way by, with, and through allies that spreads the load, so it&#8217;s not just the American people, the American taxpayer, the American troops carrying the full load.
TODD: Do you feel as if, are we still doing this fight now? Or have we just pulled back, and it&#8217;s now up to the Kurds on their own?
MATTIS: Well, it’s in a situation of disarray right now. Obviously, the Kurds are adapting to the Turkish attacks. And we&#8217;ll have to see if they&#8217;re able to maintain the fight against ISIS. It&#8217;s going to have an impact. The question is, how much?
TODD: How would you turn this around now, if you could?
MATTIS: That&#8217;s a very good question, Chuck. That&#8217;s a very good question. You turn issues like this around based on trust. And re-instilling trust is going to be very difficult for the Americans, at this point.
TODD: There&#8217;s a movie called &#8220;Charlie Wilson&#8217;s War,&#8221; that the theme of it has to do with the Americans walking away from the mujahideen in Afghanistan. And of course, we all know what happens 20 years later. How concerned should we be about abandoning an ally, like the Kurds, that, maybe 20 years down the road, this comes to bite us?
MATTIS: Right. I think Secretary of State [Mike] Pompeo, the intelligence services, the foreign countries that are working with us, have it about right, that ISIS is not defeated. We have got to keep the pressure on ISIS so they don&#8217;t recover. We may want a war over. We may even declare it over. You can pull your troops out, as President Obama learned the hard way, out of Iraq. But the “enemy gets a vote,” we say in the military, and in this case, if we don&#8217;t keep the pressure on, then ISIS will resurge. It&#8217;s absolutely a given that they will come back.</blockquote>
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The Islamic State (ISIS) rose to prominence on the international stage when in June of 2014, it attacked the cities of Mosul and Tikrit in Iraq, reports the <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/timeline-the-rise-spread-and-fall-the-islamic-state">Wilson Center</a>. Lead by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the radical Islamic organization was dedicated to creating a modern-day caliphate.
Over the next several years, ISIS gained and lost various swaths of territory, all the while releasing gruesome propaganda videos featuring militants brutally executing captives, from journalist James Foley to aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and Jordanian military pilot Moaz al Kasasbeh, among many others.
ISIS is also responsible for numerous terror attacks throughout the world, including the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, the November 2015 attacks in Paris, the 2016 Brussels bombings, and many more.
Although the &#8220;defeat&#8221; of the Islamic State is an ongoing process considering the disparate nature of the organization, their standing has been significantly diminished and their physical territory almost entirely recaptured.

James Mattis.

WATCH: Gen. Mattis Says ISIS ‘Will Resurge’ If ‘We Don’t Keep The Pressure On’

Islamic State (ISIS)

James Mattis

On Thursday, CNN hosted an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/at-cnn-lbgtq-event-elizabeth-warren-contemptuously-dismisses-men-of-faith">LGBTQ town hall</a> event for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. During Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) segment, she was asked a question about traditional marriage between a man and a woman.
&#8220;Let’s say you’re on the campaign trail &#8230; and a supporter approaches you and says, ‘Senator, I’m old-fashioned, and my faith teaches me that marriage is between one man and one woman.’ What is your response?&#8221; asked Chair of the Human Rights Campaign’s Board of Directors Morgan Cox.
Warren replied:
<blockquote>Well, I’m going to assume it’s a guy who said that, and I’m gonna say, &#8220;Then just marry one woman.&#8221; I’m cool with that &#8230; assuming you can find one.</blockquote>
The audience cheered and applauded Warren’s &#8220;mic drop&#8221; moment.
After answering the question about traditional marriage, the senator spoke about faith as she perceived it when she was a young person, adding that the alleged &#8220;hatefulness&#8221; from the faithful &#8220;always really shocked&#8221; her:
<blockquote>The hatefulness, frankly, always really shocked me. Especially for people of faith because I think the foundation is the worth of every single human being. And I get people may make decisions for themselves that are different than the decisions other people make, but by golly, those are decisions about you; they are not decisions that tell other people what they can and cannot do.</blockquote>
On Saturday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tweeted a response to Warren’s town hall comments:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Vividly captures the condescension of elites &amp; their incessant ridicule of Americans with traditional values. It elicits glee among celebrities &amp; blue check brigade. But for the millions sick of being disrespected it elicits support for fighting back, even in a crude or vulgar way. <a href="https://t.co/uJgfyxMpUQ">https://t.co/uJgfyxMpUQ</a>
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) <a href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1183069482522152960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>Vividly captures the condescension of elites &amp; their incessant ridicule of Americans with traditional values. It elicits glee among celebrities &amp; blue check brigade. But for the millions sick of being disrespected, it elicits support for fighting back, even in a crude or vulgar way.</blockquote>
Despite the tweet receiving more than 8,200 &#8220;likes&#8221; and being retweeted nearly 2,300 times as of publication, it was brutally ratioed (23,000 comments and counting). Rubio got dragged in the comments, with many users claiming &#8220;bigotry&#8221; and &#8220;hatred,&#8221; as well as bringing up President Trump’s indecent history and behavior.
Bobby Berk of Netflix’s &#8220;Queer Eye&#8221; even commented, comparing Rubio to the &#8220;Pharisees&#8221;:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
Ur such a hypocrite! Using the word “values” when it suits u. 
Jesus would drive you out of the temple just like he did the pharisees. Stop using his name 2 try 2 take rights away from people. That is NOT what Jesus would do &amp; u know it. U just need <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Trumpers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Trumpers</a> to get re-elected <a href="https://t.co/8DHusn7O1T">pic.twitter.com/8DHusn7O1T</a>
— Bobby Berk (@bobbyberk) <a href="https://twitter.com/bobbyberk/status/1183432928077836293?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>Ur such a hypocrite! Using the word “values” when it suits u. Jesus would drive you out of the temple just like he did the pharisees. Stop using his name 2 try 2 take rights away from people. That is NOT what Jesus would do &amp; u know it. U just need <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/Trumpers?src=hashtag_click">#Trumpers</a> to get re-elected.</blockquote>
Writer Kimberly Johnson tweeted, &#8220;Not surprising the fake Christian would consider tolerance ‘crude and vulgar.’”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
Not surprising the fake Christian would consider tolerance “crude and vulgar.”
— Kimberley Johnson (@AuthorKimberley) <a href="https://twitter.com/AuthorKimberley/status/1183221802044219393?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
Over the last two decades, the percentage of the population in favor of same-sex marriage has grown dramatically.
According to <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/">Pew Research</a>, the percentage of self-identified Republicans, as well as those who &#8220;lean&#8221; Republican, who support same-sex marriage has risen from 23% in 2001 to 44% in 2019.
Even among ostensibly religious people, the percentages have risen.
In 2001, approximately 13% of &#8220;white evangelical Protestants&#8221; supported same-sex marriage. By 2019, that support more than doubled to 29%. In that same period of time, support among &#8220;white mainline Protestants&#8221; went from 38% to 66%. Catholics mirror this rise, with 40% support in 2001 compared to 61% support in 2019.
Among the general American public, support has risen from 35% in 2001 to 61% in 2019, reports Pew.

Marco Rubio.

Rubio Gets Dragged After Calling Out Elizabeth Warren’s LGBTQ Town Hall Remark

Gay Rights

LGBT

Marco Rubio

Same-Sex Marriage

During a recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-rep-dan-crenshaw-slams-democratic-resentment-narrative-on-income-inequality">hearing</a> by the House Committee on the Budget, titled: “Solutions to Rising Economic Inequality,&#8221; Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) spoke with American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Romesh Ponnuru about poverty in the United States.
Crenshaw noted that the conservative &#8220;focus&#8221; is on the individual &#8220;who actually needs our help &#8230; the people who are having trouble moving up the economic ladder.&#8221;
Unfortunately, for many years, Republicans have been on the &#8220;losing&#8221; end of the poverty debate. Democrats have taken the spotlight with talking points pertaining to income inequality, the shrinking middle class, and programs for the poor — but conservatives have just as much to say about reducing poverty.
On Thursday, I had the opportunity to speak with Whitney Munro, the Vice President of Communications for the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), a conservative-leaning public policy organization focused on &#8220;using work to lift people out of dependency &#8230; and to empower them to take control of their futures,&#8221; according to their official website.
In part one of this two-part interview, Munro discusses the messaging issues plaguing the Republican Party when it comes to poverty, why progressives seem to hold all the cards in the debate, and what policies conservatives can advance.
<blockquote>DW: Do you think there’s a messaging problem among Republican politicians, and conservatives in general, when it comes to poverty and the alleviation of it?
MUNRO: Yeah. I think part of the problem is that the Left is really good at making us look bad about poverty no matter what, and we tend to always end up in the reactive, and the defensive instead of on the offensive with the messages and the things we know that work. We, as a movement, need to do a better job of putting ourselves out there and showing that we have solutions that we know work, we have solutions that actually help people, and we have solutions that reduce dependency — that’s our focus, and here’s what they are – instead of allowing ourselves to always respond to somebody else’s accusation that we’re uncaring and cold people. The truth is that our solutions help the truly needy by getting them out of dependency.
DW: What can conservatives do to counter those progressive talking points about poverty?
MUNRO: I think conservatives need to make this a priority. I think we’re a little scared to say things like, “Our solutions are actually an opportunity,” and we have to take back what that means. Paul Ryan had his whole “opportunity” message, and I think a lot of that got lost in the shuffle, but opportunity is really something that free market solutions are intended for, to empower people.
The Left is really good at saying, “We need benefits. Benefits are the starting ground for people. If you take benefits away, you’re hurting people and you’re taking away their opportunity.” We need to talk about the fact that benefits are not intended to be anything long term. They’re intended to be a trampoline, to be a springboard. They’re a short term solution, and the opportunity comes through work, through stimulating the economy, and through creating opportunities for government to get out of the way, and for people to do what they’re really good at.
DW: Is that why you think progressives have the lead on this issue? Their talking points combined with the lack of response from the Right?
MUNRO: Yeah, I think so. We end up getting caught – the Right tends to think about, what is the nitty gritty of the policy, right? So when we’re talking on the Right, it’s, “We have this great reform called ‘X,’ and it does all of these things that we talk about in terms of dollars and cents,” but we’re not really talking about people, and real people are the focus of these policies. We need to flip that switch and show that there are real people out there who are impacted by this stuff – they need it, they want it, they’re hungry for it, they support it — and less about, “here’s the graph, and here’s a chart, and here’s the very black and white, dry aspect of these reforms.”
There’s a reason we all do what we do, which is to change and impact lives. It’s not about a cool chart or the number of taxpayer dollars saved in the long run. It’s about impacting people. The Left is great at talking about people, and bringing people out, and almost using people. I think it’s kind of a knee-jerk reaction on our part to do the opposite.
DW: What’s a policy for which conservatives can advocate that will help the poor and lift people up?
MUNRO: There’s two things here. We have to turn away from the idea that government can create a new program that is designed around that. The goal here is to get government out of the way, to make sure that government programs actually impact the truly needy, those who cannot help themselves. Then, we turn everything back to work, the private sector, personal responsibility, turn things back to their communities and the people who live in them.
Right now, there’s this sense, if you talk to anyone that, “Well, what is government going to do to solve that problem?” and we all know that that’s not working. So, the first thing we need to do is just change that cultural conversation away from that. At the FGA, we focus on work as a solution, and we don’t make work a bad thing. Work is a good thing. I think that’s the other piece that’s missing – sometimes we allow work to be demonized, like, “work is so hard” and “work is hard for people,” and “what happens to a person if you require them to work?” When in reality, we know that work is the number one way that people get out of poverty. The first job leads to the next job, which leads to the next best job, and it gets people out of those situations. So, we have to talk about work in a way that’s empowering, not giving into the false dichotomy from the left which presents work in a way that’s a detriment to people and not working necessary for a lot of able-bodied people.
We’ve done tracking studies in <a href="https://thefga.org/research/report-the-power-of-work-how-kansas-welfare-reform-is-lifting-americans-out-of-poverty/">Kansas</a> and <a href="https://thefga.org/research/new-report-proves-maines-welfare-reforms-working/">Maine</a> and <a href="https://thefga.org/research/commonsense-welfare-reform-has-transformed-floridians-lives/">Florida</a> and <a href="https://thefga.org/research/work-requirements-arkansas/">Arkansas</a> (we’re in the middle of a few more) that show that incomes more than double when you get people back to work and out of poverty and even triple within two years. They find work in 600 or more industries, in Florida, with 1,000 or more industries. We need to celebrate those things, and make work something that is beautiful and awesome instead of something that is scary and, “Oh, gosh! How could you even think about making someone do that?”
DW: I know there are issues sometimes with state and federal laws where people are afraid to get a job that pays slightly better because then they’ll lose their benefits. What is the solution to that?
MUNRO: That’s a great question, and that is some of the pushback that people get when they talk about things like work requirements. The reality is, once you get to that place where you’re making enough that you lose, maybe it’s food stamps, you’re more than making up for the loss of that benefit in your wages. All of the tracking studies and all the data we have kind of proves that people aren’t financially hurt by those situations where they would be working and then lose some of that benefit.
DW: Who or what organization runs your research?
MUNRO: We do all of our research in house. However, we partner — and we do a tracking study with people who are on welfare, on Medicaid — we actually partner with the state agencies. So, all of the data we use for that research comes directly from the state agencies’ data storage, with them removing any personal information before we get it. We get their files, we give them an amount of time that we’re tracking people, and then we whittle that down into the results that we’re looking for.
DW: Is there a reason we’re not really seeing conservative politicians at large pushing these reform ideas that your organization advocates?
MUNRO: With the Farm Bill battle earlier this year and last year, there was a big push for things like work requirements. The House really did try to get this out there. There were anti-fraud measures, there were different provisions that were put into the Farm Bill. I do think though, and it goes back to what I told you in the beginning, a lot of this was about dollars and cents, and we’ve got to talk about people.
At a state level, the states have been incentivized. That’s something that we’re working on, but I think that there’s a challenge there in knowing what are the barriers in place, what are the problems that you’re facing, and what is the right step. That’s what FGA is doing on a regular basis — just talking to policy makers and saying, did you even know that your state has this waiver in place? Did you even know that in counties in your state, there were this many people not working simply because you guys aren’t following the 1996 welfare reform? There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and we’re trying to flip that on its head and make sure people know and understand what they can do to help the people in their community.</blockquote>
Stay tuned for part two of this interview, which will be released on Tuesday, where Munro will talk about attacks from leftist organizations, pervasive welfare abuse, &#8220;workforce&#8221; issues, and much more.

Homeless guy.

INTERVIEW (Part I): Foundation For Government Accountability Talks About The Conservative Approach To Fighting Poverty

Republican Party

[UPDATE 3]
According to <a href="https://www.fox8live.com/2019/10/13/officials-update-hard-rock-collapse-still-rescue-mode-with-full-investigation-come/">WVUE</a>, while it was initially believed that one person was killed and two survivors were trapped inside the partially collapsed building, after two bodies were discovered, the search for the missing has narrowed to one.
<div class="card collection-item " data-type="text">
<div class="card-content card-article">
&#8220;In an afternoon press conference, [Mayor] Cantrell announced that the body of one of the deceased victims was removed from the rubble Sunday. The body was then transferred to the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office who will work to identify the worker,&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.fox8live.com/2019/10/13/officials-update-hard-rock-collapse-still-rescue-mode-with-full-investigation-come/">WVUE</a>. &#8220;Crews are continuing to recover the body of the the second deceased victim and also remain hopeful that the third missing victim will be located alive.&#8221;
</div>
</div>
[UPDATE 2]
According to <a href="https://www.wdsu.com/article/rescue-operations-suspended-for-night-2-still-missing-in-hard-rock-construction-collapse/29447762">WDSU</a>: &#8220;Emergency officials have suspended the search for the night for two people missing in a partial building collapse at the Hard Rock Hotel construction site in New Orleans.&#8221;
[UPDATE 1]
New Orleans Fire Department Superintendent Tim McConnell offered an update on the operation to locate and rescue the two trapped individuals:
<blockquote>We have two people who we are unable to locate. Based on our investigation and talking to people who were in the building at the time and working with them, we believe we know where they are. We are unable to locate [them or] get any visibility on them at this time. We have sent drones around the building &#8230; trying to locate them. We have no signs of them. That&#8217;s why we&#8217;re sending crews in right now to try and locate them, and at that point it would be to try and obviously rescue them.
One of them we believe we can get to safely. The other at this time &#8230; we&#8217;re not sure, and the part of the building that they [are] believed to be in is very unstable. And so we&#8217;re working once again with the engineers and contractors to try and get the equipment we need to stabilize it but we do not have a timeline on that at this point. There is a very strong possibility of further collapse&#8230;</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
One person was killed and at least 18 were injured after the under construction Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans collapsed, authorities said <a href="https://t.co/6B7m7hi8tU">pic.twitter.com/6B7m7hi8tU</a>
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) <a href="https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1183154125879439360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
[Original story]
At approximately 9:12 a.m. on Saturday, an under-construction Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans underwent a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/person-killed-18-hospital-crane-collapses-hard-rock/story?id=66232002">partial collapse</a>, leaving one person dead, and two stranded underneath the rubble.
Neither the deceased nor the two individuals trapped inside have been publicly identified. According to officials, 18 injured people were transported to local hospitals, all of whom are in &#8220;stable&#8221; condition.
According to a <a href="https://nola.gov/mayor/news/october-2019/city-of-new-orleans-updates-residents-on-hotel-construction-collapse/">press release</a> from the mayor’s office:
<blockquote>New Orleans Fire Department is deploying an urban search and rescue team into the building to attempt to retrieve one of the people inside. Another individual is in a less stable area. A determination is being made by officials on how best to reach the individual.</blockquote>
Speaking with the press on the ground near the collapsed building, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said that the situation was still &#8220;very fluid and very dangerous,&#8221; adding that &#8220;every few minutes, something is falling off of the building.&#8221;
Edwards also asked the press to stay away from the &#8220;site of the collapse.&#8221;
&#8220;It is still very unstable,&#8221; New Orleans Fire Department Superintendent Tim McConnell said. &#8220;Our folks went in initially [and] removed several people from the building.&#8221;
When asked if further collapse was a possibility, the superintendent answered in the affirmative, noting that the 270-foot &#8220;crane&#8221; was the &#8220;biggest fear.&#8221;
Director of New Orleans Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Collin Arnold was asked by a reporter if the construction site had &#8220;passed inspections&#8221; and if it was &#8220;secure with all the permits with the city of New Orleans.&#8221; He replied that while he didn&#8217;t have that information, multiple agencies, including the Department of Publication Works, Safety and Permits, and the Department of Code Enforcement were on the scene in order to &#8220;assess that situation.&#8221;
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6LdEAjJGclc" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Video has come in from social media showing the collapse from various perspectives:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BREAKING</a> Chaos after construction collapse at Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans. 
1 person dead , 18 injured and 3 unaccounted for. The hotel was under construction.
Video courtesy Brien Fallon <a href="https://t.co/2znzbWsRoM">pic.twitter.com/2znzbWsRoM</a>
— Parker Branton (@ParkerBranton) <a href="https://twitter.com/ParkerBranton/status/1183062129320046593?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
HARD ROCK HOTEL COLLAPSE: At least one dead as New Orleans construction site falls Video: Michael Dalle <a href="https://t.co/5SzB5wcUEt">pic.twitter.com/5SzB5wcUEt</a>
— Andrea Jackson 📺🇺🇸 (@AJacksonTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/AJacksonTV/status/1183088207975591937?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
A <a href="https://www.nola.gov/mayor/news/october-2019/city-of-new-orleans-updates-residents-on-hotel-construction-collapse/">press release</a> from the mayor’s office states that a &#8220;family-reunification program for the family members of those unaccounted for&#8221; has been set up by the Department of Health, and that &#8220;traffic around the area&#8221; of the incident &#8220;will be impacted through the rest of the weekend as well as Monday &#8230; &#8221;
This is a breaking story. Refresh page for updates&#8230;

Building collapse.

Building Collapse In New Orleans; 2 Dead, 18 Injured, 1 Trapped

New Orleans

On Thursday, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang skewered &#8220;the Chinese government&#8221; and the NBA over the controversy regarding a tweet from Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets.
In a statement provided to <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/465263-yang-rips-china-says-nba-should-stand-up-for-free-speech">The Hill</a>, Yang said:
<blockquote>The Chinese government banning NBA games because of a deleted tweet by a franchise employee is ridiculous. The main losers would be the Chinese fans who would find another way to watch the games. The NBA should feel confident in its position and stand up for the free speech rights of its employees.</blockquote>
On October 4, Morey sent out a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/backfire-nba-houston-rockets-cower-to-communist-china-get-blasted-online">tweet</a> that featured a pro-Hong Kong graphic, which read: &#8220;Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.&#8221;
Morey deleted the tweet, and issued the following <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/backfire-nba-houston-rockets-cower-to-communist-china-get-blasted-online">statement</a>:
<blockquote>I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China. I was merely voicing one thought, based on one interpretation, of one complicated event. I have had a lot of opportunity since that tweet to hear and consider other perspectives. I have always appreciated the significant support our Chinese fans and sponsors have provided and I would hope that those who are upset will know that offending or misunderstanding them was not my intention. My tweets are my own and in no way represent the Rockets or the NBA.</blockquote>
The controversy surrounding Morey’s initial tweet has been monumental — multiple Chinese businesses have severed ties with the Houston Rockets. The team’s merchandise in a Beijing NBA store is allegedly being replaced, reports <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-state-broadcaster-drops-two-nba-games-11570522782">The Wall Street Journal</a>. Nike has also begun pulling Rockets merchandise from their Chinese stores, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-basketball-nba-nike/houston-rockets-nike-merchandise-disappears-from-china-stores-idUSKBN1WP109">Reuters</a>.
According to <a href="https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2019/10/8/20904450/nba-china-fallout-lakers-vs-nets-broadcast-streaming-tencent">SB Nation</a>: &#8220;Tencent, a streaming service with a billion-dollar deal to bring NBA games to people in China, announced it would ‘suspend all reports/streaming’ of Rockets games.&#8221;
As The Daily Wire’s Amanda Prestigiacomo <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-nba-team-takes-microphone-away-from-cnn-reporter-asking-about-chinese-censorship">reported</a>, on Tuesday, fans at an NBA game in Philadelphia had their &#8220;Free Hong Kong&#8221; signs confiscated, and were later escorted out of the stadium. On Wednesday, &#8220;Free Hong Kong&#8221; and &#8220;Google Uyghurs&#8221; signs were also confiscated at an NBA game in Washington D.C.
Following Morey’s tweet, NBA Chief Communications Officer Mike Bass issued a <a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGPILDbUwAA_V2Z.jpg">statement</a>, which reads:
<blockquote>We recognize that the views expressed by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey have deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China, which is regrettable. While Daryl has made it clear that his tweet does not represent the Rockets or the NBA, the values of the league support individuals’ educating themselves and sharing their views on matters important to them. We have great respect for the history and culture of China and hope that sports and the NBA can be used as a unifying force to bridge cultural divides and bring people together.</blockquote>
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver also released a <a href="https://www.nba.com/article/2019/10/08/adam-silver-statement-china-nba">lengthy statement</a> in which he notes the &#8220;diversity&#8221; of &#8220;views, backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, and religions&#8221; featured in the NBA.
<blockquote>It is inevitable that people around the world – including from America and China – will have different viewpoints over different issues. It is not the role of the NBA to adjudicate those differences. However, the NBA will not put itself in a position of regulating what players, employees and team owners say or will not say on these issues. We simply could not operate that way.</blockquote>
The statement concludes by suggesting that basketball should be &#8220;a unifying force&#8221; that fosters a focus on common interests, rather than differences.
State-run CCTV in China were not satisfied with Silver’s statement, releasing their own:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/China?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#China</a> ups the ante on the <a href="https://twitter.com/NBA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NBA</a>. State TV CCTV to halt all broadcasts of games. Condemns Commissioner Adam Silver’s defense of <a href="https://twitter.com/NBA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NBA</a> statements on <a href="https://twitter.com/dmorey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@dmorey</a> on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HongKongProtest?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HongKongProtest</a>. CCTV announcement below: <a href="https://t.co/GoeKUktSkA">pic.twitter.com/GoeKUktSkA</a>
— Eunice Yoon (@onlyyoontv) <a href="https://twitter.com/onlyyoontv/status/1181470403731939328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>We have noticed that Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, who is participating in an event in Japan, has responded to Houston Rockets general manager Morey’s post of inappropriate Hong Kong-related remarks. We are strongly dissatisfied and we oppose Silver&#8217;s claim to support Morey’s right of free expression. We believe that any speech that challenges national sovereignty and social stability is not within the scope of freedom of speech.
To this end, CCTV Sports Channel of the Central Radio and Television Administration has decided to immediately suspend the current broadcast arrangements of the NBA pre-season (China Games) and immediately investigate all cooperation and exchanges involving the NBA.</blockquote>
During a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday, Christina Macfarlane of CNN <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/houston-rockets-shut-down-reporter-asking-players-about-nba-china-n1064761">attempted to ask</a> two Houston Rockets players if they &#8220;feel differently&#8221; about engaging in political speech in light if the NBA/China firestorm.
&#8220;The NBA has always been a league that prides itself on its players and its coaches being able to speak out openly about political and societal affairs. I just wonder after the events of this week and the fallout we&#8217;ve seen, whether you both feel differently about speaking out in that way in the future?&#8221; Macfarlane asked.
After Macfarlane’s question, a female spokesperson said the players were only taking &#8220;basketball questions.&#8221; After some back and forth about the relevance of the question, the mic was taken from Macfarlane.
Macfarlane also asked Rockets coach Mike D&#8217;Antoni if he had &#8220;a message for &#8230; [the] Chinese fans who, rightly or wrongly, may have felt let down by the NBA this week?&#8221;
D&#8217;Antoni replied that &#8220;it’s a tough situation,&#8221; and that &#8220;Adam Silver speaks for the NBA,&#8221; and because D&#8217;Antoni works for the organization, he goes &#8220;with Adam,&#8221; who he says will &#8220;do the right thing.&#8221;
He added: &#8220;You can’t answer questions like that because you’re wrong no matter what &#8230; I coach basketball. I’m not a diplomat.&#8221;
Other politicians besides Yang have entered the fray.
In an October 9 <a href="https://gallagher.house.gov/sites/gallagher.house.gov/files/NBA%20China%20Letter.pdf">letter</a>, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), stated in part:
<blockquote>It is outrageous that the Chinese Communist Party is using its economic power to suppress the speech of Americans inside the United States. It is also outrageous that the NBA has caved to Chinese government demands for contrition. We are deeply concerned that individuals associated with the league may now engage in self-censorship that is inconsistent with American and the league’s stated values – and that this incident will only encourage further intimidation of American companies and persons by the Chinese government.</blockquote>
The lawmakers admonished NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to further state that the organization will &#8220;support their right [players, staff, partners, and fans] to express their opinions no matter the economic consequences.&#8221; The letter also makes several suggestions regarding the way the NBA should handle Chinese boycotts and business relations going forward.
This is far from the end of this developing controversy, which has engulfed the NBA, been the focus of intense media coverage, and elicited reactions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers — even including a presidential candidate.

Andrew Yang.

Andrew Yang Skewers China Over ‘Ridiculous’ Reaction To ‘Deleted Tweet’ From NBA General Manager

Andrew Yang

Censorship

Communism

On Friday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) appeared on ABC’s &#8220;The View&#8221; in order to promote his new book, &#8220;The Case Against Socialism.&#8221;
While two of the regular hosts were absent (Meghan McCain and Joy Behar), political strategist and commentator Ana Navarro filled in. Following an initial sparring match among the hosts and Sen. Paul over military intervention and the ongoing crisis in Turkey, the conversation turned to socialism.
<blockquote>NAVARRO: Let me ask you this because I live in Miami, there’s tens of thousands of Venezuelan exiles living there. You talk a lot about Venezuela in your new book. I get a lot of political ads from the Republican Party – Donald Trump has tweeted this, many have tweeted this – &#8220;If you vote for Democrats, they will turn the United States into Venezuela.&#8221; Do you think that&#8217;s a fair statement to make?
PAUL: Well, if you vote for a socialist, you might get socialism.
NAVARRO: Come on. Don’t do that. Maduro is not a socialist; he&#8217;s a corrupt, murderous thug who is starving his people.
PAUL: That’s not true.
NAVARRO: That’s not true? Maduro’s not a thug and a murderer who’s starving his people?
PAUL: Let’s have a conversation here. Chavez was a socialist, and socialism was the economic system Venezuela –
NAVARRO: And they stole. [It’s a] kleptocracy. It’s not socialism.
PAUL: But here’s the question &#8230; they voted for socialism.</blockquote>
At this point in the exchange, Navarro gave Paul an incredulous look, prompting him to say, &#8220;Let me finish,&#8221; to which Navarro replied: &#8220;No, I can&#8217;t let you finish. If you are going to say Maduro is not a murderous thug, I’m not letting you finish because that&#8217;s a damn lie! And I’ve got a bunch of neighbors and friends who know this.&#8221;
Paul then waved his hands in Navarro’s direction, and Navarro stated: &#8220;Don’t do this to me. Don’t mansplain. I’m a 47-year-old grown woman!&#8221;
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GWGNrAmNsTw?start=103" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
For comment, The Daily Wire reached out to Daniel Di Martino, a Venezuelan expatriate who fled to the United States in 2016.
Di Martino, who is set to graduate in December with a degree in economics from Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, stated:
<blockquote>Ana Navarro is wrong to say Maduro isn&#8217;t socialist. Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, nationalized thousands of companies and greatly expanded welfare programs and government employment. It was as a result of these socialist policies that our economy was destroyed and that today 9 out of every 10 Venezuelans live in poverty and more than four million Venezuelans like myself have been forced to leave our homeland. Corrupt and evil people govern many countries around the world, but these countries don&#8217;t see the terrible humanitarian crises that socialist countries like Venezuela and Cuba experience.
It is insulting that media personalities continue to try to defend the socialist system that has killed so many people throughout history just to protect the radical Democrats that promote those same policies in America.</blockquote>
During a previous Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/interview-part-ii-venezuelan-expat-how-socialism-frank-camp">interview</a> with Di Martino, he elaborated on the idea posed by individuals like Navarro that &#8220;corruption&#8221; and thuggery are to blame for Venezuela’s problems, not socialism:
<blockquote>There are many other corrupt countries that are not going through starvation. In fact, most Latin American countries are very corrupt. Mexico is very corrupt. Colombia is very corrupt. Brazil, Peru, Guatemala. Those countries are not seeing the kind of economic crisis that Venezuela is seeing, where we have lost two thirds of our economy in just the last three years because of the socialist policies.
In Venezuela, they implemented policies such as price controls, such as excessive government deficits because they spent so much on welfare that they had to print money. That’s what destroyed our country. Huge minimum wage hikes that people don’t talk about at all in Venezuela. We had countless minimum wage hikes to the point that the person who cleans the school earns the same as the principal of the school, and the person who was a doctor in the hospital made the same as somebody who was a construction worker or a teacher.
Everybody started earning pretty much the same, so people just stopped working. We had a huge brain drain of skilled workers leaving our country. That’s a real consequence of drastic increases in the minimum wage.</blockquote>
Sen. Paul’s book, &#8220;The Case Against Socialism,&#8221; will be available to purchase on October 15.

Ana Navarro.

WATCH: Ana Navarro Claims Venezuela’s Maduro Is ‘Not A Socialist’

Ana Navarro

Rand Paul

Socialism

Venezuela

On Sunday, openly gay comedian and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres was photographed with former President George W. Bush at a Dallas Cowboys game. Shortly after the photo hit social media, many progressives skewered the comedian for sitting next to the Republican.
On Tuesday, DeGeneres used a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-ellen-degeneres-responds-to-backlash-over-her-friendliness-with-george-w-bush">segment</a> of her daily show to speak about her friendship with Bush, as well as the fact that she is &#8220;friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs&#8221; as she does.
DeGeneres added:
<blockquote>We’re all different, and I think we’ve forgotten that that’s okay, that we’re all different &#8230; just because I don’t agree with someone on everything, doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be friends with them. When I say be kind to one another, I don’t mean only the people that think the same way that you do. I mean be kind to everyone.</blockquote>
As The Daily Wire’s Paul Bois <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/vanity-fair-scolds-ellen-degeneres-for-friendliness-with-george-w-bush">reported</a>, the comedian’s monologue didn’t sit well with some progressives.
In a piece, titled: &#8220;Ellen DeGeneres, George W. Bush, and the Limits of Unconditional Kindness,&#8221; Vanity Fair’s Laura Bradley tore into DeGeneres.
After referring to President Bush as a &#8220;man whose résumé includes the invasion of Iraq and the botched federal response to Hurricane Katrina,&#8221; Bradley claimed that DeGeneres’ &#8220;brand&#8221; of &#8220;celebrity whisperer who can befriend just about anyone&#8221; is simply &#8220;incompatible with reality.&#8221;
The mainstream media backlash didn’t stop there.
On Wednesday, VICE published a piece by Harron Walker, titled: &#8220;<a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa7m5g/ellen-degeneres-george-w-bush-friends-science-rich-people">Ellen and Science Confirm: Rich People Only Care About Themselves</a>.&#8221;
In the piece, Walker states that Americans shouldn’t be surprised by DeGeneres and Bush &#8220;yukking it up&#8221; because &#8220;rich people love hanging out with other rich people,&#8221; and &#8220;often struggle with holding empathy&#8221; for others.
<blockquote>Still, it is confusing to think about how DeGeneres, one of the nation’s foremost openly gay celebrities would, could look past Bush’s years of using the bully pulpit to advocate against LGBTQ rights—not to mention, uhhhh, the unnecessary wars he started in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have killed millions of people and traumatized countless others.</blockquote>
Walker goes on to suggest that DeGeneres’ explanation of her &#8220;cognitive dissonance&#8221; wasn’t enough, writing that &#8220;disagreeing about the Bush administration’s ongoing legacy of global violence against Muslim people seems like more than just a difference of opinion.&#8221;
She further suggests that DeGeneres might not care, citing studies conducted by Paul Diff and Dacher Keltner of UC Berkeley, which allegedly claim that when an individual accumulates more wealth, &#8220;the less likely that person is to have compassion and empathy for other people, and to use their wealth to help others in need.&#8221;
The backlash against DeGenerous has even crept outside the boundaries of the media, with celebrities taking sides.
Actress Reese Witherspoon initially defended DeGeneres, <a href="https://people.com/movies/reese-witherspoon-defends-ellen-degeneres-amid-george-w-bush-backlash/">tweeting</a>, &#8220;Thank you for this important reminder, Ellen.&#8221; However, Witherspoon eventually deleted the tweet.
Unsurprisingly, other actors are hammering the talk show host.
Actor Mark Ruffalo sent out the following tweet:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths &amp; displacement, and the deep scars—emotional &amp; otherwise—inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can’t even begin to talk about kindness. <a href="https://t.co/dpMwfck6su">https://t.co/dpMwfck6su</a>
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkRuffalo/status/1182005931317583872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>Sorry, until George W. Bush is brought to justice for the crimes of the Iraq War, (including American-lead torture, Iraqi deaths &amp; displacement, and the deep scars—emotional &amp; otherwise—inflicted on our military that served his folly), we can’t even begin to talk about kindness.</blockquote>
Actor John Cusack has gone further, tweeting repeatedly about the story, and even <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/johncusack/status/1182079029559603200?s=21">promoting a video</a> from activist Rafael Shimunov in which images from the Iraq War are superimposed on screen behind DeGeneres as she delivers her monologue in defense of her friendship with Bush.

Ellen DeGeneres.

VICE Slams Ellen, Claiming ‘Rich People Only Care About Themselves’

Ellen Degeneres

George W. Bush

Hollywood

On Sunday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) appeared on ABC’s &#8220;This Week.&#8221; At the outset of the segment, the representative was asked by host George Stephanopoulos about the appropriateness of President Trump asking China to investigate former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
<blockquote>STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you think it&#8217;s appropriate for President Trump to ask China and Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden?
JORDAN: I think he&#8217;s getting – as I think Senator Rubio said a couple days ago – I think he’s getting the press all spun up about this. Remember, this is the president who’s been tougher on China than any other president. He wants to make sure China quits stealing America’s intellectual property. He wants to make sure they start abiding by international trade norms&#8230;
STEPHANOPOULOS: He said directly –
JORDAN: He’s put tariffs on China. And you really think he says &#8230; the same guy who’s been tougher on China now thinks, oh, China’s going to investigate &#8230; he was just making a statement to just underscore how wrong it is what took place here with Hunter Biden getting these deals that he got. That’s all he’s doing.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So the president asked China to investigate. We’re not supposed to take the president at his word?
JORDAN: Again, I think Senator Rubio said it best &#8230; you guys would think after three and a half years, you would – with the campaign and everything else – you’d figure out some other way –
STEPHANOPOULOS: But he said in public the exact same thing he said in private to the Ukrainian president.
JORDAN: I wish there would be the same outrage for this, for what the president said about China, the same outrage that there was when &#8230; the Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee hired a foreigner who worked with Russians to dig up dirt on the president, put it in a document that was given to the Department of Justice, and then the FBI used that document to go to a secret court to spy on the Trump campaign. And you guys outraged about that.</blockquote>
Following some overlap, Stephanopoulos said: &#8220;So, should I conclude from that that you don’t think it would be appropriate for the president to ask China to investigate the Bidens?&#8221;
Jordan replied:
<blockquote>I think he’s just making this – I’m just telling you what the statement is. You asked me about the statement. I’m saying I don’t think he’s – I don’t think anyone in America really believes – except people maybe in the press and some Democrats in Congress – really believe that the President of the United States thinks China is going to investigate.</blockquote>
As the segment rolled on, Stephanopoulos and Jordan sparred over the question, while Jordan repeatedly brought up Hunter Biden’s alleged business dealings in China, as well as the president’s toughness on trade.
<blockquote>STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, because you haven&#8217;t answered it.
JORDAN: I don&#8217;t think he really meant go investigate, because do you think China is going to investigate him?
STEPHANOPOULOS: I don&#8217;t know if China is going to investigate him, but I know the president asked China to investigate him.
JORDAN: We know they&#8217;re not, George. Come on.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Why can&#8217;t you answer yes or no, do you think it&#8217;s appropriate.
JORDAN: Because I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s what he did. I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s what he did.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So – but it was right there on camera.
JORDAN: I think Senator Rubio had it exactly right. &#8230; You would think after, like I said, a few years of following this president, you would understand sort of how this guy communicates. I think that is what he&#8217;s doing.</blockquote>
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On Thursday, President Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rubio-on-trump-saying-china-should-investigate-biden-i-dont-think-its-a-real-request">told the press</a>: &#8220;China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.&#8221;
The next day, a reporter asked Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) if it was appropriate for the president &#8220;to ask China to launch an investigation of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden?&#8221;
Rubio <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rubio-on-trump-saying-china-should-investigate-biden-i-dont-think-its-a-real-request">replied</a>: &#8220;I don’t know if that’s a real request or him just needling the press knowing that you guys were gonna get outraged by it. He’s pretty good at getting everybody fired up, and he’s been doing it for a while now, and the media responded right on task.&#8221;
After some intense backlash, the senator <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rubio-on-trump-saying-china-should-investigate-biden-i-dont-think-its-a-real-request">tweeted</a> in part: &#8220;You can keep getting played, but I won’t.&#8221;

Jim Jordan.

Rep Jordan: ‘I Don’t Think’ Americans Believe Trump ‘Thinks China Is Going To Investigate’

Jim Jordan

Speaking recently with <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/martin-scorsese-marvel-theme-parks-1203360075/">Empire Magazine</a>, legendary director Martin Scorsese compared superhero movies to &#8220;theme parks.&#8221;
<blockquote>I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.</blockquote>
Scorsese’s latest film, &#8220;The Irishman,&#8221; has won rave reviews, and will debut in limited theaters on November 1 before being available to stream on Netflix just three weeks later.
In the wake of Scorsese’s comments, several directors and actors who have worked as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) have issued responses.
Speaking with Variety’s Angelique Jackson on Saturday, Samuel L. Jackson, who has portrayed character Nick Fury in a host of MCU films, <a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/news/samuel-l-jackson-martin-scorseses-marvel-1203360546/amp/">offered his opinion</a> on the Scorsese remark.
<blockquote>VARIETY: Did you hear Martin Scorsese’s thoughts on Marvel films, on superhero films not being cinema?
JACKSON: I passed by that, but I didn’t pay much attention to it &#8230; I mean, that’s like saying, you know, Bugs Bunny ain’t funny. Films are films. Everybody doesn’t like his stuff either. We happen to. Everybody doesn’t. You know, there are a lot of Italian Americans who don’t think he should be making films about them like that. Everybody’s got an opinion, so, I mean, it’s okay. Ain’t going to stop nobody from making movies.</blockquote>
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zq24LPxTFG8" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
James Gunn, writer and director of both &#8220;Guardians of the Galaxy&#8221; films, as well as the upcoming &#8220;The Suicide Squad,&#8221; tweeted out a response as well:
<blockquote>Martin Scorsese is one of my 5 favorite living filmmakers. I was outraged when people picketed The Last Temptation of Christ without having seen the film. I’m saddened that he’s now judging my films in the same way.</blockquote>
Gunn added: &#8220;That said, I will always love Scorsese, be grateful for his contribution to cinema, and can’t wait to see The Irishman.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
That said, I will always love Scorsese, be grateful for his contribution to cinema, and can’t wait to see The Irishman.
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesGunn/status/1180158818736574464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
One Twitter user questioned Gunn’s response, saying: &#8220;You must see what he means, at least — that their primary aim is not to explore the complexity of human emotion but to provide entertainment?&#8221;
Gun <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/jamesgunn/status/1180165680823508994?s=21">responded</a> by saying that his &#8220;primary aim&#8221; with the &#8220;Guardians of the Galaxy&#8221; movies was to achieve that feeling. &#8220;Whether they achieve it or not is up to others to decide — but it’s absolutely their primary aim,&#8221; the director wrote.
This is not the first, nor will it be the final, time that the essence of &#8220;cinema&#8221; is debated among filmmakers.
As films from streaming services like Netflix and Amazon have gained traction during awards season, some have protested.
In 2018, legendary director Steven Spielberg <a href="https://youtu.be/_hTTvO50QTs">told ITV</a>: &#8220;Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie. You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar. I don’t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.&#8221;
In 2019, Netflix received 15 Oscar nominations. The streaming giant went on to win across four categories, including best director. Expect Netflix to surpass its 2019 nominations total when the 2020 Academy Awards nominees are announced on January 13.

Samuel L. Jackson.

Samuel L. Jackson Responds To Scorsese: ‘Everybody Doesn’t Like His Stuff Either &#8230; It’s Okay’

Martin Scorsese

Marvel

Netflix

On Saturday, following Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-UT) remarks about President Trump’s call for China to investigate former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the president sent a series of tweets attacking the senator:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1180484483147059200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Mitt Romney never knew how to win. He is a pompous “ass” who has been fighting me from the beginning, except when he begged me for my endorsement for his Senate run (I gave it to him), and when he begged me to be Secretary of State (I didn’t give it to him). He is so bad for R’s!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1180487139546546182?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I’m hearing that the Great People of Utah are considering their vote for their Pompous Senator, Mitt Romney, to be a big mistake. I agree! He is a fool who is playing right into the hands of the Do Nothing Democrats! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IMPEACHMITTROMNEY?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IMPEACHMITTROMNEY</a>
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1180559858699030529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2019</a></blockquote>
<blockquote>Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!
Mitt Romney never knew how to win. He is a pompous “ass” who has been fighting me from the beginning, except when he begged me for my endorsement for his Senate run (I gave it to him), and when he begged me to be Secretary of State (I didn’t give it to him). He is so bad for R’s!
I’m hearing that the Great People of Utah are considering their vote for their Pompous Senator, Mitt Romney, to be a big mistake. I agree! He is a fool who is playing right into the hands of the Do Nothing Democrats! <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/hashtag/IMPEACHMITTROMNEY?src=hashtag_click">#IMPEACHMITTROMNEY</a></blockquote>
When Fox News White House correspondent Kevin Corke <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1180560592119222273?s=21">wondered</a> on Twitter if Sen. Mitt Romney was the &#8220;new Jeff Flake,&#8221; the president replied: &#8220;No Kevin, Jeff Flake is better!&#8221;
The attack continued into Sunday, when Trump tweeted: &#8220;The Democrats are lucky that they don’t have any Mitt Romney types. They may be lousy politicians, with really bad policies (Open Borders, Sanctuary Cities etc.), but they stick together!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The Democrats are lucky that they don’t have any Mitt Romney types. They may be lousy politicians, with really bad policies (Open Borders, Sanctuary Cities etc.), but they stick together!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1180836514743357440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 6, 2019</a></blockquote>
The feud between President Trump and Sen. Romney has ebbed and flowed over the course of the last three and a half years.
In March of 2016, Romney gave a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/04/us/politics/mitt-romney-speech.html">public address</a> condemning then-candidate Trump as &#8220;a con man&#8221; and &#8220;a fake,&#8221; asking that Republican voters choose one of the three other remaining candidates in the field.
Once Trump won the general election in November of 2016, the tenor of the relationship changed. Romney even <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-romney/romney-potential-u-s-secretary-of-state-hails-trump-after-dinner-idUSKBN13P0A7">met with President Trump</a> as a possible contender for Secretary of State.
During his 2018 midterm campaign for United States Senate, Romney wrote in an <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2018/06/24/mitt-romney-where-i-stand-on-the-trump-agenda/">op-ed</a> that he would &#8220;support the president’s policies when &#8230; they are in the best interest of Utah and the nation.&#8221;
While then-candidate Romney wrote about various Trump administration policies with which he agreed and some that he didn’t, he also added:
<blockquote>I have and will continue to speak out when the president says or does something which is divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions. I do not make this a daily commentary; I express contrary views only when I believe it is a matter of substantial significance.</blockquote>
In a January 2019 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romney-the-president-shapes-the-public-character-of-the-nation-trumps-character-falls-short/2019/01/01/37a3c8c2-0d1a-11e9-8938-5898adc28fa2_story.html">op-ed</a>, Romney castigated Trump, writing that &#8220;his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.&#8221;
Following the whistleblower allegations regarding Trump and Ukraine, Romney tweeted: &#8220;If the President asked or pressured Ukraine&#8217;s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme. Critical for the facts to come out.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
If the President asked or pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme. Critical for the facts to come out.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) <a href="https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/1175840899135352832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 22, 2019</a></blockquote>
After President Trump suggested on Thursday that China investigate Joe Biden, Romney tweeted: &#8220;When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) <a href="https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/1180151212030779392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
Aside from Romney, few other elected Republicans have expressed concern over potential corruption on the president’s part.
In a written statement to the <a href="https://www.omaha.com/news/nation/morton/americans-don-t-look-to-chinese-commies-for-the-truth/article_d229258d-0d9d-5fdf-800a-7c74f6f5c253.html">Omaha World-Herald</a> regarding Trump’s China ask, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said: &#8220;Hold up: Americans don’t look to Chinese commies for the truth.&#8221; He added: &#8220;If the Biden kid broke laws by selling his name to Beijing, that’s a matter for American courts, not communist tyrants running torture camps.&#8221;
However, Sasse also accused Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) of &#8220;running a partisan clown show in the House.&#8221;
Sasse had <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-impeachment-inquiry-09-25-2019/h_3cbf2c98932a6b6ea8310abd9bfe1818">previously stated</a> after having read the whistleblower complaint: &#8220;We need to slow down. This place is terrible at deliberation. Democrats ought not to be using the word &#8216;impeach&#8217; before they had the whistleblower complaint or read any of the transcript. Republicans ought not to be rushing to circle the wagons and say there’s no there there when there’s obviously a lot that’s very troubling there.&#8221;

Trump points.

Trump Calls Mitt Romney ‘A Fool,’ And Suggests He Should Be Impeached

Mitt Romney

During a campaign stop this week in Nevada, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) <a href="https://grabien.com/story.php?id=254433">claimed</a> that women aren’t paid equally to men for the same work:
<blockquote>Look, women are still not paid equal for equal work in America. We&#8217;ve got to deal with that. We have to deal with the fact that we&#8217;re not paying teachers their value and all of our kids in public schools and want to know there will be teachers there who love them and have a passion for the work, but can actually afford to meet their bills every month. There&#8217;s so much that we need to do.</blockquote>
This isn’t the first time the senator has made this claim.
In May, during an appearance on &#8220;The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,&#8221; Harris was more specific, <a href="https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2019/may/23/kamala-harris/colbert-kamala-harris-flubs-wage-gap-statistic/">stating</a>:
<blockquote>The law says that men and women should be paid equally for equal work, but what we know is that in America today, women on average are paid 80 cents on the dollar of what men are paid for the same work &#8230; these are actually not debatable points.</blockquote>
They are, in fact, debatable points.
According to the <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.html">U.S. Census Bureau</a>, in 2017, the &#8220;female-to-male earnings ratio was 0.805&#8221; when comparing the median annual earnings of men ($52,146) and women ($41,977).
These numbers, however, are broad averages, and don’t take into account the numerous factors unrelated to gender discrimination that create pay disparities. Christina Hoff Sommers of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nancy-pelosi-promotes-wage-gap-bill-saying-women-frank-camp">states as much</a> in a 2014 &#8220;Factual Feminist&#8221; video:
<blockquote>There was an analysis of more than 50 peer-reviewed papers commissioned by the Department of Labor. What they found is that the so-called “wage gap” is mostly, perhaps entirely, an artifact of the different choices men and women make – different fields of study, different professions, different balances between and home and work&#8230;</blockquote>
A 2009 <a href="https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/public-policy/hr-public-policy-issues/Documents/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf">report</a> from CONSAD Research Corp backs this up:
<blockquote>There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the wage gap. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 percent of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent.</blockquote>
A <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bolotnyy/files/be_gender_gap.pdf#page39">paper</a> by Valentin Bolotnyy, PhD, and Natalia Emanuel that examined the working behavior of bus and train operators from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) found much of the wage gap seen in this particular profession was explained not by gender discrimination, but by different choices made by the sexes.
&#8220;&#8230;the earnings gap can be explained by female operators taking, on average, 1.5 fewer hours of overtime and 1.3 more hours of unpaid time-off per week than male operators,&#8221; Bolotnyy and Emanuel write. &#8220;Female operators, especially those who have dependents, pursue schedule conventionality, predictability, and controllability more than male operators.&#8221;
The authors add that two policy changes pertaining to overtime hours and unpaid time off &#8220;narrowed the earnings gap &#8230; from $0.89 in 2015 to $0.94 in 2017.&#8221;
While Sen. Harris and other progressives can repeatedly assert that women aren’t paid equally to men, the above evidence strongly suggests otherwise.

Kamala Harris.

Kamala Harris: ‘Women Are Still Not Paid Equal’

Gender Wage Gap

Kamala Harris

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Frank Camp

Articles by Frank Camp