July 22, 2021 - The Michael Knowles Show
09:06
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| The establishment media do an excellent job masquerading their worldview as objective truth. | |
| They use ad hominem attacks in very intellectual soft tones to make you feel like they are the authority on any given subject, and they dress up lies to make them seem like the truth. | |
| But they're about to get a rude awakening. | |
| Introducing our newest podcast, Morning Wire, a daily news show that values your time and the truth. | |
| Our aim is to deliver an alternative news source that you can trust in your podcasts. | |
| The first episode is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. | |
| So go and subscribe now and start listening today. | |
| Daily Wire's mission is simple, to bring our readers and listeners the facts, and to provide the context necessary to understand the issues, and to debunk the establishment media's predictable and increasingly more ridiculous spin on those facts. | |
| We have built a powerful newsroom of investigative reporters, opinion journalists, and writers dedicated to ensuring that you see the news first and form your own opinions instead of blindly repeating what the left tells you. | |
| Let's listen to some of The Morning Wire now. | |
| Following the largest anti-communist protests in Cuba in decades, the Biden administration is weighing in. | |
| Joining us to discuss the political fallout and the potential foreign policy implications is Daily Wire managing editor Cabot Phillips. | |
| Cabot, thanks for joining us. | |
| Thanks for having me. | |
| So, this story has really captured global attention over the last couple weeks. | |
| What makes these protests so significant? | |
| Well, any demonstrations against the communist regime in Cuba are important because we just don't see this type of thing. | |
| This is the first mass protest Cuba has experienced since a change in government leadership last year. | |
| For the past few decades under Fidel and Raul Castro, mass protests were violently shut down by the communist government, and leaders of opposition movements have often been jailed or murdered. | |
| But there's new leadership now under Miguel Diaz-Canel, so the world has been watching to see how the new regime is handling the pro-democracy demonstrations. | |
| We've seen some troubling reports about the government cracking down. | |
| Yeah, they've responded harshly. | |
| The Communist Party called on the military to suppress the protesters, saying, quote, And throughout the past week and a half, Black Berets, which are essentially special agents of the Communist Party, have been seen throughout the city violently detaining protesters. | |
| For example, one pro-democracy leader was in the middle of an interview with a Spanish news outlet when agents burst into her home and forcibly arrested her. | |
| I spoke to one Cuban dissident who told me just how dangerous the protests are for those on the ground. | |
| The level of brutalization that the Cuban people have endured during the last week is immense. | |
| There have been beaten. | |
| There have been deaths. | |
| There have been at least 532 detained and missing people, but those are only the numbers that we have been able to verify. | |
| We estimate that the actual number to be in the thousands to get out of the crisis. | |
| And the Cuban government also reportedly shut down the nation's only Wi-Fi network, which they control, to prevent people from organizing and to keep videos of the protests from being shared with the outside world. | |
| And how about political leaders in the U.S.? How are they approaching this? | |
| Well, much of the original messaging from Democrats, including the Biden administration, was centered on COVID. Initially, one White House official said last week that the protests were sparked by a, quote, concern about rising COVID cases, not necessarily the oppressive government. | |
| Senator Marco Rubio of Florida told The Daily Wire earlier that he disagreed with that assessment. | |
| These protests were not about COVID. These protests were not about food shortages. | |
| Cuba's been dealing with food shortages forever. | |
| And COVID is spreading throughout the world. | |
| These protests were about what the protesters said they were about. | |
| Libertad, which means liberty. | |
| Now, as a result of the pushback, the White House seemed to walk those claims back at a press conference later in the week. | |
| Press Secretary Jen Psaki called communism a, quote, failed ideology and said it had let down the people of Cuba. | |
| President Biden issued a similar statement, which surprised many people. | |
| Communism is a failed system, universally failed system. | |
| And I don't see socialism as a very useful substitute, but that's another story. | |
| So should we expect to see any changes in U.S. policy towards Cuba? | |
| There have been two announcements so far from the administration, but nothing that you'd call groundbreaking. | |
| First, the Biden administration said that they'd be looking into reversing a law that prevents Cuban exiles from sending money back to their families still on the island. | |
| President Trump had made that practice illegal in 2017 over concerns that the communist regime was simply taking the money for themselves. | |
| The administration also announced that they're instructing the State Department to consider expanding their presence in Havana. | |
| Republicans and Democrats don't agree on much lately. | |
| Are they at least aligned on Cuba? | |
| No. | |
| Many Republicans want to see a stronger stance against the communist regime. | |
| They say it's important to show support for the pro-democracy protesters. | |
| Democrats, on the other hand, say the best way to support the Cuban people is by loosening economic sanctions against Cuba. | |
| So now it's a waiting game to see if the administration will go any further. | |
| Definitely a major movement developing in Cuba right now. | |
| Thanks for coming on, Cabot. | |
| Anytime. | |
| Anytime. | |
| Immigration has become a defining issue for the Biden administration. | |
| And the latest numbers show that the U.S. just reached a new milestone with illegal immigrant crossings. | |
| Joining us to discuss the border situation is Daily Wire's Ben Johnson. | |
| Morning, Ben. | |
| Good morning, John. | |
| So illegal crossings have been climbing every month. | |
| What's the latest from the border? | |
| The government just released the numbers for June, and they show near record levels of illegal border crossings. | |
| Already this fiscal year, more than a million people have entered the U.S. illegally. | |
| That's the first time that's happened since 2006. | |
| If the trend continues, that would mean a million illegal immigrants have already crossed the border since January. | |
| We'll find that out next month. | |
| The other important statistics, the number of illegal border crossings that took place last month. | |
| Almost 189,000 illegal immigrants entered the U.S. in June. | |
| That's the second highest number of monthly entries in U.S. history behind March of 2000. | |
| So a record number going back a couple of decades. | |
| Right. | |
| And the timing of the surge is also an issue. | |
| The Biden administration has said the rising number of border crossings after his inauguration was part of a regular seasonal increase, but there's nothing seasonal about an immigration surge in June. | |
| A spike over the summer is almost unheard of. | |
| Usually border crossings reach their high around March and then fall over the summer when temperatures rise. | |
| According to CBP statistics, this is only the second time this century that border crossings increase between the months of May and June. | |
| Border crossings fall in the summer because people don't want to cross the desert when the temperature is over 100 degrees. | |
| Heat, exposure and abandonment are putting people at risk. | |
| The Border Patrol sent out 9,500 rescue missions this year to try and save illegal immigrants' lives. | |
| That's an 81% increase over last year. | |
| Wow. | |
| What's driving so many people to make such a dangerous journey? | |
| The Biden administration primarily blames violence in Central America. | |
| The GOP primarily blames President Biden. | |
| On Tuesday, Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee released a 37-page report documenting every Biden administration policy they believes given the world the message that our border is open. | |
| So partisan division, no surprise there. | |
| What are some of the policy changes Republicans highlighted? | |
| They point to President Biden announcing a 100-day freeze on deportations and lifting a policy requiring would-be entrance to stay in Mexico. | |
| He also reversed a series of asylum agreements that President Trump had signed, which kept asylum seekers waiting outside the United States. | |
| Republicans also noted that President Biden essentially reinstated the catch-and-release policy. | |
| And, of course, he stopped building the wall on the southern border. | |
| So they say it's not one particular policy, it's the combination. | |
| That's right. | |
| With the numbers adding up, is Biden done changing policies? | |
| No. | |
| More changes are coming, and soon. | |
| Now the Biden administration is talking about lifting Title 42. | |
| That lets border officials expel illegal immigrants during times of disease outbreaks, like COVID-19. | |
| More than 200,000 entrants were deported under Title 42 in the last two months alone. | |
| Officials announced that the president's considering lifting that policy by the end of this month. | |
| So we might have more months like this ahead. | |
| Ben, thanks for the reporting. | |
| Thanks for having me. | |
| So subscribe now to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts so that you don't miss a beat. | |
| And if you like what you hear, leave a five-star review and help point fellow Americans in the direction of the truth. |
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