WEF’s Conservative Outreach & Biden's NH Ballot Blues | 1.18.23

00:03
Speaker 2
World leaders are back in Davos again to discuss global issues and initiatives. But this year, a major focus is on rehabilitating their image with the populist right.

00:14
Speaker 3
What's behind the new pr push, and does it signal a real change in direction?

00:18
Speaker 2
I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor in chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, January 18, and this is Morningwire. The Democratic Party's decision to downgrade the New Hampshire primary over diversity concerns has now put President Biden in an awkward position.

00:39
Speaker 1
To say that the president wants to participate in the primary but won't put his name on the ballot is really the height of hypocrisy.

00:47
Speaker 2
We discussed the president's write in problem and the Democrat challenger trying to shake things up.

00:53
Speaker 3
And as a government shutdown looms again this week, lawmakers are scrambling to reach a deal on this year's budget.

01:01
Speaker 1
I will not vote to fund the invasion of our country, and I will not vote to fund the government until we shut down and secure the border.

01:10
Speaker 2
Thanks for waking up with Morningwire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

01:21
Speaker 4
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01:55
Speaker 3
The annual gathering of the World Economic Forum is underway in Davos, Switzerland, with theme of rebuilding trust in the future. The event, known for drawing world leaders, business titans, and other global elite, has become increasingly controversial, with critics saying it promotes a socialist agenda.

02:13
Speaker 2
Here with more about this year's Davos meeting is daily wire culture reporter Megan Basham. So, Megan, just looking at theme for Davos this year, it's about rebuilding trust. Does this mean the organization is aware they might have a.

02:28
Speaker 5
Well, you know, on the surface, that theme refers to a survey that the WEF released last Sunday before this gathering, and it shows that the public's confidence institutions like government and media and academia has seen a pretty massive decline in the west. So the UK registered the most distrust overall. But the US is most distrustful of innovation in particular, this survey found that resistance to tech innovations like AI is especially strong on the right, though it did also find that the public trusts businesses to introduce innovations much more than it trusts governments. Or still, you know, going back to your question, based on some of the invitations that went out this year, it does seem like the forum might be aware that perception of them isn't high among conservatives in particular.

03:18
Speaker 5
So to give you just one example, there's Kevin Roberts, who is the president of the Heritage foundation. He has heavily criticized the forum in the past. He's characterized it as hostile to american values. But this year he was actually invited to sit on a panel on what to expect from a possible republican administration. So author Larry Taunton is in Davos this week, and he's covering the event for his podcast. Ideas have consequences. I asked him if he's getting the sense that the forum is trying to rehabilitate its image, and he said, again, only at a very surface level. Though he does believe that they are concerned about what might happen if Republicans retake the White House.

03:58
Speaker 6
I don't think they're worried so much in that regard, because they recognize, unfortunately, probably accurately, that those of us who are protesting are farmers and they're truckers and they're red state Americans. They're generally not people in power. Now, Trump does frighten them. He frightens them a lot.

04:19
Speaker 2
And why is Trump so uniquely frightening to them?

04:22
Speaker 5
Well, it's in the sense that Trump represents a rising populist sentiment that we're really seeing across the western world. So Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and now Germany and Argentina, and that populist sentiment is pretty at ods with a lot of the forum's agenda. So perhaps as an appeasement, they invited the new argentinian prime minister, Javier Malay, to speak, and he is a Trump admirer. And he offered some pretty pointed words in his speech at Davos on Wednesday.

04:53
Speaker 7
Today I'm here to tell you that the western world is in danger, and it is endangered because those who are supposed to have to defend the values of the west are co opted by a vision of the world that inexperably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty. Unfortunately, in recent decades, motivated by some well meaning individuals willing to help others, and others motivated by the wish to belong to a privileged caste, the main leaders of the western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism. We're here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world. Rather, they are the root cause do, believe me, no one better place than us Argentines to testify to these two points.

05:55
Speaker 5
So certainly this flies in the face of issues that are continuing to be prioritized at Davos this year, things like environmental regulation and controlling disinformation and misinformation, which of course inevitably means policing speech. So Taunton said heard several speakers discussing efforts, for example, to suppress Twitter.

06:14
Speaker 2
So does inviting Roberts and giving me lay a high profile speaking slot suggest the WEF might change course?

06:23
Speaker 5
Taunton told me he see no indication of that on the ground, but he does think that giving Melay this forum is part of that pr issue that you brought up.

06:32
Speaker 6
They knew what they were going to get with him, but what they do is they kind of tolerate him and they clap. But he won't change anything about what they think or what they're going to do. So it's their way of looking very diverse.

06:46
Speaker 5
So Taunton believes it's essentially brand management. You might say it's hard to even.

06:51
Speaker 2
Imagine what it would take to change people's opinions about the WEF at this point. Megan, thanks for reporting.

06:56
Speaker 5
Anytime.

07:03
Speaker 4
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07:28
Speaker 1
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07:34
Speaker 2
With most of the attention on the republican primary, Democrats in New Hampshire will also go to the polls on Tuesday, but under very abnormal circumstances, the.

07:44
Speaker 3
Democratic primary in the state will be non binding. That's because it's refused to hold its vote after South Carolina, as mandated by the Democratic Party. As a result, Joe Biden is not on the ballot, but his would be rival, Congressman Dean Phillips, is here to discuss is daily Wire contributor David Marcus. Hey Dave. So first of all, walk us through what will actually happen for democratic voters on Tuesday when they show up at the polls.

08:09
Speaker 8
Morning, John. The polls will be open like any other election, but as you mentioned, Joe Biden is not on the ballot, though he can be written in. About a dozen people are listed, and most interesting among them is Dean Phillips, who some polls show is pulling 20% to 25% in matchups against the president historically, incumbents who face that kind of challenge in the New Hampshire primary lose the general election, as happened to Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush. These votes are not going to count, but they are going to be counted. Team Biden certainly hopes that nobody will pay attention to it because it is non binding. But people are already starting to notice.

08:47
Speaker 3
What exactly was the justification for Democrats in making this change? To put South Carolina first, even at the cost of basically disenfranchising New Hampshire Democrats?

08:56
Speaker 8
This has been in the water for a while. Progressives have argued that Iowa and New Hampshire lack sufficient diversity to play such a key role and that South Carolina better reflects the makeup of the party. But pulling the trigger on it for this cycle raises suspicion, because Biden was really humiliated in 2020 in New Hampshire when he tallied a woeful 8% right. And it was a win in South Carolina that saved his campaign. So clearly, this is at the very least a major side benefit to Biden and the party of erasing New Hampshire. Whether that was the primary motivation, if you'll forgive a pun, only the party.

09:33
Speaker 3
Could say, well, never a bad time for a pun. Given the extremely od situation in this primary, how should the media and the american people, for that matter, interpret whatever the results are on Tuesday? What will they actually tell us?

09:47
Speaker 8
Listen, if 25 or 30% of Democrats in New Hampshire show up to vote against Joe Biden in an election that doesn't even count, then that sends a message. Biden's team will protest that he wasn't even on the ballot and didn't campaign there. But first of all, that was their own choice. That may be backfiring now. And second, he's the sitting president of the United States. It's not like he lacks name recognition. And for what it's worth, if Phillips does well, he's going to shout it from the rooftops.

10:13
Speaker 3
Yeah, I'd imagine so. Finally, who is Dean Phillips? He seems to have come out of nowhere, and now he's getting some real attention here.

10:20
Speaker 8
Well, I came out of Minnesota not nowhere, but he's a congressman. His platform is sort of practical liberal policies, Main street versus the stock market. Unlike Biden, he has acknowledged that the situation on the border is a crisis. His campaign team is mainly headed up by Andrew Yang 2020 staff so, I mean, that's a bit of a clue to his general vibe. He's not a Joe Mansion type conservative or centrist Democrat, but he's also not running simply as a younger version of Joe Biden. This week, his super PAC received a million dollars from billionaire Bill Ackman, who also appeared with Phillips alongside Elon Musk on an ex spaces broadcast. Yeah, so things are happening for Phillips. Is it enough for him to poke his head into mainstream media coverage on Tuesday night with a strong showing?

11:05
Speaker 8
Joe Biden sure hopes not, but this story is getting harder and harder for even liberal outlets to ignore.

11:12
Speaker 3
Dave, thanks for joining us.

11:13
Speaker 8
Thanks for having me.

11:17
Speaker 3
Unless Congress can reach a deal on a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, the government could partially shut down tomorrow.

11:24
Speaker 2
Here to discuss the fraught situation in Washington is daily wire senior editor Cabot Phillips. So, Cabot, it seems like we've had threats of a shutdown nearly every other month for some time now. What's going on this time?

11:36
Speaker 1
Little context here. Congress has to agree annually on a budget for the next year or the government shuts down. The current deadline for a deal is this Friday, the 19th, but the two sides have been unable to pass anything, with the republican controlled House wanting budget cuts and the democrat controlled Senate wanting increased funding. But in the past few weeks, we have seen some signs of movement, with new House Speaker Mike Johnson agreeing to a preliminary deal last week with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

12:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, so tell us about those deals and the pushback they're drawing.

12:06
Speaker 1
So last week, Johnson and Schumer agreed on the outlines of a $1.7 trillion budget for the upcoming fiscal year. That deal, while praised by President Biden and leaders of both parties in the Senate, faced almost immediate pushback from hardline conservatives in the House who said that Johnson betrayed them. They accused the speaker of going back on his promise to make substantial budget cuts and vowed to vote it down in the House. So when it became clear the deal would not pass by this Friday's deadline, congressional leadership made another deal, this time on what's called a continuing resolution. That measure would essentially push the budget deadline back to march and allow both sides to iron out details on specific portions of the budget piece by piece.

12:44
Speaker 1
But even that resolution could be struck down if enough members vote against by Friday's deadline because republicans hold such a slim majority in the House. The reality here is that Johnson can only afford to lose a few votes on any piece of legislation, which gives those hardline conservatives quite a bit of leverage.

13:00
Speaker 2
Well, and that's resulted in quite a bit of pressure on the new speaker.

13:03
Speaker 1
Yeah, that is putting it lightly. Remember when Johnson took over last year, he won over skeptical Republicans by assuring them that he would make meaningful cuts to the budget once in power. While Johnson conceded that this current proposed budget with Schumer, quote, will not satisfy everyone. He claims it is, quote, the most favorable budget agreement republicans have achieved in a decade. But members to his right disagree. They have routinely said that they would only agree to a spending deal that not only cut the federal budget, but also included measures to secure the southern border. To that point, here's Bob Good, chair of the powerful House Freedom Caucus, speaking.

13:36
Speaker 9
Fox we ought to also secure the border as a condition of continuing to fund this government. Why would we give more money, billions of dollars for that matter, to a Department of Homeland Security that is facilitating the border invasion that is literally destroying the country?

13:51
Speaker 1
Republicans in the House, including Chip Roy of Texas, have now even tacitly threatened to hold a vote to oust Johnson if he does not agree to their terms. But it is worth noting a number of moderate Democrats have said off the record that they would cross the party line to vote for Johnson's deal and would even vote to keep him in power if hardlined conservatives tried to remove him the way they did McCarthy last year. And it's also interesting, President Biden has actually expressed at least some willingness to bend on the immigration front while he still refuses to use the term crisis to describe a situation, he told reporters this week that, quote, we have to make major changes at the border and that he's, quote, prepared to make significant alterations on that front.

14:30
Speaker 2
While a lot of Biden's voter base in blue cities certainly sees this situation as a cris could become a bipartisan issue, cabot, thanks for reporting.

14:38
Speaker 1
Anytime.

14:42
Speaker 3
That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know. Close.