Morning Wire

Biden's Ukraine Aid & Border Wall Sale Paused | 12.31.24

President Biden rushes more aid to Ukraine, Texas stops the Biden administration’s push to ditch border wall materials, and a powerful union for federal workers risks being called hypocritical to better fight Trump. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Netsuite: Make better business decisions with NetSuite https://www.NetSuite.com/MORNINGWIRE Black Rifle Coffee: Drink America's coffee at https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Ramp: Now get $250 off when you join Ramp. Go to http://www.ramp.com/WIRE

Duration:: 14m
Broadcast on:: 31 Dec 2024
Audio Format:: other

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President Biden brushes more aid to Ukraine as another debt-sealing battle in Congress takes shape. "What they've always been trying to do here is just push as many weapons as much as material as they can into Ukraine to strengthen the Ukrainian position." How does this impact the incoming administration and will the House Speaker hang on to his gavel? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, December 31st, and this is a New Year's Eve edition of Morning Wire. Trump celebrates a crucial win after Texas successfully sues to stop the Biden administration from selling off border wall materials. "The Biden administration has not only ignored the law, they've actually violated the law in many ways. And there's going to be a lot of oversight and investigation of what exactly happened in this administration. It didn't even go to Congress." And a powerful union for federal workers sparks controversy in its attempt to thwart Trump. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Over 38,000 businesses have future-proofed their operations with NetSuite by Oracle, the #1 cloud ERP. It's your all-in-one for accounting, inventory, HR, and more. With real-time insight and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. With just days left in office, President Biden is sending one last burst of aid to Ukraine. Just as Congress gears up for a battle over the debt limit. Here with an update on these year-end developments is daily wire deputy managing editor Tim Rice. So, Tim, let's start with Ukraine. What does that aid package look like? Well, Georgia, it's a costly one, $2.5 billion in security assistance, which includes artillery, other weapons, and air defense systems. Half of that is coming directly from the Pentagon, while the other half comes from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which essentially lets the U.S. government procure weapons from defense contractors on behalf of Ukraine. On top of that, the Treasury Department is releasing $3.4 billion in additional budgetary aid to Ukraine. So that's about $6 billion altogether, and brings the total amount of money dispersed to Ukraine under the Biden administration to around $175 billion. It's pretty clear to anyone watching this that Biden is trying to send as much money as possible to Ukraine before Trump takes office and has a chance to turn off the hose. When his statement announcing the grant, Biden pretty much admits to this. He said he's directed his administration to continue surging as much assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible. And he stresses that, "At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine's position in this war over the remainder of my term in office." So, if President Biden is pretty openly thumbing his nose at Trump here, what kind of position is that going to leave Trump in when he comes into office? Well, in terms of the aid in self, this doesn't really change much. Trump and JD Vance campaigned on reducing aid to Ukraine and have consistently criticized Biden for doing stuff like this. So Trump's still in a good position to keep that campaign promise and stop the aid to Ukraine. But Biden's final gift could make things tricky for Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson as they negotiate the ongoing battle over the debt limit. Remember, the House narrowly avoided a government shutdown days before Christmas when they passed the bill to fund the government until the spring. That was after conservative lawmakers helped kill a funding bill backed by Trump and spearhead by Johnson that would have extended the debt ceiling for at least two more years. Trump has called for the ridiculous debt ceiling to be extended to 2029 or eliminated outright, which is a deal breaker for budget hawks like Senator Rand Paul and members of the Freedom Caucus. There have been rumblings of a plan to oust Johnson for his willingness to extend the debt ceiling, and this is where the Ukraine stuff comes in. Some of Johnson's critics have slammed his willingness to compromise with Democrats on Ukraine funding. So, even though this most recent tranche of aid was going to Zelensky with or without Johnson's buy in, the optics certainly aren't good for an already embattled speaker. And now listeners will remember Johnson secured the speaker's gavel after a pretty similar fight over the national debt. Does it seem like history is going to repeat itself? Well, we'll have to see. On the one hand, Republicans have a razor thin majority in the house, just 219 to 215. That means Johnson can only afford to lose one member of his caucus and keep his seat. But things have started to look up for Johnson in recent days. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich praised his leadership and he got support from New York Congressman Mike Lawler who said that anyone who thinks they can oust Johnson is being unrealistic. But the speaker's biggest boost came yesterday when he got a sweeping endorsement from Trump, who wrote on Truth Social that Speaker Mike Johnson is a good hardworking religious man. He will do the right thing and we will continue to win. Mike has my complete and total endorsement. I'm stressed that Republicans were the party of common sense and urged lawmakers not to blow this great opportunity we have been given to enact change by wasting time on internal squabbles. Well, as far as endorsements go, that's a pretty big one for Johnson to get. Tim, thanks for reporting. Hey guys, producer Brandon here, Black Rifle Coffee helps you wake up each morning feeling dialed in and ready to make the most of your day. And now's your chance to get 20% off your purchase using code dailywire@blackrefulcoffee.com. All of their explosive coffees are roasted right here in the USA by a veteran-led team of expert roasters obsessed with crafting the perfect cup of coffee. Every Black Rifle purchase gives back to those who serve our nation your support makes it possible for Black Rifle Coffee Company to help provide funding, training and equipment to our nation's military and first responders head over to their site now for 20% off your purchase with code dailywire. The Biden administration has agreed to stop the sale of border wall materials after a legal challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The administration has auctioned off bollards and concrete originally purchased for the wall since 2023. But a December report from the daily wire drew scrutiny to the practice. The daily wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the legal battle over the border wall. So Tim, what's the latest on this case? President-elect Donald Trump received some good news from a Texas court on Friday. The Biden administration agreed to pause the sale of border wall materials for 30 days. Enough time for Trump to take office. According to Paxton's office, this pause will be backed by a court order. So the Biden administration could face court sanctions if it breaks the agreement. The court also gave Paxton's office approval to investigate whether any of the sales were in violation of an injunction from back in March. Paxton, along with the attorney general in Missouri, sued the Biden administration in 2021 over the administration's attempt to redirect funds set aside for border wall construction. Friday's order says that Paxton can investigate whether any of the materials sold off would have fallen under that injunction. If so, the officials responsible could be held in contempt of court. So this is a big win for Trump. How did he react to the news? He posted a statement on his social media platform, Truth Social, calling the agreement a major crucial win for America and our national security. He said he intends to use those materials left to build the wall and, quote, protect our country from violent migrant crime, fentanyl smuggling, sex trafficking, terror attacks, and other heinous, nation-ending disasters. Now while this controversy blew up in the past couple weeks, the sale of border wall construction materials has actually been going on since last year. According to the White House, the sale was approved by Congress in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act. So what was the original intent of the law? Presumably it passed a GOP-controlled house. Well, according to Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the original intent of the Finish It Act included in the NDAA was to designate that the materials either needed to be used on wall projects or sold to border states to be used on the wall. The Department of Defense sold about 60% of the wall materials to Texas, California, and the US border patrol, but it sold the remaining 40% to GovPlanet under a sales contract that began in June, and those sales were offered for pennies on the dollar. Republicans say it wasn't supposed to be a fire sale just to liquidate the materials, which is what ended up happening. So how did the original intent get misconstrued and end up as a fire sale? That's unclear, but it led Trump to accuse Biden and government bureaucrats of trying to undermine the new administration before it even gets started. Now Trump and his allies have promised to clean out agencies of entrenched bureaucrats who abuse their positions to buck the president's, what's known as the deep state. Here's Trump's border czar Tom Hohman talking to the daily wire and warning those bureaucrats to get moving. God help him because we'll be looking for those bad actors. Look, we know we pretty much know where the bodies are buried and we know who's who. The president of the United States is coming up with a agenda. If you don't like the agenda, they get another job. If we don't get another job, we'll get you another job. So that warning could very well apply to anyone involved in this latest controversy of the border wall. Trump and Hohman are going to look at this and go after anyone that they think may try to impede Trump's immigration agenda. Tim, thanks for joining us. Good to be on. A massive federal union which represents some 750,000 federal employees may be one of the biggest impediments to Trump's reformation of the federal workforce. The American Federation of Government Employees is slashing work from home for the operatives at Union headquarters so they can work more productively against Trump's agenda. That's according to a new report from Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiac, who joins us now. Hey, Luke. So what exactly is going on here? Hey, John, layers of irony is what's going on here. The Union bosses are suggesting that because battling Donald Trump is so important, their internal staff need to work really hard. And that includes starting to work from the Union's office rather than from home, far more, at least four days a week in the office now. One of the big parts of what's keeping them so busy is fighting for federal employees to keep working from home. Often four days or more at home. So you have the Union locking an extensive telework for employees it represents while clamping down on telework for its own full-time staff of operatives. So very contradictory actions there. Exactly. FGE's in-house employees actually have their own Union representing them against AFGE management and they have filed a grievance against AFGE President Everett Kelly. They're saying it's hypocritical for the Union to tell taxpayers that there are only upsides to feds working from home while telling employees of the Union itself to report to the office. And how is the Union trying to square that circle? About as well as circles are squared, I guess. President Kelly has responded by saying that as the boss, he has the right to make determination about basic work requirements. Now the reason this is so important is that it seems like AFGE is acknowledging that telework isn't always the best way to get things done when you're working hard on an important mission. That's not what it's been saying in the five-year agreements it's been signing with the Biden administration, which say large-scale telework advances DEI helps the environment and increases productivity. How chronic is this remote work issue at this point for the federal government? So even with COVID-long in the past, federal employees still work from home at such rates that the government buildings are only 12% occupied. That's according to a Senate report. Trump has said he intends to call workers back to the office. But in November, Joe Biden's Social Security Commissioner signed a contract through 2029, giving away the right of management to change telework from the status quo. 2020 is so locking that in for Trump's whole term. Exactly. AFGE, it turns out, has signed quite a few contracts binding the incoming administration. On December 18th, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission signed one agreeing that, quote, "All EEOC positions are eligible for some amount of telework." AFGE's contracts with agencies often lay out procedures for telework up to four days a week, plus some employees being fully remote. But that's for taxpayer-funded employees. It seems when it comes to their own union employees, they have sort of a different perspective here. Correct. If the office is helpful when the work is really urgent and important, like if you stopping the Trump administration, then the implication is that AFGE doesn't view actually serving the public in these agency jobs to be as important or urgent. All right. So the union president contends he has the right to tell his own operatives that they need to come into the office, and he rejects the claim that it violates a contract. Is Trump going to be able to say the same thing about all federal employees? That's the question. No head of an executive branch can succeed unless he can mobilize the two million people working for him in service of his agenda. Right off the bat, forcing return to work could be crucial for shrinking the federal government, because a lot of remote employees have moved to low-costed living areas, and they'll actually quit rather than come back. I analyze six long-term contracts signed by AFGE this year, and while all of them contain language praising and boosting telework, most or maybe even all of them contain loopholes that would enable management to stop it. Although the language is murky enough that they could be tied up in court for a while. It's definitely surprising that these agency headquarters are still largely empty, and it really gets to the question of whether government agencies exist to serve the public or their own workforce. Luke, thanks for reporting. Sure thing. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know. Are you a finance professional? Are you looking for a better way to maximize productivity and cut wasteful spending? 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