Megan Basham
Appearances
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Well, you know, essentially because he was facing a revolt led by Elon Musk and the House Freedom Caucus. They felt that this was a bloated bill, more than 1,500 pages, that added on tens of billions in unnecessary new spending. And they said it was being rammed through before anyone could fully review it. Eric Burleson of Missouri called the bill a total dumpster fire.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Chip Roy of Texas said passing it would be the equivalent of eating a crap sandwich. So pretty pointed words there. Then there was Elon Musk. Trump has tasked him and Vivek Ramaswamy with finding spending cuts, and Musk clearly wanted Republicans to reject this bill. He'd been posting prolifically against it on X for days, including this clip of Ramaswamy that he shared on Wednesday.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Now, regular listeners will remember, Georgia, that we talked about the Global Engagement Center last week. That's a controversial State Department agency that is at the center of a joint Daily Wire and Federalist lawsuit alleging widespread censorship efforts against conservatives. Shutting it down has been a top priority for free speech advocates for a while, and its end did look imminent.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
But this bill extended its life for another year. Well, Musk called that criminal, and he said he would support primary challenges against any Republican who voted for it.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
No, not publicly, but Morning Wire has spoken with some sources on the Hill who say that one of the concerns is that shuttering the agency means that the center's staffers will be moved to other positions in the State Department. They say this would make it harder to root out corruption.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
So part of the reason some of these GOP leaders might like to see the center stay in place for another year is to allow the fully Republican controlled House, Senate and most importantly, the White House to take action to deal with this agency correctly, whether that's fully shutting it down or rooting out the corruption. So getting back to the bill more generally, why is Johnson supporting it?
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Well, he said on Fox Wednesday that Republicans are in an impossible position where they have a razor-thin margin in the House. And he said he didn't like the bill either, but that the House needed to pass it so they could fight for serious cuts after Trump takes office. This was Johnson on Fox talking about his conversations with Musk and Ramaswamy.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
But the final nail in the coffin likely came when Donald Trump put out a statement Wednesday night saying that he was totally against the continuing resolution and that the Republicans should pass a bill that doesn't include Democrat giveaways. So now Johnson will reportedly be looking to get a much narrower spending bill passed. All right, well, we'll see if he has better luck with that.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
So in 2022, when the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision, Texas was one of those states that had a trigger law on the books. Now that law had been passed in 2021, but it was superseded by Roe. Once Roe was overturned, it was then allowed to take effect. Essentially, it's a heartbeat law that bans abortion after around six weeks.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
So the Texas law also requires any physician who provides an abortion-inducing drug to examine the pregnant woman in person, meaning they can't simply have an appointment online or over the phone. This past July, however, New York doctor Margaret Daly Carpenter, who is the founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, a group that seeks to expand abortion access through mail delivery,
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
allegedly prescribed abortion pills to a 20-year-old Dallas woman who was around nine weeks pregnant. Now, according to that suit, the woman received the pills via the mail and after she took them, she began to experience serious complications and called the father to take her to the hospital.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
It was only at that point that he discovered she had ended her pregnancy and after getting her medical attention for what the suit calls severe bleeding, he then called the authorities. So Paxton says that Dr. Carpenter violated not only Texas's abortion law, but also a state law that requires any physician who treats patients through telehealth services to hold a valid Texas medical license.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
So he's asking the District Court of Collin County, Texas to enjoin Carpenter from providing abortion services to Texas residents and also to impose civil penalties of $250,000 for her violation of Texas law.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
Exactly. Because New York is one of 18 states that have an abortion shield law. And those are laws that protect doctors from prosecution when they provide abortions in violation of another state's law. In fact, in 2023, when New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed her state shield law, she specifically referenced Texas, perhaps expecting a showdown like this.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
So Hochul and New York Attorney General Letitia James both put out statements on Friday promising to oppose Paxton's suit, with James saying, quoting here, we will always protect our providers from unjust attempts to punish them for doing their job. Now, has Dr. Carpenter also put out a statement?
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
Not directly, but a spokesman for the abortion coalition that she founded said that abortion pills are, quote, FDA-approved medicine that are an essential part of women's health care. The spokesperson also accused Paxton of prioritizing his anti-abortion agenda over the health and well-being of women.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
Paxton, on the other hand, says that Texas, quoting, treasures the health and the lives of mothers and babies, and this is why out-of-state doctors may not illegally and dangerously prescribe abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents.