Donald Trump and ABC reach settlement in defamation suit, Texas doctor sued over illegal use of abortion pills, and the great drone drama continues. Get the facts first with Morning WireBeam: Exclusive discount for my listeners! Use promo code WIRE at https://www.ShopBeam.com/WireZBiotics: The drink before drinking with ZBiotics. Get 15% off your order with promo code WIRE at https://www.ZBiotics.com/Wire
ABC News agrees to pay out millions for pushing false allegations against Donald Trump, while the president-elect enjoys a hero's welcome at the Army-Navy game.
We discuss what forced the network's hand and a new policy proposal from Trump that's creating some buzz.
I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, December 16th, and this is Morning Wire. Texas is suing a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills across state lines. The suit will put blue states abortion shield laws to the test.
And sightings of unidentified drones have expanded, sparking concern in the Northeast and more questions for officials.
Whatever these drones are doing, the government really doesn't want us to know. There's no way the Department of Defense does not know what's going on.
Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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Over the weekend, ABC News admitted fault and agreed to pay $15 million to Donald Trump after anchor George Stephanopoulos falsely accused him of rape.
Here with the details on another packed weekend for the president-elect is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips. Hey, Cabot, so first, a big payout and apology from ABC. What can you tell us about that?
Well, Donald Trump continues to ride high. Just weeks after the final criminal cases against him were brought to an end, and days after being named Time Magazine's Person of the Year, he enjoyed another legal victory, this time regarding a lawsuit he had filed against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos.
On Saturday, the two sides reached a settlement with the network agreeing to pay $15 million to Trump's presidential library and another million to cover his legal fees. It all started back in March when Stephanopoulos, ABC's top anchor, falsely claimed during an interview with rep Nancy Mace that a jury had found Trump, quote, raped columnist E. Jean Carroll.
I'm asking you a very simple question. And I answered it.
You're shaming me for my political choices.
I'm asking you a question about why you endorse someone who's been found liable for rape.
Just answer the question. It was not a criminal court.
This was a civil court. And by the way, why are you supporting someone who's been found liable for rape?
During that interview, Stephanopoulos repeated that false claim 10 times. But again, it was not true. In the case he was referencing, the jury specifically stated that Carol had not proven Trump raped her in a department store in the 90s. Remember, Carol also was not able to provide even the exact month or year when that supposed assault took place.
Trump was ordered by a judge in that case to pay Carroll more than $80 million in damages for battery and defamation. But he was importantly never found guilty of the rape allegation. In response to those false claims from Stephanopoulos, Trump filed that defamation suit against him in ABC. And this weekend, as part of that settlement, the network agreed to admit fault.
That is quite the reversal from Stephanopoulos, who initially struck a defiant tone, claiming he did nothing wrong and would not be intimidated by the lawsuit. Here he is on CBS Late Night with Stephen Colbert, for example.
How does it feel to be sued by a former president for defamation for just doing your job?
Unfortunately, it now comes with the territory, but I'm not going to be cowed out of doing my job because of the threat of Donald Trump.
But ultimately, again, he did admit fault. In addition to the $15 million payout to the President-elect's library, Stephanopoulos and ABC also agreed to publish an apology on their website that reads, quote, made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC's This Week on March 10th, 2024.
All right, so still pretty vague statement there. So another big legal win for Trump, and he also made a high-profile public appearance as all of this news was breaking, correct?
Right. He attended the annual Army-Navy football game in D.C., joined by his VP J.D. Vance, Elon Musk, Pete Hegseth, and their guest of honor, Daniel Penny, who was acquitted this month in that New York City subway trial. Ahead of the game, Vance issued a statement saying, quote, Daniel's a good guy and New York's mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone.
I'm grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he's able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage. Ahead of kickoff, Trump and Vance received a raucous welcome from the sellout crowd, which erupted in chants of USA as they waved from their box.
Yeah, that was quite a moment there. Now, before we go, one final piece of Trump news, this one a policy proposal. Tell us about that.
Yeah, Trump now wading into one of the most hotly contested policy debates of our time, daylight savings. In a social media post Saturday, he said, quote, the Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate daylight saving time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn't. Daylight saving time is inconvenient and very costly to our nation.
Now, in the past few decades, lawmakers here and there have floated the idea, citing medical research, that the current system is detrimental to public health. throwing off sleep cycles. But efforts have always stalled. Trump hopes to break that trend and end the practice once and for all. We'll have to wait and see what exactly that proposed legislation looks like.
But maybe this will be the last year, John, we have to fiddle with our clocks.
Seriously, please, let's hope. Cabot, thanks for reporting.
Anytime.
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Texas is suing a New York doctor over her alleged distribution of abortion pills to a Dallas resident in violation of Texas law. The case marks the first challenge to the shield laws many Democrat-controlled states set up after the fall of Roe.
Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham is here now with the details. So Megan, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just announced the suit on Friday and it's the first of its kind. What's the basis for it?
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
Now, what makes this such a groundbreaking suit, though, is because it directly conflicts with that New York law, correct?
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.
We saw a hardline mega judge in Amarillo, Texas issued an unprecedented decree banning medication that countless women have relied upon safely to terminate pregnancies or manage miscarriages, overruling the experts, doctors, the FDA, scientists. It was an attack on abortion and ultimately an attack on democracy. That was Texas.
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?
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.
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.
So this is a real showdown. Could likely go to SCOTUS. Yep, very possible. Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime. Drone sightings have been reported in at least six states in the past month, and federal officials have yet to determine where they came from or what they're doing.
Daily Wire reporter Tim Pearce is here to talk about the swarms of UFOs disturbing Americans all over the Northeast. Hey, Tim, so we touched on this last week, a truly mind-boggling story in many ways. What have we learned about these drones so far?
Hey, John, not much, unfortunately. So far, drones have been spotted in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Virginia. But federal officials still haven't said much about them. Here's Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on ABC News on Sunday.
Look, it is our job to be vigilant in the federal government with our state and local partners on behalf of the American public, and we can assure their safety by reason of that vigilance. We've deployed personnel, technology, and if there is any reason for concern, if we identify any foreign involvement or criminal activity, we will communicate with the American public accordingly.
Right now, we are not aware of any. If we become aware of any, we will communicate accordingly and take appropriate action.
Trump has said if it's true the government really knows as little about these drones as it says, it should shoot them down. Here's Mayorkas essentially saying no to that.
We are aware of the drone sightings, as I've said. I think there are more than 8,000 drones flown every day in the United States. With respect to the ability to incapacitate those drones, we are limited in our authorities. We have certain agencies within the Department of Homeland Security that can do that and outside our department. But we need those authorities expanded as well.
So Mayorkas says his hands are tied, but that response doesn't seem to be sitting well with many of the local officials whose constituents are reporting these UFOs.
Yeah, but it seems like a pretty indifferent response to what many are saying could be a significant national security issue. How are locals on the ground responding?
People are unsettled with these drones buzzing around and frustrated with the response. And those feelings are driving skepticism with what federal officials are saying. New Jersey Republican State Senator John Bramnick has called for a limited state of emergency to get some answers. Here's Bramnick giving his thoughts on NewsNation on Saturday.
Not only did I call for a limited state of emergency and the FAA shutting down the airspace for drones, but also having the Department of Defense come in and answer questions. If the Department of Defense doesn't know where the origins are for these so-called drones, then we're in trouble.
Bramnick went on to highlight one of the reasons why he finds the situation so wild.
We always thought that if there was something in the air the size of a car, that the Department of Defense would know where it came from, what its origin was, and what its purpose was. Now you have a United States senator going out with the local police, what, to look for fireworks at night? That is scary.
And it's for some of the reasons that Bramnick laid out that some local officials are questioning whether the Biden administration doesn't already know all about the drones. But then if that's true, why is the FAA putting in flight restrictions? There are just many unanswered questions here and many officials are frankly over it.
An understandable reaction, especially when the federal response has been so unimpressive. Tim, thanks for joining us. Good to be on. Hey, thank you for listening this morning. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation.
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