Democratic PAC Accused Of Donor Fraud & Could Paramount Leave California? | 9.18.26

Okay, first before we give you the facts of the day, run Hyde Fight Infadels is streaming now only on Daily Wire. It's an ode to the great action movies of the 80s and 90s. There is even a love story which nobody expected. And you can support Daily Wire's mission to continue making movies that people actually want to watch. Go check it out. Inspiring Bible Stories and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement or a fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life. Download the Pray.com app today. A new Congressional Report levels damning accusations against major democratic fundraising platform Act Blue. We talk to the congressman leading the investigation. Act Blue is not taking fraud seriously. We know foreign funds are coming in. And I remain very concerned that they intentionally misled Congress. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley, Georgia Howe is off this morning. It's Friday, September 18th. This is Morning Wire. Hollywood appears set to suffer another massive blow as Paramount Studios signals it's moving out of California. What would this mean for the industry and where would the studio land? And accusations of paying for votes. It's a democratic pack pushing James Tallerico in Texas. I was a Republican. I would be pissed. I would be like, that's Sadious. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Most of us mend a lot of time planning for the people that we love. You say for the house, you think about the kids' future. You make sure that bills are paid on time and everyone has what they need. Life insurance is really an extension of the same instinct. Nobody enjoys thinking about the possibility that they might not always be there. But there's peace of mind in knowing that you've taken steps to help provide some financial security for the people who depend on you. And ethos is made taking that step surprisingly simple. 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Congressman, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me on. So what more can you tell us about the findings of this report? Well, this report is the culmination really of three years of work looking into act blue. And a determination does act blue have the fraud prevention standards that are needed to prevent foreign funds from coming into our elections. And what we show is pretty clear that act blue is not taking fraud seriously. And I remain very concerned that they intentionally misled Congress as was reported by the New York Times. And so the American people should be concerned that foreign funds are entering our political system. And this report lays out the facts for everyone to be able to read. So where did you see some of the the biggest and most alarming red flags? Well, in particular, we asked act blue very directly. If a donation is being made from outside the United States into a US political campaign, what are the protocols in place to prevent a foreign actor from making that donation? And an act blue made it clear that they were reviewing passports to confirm an individual was who they say were a US citizen. Well, what we have now learned is that what act blue was really doing was just requiring individuals to type in a seven digit number. They weren't actually validating that that was a US passport number. And so this is really concerning. And it shows a pattern and practice of act blue not taking fraud seriously and not working to prevent foreign funds from coming into US elections. So they were not actually checking that these were legitimate passports. Exactly. They were not running this through a database or confirming that the individuals outside the United States were making donations were who they say they were. We have multiple documents that we share in this report that shows act blue is encouraging their employees to functionally look the other way to give the benefit of the doubt to the donor to process that donation rather than taking the second and third look to determine why that was funds were coming from outside the United States into US political campaigns. And was it actually a foreign individual making that donation? As we all know, US elections should be for US persons only. In particular, no US donors should be allowed. No foreign donors should be allowed to make donations to US political campaigns. And to be clear, what kind of communications are these that you reviewed? And also you're saying even if a donation was flagged as problematic that the supposed fraud team at act blue would often just wave them through. You're exactly right. And so we now subpoenaed internal documents from act blue. Of course, we invited individuals from act blue to come in in testifying, including in public hearings. And time and again, those employees and board members have chosen to plead the fifth and not answer our questions on the record. It's the documents that we subpoenaed from act blue themselves that tell the story. And what you see is recommendations from their fraud prevention team to effectively look the other way to process the donation to give the benefit of the doubt to the donor rather than to provide additional scrutiny. And so when IP addresses of the donation were showing up in places like Hong Kong, they were looking for reasons to process those donations. In one case that we highlight, an individual had a Twitter account that showed them as a US person. Otherwise, the other information told you it was a foreign person and ultimately act blue process that donation. And those funds came into US political campaigns. What are you expecting to be the consequences of this report? Will there be legal action taken? Well, the New York Times reports very clearly that they misled Congress. That is a serious offense. Ultimately, the United States Department of Justice will make their own decision if criminal conduct has been conducted. We have a real need to update our campaign finance laws for the digital era. They were not written for the era that we're in. This is our opportunity to fix it to prevent this going forward. But we also need to show the American people what happened and hold people accountable if laws were fully broken. Well, we'll leave it there. Congressman, thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I have a few items in my wardrobe that I reach for constantly. And of course, I've talked at length about quince sweaters. But since it's still over 90 degrees here in Nashville, I can't not mention linen tops. And the one I have on now, I have it in a few colors. It's so breezy, so easy to wear in summer. 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That's code Morningwire50off at factormeals.com Morningwire50off at factormeals.com. See the website for more details. one of Hollywood's most powerful studios may be about to leave Hollywood. Paramount Skydance is reportedly planning to move its headquarters out of California. Here with the details is Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham. And Megan, so there's been, you know, rumblings about this for a couple of months, but it wasn't clear just how serious Paramount was about moving. Can you walk us through what we actually know at this point versus what is just rumor? Yeah, John, I think the important thing to stress here at the outset is that Paramount has not made an announcement about this themselves. But the rumors are getting much more serious in particular because they're now coming from the mayor's office and from the California Attorney General's office. And that's because AG Rob Bonta has been the one leading the charge in this antitrust suit to try to block the Paramount Warner Brothers merger that the DOJ has already approved. So here's what Bonta has said. The federal government does not have exclusive jurisdiction to enforce antitrust law. It is shared jurisdiction, concurrent jurisdiction. States are additional watchdogs on the same block in forcing antitrust law. And so we have every right of we've exercised many times. We very much have a strong case. We've already shown its strength. Honestly, Paramount Warner Brothers is reeling and on the back foot because we keep beating them in court. Paramount CEO David Ellison has reportedly already secured an approval plan from his board for a contingency move. And that could happen as soon as October 1st, he says. So you know, this is what's coming out of Paramount that if this antitrust case isn't stopped, that they are going to look at moving as soon as October 1st. And again, Warner shareholders have already approved that. Now, if Paramount pulls the trigger, daily wire could actually get a new neighbor here because the rumor is that Paramount is looking for about 400,000 square feet or hundreds thousand square feet. So big building in the Nashville area. Yeah, I've got a place just in mind for that. How damaging would losing Paramount be for the city of Los Angeles? I think it would be devastating. So let's just go over a few of the numbers here. We know that Paramount is one of the oldest and most powerful studios in Hollywood. They've been on there a lot for about a hundred years. So you know, that's a lot of time for an institution to build up influence in the city and cause a massive ripple to L.A.'s economy. And so if we look at the leaked economic analysis that's coming out of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, they're estimating that if Paramount fully leaves California, the state could permanently lose as many as 58,000 jobs and up to 21 billion dollars a year in economic activity. And yeah, that includes as much as a $1.17 billion state and local tax revenue loss. So you know, that risk of you. Yes. And I think that risk helps explain why Gavin Newsom, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, they are trying to a little bit put the brakes on this and they have asked the AG's office to look at settling this suit. So a little bit of conflict among the devs on this, but Bonta has pushed back. And he is saying that this is simply Paramount, that these rumors about moving is simply Paramount trying to blackmail the states who brought the antitrust lawsuit. It is an attempt to blackmail the regulators who are daring to enforce the law, fairly and firmly, who are daring to stand up for the rule of law, for the free and fair market instead of a rig market. But you know, I think we have to keep in mind that Los Angeles has already lost a ton of business between, you know, streaming disruptions, the pandemic. So this is really an industry that cannot afford to take much more pain here. No. How are production staff and executives within Paramount, you know, responding to the news of this potential move? Well, we're hearing a lot of buzz that there are a lot of people in production and in those sea suites and executive offices who would be very open to moving. So page six said that L.A. staffers are being enticed by the lower housing and gas prices in places like Texas and Tennessee. Of course, there is no state income tax in those states. So, you know, that's pretty appealing, I think, to a lot of people. One executive that was quoted by page six said, I'll go to Nashville right now because he said that their state income, their lack of state income tax would allow him to keep about $133,000 of his million dollar salary. And then former L.A. News anchor Jeff Vaughn said that he has spoken to a number of Paramount employees who privately told him that their attitude is, please take us with you if Paramount goes. So, you know, the L.A. Times also says that they have talked to Paramount staffers who said they don't want to move. But, you know, overall, I can understand that the cost of living would probably be attractive to a lot of those staffers. Well, for sure, that was a major factor for the daily wireless decision to move to Nashville. We also looked at Texas and Florida variant-ticing states. Thank you so much for reporting. Yeah, thanks for having me, John. The Senate race in Texas has seen as one of the few opportunities for Democrats to flip a red Senate seat blue. Now, a pair of undercover videos have gone viral sparking questions about the campaign of Democrat candidate James Telarico. Joining us now with more is DailyWire reporter Jacob Wheeler. Jacob, first time in the studio. Welcome up. Thanks for having me. So, let's start with your exclusive reporting for the DailyWire, an undercover video featuring a female pastor of Telarico that's gone completely viral and raised a lot of questions about his campaign. Tell us about that. Yeah. So, I think what we learned from this video is that Telarico's own campaign is quite concerned about some of his past statements on transgender issues, religious issues. You know, these unearthed videos that we've seen a kind of a slow trickle of in the past several months show Telarico making these outwanda statements saying, "God is non-binary. God is not a Christian." Saying he loves transgender people more than anyone else other than his family and friends saying that there are six genders. And, of course, this is all very relevant in a culturally conservative state like Texas. And in an interview last week with Fox News, he tried to, you know, do a complete 180 on all of that, said, "Forget about my record. Forgive about what I've said. Now I support a nationwide ban on sex changes for minors. I do want to restrict boys from competing in women's sports. And the question is, is that going to fly in Texas?" And the DailyWire here, we have, we've obtained exclusive video this week of one of his own female ministers in Austin. She's a self-described lesbian. Her name is Reverend Babs Miller at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, who admitted on camera that his makeover is all-o-i. Take a listen. I think what you can learn from that video is that Democratic Party Insiders probably all the way up to Chuck Schumer in Washington have told him to kind of lay off the transgender, you know, gender ideology messaging because of how toxic it is, not just nationally, but in Texas. And in her own word, she says, "This is all for show." Yeah, I think there's been a lot of outside speculation about the sincerity of some of Teleriko's flips on these issues. This just raises more questions. Now there's another undercover video that's really made waves this week. Possibly has some broader implications, maybe legal implications. And it relates to a pay for vote scheme allegedly. What did we see in this video? This is another crazy story from Town Hall. They obtained other undercover footage showing a Texas Democratic group organizing, as you said, a scheme to basically buy votes. Now this video stars a character named Sky McAdams. He was an organizing member for a Democratic Texas Super PAC, basically talking about a program that pays people 25 bucks an hour for a one hour zoom class about how to vote and about voting in general. And if you see in this video, he literally called it a quote, "round about way to pay people for votes." We are paying people 25 dollars to extend a one hour zoom fast to, like, the learn why voting is important, and why the Republicans are causing all these bad things. Yeah, yeah. So it's like a round about way of paying people for their votes, essentially. So in that video, you hear McAdams describing this program as basically a creative way to get around existing laws on the books. And they made a shocking admission saying, quote, "If I was a Republican, I would be pissed. I would be like, that's shady as F." And it is shady, John, because the campaign finance report filed in July shows that Texas majority PAC paying another group half a million dollars for a, quote, relational organizing program. And when you do the math on that, at 25 bucks per vote, that could be good for 20,000 ballots, according to Town Hall, who also reported today that that individual in the video has been fired. It's a lot of votes that they could potentially be buying there. So final question, you know, this has been a tight race all along. A telerico has had the edge in polling. Where do things stand now? So this race remains very competitive, John. A new Emerson college poll today showed Tallariko up by one percentage point. Though when you look at real clear politics, that averages all the polls, he's up by three. So I think Paxton's campaign, John, is really banking on these unearthed videos and outsize spending in this race to kind of shift the dynamics in his favor. But I think the questions remains on whether these disgruntled conservatives who like John Cohn and whether they're going to get off the fence to vote for Paxton, and I think something to look for is the Hispanic vote. We saw President Trump make historic gains with Latinos in Texas, especially along the border, down there in South Texas, but polls do show kind of waning support among that demographic. And Ken Paxton, he can afford to lose Latinos, but he can't lose them by 2030 points as some polls say he's going to. So I think that is going to be a big focus and turnout is going to be key, but no question if Republicans want to keep their majority in the Senate, this is a must-win race. It's an absolutely crucial seat for both parties. Jacob, thank you so much for reporting. Thanks for waking up with us. The reporting that fuels this show is only possible because you tune in every day and because of all of our daily wire subscribers. To enjoy the show, add free and join our mission, become a member at dailywire.com. So stick around after this for the new trailer for Run Hyde Fight in Fidelity. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know. The Islam will conquer the West. Are we paying attention? They've taken over the building, they're downstairs and they've blocked the doors. I seek forgiveness from Allah, the Almighty. We cannot run and hide. 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