The Billionaire Tax Fight & AI Sends Big Banks Scrambling | 10.23.26

Okay, first, before we give you the facts of the day, Run, Hide, Fight! Infidels is streaming now only on Daily Wire. It's an ode to the great action movies of the 80s and 90s. There's 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. Everyone wants healthcare to be simpler and easier. That's why UnitedHealth Group is fast tracking more than 60% of children's procedures that used to need pre-approval. So more kids get the care they need when they need it. And speeding up procedure approvals and payments for more than 1,500 rural hospitals so they can focus on caring for their communities. And that's just the start. Learn more at uhg.com slash access. California is poised to impose the first ever billionaire tax, and it's sparking ultimatums from the state's most crucial tax payers. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howell. It's Friday, October 23rd. This is Morning Wire. Banks are sounding the alarm over unauthorized AI agents accessing accounts. But are customers actually at risk? And Netflix sees major staffing shakeups amid growing concern about its massively expensive Narnia adaptation. We need better execution in the U.S. Our content around the world is largely working. It's just not growing as fast as it could or as fast as we'd like. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Californians are already voting on a first-of-its-kind wealth tax that has major downstream implications. Here to parse through the potential consequences is our D.C. Bureau Chief Tim Rice. So Tim, first, for those who haven't been tracking this very much controversial tax, what exactly is it that you're going to be doing? What is it that you're going to be doing? What exactly is Proposition 40? Right, John. So Proposition 40 would impose a one-time 5% tax on any billionaire who was residing in California as of January 1st, 2026. So that's very specific and very odd and likely going to be, if this thing passes, which it does seem like it's going to pass, that's going to be the biggest legal sticking point. Because a lot of people say that having a retroactive tax of this size is going to be a big deal. And I think that's a big deal. And I think that's illegal in a lot of ways. Most notably, a lot of scholars say that it could violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which is obviously a pretty major impediment for a new tax. But assuming it does get implemented, as I said, every billionaire who was residing in California as of that date will have to pay a 5% tax. The idea behind this proposition, according to the advocates who wrote it, is that the money raised from taxing these billionaires will fund a state-run healthcare program that will offset the cost of living in California. And that's a big deal. And federal healthcare benefits made by President Trump's one big, beautiful bill. Now, scholars of the Hoover Institution say that actually, because a lot of billionaires would leave California rather than pay this tax in the long run, it would actually result in around $40 billion less for the state in the near future. So very controversial. And we're already seeing a number of tech leaders leaving or threatening to leave over the mere possibility of this tax. Well, like you said, this has the potential to push the billionaire class out of California almost altogether. How would this proposition change the financial landscape of California? And then also, what are the stock market implications of this? Yeah, I mean, so the best way to answer that question, Georgia, is to look at the fact that California Governor Gavin Newsom, certainly no conservative, fiscal conservative, or even centrist Democrat, has said that he opposes Proposition 40 because he fears the damage it will do to the state's tax base, not just in terms of the money that will leave the state following these billionaires, but also just in general, he thinks that this will disincentivize companies from coming, right? Silicon Valley, it could be no more in a decade after this tax takes effect, right? So, I mean, the stock market itself, the disruptions that a lot of tech companies moving, or even their CEOs moving, could cause is pretty significant or has the possibility to be pretty significant. To your point, Georgia, the meta board was apoplectic at the idea of Zuckerberg leaving California, not leaving the company, just leaving the state. So, they created this crazy workaround where they've created a new class of stock and issued a number of those shares to Zuckerberg so he can sell them to pay his potential tax liability, which would be around $12.5 billion, without diluting his voting share. So, the fact that this is what the meta board has spent months working on to give Zuckerberg this option, and in return, Zuckerberg agrees contractually to stay in California for the next eight years unless he leaves meta altogether. The fact that this is how much negotiation has gone into keeping just one CEO at one tech company, when this thing hasn't even passed yet, goes to show just how nervous the real moneymakers are about the potential implications. And then there's the whole Pandora's box element of this. You do this once, what's coming down the road? What happens next year, the year after that, etc.? Exactly. Before you go, we're going to pivot to a story that's affecting you as a Virginia resident. Tell us what happened with Virginia Senator Louise Lucas. Louise Lucas is one of the ranking Democrats in Virginia, and she turned herself in to federal authorities on Thursday after the Department of Justice has been investigating her for a scheme to vote for legalizing marijuana in Virginia so that she and her family and associates can profit from this. She was caught in February on a wiretapped phone call saying that she needed to get this legalized because she was getting too old to care about being greedy and wanted to make one last push for generational wealth. So, pretty much. Pretty much laying it all out there right on the line. It's worth noting that the investigation into Lucas began under the Biden administration. Right. Well, another big scandal in Northern Virginia. Meanwhile, out in California, votes are streaming in on this Prop 40. We'll see what happens there. Tim, thanks so much for reporting. Anytime, guys. It's pretty amazing how many things banks have found a way to charge us for. A monthly fee just to have an account. Another fee if your balance gets too low. And sometimes a fee because you accidentally spent a little more money. At some point, you have to wonder why we're still putting up with it. That's what's so great about Chime. Chime is changing the way people bank with no monthly fees, no minimum balance fees, no overdraft fees. And there's some genuinely useful perks, too. With Chime Card, you can earn 5% cash back in a category of your choosing, like gas or groceries, while building credit through everyday spending with no credit check. And if money gets a little tight before payday, Chime's Spot Me feature lets eligible members overdraft up to $200 fee-free. It's refreshing to see banking that actually makes everyday life a little easier. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to Chime.com slash wire. That is Chime.com slash wire. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes. Family vacations are supposed to be relaxing. That is, unless you're sharing a hotel room with somebody who snores. I remember almost not wanting to marry into my wife's family because I had to share an Airbnb with one of her brothers who, unbeknownst to me, snored like a grizzly bear. And that is why I'm so excited about Excite OSA from Spring Sleep. Excite OSA works a different way. It treats a root cause instead of managing the noise, and you use it while you're awake. It's an FDA-cleared prescription device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea. You use it for just 20 minutes a day while you're watching TV or having your morning coffee, daily for six weeks, and then a lighter routine to keep it afterwards. Most people notice a change, though, in four to six weeks. And when it's time for bed, nothing's strapped on, nothing plugged in, nothing that makes even more noise than snoring. And in clinical studies, 90% of patients saw a reduction in snoring. So see if it's right for you. Get Excite OSA at SpringSleep.com slash wire and use code wire for 20% off. Again, that's Excite OSA at SpringSleep.com slash wire, W-I-R-E. Thanks to Spring Sleep for sponsoring this episode. Excite OSA is an FDA-cleared prescription-only device for primary snoring and mild obstructive sleep apnea. It's not for everyone. Individual results vary. Risks and benefits at SpringSleep.com. America's biggest banks say AI agents are being given unauthorized access to customer accounts, but one of President Trump's top tech advisors says the alarm is misplaced. Here with more is Wired In host Cabot Phillips. So Cabot, at least on its face, this sounds very, very alarming. What's going on? Yeah, you guys had me on two days in a row, talk about these scary AI stories. What's going on here? In this case, the headline sounds scarier than it is. This all stems from an Axios report yesterday that major U.S. banks are finding, quote, unauthorized AI agents inside customer accounts. But if you scroll down the article, all that, quote, unauthorized means is that the bank never approved it. In most cases, the customer did, though. If you hand an AI agent the username and password to your bank account and ask it to pay a bill for you, it might break the rules of the bank, which requires customers to log in themselves. So Cabot, at least on its face, this sounds scarier than it is. In most cases, the customer did, but it's certainly not unauthorized from the customer's perspective, at least. But it is definitely understandable why there is concern surrounding these AI agents, which have taken off this fall, especially. Banks are already pushing back, though. J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon told investors last week, quote, you don't want rogue agents and said his bank will not allow agents to log in on behalf of customers. Citi, Bank of America and Schwab all have moved to restrict agents as well. So if customers are signing off on this, why are the banks? Thanks. So upset by this new process. So essentially, these AI agents are a new phenomenon and it's safe to say that federal law and regulations have not exactly caught up to the time. So there's concern here about what the implications could be down the road. The question that banks want answered right now, though, before they allow any AI agent to touch customer accounts, is who pays if something goes wrong? Now, it is important to note that there's so far no evidence that these new AI agents are emptying checking accounts and taking out mortgages without approval from the customer. But even with that, this scenario does still present an issue for the bank. Say a customer calls, says money left their account without their permission. They don't know where it went. And then it turns out, you know, the agent did it. Right now in that scenario, even if the customer is lying, federal rules protect the customer from charges that they did not authorize. And the paper trail would show that technically that is true. The AI agent made the transfer on their account for them. Federal law generally does not cover transfers by a person you give your login info to. And it's right now just completely unclear if that includes AI agents. So something that should also be pointed out is that there's a lot of information out there that says that the customer there is a business reason for banks to keep them out as well. The chief economist of Apollo Global Management, for example, noted that with a pretty basic prompt, customers could tell their AI agents to automatically move idle cash from the average checking account that pays 0.1% interest to one of these new fintech savings accounts that pay up to 5% interest. And according to the Financial Times, JP Morgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo hold $1.6 trillion in deposits that pay no interest at all. So paying 3% on that money would cost them $47 billion a year. So you can see why the banks might be a little nervous. So at this moment, at least, this is more about bank liability than actually customer liability. Yeah, it appears that way. And there really is no sign of that happening on a mass scale right now. That Axios report that was getting a lot of attention was talking about, quote, unauthorized AI agents, but they did not report a single customer actually losing money. The worst it got was that some banks caught agents calling customer service lines or taking some steps that users did not ask for. And comptroller of the currency, Jonathan Gold, whose office oversees the country's biggest banks, said yesterday that banks have become extremely adept at identifying AI agents and have layers of defenses protecting customers against any crazy behavior. If they don't just ban the agents entirely, of course. Former White House AI czar and venture capitalist David Sachs, who now co-chairs the President's Science and Technology Council, also pushed back against Axios' characterization of these AI agents and the fear that was caused as a result. He said, quote, there's a world of difference between user authorized agents like Muse and Grokbot and true authorized rogue agents that could constitute cyber attacks. So customer sharing passwords may break bank rules, he said, but these are in no way cyber attacks. He called it, quote, irresponsible to frighten the public by blurring that line. He went on to call for a compromise, one that lets an agent see your balances and spending, but not actually move money. JPMorgan and Citi already allow this through a third-party data sharing service you can connect to an AI agent. And Meta is also working on a more long-term solution that would show companies when an AI agent is acting for a real-time customer. And he said, quote, there's a world of difference between user authorized and a customer, again, with that customer's permission. So potential answer to that liability question we talked about earlier. But big picture, until the kinks can get worked out, most experts advise Americans not to give AI agents full control over their bank account. Better safe than sorry. But again, another story, a whole new world. We had no idea it would even exist a few years ago. Now, getting the headlines. Well, and it's interesting that the banks are concerned that you might get some slightly better rates. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. And FilmChief. So what's going on in Netflix? Yeah, Georgia, you know, I don't know if I would call this a bloodbath. But when we look at the fact that Netflix has now had three layoff rounds in four years, I think we have to say that something is not going right for the streamer. And I think one of the core issues is slower growth and softer engagement. So when we drill down on some of these numbers, Q3 revenue rose about 12%, which was its slowest quarter in the last three years. And that comes after it had already been on a downward slide through all of 2026. So at the quarterly earnings call just this past Tuesday, CEO Ted Sarandos announced that he was downgrading the Q4 forecast. So not too surprising that right after that, the stock price dropped to a two-year low. But I think a bigger story here is not just the fact that there is another round of layoffs. It's about who they're laying off. So even though Sarandos is denying it, when you look at these C-suite pink slips, this looks a lot less like belt tightening and a lot more like an acknowledgement that they have a fundamental problem with their creative direction. Yeah. So let's talk about those executives. Dan Lin was the head of film. He was overseeing the controversial Narnia movie, The Magician's Nephew. How much could bad press like that have played a role in his firing? That's an interesting question because it would seem to lend to all of these rumors that this movie is getting a lot of bad press due to some really bizarre creative choices that writer-director Greta Gerwig made. So we're talking about things like moving up the timeline of this film, The Magician's Nephew, by 50 years. And that's really key because if you move that story up by 50 years, that means if they continue with this project, they're essentially going to be placing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in the 90s. Also having played the Jesus-like figure of Aslan. So reportedly, Lin did try to head off some of these not popular choices. And the meeting between him and Gerwig this summer over Zoom is said to have gone so badly that actually her very powerful agent had to step in and call Ted Sarandos to smooth things over. So, you know, that is part of why some people are speculating that Lin was on the chopping block. But what's so ironic about that, John, is when you look at the movie, once fans got a look at some of this footage, well, actually, they agree with Lin. So this whole debacle with The Magician's Nephew, which cost $250 million before marketing or advertising, I think this is, you know, somewhat emblematic of the problems that Netflix is having overall. Right. Now, are there any bright spots for Netflix, even just in the future? I mean, when you're one of the biggest studios in the industry, I don't want to pretend like they're about to go out of business here. But I do think when you have gotten into the habit of throwing tens of millions of dollars at every A-list name that comes along and those films and series don't score, you have to start to look at doing things differently. And what we've seen this year with some of these micro-budget blockbusters like Obsession is that audiences are really hungry for something different. In fact, if we look at what's in theaters right now, one of the biggest movies in the country is the documentary You Can See Everything about Theranos founder. Elizabeth Holmes. It made $15 million in its first weekend, and that is the strongest opener for a non-music-related documentary since Fahrenheit 9-11 over 20 years ago. So with the new super studio created by the Paramount-Warner Brothers merger, I think Netflix is going to have to reconvince audiences that they're capable of storytelling like that. Right. Well, I went to go see Obsession. I also loved the Elizabeth Holmes documentary. So I personally think you're onto something. Megan, thanks for reporting. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for waking up with us. Plus, hang out after this for the trailer of Daily Wire's new film, Confession. Also, check out Daily Wire's election hub for all the latest election news. To enjoy the show ad-free and join our mission, become a member at dailywire.com. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. ♪ Let me out! You will remember your duty. This isn't heroism! You useless sod. You sit there in shape because you're dependent on drink. Your sick is all over you. Have you ever seen a child starve to death, Professor? No. I have. That's why UnitedHealth Group is fast-tracking more than 60% of children's procedures that used to need pre-approval. So more kids get the care they need, when they need it. And speeding up procedure approvals and payments for more than 1,500 rural hospitals. So they can focus on caring for their communities. ♪ ♪