Transcript of Sanctuary City Scrutiny & 2024 Hollywood Hits | 12.24.24

A woman is set on fire in a New York subway in a shocking crime by a Guatemala migrant.

It was allowed to happen because our city refuses to cooperate with ICE. And so we need President Trump and Tom Homan desperately to come in and clean up our city and secure our border.

We break down the latest on the horrifying incident and the debate around sanctuary laws.

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, December 24th, and this is a Christmas Eve edition of Morning Wire. President Biden commutes the sentences of 37 death row inmates, shielding various murderers from receiving the death penalty.

And Hollywood pumps the brakes on woke messaging in 2024, but continues to lean on old IP.

Everything that seems like a surefire hit, maybe not so much, and things that you think, well, I don't know if they'll connect with audiences. Boy, they do in a major way.

We break down the year's top films, including what you should see this week.

Thanks for waking up with MorningWire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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A previously deported guatemalan migrant has been charged with murder after allegedly lighting a woman on fire in a New York subway. The incident comes as sanctuary laws come under even more scrutiny.

Daily Wire reporter Tim pierce is here to talk about the horrifying incident in New York and the migration trends across the US. So Tim, first off, tell us about the incident in the subway.

Yeah, the suspect is a guatemalan international in the US illegally. From what we know so far, this suspect first entered the US in 2018, but he was only in the country for a few days before border enforcement removed him. Sometime later, he made it back into the country, and he began living in New York City shelters in 2023. He apparently bounced around to a few different shelters before he was arrested over the weekend. Incoming border Tsar Tom Homan blamed the situation on democratic immigration policies.

Well, look, this is another example of an illegal alien killing an American citizen. It's almost a daily occurrence now because a historic number of criminal aliens walking the streets because this administration's policy in sanctuary jurisdictions and lacks immigration enforcement. Ice has their hands tied. Secretary Mayorkas have given them priorities that they can't even go arrest an illegal alien anymore unless he's convicted, convicted of a serious crime, then maybe they can arrest him. So this is on this administration. As far as Governor Hoko, shame on her. She supports sanctuary status in that state. She welcomed thousands of illegal aliens to our state.

So Homen, very clearly stating that lax immigration policies do lead to violent crime.

Well, we do have some new census data that says foreign-born migrants are flocking to states like New York while native-born people are leaving those same states. What can you tell us about that?

Yeah, the Census Bureau's report released last week shows that the United States, from 2023 to 2024, hit its highest annual population growth in over two decades, and the increase was mainly driven by international migration. In the past year, the US took in roughly 2.8 million immigrants. In percentage terms, foreign migration made up 84% of the increase in the US population in the past year alone. Also worth noting that 2.8 million is on top of the roughly 4 million immigrants that the US took in from 2021 to 2023. These numbers include all immigrants, whether legal or illegal. And that's the background to this editorial by the Wall Street Journal that points out that blue states more than made up for losses from domestic migration with gains in foreign-born immigrants. These states are well-known sanctuaries for illegal aliens. For example, California lost about 240,000 people to domestic outmigration in the past year, but gained over 360,000 foreign-born immigrants. That trend is the same in New York, Illinois, and New Jersey. Each state more than made up for its losses to outmigration with foreign migration. At the same time, red states such as Texas, Florida, and Tennessee have gained population from both foreign and domestic migration.

The Census Bureau has admitted that red states should have had more house seats because of these population shifts, and blue states are overrepresented in the Congress and in the Electoral College.

Now, what's the impact been of this population shift in some of those blue states?

Well, part of that answer has to do with why immigrants are attracted to blue areas in the first place. As the Wall Street Journal points out, these areas tend to have higher taxes, higher unemployment rates, and generally more expensive standards of living. However, in addition to sanctuary policies aimed at thwarting federal immigration enforcement, these areas also tend to have expansive entitlement programs that aliens can take advantage of. Then there's the problem of migrant crime, which police say that murder in New York falls under. Now, Now, the migrant crime debate has been a persistent one in US immigration policy. On one side, there are those who say immigrants actually cause crime at lower rates than Americans. On the other side, proponents for tougher immigration policies say that that shouldn't matter. The key point is that crime committed by aliens is preventable with tough border enforcement.

Right. Well, that's the case that Homan was making. Tim, thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me.

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President Biden caused a stir on Monday when he commuted the sentences of 37 inmates on death row, the latest in a string of controversial presidential pardons.

Dailywire Deputy Managing Editor Tim Rice is here with the latest attempt. So needless to say, you don't get on death row without doing something very serious. Who are the people Biden pardoned?

Yeah, John, it's a real rogues gallery. Fair warning, some of these descriptions are going to be pretty brutal. So there's There's Thomas Sanders, who was convicted in 2014 of kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old Alexis Roberts after shooting her mother in the head. He held Roberts captive in the woods for days before brutally murdering her. Brandon Basham and Chadrick Foulkes kidnapped and killed the woman after escaping from jail, and Darryl Roberts killed a cop during a bank robbery in 2005, and Jason Brown stabbed a postal worker to death. All of these men had been sentenced to death before Biden halted all federal executions after taking office. Now, they're going to spend the rest of their lives in prison. Biden left just three death zero inmates sentences intact. All three were mass murderers, so we try to avoid naming them since those types are often motivated by notoriety. Those three will still be subject to execution when Trump takes office and presumably restarts federal executions.

Now, you mentioned Trump. Is this another one of Biden's efforts to tie his hands before leaving office?

Yeah, absolutely. He actually specifically said that in his statement announcing the pardons. Biden wrote, he could not in good conscience stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted. He also said it was his conscience and experience as a public defender that has made him more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. Now, a lot of people have pointed out that Biden's moral argument here is undermined by the fact that he left three people on death row. It seems like he chose to pardon all about the three most famous mass murderers facing a death sentence. That's led critiques to speculate that this was more a political calculation than some grand moral statement.

The move is certainly rife for criticism, but Biden has already come under fire for some controversia impartons in the past. Is this any different?

Well, yes and no. Of course, those in favor of the death penalty for the most violent offenders will be upset by this move. People who think Biden has been abusing the presidential pardon power are going to see this as the latest overstep. Remember, Biden has pardoned a record-breaking 8,000 people, including his son Hunter, to whom he granted an unprecedented sweeping pardon. So there's that. But there's another wrinkle here. Just last week, the Wall Street Journal published a shocking exposé of how Biden's team covered up his declined expanding mental faculties, proving once and for all that the President has been impaired for his entire term. So now the question becomes, is Joe Biden really the one driving these pardons? And if not, who is? Yesterday, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton called for Congress and the Trump Justice Department to investigate these pardons for precisely that reason. Cotton wrote on X, Contracts, wills, and other legal actions are null and void if a party is mentally incompetent, as Joe Biden obviously is. Who is making these decisions and signing for Joe Biden? One other thing to note, as of this recording, we haven't heard from Trump yet, but it's probably safe to assume that he'll have something to say about this and may take Cotton's suggestion and direct his administration to investigate these things.

Whether or not that could lead to some pardons being overturned, we'll have to wait and see.

We certainly will, and we'll also be sure to follow up if Biden pardons anyone else before leaving office.

Tim, thanks for reporting. Anytime.

The Hollywood Box Office had a solid showing in 2024, but fell short 2023 totals.

Joining us to discuss the 2024 box office hits and misses is Christian Toto, host of the Hollywood and Toto podcast. Christian, before we get into some recommendations for what to go see now, let's do a quick year-end review. What were some of the biggest hits?

Well, we had a Disney comeback, which was surprising because 2023 was pretty bad for the mouse house. They had a lot of duds on their lineup, but this year was radically different. It starts with Inside Out, too. Came out over the summer, made a of money, and that was very successful. It's going to show Disney's future is rebooting old properties, putting out the sequels, basically leaning on their IPs. Of course, they also had Deadpool and Wolverine, which are another massive hit. They finish things off with Moana, too. So really an interesting year for Disney. Never count them out.

Now, 2024 didn't quite hit the numbers that 2023 did. What were some of the misses?

Well, there were quite a few. We could only count a few of them, but wow. I'll Let's start with Joker: Follia Duh, just an absolute dud. Critically and commercially, no one wanted to see that film. But also you had a couple of major storytellers who really just couldn't connect with audiences, including Kevin Costner. He has this grand vision for this four-part Western series. The first chapter came out, Horizon: An American Saga, and no one went to see it. But also some superhero duds, including Madame Webb and Craven the Hunter, and then other just outright flops, including The Crow and Borderlands. It was really a rough year on that side of the ledger.

Now, one thing that has really irked audiences for several years now, more than that actually, is the woke politics that tend to show up in movies. Was 2024 the wokeest year yet, or is it petering out?

Absolutely not. We've seen a real reversal there. Now, you see some of that progressive messaging, and maybe in one of the Oscar bait films or two. Certainly that's possible, and we've seen that to a limited degree. But when we're talking about the mainstream, yeah, there's been a real back pedal in this Arena. And again, starts with Disney. They were maybe one of the biggest culprits in this regard. But in recent times, they've been dialing it back. I think Inside Out 2 is a perfect example. And even other films like Twisters and Bad Boys, Ride or Die, just straightforward storytelling, escapism, humor, relatable situations, doesn't really go there. I think the biggest surprise was Twisters in that they didn't even get into a climate change discussion. That was probably the most shocking part of the year.

December is often the month studios drop their prestige films, their films that they're hoping are going to get Oscar buzz. What are some of the most anticipated films that are coming out this holiday season that people can go see?

Well, I want to start with my favorite. It's called The Complete Unknown. It's the story of Bob Dylan's early years. It might be my favorite film of 2024. And Timothée Chalame is terrific as the young Bob Dylan. He allegedly spent six years playing guitar, trying to sound like Dylan. He does sing Dylan songs in the movie. It's a wonderful story. And I think because Dylan was so inscrutable, the movie captures that as well. I think people are going to really enjoy that. Then some of the movies that come out around this time of the year are in limited release. They come out in New York or LA, maybe other cities nationwide. Then they go wider in January. I believe that may be the case with The Brutalist. It's a three and a half hour movie. It's set after the Holocaust that follows an architect played by Adrian Brody. It's wonderful. If you're looking for films they don't make anymore, well, this is one of them. You just have to maybe look a a little harder to find it.

Well, I know I'm going to go see the Bob Dylan film. Christian, thanks for coming on.

My pleasure.

Before you go, we just wanted to give you a quick reminder about our schedule as we head into Christmas in the new year.

Over the next two weeks, we'll be taking a break from our regular schedule to switch things up a bit. But don't worry, we will be providing new content every single day in the form of excellent interviews and special episodes, so keep tuning in. Of course, in the event of any major news, we won't hesitate drop an extra episode.

Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow with a special Christmas edition of MorningWire.

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