00:00:27.700Listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:34.700We continue to have a strong dollar policy, and the strong dollar policy is that the U.S. economy is pulling away from the rest of the world.
00:00:43.680When I look, we have 6%, 6.5% nominal growth, and the composition of that growth as the headline inflation comes down,
00:00:52.360everything we're seeing in terms of revenue growth in companies is up about 12%.
00:00:57.100So the underlying economy, I think, is very strong.
00:01:00.840And the only inflationary impulses that we're seeing are coming from the energy, which is temporary.
00:01:07.740You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
00:01:11.420Good Friday morning. Nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update.
00:01:14.960And we've got two big stories for you.
00:01:17.060First up, FBI agents confiscating Eric Swalwell's electronic devices at the airport in San Francisco.
00:01:25.080What is the investigation about? Sexual Misconduct Pro, the man who used to go after Donald Trump every day, demanding accountability, is now being investigated and having his home searched as well.
00:01:38.300I have that story for you in just a moment.
00:01:40.740Also, you may remember Nike decided to go woke.
00:01:44.700Well, now, after five years, they've lost nearly 80% of their market value.
00:01:57.560Before we get to that, though, I want to talk to you about the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
00:02:03.220and how you can get involved in praying for people in need right now.
00:02:08.000Anti-Semitism is continuing to rise around the world.
00:02:11.160Every day, the Jewish people continue to pay the price from growing threats against Jewish communities
00:02:16.920to acts of violence, harassment, and intimidation.
00:02:20.500Many Jewish families are living with fear simply because they're Jewish.
00:02:26.660Synagogues and schools and community centers continuing to be forced to strengthen their security because hatred is spread so far beyond the headlines.
00:02:36.980And that's why the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is working every day in Israel and around the world,
00:02:44.320providing security, emergency assistance, food, and critical care for vulnerable Jewish communities.
00:02:51.100For more than 40 years, the fellowship has stood alongside the Jewish people,
00:02:56.040delivering practical support when it's needed the most.
00:02:59.520Hatred continues to spread, but compassion and action can make a difference.
00:03:03.920So join the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews in praying for the safety of the
00:03:09.740Jewish people, for peace in Israel, and for an end to anti-Semitism.
00:03:14.760Together, we can remind God's people that they're not alone.
00:03:18.480So stand with Israel in prayer today by visiting PrayIFCJ.org.
00:08:25.020The media who protected him was now covering the stories.
00:08:28.340And that is when Swalwell suspended his campaign for governor.
00:08:31.520just days after the allegations were published.
00:08:35.560He continued, of course, denying them while apologizing to his family
00:08:38.860for what he characterized as a quote-unquote mistake in judgment.
00:08:43.260And it didn't end with his campaign, as I'm sure he was hoping.
00:08:47.020Swalwell subsequently announced he would resign from Congress,
00:08:51.140bringing an end to the career of a politician
00:08:54.040who only months earlier was positioning himself to run the largest state in America.
00:08:59.320And now, just four months later, this story has moved from political scandal into a dramatically different arena.
00:09:07.140Search warrants, federal agents, seized electronics, and a search of his Washington home.
00:09:14.260The FBI action is especially significant because electronic devices can potentially contain enormous amounts of evidence.
00:09:22.140Texts, emails, photographs, location information, communications with witnesses, and other digital records.
00:09:29.320Now, we don't yet know specifically what investigators believe they will find.
00:09:33.600And the seizure itself does not establish, of course, that Swalwell is actually guilty.
00:09:39.160But investigators clearly want access to these devices badly enough to seek judicial authorization, to literally seize them.
00:09:46.880And apparently, they weren't willing to wait for Swalwell to voluntarily hand them over.
00:09:52.680Now, finally, there's also a broader irony here, and it's impossible to ignore.
00:09:57.720For years, Eric Swallow was one of the most aggressive voices in Washington, demanding countless investigations and impeachments of Donald Trump and the people around him.
00:10:09.740He served on the House Intelligence Committee.
00:10:13.040He became nationally famous during the Russia investigation.
00:10:16.820He regularly appealed on television discussing those investigations and the subpoenas and the classified information and accountability and the rule of law was his thing.
00:10:26.520Well, now Swalwell is the one facing the federal investigators, and this isn't even the first major controversy that's followed him.
00:10:34.880You may also remember that years earlier, and we covered it here, Swalwell also faced intense scrutiny over his association with a Chinese communist spy known as Fang Fang.
00:12:49.720It was selling American sports culture.
00:12:52.860And today, the company's market capitalization is hovering around $60 billion.
00:12:57.700That is an extraordinary fall from its heights that it reached just five years ago.
00:13:02.040Now, not only has Nike lost nearly 80% of its market cap over the last five years,
00:13:07.740But when the stock was near its peak, it was put this way by Ethan Strauss.
00:13:13.440He wrote the definitive take on how the company was fumbling the bag.
00:13:18.460They were a brand, they said, quote, defined by Michael Jordan's competitiveness and machismo.
00:13:24.440And with a heavily male customer base, they thought they could double in size if they could be that and also be Lululemon at the same time.
00:13:33.740But instead, they stopped being that while failing to be Lululemon, and now they're nothing.
00:13:39.480A bunch of upstart competitors ate their lunch while they destroyed their brand and reputation.
00:13:46.160Now, what was it that caused their brand to collapse?
00:13:49.620That is the biggest part of the story here that we all need to look at.
00:13:53.280And this is going to be studied, I promise you, in college.
00:13:57.400Because the decline of the largest American sports apparel brand, well, that's big.
00:14:02.760Senator Ted Cruz put it this way when he said, sad and predictable.
00:14:07.140For my whole life, I wore nearly 100% Nike for athletic wear.
00:15:41.120They monetized the controversy surrounding the anthem kneeling demonstrations of Colin Kaepernick.
00:15:46.820They signed him as a prominent figure in Nike's marketing campaigns.
00:15:51.100Now, Kaepernick also played his last NFL game in 2016, and this led many to suspect that Nike's decision to sign him in 2018 was not because he was playing anymore.
00:16:03.100He wasn't. It was solely to monetize the anger he created among those sympathetic to his cause.
00:16:09.880Now, Kaepernick defenders long insisted that his anthem kneeling was not anti-American.
00:16:14.920That case became much harder to make in 2019 when Kaepernick publicly criticized Nike for its Betsy Ross shoe.
00:16:24.220Now, that shoe, which was created to be marketed to customers during the 4th of July celebration that year,
00:16:29.900harkened back to the design of the famous Revolutionary War era Betsy Ross flag with 13 stars in a circle against a blue backdrop.
00:16:39.420Kaepernick decided this symbol represented a time when blacks were still enslaved.
00:16:43.500And then he went on a tantrum, demanding that it not be sold.