Megan Basham
Appearances
Morning Wire
Meta Curbs Censorship & Trump's Second Term Plans | 1.8.25
Yeah, I would say there's no question that's what he's doing. So, you know, he was actually pretty transparent in his announcement that he sees the 2024 election as a message from the American people that this is a new era and that they want to see a return to free speech principles.
Morning Wire
Meta Curbs Censorship & Trump's Second Term Plans | 1.8.25
He said that he plans to work with President Trump to push back on governments in Europe that are passing censorship laws and regulations. And he noted that the Biden administration actually worked against that effort during their tenure. And then he offered something of a mea culpa for letting his platforms become a big part of the problem.
Morning Wire
Meta Curbs Censorship & Trump's Second Term Plans | 1.8.25
Now, part of that simplification is community notes that allow for crowdsourced fact checks that simply add corrections or context to the bottom of posts rather than removing them or deemphasizing them. Zuckerberg also says that they're gonna be promoting civic content again, so political content, because he believes that people do wanna see that.
Morning Wire
Meta Curbs Censorship & Trump's Second Term Plans | 1.8.25
And he said that the platforms are also going to get rid of some restrictions on hot button topics like immigration and gender in order to allow more opinions to be expressed. And then this was a really interesting one. He said they'll be moving the content moderation team from California to Texas to help draw from a less biased talent pool.
Morning Wire
Meta Curbs Censorship & Trump's Second Term Plans | 1.8.25
Yeah, I think so. I think what we're seeing, as my kids might call it, is a pretty clear vibe shift from Meta. So first we saw Zuckerberg donate $1 million to Trump's inauguration. And then Meta announced it was replacing its policy chief, Nick Clegg, who previously worked in British politics on the political left with a known conservative, Joe Kaplan.
Morning Wire
Meta Curbs Censorship & Trump's Second Term Plans | 1.8.25
who just last month appeared at the New York Stock Exchange with Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and Trump. And then, this is a biggie, on Monday, Meta announced that major Trump booster Dana White would be joining the board. So with all of this and the Community Notes announcement, pretty clear Zuckerberg's not being shy and publicly trying to ingratiate himself with the new administration.
Morning Wire
Meta Curbs Censorship & Trump's Second Term Plans | 1.8.25
Yes, definitely. And some are saying that, look, this is all well and good, but they do still want to see some real accountability for Meta's past censorship. One example is Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro, who celebrated the prospect of the change that's coming. But he did also stress that we actually need to see more than talk from Meta.
Morning Wire
Meta Curbs Censorship & Trump's Second Term Plans | 1.8.25
Molly Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist, also weighed in on X on Tuesday, demanding accountability for what Meta has done over the last eight years.
Morning Wire
NSA Chat Crackdown & Bondi Warns Maine | Afternoon Update | 2.26.25
In a statement, Bezos said the paper will cover other topics too, but he said viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others. Now, despite some backlash, Bezos doubled down on that stance, stating, "'I'm confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion.
Morning Wire
NSA Chat Crackdown & Bondi Warns Maine | Afternoon Update | 2.26.25
I'm excited for us together to fill that void.'" The move, however, has sparked outrage from left-leaning readers and staff, including the resignation of the Post's current opinion editor.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
Well, you know, there's a number of data points driving this story. And I think we should start with the fact that since Trump took office, 75,000 federal workers have already taken the buyout that he was offering. And around 10,000 have been directly terminated. And then, of course, Trump has tasked Elon Musk with eliminating many more government jobs through Doge.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
So a lot more cuts are expected. And in that time, real estate watchers say that a huge number of new homes have flooded the market in and around DC where a high concentration of these federal workers live. So in the DC Metro itself, around 4,000 new homes have been listed for sale in the last 30 days. And that's well above average by nearly 25%.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
Now, if you drill down on the Virginia suburbs, that picture is even more striking. There, some areas like Fairfax and Alexandria are even seeing a 60 to 70% increase in year over year listings. And you have to keep in mind, yeah, that this is during the winter months in a housing market that has historically seen low supply.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
So according to Redfin data, the median selling price in the area is down 20% from November to February. Now, of course, some experts will say that that is cyclical. Homes don't move as much in this quarter. But even if you look back at last January compared to this January, you still find that the median price is down nearly 9%.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
And Redfin has also found that buyers in DC are tending to sit on the sidelines. So for the first month of 2025, pending sales were down 6%. And there's now more than five months of housing supply in D.C., which is the most that that market's seen in six years since before the pandemic, in other words. And overall, you've got Redfin agents saying that the D.C. market is in chaos right now. Right.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
But a lot of it is anecdotal. We have Redfin agents reporting that this is what clients are telling them. And then also looking at the timing of these market changes. And that's what has a lot of investing companies paying attention.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
Market analysts with the Kobesi letter, for example, have said that what they're seeing in DC is an unprecedented level of selling in a generally strong housing market. And because of that, they noted that Trump's plans to further cut waste are likely to ramp this trend up. And then you also have another research firm, John Burns Research and Consulting, which specializes in housing data.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
And it's advising its clients that the D.C. housing market is already showing signs of hesitancy and they too are citing those federal layoffs. Now, of course, that said, you do have some local real estate agents telling outlets that they don't believe that anything unusual is happening here and that it's too soon to tell that Trump's layoffs are driving these market shifts.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
Well, there's some evidence suggesting that it's quite a number of the highly paid ones. So the Kobisi letter also noted a surge in new listings above a million dollars. And maybe a related data point, right after Trump's election, WikiLeaks found that Google searches in D.C. for terms like Swiss bank and offshore bank skyrocketed.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
So I don't know about you, John, but I have personally never been in the earnings bracket where I needed to look for information like that.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Seek Peace & DC’s Housing Market Chaos | 2.19.25
You know, it's not clear yet, but certainly researchers like at John Burns are on the lookout for that. They particularly pointed to California, Texas, and Florida, because those are areas that also have a high number of federal workers.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
Well, really what we're seeing is that Trump and his Republican allies are doubling down. They're making it clear that they're not going to be put off by statements from groups like World Relief or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that are decrying that funding freeze.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
So after a lot of negative coverage from the legacy media, this latest memo from Trump seems like a pointed response. He says that many NGOs are, quoting here, engaged in actions that actively undermine the security, prosperity, and safety of the American people. And he says that his administration isn't going to continue funding groups that undermine our national interest.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
What these two bills really underline is that sentiment by attempting to codify Trump's policy into law. So on Monday, Congressman Lance Gooden of Texas reintroduced a bill that prevents NGOs from receiving taxpayer dollars unless the Office of Management and Budget has certified that they're not involved in human trafficking or smuggling. Here's what he told Morning Wire.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
And Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee introduced the Fence Act that strikes at the tax exempt status of organizations that facilitate illegal immigration. And how are the NGOs responding? Well, as you'd expect, they're arguing more from religious standpoints rather than addressing these questions of legality or national interest.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
Pope Francis released a letter to the Catholic bishops that said that Catholics are obligated to disagree with any measure that associates being an illegal immigrant with being a criminal. And some Protestant church leaders are also criticizing Trump from the pulpit.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
The Reverend Duke Lackey, senior pastor at United Methodist Church in Raleigh, asked during his Sunday sermon why USAID funding can't continue while federal spending is being audited. And he suggested that the government is morally obligated to continue funding religious groups.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
It's worth pointing out that even conservative denominations have seen a split between leadership and rank and file church members over this. Just yesterday, Daily Wire reporter Leif LeMayhew had a story about the Presbyterian Church in America, which is known for being very conservative. Their missions arm issued guidelines to illegal aliens on how to avoid detection by ICE.
Morning Wire
US takes AI Lead & Ending DOJ Corruption | 2.12.25
And when word got out, there was outcry and that page disappeared.
Morning Wire
Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25
Yeah, sure. So primarily, these are grants that are flowing to universities under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services for research projects. Now, the White House says schools are not eligible for this taxpayer money if they fail to protect Jewish students and uphold new civil rights standards, which includes doing away with those race-based admissions.
Morning Wire
Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25
This is what Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Fox News last week.
Morning Wire
Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25
Now, McMahon added that the task force investigating the schools was formed between the Department of Education, DOJ, and HHS and Government Services Administration, and that they're giving the schools a chance to comply so that funding can be restored.
Morning Wire
Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25
Well, Columbia University was the first school to have its funding suspended in early March, $400 million. That's really not surprising given the campus saw so much unrest during pro-Palestinian protests last year.
Morning Wire
Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25
And then the University of Pennsylvania, Trump's own alma mater, is losing about $175 million in federal funding over a biological male swimmer who previously competed on the girls' team. the school still hasn't changed its policy on transgender athletes. And then last week, $210 million in research grants to Princeton University were halted over antisemitism.
Morning Wire
Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25
Then just a few days ago, $510 million in funding to Brown. That's the latest cut for the same reason.
Morning Wire
Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25
Yes, absolutely. Harvard is the gorilla in the room here with $9 billion in contracts and grants under review. And that funding is halted pending an investigation into its handling of anti-Semitism. Former Harvard president Larry Summers commented to the Wall Street Journal that if Harvard folds he thinks every school will. But so far, Harvard has been threading this needle very carefully.
Morning Wire
Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25
Its current president, Alan Garber, acknowledged the anti-Semitism problem on campus, and he warned that losing $9 billion would halt life-saving research and imperil scientific innovation. But it's still not clear that the school's going to comply with all of these new federal standards. And we have to keep in mind that Harvard was the epicenter of the DEI admissions scandal.
Morning Wire
Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25
But so far, the president is only commenting on the anti-Semitism part of this investigation. Christopher Eisgruber, president of Princeton, told Bloomberg News that this funding isn't to the benefit of the schools per se, but for the American people in general.
Morning Wire
Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25
On NPR on Sunday, he called the funding halt a threat to academic freedom and said it's the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare. And he also said that while he's not judging other university presidents, Princeton isn't going to be making concessions. So overall right now, every Ivy League school, with the exception of Dartmouth, has had some funding frozen.
Morning Wire
Jack Smith Report Blocked & Congestion Toll Avoidance | Afternoon Update | 1.7.25
Meta will now implement Community Notes, a similar program to that used by X. Here's Zuckerberg.
Morning Wire
Jack Smith Report Blocked & Congestion Toll Avoidance | Afternoon Update | 1.7.25
In a video today, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the platform would end its partnerships with independent fact-checkers, loosen restrictions on controversial topics like gender and immigration, and scale back filters that previously censored innocuous posts. Zuckerberg cited bias among fact-checkers as a key reason for the shift, saying they had done more harm than good, especially in the U.S.,
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
Well, I'll tell you, the words epic flop come to mind. It opened to a dismal $43 million domestically and only $87 million worldwide. And that's against a reported $270 million budget. So the numbers are still being finalized, but what that means is it's vying for the title of worst opening for a Disney live action remake ever.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
All weekend, people were posting viral videos of empty theaters for this film and investors seem to be watching closely. Disney stock dipped 3% Monday morning. So why did audiences reject it? Well, I would say that the overarching theme here is that Disney took a classic tale of romance and true love, and they turned it into one of self-empowerment.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
Now, a lot of people have been pointing the finger at lead actress Rachel Zegler for her political commentary, things like saying after the election that she hopes Trump supporters never know peace, and then also comments on the red carpet like this from last year.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
But I want to defend her a little bit because while this was off-putting to a lot of people, it is actually the content of the film, so she wasn't misrepresenting it. One of the most iconic songs of the original, Someday My Prince Will Come, that was cut. Instead, Disney offered a new song that's about not needing a prince for rescue.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
So the lyrics there, if you couldn't quite make them out, no more sending whispers to the water because you were everything you were wishing and waiting for. Someone fearless, someone fair, someone brave. It's worth noting that Prince Charming is quite literally not Prince Charming here because he's not a prince.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
He's been swapped out for a Robin Hood style bandit who steals from the evil monarchy. I saw one comment from a woman online who said, I can't help but think that people, not just women, are growing weary of stories where they have to be their own hero because, dang, life is hard. And that really captured it for me.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
And I'll also add that the movie performed pretty evenly in both red and blue counties. So it wasn't just conservatives who didn't like it. Critics and audiences across the political spectrum have been giving it low marks. Reviews sit at a tepid 42% on Rotten Tomatoes. Opening weekend exit polls from ordinary moviegoers showed only a C-plus cinema score. So really hardly a ringing endorsement.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
So how do you think Disney is going to respond to this feedback? Well, I think to start, they're going to be less willing to reimagine these classic films, because for the most part, these live action remakes have been a cash cow. The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, for instance, each raked in over a billion dollars, but they stayed very true to the originals.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
Those where Disney tries to update for modern sensibilities tend to get rejected by audiences. And there we can look at not just Snow White, but also the underwhelming performance of last year's Little Mermaid, But I also think while there's a lot of talk about the politics of Snow White, I also think there's an element here of fans simply getting tired of remakes.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
So this could push Disney to rethink its strategy.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
It's possible. China and Europe are still rolling out. But the early projections right now suggest that Snow White is not even going to break even. Disney Plus could be a lifeline. But streaming success isn't going to erase the narrative of a theatrical failure. And that's the biggest concern, brand damage.
Morning Wire
Car Maker Invests Big & Snow White Bombs | 3.25.25
If audiences start doubting Disney's magic touch, I think future projects like the upcoming Lilo and Stitch are going to become a tougher sell.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
Yeah, you know, that was quite something because we're talking about an unprecedented request here, something that really no other democratic nation has demanded. Essentially what happened is two years ago, Apple introduced a new iCloud feature for iPhone users known as Advanced Data Protection, ADP. And what it does is it allows users to encrypt really almost anything they upload to iCloud.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
That includes messages, notes, photos, iPhone backups, things like that. ADP renders all of that indecipherable to anyone who isn't the user. But then last month, according to whistleblowers, the British government asked Apple to create a backdoor mechanism to allow them to bypass that encryption in order to access the private user data. And in fact, data that even Apple isn't able to access.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
And what's key here is that UK officials were not just requesting the right to spy on their own citizens, but this demand included the ability to retrieve content that any Apple user anywhere in the world had uploaded to the iCloud. And that means they were asking to see data of other countries' users without informing the governments of those nations.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
Now, this request was reportedly made last month, but Apple hadn't disclosed it until a few days ago when they announced that they weren't going to comply because they say that once a backdoor like this exists, it's only a matter of time before bad actors beyond government agencies learn how to use it.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
Now, that said, Apple did state that they were dropping the ADP feature from users in the UK and sources told the New York Times that Apple is hoping that will convince British officials to drop their demand. Apple put out a statement saying that they are gravely disappointed that they won't be able to offer the security feature to British customers.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
And they added, quoting here, as we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products and we never will.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
You know, only in the sense of saying that they're not going to comment. So the British Home Office, which is the department that oversees national security, told the BBC, we do not comment on operational matters. So they wouldn't confirm or deny that they made this request of Apple.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
But if you happen to be listening to us in the UK right now, what this means for you is that you won't have access to ADP. New users won't be able to get it. And there have already been reports that British users who had it are now seeing error messages when they try to open it up.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
Yes. So I think just as we've seen with all the other tech titans like Jeff Bezos, like Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook is now taking friendly meetings with the president. So much so yesterday, President Trump announced that Apple is planning to invest more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
That money is going to go to hiring 20,000 new workers and to new manufacturing facilities across the country.
Morning Wire
Trump-Macron Ukraine Meeting & Colony Ridge Raided | 2.25.25
Cook called this Apple's largest ever spend commitment. And he said his company is bullish on the future of American innovation.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Talks Begin & DOGE Targets IRS | 2.18.25
Well, this all started after Vice President J.D. Vance gave a pretty bold speech at the Munich Security Conference last Friday. He took European leaders to task for embracing what he called Soviet-style censorship.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Talks Begin & DOGE Targets IRS | 2.18.25
And then on Sunday morning, CBS anchor Margaret Brennan interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio on her show, Face the Nation. And she asked him why Vance would irritate our European allies like that. Then she made the historically incorrect claim that the Holocaust was the result of Nazi Germany having too much free speech.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Talks Begin & DOGE Targets IRS | 2.18.25
Well, Rubio pushed back on that very strongly.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Talks Begin & DOGE Targets IRS | 2.18.25
And then if you'll hang with me for one more soundbite here, Georgia, on Sunday night, another CBS program, 60 Minutes, interviewed some German authorities arguing for state censorship. And the overall tenor of CBS's segment seemed very favorable to their position.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Talks Begin & DOGE Targets IRS | 2.18.25
And by the way, that German law also applies to someone reposting illegal speech, even if the person didn't know, for example, that they were sharing a false quote. Now, has CBS attempted to defend those comments? No. In fact, they proudly released the transcript. And there's really been no comment from other legacy outlets on this either. But there was blowback on the right.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Talks Begin & DOGE Targets IRS | 2.18.25
So how did Vance react? Well, Vance immediately posted on X, quoting here, insulting someone is not a crime and criminalizing speech will strain European-US relations. This is Orwellian and everyone in Europe and the US must reject this lunacy.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Talks Begin & DOGE Targets IRS | 2.18.25
Now, that reaction really captured the tenor of most of the conservative criticism, including from outlets like National Review, which called the segment mildly horrifying. And then you even had some conservative critics suggesting that the U.S. may need to pull out of NATO if Europe doesn't reestablish free speech protections.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Talks Begin & DOGE Targets IRS | 2.18.25
And so I do think for that reason, this goes to the broader point of Vance's Munich speech. And that was that the stakes of this clash are really high. Essentially, he said that the reason the leaders of these nations are cracking down on speech is because they fear the views of their voters, which, as in the U.S., have been trending in a populist direction.
Morning Wire
US-Russia Talks Begin & DOGE Targets IRS | 2.18.25
So CBS has appeared to many viewers to be trying to make the case for speech suppression in Europe rather than challenging these European leaders over that program.
Morning Wire
Tariff Time & Marine Le Pen Convicted in France | 4.1.25
Yeah, so Le Pen is the prominent leader of the right-wing National Rally Party. She's a very Trump-like figure in France, very much feared by the political establishment who characterize her as an extremist, but she's also very popular with the French public. Recent polls and elections show that nearly 40% of French voters back her and her party, and no other candidate comes close to that.
Morning Wire
Tariff Time & Marine Le Pen Convicted in France | 4.1.25
So she was found guilty of misappropriating several million euros in European Union funds. Essentially, her party was entitled to a certain amount of European funding for things like paying staff to work on general European political operations. Well, the court found that she used that money to the benefit of her national party, essentially a co-mingling of funds.
Morning Wire
Tariff Time & Marine Le Pen Convicted in France | 4.1.25
But Ellen Fantini, managing editor of the European Conservative, told me that virtually every major party in Europe does this same kind of thing. She says that the way this conviction is being carried out makes it very clear that this is about sidelining Le Pen as a candidate.
Morning Wire
Tariff Time & Marine Le Pen Convicted in France | 4.1.25
Fantini compared it to the same kind of lawfare that Donald Trump experienced.
Morning Wire
Tariff Time & Marine Le Pen Convicted in France | 4.1.25
Well, I'd say it's hard to overstate just how seismic this shift is. It's a huge setback for National Rally, which has been gaining ground as France's largest parliamentary party after last year's legislative elections. Now, Le Pen was poised to win the presidency as well. Fantini says she expects to see serious pushback from Le Pen supporters now.
Morning Wire
Tariff Time & Marine Le Pen Convicted in France | 4.1.25
And I'll add, you're even hearing some saying that French authorities are inviting civil war here.
Morning Wire
Tariff Time & Marine Le Pen Convicted in France | 4.1.25
Not much from those on the left, but those on the right are speaking out loudly. So on Monday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban posted, «Je suis Marine. I am Marine». Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League Party, called the ruling a «declaration of war by Brussels», meaning the European Union establishment.
Morning Wire
Tariff Time & Marine Le Pen Convicted in France | 4.1.25
Populist party leaders in the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, all of them are characterizing this as an attempt to stymie the success that the right has been experiencing across Europe. Many are comparing it to Colin Georgescu of Romania. He's another popular right-wing presidential candidate who a court just banned from running.
Morning Wire
Tariff Time & Marine Le Pen Convicted in France | 4.1.25
Piantini also expects the Trump administration to weigh in here in support of Le Pen.
Morning Wire
Tariff Time & Marine Le Pen Convicted in France | 4.1.25
Le Pen herself says she's a fighter and she says she is not going to allow the courts to eliminate her from this race.
Morning Wire
Epstein Contacts Release & Hackman Death Investigation | Afternoon Update | 2.27.25
Police say the couple was found inside their Santa Fe home with an unsecured door and scattered pills near Arakawa's body. A search warrant reveals Arakawa's body showed signs of mummification, suggesting she had been dead for some time before being discovered. Police found her body in a bathroom with scattered pills nearby, while 95-year-old Hackman was in a separate room.
Morning Wire
Epstein Contacts Release & Hackman Death Investigation | Afternoon Update | 2.27.25
One of their dogs was also found dead, but their other two survived. Hackman, a two-time Oscar winner, was last seen in public a year ago. His decades-long career included iconic roles in The French Connection and Unforgiven.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Well, you know, essentially because he was facing a revolt led by Elon Musk and the House Freedom Caucus. They felt that this was a bloated bill, more than 1,500 pages, that added on tens of billions in unnecessary new spending. And they said it was being rammed through before anyone could fully review it. Eric Burleson of Missouri called the bill a total dumpster fire.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Chip Roy of Texas said passing it would be the equivalent of eating a crap sandwich. So pretty pointed words there. Then there was Elon Musk. Trump has tasked him and Vivek Ramaswamy with finding spending cuts, and Musk clearly wanted Republicans to reject this bill. He'd been posting prolifically against it on X for days, including this clip of Ramaswamy that he shared on Wednesday.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Now, regular listeners will remember, Georgia, that we talked about the Global Engagement Center last week. That's a controversial State Department agency that is at the center of a joint Daily Wire and Federalist lawsuit alleging widespread censorship efforts against conservatives. Shutting it down has been a top priority for free speech advocates for a while, and its end did look imminent.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
But this bill extended its life for another year. Well, Musk called that criminal, and he said he would support primary challenges against any Republican who voted for it.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
No, not publicly, but Morning Wire has spoken with some sources on the Hill who say that one of the concerns is that shuttering the agency means that the center's staffers will be moved to other positions in the State Department. They say this would make it harder to root out corruption.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
So part of the reason some of these GOP leaders might like to see the center stay in place for another year is to allow the fully Republican controlled House, Senate and most importantly, the White House to take action to deal with this agency correctly, whether that's fully shutting it down or rooting out the corruption. So getting back to the bill more generally, why is Johnson supporting it?
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
Well, he said on Fox Wednesday that Republicans are in an impossible position where they have a razor-thin margin in the House. And he said he didn't like the bill either, but that the House needed to pass it so they could fight for serious cuts after Trump takes office. This was Johnson on Fox talking about his conversations with Musk and Ramaswamy.
Morning Wire
House Scraps Spending Bill & Mangione’s Extradition | 12.19.24
But the final nail in the coffin likely came when Donald Trump put out a statement Wednesday night saying that he was totally against the continuing resolution and that the Republicans should pass a bill that doesn't include Democrat giveaways. So now Johnson will reportedly be looking to get a much narrower spending bill passed. All right, well, we'll see if he has better luck with that.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
Yeah, a lot of disturbing reports and images are coming out of Syria right now as the country shifts toward more rigid Islamist rule. So HTS is Sunni, like 70% of the rest of Syria, and they're tied to ISIS and al-Qaeda. And HTS claims that the violence that erupted last Thursday began when some holdovers from the Assad regime attacked them.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
So they, the Sunni HTS rebel group, then began targeting provinces that are known to be Alawite, which is the Shia Muslim sect Assad belongs to. They've also been killing Christians, Kurds, and Druze as mosques in these regions have started calling on people to wage jihad.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
Now, humanitarian groups say Northwest Syria has been ethnically cleansed of Christians and Kurds and that whole families are being slaughtered. Essentially, they say that what started as small spurts of random vigilantism has now progressed into large-scale organized violence.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
The evangelical news outlet World Magazine interviewed several Syrian Christians now in hiding, and one described seeing a convoy of military vehicles and tanks that stretched for miles entering the main street of his town before the militants began shooting everything in sight. He said he watched them kill four young civilians right in front of him while shouting, "'We will behead you, pigs.'"
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
And it's not just executions. Residents of Christian and Alawite cities and villages are also being displaced and their property is being seized. So across the country, HTS soldiers are allegedly harassing young Christians for not adhering to strict Sunni customs, like demanding Christian women cover up in Muslim garb. They've also reportedly been targeting men who have Christian tattoos.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
In some areas like Damascus, Christians are protesting against but thousands are also fleeing to Lebanon or Russia as Putin was Assad's ally. And then one other interesting note here, the Alawites who again are Shia Muslims are calling on Israel to quote, save them from the brutal regime. In a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, they wrote, we are a minority like you in the Middle East, help us.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
And if you reach the Syrian coast, which is mostly Alawite, you will be received with songs and flowers. Hmm. So are these attacks religiously motivated or are there other factors as well? I would say it's both. Syria has been embroiled in civil war for more than a decade now, and those skirmishes are still continuing.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
So in rural areas where HTS has a weaker grip on power, targeting these religious minorities helps them exert some greater control. And also part of this is class-based, as the Alawites are more associated with the political elites, as Assad was. But, you know, this is a catch-22 that we see so often in the Middle East.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
Though Assad was by no means a good leader, he and his father before him did keep the region relatively stable. And those who opposed the U.S. meddling and trying to unseat him were concerned about these very kinds of alternatives. In fact, when President Trump first ran for office in 2016, he criticized Hillary Clinton over her support for arming anti-Assad rebel groups.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
This is what he told CNN at the time.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
And to that point, Syria's new president, Ahmad al-Sharra, who replaced Assad, is himself a former Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorist.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
The U.N. is calling for immediate action to protect civilians, and the U.S. has condemned the killings, specifically blaming radical Islamic terrorists. More pointed, the Israeli defense minister said Shara is showing his true face as a jihadist, though Shara denies this. He said these killings are a threat to his plan to bring unity to Syria.
Morning Wire
Inflation Cools Down & Education Department Downsizes | 3.13.25
But he has not yet acted to bring those loyalists who are acting in his name to heel.
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
So before we get to some of the kind of legal ramifications, there's obviously been a lot of leaks. There's been a lot of, I would even say, shifting in public loyalties back and forth. At least that's been my experience. At the outset, I was kind of team Justin. And then I went, well, wait a minute. Okay, that...
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
New York Times piece was really persuasive, but then Justin Baldoni's team released some new audio leaks and those kind of things sort of shifted the game a little bit. What's your sense right now of who's on top in the PR war?
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
Well, you know, it seems like there was a moment where Lively could have disengaged and just moved on. And this would have been something of a blip on Hollywood's gossip radar. Why do you think she escalated to a lawsuit that opened up so much more of these internal communications?
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
Well, I'm glad that you bring that up because I do want to talk a little bit about those messages between Baldoni and Lively. And I know that some media outlets characterize them as flirty. I don't know that I necessarily saw them that way, but I at least saw them as very familiar. Let's put it that way. Do you think that, by surprise?
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
Thanks so much for joining us, Maureen. You know, for those of us who are maybe just catching up with this story a little bit on the later side, I'm wondering if you can give us something of a 10,000-foot summary of this scandal.
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
Well, and do you think that Lively and Reynolds, at least as a couple, their image, like maybe Reynolds individually, Lively individually, do kind of come back from this? Because, you know, Brad and Angelina eventually did. But does their image as this blissful it couple bounce back?
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
Well, maybe just a couple more questions, Maureen. One of them is that The New York Times has come under a lot of scrutiny for the role it played in sort of rehabilitating Lively's claims when she was on the outs in terms of public affection, let's put it that way.
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
I have seen some claims that they handled that coverage in a biased way that was clearly working hand in glove with Blake Lively's team. What do you think of that? Any validity there?
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
Well, you kind of intuited where I was going to go next. And that was the role that Me Too has played in this with these claims that it was a sexual harassment issue. So do you think on a broader level, the tide has turned?
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
And maybe this is because of Johnny Depp, because before I think there was a period of time where even when the public was willing to say, hey, I don't know that that's a Me Too allegation. I'm thinking of something like Aziz Ansari, where there was a back and forth debate about that.
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
In this case, it seems like some of these men in Hollywood who don't even possess the power of some of these women are now willing to challenge these Me Too allegations. So do you think this sort of shifts the balance on where we are in Me Too? Yeah, I think this case is very...
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
the cultural corrective that is underway. Okay, well, last question then. Any predictions for the March trial?
Morning Wire
It Ends With Us...In Court | 2.8.25
Well, thank you, Maureen. That was enlightening. And I kind of can't wait to see where this goes next. I know. It's like every day we get another tidbit.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
Well, you know, on Saturday, we saw over 500 protests worldwide, everywhere from Australia to Germany to Chicago. And these turnouts were pretty mixed, I would say. You know, on one hand, in Michigan, you had what looked like... you know, fairly pitiful, small crowds, gray haired, maybe people in their 60s and 70s.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
And they were chanting and carrying signs saying things like no one elected Musk and drive Tesla out of business. But then in other areas like Manhattan, I would say the crowds were much more robust, much younger, much more energetic, and they were easily in the hundreds. And I'd say the key aim of these protests and this entire movement is to hit Musk where it hurts.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
They want to take down his electrical vehicle empire so that he backs off of all of these activities that he's been engaged in on behalf of the political right, especially his work cutting government waste with the Department of Government Efficiency. And you have to acknowledge they are having some success with that. Tesla sales are down. The value of used vehicles for Teslas are also down.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
But I do want to say for context, Tesla stock is up overall since the election.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
You know, no evidence of that yet, but I would say that it looks like Musk realizes that he might be losing something of a PR battle here and he's stepping up his game on that front. So originally he said that he wanted to keep Doge analysts out of the spotlight to protect their privacy and safety. But on Friday, Doge leaders sat down with Fox News and they made their case to the American people.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
This gave Musk a chance to dispel this image of Doge as just a bunch of young, inexperienced tech bros. What we saw instead were highly seasoned CEOs, scientists, people who took up the call to stop government spending out of patriotism. I want you to listen to this exchange between anchor Brett Baer and one of Doge's key leaders.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
And then another person on that Doge interview was Joe Gebbia, billionaire founder of Airbnb.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
So really just emphasizing that these are people who are highly experienced at streamlining very large budgets.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
Right. You know, so there's been a number of reports coming out about this, and the latest is a new one from the Fairfax Times in Virginia. What they have found is that this movement has been almost entirely bankrolled by professional protest organizations, firms like the Indivisible Project, which organized around 30 percent of these protests.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
Also, MoveOn.org, the Disruption Project, local Democratic Party chapters. And they're getting their funding from well-known left-wing operatives like George Soros. So emphasizing the very partisan nature of this. And look, this is a very typical play from the left when they are out of power.
Morning Wire
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ & ‘Tesla Takedown’ Protests | 3.31.25
But I would say we're seeing some things that are a little unusual on the right as we're seeing some pro-Doge rallies starting now. And those do seem to be organic. For example, you're even seeing some pastors of the more charismatic type holding sort of prayer rallies on behalf of Elon Musk and Doge.
Morning Wire
Zelensky Seeks European Aid & BlackRock Goes Woke-less | 3.3.25
Yeah, I mean, if you remember as far back as 2023, BlackRock and those other big asset managers like Vanguard and State Street were at least beginning to downplay their commitment to ESG, which, you know, quick reminder, it's an investing strategy that involves prioritizing left-wing social goals over financial returns.
Morning Wire
Zelensky Seeks European Aid & BlackRock Goes Woke-less | 3.3.25
But at that time, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told Fox News that his main reason for abandoning the term ESG was for PR perceptions.
Morning Wire
Zelensky Seeks European Aid & BlackRock Goes Woke-less | 3.3.25
And you can hear there that Fink was already starting to get a little bit defensive then with the perception that the company was woke, but he was still using a phrase with a similar meaning to ESG, conscientious capitalism. But now it looks like BlackRock is dropping wokeness for real.
Morning Wire
Zelensky Seeks European Aid & BlackRock Goes Woke-less | 3.3.25
So its 2025 annual report filed last Tuesday is missing the DEI commitments that were boilerplate for BlackRock investor letters in recent years. Instead, it now has strong meritocracy language. It talks about attracting the best people from across the world and supporting top talent and fostering diverse perspectives to avoid groupthink.
Morning Wire
Zelensky Seeks European Aid & BlackRock Goes Woke-less | 3.3.25
And according to the journal, BlackRock is dropping its internal DEI hiring requirements as well. An internal memo said managers no longer have to make sure to interview a certain number of minority candidates for jobs either. And then a couple more concrete data points. The firm has backed out of the group Net Zero Asset Managers, which is a UN-sponsored climate coalition.
Morning Wire
Zelensky Seeks European Aid & BlackRock Goes Woke-less | 3.3.25
And while it launched 30 ESG funds between 2019 and 2023, BlackRock has not launched any since the first quarter of 2024.
Morning Wire
Zelensky Seeks European Aid & BlackRock Goes Woke-less | 3.3.25
Well, you know, part of it was certainly public image. When your average suburban mom starts to know the name of BlackRock and associate it with wokeness, that's an issue. But also some concrete losses started to accrue for BlackRock from that association. Several red states sued the company for placing its political views above its fiduciary duties in managing pension funds.
Morning Wire
Zelensky Seeks European Aid & BlackRock Goes Woke-less | 3.3.25
Others passed laws against ESG investing of public funds and promised to stop doing business with BlackRock altogether. And then you had the Republican-led House subpoenaing BlackRock for hearings. I think Fink is a true believer in these progressive policies, and he seemed to believe for a while that he could carefully navigate the issue by using different rhetoric.
Morning Wire
Zelensky Seeks European Aid & BlackRock Goes Woke-less | 3.3.25
But I think when Donald Trump not only won the election, but the popular vote, it was clear at that point that a new era was dawning and it wasn't going to be possible to simply wait it out. Now, how much influence do you think this will have in the rest of the industry? Oh, I think it's going to be huge. BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world. It sets the terms in this business.
Morning Wire
Zelensky Seeks European Aid & BlackRock Goes Woke-less | 3.3.25
If they think that wokeness is now bad for business, other investment managers, large and small, are going to follow their lead. And you're already seeing a lot of them like Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Citigroup doing just that.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
Well, you know, look, there's been a lot of talk from political analysts about Democrats needing to pivot away from niche identity politics and more toward kitchen table issues like inflation. But I I have to tell you, there was no indication over the weekend that the party is ready to do that. So this meeting began with a land acknowledgement.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
And if you're not familiar with that, that just means formally stating that the United States was, quote, built on indigenous lands. And in a moment that went viral for all the wrong reasons, every single finalist for chair blamed Kamala Harris's loss on racism and misogyny.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
So eight candidates on the stage and every hand immediately went up. And then there was a pretty confusing moment where multiple officials attempted to explain the gender aspect of the party's voting bylaws. So the rules attempt to create voting parity between men, women and non-binary candidates where you can vote twice, but only for different gender candidates or something to that effect.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
Now, despite those gender equity efforts, at the end of the day, two white men did end up winning. Longtime DNC insider Ken Martin was elected chair, and young anti-gun activist David Hogg was elected vice chair.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
Well, both referenced the working class versus billionaires in their acceptance speeches, but their records are pretty far from those of the blue dog Democrats of yesteryear who did hold the loyalties of union workers and rural blue collar workers. So Martin is a longtime leader of Minnesota Democrats, and he helped shape the party's focus on identity politics.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
This is what he said at the Muslim Caucus of America just a few years ago.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
And then he's also been an enthusiastic supporter of the lawfare against Donald Trump that really energized the Republican base while doing very little to win over moderates. And it seems like Martin plans to continue with that no holds barred style, as he said that his plan is to, quote, take the low road so my candidates can take the high road.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
And you have to say that sounds more like an attack plan than selling voters on what Democrats have to offer. And then we look at David Hogg. Now, he's only 24 years old, and he pitched himself as being able to bring younger voters back to the party. But what he's best known for, gun control, was not actually a top issue for young voters in the last election.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
Now, any indication that Democrats are getting re-energized post-election?
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
To be honest with you, no, not really. A new Quinnipiac poll shows that Trump is experiencing a high watermark in favorability for him after his first couple of weeks in office. But meanwhile, that same polling group is showing a record unfavorability rating for the Democrats.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
Now, these results just came out last week, and they showed that voters are about evenly split on their feelings about the GOP, but Democrats are polling 31% favorable to 57% unfavorable. So a stark 26-point deficit there. And that's the lowest rating since Quinnipiac started asking the question back in 2008. And Quinnipiac isn't alone.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
YouGov shows that the Dems' popularity is at its lowest point since January 2017. And meanwhile, a new CNN poll shows that a record low 33% of Americans view the party favorably. But that tracking only goes back to 2006.
Morning Wire
Trade War Escalation & DNC's New Leadership | 2.3.25
As the Washington Post pointed out, if you expand that and include earlier CNN, USA Today and Gallup polls, these are actually the worst numbers the party has seen since at least 1992. So going back more than 30 years.
Morning Wire
Democratic Infighting Grows & Wisconsin’s Judicial Showdown | 3.24.25
Well, it's because this is a rare chance to flip the ideological balance of the highest court in a key swing state. So depending on how things play out on April 1st, Wisconsin Supreme Court could go from a 4-3 liberal majority to a 4-3 conservative one. And that will, of course, have a lot of ramifications on national policy. Arguably, the biggest factor here is congressional redistricting.
Morning Wire
Democratic Infighting Grows & Wisconsin’s Judicial Showdown | 3.24.25
So after the 2020 census, Republicans who controlled the legislature drew Wisconsin's congressional maps. Democrats cried gerrymandering and they sued. And then in 2022, the liberal court threw out the GOP's maps and adopted new ones that had been drawn by Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat. And that new map helped Democrats flip one congressional seat in 2024.
Morning Wire
Democratic Infighting Grows & Wisconsin’s Judicial Showdown | 3.24.25
So if conservative candidate Brad Schimel wins, he will likely uphold those GOP-drawn maps that help cement the very slim margin that Republicans have in the House right now. On the other hand, if liberal Susan Crawford wins, the court is likely to strike down those Republican maps again, meaning Democrats will have a greater likelihood of winning more seats in the state.
Morning Wire
Democratic Infighting Grows & Wisconsin’s Judicial Showdown | 3.24.25
Yeah, absolutely. And election integrity legislation like voter ID has also been a very big focus here. We have to remember that Trump won Wisconsin in 2024 by less than a percentage point. So these were the issues that Elon Musk stressed during an X space late Saturday night.
Morning Wire
Democratic Infighting Grows & Wisconsin’s Judicial Showdown | 3.24.25
Republicans also see a conservative court in Wisconsin as a potential firewall that could shield Trump's policies from state-level challenges. Think things like lawsuits over federal overreach or immigration crackdowns.
Morning Wire
Democratic Infighting Grows & Wisconsin’s Judicial Showdown | 3.24.25
So on Truth Social yesterday, Trump called Crawford a radical left Democrat, and he said she's insistent on bringing hardened criminals that we remove to faraway places back into our country and allowing men into women's sports and open borders. Quoting there, of course.
Morning Wire
Democratic Infighting Grows & Wisconsin’s Judicial Showdown | 3.24.25
And then pro-lifers are closely watching this race as well, as Crawford has made protecting access to abortion a major part of her pitch to voters.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
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.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
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,
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
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.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
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.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
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.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
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.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
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?
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
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.
Morning Wire
Trump Keeps Winning & Drone Defense Debate | 12.16.24
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.
Morning Wire
Trump’s DOGE Double Down & Federal Worker Competency | 3.10.25
Well, you know, I think what you're seeing is some careful PR management surrounding a program that has been significantly slowed down by the courts and has become a key target for Democrats. I think some of that has spooked Republican lawmakers. Reportedly, the president has been hearing from them.
Morning Wire
Trump’s DOGE Double Down & Federal Worker Competency | 3.10.25
And then last Thursday, he posted on Truth Social that these cuts are going to be made using a scalpel rather than a hatchet. And he also stressed that the cabinet secretaries will be making the final calls on these cuts. And that's something that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick emphasized on Meet the Press on Sunday.
Morning Wire
Trump’s DOGE Double Down & Federal Worker Competency | 3.10.25
But at the same time that Trump is being careful to note that Musk is only advising, and we want to be clear, presidents have every right to call on private sector advisors, he's also touting the waste, fraud, and abuse that Musk's team has identified. This is what he told Fox yesterday.
Morning Wire
Trump’s DOGE Double Down & Federal Worker Competency | 3.10.25
Trump added that Musk has convinced him that some government departments do need to see deep cuts as much as 50 to 70 percent.
Morning Wire
Trump’s DOGE Double Down & Federal Worker Competency | 3.10.25
Where are we seeing those? So they're calling these Tesla takedown protests. And I'd say that none have been particularly large. You're mostly hearing about gatherings of hundreds, but they are actually happening all across the country and they're getting substantial media attention. Now, part of that is because some pretty high profile people are participating in these rallies.
Morning Wire
Trump’s DOGE Double Down & Federal Worker Competency | 3.10.25
Like on Friday, former head of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, led a protest song at the Lincoln Memorial over potential research cuts.
Morning Wire
Trump’s DOGE Double Down & Federal Worker Competency | 3.10.25
Okay, so that's not something that you see every day. But as for the less famous protesters, the GOP says that many of them are actually being paid by power brokers like George Soros and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. And they say that Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue is also playing a role in funding some of these groups.
Morning Wire
Trump’s DOGE Double Down & Federal Worker Competency | 3.10.25
Unfortunately, other protests are making news because they're going far beyond peaceful singing or carrying signs. We're now seeing protesters attacking Tesla dealerships, manufacturing facilities, and even charging stations with Molotov cocktails, gunfire, arson, things of that nature. Just a sampling here.
Morning Wire
Trump’s DOGE Double Down & Federal Worker Competency | 3.10.25
Over the weekend, someone shot up a Tesla dealership in Portland, Oregon, damaging cars and shattering windows. In Massachusetts, arsonists set a number of Tesla charging stations on fire. But we do want to note that for all of those protests, the latest polling says that the majority of Americans do back Doge.
Morning Wire
Trump’s DOGE Double Down & Federal Worker Competency | 3.10.25
asked how much influence Musk and Doge should have on government spending, 54% said some or a lot, compared to 46% who said only a little or none. A narrow majority, 51%, also said that they want to see that federal workforce reduced.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
So the White House says that they're emphasizing access and availability. And because of that, they're now welcoming non-traditional media outlets into the briefing room. And that includes political podcasts, bloggers, independent journalists, people like that who reach large and or underserved audiences.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
So to give you just one example, one of the White House's first press briefings included John Ashbrook of the podcast Ruthless, which is especially popular with young men. And then newer outlets with very large audiences, like the Daily Wire, also now have ongoing credentials for daily briefings.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
And our new White House correspondent, Mary Margaret Olihan, has already been called on for several questions. So the White House has also established a permanent seat that will be occupied by rotating members of the new media. And Levitt invited outlets to apply for credentials for that seat. And at last count, at least 11,500 have done so.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
Some are. So already the Department of Defense has restructured its press access with a new annual media rotation program. So legacy outlets like the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, Politico, NPR, they'll still be members of the Pentagon Press Corps and have access to DOD briefings, but they're not going to get dedicated workspace in the building, which they have in the past.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
Instead, this year, those offices are going to outlets like the New York Post, Newsmax, the Huffington Post, the Free Press, and then they'll rotate again in 2026. Now, I imagine these legacy outlets are not happy about this. Well, I would say that's putting it mildly.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
A New York Times spokesman said that these are, quoting here, steps designed to impede access that are clearly not in the public interest. And a former Politico exec told CNN that it's the erasure of journalism. So some somewhat hyperbolic responses there.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
And then just generally you're hearing these outlets who are losing their workspaces, accusing the administration of giving preferential treatment to Trump-friendly outlets. And you do have to say it's true that some of these outlets are considerably more favorable to Trump than, say, CNN and The Washington Post, whose own owner, Jeff Bezos, has acknowledged that it has a liberal bias problem.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
But again, this new rotation program is also providing space to media that are notably left, like The Huffington Post, or you could say consistently neutral, like The Free Press. But I do think it highlights that Trump no longer feels that he has to play nice with frequently hostile legacy outlets anymore.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
And he's no longer willing to give them pride of place just because past administrations did so.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
Well, already ABC has settled with Trump over a defamation lawsuit and issued a public apology. Now it looks like CBS's ownership, Paramount, is set to settle over a $10 billion lawsuit that Trump had filed against 60 Minutes. He claims that during the election, the network deceptively edited its interview with Kamala Harris in order to help her campaign.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
And you're hearing a lot of legacy media figures upset about this, like Jake Tapper at CNN.
Morning Wire
Trump Super Bowl Buzz & New Media Rises | 2.10.25
So I think it's very likely that we could see additional changes from other federal agencies as Trump's cabinet continues to take shape.
Morning Wire
FEMA Fires Partisans & February Jobs Growth | Afternoon Update | 3.7.25
Producer Jeffrey Seller announced this week that he and his team are canceling planned shows, saying that President Trump's takeover of the Kennedy Center's leadership and his push for an anti-woke overhaul was the cause.
Morning Wire
FEMA Fires Partisans & February Jobs Growth | Afternoon Update | 3.7.25
Hamilton was set to run from March 3rd to April 26th next year, but in a statement, Seller said, our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center. Trump is now chair of the Kennedy Center, and interim president Richard Grinnell called Hamilton's cancellation a publicity stunt that will backfire.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
So as we reported yesterday, this really started with the Trump administration's announcement that it was effectively shutting down USAID. And that's the United States Agency for International Development. Now, that led to a lot of scrutiny over what exactly USAID has been spending money on.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
And that's when data analysts found millions of taxpayer dollars from various federal agencies flowing into legacy outlets like Politico and AP. Now Politico has been the main focus because they received 8.2 million from the federal government in just the last fiscal year.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
Some initial reports falsely claimed that all of that money was coming from USAID, but in reality, only 24,000 came from that group. But what that did was the discovery got a lot more people looking into these payments and millions more was discovered coming from other government agencies. So now we're seeing a similar debate around the AP, the New York Times, and Reuters.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
AP has received $620,000, primarily coming from the State Department. The Times was paid $378,000 last fiscal year for its various subscriptions. And Reuters received $13.6 million, with the majority coming from the Department of Defense for a premium data analysis product called Thomas Reuters Special Services. And how are these outlets explaining those payments?
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
Well, they argue that these are legitimate business transactions, not subsidies. Politico's argument is that these agencies were buying subscriptions to its premium news service, Politico Pro, and some annual subscriptions could cost over $10,000.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
So Politico CEO and editor-in-chief issued a statement on Wednesday saying that the company has, quoting here, never received any government funding, no subsidies, no grants, not one dime in 18 years. And they also underscored that Politico Pro is a different product than their general news program. And they say that most of their subscribers are in the private sector.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
Now, AP also doesn't deny that they've received millions in payments, but they made a point of noting that both Republican and Democratic administrations have been their customers.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
But a lot of critics, particularly those on the right, counter that these premium subscriptions, like Politico Pro, are pretty exorbitantly priced, over 10K a year, and that this is effectively a racket that relies on government agencies greenlighting these high expenditures. And they also worry about how these large sums of money might influence news coverage.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
Molly Hemingway at The Federalist shared a post that called it payola, quoting, like when a labor union buys 250K copies of a hack politician's book no one wants to read. Sure, they technically paid for a book, but the union was purchasing something else. And then political talk show host Eric Erickson argued that if any Republican were using federal tax dollars to pay for subscriptions,
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
to a conservative news service that costs ten thousand dollars the very press outlets defending this would assail that now is there evidence that this cash flow has skewed their coverage well we can see that these pricey politico accounts did ramp up during the biden years they went from 6.5 million during the trump administration to 26 million between 2021 and 2024 under president biden
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
And that does present some problematic optics, if nothing else. And then a former Politico reporter, Mark Caputo, has acknowledged that the outlet's editors tended to quash those stories that were unfavorable to Biden. He said they wouldn't run coverage on Joe Biden's cognitive decline. or on the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Morning Wire
Trump’s Record Pace & Federal Media Contracts Cancelled | 2.7.25
In fact, he said that staff were instructed to not even talk or tweet about that laptop story. So there's no proof that that editorial bias was influenced by money. But again, the optics aren't great.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
Well, you know, Kennedy took over the franchise in 2012 and despite a few successful products like the Mandalorian, she very prominently embraced the girl power model. And meanwhile, the iconic characters that fans love like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo they were kind of deconstructed. In fact, you could even argue that Luke's character was so subverted that he actually became a bad guy.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
And so a lot of fans objected to this new sort of feminist bent of Star Wars and also the Indiana Jones franchise. And ultimately, the trend became a cultural punchline, which I think was pretty well captured in an infamous South Park clip.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
Bottom line, with each new Star Wars film and series, you saw the fan base diminish. And you think this is part of a larger shift in Hollywood? Well, there's definitely signs of that. So multiple A-list actors, including Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford, appeared in unmistakably patriotic Super Bowl ads this year.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
Really interesting that Ford made a pointed comment about pride in his Jeep ad, which was all about freedom and honored military members. Take a listen here.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
And keep in mind that every word of these ads is carefully considered. And then, just like the rest of corporate America, a lot of studios have quietly laid off their DEI executives. And just like the big tech execs, some entertainment bigwigs have been making nice with Trump. Netflix chief Ted Sarandos, for instance, made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago after the election.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
And I would say that things have been pretty muted, politically speaking, this awards season. We simply have not seen the acceptance speeches condemning Trump or pushing politics in the ways that typically characterize these ceremonies.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
In fact, when Trump announced that he'd named Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, and Jon Voight as his new Hollywood ambassadors to bring back the golden age of the industry, I expected joking and criticism, and there really wasn't even any of that. And then there's the new messaging coming from the studios.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
Paramount told the New York Times recently that their focus is now on all audience flat out entertaining films. And that's similar to what we've heard from Disney chief Bob Iger. This is what he told CNBC in April.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
And he made good on that. Just recently, Disney removed a transgender storyline from Pixar's new streaming series, Win or Lose. And after the election, Snow White star Rachel Zegler apologized for posting that she hopes Trump supporters never know peace. And reportedly, Disney publicists were a part of orchestrating that apology. So a lot of evidence that the political winds are changing.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
But I would say that 2020 to 2023, those years when the political fracturing was at its most extreme, they allowed a new competition to gain a foothold.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
We've seen more conservative leaning audiences have gotten used to looking for entertainment in more niche ways and fledgling entertainment companies that cater to them like Angel Studios and The Daily Wire, which produces this podcast, have had some really big successes.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
Well, you will still see the big tentpole successes with movies like Wicked or Deadpool and Wolverine. But overall, box office is still way down from where the industry was before the pandemic. 2024's total was 8.7 billion compared to 2018, which was 12 billion. And that's not adjusting for inflation, which makes those numbers even worse.
Morning Wire
Trump Hosts Starmer & Hollywood’s Woke Reversal | 2.28.25
So we do need to see a lot more movies that draw audiences of all political stripes if we hope to return to that pre-pandemic strength.
Morning Wire
Trump Tours Disaster Areas & Fauci Security Ends | Afternoon Update | 1.24.25
The film Amelia Perez led this year's Oscar nominations with 13 nods, including Best Picture and Best Actress. Carla Sofia Gascon, who earned a Best Actress nomination for the Spanish-language film, is the first actor who identifies as trans to be nominated for an Oscar. Other top contenders included Wicked and The Brutalist, which earned 10 nominations.
Morning Wire
Trump Tours Disaster Areas & Fauci Security Ends | Afternoon Update | 1.24.25
Wicked scored acting nods for Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, while Adrian Brody earned his second best actor nod for The Brutalist. He won in 2002 for The Pianist. The ceremony will take place on March 2nd.
Morning Wire
Trump’s WEF Warning & CNN’s Newsroom Shakeup | 1.24.25
So as President Trump said during his announcement on Tuesday, the primary intent of the Stargate project is to build essential data centers and computing infrastructure that's going to enable more and more importantly, faster AI development. So right now, only a few states like Texas and Arizona have the energy grids that are capable of supporting those new data centers.
Morning Wire
Trump’s WEF Warning & CNN’s Newsroom Shakeup | 1.24.25
So part of this public-private partnership between the government and the Stargate companies is going to be to increase available electricity so that those centers can get built more quickly. This is what Trump told the World Economic Forum yesterday.
Morning Wire
Trump’s WEF Warning & CNN’s Newsroom Shakeup | 1.24.25
It's also about creating jobs, as Trump said there at the top of the story, but also that AI infrastructure has innumerable applications from health to military development. OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, three of the companies funding this project, are promising that Stargate is going to allow the United States to do that.
Morning Wire
Trump’s WEF Warning & CNN’s Newsroom Shakeup | 1.24.25
Well, you know, I don't think it would be an understatement to say that Musk is not a fan of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Trump has cozied up to him for this project. So Musk has been pretty public about his displeasure about that on X recently. And this isn't new. Late last year, Musk made this comment to Tucker Carlson.
Morning Wire
Trump’s WEF Warning & CNN’s Newsroom Shakeup | 1.24.25
And immediately after OpenAI's X account posted Wednesday that it would begin deploying the first 100 billion of the project, Musk replied, quoting here, they don't actually have the money. SoftBank has well under 10 billion secured. I have that on good authority. And Altman eventually responded, Wrong, as you surely know.
Morning Wire
Trump’s WEF Warning & CNN’s Newsroom Shakeup | 1.24.25
I realize what is great for the country isn't always what's optimal for your companies, but in your new role, I hope you'll mostly put America first. So some pretty sharp exchanges there.
Morning Wire
Trump’s WEF Warning & CNN’s Newsroom Shakeup | 1.24.25
Well, you know, Musk and Altman have had something of a feud going on for what you have to say is a number of years. They co-founded OpenAI as a nonprofit way back in 2015. And then Musk later cut ties with the company when it transitioned to a for-profit model after partnering with Microsoft. And at that point, Musk sued.
Morning Wire
Trump’s WEF Warning & CNN’s Newsroom Shakeup | 1.24.25
Essentially, he says that Altman has moved completely away from the original ideal of open AI, which was transparency and benefiting humanity, not profit. He's also accused Altman of, again, quoting, deceit of Shakespearean proportions. The other company heads involved in Stargate are not commenting so far.
Morning Wire
Trump’s WEF Warning & CNN’s Newsroom Shakeup | 1.24.25
Yes, and Musk has also been pretty public about Altman's not being a Trump fan in the past. So we'll see how that plays out. Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime.
Morning Wire
Education Department Dismantled & Tesla Terrorism Continues | 3.21.25
Yeah, so we don't have the names of the suspects yet, but we do know that these charges center on attacks on Tesla dealerships and charging stations. One suspect allegedly lobbed eight Molotov cocktails at a retailer in Oregon. And then another in Colorado is charged with attempting to light Teslas on fire, again with Molotov cocktails.
Morning Wire
Education Department Dismantled & Tesla Terrorism Continues | 3.21.25
And then the third charge comes out of Charleston, South Carolina. where the suspect allegedly scrawled obscene graffiti about President Trump on Tesla property and lit charging stations on fire. Now, this violence is especially concerning as it's now putting ordinary citizens at risk.
Morning Wire
Education Department Dismantled & Tesla Terrorism Continues | 3.21.25
A number of Tesla owners confirmed that their names and home addresses were published on an online map that had been decorated with a Molotov bomb. And the site also encouraged protesters to unleash their artistic flair by vandalizing Tesla vehicles. And it also recommended other, quote, creative expressions of protest.
Morning Wire
Education Department Dismantled & Tesla Terrorism Continues | 3.21.25
And I'll be honest, we're just not seeing the kind of bipartisan condemnation of this that I think you would expect. In fact, some Democrats and public figures have even seemed to make light of the violence. On Wednesday night, talk show host Jimmy Kimmel responded to a clip of Elon Musk saying that these attacks make no sense by saying this.
Morning Wire
Education Department Dismantled & Tesla Terrorism Continues | 3.21.25
And then also on Wednesday night, this is what Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett said during a live stream with the protest group Tesla Takedown.
Morning Wire
Education Department Dismantled & Tesla Terrorism Continues | 3.21.25
Well, you know, obviously the investigations are ongoing into the individual incidents. But yes, there is plenty of evidence that these protests are being well-funded by outside political groups. One of these groups, for instance, is the Indivisible Project. It's been heavily financed by George Soros' foundation, Open Society, to the tune of some $8 million.
Morning Wire
Education Department Dismantled & Tesla Terrorism Continues | 3.21.25
And they've also received funding from Democratic fundraising platform, ActBlue. In fact, one of their founders, Leah Greenberg, spoke recently about organizing protests at Tesla dealerships and spreading the word that Musk's advisory role in the administration is a unique threat.
Morning Wire
Education Department Dismantled & Tesla Terrorism Continues | 3.21.25
An Indivisible Project is not the only group either. Others like Action Network are longtime professional protest organizers. They worked behind the scenes at Occupy Wall Street for years, for instance. And now they're helping to organize these Tesla demonstrations. They also published addresses of Tesla dealerships across the country for protesters to target.
Morning Wire
Education Department Dismantled & Tesla Terrorism Continues | 3.21.25
So how badly is this hurting Musk and Tesla? Well, you know, the bulk of Musk's wealth is tied up in Tesla stock. So the fact that it has taken about a 50% hit since December is significant, but he's still the richest person in the world. And he also recently got some good news on the X front. The value of that company has experienced a major rebound.
Morning Wire
Education Department Dismantled & Tesla Terrorism Continues | 3.21.25
While at one point it had fallen as low as 70%, its latest valuation puts it at 44 billion, which coincidentally is exactly what Musk paid for it in 2022. Wow.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
You know, I don't think it would be hyperbole to call it enormous. It's totally different this time around. Elon Musk, as we would expect, is going to have pride of place at Trump's inauguration on January 20th, but he's not going to be alone.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
So will Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, both of whom donated a million dollars each to Trump's inaugural fund, and both will be seated on stage with him at the inauguration. And speaking of donations, Trump also raked some in from OpenAI CEO and the CEO of Uber. And these are companies that up until just about five minutes ago were viewed as, well, pardon the pun, Uber progressive.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
And then when we turn to car manufacturing, Toyota, Ford, General Motors, they're also kicking into Trump's inaugural fund with Ford reportedly donating fleets of vehicles for use by high-profile guests. And if you look at the financial world, we see Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, major hedge fund managers also throwing the returning president their support.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
So just a complete turn of the page here.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
Well, you know, this may be the most dramatic. During Trump's 2016 inauguration, planners actually had a pretty difficult time scheduling A-list performers.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
Among the artists who declined to sing at that event were Garth Brooks, Celine Dion, Elton John, and then world-famous opera singer Andrea Bocelli initially said that he had accepted an invitation to perform, but then he backed out due to backlash in the music industry. This time, though, the Trump team has had no trouble scoring one of the biggest country artists on the planet.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
Carrie Underwood is going to be singing America the Beautiful at the ceremony itself, and then other major acts like Jason Aldean and Rascal Flatts are going to perform at an inaugural ball. And then maybe even more telling, I haven't really seen much backlash from the entertainment industry for any of these performers. I mean...
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
You know, there's been a little bit of low-level grousing from a few isolated figures. Joy Behar comes to mind, but nothing significant. And I also think if we turn and look at comedy, we see the same thing. So on New Year's Eve, comedian Whitney Cummings went on CNN and absolutely roasted the Democrats.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
And then just a few days later, comedian Nikki Glaser hosted the Golden Globes and took aim at Hollywood for being politically disconnected from the American public.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
In terms of actors, if we look at A-list celebrities, they are openly backing Trump in a way we never saw before. I'm thinking of people like Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, and DC superhero Zachary Levi.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
Now, professional sports have, of course, always had a little bit more of a conservative bent than other areas of culture, but you still mostly saw the big names keep pretty quiet about their politics. That's not happening now. Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, Danica Patrick, former Patriots general manager Bill Belichick, two-time Super Bowl champion Lawrence Taylor. They are all open Trump supporters.
Morning Wire
The Trump Shift & Cabinet Confirmation Questioning | 1.17.25
And if you paid any attention to this past NFL season, you noticed that it was replete with players doing that famous Trump dance. So just a completely different landscape. Right, no doubt it feels totally different this time around.