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- [00:00]
FirstNet Announcer
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Georgia Howe
President Trump issues a stark warning to Tehran and its proxies as he hosts Israel's prime minister at Mar? A Lago.
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President Donald Trump
They're going to be given a very short period of time to disarm, and we'll see how that works out.
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Georgia Howe
I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Tuesday, December 30th, and this is Morning Wire.
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Court Official
The court hereby orders the redaction of the portions of the transcript, corresponding audio referencing security measures identified in the party's joint status report and further pared down during the closure hearing.
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Megan Basham
The judge in the Charlie Kirk case rules on the side of transparency as TPUSA calls for more public access while the suspect wants the cameras out of the courtroom.
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Georgia Howe
And alongside a historic decline in illegal border crossings, 2025 saw the largest single year drop in murders in US history.
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Megan Basham
Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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Megan Basham
President Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar a Lago on Monday as both countries face new tensions with Iran.
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Georgia Howe
Here to talk about how that meeting went is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce. So, Tim, President Trump followed up his Ukraine sit down on Sunday with a big Middle east meeting on Monday. What took place at that meeting?
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Tim Pierce
Right. Netanyahu met with the president at Mar a Lago on Monday as Trump makes an end of the year push on some of his big foreign policy priorities. Now, the US And Israel took out dozens of Iran's top ranking military and intelligence commanders and nuclear scientists earlier this year, but there's some concern that Iran may try to rebuild. Trump addressed those concerns.
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President Donald Trump
Speaking of Iran, I hope they're not trying to build up again because if they are, we're going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup. I hope they're not doing it because we don't want to waste the fuel.
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Tim Pierce
The two leaders also discuss the future of Gaza. The US Is trying to move the peace deal into its second phase. That involves setting up some kind of international peacekeeping force in Gaza and the beginning of major reconstruction. The Israelis, however, are concerned that terror threats, including Hamas, may reconstitute and need to be dealt with first. Here's what Trump said about Hamas.
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President Donald Trump
If they don't disarm as, as they agreed to do, they agreed to it and then they'll be held to pay for them.
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Tim Pierce
The two leaders were also very warm to each other in public. Trump again called for Netanyahu to be pardoned and the prime minister announced that Trump would receive the Israel prize.
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President Donald Trump
Well, President Trump has broken so many conventions to the surprise of people, and then they figure out, oh, well, maybe, you know, he was right after all. So we decided to break a convention too, or create a new one. And that is to award the Israel Prize, which In almost our 80 years, we've never awarded it to a non Israeli and we're going to award it this year to President Trump.
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Georgia Howe
Now, earlier this year, the US And Israel did a combined strike on Iran's military capabilities and really dealt a pretty significant blow to their nuclear program. Where do things stand now with regards to tensions between the US And Tehran following that operation?
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Tim Pierce
Yeah, well, I guess the big question is how much of the rhetoric coming out of Iran is bluster and what is the regime actually capable of? After all, Tehran hasn't softened its rhetoric at all. After the joint US Israeli operations over the weekend, Iranian President Massoud Possesskian told state media that Iran is in a state of total war with the United States, Israel and Europe. Netanyahu and Trump seem to take those threats seriously. But as tough as Iran sounds, it has serious domestic and international problems. After Possesskin's threats were published, civil unrest broke out across Iran for two days. Iran is on the verge of economic collapse. On Monday, the rial's collapse continued and was trading at about 1.4 million to the dollar. The collapse has paralyzed commerce and fueled triple digit inflation for essential goods. A lot of this is due to sanctions pressure from the United States. Tehran has reportedly raided its national development Fund after it exhausted all of its oil revenues this year. There are reports that $6.7 billion of that revenue was lost to regime corruption. And that's on top of the damage done to Iran's leadership during the 12 Day War.
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Georgia Howe
Now, the president also appeared to break some news about US Operations in Venezuela on Monday. What did he say there?
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Tim Pierce
Right as he was walking into his meeting with Netanyahu, the president said that the US Took out a dock area that was used to load up boats with drugs. Here's that moment.
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President Donald Trump
We hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It's the implementation area. That's where they implement and that is no longer around.
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Tim Pierce
He didn't say it was a military strike specifically, but it's certainly a notable and major step from the President of the United States.
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John Bickley
Right.
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Georgia Howe
Well, Tim, thanks so much for reporting.
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Tim Pierce
Good to be on.
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Georgia Howe
A Utah judge has ordered the release of sealed hearings in the trial against Charlie Kirk's alleged killer, Tyler Robinson. Meanwhile, TPUSA presses ahead with its mission.
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Megan Basham
Joining us with the latest details is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham. Hey, Megan. So Robinson's case back in the news this week with another hearing. First, can you tell us what materials are covered by the judge's order and why is he releasing them?
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John Bickley
Yeah, John. So yesterday afternoon, during a hearing on how much access the media should have in this case, 4th District Judge Tony Graf ordered the release of transcripts and also an audio recording from a previously closed door session that was held back in October. Now, Graf ruled that given just how high profile this case is, the public does have an interest in certain portions of the hearing. And he said that those portions that could risk the Safety of anyone involved in the case can just be redacted.
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Court Official
Nevertheless, and as the parties recognize, the court need not seal the entire transcript and audio of the October 24, 2025 hearing to protect the safety interests of all those involved. Redacting selective portions of the transcript and the audio that reference security measures will serve safety interests while allowing for as much public access to to the remainder of the record as possible.
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John Bickley
Graf also added, and I'm quoting here, that the court's sole objective in this process is to ensure a fair, orderly and lawful proceeding that reflects the constitutional rights of the parties while honoring the public's qualified right of access. And it looks like the public is going to get a look at most of that hearing. As graph only ordered 246 words of an 80 page transcript to be redacted.
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Megan Basham
Did we learn anything new from this release now that it's out?
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John Bickley
You know, nothing really earth shattering. I would say these transcripts show more procedural negotiations. So essentially, the defense asked for Robinson to be allowed to wear civilian clothes in court and also to have one of his hands free from shackles so that he could take notes. And Graff did later rule that Robinson can wear civilian clothes, but he cannot have his hands free.
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Megan Basham
Why was Robinson's team asking that this hearing be kept from the public?
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John Bickley
You know, this was more of a pro forma argument. Robinson's attorneys have consistently argued that broad media coverage in general, including things like cameras in the courtroom, could prejudice potential jurors and jeopardize his right to a fair trial. They're also saying that they're concerned that sensationalized images of Robinson risk inflaming public opinion before any sort of judgment is made. In fact, earlier this month, at Robinson's first appearance in court, Graf blocked a media livestream of the hearing. And he also ordered that a camera be moved after Robinson's attorneys objected that their client was being shown in shackles. Graf at that point ruled that the media is not allowed to show images of Robinson in restraints or really anywhere in the courtroom except sitting at that defense table. On the other side, though, you have a coalition of news organizations, including the Associated Press and Fox News, who filed a motion arguing that transparent proceedings are essential to justice and to public trust. And they said in this motion that, quote, every high profile criminal prosecution has significant pretrial publicity, no matter where it occurs. But then another interesting wrinkle here is that Erica Kirk has joined that media call for transparency because she says that her family and the public deserve to have cameras in there. In part to prevent misinformation and conspiracy theories from taking hold about the case. And, you know, a lot of people have noticed that a sort of cottage industry of wild, unfounded theorizing has sprung up around Charlie Kirk's murder. So I think TPUSA is hoping that greater public access to all of these proceedings can help tamp that down right now.
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Megan Basham
Speaking of tpusa, it's been three months now since Kirk's death. How are they weathering this ongoing storm?
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John Bickley
You know, I'd say remarkably well. There are reports that over 32,000 students have signed up to start new chapters, and the organization is now opening dozens of chapters. Daily. Fundraising, we're hearing, is pouring in from major donors. And you have a lot of analysts pointing to the fact that TPUSA has played a major role in shifting young male voters in particular toward Republicans. And a lot of commentators are noting that Democrats are now struggling in that demographic. And then, you know, I would say that maybe one of the greatest indicators of their growing influence was the appearance of rapper Nicki Minaj at their America Fest conference just this month. So, of course, Minaj is about as mainstream pop culture as it gets, and she was there to advocate for Christians being persecuted in Nigeria. But she did also praise Trump and tpusa, and that really does seem to mark a pretty significant cultural shift.
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Megan Basham
It does. And meanwhile, the resilience of the organization is, as you said, pretty remarkable. Megan, thanks so much for reporting.
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John Bickley
Yep, my pleasure.
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Megan Basham
According to A new report, 2025 brought the single largest drop in murders in US history.
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Georgia Howe
Daily Wire political reporter Cameron Arkand is here to break down the stunning trend. So, Cameron, we have some very welcome news here at the end of the year. Walk us through the details.
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Cameron Arkand
Yes. So there was roughly a 20% drop in homicides between this year and last year according to the Real Time Crime Index. This is an even bigger drop according to the Hill, between 2023 and 2024, which is at 13%, which is still a big drop. Now, you go back to 2021 during the Biden era. You know, you had a lot of Democrats, a lot of people arguing that there was a pandemic era uptick in crime. Now, Democrats mostly did attribute that to Covid arguing lockdowns essentially, you know, drove people to do these sorts of things and economic concerns like that. Meanwhile, Republicans argued that the spike during that time period was the result of efforts to defund the police in many urban areas. Also, you saw the rise of a lot of soft on crime district attorneys in certain Areas like LA county and other major hubs of populations, for example, as well as judges, that might have made it difficult for certain people facing very serious charges or convictions for violent crimes to actually stay behind bars.
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Georgia Howe
Now, this is part of a broader trend. What does the other data show when it comes to different types of crime?
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Cameron Arkand
Yeah, so the data from that index does show that aggravated assaults were down around 7%, robberies were down around 18%, and car thefts were down 23%. Now, the Hill noted that we are going to get a clearer picture when the FBI releases their own data. Those numbers might take a minute for us to get. As you know, this past year, we didn't get those numbers until August. So we will get a clearer picture then. But for now, this gives a really good indicator that we'll be seeing some pretty serious drops once we get those official statistics.
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Georgia Howe
So what are the political implications of this? Is President Trump taking credit?
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Cameron Arkand
Yeah. So, I mean, the White House has said this was one of the reasons that Trump was elected in the first place, to crack down on crime. Now, you look no further than, you know, the effort to potentially strip away federal funding to cities that have cashless bail. We've also, of course, seen this with the surge in federal law enforcement in cities like Washington, D.C. and Memphis. There's also been crime reform made at the federal level to Washington, D.C. these actions that are being taken, especially with these federal surges with the National Guard, but also other agencies that are able to make arrests and really be able to support local law enforcement could be used in other cities. As you had people like Mayor Muriel Bowser in D.C. who was initially very skeptical of the surge of enforcement crime. And then crime did tick down. And, you know, there was that famous clip of her where she was praising the administration for that decrease. And it seems clear that Americans are aware of things getting safer, at least at the numbers we're looking at. If you look at polling data, President Trump had the highest approval rating on the topic of crime compared with other issues, according to a Gallup poll from last month.
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Georgia Howe
Now, this also dovetails with the largest decrease in border crossings, correct?
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Cameron Arkand
Correct. So there were only 30,000 total encounters at the border in November, according to Customs and Border Protection. Now, if you go back two years to December 2023, that month had over 300,000 encounters at the southern border. Now, nobody's been released from these arrests that were made in the past seven months, and the border has largely gone quiet, which is really fulfilling a major campaign promise made by the president last year. And really a push from Republicans on that effort. Now, as that relates to crime, the Department of Homeland Security has been largely touting the arrest of illegal immigrants who have an additional rap sheet in addition to being in the country illegally.
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Georgia Howe
Well, some good news to close out the year. Cameron, thanks for reporting.
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Cameron Arkand
Thank you.
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Megan Basham
Thanks for waking up with us. And some programming notes for this week. We won't be releasing any evening wires, but we will be releasing original content every morning the rest of the week. And as usual, go to Daily Wire plus for the video versions. Oh, yeah, and Happy New Year a couple of days early.
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President Donald Trump
Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating.
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Tim Pierce
It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu.
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Court Official
Is that guy with the binoculars watching us?
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Tim Pierce
Cut the camera.
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President Donald Trump
They see us.
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Cameron Arkand
Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com. liberty.
- [16:41]
President Donald Trump
Liberty.
- [16:41]
John Bickley
Liberty.
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Cameron Arkand
Liberty Savings Ferry Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates Excludes Massachusetts.