Ukraine Deal Emerges & SNAP System Shakeup | 11.20.25

Summary

Morning Wire Podcast Summary

Episode: “Ukraine Deal Emerges & SNAP System Shakeup”
Date: November 20, 2025
Hosts: John Bickley, Georgia Howe
Notable Guests/Reporters: Tim Pierce, Amanda Prestigiacomo, Jenny Terr

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Episode Overview

This episode of Morning Wire delivers in-depth coverage of several significant political and social developments:

• The emergence of a 28-point peace plan to end the Ukraine war, with the U.S. engaging in behind-the-scenes negotiations with Russia.
• Sweeping new reforms to the nation’s SNAP (food stamps) program targeting fraud, eligibility, and spending habits.
• Immigration enforcement in Charlotte, North Carolina, with broad community impacts and updates on a controversial human smuggling case.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Ukraine Peace Framework Develops

[02:13]

• The Trump administration is steering a potential end to the Ukraine war via a 28-point framework.
• Talks led by US Envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian Envoy Kirill Dmitriev took place in Miami, aiming for more than a Ukraine-only solution – a broader European security architecture may be on the table.
• The framework's details are largely confidential; however, Axios reports indicate it asks Ukraine to consider land concessions in exchange for security guarantees, possibly including territory not currently occupied by Russia—a challenging proposition for Kyiv.
• President Zelensky met with U.S. and Turkish officials, signaling some level of movement, but his own stance remains critical.
• Timeline: A deal could be proposed as early as the end of the week.

Quote:

• “What we are going to present is reasonable... the Russian position is really being heard.” – Paraphrased from a Politico-cited official, via John Bickley [02:33].
• “We will have to hear from [Zelensky], too, before any peace plan can move forward.” – John Bickley [03:55]

Notable Segment:

• The complexity of securing European buy-in, particularly on offering security guarantees, is underscored as a potentially major roadblock.

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2. U.S.-Mexico Tensions over Drug Cartel Strikes

[04:19]

• President Trump recently stirred controversy by discussing potential strikes on Mexican territory to target drug cartels, citing massive American death tolls from drugs.
• Unclear if Trump would seek congressional approval or act unilaterally. Trump asserts bipartisan backing for aggressive counter-cartel operations, but draws firm pushback from the Mexican government.

Quote:

• “Let me just put it this way. I am not happy with Mexico. Okay.” — Donald Trump [05:32]
• “We do not accept any intervention by a foreign government.” – Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, as paraphrased [05:38]

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3. SNAP (Food Stamps) Overhaul: Fraud, Eligibility, Nutrition

[07:11]

• Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rawlins announces a system-wide SNAP reapplication, targeting 43 million current recipients in an effort to root out fraud and abuse.
• Key findings from participating states (mostly Republican):
  • 186,000 deceased individuals still receive SNAP benefits
  • 500,000 recipients draw more than double benefits
  • Thousands collect benefits across multiple states
• Federal litigation seeks to force data sharing from states like New York and California.

Quote:

• “Rollins said Americans instinctually know that SNAP is extremely corrupt, evidenced by anecdotal accounts. We've all seen videos on social media...” – Amanda Prestigiacomo [07:35]

Notable Data:

• Estimates (Center for Immigration Studies):
  • 4.5 million illegal immigrants using SNAP
  • 47% of all non-citizen households receive some taxpayer-funded food assistance
  • About 60% of illegal immigrant households use at least one major welfare program

New Reform Measures:

• Exclusion of soda, candy, and junk food from SNAP-eligible purchases (underway in 11 states).
• GOP-driven federal bill introduces stricter work requirements and cost-sharing for administration and overpayments.
• The reforms remain highly partisan, with Democratic leaders strongly opposed.

Quote:

• “Democrats are not on board with any cuts or reforms to SNAP... Republicans say they want fraud and abuse to be cut to protect American taxpayers.” — Amanda Prestigiacomo [11:00]

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4. Immigration Sweeps in Charlotte: Community Impact

[11:35]

• Major immigration enforcement operations in Charlotte, North Carolina result in:
  • 30,000 students absent from school post-raids
  • Abandoned construction sites and notably empty highways
• Charlotte became a target due to its “sanctuary” policies (since 2018, local sheriff refused to cooperate with ICE), leading Border Patrol to act unilaterally.
• Sweeps have led to “collateral arrests”; many with prior criminal records.

Quote:

• “This is a place that we don't traditionally think about as a hotbed for illegal immigration, but now this is starting to expose this as one.” – Jenny Terr [11:56]

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5. Update: Kilmar Abrego Garcia Human Smuggling Case

[14:11]

• Federal prosecutors are preparing to introduce a new witness in the high-profile case against alleged MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, tied to a 2022 smuggling incident.
• The witness accuses Garcia of illegal recruitment for smuggling and sexual exploitation of a minor, complicating perceptions of his case amid political controversy.

Quote:

• “She says to the federal government that she was also someone that he solicited pornographic photos and videos from while they were talking and while she was a minor. She was 15 at the time, he was 25.” – Jenny Terr [14:42]

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On Ukraine Peace Talks:
  “We will have to hear from him [Zelensky], too, before any peace plan can move forward.” – John Bickley [03:55]

• On U.S.-Mexico Drug Cartel Actions:
  “Would I do it? I’d be proud to. I’d probably go into Congress and say, hey… the Democrats and the Republicans would both agree, unless they’re crazy...” — Donald Trump [04:44]

• On SNAP Fraud:
  “186,000 deceased individuals receiving benefits. 500,000 people getting more than two times the benefit. We found thousands of individuals getting benefits in three to four or five, six different states.” – Brooke Rawlins, paraphrased by Amanda Prestigiacomo and Georgia Howe [08:38]

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Timeline & Timestamps of Key Segments

• [00:35] – Introduction: Ukraine peace plan rumors
• [02:13] – U.S.-Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations
• [04:19] – Trump’s controversial comments on Mexican cartel strikes
• [07:11] – SNAP reform and fraud revelations
• [11:35] – Charlotte immigration sweeps’ community impact
• [14:11] – Kilmar Abrego Garcia human smuggling case update

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Takeaways

• The Trump administration is aggressively tackling both international (Ukraine, Mexico) and domestic (SNAP, immigration enforcement) policy challenges, seeking both rapid diplomatic solutions and far-reaching institutional reforms.
• New data and enforcement push back against longstanding abuses in the SNAP program, with significant partisan division on reforms.
• Immigration enforcement is shifting beyond traditional border states, as sanctuary policies draw federal focus to interior cities like Charlotte.
• High-profile criminal cases are being leveraged to frame larger debates on immigration and law enforcement policy.

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This episode offers a fast-paced, information-dense exploration of major policy initiatives and their on-the-ground effects, with candid commentary and insider perspectives from Daily Wire journalists.

Transcript

[Host/Announcer]

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[Georgia Howe]

A 28 point peace plan that could end the war in Ukraine is reportedly in the works as Washington and Moscow bargain behind the scenes.

[Host/Announcer]

So many questions remain here, but it.

[John Bickley]

Really does come down to the President.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Of the United States.

[Host/Announcer]

He's a man who is going to.

[John Bickley]

Make the difference in peace and war in Ukraine.

[Georgia Howe]

Hi, I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, November 20th, and this is Morning Wire.

[Host/Announcer]

This is obviously a program we need to make sure that people are citizens.

[Donald Trump]

To receive this benefit.

[Host/Announcer]

We ought to figure out exactly what we should allow people to buy with this.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Amid growing claims of widespread fraud and snap benefits, the Trump administration is set to roll out sweeping changes to food stamp.

[Georgia Howe]

Immigration raids in Charlotte have rippled through the community, clearing both highways and classrooms.

[John Bickley]

The students whose parents come from Latin American countries were the students we were missing.

[Narrator/Reporter]

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

[Georgia Howe]

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[Narrator/Reporter]

The Trump administration is crafting a plan to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. According to a new report, officials are in talks to get both sides on board of a 28 point framework.

[Georgia Howe]

Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about President Trump's efforts to settle the war between Russia and Ukraine. So, Tim, potentially some significant movement. What do we know so far?

[John Bickley]

Not much on the details, but administration officials do appear to be confident about it. Politico quoted one official as saying, what we are going to present is reasonable. The plan has apparently come out of extensive talks between US Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russia envoy Kirill Dimitriev. The two ambassadors met in Miami last month and spent three days together on what a potential deal could look like. According to Axios, Dimitriev came out of that meeting feeling like the Russian position is really being heard. He went on to describe the deal as a much broader framework that seeks to bring lasting security to Europe, not just Ukraine. What's not so clear is how far talks move forward with Ukraine or with European officials who may be interested in any potential peace deal, especially one that may involve security guarantees that the Europeans have to provide for Ukraine. The White House seems to think that Kiev and Europe will eventually accept the deal, though, as long as flexibility is shown, as one White House official put it.

[Georgia Howe]

Now, how soon could we see a deal?

[John Bickley]

Well, some reports suggest that a deal could be on the table as soon as the end of this week. That may sound fast, but we have seen a lot of movement lately. According to Politico, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and other senior US Military officials traveled to Kyiv yesterday to meet with Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky, who then traveled to Turkey to meet with Turkish President Erdogan about restarting peace talks with Russia. Zelensky didn't talk any more about any potential deal, though, and there have been times in the past when Zelensky hasn't been shy dissenting from the White House. We will have to hear from him, too, before any peace plan can move forward. According to Axios, part of the Trump administration's plan includes asking Ukraine to trade some land for security guarantees, including land that isn't currently in Russia control. That alone could be a sticking point for Ukraine, but we'll just have to see.

[Georgia Howe]

Now, pivoting a bit. President Trump ruffled some feathers in Mexico recently with an exchange with the Mexican president. What happened there.

[John Bickley]

Yeah, he hasn't committed to any action yet. But like he often does, he has floated certain ideas he might be mulling over, in this case, land strikes in Mexico. He wasn't clear on if he would act unilaterally or coordinate those potential strikes with the Mexican government. Here's Trump.

[Donald Trump]

We're losing hundreds of thousands of people to drugs. So now we've stopped the waterways, but we know every route. We know every route. We know the addresses of every drug lord. We know their address. We know their front door. We know everything about every one of them. They're killing our people. That's like a war. Would I do it? I'd be proud to. I'd probably go into Congress and say, hey, and you know what? The Democrats and the Republicans would both agree, unless they're crazy, and they are a little crazy on the Democrat side. But we have lost hundreds of thousands of people a year death. And that's not talking about family destruction, it's talking about death. And much of it comes through Mexico. So let me just put it this way. I am not happy with Mexico. Okay.

[John Bickley]

After those remarks from Trump, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum made clear that any strikes on Mexico would not happen with her approval. According to the Associated Press, Sheinbaum said on Tuesday that she has told him on every occasion that we can collaborate, that they can help us with information they have, but that we operate in our territory, that we do not accept any intervention by a foreign government. So we'll just have to see how Trump responds to that.

[Georgia Howe]

All right, so several high stakes negotiations happening. Tim, thanks for reporting.

[John Bickley]

Good to be on.

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[Georgia Howe]

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rawlins has announced a complete overhaul of the food stamps program, promising to rein in fraud and abuse.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Here are the details. Is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestisgiacomo? Hey Amanda. So we've been tracking this growing controversy over SNAP in the last few years, and now we're about to see some major changes to the food stamps program. What exactly is Rollins calling for?

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Yeah, I mean, she's going to change a number of things here, but most notably, the department is having everyone who is on food stamps reapply for these benefits. Currently there are around 43 million people in the SNAP program. That's about 12% of the population and it costs taxpayers around $100 billion annually the logic behind reapplication is obviously to try to crack down on fraud and abuse to make sure that these benefits are only going to Americans who really need the program. Rollins said Americans instinctually know that SNAP is extremely corrupt, evidenced by anecdotal accounts. We've all seen videos on social media of people admitting to selling their benefits or, you know, some of these insane grocery hauls for people who don't really seem all that needy. But you know, without hard data, it's impossible to how much of this is going on and where it's happening. So Rollins asked every state to share their SNAP data to track down the fraud. So far, only 29 states have complied, mostly all red states. Here's what she's found so far. 186,000 deceased individuals receiving benefits.

[Georgia Howe]

500,000 people getting more than two times the benefit. We found thousands of individuals that were getting benefits in three to four or.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Five, six different states.

[Georgia Howe]

I mean, it is one thing after another.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

And this is just from the red states. Rollins said that they're suing to get snapdragot from the remaining states, including New York and California. And she suggested that the fraud and abuse there will be even worse.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Right, and possibly related to that. In fact, there's been a lot of discussion about welfare programs, including snap, going to illegal immigrants. Does that happen? Do we have any data on that?

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Yeah, well, like Roland said, this stuff is hard to track. They don't have the hard data. But we do have some insight from a 2024 survey of income and program particip that's been analyzed by the center for Immigration Studies. Now, even though SNAP is restricted for applicants who have legal status, CIS estimates that about four and a half million illegals are using snap. This is especially alarming since illegals are already permitted to use wic, which is another welfare food program that's a little more restrictive. CIS also found that 47% of all non citizen households receive taxpayer funded food assistance. And just generally about 60% of illegal immigrant households households use at least one major welfare program.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Well, it's pretty remarkable. Now, you mentioned other changes coming to snap. What else can we expect?

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Yeah, we've covered this a little bit here, but Rollins has teamed up with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And they're working together to push states to limit food and drink choices for snap. Soda is one of the most commonly purchased items with Snap. And nearly 25% of all Snap dollars are going to soda, candy and other junk food, believe it or not. So states are now allowed to exclude those options. 11 states so far have asked for waivers to do that. All red states except for Colorado. There were also some notable changes from the GOP backed big beautiful bill. For example, there are stricter work requirements. So now able bodied adults without dependents, they have to work at least 80 hours a month or be in some sort of training or education program to receive benefits beyond three months. There's also new cost sharing obligations on states. They'll have to pay more for administrative costs and pay a percentage of overpayments if they have a high error rate.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Are these reforms strictly partisan? What are we hearing from Democrats?

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Yeah, I mean, by and large this is partisan. Democrats are not on board with any cuts or reforms to snap high profile Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, just to name a few. They've all criticized the big beautiful bill for this very thing. Obviously Republicans see this differently. They say that they want fraud and abuse to be cut to protect American taxpayers and they want the program to help the vulnerable while still in incentivizing self reliance.

[Narrator/Reporter]

It's gonna be fascinating to see how these changes affect the numbers over time. Amanda, thanks for reporting.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

You're welcome.

[Narrator/Reporter]

The Trump administration's immigration sweeps in Charlotte have left schools with minimal attendance and roads free of traffic.

[Georgia Howe]

Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Terr joins us now to tell us about the impact of Trump's boots on the ground approach in Charlotte. So Jenny, the Trump administration is rolling out their immigration agenda in Charlotte this week. What have we seen from the ground?

[Jenny Terr]

Right. This is a place that we don't traditionally think about as a hotbed for illegal immigration, but now this is starting to expose this as one. So what we've seen so far is that school attendance is down. Like you said, 30,000 students around that did not show up to class in Charlotte Public Schools on Monday after the sweep started over the weekend and those raids had yielded about 200 arrests. It's also putting fear into other industries around the city. Traffic is down altogether. And then also construction sites have been completely abandoned. So you're not seeing those laborers working in construction. And so it's really brought about this issue of Charlotte being a really major hotspot for illegal immigrants that we really didn't think was before.

[Amanda Prestigiacomo]

Right.

[Georgia Howe]

Well, I think Charlotte doesn't come to mind for a lot of people when they think about illegal immigration the same way say New York City or Chicago does. For why did Border Patrol choose to make that a priority?

[Jenny Terr]

So Border Patrol saw Charlotte and the Department of Homeland Security more largely saw Charlotte as a sanctuary. After the sheriff of Mecklenburg county had taken away its partnership with ICE in 2018, he said that he would no longer allow ICE to come into his jails to take in illegal immigrant criminals that were set to be released, effectively adopting a sanctuary policy that we see in places like New York City and Chicago, which ICE and Border Patrol have already been pretty active in. So with Charlotte, they say that there were 1400 illegal immigrants that are sitting in those jails there in the city that the authorities there locally are refusing to hand over to ice. So they're trying to clean up the mess and say, okay, well, if you're not going to help us, we're going to take matters into our own hands. And that's what's happening. The commander of Border Patrol down there, Gregory Bovino, is saying that that the sweeps are yielding more collateral arrests. So people that are with illegal immigrant criminals that they're already targeting, and those collateral arrests actually have more criminal histories than they've seen in other cities where they're doing this. So this is a major issue that's.

[Georgia Howe]

Come about now while I have you here, you've been reporting on some of the updates on the case against the alleged MS.13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Where do things stand with his case?

[Jenny Terr]

The Trump administration is going to bring forward a new witness in the Kilmara Brago Garcia case, which is his human smuggling case. So this is the one where it's linked to that traffic stop from 2022 in Tennessee when he had about eight passengers in the car, no luggage. They'd been traveling for days from Texas trying to get to Maryland. And Kilmar Abrego Garcia, according to the Trump administration and federal prosecutors, was regularly moving people into the country who were here illegally and as part of a broader smuggling enterprise. So now they're looking to bring more witnesses forward to really buffer this case. And one of those is a woman who says that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was trying to recruit her to help with the smuggling enterprise. And in her testimony, apparently she says to the federal government that she was also someone that he solicited pornographic photos and videos from while they were talking and while she was a minor. She was 15 at the time. He was 25. He was sending her those explicit photos and videos, but also asking her for those. This just continues to build on this case that the Trump administration is making. And it also flies in the face of what Democrats have put forward here, that they've kind of created this darling out of Kilmara Brago Garcia. This was just clearly a poor mascot for them to choose to go after the Trump administration's mass deportations.

[Georgia Howe]

Well, Jenny, thank you for following that case. And we will continue to report on it.

[Jenny Terr]

Thank you.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show, you can now watch the show free on Daily Wire. Plus, we'll be back this evening with more news you need to know.