World Welcomes American Pope & Trump Secures Trade Deal | 5.9.25

Summary

Morning Wire Podcast Summary Episode: World Welcomes American Pope & Trump Secures Trade Deal | 5.9.25 Release Date: May 9, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Morning Wire, hosts John Bickley and Georgia Howe delve into two monumental events shaping the global and economic landscape: the election of the first American Pope, Pope Leo XIV, and President Donald Trump's groundbreaking trade deal with the United Kingdom. Additionally, the podcast features a significant investigative report uncovering corruption within the African Development Foundation.

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1. The Election of America's First Pope: Pope Leo XIV

Election and Background John Bickley opens the discussion by announcing the historic election of the first American Pope, Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Provost from Chicago. The election took place during a conclave where over 100 cardinals participated, ultimately selecting Provost as the church's 267th Pope.

Notable Quotes:

• John Bickley [00:04]: "The world has a new Pope, the first American in history, Pope Leo XIV, who blessed elated worshipers celebrating in St. Peter's Square. Peace be with you all."
• Pope Leo XIV [02:36]: "Peace be with you all."

Insights and Reactions Daily Wire investigative reporter Mire Delordi provides an in-depth look into Pope Leo XIV's background, highlighting his tenure in Peru and his rise within the Catholic Church. He emphasizes that Pope Leo is perceived as a centrist with a strong stance on church doctrine, aiming to steer the Church back to its core message amidst perceived political entanglements under his predecessor, Pope Francis.

Notable Quotes:

• Mire Delordi [04:12]: "He's very stable. He does listen. He's a clear thinker."
• Sean Carney, CEO of 40 Days for Life [05:31]: "For most Catholics, honestly, they're just worried. It's the last 12 years that have been chaos."

President Trump's Endorsement President Donald Trump expresses his approval of the new Pope, emphasizing the honor of having an American at the helm of the Catholic Church.

Notable Quotes:

• Donald Trump [05:35]: "To have the Pope from the United States of America, that's a great honor."
• Donald Trump on the Pope's Election [05:35]: "They said he's from America and he said that's great."

Global Optimism The episode highlights the global optimism surrounding Pope Leo XIV's election, with Catholics worldwide anticipating a period of stability and renewed focus on spiritual matters.

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2. President Trump Secures Historic Trade Deal with the United Kingdom

Announcement and Market Impact John Bickley and Georgia Howe discuss President Trump's announcement of a significant trade agreement with the United Kingdom, which has positively influenced financial markets and raised hopes for future trade deals.

Notable Quotes:

• Donald Trump [06:34]: "We have reached a breakthrough trade deal with the United Kingdom, a credible country. Today is a victory day for World War II."
• Donald Trump [08:22]: "They treated us with great respect. The template of 10 is probably the lowest."

Details of the Trade Deal Cabot Phillips, Daily Wire Senior Editor, provides a comprehensive breakdown of the trade deal's specifics:

• Tariffs: The U.S. maintains a universal 10% tariff, reduces the British auto tariff from 27% to 10%, and eliminates tariffs on British steel and aluminum.
• Concessions from the UK: Opening markets to American ethanol, beef, and poultry, and committing to purchase $10 billion in American Boeing planes.
• Tech Sector Benefits: Elimination of the digital tax affecting American tech companies, leading to a surge in tech stock prices.

Notable Quotes:

• Cabot Phillips [06:54]: "The British did open up their markets to American ethanol, beef and poultry."
• Donald Trump [08:22]: "Many... some will be much higher because they have massive trade surpluses."

Future Implications The discussion touches on the broader implications for future trade negotiations, with President Trump hinting at ongoing negotiations with other countries, including China and the European Union. Emphasis is placed on maintaining leverage for future deals, suggesting that similar concessions may not be forthcoming for all nations.

Notable Quotes:

• Cabot Phillips [07:51]: "The president did hint that he was very close on numerous deals with other countries."
• Donald Trump [08:22]: "That's a low number. They made a good deal."

British Prime Minister's Support Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, praises the deal's potential to boost trade and create jobs, underscoring the mutual benefits of the agreement.

Notable Quotes:

• Keir Starmer [09:34]: "This is going to boost trade between our countries. It's going to not only protect jobs but create jobs."
• Donald Trump [09:17]: "This was about business, religion. Business is sort of a semi-religion."

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3. Investigative Report: Corruption Within the African Development Foundation

Overview of the Investigation In a compelling investigative segment, Daily Wire government efficiency reporter Luke Rosiak uncovers significant corruption within the African Development Foundation. The report reveals how the agency obstructed audits by external bodies, including Doge, and misappropriated funds for personal and political gain.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke Rosiak [10:33]: "This is a small federal agency, kind of like USAID. It's got 30 employees and a $45 million budget."
• Donald Trump [14:16]: "I don't."

Key Findings

• Obstruction of Audits: The African Development Foundation resisted audits by locking doors and filing lawsuits to protect financial records.
• Misappropriation of Funds: Funds intended for African grants were redirected to pay officials, friends, and former employers, resembling a laundering scheme.
• Conflict of Interest: High-level officials, including the CFO Matthew Zahue, funneled money to associates and family members, leading to potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
• Collaboration with Scam Entities: The foundation partnered with Herbalife, a company accused of running pyramid schemes, further compromising the agency's integrity.

Notable Quotes:

• Luke Rosiak [11:39]: "So we've all gotten the emails where the Nigerian prince offered to do just that. But you're saying these people actually made this happen?"
• Luke Rosiak [12:28]: "They were giving africans some money and product... but no, it was actually with the for-profit multilevel marketing scheme now refusing."

Government Intervention Under the Trump administration, the African Development Foundation was shuttered by Doge after persistent evidence of corruption, marking a significant crackdown on misuse of foreign aid funds.

Notable Quotes:

• Donald Trump [14:18]: "Or they didn't know there was a back door that they didn't lock. So we were able to get access."
• Luke Rosiak [14:35]: "At one point, the African Development Foundation pushed its board members' pyramid scheme on poor Africans."

Conclusion of the Investigation The report underscores systemic issues within the African Development Foundation, highlighting the necessity of government oversight to prevent such malfeasance in foreign aid distribution.

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Conclusion

This episode of Morning Wire provides listeners with in-depth analysis and reporting on pivotal events: the historic election of Pope Leo XIV and its implications for the Catholic Church, President Trump's significant trade deal with the UK and its economic impacts, and an exposé on corruption within a federal foreign aid agency. Through expert interviews, detailed investigations, and direct quotes, the podcast offers a comprehensive overview of these critical developments.

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Stay tuned to Morning Wire for more insightful coverage on the latest in politics, culture, education, sports, and more.

Transcript

[John Bickley]

The world has a new Pope, the first American in history, Pope Leo XIV, who blessed elated worshipers celebrating in St. Peter's Square. Peace be with you all.

[Georgia Helm]

What do we know about the Chicago born pontiff?

[John Bickley]

I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia helm. It's Friday, May 9th, and this is Morning Wire.

[Georgia Helm]

Trump announces a massive trade deal with the UK Sending markets soaring.

[Donald Trump]

There won't be any red tape. Things are going to move very quickly both ways.

[John Bickley]

And a Daily Wire investigation finds that an African aid group funneled taxpayer dollars to friends, co workers and even themselves.

[Georgia Helm]

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

[Keir Starmer]

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[Georgia Helm]

A new pope was named on Thursday. Cardinal Robert Prevost, the Catholic Church's first.

[John Bickley]

American born Pope Provost, was elected by over 100 cardinals at the Vatican and addressed the world's Catholics. Afterwards, Daily Wire investigative reporter Mire Delordi is here to tell us more. Hey Moray, so tell us about this new Pope.

[Mire Delordi]

Hi John. Yes, so Cardinal Robert Provost, who's from Chicago, was elected Pope on the second day of the conclave. This was signaled by White Smith smoke billowing out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. As the cardinals burned their ballots, the crowd in St. Peter's Square erupted at that moment. Now, as you know, the Pope adopts a new name and Provost has chosen Pope Leo XIV. He's the church's 267th pope and he will lead 1.4 billion Catholics around the world. Pope Leo appeared visibly emotional as he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica and addressed the massive crowd in the square.

[Pope Leo XIV]

Peace be with you all.

[John Bickley]

Fratelli Sorelle Carissimi Dearest brothers and sisters, this is the first greetings of the resurrected Christ.

[Pope Leo XIV]

The good shepherd who has.

[John Bickley]

Given up his life for God. And I should also like this greeting of peace to enter our hearts.

[Pope Leo XIV]

Peace be with you.

[John Bickley]

So tell us a bit more about him. You mentioned that he's from Chicago. He's also pretty young, correct?

[Pope Leo XIV]

Yes.

[Mire Delordi]

So Prevost is only 69. He was born in Chicago, but he spent much of his priesthood in Peru.

[Cabot Phillips]

He.

[Mire Delordi]

He became bishop of Chiclayo in Peru for eight years until 2023, when he was made a cardinal by Pope Francis. He also led the religious order started by St. Augustine. Francis then made Provost, the prefect of the Dicastri for bishops. This means he was a Vatican official responsible for recommending priests to be made bishops around the world. Provost was not considered the most likely cardinal to become pope, but Vatican officials are often considered for pope.

[John Bickley]

Now, we know Catholics and conservatives were very interested in seeing if there is a political leaning to the new pope. Where does Pope Leo stand?

[Mire Delordi]

So Pope Leo has been strong on church doctrine, but he's overall seen as a centrist on political issues. We spoke to Sean Carney. He's CEO of the Pro Life organization 40 Days for Life, and he had some insight on what Pope Leo could mean for the Church.

[Pope Leo XIV]

The Catholic Church has just been drug into so much stuff, whether it be telling the UN what to do, telling countries whether they need an open border, closed border, certainly that's an issue here in America. And just so many issues and just seeing seem to get away from the message of salvation and what the Church teaches. And so I hope it's not. I hope he's not as political as Francis. I guess I think that's probably what a lot of people in their living rooms are saying, because we've just had so much of that. And I think we need to give him a chance. I think he can read the room. He came out in the traditional garb. He didn't make a swipe at that. So I'm optimistic. But I think for most Catholics, honestly, they're just worried. Basically. It's not Leo, the 14th fault. It's just the last 12 years have been chaos. After John Paul and Benedict, he. He is not rash. This isn't an emotional guy. He's very stable. He does listen. He's a clear thinker. I think one of the things that's cool, aside from I can see other countries just going nuts right now because there's an American Pope. So that part's kind of cool. Speaking plainly, I think that this was probably like, for the liberal side, a compromise guy of like, look, we can't do Francis all over again.

[Mire Delordi]

President Trump weighed in on the election of the new pope yesterday.

[Donald Trump]

To have the Pope from the United States of America, that's A great honor. That's a great honor watching him. They said he's from America and he said that's great.

[Mire Delordi]

Catholics are certainly rejoicing this week, and there's a sense of optimism around Pope Leo.

[John Bickley]

You can really feel that throughout the day yesterday. And again, a historic election in the first American pope. Marie, thanks so much for reporting.

[Mire Delordi]

Thanks, John.

[John Bickley]

President Trump announced a huge trade agreement with the United Kingdom on Thursday, and the markets responded well amid hopes of more trade deals to come.

[Georgia Helm]

Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips joins us from the White House to discuss the groundbreaking agreement. So, Cabot, a huge day for the Trump administration. What did the president announce yesterday?

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah, ever since President Trump announced the sweeping tariffs at Liberation Day, he said other countries would come to the negotiating table to work out a trade deal. And on Thursday, we saw just that. Now, Yesterday marked the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe Day. President Trump leaned into that shared history and special relationship during his announcement yesterday at the White House.

[Donald Trump]

This morning, I'm thrilled to announce that we have reached a breakthrough trade deal with the United Kingdom, credible country. Today is a victory day for World War II. We won the war together exactly 80 years ago. So there could be no more perfect morning to reach this historic agreement.

[Georgia Helm]

Clearly, the president is very enthused about this. Now the big question is, what's in the deal?

[Cabot Phillips]

Well, on our side, the president did hold firm on that universal 10% tariff he put in place last month. But he did offer concessions elsewhere. For example, he cut the British auto tariff from 27% to 10%. He also completely eliminated the tariff on British steel and aluminum. That'll go down to zero. For their part, the British did open up their markets to American ethanol, beef and poultry. The White House says that will result in billions of dollars in the pockets of American farmers and ranchers. The Brits also agreed to purchase $10 billion of American Boeing planes in exchange for the US eliminating all tariffs on Rolls Royce engines and other parts. And of course, tech stocks skyrocketed Thursday on the news that the British had agreed to to eliminate a digital tax that had been impacting American tech companies operating in the country.

[Georgia Helm]

Right. So a big jump in the markets yesterday. Now, bigger picture. What does this mean for other future deals?

[Cabot Phillips]

Well, the president did hint that he was, quote, very close on numerous deals with other countries. That point, he said Treasury Secretary Scott Benson would soon travel to Switzerland for formal trade negotiations with China. He also said that he would not be taking a piecemeal approach with the rest of the countries in Europe and instead would look to negotiate a broader deal with the European Union. And as a whole, and it's worth noting, in a clear attempt to maintain leverage for future negotiations, President Trump said that not every country can expect to get as low as the ones that Britain just secured. Have a listen.

[Donald Trump]

That's a low number. They, they made a good deal. Many. Some will be much higher because they have massive trade surpluses. And, you know, in many cases, they didn't treat us right. One thing with uk, they always treated us with great respect. They treated us with great respect. The template of 10 is probably the lowest.

[Cabot Phillips]

Later on Daily Wire, White House reporter Mayor Margaret Olehan asked the president if this deal included assurances that the British would do more to protect freedom of speech and freedom of religion in their country.

[Mire Delordi]

Was there any assurances that you guys got on that front?

[Donald Trump]

You want to handle that?

[Cabot Phillips]

Yeah. That was not part of the conversation. Our conversation was an economic conversation from start to finish, closed by the president yesterday. This was a business deal. Open their markets and also protect their workers, grow our markets and help our workers.

[Donald Trump]

This was about business, religion. Business is sort of a semi religion, but not nearly as important. I don't want to get myself.

[Cabot Phillips]

And in a really fascinating moment, the president sort of phoned a friend, calling in British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to offer his take on the groundbreaking deal.

[Keir Starmer]

This is going to boost trade between.

[John Bickley]

And across our countries. It's going to not only protect jobs, but create jobs. And I want to thank you for your leadership on that, Donald, and for the way in which your team have negotiated this.

[Cabot Phillips]

So, big day here at the White House. One trade deal down. The president hopes many more to come in the future.

[Georgia Helm]

Well, definitely a growing sense of optimism. Cava, thanks for reporting.

[Cabot Phillips]

Absolutely.

[Georgia Helm]

A new Daily Wire investigation uncovers how one government agency went to great lengths to block a Doge audit. The African Development foundation was deemed a resistance hero to the media for stonewalling auditors, including literally locking their doors.

[John Bickley]

Daily Wire's government efficiency reporter, Luke Rosiak, found that this foreign aid group had a lot of reasons to keep its books private. He joins us now. Hey, Luke. So what did you learn about the African Development Foundation?

[Keir Starmer]

So this is a small federal agency, kind of like USAID. It's got 30 employees and a $45 million budget, and by law, it's only allowed to give grants to Africa up to a quarter million dollars each. The agency locked the doors and refused to let Doge in and said it wouldn't recognize Trump's appointee. To lead it, Peter Morocco, who was also dismantling usaid. The group's board also filed a lawsuit claiming doge was intruding on the privacy of. Of its financial records, personnel documents, and so on. Ultimately, the Trump administration seized the building with the assistance of U.S. marshals. So Elon musk has said, when people get really angry about being audited by doge, it's usually because they have something to hide. And that definitely applied here. What I found is that this group would give money to african organizations like it was required to by law. But then it would require them to redirect that money back to the united states to pay officials at their headquarters or their friends or former employers. Almost like laundering it. Americans who worked at the headquarters of this agency in D.C. were literally getting wire transfers from african entities into their personal bank accounts.

[John Bickley]

So we've all gotten the emails where the nigerian prince offered to do just that. But you're saying these people actually made this happen?

[Keir Starmer]

Yeah, I literally have a receipt for $17,000 from Kenya to a woman who was working as the assistant to the African Development Foundation's CE CEO. The CEO, a guy named C.D. glenn, would push unwanted projects on africans As a way of steering money to his friends. So in one case, they told african groups they'd give a grant to manufacture Covid masks, but they had to subcontract it to glenn's friend in colorado. And the african group said, we don't want that. We don't need any Covid masks. We've already got as many as we need. But glenn didn't care. In another case, they gave a grant to a ghana group that had to use it to hire glenn's former employer.

[John Bickley]

In D.C. so this sounds like exactly what people were speculating about. With foreign money for usaid actually getting redirected back to beltway types, correct?

[Keir Starmer]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, there were so many conflicts of interest going on here. At one point, the african development foundation pushed its board members pyramid scheme on poor africans. The CEO of herbalife, which was, remember that? Basically pyramid scheme that was charged with violating the foreign corrupt practices act. And accused of by the doj of tricking people into opening these money losing businesses. He was on the board of this government agency. And the agency entered into a partnership with herbalife, where they were giving africans some money and product. And having herbalife employees be their mentors. And they acted like it was with a charity that was associated with herbalife. But no, it was actually with the for profit, multilevel marketing scheme now refusing.

[John Bickley]

To let the Trump administration into an agency is a pretty drastic move. Do you think this foundation was indeed hiding criminal conduct?

[Keir Starmer]

The USAID inspector general suspected at least some of it was outright criminal, for sure. The African Development Foundation's chief financial officer, Matthew Zahue, repeatedly steered about a million dollars in grants and contracts to an African company called Ganium limited With no competition. One of them was for travel During COVID when there was no travel going on, a USAID inspector general seized Zehu's phone and found that Ganium was owned by his friend. And every time he gave it a contract, the friend sent money to Zehu's personal bank account. Zehu, though, was never arrested. Now, Zehu told me he's been back to the office since Doge locked staff out.

[Donald Trump]

I don't.

[Pope Leo XIV]

They didn't have purpose or they forgot.

[Donald Trump]

Or they didn't know there was a back door that they didn't lock. So we were able to get access.

[Pope Leo XIV]

To the office through the back door.

[John Bickley]

It sounds like lots of red flags over the years, but no reform at all now Doge has finally shuttered this agency. Luke, thanks so much for reporting.

[Keir Starmer]

Thank you.

[Georgia Helm]

Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow with more news. You need to know.