--:-- [Theme music fades out]
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Day two of confirmation hearings for Donald Trump's nominees sees Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio under the spotlight. Can you tell me and this committee what the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment says?
--:-- Pam Bondi: Senator, I'm here to answer your questions. I'm not here to do your homework and study for you.
--:-- Georgia Howe: How can any nation state on the planet coexist side by side with a group of savages like Hamas?
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, January 16th, and this is Morning Wire. A deal has been reached to get hostages back from Hamas, with Trump's return to the White House just days away.
--:-- John Bickley: They don't want to deal with Trump. He's been perfectly clear. He is not vacillated about his message that if they don't send our people back, there's going to be hell to pay.
--:-- John Bickley: And Florida and Tennessee convened special sessions to help carry out Trump's immigration agenda on day one.
--:-- John Bickley: We need to enact strong policies that are going to help this administration accomplish the mission that the American people spoke loudly and clearly about in November.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Yesterday was another marathon day of confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill as senators grilled some of Donald Trump's highest profile nominees.
--:-- Tim Rice: Here with the key takeaways from the day's events is Daily Wire deputy managing editor Tim Rice.
--:-- Tim Rice: So Tim, we had six hearings yesterday. Give us the highlights.
--:-- Tim Rice: Yeah, good morning, Georgia. You know, most of the hearings went on without incident. Trump's nominee for Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, spoke mostly about policy, promising to cut red tape and oppose a gas tax.
--:-- Tim Rice: John Radcliffe, Trump's pick to lead the CIA, talked about how he would ensure the agency is focused on its core mission.
--:-- Tim Rice: And Energy Secretary nominee Chris Wright, who spoke about the importance of fossil fuels, even seemed to get support from Democrats John Hickenlooper and Ruben Gallego.
--:-- Tim Rice: So it seems like all three of those nominees will sail to confirmation relatively easily.
--:-- Tim Rice: So certainly pretty different from Monday's fiery hearings with Pete Hegseth.
--:-- Tim Rice: And what about the more contentious hearings?
--:-- Tim Rice: Yeah, that would be the hearings for Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio, Trump's pick to lead the State Department.
--:-- Tim Rice: Bondi's hearing was definitely the most lively of the day. Democrats grilled her on a number of political topics pressing her about the 2020 election and her relationship with Trump
--:-- Pam Bondi: But Bondi was ready to answer like in this moment when Senator Richard Blumenthal accused Bondi of simply saying the right things to get senators to vote yes on her confirmation
--:-- Pam Bondi: Senator, first, I need to clarify something that you said, that I have to sit up here and say these things. No, I don't. I sit up here and speak the truth.
--:-- Pam Bondi: I'm not going to sit up here and say anything that I need to say to get confirmed by this body. I don't have to say anything.
--:-- Adam Schiff: We're also worried about Liz Cheney, Senator. You know what we should be worried about? Ms. Bondi, please answer my questions.
--:-- Pam Bondi: The crime rate in California right now is the way of the roof. Your robberies are 87% higher than the national average.
--:-- Pam Bondi: My question is this. That's what I want to be focused on, Senator. Do you have the power to say no to the president?
--:-- Tim Rice: Rubio's hearing took pretty much the whole day, but it was way less eventful than Bondi's.
--:-- Tim Rice: He had friendly banter with Democrats on the committee, which he served on for years.
--:-- Tim Rice: He said that he would focus on helping Israel defeat Hamas and work to fight global anti-Semitism.
--:-- Tim Rice: And he offered a frank assessment of the war in Ukraine, urging lawmakers to realize that the conflict would likely have to end in some kind of compromise, not total victory for either side.
--:-- Tim Rice: Throughout the hearing, Rubio stressed that as secretary, he would work to put America first.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, before you go, President Biden delivered his farewell address last night.
--:-- John Bickley: What did we hear?
--:-- Tim Rice: Well, it was partially what we expected to hear. Biden insists that he created the strongest economy in the world and tried to frame his administration as a comeback from the coronavirus pandemic.
--:-- Tim Rice: But then he veered into a more pessimistic tone, warning Americans about a number of threats, including climate change and the rise of AI.
--:-- Tim Rice: He also warned that the United States was at risk of being taken over by a tech industrial complex and turning into an oligarchy.
--:-- Tim Rice: This is a dangerous concert and that's a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people.
--:-- Tim Rice: The dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.
--:-- Tim Rice: Today an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.
--:-- John Bickley: Needless to say, a majority of Americans disagreed with his assessment of his legacy, which is why he found himself delivering a farewell address last night rather than prepping for his second inaugural address, like President-elect Trump.
--:-- John Bickley: Right. Well, and to that point, I want to remind listeners that Daily Wire is going to be in D.C. live for coverage of the inauguration on Monday.
--:-- Tim Rice: That's right.
--:-- Tim Rice: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Nearly a year and a half after Hamas launched its October 7th terror attack on Israel, killing 1,200 and seizing over 200 hostages, a tentative hostage and ceasefire agreement has been reached.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The potentially momentous agreement comes just days before Trump takes office.
--:-- Victoria Coates: Joining us to discuss is Victoria Coates, vice president of Heritage's National Security and Foreign Policy Institute and author of The Battle for the Jewish State, How Israel and America Can win.
--:-- Victoria Coates: So significant developments in Israel to say the least. What do we know so far about this hostage arrangement?
--:-- Victoria Coates: Well, we know so far that this is going to be a phased arrangement that Hamas finally supplied a list of we hear, 98 hostages, both dead and alive, that are still in Gaza under their control.
--:-- Victoria Coates: So we'll set aside the possibility that there are additional people that Hamas no longer has control over. So this is what they have, that there will be some number of them, close to 35, who will be released in coming days.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And a ceasefire will go into effect for about six weeks, if that does indeed happen.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And during which time Israel reserves the right to go back into Gaza and resume fighting if there are any infractions on the ceasefire.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And I think that's very important that the only thing we really know right now is that we're likely to see about 35 hostages come out on Sunday, the day before the inauguration.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And at that point, the burden is on Hamas to see if we go any further with this deal.
--:-- Victoria Coates: Does this require a complete withdrawal from Gaza by Israel, or is this a drawdown, a reduction in forces?
--:-- Victoria Coates: I think it's more of a drawdown in these early phases.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And also important that Israel is being asked to release some number of Palestinian prisoners.
--:-- Victoria Coates: This is standard. It happened in the last deal for hostages, which was in November of 2023.
--:-- Victoria Coates: So that is going to happen as well.
--:-- Victoria Coates: But important that Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that they are not going to relinquish control of the periphery of the Gaza Strip.
--:-- Victoria Coates: They are going to retain the right to go back in if Hamas violates this.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And so it's a very big if that Hamas is actually going to behave itself and not do something that would bring the Israelis back in.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Right. Now, you mentioned the inauguration, this deal, the hope is for it to be finalized and go into effect the day before Trump comes into office.
--:-- Georgia Howe: There's been a lot of comparisons made between this situation and the hostage situation with Reagan coming into office.
--:-- Victoria Coates: I do think it's fair. I mean, they're obviously not identical by any stretch of the imagination.
--:-- Victoria Coates: But in this case, what you've had is, as I said, since November of 2023, no movement on the hostages whatsoever.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And a number of hostages killed in that intervening 14 months.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And what has changed is in early December of last year, you know, six weeks ago, you had President Trump make a very strong statement that the hostages needed to be let go now or there would be hell to pay.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And he has repeated that strong statement.
--:-- Victoria Coates: He has empowered his good friend Steve Whitcoff to be Middle East envoy to carry out these negotiations.
--:-- Victoria Coates: Somebody that, you know, our interlocutors in the Middle East knows speaks for the president elect.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And that has created motion.
--:-- Victoria Coates: So I think you're going to see the Biden administration try to take all sorts of credit for this.
--:-- Victoria Coates: But the fact of the matter is it was the change in tone out of President Trump that brought this into being.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And the other kind of cruel reality here is that the window to get the hostages out has been closing.
--:-- Victoria Coates: We know that more and more of them are dying.
--:-- Victoria Coates: The conditions they're under are dire.
--:-- Victoria Coates: So if not now, if it was becoming a real possibility, it would be never.
--:-- Victoria Coates: So I think that's why President Trump took the actions he did.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And remind us again, how many Americans are amongst these remaining hostages?
--:-- Victoria Coates: We think there are four alive.
--:-- Victoria Coates: And so the question is whether they would be part of this original trash.
--:-- Victoria Coates: We don't have those names yet or whether they would come out in phases as well.
--:-- Georgia Howe: A lot of grieving families hoping to see their loved ones again. Now there's some real hope here.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Victoria, thank you so much for joining us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: States are consolidating behind Trump mass deportation agenda Tennessee and Florida are the latest to have sworn to help federal authorities deport aliens from the U Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the growing support for Trump's immigration agenda.
--:-- Tim Pierce: So, Tim, Trump seems to be getting some help from red states, at least, with his immigration agenda. What's the latest?
--:-- Tim Pierce: That's right. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee was the latest to take action. On Wednesday, he announced a special session of the state legislature.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Lee has a few priorities for the session, but one of those is to lay the groundwork for Trump's immigration agenda.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The governor's office said in a statement he wants Tennessee ready to assist Trump on day one to support efforts to secure our nation's borders and keep communities safe.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The governor's announcement follows a similar one from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis earlier this week.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Here's what DeSantis said. We have a responsibility to be in this fight. State and local officials in Florida must help the Trump administration enforce our nation's immigration laws.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And we are going to need, in order to do that effectively, we are going to need legislation to impose additional duties on local officials and provide funding for those local officials.
--:-- Tim Pierce: There also needs to be measures to hold people accountable who are violating our anti-sanctuary policies.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And then Florida needs to make sure that we don't have any lingering incentives for people to come into our state illegally.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, Trump promised mass deportations and Republican states seem to want to facilitate that program as much as possible.
--:-- Tim Pierce: I should also note that the president has already received widespread support on immigration.
--:-- Tim Pierce: You might recall a letter co-signed by all 26 Republican governors in December backing Trump specifically on this issue.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, all of this comes as we see some alarming reports regarding immigration and terrorism.
--:-- Tim Pierce: According to Fox News, the Biden administration in fiscal year 2024 exempted nearly 7,000 foreign nationals from terrorism-related restrictions on immigration.
--:-- Tim Pierce: That's a huge jump over 2023 when the administration exempted about 2,000 people.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And 2023 was a large jump, too. Just a few years ago under Trump, the number of these exemptions given out in 2020 was just 361.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And who received those waivers? We don't have a lot of information on that.
--:-- Tim Pierce: We know that the vast majority of those that received them claim to be refugees, and most of those appear to be from Afghanistan.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Fox News reports that 29 received exemptions as Afghan allies to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
--:-- Tim Pierce: 374 were given exemptions as civil servants.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Over 3,000 received a waiver related to insignificant support given to Tier 1 or Tier 2 terror organizations.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Of those who don't appear to be from Afghanistan, we don't know their nationality.
--:-- Tim Pierce: We do know that 155 of them were seeking asylum, 22 were green card holders, and four more applied for temporary protected status in the U.S.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, and all of this comes amid some heightened terrorism concerns. For good reason.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Hey, thank you for listening this morning. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation.
--:-- Georgia Howe: If you love our show and stand with that mission, consider subscribing, giving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
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