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--:-- John Bickley: President Trump announces a complete and total ceasefire between Israel and Iran. I think the president really hit the reset button and said, look, let's actually produce long-term peace for the region. And the U.S. thwarts Iran's missile attack against a military base in the Middle East.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Tuesday, June 24th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Iran saves face with a symbolic attack, but is it now isolated from the rest of the world? They want to be seen as achieving parity, almost an eye for an eye.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And anti-Trump activists have had a mixed track record in using the courts to halt his agenda. California could seek emergency relief in the Supreme Court. That's something that's increasingly happening.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: After Iran launched unsuccessful retaliatory strikes against the U.S. on Monday, President Trump announced that Iran had agreed to a ceasefire to end the war with Israel. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips has the latest on the conflict.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So a whirlwind day yesterday. Catch us up to speed.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah, a major breakthrough Monday, John, as President Trump announced that Iran and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire agreement that was proposed by the U.S. Writing in a Truth Social post, the president said, quote, congratulations to everyone. It has been fully agreed to between Israel and Iran that there will be a complete and total ceasefire.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I actually think when we look back, we will say the 12-day war was an important reset moment for the entire region.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, one of the big questions throughout this entire conflict has been if the U.S. would pursue a regime change in Iran. Here's Vice President Pence on that front.
--:-- Vice President Pence: Well, I think what the president is saying very clearly, Brett, is if the Iranian people want to do something about their own leadership, that's up to the Iranian people. What the American national security interests here is very simple. It's to destroy the nuclear program. That's what we've done.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, on Monday afternoon the Iranians launched their long response to Saturday strikes firing missiles at the Al Air Base in Qatar. That's America's largest military installation in the Middle East.
--:-- John Bickley: They also launched a separate barrage against American installations in Iraq. But ultimately, all of those missiles were intercepted by U.S. and Qatari air defense before reaching their target. And importantly, no casualties and no damage reported.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Iranian state media released a statement Monday confirming their deployment of what they called, quote, destructive and forceful missiles, saying we warn our enemies that the era of hit and run is over.
--:-- John Bickley: But there was a reason to believe that they weren't actually trying to inflict real damage with those strikes.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, more than meets the eye, John. So remember, back in 2020, after the U.S. killed General Soleimani, Iran warned Iraq ahead of time that it was about to launch a strike on the U.S. base there.
--:-- John Bickley: That allowed time for American troops to seek shelter and prepare defenses. And ultimately no service members were killed and the U.S. did not respond with further strikes.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And according to President Trump, the same thing happened yesterday. Writing on Truth Social, he said, quote, I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost and nobody to be injured.
--:-- John Bickley: Based on multiple reports, Iranian officials said the regime wanted to save face with their own people and the rest of the world by launching a symbolic counter-strike, but they wanted to avoid inflicting casualties.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And it must be noted that Iran was really running out of options yesterday. Their missile stockpiles are reportedly dwindling. Their military and nuclear facilities have been decimated. And their allies have not exactly come to their aid.
--:-- John Bickley: To that point, Iran sought support from their longtime ally, Russia, on Monday, sending their foreign minister to Moscow. But while Putin slammed Trump's strikes as, quote, absolutely unprovoked, importantly, he stopped well short of offering the Iranians any form of outright support, at least publicly.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The president said he was confident Iran has, quote, gotten it all out of their system, adding, quote, congratulations, world. It's time for peace.
--:-- John Bickley: Quite a day yesterday. Yes, it was.
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--:-- Benham bin Talablu: All eyes are on Iran's response after the U.S. devastated its nuclear facilities over the weekend. Joining us to discuss is Benham bin Talablu, the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's Senior Iran Program Director.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Benham, thank you so much for coming on. Good to be back with you.
--:-- Benham bin Talablu: So Monday, we saw retaliatory strikes from Iran and then President Trump announced a ceasefire. So do you think this is it or will we see more from Iran?
--:-- Georgia Howe: If I had to be a betting man, this looks like a January 2020 redo where the Iranians again are trying to find a way to save face without losing their head.
--:-- Benham bin Talablu: In this case, they had something very valuable taken away from them, the crown jewel of their nuclear program, the 4 fuel enrichment facility by the U.S. So they're looking to respond in kind. They're looking to respond against military assets, and they have targeted at least two different facilities, one in Iraq, one in Qatar, using their precision-strike short-range ballistic missiles.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But the reason this also looks and smells and feels like a January 2020 redo is that Iran's overt missile barrage in January, which was lethal and was designed to draw blood, but also create the space for de-escalation on the other side, was paired then with some kind of private diplomatic outreach that forewarned about these strikes.
--:-- Benham bin Talablu: And reportedly, it's not confirmed, but reportedly, the Iranians again married their ballistic missile strike, which was limited, but with that diplomatic outreach again. So the Islamic Republic success strategy, this is how a conventionally weak state that has a high ideational impulse manages to regulate competition against much more powerful adversaries, and that is with a knife and a handshake.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In the cosmology of conflict, in the political lexicon of violence that the Islamic Republic has, they have this thing from the Iran-Iraq war called responding in kind. They want to be seen as achieving parity. So sometimes in the West, we talk about escalate to de-escalate. This is escalate to achieve parity, almost an eye for an eye.
--:-- Benham bin Talablu: Do we expect other actions from proxies connected with Iran or Iranian extremists? Do we have any sense on the ground of anything in the works?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Potentially, I would say this, the proxy threat in the region and the terror threat against targets far away, such as in the U.S. homeland or on the European continent, those are things the national security establishment, you know, the Justice Department need to be cognizant of and focusing on humming like a motor in the background at all times, at times of peace and at times of war.
--:-- Benham bin Talablu: Because this is an adversary with a high ideational interest in exporting the revolution and trying to extend this long arm of terror into Western democracies, taking advantage of everything from immigration issues to working with transnational criminal syndicates to wanting to take apart and maximize the existing cleavages in American society for them to land blows at those they want to.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But now, again, this is a time of war. And the reason I would say that proxy action would not be as important as direct action is that the Islamic public wants to be seen as responding to the strike that the U.S. had. This is, again, just as much about status for this regime as it is about security.
--:-- Benham bin Talablu: Stepping back, what do you think this has done in terms of Iran's relationships with its allies in the region? Has it weakened those relationships or strengthened them?
--:-- Georgia Howe: I think this is real proof that the Islamic Republic does not really have allies in the traditional sense. The Islamic Republic had one state ally in the region. That was the Assad regime in Syria. And you saw how quickly that collapsed despite the cost in terms of blood and treasure and even reputation that the regime had sunk into trying to bail out the butcher of Damascus for so long and intervening so decisively, along with the Russians in the Syrian civil war.
--:-- Benham bin Talablu: The Islamic Republic fundamentally is alone. And that's almost at this point in time, ironic because they've built up so much of their foreign and security policy in the region towards achieving some sort of outcome that would isolate Israel rather than isolate itself.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Final question. What are Iran's priorities now? What's its primary goal in the days ahead?
--:-- Benham bin Talablu: The Islamic Republic has to make itself look like it's in control. All authoritarian regimes have breadth but no depth. So while Israel and America were really delivering blows to Iran's missile, military, and nuclear programs, the Islamic Republic was trying to bloat itself up to make up for those blows.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And really focusing on the images following the shooting is going to be critical to understand what the Islamic Republic thinks of itself and how it feels and how confident it feels once the shooting stops. We see what steps Iran takes next, Benham. Thank you so much for joining us.
--:-- Benham bin Talablu: Thank you.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The Trump administration won a legal victory over California Governor Gavin Newsom last week. The Ninth Circuit Court lifted a lower court order that blocked Trump's orders to the California National Guard. Here to talk about that decision and other lawfare the president is facing is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.
--:-- John Bickley: So, Tim, first off, what did the courts decide?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, it's a win for the president and a good sign for the administration's case. But it's still not the final word. You'll remember that Governor Newsom challenged Trump's ability to deploy the National Guard. So the latest here is that the Ninth Circuit lifted a lower court's temporary restraining order off the Trump administration.
--:-- John Bickley: The order had returned control of California's National Guard back to Newsom. Without issuing a final ruling, the Ninth Circuit found that the Trump administration was likely to succeed on the merits of the case.
--:-- Tim Pierce: That is, Trump's National Guard order satisfied the legal threshold under Section 10 of the U.S. Code, and the court sided with the administration that local law enforcement failed to contain the violence against federal agents and property.
--:-- John Bickley: Governor Newsom has claimed some small victories, too. The court disagreed with the Trump administration that the president's order is not subject to judicial review.
--:-- Tim Pierce: After the decision, Newsom posted on X, quote, The court rightly rejected Trump's claim that he can do whatever he wants with the National Guard and not have to explain himself to a court.
--:-- John Bickley: And in another win for Trump, the Supreme Court granted an administration request to allow it to deport illegal aliens to third countries, or a country that is neither the United States nor the immigrant's home country.
--:-- Tim Pierce: That ruling was 6-3, with the dissenters all from the court's liberal wing. The decision lifted a lower court order that required the federal government to hold any alien in the U.S. who could not be deported explicitly to their home country.
--:-- John Bickley: This ruling from the Supreme Court is good news for the administration that wants to use every tool it has to speed up deportations.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Now, these are just two legal cases facing the Trump administration, and some members of the GOP had put together some sort of plan to assist the president with all of these cases.
--:-- John Bickley: What's the status of that?
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, it may be dead. Senate Democrats have worked to strip out as many provisions as they can from Trump's one big, beautiful bill. One of the quirks of the process that Republicans are using to get around the Senate's 60-vote threshold to pass the bill is that the Senate parliamentarian gets to cut provisions she says aren't budget-related.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, one of those provisions would have restricted federal courts from issuing these sweeping injunctions against nationwide policies.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The Trump administration has run into that on numerous occasions where courts have taken a case that involves a few plaintiffs and used it to block federal policy.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, Democrats appear to have won a procedural battle to get Republicans fixed for that, nixed from the one big, beautiful bill.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Well, it just goes to show the devil is in the details with these big bills.
--:-- John Bickley: Tim, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Thanks for having me on.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're watching on YouTube, like and subscribe. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know.
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--:-- John Bickley: I take these capsules whenever I'm traveling and on the go, keeping up with the latest news to ensure that I get my daily fruits and veggies. Balance of Nature is just one ingredient of a balanced lifestyle and has no intention to replace a healthy diet, exercise, sleep, or any other healthy habits. It's intended to be used in concert.
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