June 26, 2025

Trump’s NATO Win & Senate Debates OBBB | 6.26.25

00:16:35

Summary

Main Topic: The podcast episode discusses various news stories, including President Trump's foreign policy victory at the NATO summit, the upcoming Senate vote on the "one big, beautiful bill," and a psychology student's allegations of ideological bias in her graduate counseling program.

Key Points:

President Trump secured a significant foreign policy victory at the NATO summit, convincing European allies to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP.
The Senate is set to vote on the "one big, beautiful bill," which has sparked concerns among some senators about the debt and deficit.
A psychology student, Naomi Epps Best, has come forward with allegations of ideological bias in her graduate counseling program at Santa Clara University, claiming that she was required to write a sexual autobiography and was subjected to gratuitous amounts of smut in her class.
The student's complaint was ultimately dismissed by the university, which claimed that the human sexuality class has been taught with a similar approach and similar assignments since the mid-1990s.

Participants:

Georgia Howe, host of the Morning Wire podcast
John Bickley, executive editor of the Daily Wire
Cabot Phillips, senior editor of the Daily Wire

President Trump's foreign policy victory at the NATO summit is a significant achievement, but it remains to be seen whether the increased defense spending will be effective in addressing global security concerns.
The Senate vote on the "one big, beautiful bill" is a crucial moment for the Republican Party, and the outcome will have significant implications for the economy and the country's fiscal future.
The allegations of ideological bias in the graduate counseling program at Santa Clara University raise concerns about the potential for indoctrination and the lack of diversity in the field of psychology.
The episode highlights the importance of critical thinking and skepticism in evaluating information and making informed decisions.

Show Notes

Trump secures increased funding from NATO members, Senate Republicans consider the One Big Beautiful Bill, and a therapy student blows the whistle on mandatory training in smut. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Today's Sponsors: Lumen - Go to https://lumen.me/WIRE to get 10% off your Lumen. Lean - Get 20% off when you enter MORNINGWIRE20 at https://TakeLean.com - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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Host Georgia Howe: Trump departs the NATO summit with another feather in his cap after convincing U.S. allies to open up their wallets. This week, the NATO allies committed to dramatically increase their defense spending to that 5% of GDP. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, June 26th, and this is Morning Wire.

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Host Georgia Howe: The Senate is set to vote on the one big, beautiful bill. Will the GOP majority hand the president a win on his signature legislation? And a psychology student blows the whistle on her graduate counseling program after it turned into a crash course in sexual fetishes. My final straw was a sex dungeon tour in which a woman was flogged, gagged, and wrapped bare in plastic. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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Host Georgia Howe: In a significant foreign policy victory for President Trump, European allies agreed Wednesday to his demands that they increase defense spending. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here to break it all down. So Cabot, the annual NATO summit wrapped up and Trump got his wish. What happened?

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Cabot Phillips: Yeah, President Trump was still taking a sort of victory lap following his successful strikes on Iran and the subsequent ceasefire. And on Wednesday, he scored yet another feather in his foreign policy cap. For years, Trump has been a vocal critic of NATO, saying the U.S. is being taken advantage of by our allies there, who spend far less money than we do on defense for the alliance. He arrived at The Hague this week demanding that member states up their defense spending from 2% of GDP to 5%, and they quickly agreed.

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Cabot Phillips: Leaders from all 32 NATO states signed a declaration committing to, quote, invest 5% of GDP annually on core defense requirements, as well as defense and security related spending by 2035. That means a trillion plus dollars in new defense spending from all across Europe.

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Cabot Phillips: Here's President Trump announcing that significant move. This week, the NATO allies committed to dramatically increase their defense spending to that 5% of GDP, something that no one really thought possible. And they said, you did it, sir, you did it. Well, I don't know if I did it, but I think I did.

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Cabot Phillips: Now for context, one country the United States currently accounts for more than two of NATO's entire defense budget. Here NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta to that point. For too long, one ally, the United States, carried too much of the burden of that commitment. And that changes today. President Trump, dear Donald, you made this change possible. Your leadership on this has already produced one trillion dollars in extra spending from European allies since 2016. And the decisions today will produce trillions more for our common defense to make us stronger and fairer by equalizing spending between America and America's allies.

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Cabot Phillips: So in exchange for that increased defense spending, for his part, President Trump reiterated his commitment to abiding by Article 5. That is the NATO clause that says an attack on one member is an attack on all. Ahead of the summit, he had expressed doubts about Article 5, saying he wasn't sure where he stood on it and that it, quote, depends on your definition. But once the other members agreed to step up funding, the president offered his full support for Article 5. That's why I'm here. If I didn't stay out with it, I wouldn't be here.

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Cabot Phillips: Now, there was one outlier that was dragging their feet with this new defense plan. Tell us about that country.

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Cabot Phillips: Yeah, while some countries may have been upset about that increased spending, only one really said so out loud. That was Spain. While they technically signed on to the deal, their prime minister said 5% was, quote, unacceptable and would force him to cut social services. Instead, they plan to up their spending from 1.2% to 2%. So not much of an increase. That clearly angered Trump, who said in response that he would make them pay higher tariffs. Oh, I think Spain's terrible what they've done. No, I do. They're the only country that won't pay the full up. They want to stay at 2%. I think it's terrible. We're negotiating with Spain on a trade deal. We're going to make them pay twice as much. And I'm actually serious about that.

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Cabot Phillips: Well, we'll see if Spain changes their tune there. Now, a major focus of this conference has been the Iran and Israel war. What's the latest there?

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Cabot Phillips: Yeah, there were questions coming in about how NATO members would respond to President Trump's strikes this past weekend, and they were largely supportive. Later on, President Trump also refuted reports that Iran's nuclear facilities only suffered minor damage in those strikes. And he reiterated that their nuclear program was, quote, completely and fully obliterated. He then announced that Iranian officials will be meeting with the U.S. next week to ensure the country does not pursue a nuclear weapon in the future.

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Cabot Phillips: Well, if this ceasefire holds, that is a serious win for the whole region.

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Host Georgia Howe: Cabot, thanks for reporting.

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Cabot Phillips: Absolutely.

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Host Georgia Howe: I'm not for raising the debt ceiling $5 trillion. I think that's a mistake to have such a large expansion of the credit line to a Congress that has shown disregard for fiscal responsibility. That was Kentucky Senator Rand Paul voicing his concerns over President Trump's big, beautiful bill. The Republican Senate is set to vote on that bill this week despite some continued divisions within the GOP. Joining us now to discuss is Stephen Myron, chairman of the Nonpartisan Council of Economic Advisors. Chairman, thank you so much for coming on.

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Stephen Myron: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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Host Georgia Howe: Now we're expecting a Senate vote on the one big, beautiful bill this Friday. What are the pain points within the bill that have some senators threatening to vote no?

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Stephen Myron: Look, you know, it is so important that we get this one big bill, this one big, beautiful bill over the line, because if we don't, it's going to be the biggest tax hike in history. It's going to be a $4 trillion tax hike on American families and American workers. It'll plunge the economy into recession.

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Stephen Myron: The number one sticking point that some senators are hung up on is the debt and the deficit. And I understand why they're concerned. But what I think these senators hopefully will come to understand, and we just put a paper on the Council of Economic Advisors website on this yesterday morning, is that we are taking a holistic approach to reducing the deficit. And there's been, I think, too much of a focus on the score from the Congressional Budget Office, which really looks at only a small part of the deficit picture.

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Stephen Myron: It just looks at sections of the bill in isolation without thinking about the big picture. But the big picture is there's lots of stuff that's going on to reduce the deficit. And what are those exactly? Can you unpack that for us?

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Stephen Myron: So on our calculations, we're going to reduce deficits by about eight and a half to 11 trillion dollars of a 10-year budget window. Now, those are absolutely huge numbers, but let me tell you how we get them. First of all, better economic growth. Economic growth boosts revenue for the government because more economic activity means more income. More income means more tax revenues. More tax revenues reduce the deficit.

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Stephen Myron: And so the best way to reduce deficit and debt is to grow the economy. And there are very powerful incentives in there for creating economic investment, right? Things like full expensing of factories, full expensing of equipment and R&D. Those are extraordinarily powerful incentives to get firms to invest in America, to get firms to invest in American economic growth, to build new facilities, new sites, new factories, and hire new workers.

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Stephen Myron: We're cutting red tape everywhere we can. There's also lots of revenues from tariffs, right? We'll get about $3 trillion of revenue from tariffs over the next decade. We'll get about $1.5 trillion of savings from discretionary budget cuts to waste, fraud, and abuse, right? These are the things the White House has laid out on its budget a few weeks ago.

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Stephen Myron: So you add all these things up, you get to about $8.5 to $11 trillion deficit savings over the 10-year window. It's really, truly historic.

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Host Georgia Howe: All right, so you're arguing that when the CBO says the bill will add $3 trillion to the debt over the next decade, it effectively fails to take into account the growth aspects of the bill. CBO just ignores growth altogether. CBO is also ignoring in its score tariff revenue, right? Tariffs are bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue every year going forward. So tariff revenue raised from foreigners to finance, to pay for tax cuts on Americans is just amazing policy.

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Stephen Myron: Now, Trump touts this bill as pro-family, pro-business, and pro-worker. How do provisions in this bill help the average American?

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Stephen Myron: So the number one best way to help the average American is to create an environment in which the economy is booming and therefore firms want to hire them. And that is what this bill does. Deregulation, creating a pro-business environment in which businesses are expanding and expansion requires more workers. More workers require more wages, right? And so workers will bid up for employees. So this is a blue-collar boom aimed at working Americans. It worked in the past. It'll work again. Americans know that. And that's why they overwhelmingly voted in a landslide to give President Trump a second term.

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Stephen Myron: We'll soon see if the GOP gets the votes to pass this.

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Host Georgia Howe: Chairman, thank you so much for joining us.

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Stephen Myron: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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Host Georgia Howe: The following story is not appropriate for younger listeners. A California psychology student training to be a therapist is blowing the whistle on alleged ideological bias in required sexual disclosure in therapy training. Naomi Epps Best says she was required to write a sexual autobiography and was subjected to gratuitous amounts of smut in one of her classes. Daily Wire investigative reporter Maraid Elordi has more.

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Maraid Elordi: So Maraid, this is a crazy story. What is this graduate student claiming is happening at her Catholic university?

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Maraid Elordi: Hi, Georgia. Yes, so Naomi Epps Best is a graduate counseling psychology student. She's 26 and she's a wife and mom of a one-year-old. And earlier this month, she decided to go public with allegations against Santa Clara University near San Jose.

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Maraid Elordi: We interviewed Best about this situation. Here's what she said happened in her human sexuality class.

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Maraid Elordi: I immediately discovered in the syllabus sadomasochistic erotica, a crassly written pornographic illustration guide, and the final exam was an 8-10 page comprehensive sexual autobiography. When did I start masturbating? Chronicle my sexual past and present.

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