Morning Wire - Budget Battles, Billion-Dollar Bets & ICE Busts | 5.15.25

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Congress clashes over the budget bill that could cut Medicaid and extend Trump-era tax cuts, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pushes major FAA reforms, and nearly 200 criminal illegal aliens are arrested in an ICE raid in Nashville, sparking a political firestorm. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Fast Growing Trees: Get 15% off your first purchase when using the code WIRE at checkout or by visiting https://fastgrowingtrees.com/wire Kikoff: Start building credit with Kikoff today, and you can get your first month for as little as $1 when you go to https://getkikoff.com/wire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump deepens U.S. ties in the Middle East with historic economic partnerships, while domestic battles over tax cuts and Medicaid rage on in Congress. Less government lower taxes so we can allow the free market to flourish. I think that's what we're going to achieve in this bill. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, May 15th, and this is Morning Wire. The FAA calls an urgent meeting with airlines to address critical staff, shortages, and faulty equipment at major transit.

travel hubs. And a sweeping ice raid in Nashville nets nearly 200 criminal illegal aliens, sparking backlash from the city's Democrat mayor and a larger national debate on DHS protocols. If anyone's breaking the law in this situation, it's not members of Congress. It's the Department of Homeland Security. You lay a finger on them. We are going to have a problem. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Did you know that fast-growing trees is the biggest online nursery in the U.S. with thousands of different plants and over 2 million happy customers. This spring they have the best deals for your yard,

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Terms and conditions may apply. House Republicans negotiated Trump's one big, beautiful bill this week in marathon sessions that began Tuesday and stretched well into Wednesday morning. Lawmakers muscled the legislation forward to ready it for passage by the end of next week. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about what's in that sweeping bill that's a key leg of Trump's economic agenda and the latest from his Middle East trip. So, Tim, what's in that bill so far? Well, the big piece here is the permanent extension to Trump's 2017 tax cuts and jobs act.

On top of that, Republicans want to make good on Trump's campaign promises, such as no tax on tips and boosting funding for the military and immigration enforcement. Here's House Speaker Mike Johnson on Newsmax yesterday. We're checking all the boxes. He promised no taxes on overtime, no taxes on Social Security, no taxes on, for example, interest on car loans that are made in America. A number of those things are woven into this bill, and we've made all the math work so we can do that. Here's a few of the pieces agreed to so far.

There are new exemptions for tips and overtime pay for those who earn less than $160,000 a year. The government will pay $1,000 to parents for babies born through December 31st of 2028. It also raises the state and local income tax deduction from $10,000 up to $30,000. Of course, to get all this and more, the GOP must find funding offsets. And that's where the negotiations really get heated. Right. So where will those savings come from? There are some tax credits being closed. For example, the bill limits itemized deductions for the 37% top bracket, essentially a tax increase

on many big earners. and some Inflation Reduction Act tax credits for electric vehicles and green energy will also be scrapped, though not completely until 2029. And then there is Medicaid. Part of the bill would put in place work requirements for able-bodied people. And other safeguards will also be added. But those reforms could run into trouble in the Senate. Here's Republican Senator Josh Hawley already attacking it.

If you want to do work requirements, I'm all for that. I bet every Republican, and I bet most Americans would agree with that. But we're not talking here about just work requirements. The House goes much, much, much further than that. And here's Congressman Buddy Carter Defend again. We're making sure that no illegals are going to be on this program. We're making sure that people aren't registered in more than one state. We're making sure that they're going to be work requirements

so that able-body adults are truly in need of it. That's what we're doing. We're stabilizing this program. To insinuate to fearmonger that we are trying to kick people off is simply untrue. Now, this is obviously part of Trump's plan to boost the American economy, but there's also foreign investment overseas that he's hoping to bring to the U.S. Over the past few days, he's been traveling in the Middle East. What has he accomplished so far?

Some huge deals with some of the Gulf states. Yesterday, the White House announced an agreement that it said will generate an economic exchange worth $1.2 trillion with Qatar. As part of that deal, Qatar Airways says it plans to buy as many as 210 Boeing planes, and the U.S. has agreed to deeper military cooperation with Qatar. And before that, as we reported, the president struck deals with Saudi Arabia. The White House said those are worth about $600 billion. Well, making deals is what President Trump likes to do most, so hopefully these will benefit America.

Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. Bad credit can keep you from moving forward. Luckily, kickoff can help. Kickoff users with credit under 600 grew an average of 84 points in their first year. Start building credit with kickoff today, and you can get your first month for as little as $1. That's $80% off the normal price when you go to getkickoff.com slash wire today. That's kickoff without the C. Getkickoff.com slash wire.

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InVigual results may vary. The Trump administration is putting pressure on the the FAA after several deadly plane crashes and concerns with staffing shortages. Joining us to lay out the details is Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marade O'Lauri, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy testified to Congress yesterday, Wednesday. What reforms is he making? Hi, John. Yes, so on Wednesday, Duffy testified to lawmakers on a House Appropriation Subcommittee about the Transportation Department's new budget request.

He's asking for billions of dollars to fix the country's air traffic control system, which, as you know, has been the target of a lot of criticism after several deadly disasters and major snarls in the system. Right now, there's a crisis at Newark Liberty International Airport, one of the country's busiest airports. Hundreds of flights were grounded last week when air traffic controllers couldn't see here or talk to the planes for about 90 seconds. This has actually happened twice, one last month, and then again this month. Newark needs 38 air traffic controllers, and it only has 24 right now, and five of them actually took a 40, day trauma leave afterwards due to the stress of the outage situation. Also, construction at Newark has caused about 34 flight cancellations per day. Duffy actually said he moved his wife's

flight to avoid Newark because of all the delays. Duffy blamed the Biden administration for failing to fix the broken system. Over the last four years, the last administration, they knew this was a problem. And by the way, during COVID, when people weren't flying, that was a perfect time to fix these problems. On Wednesday, airily, airlines met with the FAA to address the situation at Newark. The FAA is already working on the Newark Airport. It did a software update to prevent another outage, and it's slashing the number of flights for now. But the crisis just points to a larger problem with this country's air travel system. Right. And of course, we had that tragic, deadly crash in January in Washington, D.C.

Remind us of the details about that incident. Right. That horrific crash between a commercial flight and an Army Blackhawk helicopter that killed all 67 people aboard both air. aircraft over the Potomac River that happened the day after Duffy was sworn in. And just after that crash, President Trump raised concerns about DEI in air traffic control hiring. I'm trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash. Because I have common sense.

So now DEI in air traffic control hiring is one of the main issues Duffy wants to address. Here's Duffy again talking about how they're reforming the testing standards that Biden lowered. They moved the standard. you had to get an 85 under Trump. They moved it to 80% in the test under Biden to be well qualified. So we've changed it to go, we want the best qualified. So if you get 90 and above on that test, you get a seat right away in the Air Traffic Control Academy. Now, another issue is airport infrastructure that hasn't been updated in decades, correct? Yes, infrastructure is another huge issue for Duffy. He wants to make a huge investment in brand new equipment,

new radios for air traffic controllers, radar on the ground, sensors for tarmacs, and a new flight management system to improve airspace efficiency. Here's Duffy on infrastructure spending. So 2010, they passed the stimulus bill under the Obama era. And then you had $1.2 trillion in the last Congress. And so that's $2 trillion over 10 years. And sometimes you look around the country and go, where did $2 trillion go? Where is all the infrastructure?

Why don't we have more? And I think it does, a lot of this money gets eaten up in, again, the permitting and in the consultants. And I want to see more of the money go, you know, to turn dirt. That's what we have to focus on. As he was testifying to Congress on Wednesday, Duffy's Transportation Department announced it just approved dozens more infrastructure grants for a total of 405 grants worth nearly $5 billion so far. The department says it's cleared about 13% of the backlog under Pete Buttigieg, who was Transportation Secretary under Biden. We'll be certainly tracking all of these reforms stuff. He's promising. And meanwhile, this is a life and death issue for Americans.

So very important priority here. Right, thanks so much for reporting. Thanks, John. Immigrations and customs enforcement carried out a week of raids in Nashville, Tennessee, arresting nearly 200 illegal aliens and prompting outrage from the city's Democrat mayor. Daily Wire investigative reporter Spencer Lindquist has the story on the Nashville raids and the response from the city's government. So Spencer, this is right in our backyard.

What do we know about this story? Good morning, Georgia. So that's right. There was a week-long raid here in Nashville, Tennessee that started on May 3rd. And we just learned that agents captured nearly 200 illegal aliens, many of whom had been convicted of criminal offenses. Of the 196 illegal aliens attained by ICE, 95 had prior criminal convictions or pending charges,

and 31 had illegally re-entered the United States after being removed. Now, I would think that Tennesseans would generally be happy about this, but that's not really the response we got from the city's mayor. What did he say? Nashville's Democrat Mayor Freddie O'Connell said that ISIS immigration raids caused, quote, deep community harms and said that he was heartbroken over the federal law enforcement agency's actions. This is a tough moment, and I am heartbroken that today many of our neighbors in Nashville are experiencing fear over family separation rather than the safety we all deserve. The trauma inflicted on families is long-lasting, and I'm doing everything in my power consistent with applicable law to protect anyone who calls Nashville home. He also announced the creation of a belonging fund, a joint project between the City of Nashville and a local foundation to provide support to illegal aliens. The fund supports organizations that assist illegal aliens with child care, transportation, and food needs. Here's O'Connell discussing that fund.

This is a first of its kind fund supporting our immigrant and refugee community in moments of crisis, which have, been many in that community over the past several weeks. And the mayor also signed an executive order requiring city employees and police to report any communications with ICE to the mayor's office. But Nashville legal director, Wally Deetz, admitted that there's nothing the city government can do to prevent ICE from carrying out enforcement operations in Nashville. Now, you also spoke to members of DHS. What did they say?

Yeah, that's right. So Trisha McLaughlin is the assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, and she called O'Connell a, quote, pro-open borders politician. who would rather protect illegal aliens than American citizens. O'Connell was also slammed by ICE acting director Todd Lyons, who said that the Nashville mayor should be thanking federal law enforcement for protecting the city. Now, you mentioned that the individuals arrested had prior records. What do we know about them?

So these are some bad characters, Georgia. We obtained exclusive information on the criminal records of some of the people arrested here in Nashville. One of those men is a 60-year-old Iraqi national who is convicted of rape and failed to register as a sex offender. Another is a 33-year-old from El Salvador who's affiliated with MS-13. And that violent game was recently designated a foreign terror organization. The government of El Salvador also suspects that man of committing aggravated murder. Then there's a Haitian male convicted of possessing meth with the intent to distribute,

a Salvadoran convicted of possessing cocaine with the intent to manufacture and sell the drug, and a Guatemalan national with a conviction for aggravated assault. Now the tension we're seeing between the Democrat mayor here and immigration officials is playing out in other places as well, particularly in New Jersey. What's going on there? Absolutely. As we reported here, the Newark mayor recently got himself arrested, along with some other Democrat lawmakers, after trespassing at an ICE facility. On a federal level, we've seen Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries both ratcheting up their rhetoric against ICE in recent days.

And now what DHS is trying to say, again, they're using public intimidation because they know that they cannot come for us all. They know that they are not, that they cannot come for us all. And recently what they said is that DHS is allegedly looking into arresting members of Congress who were showing up for their legal and constitutional obligation to conduct oversight. If anyone's breaking the law in this situation, it's not members of Congress. It's the Department of Homeland Security. They'll find out. What would you do, though? They'll find out.

Of course, I mean, does not broach a... They'll find out. Doesn't that go across? That's a red line. What's the red line, though? I mean, I know we have the secret line. So Democrats are very much up in arms and attempting to defend illegal aliens. Well, the American people continue, though, to support Trump on this.

Spencer, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more news you need to know.