Morning Wire - Chicago’s Crime Standoff & India Courts China | 9.2.25

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

Trump is full speed ahead with his crime crackdown despite blue-city resistance, the President faces major foreign policy hurdles as India turns to China, and the FDA opposes the sale of an opioid-like substance marketed to kids. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Today's Sponsor: Ollie - Head to https://Ollie.com/wire and use code WIRE to get 60% off your Welcome Kit when you subscribe today! - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy morning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Democrats accuse President Trump of planning an invasion of blue cities as he ramps up his crime and immigration crackdown. Every weekend, there's shootings in Chicago. What are they doing about it? What they're doing is they're turning to politics and they're turning to anything anti-Trump. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Tuesday, September 2nd, and this is Morning Wire. For this particular summit, U.S. may not be at the table, but U.S. is always always. always present. Trump faces big challenges on the foreign policy front as China meets with Russia and India while a court strikes down as tariffs. And the FDA clamps down on a substance they say could be the fourth wave of the opioid crisis. It is up to 13 times more potent than morphine, which means you can walk down the street in almost any neighborhood in America and buy an opioid.

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. says it all, that full body tail wag, those happy little hops, that goofy little grin that means dinner's here. That's what happens when dogs taste Ollie. Made fresh in U.S. kitchens with human-grade ingredients, Ollie delivers clean nutrition without any fillers or preservatives. Just real food that leads to real results, more energy, shinier coats, better digestion, and genuine meal time excitement. With five protein-packed recipes like fresh beef with sweet potatoes and fresh turkey with blueberries, even picky eaters dive right in. Don't just take my word for it. Here's how my kitchen sounded around meal time before Ollie.

And here's what it sounds like now. Dogs deserve the best, and that means fresh, healthy food. Head to ollie.com slash wire. Tell them all about your dog and use code wire to get 60% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus, they offer a happiness guarantee on the first box, so if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back. That's OLLI-E.com slash wire and enter code wire to get 60% off your first box. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to Trump-proof his city as the president considers his next move to clean up crime in America. Meanwhile, Democrat-appointed judges stall Trump's deportation agenda.

Daily Wire reporter, Tim Pierce is here to talk about the federal efforts to crack down on crime across the United States. So, Tim, let's start with Chicago. What did we see from Mayor Brandon Johnson over the weekend? Hey, Georgia, I hope he had a good Labor Day. Mayor Johnson spent his leading a protest against Trump in Chicago. Now, Trump has said that the windy city is next on his list to tackle crime after Washington, D.C. He's even looked at a military base on the outskirts of Chicago to possibly run ICE operations out of. Now, Mayor Johnson is really unpopular in the city.

He polled at just 26% support last month, but he's really leaned into this fight with Trump. Here he is leading a protest on Monday. An Illinois governor, J.B. Pritzker, threatening legal action if Trump moves National Guard troops into Chicago, which Pritzker said would constitute an invasion. Here's Pritzker on CBS News on Sunday. No one in the administration, the president or anybody under him, has called anyone in my administration, or, and me, have not called the city of Chicago or anyone else. So it's clear that in secret they're planning this, well, it's an invasion with U.S. troops if they, in fact, do that. The other thing is, you know, they ought to be

coordinating with local law enforcement. The day before that interview, Mayor Johnson had preemptively ordered local police to not cooperate with any federal law enforcement. The mayor said he was forced to take action because the Trump administration won't collaborate, but Chicago alderman Raymond Lopez, who is a Democrat like Johnson, said that that's not the full story. There's nothing stopping the mayor of the city of Chicago, the governor of the state of Illinois, from picking up the phone and reaching out to the president of the United States and saying, what can we do to be on the same page? we should all be looking to continuously decrease the amount of victims in our city and in our state. And instead we're getting into this tip-for-tat social media back and forth nonsense.

So as you can see, some local pushback to how Pritzker and Johnson are handling Trump's offer to help police crime in the city. Now, what's Trump's response to all this? Trump says that Chicago has more to gain with him than against him. The president posted on true social yesterday that crime is down to virtually nothing in D.C. and the mayor Bowser has become more popular because of it. Trump also encouraged other leaders of major cities to work with him so that their cities too can have a giant victory like D.C. As far as his efforts in the nation's capital go,

Trump's emergency powers over D.C. police are almost up. By the start of last week, more than 700 arrests had been made. Many of those of illegal aliens and dozens of firearms had been confiscated. So quite a feat that Chicago probably feels little pressure now. Now, a lot of the focus has been on immigration enforcement, but President Trump actually hit some barriers in the courts recently. Tell us about that. Right, Trump has run into a couple issues on the deportation side of things. On Sunday, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sukhnenin, appointed by Biden, blocked the administration from deporting 76 Guatemalan children. The government said that children were to be returned to Guatemala based off the request of the government and their parents.

But Sukhneninaninap appeared skeptical that those deportations would be legal. That followed a decision earlier this week by U.S. District Judge Paula Zinnis and Obama appointee. She stopped Homeland Security from deporting Kilmar Abrago-Gar-Garce. There's been a huge push to protect Kilmar-Abrigo Garcia from deportation, despite his controversial background. Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem said that that effort extends to the media. She posted a clip over the weekend that CBS News cut out of an interview she did. In the part that was cut out, she brought up allegations against Kilmer-Abrigo Garcia.

This individual was a known human smuggler, a MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife beater and someone who was so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors. And even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off. So as you heard, the network essentially cut out all the reasons the administration cites for why Abrago Garcia really needs to be deported. So some important context. Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me on. American adversaries are gathered in China this week for a summit designed to reorient the world economy to undermine American influence abroad. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips has more on these closely watched meetings

and what they mean for Trump's foreign policy. Hey, Cabot. So some aggressive moves by China lately in a series of meetings that are very high profile here. What have we seen? So this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping is playing host to world leaders from across the Middle East and Asia, including Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and most importantly, Russia and India. On Monday, President Xi, Vladimir Putin, and Indian Prime Minister, Narendra, Romody offered a rare public display of unity, looking like best friends in front of the cameras,

appearing before the press, holding hands, laughing, and sending a message to the West. It's no secret that Russia and China have been cozying up in recent years, forming this sort of new axis in the East, but the inclusion of India is setting off alarm bells in Washington. For decades now, leaders in both parties have almost viewed it as a foregone conclusion that India would in the future become a crucial economic partner, serving as a much more palatable alternative to China in the region. But now India appears to be telling the United States, we've got other powerful friends. Yeah, so let's talk about that dynamic. What's in it for India exactly? Well, Prime Minister Modi has made clear that he wants India to have more influence on the

global stage. So obviously, being friends with Russia and China gives him more leverage. And the fact that he's willing to play nice with Beijing, of all people, really proves that. Remember, India and China have not been allies in the past, far from it. For decades now, they've been in odds. And over the last five years, they've engaged in an oftentimes bloody border dispute. So this weekend summit is unlikely to turn them into true allies, but more broadly, it speaks to the rift between President Trump and Prime Minister Modi. It's no coincidence that this meeting comes just weeks after the White House slapped 50% tariffs on Indian goods. Remember, that came after they failed to reach a trade deal by the deadline,

and importantly have continued purchasing Russian oil despite President Trump's warnings against them. Trump said Monday that India is ready to drop all their tariffs, but Modi has sort of contradicted that, that he's ready for a protracted trade war and does not need the United States. For his part, President Trump responded Monday saying on social media that, quote, we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us. Their biggest client, but we will sell them very little. So Trump's saying, hey, we don't need you. All right, so both leaders trying to show that they have the leverage in this negotiation.

Now, what about Russia and China? What's in it for them? Well, for Xi, he gets to play the power broker on the global stage and show the world that China is the best alternative to countries looking to move on from the United States economically and diplomatically. At that point, Xi took clear shots at the United States this week during his opening remarks at the summit, accusing Washington of pushing a, quote, cold war mentality. Now, as for Russia, this summit sort of allows Putin to show that he is not being isolated on the global stage despite the ongoing war in Ukraine. For example, one of Putin's top advisors posted footage of him chatting with global leaders, writing the caption, quote,

isolated Russia, clearly mocking those who say Putin has been boxed out. And from an economic perspective, by solidifying this relationship between India and Russia, Putin is able to help ensure that India keeps buying his oil at a time when Trump has been pushing sanctions and tariffs on any country who continues to do so. Right. And speaking of tariffs, a potentially major blow dealt to President Trump and his tariff agenda over the weekend. What happened with this Court of Appeals ruling? So on Friday night, a federal appeals court struck down many of President Trump's global tariffs, ruling that he was not justified in using emergency powers to unilaterally

impose his trade policy. President Trump responded over the weekend, saying on social media, quote, more than $15 trillion will be invested in the USA, a record. Much of this investment is because of tariffs. If a radical left court is allowed to terminate these tariffs, almost all of this investment and much more will be immediately cancelled. Now, one silver lining for the president here, Friday's ruling allowed for the tariffs to continue until at least October. they'll stay in place so that the Supreme Court has time to decide if they'll take up this case. If they do, it'll set up a monumental showdown that could well decide the fate of President Trump's most consequential second-term economic policy.

All right, so once again, it's Trump versus the courts. We'll see if the highest court in the land intervenes in this case. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. The FDA is taking action against an opioid substance derived from the Kratum plant, which is being aggressively marketed to use in gas station and vape shops across the nation. Here with more is Daily Wire Reporter, Amanda Prestige-Ocomo. So Amanda, first off, what is cratum and then what kind of action is the FDA taking?

So the cratum plant, which is native to Southeast Asia, in its natural state, some people find it to have healthful and medicinal qualities. The FDA is not concerned about the natural cratum leaf. However, they are targeting concentrated and synthetic forms of cratim, specifically 70H, which is a potent compound derived from the cratim plants. At the end of July, the FDA recommended that 7-OH be classified as a Schedule 1 controlled substance that would make it illegal to sell or to possess. The FDA is very concerned about this. They say that it is an opioid, not just like an opioid, and it comes with significant health risks, including addiction and overdose.

7-O-H, they say, is about 13 times more potent than morphine. By recommending that it be restricted, the FDA is hoping to get ahead of another potential opioid-like crisis, especially since most. people are unaware of what these credom products actually are or how they're being aggressively marketed to minors. Here's FDA Commissioner and Dr. Marty McCarrie issuing that stark warning. We can't get caught flat-footed again. We got burned with fentanyl. We got burned with prescription drugs. We cannot get behind the eight ball again. This may be the fourth wave of the opioid epidemic. concentrated synthetic 70H may be the fourth wave of the opioid epidemic.

Currently, the drug enforcement administration, the DEA, they're reviewing the FDA's recommendation to effectively ban the substance. So how big of an issue is this, the synthetic cratum, and also how is it being marketed? Well, first of all, cratum overall is a billion-dollar industry in the U.S. and is growing very quickly. In a matter of a couple of years, it's expected that the industry will double. And while some people, or perhaps even most people, have not heard of Kratum before, they've certainly seen these 7-0-H products in gas stations, corner stores, vape shops, or even online.

7-O-H can come in the form of powder, it's in vapes, in drinks, pills, and other forms that are extremely appealing to young people like fruit-flavored gummies or even ice cream cones. The FDA also says that these products are often not clearly or accurately labeled with regard to their 70H content, and they can be disguised or marketed as merely the cratim plant. And again, you can just walk into a gas station and get this stuff. So this is very common. How common are deaths from these products? Well, the CDC says that there have been some overdose deaths associated with cratom products,

but most of the time other substances have been involved. But there are new investigations coming out and medical professionals who are sounding the alarm on 70H. A recent report from the Tampa Bay Times, for example, links Craterham products to hundreds of deaths just in the state of Florida. Here's Dr. McCarrie reading a letter from a grieving stepfather of a young man who had finally quit addiction only to purchase 70H without being aware of its contents. He called me on May 31st to tell me he had stopped at the vape shop to buy a vape and was offered a fruity pill and was told that it was cratim.

He said that he took the pill and became addicted. and that he should have done his research. He died the night he took two 20 milligrams, 70H pills. Wow, so terrifying for parents. Now, we're also starting to see some states take action against 70H. What's the latest there? Yeah, we're starting to see Florida in particular lead the way on this. Earlier this month, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeyer announced an emergency role

to classify 70H as a Schedule 1 controlled substance. We also have GOP Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio urging the Board of Pharmacy in the state to designate synthetic and natural cratum compounds as illegal drugs. A number of other states have also moved to add age restrictions for 7-0H, or they've added limitations for the concentrations of this compound. Well, very frightening, but good to see we might be getting ahead of this drug. Amanda, thanks for reporting. You're welcome. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to like and subscribe.

We'll be back. evening with more news you need to know.