Morning Wire - DHS Funding Fight Continues & Can Terror Cost Citizenship? | 3.19.26

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

Congress clashes over the future of Homeland Security, Iran reels from leadership losses amid renewed international pressure, and a wave of deadly attacks here at home sparks a heated debate over denaturalizing citizens. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 2689- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors: Lean - Get 20% off when you enter code WIRE at https://TakeLean.com Vanta - Get started at https://Vanta.com/MORNINGWIRE- - -Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacymorning 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

I hope we can work together and get them funded. So when I walk in, these guys are ready to go to work day one. The fate of the Department of Homeland Security is front and center on Capitol Hill, while the White House looks to break the funding stalemate. Well, there's a solution that is to fund the government and not defund law enforcement, which is what the Democrats want to do. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, March 19th, and this is Morning Wire.

Iran lashes out after losing more key members of its list. leadership, while Trump leans on Europe to help bring Tehran to its knees. And after a string of deadly attacks by naturalized citizens, the national debate turns to denaturalization. Many records were done on paper. They would misrepresent the fact that they had been a member of a terrorist organization overseas. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.

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Visit TakeLean.com and enter Wire for your discount. That's promo code wire at takelein.com today. Washington, D.C. is seeing several major developments, including a series of heated and high-stakes hearings that could determine the fate of the Department of Homeland Security and our response to national security threats. Daily Wire political reporter Cameron Rcan joins us now with more Morning Cameron. So a lot going on in the Capitol this week and a lot at stake in these hearings.

First, what is the latest with the Department of Homeland Security? Well, the biggest issues that we're tracking right now are who's going to run the agency and how the agency is going to get funded. Right now we saw the confirmation hearing of Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, and he shared some of his perspective as to what he would do when Christy Nome leaves that position. If he ends up getting confirmed in that role starting in April, here's what he had to say. I hope DHS is just able to be laser focused on doing their job, and it isn't controversial about taking care of the homeland.

I hope people have confidence in our agency again, and I'm going to work every day to restore that. There are also some other notable moments in there. Specifically, Mullen noted that he would have immigration authorities, use judicial warrants if they're going to enter a home or a place of business unless authorities were actively pursuing an individual as administrative warrants are currently used for most of these immigration-related arrests. Now, as we noted, DHS is still currently facing a shutdown with the White House sending its counteroffer to the Senate on Tuesday saying that they would back an increased oversight of detention facilities throughout the country, as well as more body camera usage for

officers. Right, so some key concessions there from the White House. We'll see if the Democrats bite on any of those. There was also a big Senate Intelligence Committee hearing with D&I Director Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday. What went down there? Yes, Gabbard did testify before that committee, and she gave some very key insight into the situation in Iran. Here's what she had to say. Iran's strategic position has been significantly degraded. The U.S. led maximum pressure campaign, and snapback of European sanctions added additional pressure to an already bleak Iranian economy resulting in mass protests earlier this year that Tehran suppressed by killing thousands of protesters. She also talked about the threats in the Middle East and domestically,

especially when it comes to terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. Now, this all comes as the director in the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, left his role earlier this week over criticism over Operation Epic Fury in Iran. He said that this was not justify military action. and he claimed that Trump only went to war because of Israel. But there's a significant update on this claim that came out last night. Seymophore reported in the Daily Wires Mary Margaret O'Lahan has since confirmed that law enforcement sources say Kent was under FBI investigation

for allegedly leaking classified information before he announced his resignation. So while Democrats have tried to paint Kent leaving as a big rebuke of the operation, this may be more about Ken trying to get ahead of this investigation from the FBI. Now, speaking to the FBI, FBI director, Cash Patel also testified affirming that the country is less safe amid the DHS shut down. Is the refusal to fund the functions of the Department of Homeland Security, including Homeland Security investigations, making Americans less safe? Absolutely.

Now, in addition to these hearings, we've also had some movement this week on the Save America Act in the Senate. Where does that stand now? The Save America Act cleared a major procedural hurdle this week in a 51 of 48. vote to start debate in the Senate. Now, the proposals consider the president's highest legislative priority right now as it would create documentary proof of citizenship, voter ID at the ballot box, and also some mail-in-voting restrictions with a few key exceptions in federal elections. Now, debate is expected to go on for the next few days on this, but it's unclear what it will actually take to get this across the finish line, because keep in mind another major hurdle in the

Senate is that 60 vote threshold. Now, in terms of what comes next here, Democrats have also vowed unified opposition on this, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer even saying as long as it takes for this. Meanwhile, you have moderates like John Fetterman, who's a Democrat from Pennsylvania, who said, you know, I don't want this other stuff in the Save America Act. I just want voter ID. And so he's pitching his own proposal on that. But it's unclear if that. going to go anywhere right now, especially when you have Republicans in the House that wanted the Save America Act passed. A lot of Republicans in the Senate as well with some opposition to it. And of course, the president at the helm saying that this is what he wants to get done more than

anything else. Well, as we've highlighted, the American people generally like the idea of voter ID. So we'll see if the Republicans are able to get something passed on this in the near future. Cameron, thank you so much for reporting. Thank you. No, it's not your imagination. Risk and regulation are ramping up, and customers now expect tangible proof of security just to do business with you.

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Wire. After losing more of its leadership, Iran has launched retaliatory strikes against Israel, while also attempting to fund its regime using dark transits, reportedly involving Chinese-affiliated ships. Iran's increasingly desperate moves come as Trump continues to lean on NATO allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Joining us to discuss the latest in the conflict, including Trump's quarrel with our European allies, as Bev Turner, host of GB News Late Show Live. Bev, great to have you back on. Thank you. Pleasure to be here. So let's start with your home turf.

We've talked before about the UK's reluctance to come to the help of the U.S. in its campaign against Iran. But we have now had at least some action from the British. Are there any signs that the UK is going to be more involved going forward? As President Trump said, they only got in touch when the war was won. Now, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But clearly what's happened behind the scenes here is that the U.S. reached out to the UK to say, particularly can we use your military bases in Cyprus and in

Chagos, Diego Garcia, and they were told no. And what that meant was the flights that the US forces had to make were hours longer than necessary. And that causes problems in the field of war. And eventually, when Stama did say, yep, you can use them. As Trump said, it's too late. I don't need them now. It's too late. They are using them, of course. This is a little bit the braggadocious bravado that we hear from President Trump. It looks like we're getting involved. It's very much in a defensive capacity. We aren't on the offensive with Israel and America,

but we are trying to shoot drones down. The latest we heard is we managed to intercept 40 drones. But I don't know about you guys and how knowledgeable you are about the minutiae of warfare, but 40 drones, when sometimes we've had 100 drones in one strike, doesn't sound like a huge amount on behalf of the UK. I guess something is better than nothing in this case. Now, the context of this is the larger struggle Trump has had with NATO.

He's increasingly losing his patience with countries that are supposed to be our allies. Is his frustration fair? I think it's taken him by surprise how reluctant Europe has been. But remember, the dynamic between these countries across the world since Trump came into office has been a little bit us against them. because Donald Trump plows his own furrow, he doesn't go for cooperation with these countries first. It's almost like he asks for forgiveness, not permission. And so it looks now as though the communication channels were not there, the relationships weren't there before the conflict started on that Saturday morning, only a couple of weeks ago. And that cooperation and perhaps

the communication wasn't there with the other leaders of NATO, particularly the European leaders, before he started with Israel. So I think that communication wasn't happening. And so I think his frustration is somewhat valid, but I think it's taken him by surprise. Now, we have seen here in the States the price of gasoline spiking. Are you seeing similar spikes across the pond? Yes. Now, this all will come down to whether the Straits of Hormuz can remain open, of course, because that is the passageway for the oil to get out to Europe and to India and to China, etc. And I think the most difficult communication and collaboration that has to happen now is how to enable the European countries to support the

US in keeping that open, because that is a very dangerous stretch of water right now. And of course, there are European countries, including the UK, who say, well, if we go in there, we put our warships in that water, and they are hit, directly hit by Iran, where does that leave us? Because then we may have to go on the attack. We can't then just be defensive. We are then drawn into it. As soon as one British soldier is killed, we are in that war. That is clearly a pinch point for all of these negotiations. With this talk in the UK of rationing food, because that won't be able to come through there.

And to some extent, this explains why Stama is being reluctant to back President Trump 100%. Because he will be telling the British people, when your prices go up, when your oil goes up, It wasn't me. I haven't done this to you. This is America and Israel that have done this to you. And so he is treading a very difficult diplomatic line with his voters on this as well. So Starmor, like some other European leaders, I suspect, wanting to keep the blame squarely on Trump. Yeah. Beth, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. Can you deport a naturalized citizen? More Americans are asking after a string of terror attacks by foreign-born suspects.

Daily Wire Immigration reporter Jenny Tare joins us now to discuss. So Jenny, just in the past few weeks, we've had three terror attacks by naturalized citizens. This has led to discussion about revoking citizenship for criminals, specifically in the case of terrorists who were born overseas but subsequently obtained U.S. citizenship. Can you tell us about that effort and what the legal barriers are? Right. So like you mentioned, three attacks by naturalized U.S. citizens in recent weeks. So we can go back to the Austin Bar shooting. That was by a naturalized U.S. citizen.

He was naturalized in 2013. After coming here from Senegal, then you had the Michigan synagogue attack recently, which was committed by a man from Lebanon who became naturalized. And then there was also a thwarted potential attack in Texas, actually. So this would be maybe a fourth to add to the list in Texas, where a man from Iraq showed up to an elementary school armed and wearing tactical gear. and he has since been released from custody on bond after his arrest. And then you have the Old Dominion University shooter who was a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sierra Leone,

who was previously convicted of terrorism charges after he tried to join ISIS. So you may wonder why he wasn't denaturalized and, you know, based on those terrorism ties. But it's not so simple. We spoke with an immigration attorney on this, Matthew Colkin. Listen to what he had to say. If a naturalized U.S. citizen commits a heinous act of terrorism, that's not a way to take away somebody's, they've done everything right from an immigration standpoint. The law does not allow you to just take away someone's citizenship. They can be convicted of a crime and go to jail for the rest of their life,

but they'll die in the United States citizen. So are there situations in which a person can be denaturalized? You know, it's really difficult to denaturalize someone, but it can be done in some cases. it would have to be where the federal government finds that someone lied during their immigration process to obtain that citizenship. And then there's also a way to get them if they've joined, let's say, the Communist Party or something similar to that that really undermines the United States and our values. And that would have had to be within five years of getting citizenship. So could Congress theoretically expand on that to add more offenses that could result in denaturalization? Yeah, they can. Gene Hamilton, who's from America First Legal, he spoke about this.

Listen to what he had to say. Congress could pass new legislation tomorrow that would broaden the provisions of existing law that allow for denaturalization upon the commission of certain types of heinous offenses or upon a person's association with certain disqualifying organizations. So, in essence, what they're saying is that these people concealed who they really, were and in fact we're not eligible to become citizens to begin with. So members of Congress, like Senator Eric Schmidt, he's already introduced legislation to address this. Now, his bill, the Scam Act, would actually make it so that criminals, so that people committing welfare fraud, cartel members, terrorists, those people can qualify for denaturalization based on those ties alone. So that would give the federal government the power to denaturalize these people who have committed terrorist attacks or crimes in the country rather than just going after them for fraud. Well, I think a lot of Americans might find that's common sense.

Jenny, thanks for reporting. Thank you. Another story we're tracking this week. March Madness tips off today. Daily Wire reporter Lyndon Blake has the details. Today is one of my favorite days of the year because it is the tip off of March Madness, the 64. single elimination college basketball tournament. Now, people were going to spend the next 48 hours glued to their TV to watch nonstop

basketball, but last year, something happened for the first time ever. There was no Cinderella in the tournament. There was no small school with unknown players and unknown coach upsetting a powerhouse like we've seen the past. Last year was the first time in history, all 16 top four seeds, meaning the best teams in every region advanced to the second round, the round of 32. It is because of the new era of college athletics. You have NIL.

You have pay for play. And it has honestly killed the Cinderella team. So, guys, brackets are due in a matter of hours. So keep that in mind when you're filling yours out. The games tip off at noon Eastern. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show, you can now watch the show free on Daily Wire Plus.

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