Morning Wire - Energy War Divides West & Trump Targets Filibuster | 4.1.26

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

President Trump proposes a new end to the conflict with Iran while slamming European allies, the Supreme Court makes a landmark ruling in defense of free speech, and most of Congress is out of DC for their Easter-Passover break, while many demand an early return. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 2711- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Alliance Defending Freedom - Visit https://JoinADF.com/WIRE or text 'WIRE' to 83848 to learn more.Lean - Get 20% off when you enter code WIRE at https://TakeLean.com- - -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

While more European countries block the U.S. from using their airspace, elevated oil prices continue to cause economic turbulence. If the bombing schedule stays the way it has been, you're going to continue to see oil prices remain stubbornly high, and you are going to see that price at the pump get worse. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Mickley with Georgia Howell. It's Wednesday, April 1st. This is Morning Wire. Fresh off delivering a major win for free speech.

court hears arguments today on birthright citizenship. In the end, no matter what the court decides, this is going to be a critical decision that determines something that should be of importance to all of us, which is what does it take to be a citizen in this country? And the fight over the Senate's most powerful hurdle heats up as President Trump calls on Republicans to scrap the filibuster. I think the Senate is playing too soft. The Republicans are wonderful people. We're dealing with very sick individuals. The Democrats, Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.

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Wired in live host Cabot Phillips is here with more. So Cabot, we're going to get to some of the ongoing economic fallout. But first, tell us about the president's latest comments. Yeah, we've talked this week about Trump's options for potentially putting boots on the ground. But according to numerous reports, he's now fearful that such an operation could extend the war beyond his original four to six week. And now he's reportedly considering ending the war, even if the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked. On Tuesday, he seemed to hint at that possibility, slamming our allies and essentially telling Europe and the rest of the world, you can figure this out on your own.

Writing on Truth Social, he said, quote, all of those countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you. Number one, buy from the U.S. We have plenty. And number two, build up some delayed courage, go to the straight, and just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Ron has been essentially decimated.

The hard part is done. Go get your own oil. So a long statement there, but certainly worth reading President Trump challenging the rest of the world. And the backdrop to those comments, of course, is rising tension between President Trump and several countries in Europe. Tell us about that. Right. Even before this war, there was a lot of friends.

friction over tariffs and the debate over America's season Greenland. Now, in the early days of this war, much of Europe offered a more unified front, kind of tepidly supporting the U.S. mission. But as the war is dragged on, the European economy has been hit particularly hard, and it seems clear they want this operation wrapped up. This week, Spain, France, and Italy each denied the U.S. permission to land aircraft in their countries. For his part, President Trump responded, saying, quote, the U.S. will remember. Essentially, he's saying, look, you all benefited from us, decimating the Iranian military, now it's time for you to help open up the strait. But the reality is, if this war ends and Iran maintains their blockade, the Iranians could hold a large chunk of the global

economy hostage, or they could slightly open it up and only allow ships to pass through if they pay heavy fees or taxes. And that could keep prices high in the long term. For more on that, I spoke with E.J. Antony, the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation. Here's what he had to say about the global economic impact of the strait being dominated by Iran. I think people have have really underestimated just how much energy markets are going to affect all other aspects of the economy. Perhaps the most acute one we've seen so far in terms of a non-energy impact has been fertilizer. And that's because fertilizer is largely synthesized from an energy commodity, natural gas.

Unfortunately, I think what we're looking at in the months to come. Again, some of it has already hit markets, like the price at the pump. But a lot of these spillover effects, if you will, are yet to come. Now, big picture, it's worth noting. One reason President Trump feels he can end the war without opening this straight is that the U.S. is simply far less reliant on Middle Eastern oil than the rest of the world. We've certainly felt pain at the pump. Gas just hit $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022.

But that increase pales in comparison to what we've seen globally. As the White House has been quick to note, thanks to President Trump's drill baby drill agenda, as he calls it, the U.S. is now the world's top oil producer. And that has helped to shield us from the impact of this conflict. However, Asia and Europe are in a much more dire position. For example, Asia lacks large natural reserves, so they've always been relying on the rest of the world for oil and natural gas. About 75% of their energy supply comes through the Strait of Hormuz.

So they are being hit the hardest right now. Elsewhere, Europe has spent the last decade, as we've talked about, enacting extreme climate measures, and those have greatly reduced their ability to drill. As a result, Europe imports about 90% of their oil, and that leaves them just much more exposed to these global energy shocks. On Tuesday, the European Commission, for example, urged residents to work from home and cut down on unnecessary driving and flying

as they warned of what they called a, quote, prolonged energy crisis. So President Trump, clearly not the only one with an incentive to get this wrapped up. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. This episode is sponsored by Brickhouse Nutrition. You've probably heard about those weight loss injections that everyone's been talking about. And for good reason. The results can be pretty incredible.

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Visit TakeLean.com and enter Wire for your discount. That's promo code wire at takelein.com today. The Supreme Court issued a monumental opinion yesterday regarding free speech, and they'll hear oral arguments later today on a case that considers what it takes to become an American citizen. Joining us now to discuss the latest from the Supreme Court as chief legal counsel Jim Campbell from Alliance Defending Freedom, who actually argued before the court on the first case we'll talk about.

Jim, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, John. So first things, first, congratulations on this big win at the Supreme Court. This is Childs v. Salazar, the so-called conversion therapy case versus Colorado. And as Georgia said, it's a significant ruling. Can you catch our listeners up on this case? Yeah, our client in the case is Kaylee Childs. She's a licensed counselor in the state of Colorado. And she wants to help kids that are struggling with gender confusion and gender dysphoria.

But unfortunately, Colorado passed a law that says that if you're helping a client like that, that you can only encourage them to gender transition. You can't help them grow comfortable with their body and realign their identity with their sex. And so as a result of that, because that's blatant viewpoint discrimination, we filed a lawsuit against that California or that Colorado law. So you guys sued and now we have this major ruling that came down yesterday. So what are the biggest takeaways from the majority opinion that was pinned by Gorsuch? So the Supreme Court recognized that these laws and there's roughly 23 of them around the country that they discriminate based on viewpoint.

And if there's one thing we know about the First Amendment, it's that the government can't pick and choose views that it likes while silencing views that it doesn't like. So the Supreme Court recognized that. They also rejected Colorado's argument that this was just some kind of conduct that Kaylee Child's engaged in. There is no conduct. Kaylee only engages in conversations with young people struggling with these issues. And the court recognized that you can't relabel speech conduct just to avoid the requirements of the First Amendment.

One of the big things that we reported at the Daily Wire is, look, this is almost a near unanimous decision. How significant was that? That this was an eight to one decision. Yeah, it's an eight to one decision because the Supreme Court is so strong on issues of free speech. Almost all of the court recognized that this law is so problematic under well-established First Amendment principles. Only Justice Jackson dissented, and her dissent simply gets the first. Amendment wrong. She ignores the fact that this law discriminates based on viewpoints and picks winners and losers in the public square. The Supreme Court's decision makes very clear that those laws face a very significant burden if they're ever going to be applied to simple conversations

between counselors and clients. And so we're very optimistic that this is the end of those laws to the extent governments try to apply them to shut down voluntary conversations. between counselors and their clients. It's also a generally major blow against the transgender movement. We've been tracking that, talking with you guys about that issue as well. So that was yesterday. Today we have another major case being heard. This is the big birthright citizenship case.

What do we need to know going into this? Well, I would start with the language of the 14th Amendment, because the 14th Amendment speaks directly to the issue of citizenship. And it says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. Now, that was originally approved by the people in order to grant citizenship to freed slaves. But over time, some have come to understand that as allowing birthright citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants. But President Trump, on his first day back in office, he signed an order saying that babies born in the U.S. will no longer automatically get citizenship

if their parents are here illegally or only temporarily. And then very, very soon after that, the ACLU filed a lawsuit. And so that order has never been able to go into effect. Once again, as we have tracked with you guys over the last few months, the court is taking on major cases. Another one here with this birthright citizenship case. Thank you so much, Jim, for joining us. always happy to chat.

As most lawmakers in Congress continue to be out of D.C. for their Easter Passover break, some lawmakers are demanding an early return. Daily Wire political reporter Cameron Arcan joins us now with more. Morning Cameron. So a lot of eyes on what lawmakers will do or not do here. What is the latest out of Washington? Yeah, so Senator Mike Lee, who's the Republican from Utah, is calling on President Trump to even take constitutional action to bring Congress back into Senate to bring the Senate back. Now, the reason for this is there was two different versions of the shutdown deal passed last week, meaning that the shutdown's still going on because

there was nothing that actually got sent to the president's desk. Now, the issue with this is that lawmakers went on their Easter Passover break, which is expected to last two weeks, last week, last week after they each passed these bills. So you have lawmakers on vacation right now while this Department is still closed. Now, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said that he is encouraging Congress to come back, but it's unclear at this point whether or not he will take constitutional action to bring the Senate back into session. Well, certainly the optics are not great for the Senate here. This also ties back to the filibuster where there seems to be growing public calls for it to be ended. What are lawmakers saying about that at this point? So I just talked with Senator Rick Scott,

who is one of the proponents of getting rid of the filibuster. And proponents of getting rid of the filibuster on the Republican side are arguing that this is the best path forward, not only to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security, but also to get the Senate moving again. As you know, we've discussed before, the Save America Act is that voter identification bill that a lot of conservatives really want to see past,

but they can't seem to get past that 60 vote threshold in Congress because there's less than 60 Republican senators and Democrats are not planning to. Act this proposal. So when we see situations like this, this is where the filibuster would come into that. However, as Scott told me, the Senate does not seem to have the votes to get rid of that, even though a couple years ago, back in 2022, Democrats actually wanted to end the filibuster with the exception of cinema and mansion in order to pass their own voting legislation. So obviously, times have changed in regards to where they stand on that. Now, there's also been some talk of going through a

process in the Senate to fully fund DHS. Is it possible to take an alternate route here? Yes, but it would be difficult. So Senator John Hoven and some others have floated the possibility of going through the reconciliation process, which is a very, very fancy way of saying a budget bill. Now, these have a much difficult route in order to getting to the floor. However, they don't require the 60 vote threshold that we're seeing with some of these other pieces of legislation. Now, you might not know what reconciliation is, but you probably've heard of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That was a type of reconciliation bill. Now, in context of the Department of Homeland Security shut down, that would mean that the Senate would try and pass funding for the department. You know,

I've heard numbers like three years being floated. I've heard a decade being floated in order to pass that funding for an extended period of time. However, the reconciliation process is known to be very difficult, given that it really only applies to a limited set of policies that can pass through that. However, that might be a method that some Republicans are exploring in order to avoid getting rid of the filibuster, but still reopening the department fully, because that original Senate deal that passed last week left out ICE and Border Patrol from that. And the important thing to remember here is the Democrats originally started the shutdown because it was, was a concern over federal immigration enforcement funding. And it had to do what they wanted

specific reforms to be made. As of right now and where these deals are currently passed, does not include any of those reforms. The Senate bill would just delay those. And then the House bill, which was only backed by Republicans and three Democrats, would fully fund the Department of Homeland Security for 60 days, but also does not include any of those reforms. So there's obviously a lot of room to kind of discuss year in terms of, was this even successful in terms of getting any of those reforms made? And would there even be a window of opportunity for the Democrats to do something like that further down the line? On the meantime, we'll see if Trump ends up demanding that Congress does come back early. Cameron, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.

Another story we're tracking. President Trump signed an executive order yesterday cracking down on mail-in ballots. It orders DHS to create a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and mandates that absentee ballots be sent only to those on approved mail-in ballot lists. The ballots are to be sent in secure envelopes with barcodes for tracking them. States who defy the order risk losing federal funds. That's a big deal. I'm very proud of it. And I think, I don't know how it can be challenged.

I'll probably challenge it. You may find a rogue judge. You get a lot of rogue judges, very bad, bad people, very bad judges. But that's the only way that can be changed. Hopefully, well, we don't appeal if it is, but I don't see how anybody can challenge it. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show, now you can watch for free on Daily Wire Plus. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.