Morning Wire - Evening Wire: Another Biden Aide Stonewalls & CBS Cancels Colbert | 7.18.25

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

A third Biden aide pleads the fifth during a closed door deposition, Congress sends the $9 billion clawback bill to the President’s desk, and Puerto Rico bans transgender medical procedures on minors. Get the facts first with Evening Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Third, Biden aid pleads the fifth during a closed-door deposition. Congress sends the $9 billion clawback bill to the president's desk, and Puerto Rico bans transgender medical procedures on minors. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Friday, July 18th, and this is Morning Wire. Yet another former White House aide is pleading the fifth. During a closed-door deposition today, Biden Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini declined to answer questions about about the president's mental fitness, classified documents, and the Biden's family business dealings. House oversight chair James Comer said her silence fits a pattern of Biden confidants shielding themselves from criminal liability. Tomicini is the third ex-white House official

to plead the fifth. She initially agreed to testify voluntarily but later reverse course and asked to be subpoenaed. Three L.A. Sheriff's deputies were killed this morning in an explosion at a training center. Aerial footage from a sheriff department training facility in East L.A. showed damage to the rear windshield of what appears to be a bomb squad truck. Three deputies were killed in the blast and a fourth was wounded and transported to a hospital. Authorities have not yet disclosed the cause of the explosion. The $9 billion rescission package is on its way to the president's desk after the house passed it just after midnight this morning. Daily Wire Deputy Managing editor Tim Rice has more.

The measure passed in a close 216 to 213 vote. Two Republicans joined Democrats in opposition. It claws back $8 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development and $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Democrats accused the GOP of gutting foreign aid and politicizing public media. House Speaker Mike Johnson called it a symbolic but important step toward controlling government. President Trump called me early this morning. We were doing a victory lap together on the phone about the passage of the rescission. bill late here last night. And he said, Mike, we're just winning. We're going to continue to win.

This is a great moment for America. I said, sir, it's historic. And there's much more to come. President Trump is expected to sign the bill into law today. The president is also calling for the release of grand jury testimony in the Jeffrey Epstein case, if the court allows it. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce has the details. Yesterday, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek approval to unseal any and all pertinent grand jury transcripts. The move follows. renewed scrutiny and demands from Trump's base for more transparency. Bondi responded on X, saying the Justice Department will petition the court on Friday. Epstein died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. A DOJ memo released last week concluded

there was no client list and no evidence of blackmail, a finding Trump defended, calling controversy over the case a Democrat scam. A Wall Street Journal report is being slammed as fake by the president. The report claims Trump once wrote Jeffrey Epstein a birthday letter. allegedly featuring a sketch of a naked woman. Trump says legal action is coming after he warned the journal, its editor Emma Tucker, and owner Rupert Murdoch, not to publish the report. The journal claims the letter was part of a leather-bound birthday album

found among Justice Department records in the so-called Epstein files, but included no photo of the alleged document. The DOJ and FBI declined to comment. Despite a recent diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency, the president is said to be in excellent health. The condition, which is very common among people over 70, causes poor leg circulation and swelling, but is not considered serious. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said Trump experienced no pain and had normal heart and blood test results. All results were within normal limits.

An echocardiogram was also performed and confirmed normal cardiac structure and function. No signs of heart failure, renal impairment, or systemic illness were identified. Morning Wire spoke to a specialist, Dr. Mark Glickman, Chief Medical Officer of N. Vino, and he said that the president's diagnosis is very treatable. The standard of care for these patients is a compression stocking below the knee, elevation, and exercise. If the swelling does not control, a simple trauma to the lower leg, like scraping in on a table or bumping in on a plane, can result. in a sore which can result in an ulcer, which may take months to heal. Bruising seen on his hand was blamed on frequent handshakes and aspirin use. White House doctors say the 79-year-old president remains fully fit for duty.

The Justice Department is probing another university over race-based hiring goals. The DOJ opened an investigation into George Mason University on Thursday. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dillon said the investigation will determine if the university violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which addresses employee discrimination. The investigation will examine the actions of the university's president. The university has denied any wrongdoing, meanwhile Dillon said the DOJ is correcting mistakes from the previous administration. Public institutions are not above the Constitution. We are also fighting discrimination wherever it exists, and we will enforce the law without fear or favor.

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on Rasasas Puerto Rico has banned transgender medical procedures on minors. The law applies to anyone under 21, and violators will be punished by 15 years in prison. Medical staff would receive a full $50,000 penalty and have medical licenses and permits revoked. The law says it's important to protect minors who have not yet reached full maturity and should not make decisions with irreversible consequences. Puerto Rico's LGBTQ Plus Federation criticized the law and says it will sue. About two dozen states have similar laws to the U.S. territory, including Tennessee.

California is suing after the Trump administration cut funds for a high-speed rail project. The lawsuit accuses the administration of political retribution. Governor Gavin Newsom admitted the project was billions of dollars over budget, but insisted it was making progress. In a video about the project, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called it a boondoggle and a waste of funds. It's now projected to cost $135 billion. This is the definition of government incompetence and possibly corruption. That's why we're pulling the plug. An illegal immigrant is facing charges after allegedly faking her own ICE kidnapping.

The Justice Department says the woman made up the kidnapping to generate sympathy and donations. The woman was hit with charges of conspiracy and making false statements to federal officers. She had claimed a group of unidentified men forced her into an unmarked vehicle and that she was then detained. But security footage shows her waiting in a parking lot. and calmly entering the vehicle without a struggle, even though a police officer was nearby. The U.S. attorney for the District of California says the story was all over local media. We knew she was not in our custody, and our agents were concerned that she was actually kidnapped. So we launched an investigation to make sure she was safe.

They worked over the holiday, over the 4th of July break. I got calls about this, and we got surveillance video. We investigated. We found out the whole thing was a hoax. She wasn't anywhere near the border. She was up in Bakersfield. And the whole thing was an elaborate conspiracy. A suspect has been charged with murder in the killing of an American Idol executive and her husband.

Daily Wire investigative reporter Marita Lorty has the latest. Raymond Boudarian is accused of scaly offense and then shooting the couple when they returned home. He's being charged with two counts of murder and one count of residential burglary. He's being held without bail. Police found a gun at Boudarian's residence and are determining if it is the murder weapon. officials say they do not think Buderian knew the victims and are still investigating the motive. The House did not appear to be ransacked and Budarian entered through an unlocked door. The investigation is still ongoing.

CBS plans to Cannes Stephen Colbert. The network will end the late night show next year. CBS says it's a purely financial decision with no plans to replace Colbert with another host. But Democratic Senator Adam Schiff suggested the show was canceled for political reasons. The end of the show comes amid a massive decline in late-night comedy viewership, including for Colbert's show. The host has a history of interviewing liberal politicians and pushing leftist narratives that included performing a musical number to convince viewers to get the COVID vaccine.

The vaccine! And in other cancellation news, Piers Morgan accused Joy Reid of playing the race card during her appearance on his show. Morgan told the former MSNBC host, her show was canceled because it was unpopular, not because of her skinned, color. The show had seen a 28% decline in ratings before its cancellation. Reid insisted she didn't understand the reason for the cancellation. Why play the race card? First of all, I love the fact that your play the race card is your version of the race card.

You literally are so fixated on trying to racialize conversations with me, Pierce. I find it actually quite charming. You racialize more conversations in your tenure, MSNMFEC, that any host in history. All right, Mark. All right, Pierce. And the bottom line is, you. take an entire conversation that I had with Mark Lamont Hill and pick the bits that you can racialize because this is your schick and I get that this is your schick. I understand this is how you vote. I get it. I get it. I understand this is your stick, peers. And listen, game regn that's your game. I get this is your

It's not my stick. It was your stick. And everyone knows that it is. Peers, we understand what did. All right. Those are your drive home updates to learn more about these stories. Go to Dailywire.com. And in case you missed it this morning, we covered some major stories, including the Senate voting to defund NPR and PBS, another Biden aide pleading the fifth, and the Chicago Fed president joining to discuss the Trump-Powell feud and the interest rate vote. Thanks for tuning in. We'll be back tomorrow morning with a weekend edition of Morning Wire.