Morning Wire - Fauci’s Phone Confiscated by Senate & the Propaganda Wars Continue | 8.7.26

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Republicans in the Senate Homeland Security committee vote to hold Dr. Fauci in contempt – and now have a copy of his cell phone, President Trump gets a big win in a federal court on his plan to deport hundreds of thousands of Haitians, and Trump dismisses media claims that the U.S. has depleted its missile supplies, with a vow to “hunt down” leakers. Reporting from Tim Rice. Plus, we speak with Senator Josh Hawley & Senator Ron Johnson. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 3026- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Zocdoc - Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to https://Zocdoc.com/WIRE to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. - - -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

What if a few minutes with God could change the direction of your entire day? With pray.com, you can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories, and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life. Download the pray.com app today. Republicans in the Senate Homeland Security Committee vote to hold Dr. Fauci in contempt and now have a copy of his cell phone. This is the kind of thing that ought to be open and available for inspection when you have an investigation with potential criminal ramifications as this one does. What's next for Dr. Fauci and will the Justice Department pursue criminal charges? I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, August 7th. This is Morning Wire.

President Trump gets a big win in a federal court on his plan to deport hundreds of thousands of Haitians. President Trump was trying to clean up that mess. He got elected to clean up that mess. You have Democrats sabotaging those efforts. And Trump dismisses media claims that the U.S. has depleted its missile supplies and vows to hunt down leakers. We have plenty. We have a lot of ammunition, more than we could ever use. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.

Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted Thursday to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt. Now they say they have access to a copy of his iPhone. Joining us now to discuss the fate of Dr. Fauci is one of the senators on that committee, Senator Josh Hawley. Senator, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. So we watched this rather tense voting session yesterday, which you spoke at.

First, why did you vote to hold Dr. Fauci in contempt? Well, because you can't have it both ways. You can't come to the committee and claim a full immunity of a pardon that Joe Biden gave him and then also say, but I'm not going to answer any questions. The law on this is very clear. If you've got immunity, you have to answer questions. Every prosecutor in America knows that. Fauci wanted to have it both ways because he didn't want to answer questions about why,

for example, he got rich during COVID using taxpayer money. The guy needs to be held accountable for all of the. the terrible things he's done, and that list is long. Now, Democrats like Senator Blumenthal made the argument that Fauci's lawyer should have been allowed to speak at the hearing last week and then also yesterday. Why do you believe his lawyer did not deserve to be heard? Well, his lawyer is not a witness, and this goes back to the point that you can either take immunity and answer questions, or you can give up your immunity and claim the fifth. You can't do both. You know, when was the last time that a courtroom witness was able to claim immunity, but then say, but I'm not going to answer any

questions when I get on to the stand. The answer is never. We never allow that in a court of law. Dr. Fauci has a full and total pardon from Joe Biden, an auto pen pardon, but let's just, for the purposes of discussion and say that it's valid. That means he should have to answer questions. He took the fifth 111 times. It was a joke. Now, Republicans have gained access to a copy of Dr. Fauci's cell phone that was acquired by a Senate panel chaired by Ron Johnson. We're going to talk to him next, in fact. How was that obtained and how significant is that development? Well, I think it could prove to be quite significant. It was obtained pursuant to a valid subpoena, as I understand it, from the permanent subcommittee on investigations, which is just an investigatory arm of the Senate.

And the truth is that, listen, this is all public information. And this is Dr. Fauci's phone as a government employee. This is the kind of thing that ought to be open and available for inspection when you have an investigation with potential criminal ramifications, as this one does. All of this could have been averted, I might add, if he would just have answered questions, which he still refuses to do. Senator Holly, has this been a bipartisan effort to get Fauci to speak, or are you seeing this a divide between party lines? I don't think the Democrats have any interest in this. They've had every opportunity for a solid year now to participate in this investigation to try to get evidence from Dr. Fauci. They have tried to stop us at every turn. And yesterday, when we voted, they all

voted no on doing anything to hold Dr. Fauci accountable. I think that tells the tale. Senator Rand Paul has said all along that he believes Dr. Fauci has engaged in criminal behavior. He's recommending the Justice Department take action. Do you believe that we will see an actual criminal investigation by the DOJ? Well, I certainly hope so. I hope that they will start with prosecuting the contempt resolution that we passed yesterday in the Senate committee. I hope they'll go after him hard for that. And I also hope that they'll look at the fact that he use federal employees and federal resources to get cash prizes for himself,

a million bucks in cash prizes during COVID, I can tell you, the law already prohibits the use of federal resources or federal employees to solicit funds like that. He did it over and over and over. Senator, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. August has a way of turning everyone's calendar into a game of Tetris, school, supply, shopping, sports, registration, last minute vacation, haircuts, physicals, dental cleanings, eye exams. Somehow it all has to fit in before fall gets into full, swing. Finding a doctor shouldn't be the hardest appointment to make. Zoc Doc is a free app and a website that helps you find and book high quality in network doctors so that you can find someone that you

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That's ZOCD-O-C.com slash wire. Zocdoc.com slash wire. Thanks So big story out of Hollywood this morning. The Daily Wire has just released the trailer for one of its biggest films yet, run, hide, fight, infidels. It's already generating plenty of controversy. It's not hard to see why when you see the trailer. The movie, which I've seen some of, you know, pulls no punches and a lot of things explode

and lots of heads will probably explode as well. Jonathan Majors leads the film. Dallasonier produces it. The film certainly makes no apologies about what it is, a hard-hitting action movie that tackles a very controversial subject. Run-Hide Fight Infidels is streaming exclusively on the Daily Wire starting September 16th. The trailer is rolling right after this episode, so go check it out. President Trump got a big win in federal court this week,

which ruled that his administration can remove temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians. Meanwhile, Republicans in the Senate continue to push for more progress on the president's immigration agenda. Joining us now is Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a Republican and member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Senator Johnson, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me on. Now, before we get into the immigration topic, we wanted to follow up with you about something we just discussed with your colleague, Senator Holly. The Senate panel, U-Chair, has gained access to Dr. Fauci's cell phone. What are your plans for that?

Well, first of all, we need to pull the information off. We need to protect people's personal information. But we'll be as transparent as possible. I'll be working very closely with Senator Paul and his staff. We both got the device. And, again, we want to be transparent, just like Senator Paul made the Fauci Diaries of him. I think we need to do the same thing with his phone text messages, that type of thing. And, of course, we're going to be looking for discrepancies in, you know, for example,

where he's had maybe text messages FOIA and presented them, did he provide all of them? Could there, you know, be additional information around the phone conversations in late January, 2020, early February, where all the cover-up around his funding of gain of function research and, you know, the change of opinion from manmade to had to spring from nature and manmade was a conspiracy theory. So again, there's many things we'll target dates, individuals. It's going to take some time. We're not going to release this overnight because we have to be careful of. Have you seen Democrats express interests in learning anything from Fauci's cell phone? Up until the beginning of the contempt hearing, no. I do know that the minority staff and the

permanent subcommittee investigation came and looked at the phone for about 20 minutes. from the left that's part of my staff. I've been investigating these things for six years, and the only reason the investigations may be one side is because Democrats have shown no interest whatsoever in digging into what happened during COVID with the injection or just a miserably failed response. Now, to the immigration front,

this ruling on protected status for Haitians has been a long time in the making a major priority for President Trump. Why does the administration see this as such an important step? when you grant temporary protective status, the first word that is temporary. And unfortunately, what has happened for way too many years is that the way it's been handled, they really ought to call it permanent and it shouldn't be permanent. Again, we're a very compassionate country.

We open up our borders to people who are having conflicts in their countries. But when those conflicts end or when it's safer to return, I said safer. Nothing's absolutely safe. you know, it's time for those people to return and for that temporary status to be revoked. So there has been some major progress made in terms of the priorities of the Trump administration on deportations. There's also been a lot of setbacks. What have you seen from your perspective and your roles, your various roles in the Senate on the immigration front? Do you see progress?

Well, I saw the Biden administration and with support of their congressional delegation in Congressional delegation and Congress here, throw open the borders and allowing millions of people to fund this country. Some of those individuals were members of violent gangs, that drug human sex traffickers, members of transnational criminal organizations. They created a huge, and now when President Trump was trying to clean up that mess, he got elected to clean up that mess. You have Democrats sabotaging those efforts. So I think it's been more than regretful that the Democrats aren't willing to cooperate and clean up their mess. A final question. What would you say is the Senate should be at least the Senate's biggest priority in the coming weeks?

Well, right now, we're trying to make sure the government doesn't shut down. You know, we have a request before us in terms of a military supplemental. We have the finest among us in harm's way. Generally, we provide those, you know, military members, the support they need. Unfortunately, we can't do that on a bipartisan basis. So we're looking at budget reconciliation from that standpoint. But in long term, we've got to reduce spending and get the debt and deficit under control. That's got to be the biggest priority long term.

Senator, thank you so much for coming on today. A great day. President Trump is dismissing reports that U.S. munition stockpiles are at dangerously low levels and says that treasonous leakers are being hunted down. Joining us now to discuss these military stockpiles and the dispute over them as Tim Rice, DailyWire DC Bureau Chief. Welcome back on, Tim. Thanks for having me, guys.

So there are a lot of conflicting claims about this issue. It's a big one. First, which specific U.S. munitions are we talking about? Yeah, so at issue here are two types of things. There are the Army tactical missile system munitions and precision strike missiles. So these each cost about a million dollars to make. And reportedly, the military has depleted nearly 80% of what's called the Terminal High altitude area defense or fad missile interceptors at about half of its patriot interceptors.

So really we're talking, if these reports are true, about everything that you need to wage the kind of war that we are waging in Iran. Long-wage ristles, short-range missiles, different types of interceptors to intercept different types of missiles from Iran itself or its terrorist proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon. 80% of anything in the military stockpile being depleted is obviously a logistical problem, especially as President Trump continues to threaten that perhaps we're going to ramp up hostilities. And of course, all military technology takes time to make

because there's quality control and it's expensive, but this is the stuff that really takes time, really takes a lot of money. So this is all really bad if this is true. Right. And that's a big if. And this is the battle that's being waged publicly now by President Trump.

He's disputing these claims. We've looked at these reports. they're often citing unnamed sources. Whether or not we've consistently seen this, though, that there's certainly a depletion of stockpiles is the degree to which they are depleted. Why does this public battle matter so much? Yeah, it's a great question, John,

because to your point, right, obviously to a certain extent the stockpiles have been depleted. So the reason this matters is, again, partially because the president is continuing to try to rally the American public around this ongoing war, potentially, which is going to potentially escalate soon, as we get closer to the midterm elections.

But the other, of course, right, is a national security reason. He, of course, is getting it something real, which is that we don't want, the United States does not want the Iranian government to think that we're not prepared, especially if we do launch another attack. So the president has denied these reports. He said that he is going to stop the leaks.

If he's frustrated with the leaks, he's going to root out, as Georgia said, the treasonous leakers. But he has gone on the record saying that the United States has, you know, in a very Trumpian statement, he didn't name any specifics, but he said, you know, the United States has plenty of missiles and all the armaments and things that we need. The president also quashed rumors that he had a tense conversation with Pete Hegeseth about this before or after last week's cabinet meeting at Camp David. There were other reports, again, from the treasonous leakers that the president confronted Hegsef about this, essentially saying, you know, how could you have let it get this bad?

The president is now separately saying that he stands by Pete Hegsef. Pete Hegsef is doing a heck of a job. This conversation didn't happen. And of course, that gets back to the original claim. Why would the president have been yelling at Pete Hegseth for letting the stockpiles deplete if the stockpiles have not actually been depleted? So yet another series of media reports refuted by the president. You did mention possible ramping up of the engagement again. Where are things now on the ground in Iran?

Well, you know, we're recording this now by the time anyone's listening to it and probably have changed 16 times. Where we are right now is there are some reports that the United States. United States and the Iranians are maybe going to reach a second memorandum of understanding the MOU, which of course was the name given to what people were sort of colloquially calling the ceasefire and the peace deal about a month ago. I think the main thing to keep an eye on, though, as all of this diplomatic back and forth is playing out in the press, is Iran has been attacking Iran and its proxies have been attacking American targets and allies increasingly in the past

couple of weeks. This is, of course, the reason that the president has been hinting at or outright threatening that we might resume missile strikes on Iran. So that really ultimately at this point, more than any potential New Deal or conversation or backroom, you know, exchange, all of which I'm sure are happening and will, of course, play an important part in resolving this conflict one way or the other. What really matters right now is, will Iran keep striking Americans and American allies and how will the United States respond? Well, Tim, as always, a lot of moving parts in this Iran story. Thanks so much for reporting for us.

Anytime, John. Thanks for waking up with us. The reporting that fuels this show is only possible because you tune in every day and because of our Daily Wire subscribers. To enjoy the show, ad-free and join our mission, become a member at Dailywire.com. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know. Your country is beneath contempt. We who love and serve Allah fought back.

against the Americans and the Zionists from the scourge of secularism and the lands of unbelief. Anyone going to listen to Captain Saunders tomorrow? The retired Delta Force soldier with a new book out. He's the polar opposite of those brain-dead protesters. Given the current climate, should place Saunders to even be allowed on campus. Mr. Saunders is a close personal friend of Chancellor Friedman. This is a decision I cannot fly. There are three ways Islam will conquer the West.

Through immigration, through the wombs of our women, and by using our nation's freedoms against us. Are you paying attention? Honoloktu. Listen carefully. The great Satan America will fall. You are infidels. The bodies of women are not pure and the men's souls are unclean.

What makes them so dangerous? Their goals are not in this life, but the next. We got friends here, I can't just... Listen to me! In the law, we cannot run or hide from what is coming. We have to fight. I will be rewarded 10,000 times in the next life. When you die, you're nothing.

Only one way to find out. That's the American way. What if a few minutes with God could change the direction of your entire? day with pray.com. You can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories, and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life. Download the pray.com app today.