Morning Wire - Feds Eye Minnesota Leadership & Trump’s Greenland Tariffs | 1.19.26

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey come under federal scrutiny, President Trump threatens tariffs over Greenland, and the U.S. severs aid to Somalia. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Ep. 2587 - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Today's Sponsor: Ethos - Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/WIRE Application times may vary. Rates may vary. - - - 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

As the Pentagon prepares to send troops to Minnesota, the DOJ investigates whether state leaders impeded federal law enforcement. They should be cooperating with ICE. And if they did, we probably wouldn't have a lot of these incidents that we're seeing now. It's inviting tragedy. I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howl. It's Monday, January 19th. This is Morningwire. President Trump ratchets up the pressure on Europe over Greenland, threatening new tariffs, unless allies support U.S. control of the island. What President Trump is trying to do is prevent a taking for Russian-Chinese action in Greenland in the future.

So why not be strategic? And the U.S. cuts off the AIDS spigot to Somalia after its government destroys a warehouse full of food donated by Americans. We have a limited amount of money that we can dedicate to foreign aid and humanitarian assistance. And that has to be applied in a way that furthers our national interest. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.

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appear to be growing even more violent, the DOJ is investigating Minnesota Democrats for obstructing federal law enforcement. Daily Wire, senior editor Cabot Phillips, joins us now with more, hey, Cabot. So nearly two weeks since the shooting of Renee Good, the rioting across Minneapolis is not slowing down, if anything, seems to be picking up steam.

First, what is the latest from the, well, the front lines there? So last week, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls urged President Trump to turn down the temperature, but over the weekend, violent left-wing agitators in his state did anything but. They continued to riot. Large groups of protesters clashed with law enforcement outside of federal buildings and ice facilities, and a number of conservative demonstrators were brutally attacked in broad daylight. In one instance, right-wing activist Jake Lang was physically dragged from the front steps of a government building by a large mob of leftist agitators.

They proceeded to beat him with fists, rocks, and flagpoles, as some of the crowd could be heard yelling, kill him. All, it's worth pointing out with police nowhere to be seen. The video is pretty disturbing. We're going to warn folks, but we're going to play some of it here for our audience watching on the Daily Wire website. Now, thankfully, Lang was eventually able to make it to a car, which sped to safety, but not before he was left with severe gashes to his face and head, which left him hospitalized.

Other footage from the scene showed a different man wearing an American flag hoodie. That man was surrounded by another mob who demanded, quote, take it off and you won't get hurt. Seconds later, as the mob surrounds him, they forced him to remove that hoodie, which they rip from his hands and run off with. And then elsewhere footage showed protesters surrounding innocent people who were driving SUVs because they were suspected of being ICE agents because of the cars they were driving. masked rioters demanded they opened their doors and trunks to prove they were not ice.

Other videos showed rioters surrounding random white men in the city who they said, quote, looked like ice. They were told to yell F word ice. You get the idea to supposedly prove they were not with the agency. And in a remarkable moment Sunday morning, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey essentially blamed the violence across this city on the Trump administration, saying that if ICE agents left Minneapolis, there would be peace. The second these ICE agents leave the city, I'm telling you, you're going to have calm in Minneapolis and you will continue to see the great comeback that we had been experiencing.

Let us get back to that comeback. Let us live in peace. Yeah, stunning statement there from Frey and, as you said, pretty shocking footage that we're seeing streaming out of Minneapolis. What is Trump doing now in response? Well, as we mentioned last week, President Trump, in response to the violence, did consider invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy the military to Minneapolis and grant them the authority to perform law enforcement duties. The Pentagon has ordered 1,500 troops to be ready for a possible deployment.

A spokesman said they would be, quote, prepared to execute the orders of the commander-in-chief if called upon. Now, Mayor Frey said the threat of mobilization was an example of the Trump administration trying to, quote, intimidate Minneapolis. But ICE director Todd Lyons said it was only necessary because Frey and other Democrats were not doing their jobs. In my 30 years of law enforcement, I'd never thought we would have to send law enforcement to protect law enforcement.

You would not see this many ICE agents and special agents on the street if they would just turn people over to us. And now finally, the White House has opened an investigation into Governor Walls and Mayor Frey. This has really set off a political firestorm. Tell us about that. Right. In response to their refusal to cooperate with ICE officials and also their apparent unwillingness to combat these violent demonstrators, the DOJ has now opened a criminal investigation into both

Walls and Frey to determine whether they had conspired to impede federal immigration enforcement. We're still waiting to see the subpoenas for ourselves, but the investigation will center on whether the men's actions constituted criminal interference of legitimate law enforcement operations. Now, in response, Walls called the investigation a, quote, dangerous authoritarian tactic. He blamed Trump for, quote, weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents. The White House, though, says they are simply enforcing the law and also the will of voters. As Attorney General Pambandi put it this weekend, quote, no one is above the law.

Yeah, a phrase, Democrats have long directed at Trump now the tables have turned here. Kappa, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. 60% of the vans on Amazon come to vander independent like Sac Magic.

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At from here, Some European leaders want to escalate a trade war with the United States after President Trump threatened to impose up to 25% tariffs on eight countries. Trump has said he will back off the tariffs only when Denmark agrees to sell Greenland. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about Trump's Greenland gamble and the latest on U.S. foreign policy. So Tim, President Trump's tariff threats have ruffled feathers in Europe. how are they now responding?

Well, it looks like it could be a return of the trade wars that exploded last year. Trump's threats have angered quite a few in the European Union who now want to freeze the trade agreement that the block struck with the U.S. last year, a deal that Trump had called at the time the biggest ever made. Under that agreement, the EU would lift all levies on U.S. goods, and in exchange, the U.S. would drop its tariffs on EU imports to 15%. The European Parliament was supposed to move forward on that next week, but instead the block, is now expected to vote Wednesday to put the deal on hold, and may even take additional steps as well. Some think this fracture could threaten not just trade relationships with Europe,

but the NATO military alliance as well. Here was former Vice President Mike Pence on CNN yesterday. I do think that the current posture, which I hope will change and abate, does threaten to fracture that strong relationship, not just with Denmark, but with all of our NATO allies, Now, this massive turnabout happened because on Saturday, Trump threatened to put up to 25% tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Finland because Denmark has refused U.S. offers to buy Greenland.

Now, European leaders have begun to not openly, but implicitly compare President Trump's desire for Greenland to Putin's desire for Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement, quote, no intimidation or threat will influence us, neither in Ukraine nor in Greenland, nor anywhere else in the world when we are confronted with such situations. So a lot of resistance from Europe so far. How is President Trump responding to that? Well, it appears that military action has been ruled out, but administration officials are just as stubborn on this. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson appeared on NBC News on Sunday and said that it's actually continued Danish ownership of Greenland that is the real threat to NATO. President Trump strongly believes that we cannot outsource our security because this fight for the Arctic is real.

We would keep our NATO guarantees. And if there were an attack on Greenland from Russia, from some other area, we would get dragged in. So better now, peace through strength, make it part of the United States, and there will not be a conflict. Meanwhile, critics have pointed out that the United States and Denmark already has. have a treaty in place in which the U.S. may build whatever military installations it wants in Greenland already. Interesting. Now, shifting gears to Iran, President Trump made some comments over the weekend that

reignited some of the speculation that he might be planning a strike. What did he say? Yeah, it appears that Trump is not quite through with Iran yet. Trump told Politico, quote, it's time to look for new leadership in Iran. And he said that, as reports suggest, more U.S. military assets are headed toward the Middle East. And this has kicked off more speculation that Trump may move forward with an attack on Iran after all. The protests that Trump had earlier voiced support for have died down in recent days. But reports suggest that that's only because the Iranian military has moved into cities to crack down on the protests.

Here's Senator Ted Cruz, who has repeatedly called for regime change in Iran yesterday on Fox News on Trump's latest statement. President Trump, I think, has been very strong in telling the regime, number one, we stand. with the people, do not target, do not murder the protesters, telling the protesters, America stands with you. And I got to say, just in the last two days, a really important step occurred where President Trump came out unequivocally and said, it is time for new leadership in Iran. It is time for the Ayatollah Kamei, his religious dictatorship to end. Well, what we saw in Venezuela shows President Trump's not exactly afraid to do it. Tim, thanks for reporting. Good to be on.

The State Department will permanently end foreign aid to Somalia after a warehouse full of U.S. funded food disappeared. Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Roziak obtained diplomatic cables showing corruption in the African nation that mirrors the fraud perpetrated by refugees in Minnesota. He joins us now. Hey, Luke. So what exactly did these cables from the embassy in Mogadishu say? Hey, John, thanks for having me. So the U.S. Embassy in Somalia recommended that the State Department stopped foreign aid after on January. January 3rd, quote, at the direction of President Hassan Sheikh Mohammed and the federal government of Somalia, authorities at Mogadishu Port demolished the World Food Program emergency response warehouse, with no prior notification or coordination with international donors, including the United States. So 76 metric tons of food went missing, even as another 1,650 tons of commodities was on its way.

All right, so what we have here is U.S. tax dollars being used to feed poor people, Somalia, but their government is wasting that aid. Exactly. So the cable said that the country of Turkey has actually taken over large sectors of the economy in Somalia, which it runs using corrupt contracts with Somalia ministers who are on the take. The Mogadishu Port is actually owned by a Turkish company, and the Somali ports ministers viewed as being Turkey's primary agent in the country. Turkey wanted to expand its port facilities, so the Somalis let it take over a warehouse that was used by the World Food Program, which is a United Nations group.

And to be clear, this food is gone, correct? Well, the Somalis claimed the food is still, quote, accessible, but the World Food Program said that isn't true. And, quote, the demolition constitutes a breach of UN diplomatic protocols. It said the food has to be carefully stored, so it's hard to see how it's not destroyed at this point. And as you said, this is taxpayer money funneled through, actually, the Title II Food for Peace Program

and the International Disaster Assistance. So this is taxpayer money from Americans, and then it's administered by this UN group. All right, so we're giving food for peace, but not even getting the peace part of it at this point. Is there any chance for Somalia to make amends here? Well, it doesn't look like it. You know, the embassy said maybe we could see, but a U.S. official told me it's too late for Somalia to say they're sorry, and that it not only has aid been paused, but it's going to be permanently turned off, and that'll be official by at least May.

So stepping back a little bit here, why has this been happening? the motive for Somalia's government to fail to distribute food intended for its people? Well, a member of Somalia's parliament and its Foreign Affairs Committee has been warning about this. Abdullahi Hashi Abib said up to 90% of Somalia's humanitarian assistance comes from America, but that the money isn't distributed to the most needy, but rather hoarded by relatives of officials and their clans, who don't seem to care very much about rival clans. He said the agency that receives most of this aid, the Somali disaster management, agency is run by relatives of the president. Three brothers of the agency's chairman, each receive

about $15,000 a month in salaries sort of laundered through their wives. And the finance department and training unit are both run by different uncles of his. And they actually supposedly pay Somalis who are hungry, who are starving, $5 each, to take photos pretending to be receiving these meals as a donation. And then after the pictures are taken, they yank it back. And then they sell it at the markets for a profit. And so by diverting aid for up to 12,000 families, the Klan generates about half a million dollars each month for itself, the member of parliament said. Foreign aid money has also been wasted as Somalis inflate the cost of items, charging, for example, $300,000 for ambulances and fire trucks that really only cost $100,000,

he said. All right. So for those saying the U.S. is now contributing to the starvation in Somalia, the money we were spending may never have been used to address hunger to begin with. Yeah, I think that's right. And by the way, suddenly Minneapolis's quality leering center doesn't seem like a fluke. It seems like part of a pattern, right? I mean, Somalia's problems are due to endemic corruption. And what we've got to consider is when we're asked to take in refugees as a result of that corruption, I think it's fair to ask, how are we actually differentiating those who morally reject that whole culture from those who are simply part of it? Certainly this gives some insight into why the Trump administration decided to abolish USAID altogether.

Luke, thanks so much for reporting. Thank you. Thanks for waking up with us. And to those of you 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.