Morning Wire - High Stakes US-China Sit Down & Flock Surveillance Under Scrutiny | 9.25.26

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

President Trump plays host to China’s Xi Jinping – as both leaders seek to strengthen ties while also shoring up their own agendas, more questions and fears arise over flock cameras as the Senate holds a hearing to get some answers, and former American Idol contestant Caleb Flynn faces trial for allegedly murdering his wife and staging a break-in. Reporting from Mary Margaret Olohan & Megan Basham. Plus, we speak with Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Ep. 3109 - - - 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 make TWICE the impact for freedom today. Fast Growing Trees - Find plants for your yard or home at https://Trees.com. Get an additional 20% off your purchase with code WIRE at checkout. Quince - Make your home a little more you this fall with Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to Quince.com/wire. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. - - - 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

Okay, first, before we give you the facts of the day, run hide fight infidels is streaming now only on Daily Wire. It's an ode to the great action movies of the 80s and 90s. There's even a love story, which nobody expected. And you can support Daily Wire's mission to continue making movies that people actually want to watch. Go check it out. You know what's wild? Most people are still overpaying for car insurance, just because it's a pain to switch. That's why there's Jerry.

Jerry is the only app that compares rates for over 50 insurers and minutes. And it helps you switch fast with no spam calls or hidden fees. Drivers who saved with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Before you renew your car insurance policy, do yourself a favor. Download the Jerry app or head to jerry.a.i. President Trump plays host to China's Xi Jinping as both leaders seek to strengthen ties while also shoring up their own agendas. Achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,

and making America great again can go hand in hand. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howl. It's Friday, September 25th. This is Morning Wire. As more questions and fears arise over flock cameras, the Senate holds a hearing to get some answers. This is still the United States of America, and it shouldn't be that when you walk out your door in the morning,

You just have to agree in assent and accept the fact that you're going to be on camera morning, noon, and night. And former American Idol contestant Caleb Flynn faces trial for allegedly murdering his wife and staging a break-in. Please. Somebody broke in my home. Somebody broke in my home. Are they still in there? I don't know. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Getting a flood of holiday orders is a great problem to have. Until you actually have to have. until you actually have to ship all of them. Ship Station is built for exactly that moment. It keeps orders from all of your stores together

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and get 60 days free. shipstation.com with CodeWire. That's shipstation.com code wire. Texas and fees apply. China's president Xi Jinping is wrapping his state visit today after meeting with President Trump, with Xi saying the U.S. and China must coexist in peace. Joining us now with the details is Mary Margaret O'Lahan White House correspondent for the Daily Wire. Great to see you. Good morning. Great to see you. So I know it's been really busy for you over the last few days. Let's start with this visit from China's President Xi. How has this big event gone so far?

Well, it has been a little chaotic, John and Georgia, because this has been all anyone at the White House has been talking about, all anyone has been thinking about these two world leaders meeting at the White House. Of course, President Trump went to China in February. They rolled out the red carpet literally for him. It was very dramatic, very royal, very ostentatious. And we're seeing a little bit of that here at the White House on this week. What we saw was literally a red carpet rolled out for Xi at Joint Base.

Andrews when he arrived a couple nights ago. And then at the White House yesterday, all kinds of pomp and circumstance and multiple bilateral meetings between President Trump and President Xi as they discussed all sorts of topics, including Iran, including AI. We're hoping that they talked about Jimmy Lai, the Chinese billionaire who's been imprisoned by President Xi and has been so many people, including DeLiWire advocating for his release. So very long day that ended in a state dinner that concluded around. to 10 p.m. So everyone, including myself, was very happy for that day to be over. But I'm sure.

I did want to note, too, John and Georgia, there was a crazy element at the White House yesterday where everyone is a little uneasy. Everyone is a little on edge because, of course, China is one of our greatest adversaries. And that was reflected even in the way the Chinese press treated myself and the other members of the American press. You know, we're all aggressive. We're all not afraid to get our questions in, not afraid to beg the president for more. But these Chinese press, they're physically They get in your face, they push you, they've trampled people in the past. And yesterday, you know, we had videos even showing me shoved up against the wall as some of these press were just pushing past and not caring who they got in the way of. So a lot of unease around the White House.

We saw them taking photos and videos at the White House. And when the American press went to China with the Trump administration last year or earlier this year, we saw that the White House staff threw out all their burner phones. They threw out everything the Chinese gave them when they left China. and I think that it's just an indication of how little trust there is between these two countries, even though we're engaged in such high-stakes visits. Yeah, very real security concerns there. Now, Trump and she were, of course, expected to cover the future of AI regulation. How did that discussion go?

Was there any kind of conclusion? Yeah, so the bits and pieces that we know right now are that both leaders talked about how important it was to have human control over AI. And one thing that the United States pushed forward, and I think this is really interesting, with some kind of mechanism that would alert both countries if there were any incidents with AI that were troubling. The president has talked a lot about how we cannot allow China to get ahead of us in the AI race or everything is lost.

So just kind of a recognition there that we are the greatest leaders in this front, but there does need to be human accountability or we do face some of the dangerous scenarios that we've talked a lot about in Washington in the last couple weeks. Now, before you go, I wanted to follow up on the press legal battle. what's going on on that front? Yes, this has been very dramatic, and I, for one, am quite ready for it to be over.

Yesterday, as everyone was getting ready for President G to arrive at the White House, we got news that a judge had ordered that CNN, Politico, and MSNBC needed to be allowed to access the White House. There was a little bit of a curfuffle as some of these reporters came to the White House, tried to get in using their press credentials,

and we're not allowed to, but ultimately they were allowed back on campus, and all of these reporters came back and are able now to, once again, me in the White House, once again be covering the president and following his daily movements, which we know is what everyone around here cares the most about. And I should add here really quickly, a lot of these reporters, as soon as they got let back on campus, immediately started having their colleagues filmed them, started doing new segments about themselves. And that's one of the

frustrating things I think about this whole process is it has allowed these reporters to make it all about themselves when it should be about President G, about the White House, about President Trump. And you can make the argument that President Trump did this to himself. But hopefully we don't see any more of this. But we also hope that we see more fair coverage. I don't know if the Trump media battle is ever really over Mary Margaret, but maybe this phase of it's done. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. One of my passions is making my home very cozy. And especially in the fall, I always have candles going. My lamps are all on dimmers. It just sparks a lot of joy for me. and one of the more neglected rooms in my house has been the guest bedroom,

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83848 to make twice the impact. That's join ADF.com slash wire or text wire to 8384848. CEOs of major companies involved in AI surveillance like flock safety and axon were invited to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week to discuss the expanded application of their products. But none of the executives invited showed up for the hearing. The effort was spearheaded by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who says he wants to find out, quote, what is going on with the expanding surveillance network that appears to be going coast to coast in this country. The senator joins us now.

Senator Hawley, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. So a lot of Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about flock cameras, and you just held this hearing to get some answers on how the various companies are working, hopefully, to protect Americans' privacy rights. How did that go, and what did you learn?

Well, I learned that this is really far beyond a law enforcement tool. I'm all for law enforcement tools. I'm a former prosecutor. But what we learned on Wednesday was that this is a national surveillance network that has almost no restrictions on it, no privacy protections. And the flock CEO, though he would not show up in person, he wrote me a letter in which he admitted that you can search for individual images of people on their national network. I mean, that's a huge problem. I think we've got to put some guardrails in place here. Now, you've tweeted that we have something like 120,000 flock cameras, and there are 20 billion car scans.

every month. It's really hard to wrap your mind around that amount of data. Are these now in every single state? And if so, just major cities? Are they in metro areas? And how do they operate exactly? 49 states and the 120,000 camera number comes from flock itself. So they're just about everywhere. That's 20 billion images every month just with flock. There are three or four other companies that have similar technology. So we're talking about, all told, maybe 100 billion images a month. No security, meaningful security protocols, we had a guy testify at the hearing, a cybersecurity expert, who said he was able to hack the flock network from his computer and read individual people's text messages from the images that flock took. That's really scary. Incredible. Now, the argument

for them, of course, is that they can be used to keep us safe. The counter argument there is, obviously, the privacy concerns. Were you surprised that the CEOs didn't show up before the committee to defend their product? Well, I will. just say that for companies whose whole business model is to put people on camera, it was quite telling that they didn't want to be on camera in order to answer questions. I think they need to come forward with what they're doing. And I think that we need to have some common sense guardrails in place here. You know, if this is about reading license plates, that's fine. Law enforcement do that all of the time. No problem there. If this is about helping law enforcement identify

criminals, that's fine. But here's my concern. Right now, this technology is treating every American citizen as if they are a criminal. And tracking potentially every American without their consent, that's a violation of the Constitution. We need to protect people's liberties. Have you spoken to cops and law enforcement officers about their experience with this if it's, if it is quite helpful to them and concerns that they have just from what they've seen? I was spoken with numerous law enforcement and we had law enforcement testify at the hearing a couple of days ago. And what law enforcement have said is that this is far beyond a normal law enforcement tool. We had one sheriff who testified he dropped his contract with these companies flock in particular because the technology

was targeting individuals, was taking pictures of people in their cars. It wasn't just scanning license plates. It was doing far, far more. And he was worried about who would get access to this data. I think, again, we've got to have some common sense guardrails here that protect law enforcement, but that most of all protect private citizens' rights. Final question. Do you have plans to force these CEOs to appear before a committee in the future? Well, we invite them to come. If they won't come, I think we should explore having them be subpoenaed. And I think most of all, we have got to introduce some legislation here that will give every law-abiding citizen the comfort and security of knowing their constitutional rights are being protected. Well, this is a rare

bipartisan issue. And as we said, a lot of Americans are very, very concerned about this. Senator Holly, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, thank you. Yesterday, jurors heard from the mistress of a former American Idol contestant who is on trial in Ohio for the murder of his wife of 15 years. Prosecutors revealed thousands of text messages in which Caleb Flynn expressed hatred for Ashley Flynn and explicitly wished for her death. Here with the details is Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham. So, Megan, before we get to yesterday's bombshell testimony from Flynn's mistress, can you just get us up to speed on a lot of, what happened with this case? Yeah, Georgia. So Caleb Flynn is a former, a 40-year-old worship pastor who was on the 12th season of American Idol back in 2013. He got as far as Hollywood Week when he didn't make it any

further. Now, on February 16th of this year, he frantically called 911 and reported that an intruder had broken into their home and shot his 37-year-old wife, Ashley, while she had been sleeping, and he said he was in his daughter's bedroom, that he had been sleeping in there because he had a cough. But prosecutors say that all of this was a ruse, that he staged this scene, and that when investigators arrived, they found no evidence of a break-in and that a handgun that Flynn had kept in his truck had gone missing that night. So they say that Flynn shot Ashley twice in the back of the head while she was sleeping. And during that investigation, it came out. that Flynn was carrying on an affair with another staffer at this church that was Aaliyah Botner,

who he first met in 2022 when she was a 20-year-old intern, and they then began an affair in 2024. Okay, so let's get to Botner's testimony yesterday, which was dramatic, to say the least. What did she say? Yeah, John. So investigators found over 100,000 messages between the two of them. So that many text messages about 300 a day. And in them, Flynn said that he hated his wife. He called her names like slut and explicitly wished for her death.

So this was what Botner said on the stand. What other names would he use to refer to her? You call her a whore? Spawn of Satan. I used most of those same names. But she also said that Flynn told her about waking up to the sound. of a gunshot that night. He said he was sleeping on the couch,

that he woke up the first time from the dog shivering, and he thought it was weird, but then he went back to sleep. And then the second time he woke up was from a gunshot. He said that he ran straight to the garage door, saw that it was wide open, and then went into, looked into Ashley's room, and he said he saw blood everywhere. And he said he'll never forget that sight.

Now, at one point, John, on the stand, Botner whispered, I'm so sorry. It wasn't clear if that was directed at Flynn, like she was apologizing for having to read these texts, or if she was apologizing for her own texts in which she also expressed a wish for Ashley Flynn's death. And in fact, in one message, yeah, she said, I want to kill her, Caleb. And he replied, that makes two of us, though she said she did not mean that. Now, beyond the affair and the texts, what physical evidence is there that the jury is going to consider? So the investigators say that the damage to the garage door did not look as if it came from the outside of the garage door. They said that wood chips and parts of the door hardware were actually inside the garage.

So suggesting that that force came from the inside rather than the outside. But the defense is pointing to Botner. So they're pointing out that she lied about the affair when the FBI first interviewed her. And they say that the police essentially, once they found out about that affair, they stopped looking for any other explanations. And the defense is also emphasizing that no murder weapon has been recovered here. But two nine millimeter casings were found at the scene. And that's the same caliber of handgun that went missing from Flynn's truck. Well, those text messages are going to be hard for the jury to look past, I think.

Megan, thanks for reporting. Yeah, my pleasure. 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, add free and join our mission, become a member at DailyWire.com. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know. Well, some races draw attention, others become the race.

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