Morning Wire - Hormuz Tensions Spike & Cuba Crisis Deepens | 3.16.26

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

The U.S. invites allies to support trade in the Strait of Hormuz after smashing an Iranian stronghold, sparks fly in Cuba amid mounting economic turmoil, and a legal procedure threatens to undercut Trump’s deportation agenda. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Ep. 2683 - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Today's Sponsors: 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. Hello Fresh - Go to https://HelloFresh.com/morningwire10fm to get 10 free meals + a FREE Zwilling Knife (a $144.99 value) on your third box. Offer valid while supplies last. - - - 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

The situation in Iran is going very well. We'll see what's happening with the straits. After the U.S. takes out a critical Iranian target in the Persian Gulf, Trump calls on other countries to join the effort to open the strait of her moves. And we learn more about the terror suspects who struck Virginia and Michigan last week. I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley, with Georgia Howell. It's Monday, March 16th. This is Morning Wire. Facing economic turmoil, Cuba opens up talks with Washington.

And Cubans torch a Communist Party headquarters building. And the Trump administration's mass deportation effort faces yet another major obstacle in the courts. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Having the right life insurance is a big deal. Thinking about it may feel overwhelming. But taking steps to protect your family financially is now easier than ever through our sponsor, Ethos. You can get a quote in just seconds and actually apply in minutes, with the possibility of same-day coverage.

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In as little as 10 minutes, you can get your free quote and up to $3 million in coverage at ethos.com slash wire. That is ETHOS.com slash wire. Ethos.com slash wire. Application times and rates may vary. As the war in Iran enters its third week, the U.S. looks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz amid increased threats of terror at home. Cabot Phillips, host of Wiredon Live, joins us now to break it down, morning, Cabot. So new details coming in about the terror attacks last week here at home. We want to get to those, of course.

But first, let's start with the latest from Iran. Well, the bombardment continued all weekend long. The White House says we've now hit more than 6,000 targets across the country, sinking more than 65 naval vessels, and then Iran's ballistic missile attacks are now down 90% from the start of the war, while drone attacks are down 95%. And over the weekend, the U.S. for the first time targeted Karg Island, that is a critical landmass in the Persian Gulf,

through which about 90% of Iran's oil supply passes. President Trump said those strikes focused only on military targets like air defense systems and underground storage facilities for mines. But he also threatened to destroy in the future the island's oil infrastructure if the Iranians maintain their blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. For their part, the Iranians said, quote, if this happens, all oil and gas infrastructure in the region in which the U.S. and its allies of interests will be set on fire and destroyed.

All right, so threats that this will backfire on us if we take that action. Correct. Now, as you've mentioned, the Strait of Hormuz continues to be the focus in this campaign. Now, have we made progress on that front? Well, President Trump says that we have. He reiterated over the weekend that the U.S. has, quote, beaten and completely decimated Iran and destroyed 100 percent of their military capability. Now, from a tactical standpoint, Trump is no doubt well in his way to achieving his pre-war objectives

of destroying the regime's nuclear program, missile supplies, and production capabilities. But the reality here is that as long as Iran is actively blocking Strait of Hormuz, it will be very difficult to end this conflict and pull out completely. Gas prices in the U.S. have already jumped by about 25% since the war began, and oil has increased to back over $100 a barrel globally. And that is likely to get worse. longer this blockade remains in place. For his part, Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged this weekend that oil prices are likely to remain elevated as long as this conflict goes on and the

straight is blocked. But he was quick to shift the conversation to how much higher prices were under President Biden. So you can hear some of the White House messaging on that front. We were very aware, very aware that we would have short-term disruption. Prices today are still far below what they were in the Biden administration where they were begging, bartering, and bribing Iran to behave better. And another interesting development this weekend, President Trump, began urging other nations, even China, to join our effort to open the street. He wrote on Truth Social, quote, hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others

that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat. He went on to tell NBC that at least some countries had answered that call, but it's not yet clear who that might be. And as this war enters its third week, the U.S. death toll. now sadly has reached 13. The Pentagon confirmed that six more service members were confirmed dead after a refueling plane crashed over Iraq.

An Iranian terror proxy claimed responsibility for that incident, but the Pentagon says it was caused by neither hostile nor friendly fire. They're investigating to determine exactly what went wrong, but there is widespread speculation it was caused by a mid-air collision. That's something we hate to hear, and our hearts definitely go out to those families. Now, as we mentioned at the top, new details about the Virginia and Michigan attacks

have come to light. What have we learned now? While both incidents are being investigated as acts of terror, though it appears they were not coordinated. Over the weekend, we learned that the attacker in Michigan, who drove a car full of explosives into a synagogue before being killed following a shootout with security, was 41-year-old Ayman Muhammad Ghazeli, a Lebanese immigrant living in Dearborn, Michigan. And get this, according to the Israeli defense forces, Gazali's brother was a high-ranking commander in Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group, and he had recently been killed. by an Israeli air strike. So obviously that is being investigated as a motive for this terror attack. And in Virginia, we now know the attacker who attempted a mass shooting in an RTC classroom at Old Dominion

was Mohamed Jallo, an immigrant from Sierra Leone. Jalo was convicted back in 2017 of trying to provide material support to ISIS. At the time, he had plans to carry out a mass shooting on a military base. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison, but was ultimately released under the Biden administration in 2024. And in the aftermath of Thursday's attack, as you can imagine, GOP lawmakers have been demanding answers regarding why he was released early, given his clear desire to carry out acts of terror just like this one. Yeah, I'm sure this is not the last we hear about both of these cases. Cabot, thanks so much for reporting. Absolutely. Nothing beats cooking at home. And with our sponsor, Hello Fresh, you can do it more often this year,

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in an attempt to stabilize its teetering government. Here to discuss the latest on Cuba and the discussions between Washington and Havana is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce. So, Tim, there have been some overt signs that President Trump's economic pressure campaign on Cuba is working. What can you tell us about that? That's right. It feels like there's real movement here. It's now been over two months since the arrest of Venezuela's Maduro, which cut Cuba off from its number one supplier of fuel. There are now signs that Cuban society has started to fracture, and Cuba's communist regime seems worried about its future unless the U.S. lifts its oil embargo. Morning Wirest spoke to American University professor William Leo Grand.

He's an expert on U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba. Here's what he said about the situation. Well, the economic situation is really desperate, and it's getting worse every day. The electricity is out more hours of the day than it's on in most parts of the island. Water is out if you live in a multi-story building where the water gets pumped up to you on electric pumps. and there's not enough food in the stores that people can afford to buy. So people are frustrated and angry at the situation. And as I say, it's only getting worse since the United States imposed this oil blockade,

which is preventing fuel from getting into the country. Cuba depends on the import of oil for about 60% of its energy supply. So without any imports at all, the economy just can't continue to function. And that's after months of economic pressure from Washington. Some of that frustration erupted over the weekend with protesters torching the Communist Party's headquarters. And late last week, Cuba's president, Miguel Diaz Canal, made an extraordinary statement about ongoing talks with Washington to lift the embargo, a clear sign that he is worried. Now, I imagine the Cuban government doesn't appreciate their office is being torched. So what kind of actions are they taking to quell this kind of thing?

Yeah, well, the government is at a weak point right now. Leo Grant said the chances of protests actually toppling the government are still small. Those protesters who burn the Communist Party headquarters could face stiff penalties from the government. One of the problems is that there isn't really any organized opposition in Cuba. There's really broad, diffuse discontent with how things are. But when people try to organize an opposition, they either end up or being forced into exile. And so most of your real leaders of opposition in Cuba today live in Miami or Madrid. So the Cuban regime has done a good job at keeping domestic opposition too fragmented to represent much of a threat right now.

Now, in terms of the negotiations, what would it take for President Trump to lift the embargo and allow oil back to Cuba? That's not entirely clear, but Diaz Canal has suggested he has with. only to negotiate. Here's Leo Grand. The reports that we've heard so far about the ongoing negotiations focus really on the Cuban government making economic concessions to both their own private sector and also to the United States. One other area that I think we're going to hear more about is the ability of Cuban Americans to invest directly in Cuba and own some of these small businesses. That's something the Cuban community abroad has been asking for for a long time, and the government has been reluctant to allow that. So it seems like some economic reforms are in store.

We'll see if that can satisfy the Trump administration or if it will end up pushing for more significant changes to the regime as well. Well, it must be a tenuous situation there. Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me on. Illegal immigrants are using a new strategy to get released from iced detention, and it's posing. a new challenge to the Trump administration. Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Tare joins us now. Morning, Jenny. So you've been digging into this new trend that's starting to look like it could really set back Trump's

agenda on immigration. What exactly are illegal immigrants doing to get set free from iced detention and does this have any effect on their deportation cases? Right. So as you mentioned, we're seeing this growing trend of illegal immigrants getting released from ICE detention. And it's because they're finding that filing habeas petitions, which are contesting their detention, is really a successful tool right now to get them out of ICE custody. And it does prolong essentially their time in the United States, according to some experts that we've spoken to. And so when they're filing these, it moves their cases from the immigration courts to district courts, where judges are essentially more favorable to them and allow them to have more opportunities.

for relief. In immigration courts right now, that's really not the case under the Trump administration. What's happening as a result is when they're getting released, it's affording them more time in the United States. That gives them the opportunity to actually find ways to get some form of status in the United States or to at least harden their claims to be here. So they could have children in the years that it would take to adjudicate their cases. In the case of the case of where they're detained, things are usually speedier. They don't want to hold people for long periods of time. They don't want detention to be punitive. So they try to adjudicate cases more quickly, like months or weeks. And now you're talking about having an extended period here for years. So this is prolonging the process and opening up ways to sort of further exploit it. When did this begin? How did this all come about? Yeah. So in July, the Trump administration actually issued a directive to federal immigration authorities. And they said that detention essentially had to be mandatory for millions of illegal immigrants.

And so that gave them the authority to detain more of them. And more meant that more were going to contest their detention there. This created kind of like the perfect storm. As immigration judges were denying them bond, which is what the Trump administration really wanted here, is that they wanted bond to be used, very sparingly. They didn't want immigration judges to just release people constantly, like what was happening before under the Biden administration. It wasn't just people being released at the border.

It was also from ICE detention. As you've laid out, this all sounds like it could really thwart Trump's immigration agenda. I imagine the administration's not happy about this. How are they responding to this? Yeah. So we spoke with the U.S. attorney in the District of Arizona about this because he's seeing a flood of these cases, these habeas petitions being filed that the government has to respond to. And in a lot of cases, he said, they are losing to these illegal immigrants and they're getting granted bond in these district courts. He said those cases, you know, they were seeing maybe 10 before Trump came into office.

And now they're at nearly a thousand of habeas cases that have been filed. In our interview, he actually called it a, quote, systemic burden because he's had to move a lot of personnel from, you know, criminal cases and other cases that are ongoing that need attention to just looking at these habeas petitions and finding ways to respond because there's just too many for them to handle. But we'll see if the DOJ makes any policy changes in response to all of this. Jenny, thank you so much for reporting. Thank you.

Thanks for waking up with us. And for 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.