Morning Wire - JD Vance Exposes Gendercare Fraud & Luigi Mangione May Plead Guilty? | 8.14.26

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

VP Vance puts the gender-transition industry on notice – citing a report that alleges widespread fraud and financial abuse of patients, a surprise hearing in the Luigi Mangione case prompts speculation that he’s going to plead guilt, and the 2026 races have already been marked by scandals and upsets. Reporting from Mary Margaret Olohan & Tim Pearce. Plus, we speak with the founder and CEO of the Signal Polling Group, Brent Buchanan. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 3038- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors: Factor - Head to https://FactorMeals.com/morningwire50off and use code morningwire50off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box Quince - Make your summer wardrobe feel easier. Go to https://Quince.com/wire for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. - - -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. VP Vance puts the gender transition industry on notice, citing a report that alleges widespread fraud and financial abuse of patients. So many of these people got rich, not by doing what was good for the patient, but by actually mutilating these kids, it was disgraceful. I'm DailyWire, Executive Editor John Bickley, with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, August 14th. This is Morningwire. A surprise hearing in the Luigi Mangione case prompts speculation.

that he's going to reverse his plea, plus the latest on the Lindsay Clancy and Tate Brothers cases. And the 26 races have already been marked by scandals and upsets. We take the pulse of voters as the midterm clock ticks down. It's just going to be challenging to go to voters and say, hey, sorry, we didn't fix everything you thought we were going to fix. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Vice President J.D. Vance is calling on the Department of Justice to investigate allegations that some hospitals and health care providers fraudulently subjected children to lucrative sex change

procedures. The allegations are detailed in a new report published by the Department of Health and Human Services, which reveals tens of millions of dollars in claims. DeLewire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olaihan is here now with more. Great to see you again. Great to be here. So tell us about the allegations detailed in this report. Yes, so the Department of Health and Human Services, they just released this report. We exclusively, obtained it and reported it for the Daily Wire before anyone else had it. And this is really fascinating stuff, John, because this is basically the first time that there's been a closer look from the Department of Health and Human Services at how these hospitals build insurance

companies for these transgender medical procedures or they, as they call it, pediatric gender care for kids. And what we're finding is that these hospitals had built millions and millions of dollars in insurance for puberty blocker treatments for kids. And as a reminder, these Puberty blocker treatments are what they sound like. They're intended to stop a child's puberty. When this child is coming to the doctor saying, I think that I am a girl when they're actually a boy, those puberty blockers stop their body from developing. And essentially, the transgender activists say that they're intended to help give them time to figure out what gender they want to be before they can start on these other hormones or transgender surgeries. But we know for a fact that these puberty blockers

have really intense, horrific, mental and physical side effects that no child should have to undergo. So what J.D. Vance is arguing and a lot of these other administration officials is that these hospitals and clinics were essentially fraudulently using some of these codes to bill for these procedures when these kids didn't need them in the first place. Now, Mary Margaret, when they say that they fraudulently billed, do they mean that in the more general sense that any child doesn't need these? things and yet they were billed for them, or do they mean in the more specific sense of billing for a service that wasn't actually rendered? Well, Georgia, it's a little complicated because what they found was between 2015 and 2025, there were approximately $50 million in insurance claims for puberty blockers that were billed using the endocrine disorder diagnostic code, and that's E34.9, something like that, a billable code when a patient has a hormone problem. Now, if that code was being used

when a patient did not have a hormone problem, essentially a healthy little girl, for example, who's being put on puberty blockers to try and make her or help her think that she is a boy, well, that could be considered fraudulent activity. And so J.D. Vance did not say dramatically that this is fraudulent activity. Well, what he did say is, we are referring all of these things to the Department of Justice and to the HHS Inspector General for investigations because we think that this is what is going on here. A massive undertaking on a lot of fronts. And it's actually aided by a lot of the gender activists or whistleblowers that you guys have interviewed here on the show that our audience knows really well.

For example, Dr. Eton Haim, who is the Texas Children's Whistleblower, a lot of the people that we know who work at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Independent Women's Forum, they all dedicated their time to digging through these records and compiling this report. Now, as I understand it, this report points to Biden-era HHS policies as being at least partially responsible for this kind of fraud. What exactly does it say on that front? Yeah, well, look, the Biden administration had been pushing all of this very dramatically. I mean, if you look at the past administration officials, they literally told the public that gender affirming care, which we know is a euphemism for transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers, they said the gender affirming care was medically necessary for trans youth. So translation, gender affirming care, these transgender surgeries, hormones and puberty blockers are supposedly

vital to the life and preservation of these kids. And they did go so far as to say that these kids would kill themselves if they didn't have access to these things. So, you know, the Trump administration and this HHS has really emphatically maintained this was all a lie. It is crazy to say that children need these types of procedures. There's only two genders. This type of procedure is not going to make you happy or heal you. And they've been very frank about all of this. So one of the major HHS officials, Admiral Brian Christine,

has been very frank on all of this and very publicly against transgender medical interventions for children in this way. And he's really been championing this issue. So I think we'll see him on top of this as well. Well, I think we've rarely, if ever, seen a more dramatic reverse. from one administration to another than we've seen with the Trump administration's transgender policies versus the Biden administration. Mary Margaret, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. August is the Sunday of summer, and I don't know about you, but it also feels like a reset.

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A series of high-profile criminal cases have seen some significant developments this week, including the cases against Luigi Mangione, Lindsay Clancy, and the Tate Brothers. Daily Wire contributor Tim Pierce is here to catch us up on the latest details with all of these cases. Tim, thanks for coming on. So let's start with the Luigi Mangione case. He, of course, has been charged in the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. We're expecting some big news out of his case today, correct? Yeah, Mangione's defense team and federal prosecutors are scheduled for a hearing later today,

and outlets report that Mangioni will plead guilty to federal charges at that hearing. In his federal case, Mangioni faces two interstate stocking charges resulting in Thompson's death. Those charges carry a maximum of life in prison, but there could be a plea deal in the works to avoid that. Though it also wouldn't be unexpected for those negotiations to break down ahead of Mangione's court appearance and to not see a plea deal today. So far, Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him in both federal and state court. One of the big questions here is how a plea deal in his federal case might impact the state case against him. His trial in that case is just a few weeks away.

Jury selection is scheduled for September 8th. If Mangione pleads guilty to one or both of the federal charges, his legal team could ask to have similar charges taken off the state indictment because New York law would view them as sort of a double jeopardy. So it sounds like it's possible we could see a guilty plea in the federal court and that may end up helping Mangione in his state murder trial if that deal works out. Is that correct? Right. Now, I want to ask you about another case that's been dominating the headlines. Lindsay Clancy is on trial in Massachusetts for the deaths of her three children. What's the latest there? Right. It's a really tragic case here. Clancy is charged with first degree murder over the deaths of her young

children, five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson, and eight-month-old Callan. According to prosecutors, Clancy acted intentionally, rationally, and swiftly when she strangled all three of her children on January 24, 2023 before she attempted to kill herself. Clancy's defense team, however, says she was suffering from severe postpartum depression and a medication-induced psychosis. The trial has been an emotional one so far. The judge actually paused it multiple times on Wednesday as Clancy broke down as a witness went over autopsy results. Here's what that sounded like. Injuries such as bruising or abrasions.

And what about injuries? All right, counsel, could... We'll let me take a break this time, all right? Evidence presented in court suggests she was prescribed at least a dozen different medications by five different doctors, though prosecutors have raised doubts about how much medication she was actually taking at the time. She had also received treatment for suicide,

thoughts in the months leading up to January 24th. Yeah, a really hard story to follow. I want to also ask you about the case involving the notorious influencers, Andrew and Tristan Tate. They are right now going through the extradition process in Florida. What's the latest there? Well, even their defense attorney has said that the brothers face an uphill climb here. The Tate's face extradition to the UK, where at last count, they were charged with 59 counts that include rape, sex trafficking, and child pornography. Their defense team is trying to at least get them out of jail as they await their extradition trial, but that's not going well either. The hearing was supposed to take place yesterday, but it has been delayed until at least August 27th. And according to the New York

Post, the Tate's each carry around several different fake passports, which would work against any defendant trying to convince a judge he's not a flight risk. And in a kind of absurd detail that won't help the Tate's case any, one of the passports seems to be inspired by a James bond villain. Tristan has a Mexican passport that carries the name Vladimir Scorpius, which is the main bond villain in the novel Scorpius. Yeah, I can't imagine that looks good to any judge. Tim, thanks so much for reporting. Thanks for having me on. With fewer than 90 days until midterms and a series of primaries, finally locking candidates into key races, Republicans and Democrats are trying to figure out how to close the deal with voters. Joining us now is Brent Buchanan, founder and CEO of the

polling group. Brent, great to have you back on. Yeah, great to see you all. So let's start with the most polarizing aspect of this election cycle, democratic socialism. It's all we hear about these days. It's not just driving a further wedge between Republicans and Democrats. It is a polarizing issue for Democrats themselves. So, you know, they've won a lot of these primaries more than they've lost for sure. But from the data that you've poured over, will they end up driving Democrats to more victories or more losses in the end. Elections are won and lost when the voters walk in to the booth and say which one of these is less radical.

When I got involved in politics 20 years ago, the choice was Republicans were the more radical ones, and so Democrats were winning. The DSA coming in with their crazy ideas, I mean, who thinks we need to abolish prisons and police officers? Who thinks we need to let non-citizens vote? Those are just asinine views. And so it's really causing problems for them because Republicans are going to be able to say, even in a state where one of those candidates is not running, this is what the Democrats stand for.

And it's going to be hard for them to do anything but play defense. And that's the last place you want to be when you're a candidate is defending anything. You always want to be on offense. What are some of the biggest findings from your polling right now, things that maybe surprise you or just the biggest takeaways? Yeah. So between just the biggest takeaways. July and August, because we just finished our August survey, the Democrats did pick up a point on the generic ballot to plus seven ahead of Republicans, but both parties lost ballot share. Undecided's increased.

And what's fascinating is we last month showed that voters by 11 points believe that Democrats were more likely to win them Republicans in Congress, and that dropped all the way down to only two points for the Democrats. So there was a, while a shift happening at the top that looks like it's helping Democrat, there was actually a significant decrease in the belief that they're going to win. We also have to keep in mind that summer polling just sucks for Republicans. I don't know what it is, but you can go back and look at every summer before an election, and it was worse than what happens on Election Day. But I really think if Democrats were a viable alternative party, Republicans would be in a

really bad spot right now, and our saving grace currently is that Democrats are just so bad, and like we started talking about socialism. And if that's the ground that we get to fight this election on, then I'm excited about that fight. Now, speaking of socialism, AOC has been all over the news this week. How viable is she as a candidate in 2028? We only have her upside down in her image by two points, where we have Trump upside down by double digits. So she does have fewer people who know who she is. But I think it's actually pretty amazing that she's been able to maintain as favorable in images she has when she's been the whooping horse.

for Republicans for a basically since she got in office. And Republicans are unwise to think that she is a joke of a candidate. I think she, for the political moment that we're in and that we're probably going to be in even more so in 28 is actually a very viable thing for disaffected voters who feel left behind to look at her and go, well, at least she's saying the things that I feel. Yeah, and according to recent trends, she's even overtaken Marco Rubio in recent polls for 28 candidates. So she's a real contender. Thanks so much for helping us track all this information, Brent. Thanks. 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. And stick around for the trailer of Run-Hide Fight Infidels right after this. 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. I'll 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 can off the flag. 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.

Allah Akbar. 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? dangerous. Their goals are not in this life, but the next. I got friends here. I can't just...

They 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.