Morning Wire - Maduro Pleads ‘Not Guilty’ & Tim Walz Withdraws | 1.6.26

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro pleads “not guilty” in New York City, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz abruptly ends his reelection bid amid numerous fraud scandals, and new details regarding a foiled NYE terror attack in Charlotte come to light. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Ep. 2565 - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Today's Sponsors: Goldbelly - Go to https://goldbelly.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code WIRE. Equip Foods - Equip’s Prime Bar is a real food protein bar with nothing to hide: just 11 ingredients and 20g of clean protein - made from ingredients you can pronounce like collagen, beef tallow, colostrum, cocoa butter - and sweetened naturally with just date and honey. Bringing good, clean habits into 2026 is made simple with Equip. Morning Wire listeners will get 25% off one-time purchases, or 40% off first subscription orders for a limited time by heading to https://equipfoods.com/wire and using code WIRE at checkout. - - - 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

Topled dictator Nicholas Maduro pleads not guilty to narco-terrorism charges and accuses the U.S. of kidnapping him from his home. This is a long process people can strap in, but at the end of the day, I think he will end up being convicted. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Tuesday, January 6th, and this is Morning Wire. I've decided to step out of this race, and I'll let others worry about the election while I focus on the work that's in front of me for the next year. Minnesota Governor Tim Walls abruptly ends his re-election bid following a bruising year full of federal fraud investigations. And as we ring in the new year, more information comes to light about a thwarted New Year's Eve terror plot in North Carolina. He was planning this attack in support of ISIS, and we have charged him with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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So Cabot, incredible scenes out of New York City yesterday. What did we learn from these court proceedings? Yeah, just a remarkable day in New York City. Just 72 hours ago, Nicholas Maduro was living lavish in the country that he ruled with an iron fist. and now he's wearing a prison jumpsuit and ankle shackles and preparing to face the U.S. justice system. His initial court hearing yesterday lasted just about 30 minutes, but it was packed. The ousted strongman was very defiant, telling a judge through a translator, quote,

I am innocent, I'm not guilty, I'm a decent man, I'm still the president of my country. As he was led out of the courtroom, a man stood up and yelled in Spanish that he would pay for his crimes. To which Maduro replied that he would win his freedom, calling himself a, quote, prisoner of war. Looking ahead, the next hearing is set for March 17th, and as you guys can imagine, this will almost certainly be a very long drawn-out trial. His attorneys signaled on Monday that they would challenge the legality of his arrest, arguing that as a head of state, he was entitled to certain privileges and legal immunities, and the Venezuelan government had now made that same argument, demanding the UN intervene and condemn what they called in illegal kidnapping. Trump's UN ambassador,

though, Mike Walts, offered this response Monday. during an emergency session of the UN Security Council. This was a law enforcement operation in furtherance of lawful indictments that have existed for decades. The United States arrested a narco-trafficker who is now going to stand trial in the United States in accordance with the rule of law. So who's running Venezuela right now in practice? So technically it is Dilsi Rodriguez, who up until last week, was the Venezuela Vice President. She initially vowed in a fiery speech to fight back against the U.S. and Trump

and carry on Maduro's legacy. President Trump, though, responded with a threat of his own, saying, quote, if she doesn't do what's right, she's going to pay a very big price. And then he went even further telling reporters on Air Force One that he would be willing to launch a second strike against Venezuela if they did not start cooperating. We were prepared to do a second strike if we needed it. We're totally prepared. But that's off the table. That's off the table now. No, it's not. If they don't behave, we won't do a second strike. And look, that really seemed to make her reconsider that first position.

She released a new statement that struck a much more, we'll call it conciliatory tone, saying, quote, we extend an invitation to the U.S. government to work together on a cooperative agenda oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law. So now she's saying, hey, let's be nice to each other. Now, this whole thing has to have some other world leaders nervous. President Trump has made some pretty tangible threats that he, would do similar things in other countries. What do we know there? Right. So the 19th century had Monroe Doctrine, and now the president has debuted what he calls the Donro Doctrine. Essentially,

the White House is arguing that it's in the best interest of the U.S. to keep our adversaries from having a foothold in the Western Hemisphere. And as they've made clear, they're now willing to take out those who, in their view, pose a threat to stability here on our home turf. Here's Secretary of State Marco Rubio making that point. This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live, and we're not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors and rivals of the United States. Have specific oil. And according to President Trump, Venezuela could be just the first example of U.S. intervention

in the region. Trump said this week that, quote, Cuba is ready to fall. He also said that Colombian president Gustavo Petro is a, quote, sick man who likes making cocaine, but he won't be doing it for very long. He then said an operation there, quote, sounds good to me. Well, a very dynamic situation, to say the least. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely.

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Political shockwaves in Minnesota and the nation on Monday morning as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced he would not be seeking re-election amid the state's numerous broad scandals. Daily Wire political reporter Cameron Arcan joins us now to discuss, hey Cameron. So Walls abruptly dropping out, this is perhaps maybe not so unexpected given recent developments. First, what did we hear yesterday from Walls in his announcement? So Walls largely stuck to the script. He even blamed the Trump administration for essentially targeting Minnesota during this process saying that these fraud scandals, they were already on top of, which we all know is not maybe necessarily the case with the amount of federal prosecutions that we saw with a lot of these recent scandals. What we saw that yesterday was him largely blaming the Trump administration for this and almost saying that he had no choice but to say, hey, I'm not going to seek a third term. Donald Trump and his allies in Washington and in St. Paul and online want to make our state a colder, meaner place.

We've got the president of the United States demonizing our Somali neighbors and wrongfully confiscating funds that Minnesotans rely on. I'm passing on this race with zero sadness and zero regret. Now there's an increasing number of voices saying that some of this fraud could actually lead all the way up to Walls's office. What is the latest on the investigations in Minnesota? Yeah, so in terms of new investigations, that remains to be seen, especially because we saw a lot of accusations in regards to daycares. We have not seen anything tangible there as of yet, but obviously federal prosecutors and federal agents are now having more resources in the state of Minnesota on that. But it's important to recognize that this has been a longstanding issue in the state, and it's really only recently got a national attention. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that 60 people in between different fraud schemes. We saw feeding our future, which was basically a fake children's charity.

Dozens of people have already pled guilty in different fraud schemes. So we saw it with that. We saw it with a housing program. We also even saw charges recently this fall with autism treatment fraud schemes in the state, basically people claiming to get treatment for that when it wasn't actually true. I mean, while we're seeing reports that potentially thousands of homeland security agents are heading to Minnesota now for these investigations. Now, there does appear to be some sort of action plan for Democrats to recoup the damage done in all of this. What does that effort look like? Yeah, so the New York Times reported that Amy Klobuchar met with Tim Walz on Sunday. She's debating whether or not she's going to jump in and run for governor. She's a fairly popular figure in the state of Minnesota. she ran significantly ahead of Kamala Harris in 2020.

This is going to be an attempt to clean up some of the damage we're seeing there, especially because they also have an open Senate race right now with a messy primary between Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan as well as Congresswoman Angie Craig. So we could be seeing some action on that front. Electorally, obviously someone is going to need to be the Democratic nominee in Minnesota for the governor's race. if Klobuchar is elected, she would have the unique position where she could choose her own successor. And we could see that and how that plays into the 26 midterms as well.

But it's really important to note that Republicans, and I've talked to a sources about this, they see this as an opening for them right now. Minnesota is not a super deep blue state, but right now, Cook Political Report has both of those races as likely. Democrat. These fraud scandals are really an opportunity for Republicans in their eyes to step in and say, hey, we could, you know, use this to have new leadership and perhaps pull off an upset in that state. Right. You can really sense Republicans chomping at the bit here. Meanwhile, looking forward to seeing what comes next for walls and these investigations. Cameron, thanks so much for reporting.

Thank you. The FBI says it is foiled an ISIS-inspired attack in North Carolina. authorities arrested a Charlotte area man. They say planned to launch a terror attack on New Year's Eve. Here to talk about the arrest is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce. So Tim, first, what do we know about this incident in North Carolina? Quite a bit, actually. The criminal complaint against 18-year-old Christian Sturdivant was unsealed on Friday.

U.S. attorney Russ Ferguson talked about how officials caught Sturdivant in a press conference later that same day. So Mr. Sertavant started on the Internet. He started reading ISIS material, started going to ISIS websites, taking TikTok videos and eventually reached out to what he thought was a member of ISIS, and reality was an undercover agent with NYPD in New York. He pledged his allegiance to ISIS with that undercover agent, and he disclosed his plans to, quote, do jihad soon. He then met a second undercover with the FBI, who he also thought was an ISIS participant, and he started to be very specific with his plans. Now, Ferguson said those plans were to attack a crowded mall and fast food

restaurant in the Charlotte area. Sturdivant's alleged plans also included wearing a Kevlar vest and using a knife and hammer to attack people on New Year's Eve. Sturdivant faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if he is convicted. Now, the FBI suspect there was a mental health component to this in addition to jihadist ideology. Right. Ferguson noted something interesting about the FBI's efforts to get Sturtevant locked up and receiving treatment for his mental health. Originally, I think it is notable. As part of their efforts, the FBI took Mr. Sturdivant to a state magistrate judge to try to have him involuntarily committed. And that was because he had threatened not only other people's lives, but in the process said that he planned to die by a policeman shooting him.

So he had threatened other people's lives and self-harm, but the state magistrate judge denied involuntary commitment. Fortunately, the FBI did not give up then and continue to build a federal case and get the evidence they needed to charge him. and detain him and keep everyone safe on New Year's Eve. And I'm very, very thankful for that because countless lives were saved here. So there appears to have been a chance that Sturt event would have been released back onto the streets under the initial judge's ruling. Now, shifting gears a bit, there was another attack yesterday. This one was in Cincinnati, not terror-related, but this was the attack on Vice President Vance's Ohio home. What happened? Yeah, law enforcement arrested a 26-year-old man identified as William DeFour yesterday.

Prosecutors said that they charged him with felony vandalism, obstructing official business, criminal damaging or endangering, and criminal trespassing. Now, as you mentioned, this was at the vice president's home in Cincinnati. Vance said in a post on social media yesterday that, as far as I can tell, a crazy person tried to break in by hammering the windows. Fortunately, he and his family were not at home. They had just returned to Washington after a brief stay in Cincinnati after the military action in Venezuela last week. officials have not yet released any motive for the attack. Well, still frightening. Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for waking up with us.

And for those of you watching, you may see we have this beautiful silver trophy here. This is from the Signal Awards. We actually got second place, silver for the news and politics category. And we so appreciate those of you who went online and voted for us. We are so honored to put on this show for you. Yeah, it's only because of you that we got this award and that we really have this show at all. We'll be back this evening with the news you need to know.