Morning Wire - New Year's Terror Investigations Expand | 1.2.25

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

More than a dozen people are dead in two potential terror attacks, a major lawsuit by a detransitioner delivers a major blow to the youth gender medicine industry, and Bible sales see a notable spike. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two potential terror attacks on New Year's leave over a dozen dead as the FBI expands their investigations. What do we know so far about who's behind the attacks? An ISIS flag was located on the trailer hitch of the vehicle, and the FBI is working to determine the subject's potential associations and affiliations with terrorist organizations. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, January 2nd, and this is Morning. A major lawsuit by a detransitioner could shake up the youth gender medicine industry. And Bible sales boomed in 2024 amid what some data suggests might be a growing refocus on faith. I think that we should find that deeply encouraging.

I also think that we should think of this as not all that surprising. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. The FBI has expanded their search for potential suspects in the deadly terror attack in New Orleans. that left at least 15 people dead and dozens more injured early New Year's morning. At the same time in Las Vegas, a cyber truck explosion outside a Trump hotel is also being investigated as a potential terror attack. Joining now to discuss the alarming sequence of events on New Year's is Daily Wire Deputy Managing Editor Tim Rise. So first, the attack on the French quarter.

We reported yesterday on what we knew then, but many more details have come to light since. What is the latest on that investigation? Well, John, the biggest development is that the FBI has confirmed that they are investigating this not only as an act of terrorism, but they're also looking into the possible presence of a terror cell. Cabot mentioned yesterday that reports suggested several people were suspected to have been involved, and now we have confirmation that authorities are working to learn all they can about who else might have helped the suspect who carried out the attack. This is all connected to suspected explosive devices found in the area, which these other suspects are believed to have helped place. We don't have many details, but local law enforcement says that surveillance footage appears to show three men and one woman placing devices prior to the vehicle attack by the known suspect. The special agent in charge of the local FBI investigation, Althea Duncan, said this yesterday. We're aggressively running down every lead, including those of his known associates.

That's why we need the public's help. We are asking if anybody has any interactions with some sued Dem Javar in the last 72 hours that you call. contact us. Now Duncan named the known suspect there who was killed by police before he could take more lives. What else have we learned about him? The suspect who drove that rented truck into the crowd and opened fire is a 42-year-old army veteran named Shamsuddin Jabbar. We usually avoid naming these individuals, but authorities are actively working to learn more about his connections, so it helps their investigation to publicize it in this case. Jabbar was on active duty from 2007 until 2015 as a human resources and IT specialist.

He reportedly transferred to the Army Reserve and left as a staff sergeant in the summer of 2020. He was found with an ISIS flag in the vehicle and dressed in full military gear. As we reported yesterday, officers also found an ice chest in the truck with a number of explosive devices that had not yet gone off. Officials say it's clear that he was hell-bent on killing as many innocent people as possible. The death toll from the attack is now at least 15, with more than two dozen of others injured, including two police officers. There are a lot of claims about Javar circulating online, but much about his life and motives is still being investigated, so we'll have more on that as it

gets more defined. Right. Now, this wasn't the only suspected terror attack on New Year's Day. What happened in Las Vegas? Yeah, around 840 in the morning, so just a few hours after the New Orleans attack, witnesses reported a series of loud bangs and smoke coming from a cyber truck parked outside to the entrance to the Trump Hotel there. Surveillance footage shows. the car bursting into flames just a few steps from the glass door entrance to the hotel. One unidentified person was found dead in the vehicle and seven others were injured in the blast. At first it wasn't clear if the blast was intentional, but police confirmed the car was seen an hour before driving by the Trump Hotel before circling back and parking at the entrance,

at which point it exploded within seconds. Inside the car were a variety of explosives including firework-style mortars, gas tanks, and camping fuel, along with what authorities describe as a detonation device. ABC reports that both the truck in New Orleans and the cyber truck may have been rented on the app Toro, although there's some conflicting reports on that. Elon Musk has responded online, saying he suspects this is a terror attack.

He wrote they have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented cyber truck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself. All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion. So lots of questions still to be answered there, including if there's a connection between these incidents. Indeed. Tim, thanks for reporting. Of course. A doctor celebrated as America's best-known practitioner of youth gender medicine is being sued for medical negligence by one of her former patients. Here to discuss is Daily Wire Senior Reporter, Mary Margaret O'Lahan. Hey, Mary Margaret. So a major lawsuit here. First, why is this detransitioner suing?

Hey, John. Clementine Breen is accusing Dr. Johanna Olsen-Kennedy. of medical negligence for fast-tracking her attempted gender transition. Clementine says she underwent puberty blockers at the age of 12, cross-sex hormones at the age of 13, and tragically, underwent a double mastectomy when she was only 14 years old, forever removing her breasts. Her lawyers argue that Olson Kennedy and the other medical professionals involved in her transition, they failed to adequately assess and treat her mental health symptoms and her trauma before they launched her down this path of, and I'm quoting,

irreversible and life-altering medications and surgery. The lawsuit describes how Clementine's parents were told that she would commit suicide if they didn't allow her to get these treatments, which, as we've documented here, are dubbed gender-affirming care by far-left groups like the human rights campaign. So an alarming claim, is this normal? Is this something we've heard a lot in this industry? Actually, yes, it's very common for doctors and therapists involved in transgenderism

to tell parents this. Many detransioners that I've spoken with have told, me that their parents were asked, would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son? And that's an incredibly manipulative and terrifying question, but unfortunately, many parents fall for it. In Clementine's case, she ultimately realized that she could not ever fully transitioned to become a boy and that she regretted her gender transition. And this case is particularly significant given that Dr. Johanna Olsen Kennedy leads the Center for Trans Youth at Los Angeles Children's Hospital and is widely considered the most notable youth gender

medicine clinician in the world. She revealed to the New York Times that she purposefully stopped the publication of a $10 million taxpayer fund in study. That study was on puberty blockers and their effects on American children. And her reason was that the study found no evidence that puberty blockers were improving kids' mental health. She told the times, I do not want our work to be weaponized. Now, advocates against transitioning children point out that Olson Kennedy appears to be trying to force science and facts to back up gender ideology rather than just show us the truth of what she found. They say that this is happening far too often when it comes to child gender transitions. Right, we've seen a pattern here.

We've seen some recent action on Capitol Hill on this. How are lawmakers responding to these new revelations? Well, as we reported, Congress is taking steps to block harmful trans procedures for children of military members by putting language into the NDIA that bans the use of taxpayer funds for gender transition surgeries, for kids who get medical care through tricare. That's the military's health care program. Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, told us that this is a, quote,

critical and necessary step in the fight against radical gender ideology. He said, and I'm quoting again, taxpayer dollars should never be used to support procedures and treatments that could permanently harm and sterilize young people. That came the day after he met with detransitioner

Chloe Cole and our colleague Matt Walsh, as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the United States versus Scermetti, the case dealing with Tennessee's law protecting kids from trans procedures. Meanwhile, lawmakers like Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama are calling on the National Institutes of Health to explain why Olson Kennedy tried to hide her findings on puberty blockers. Here's what he had to say. At the end of the day, they don't improve mental health of children, and they're trying to prove

that it did. So it's just another insane idea that the left has had. You know, spending money, taxpayer money on something that doesn't need to be spent. And then there's Donald Trump. He's signaled willingness to crack down on these procedures as well, correct? Yes, Donald Trump has indicated interest in protecting kids from these trans procedures, especially without parental permission, which is happening. Right. Many of the top mega figures around Trump have been emphatic about this as well.

Tuberville told me that he's not sure a bill banning trans procedures for minors would make it through the Senate right now, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. And we'll report on what happens for sure. Mary Margaret, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. New publishing reports show that Bible sales are booming, even as overall book sales are sluggish. According to pollsters, Gen Z in particular is spending more time reading scripture. Here to explore what's behind the skyrocketing Bible sales is Daily Wire Culture Reporter, Megan Basham.

So, Megan, the Bible is pretty much always the top selling book every year. Is this a particularly banner year? Yeah, you know, Georgia, it really is. and for a couple of reasons. So one, we have to look at the overall picture in publishing for the last couple of years. And it has not been great. In 2023, for example, sales were down nearly 3%.

And they're really not much better this year. But the Bible has been bucking that trend. As the Wall Street Journal reported in something of a viral story recently, sales for The Good Book are up 22% for the year so far. Now, that was just through October before a lot of those Christmas sales are included. And some Bible publishers saw even stronger revenues than that. Lifeway and B&H publishing are reporting an approximate sales increase of 30%. And this is

coming on the heels of an already pronounced upswing over the last few years. From 2019 to 23, Bible sales went from 9.7 million to 14.2 million. So Andrew Walker is an associate dean in the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. And he says there does seem to be something of a pendulum swing happening here. When we have a society like ours today, where we have phrases like deaths of despair,

expressive individualism, the loneliness epidemic, I think we should see the increase in Bible sales as an indictment on the failures of secularism. That secularism tries to tell us that we can conceive of ourselves, apart from God, apart from things pertaining to eternal life and ultimate matters. But what secularism really is, it's very shallow, it's very brittle, and it doesn't offer us the type of lasting significance, the lasting purpose, the lasting meaning that all of us

are really searching after. He added that he sees signs that after years of individual spiritualism, you know, where everyone kind of defines faith for themselves, young people in particular are beginning to reconsider the value of those handed down traditions and texts, especially the Bible. In fact, one researcher found that 21% of Gen Z increased their Bible reading last year. Well, and to that point, I recently saw in The New York Post, I believe, that young men are showing a renewed interest in attending Orthodox churches specifically. Have you seen that trend? I have. And, you know, that goes along with other reports from the New York Times showing that for the first time ever,

young men are actually more religious than young women. Now, a part of that is because young women are following that trend we've seen for decades and becoming more secular, but church attendance among young men is actually increasing. And it immediately brought to mind for me what we've seen with the public evolution of Russell Brand, who announced that he became a Christian earlier this year. He recently said this. I wish I had known earlier. I wish I hadn't thought that I was too clever for the religion.

of my grandmothers. I thought that I was too smart. I thought somehow that I knew what was in the Bible even without reading it. So I think you can say that these Bible sales may be part of a broader trend that has seen popular podcasters among that young male demographic talking about Christianity. Think Theo Vaughn or Kid Rock recently discussing his faith on Joe Rogan, or even Elon Musk telling Jordan Peterson that he considers himself a cultural Christian, meaning he believes that Christian principles are good for society, even if he's not personally religious. Walker tells me he thinks that this interest in cultural Christianity is a good thing,

but he does hope that it will lead to deeper commitments. I'm of the persuasion that, you know, Christianity is the one true system of belief that's dedicated to not only relationship with God, but also becoming more human. and that's going to produce better cultures. What I want to kind of press them further on is to not just leave this at the level of cultural Christianity, but to understand this from the perspective of conversionary Christianity.

And worth noting, this trend is so strong right now, publishers weekly reports that religious book sales overall are up 18.5%, making it the fastest growing segment of the publishing business. And that's led one of the biggest publishing houses, Penguin Random House to launch a new standalone entity devoted entirely to Christian books. Well, I must be very on trend because I bought several Bibles for gifts on Cyber Monday. Always a trendsetter. Megan, thanks for reporting.

Anytime. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.