Morning Wire - ‘No Kings’ Riots & Minnesota Manhunt | 6.16.25

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

“No Kings” protests cause chaos as the Army celebrates its 250th anniversary, a Minnesota manhunt concludes following a political assassination, and Trump ups the pressure on Iran. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.     Beam: Visit https://shopbeam.com/WIRE and use code WIRE to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off.     Shopify: Go to https://Shopify.com/morningwire to sign up for your $1 per month trial period and upgrade your selling today.     - - -   Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to the world entire. Trouvee de petitions like our own own.com. Because the army keeps us free, you make us strong, and tonight you have made all Americans very proud. As President Trump

presides over the celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, no King's protests erupt in violence. You just heard shots. Everyone's running. I'm Daily Wire, executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, June 16th, and this is Morning Wire. A political assassination triggers a massive manhunt in Minnesota.

Our state lost a great leader, and I lost it dearest of friends. And as Israel and Iran trade blows, President Trump ratchets up the pressure on Tehran. The Iranians right now have rejected this, and so we appear to be a standoff at the moment. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. When my sleep is off, it felt like I couldn't show up as my best self. I spent night after night tossing and turning, waking up exhausted, and making it hard to keep up with the latest headlines.

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Saturday night that a planned protest had devolved into a riot. The chaos in Portland, which left several officers injured, was part of a wave of anti-ice and anti-Trump protests across the country that ended in violence. It all came over a weekend in which Trump held a huge celebration for the Army's 250th birthday. Here to discuss is Daily Wire Deputy Managing editor Tim Ricey Tim. So first, let's start with Portland. What exactly happened in Oregon? Yeah, good morning, John.

The situation in Portland really spun out of control Saturday night. The city allowed for one of these No Kings protests, which started around 1 p.m. and included tens of thousands of people. While city officials touted the event as a large-scale free speech gathering, eventually the focused of the protest became an ICE facility. And things got less about free speech and more about destruction and violence. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Trisha McLaughlin told Fox News Digital that the rioters broke glass and forcibly entered the ice facility.

During the attack, they threw rocks and launched fireworks and smoke grenades at federal law enforcement. Officials say at least four officers were interested. injured, including a federal official. Four rioters were eventually arrested for what the Portland Police Bureau stressed was, quote, violent activity. And they said in a press conference early Sunday that more may be rounded up. When this becomes antagonistic and violent, I have rarely seen in my career and really throughout our nation's history, a time where a successful change has come as a result of violence.

Now, Portland was not the only city to see these no king's protests evolve into violence, correct? That's right. We saw yet more violence in law. Los Angeles, which has really become the epicenter of these protests and riots. Things got out of control enough over the weekend that law enforcement had to use tear gas and other crowd control measures to clear out rioters. Then there was Salt Lake City where a no king's protest ended up involving a shooting. Police there said Sunday that three people were taken into custody, including the shooting suspect,

and that the motive was still being investigated. Then there was a no king's protest in Cole Pepper, Virginia, where police say one person was struck by an SUV when a driver accelerated into a crowd. of protesters. As the Associated Press highlights in Philadelphia, protesters waived signs declaring deport the mini Mussolini's and fight the oligarchy. Now, these no-kings demonstrations were planned across the country in response to Trump holding that massive celebration of the U.S. Army. How did that event go? You know, it was a rather remarkable contrast to the protests. The event marked the 250th anniversary of the founding of the army, which came a year before the

Declaration of Independence was signed. It also happened to coincide with Trump's 79th birthday, which the protesters of course made sure to focus on. But what Americans saw was a huge patriotic display that highlighted the heroism of American troops throughout the decades. The event featured military vehicles from a wide span of eras, including old-school jeeps, transports used in Korea and Vietnam, tanks, helicopters, and of course row after row of marching troops. All the while, Trump stood watching, frequently standing to salute the troops,

and of course the president gave a speech in which he thanked the army and essentially said, you know, it's about time we had a parade like this. As we celebrate tonight, we also think of the hundreds of thousands of army soldiers who have made the supreme sacrifice for our nation and selflessly laid down their lives in every war from the revolution to the war on terror. A final note, this weekend's celebration of the Army is just the first of many patriotic events that Trump called for in an executive order.

That order created Task Force 250, which was coordinating a series of celebrations for the year leading up to the 250th anniversary of American independence on July 4th next year. All right, so more to come and likely more protests too. Probably. Tim, thanks for reporting. You bet. If you run a small business, you know there's nothing small about it. Even the smallest decisions can feel massive.

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Police fearing the crime was politically motivated, then proactively checked the homes of several other lawmakers, including Melissa Hortman, the top Democrat in the state house. When officers arrived, they found what appeared to be a police SUV with flashing blue lights in the driveway, and a man dressed as a cop coming out of the house. That man immediately opened fire on police before ultimately running out the back door. When officers were able to finally search the home, they found Hortman and her husband dead. Chilling footage from a home security system showed a man dressed as an officer approaching the front door, wearing a silicone life-like mask. It was just very scary footage.

Police say he used that disguise to convince his victims to open their doors. It was knocking on the door and asking the person to come on. Absolutely impersonating a police officer. Now, immediately after those shootings, police issued a shelter-in-place order for a three-mile radius surrounding the home. But again, the killer was able to escape the area on foot and make it to another car that he owned. Now, what do we know so far about the suspect? Well, authorities quickly identified 57-year-old Vance Bolter as the suspect. He's a Minnesotan with no past criminal history.

Bolter had worked for a private security service that advertised a fleet of, quote, police-type vehicles. He presumably used one of those cars as well as other gear, including a tactical vest during this attack. While Volter escaped the crime scene by Sunday afternoon, police had located. his second vehicle. It was 50 miles southwest of Minneapolis in rural Sibley County. By 10 p.m. last night, he was in custody after being caught hiding out in a patch of woods. Now, targeting multiple lawmakers suggests a political motive. Do we know anything else beyond that? So police say a manifesto was found in Bolter's car, but they are not releasing it to the public, at least yet. They've simply said they're confident this was a politically motivated attack. Now, some are speculating he was motivated by a

hatred of the Democratic Party. To that point, authorities say a list of 70 potential targets was found in his car. It reportedly included a number of prominent Democrats, along with abortion providers in the state. And the suspect's roommate told reporters he believed Bolter voted for Donald Trump, but was not aware of his views on state politics. But on the other side, there are plenty of indications that Bolter may have been on the left. First, police recovered a number of signs in his car that said, quote, no kings. Bolter also had ties to Governor Tim Walter. who appointed him to the governor's workforce development board back in 2019. Previous Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, appointed Bolter to the same position back in 2016 as well.

And the timing of this crime may also be a clue. Just days before she was assassinated, Melissa Hortman had been the only Democrat to cross party lines and support a Republican budget measure that would cut off taxpayer-funded health care for illegal immigrants in the state. That move drew outrage from Democrats across Minnesota. here she is just hours after that vote. I did what leaders do. I stepped up and I got the job done for the people of Minnesota. I think some of them are pretty angry. I think that their job was to make folks who voted for that bill feel like crap.

So what appears to be yet another example of political violence, remember in the last year alone, we've seen Israeli diplomats murdered in Washington, a health care CEO assassinated, attacks on Tesla dealerships, the firebombing of the governor's mansion, and of course, the multiple attempts on Donald Trump's life. Well, a tragedy and extremely chilling for those other people on the list. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. Things have changed rapidly since Israel launched its attack on Iran on Thursday,

and things will likely keep changing fast. Joining us to discuss how we got here and where things might go is Jonathan Shanzer. He's the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a Middle East expert. He also joins us now from a bomb shelter in Jerusalem. Jonathan, thanks so much for joining us. My pleasure. Did it be with you. Now, we covered on this show on Friday the many targets that Israel had hit. There had been more strikes since and counterstrikes from Iran.

So what are the latest developments in the strikes and counterstrikes? Sure. I mean, I think what we can say with certainty is that the Israelis have carried out, I think, more than 700 different strikes since this thing started. It's not even 72 hours old. You know, again, nuclear sites, military sites, leaders of the regime, and a lot more. There's been a lot of, of discharges. destruction on the Iranian side. On the Israeli side, they have been fending off missile attacks.

These missiles have been coming in by the dozen over the last couple of nights. Just a few minutes ago, as I was sitting here in a shelter, there was a direct strike somewhere near the northern town of Haifa. That's the third largest city in Israel, and a fire had broken out. Last night, there were a couple of direct hits, destroying buildings, destroying a full half of one building or even a half of a city block in one case. I think what we're looking at is a potential war of attrition if things go the way that Iran would like them to go. The regime understands that there's a finite number of missile defense interceptors that the Israelis can use. And they have a lot of ballistic missiles. So there's a little bit of cat and mouse here going on. The Israelis are trying to strike as many of the

those ballistic missiles as possible on the one hand, and the Iranians are trying to make the Israelis lose as many of their missile defense interceptors as possible. The one kind of wrinkle that I'm watching right now is that the U.S. is helping to defend the skies over Israel, and it appears that a number of Western countries may also be deploying assets to the region as well. There are actually even a couple of carrier strike groups on their way from the United States, maybe to try to impose a little bit of restraint on the part of the Iranian regime. Now, we've had conflicting reports about U.S. involvement in this mission. What do you think is the real story? Has the U.S. been involved and will we possibly get more involved

in the days to come? So, okay, I think we need to understand something. First of all, Israel is striking Iran right now with a number of American platforms, F-35s, the MK84, 2,000-pound bombs that are under the wings of those F-35s, and a whole array of other platforms that are U.S. made. Israel is part of the arsenal of democracy, as we call it. It is an American ally and has been for decades now. So no surprise there. I think there's also a high degree of intelligence sharing. We know this because it's been a fact for decades as well. But the fact that the Israelis attacked on day 61 after Donald Trump's 60-day deadline does suggest that there was some degree of coordination here. The big question

that I think everyone is asking right now is whether the United States will get involved because really if the U.S. drops one or two massive ordinance penetrators on the Fordo nuclear facility. This is the one that is embedded deep inside

a mountain with lots of reinforced concrete. The Israelis will basically be able to say it's game over, right? And basically, they don't have that platform. They don't have a B2 that would be able to fly at the heights that are needed to drop that ordinance and they don't have the ordinance. So I think they're looking for the U.S.

to perhaps step in. I think for that one piece of business, everything else the Israelis seem to be doing just fine with the help of American air defense. Well, in the meantime, Trump continues to push for talks. We'll see if that bears any fruit. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us and stay safe. Anytime. My pleasure. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're watching us on YouTube, please like and subscribe. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know. Now.