Morning Wire - Putin Moves Toward Peace & JFK Files Released | 3.19.25

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Putin moves toward peace after talk with Trump, the Administration releases thousands of files on JFK’s assassination, and should Americans worry about the economy? Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Fast Growing Trees: Get 15% off your first purchase when using the code WIRE at checkout or by visiting https://fastgrowingtrees.com/wire Vanta: Get $1,000 off Vanta at https://vanta.com/morningwire. Shopify: Go to https://Shopify.com/morningwire to sign up for your $1 per month trial period and upgrade your selling today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump's hours-long call with Vladimir Putin result in a key step toward peace with Ukraine. Ceasefire without going a little bit further. It would have been tough. Russia has the advantage, as you know. What did the two leaders agree to and is a full ceasefire on the horizon? I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley, with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, March 19th, and this is Morning Wire. The Trump administration releases tens of thousands of pages

regarding the assassination of JFK. And a volatile stock market, reciprocal tariffs, and a Trump tax cut. We talked to an expert about what's really happening in the economy and why he says Americans should not worry. In the first quarter, is doing better than the media's reporting. The underlying economy is healthy. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Did you know that fast-growing trees is the biggest online nursery in the U.S.,

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Terms and conditions may apply. In a major diplomatic breakthrough, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to phase one of a ceasefire in Ukraine, following a phone call with Donald Trump. Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips has the latest day Cabot. So the world in Ukraine in particular, really anxious about the results of this phone call. And it sounds like it was productive. Right. So President Trump and Putin talked for about two hours. By the end, they had agreed to a limited ceasefire,

which will ensure Russia ends strikes on Ukrainian energy and infrastructure facilities for the next 30 days. Remember, Moscow has used waves of drones and missiles to target Ukrainian energy. plants and refineries, knocking out power across the country and cutting electricity production in half. Likewise, for their part, Ukrainians have had success striking Russian oil refineries, threatening one of their top industries. So both sides benefit from the agreement. Now, there had been some optimism that Putin would be willing to sign off on a broader total ceasefire Tuesday. That obviously did not happen, but it is undoubtedly a major step in the right direction. And the White House says that it's just the start. Right, just the first step. What comes next? Well,

the Trump administration was insistent that yesterday's agreement was phase one of a broader, quote, movement to peace, which will begin immediately with further formal negotiations taking place in the Middle East. Up next, the two sides will work on a broader maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, followed by a full ceasefire across both countries. From there, quote, permanent peace will be the goal. In the meantime, as further signs of progress, the Kremlin announced that they would conduct a prisoner swap with Ukrainians later today with 175 prisoners. being released from each side. Trump, ever the businessman, relied on economic incentives to try and bring Putin to the table, essentially reminding him that a peace deal would allow Russia to reenter the

global economy and shake off those crippling sanctions. But again, there is still a lot of work to be done to get Putin to sign off. Yeah, and what is that? What exactly is Putin looking for? So the big sticking point for Russia is continued military support for Ukraine. Putin praised Trump for his, quote, noble goal of peace, but did make clear Tuesday, that if he's going to agree to a ceasefire, Europe and the U.S. must agree to an immediate halt on weapons shipments and intelligence sharing with Ukrainians. Now, the Ukrainians have expressed opposition to those demands. They fear that the Russians could use that pause and weapon shipments to reorganize and rearm and ultimately then break the ceasefire when the Ukrainians are at their

most vulnerable. But more broadly, Ukrainian President Zelensky did express support, albeit cautious support for Tuesday's agreement. He also confirmed that his country would agree to the terms and would halt strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. So definite steps in the right direction. Right. Now, this all comes as a separate war between Israel and Hamas escalated over the last 48 hours. What's the latest there?

Yeah, this conflict going in the opposite direction. On Tuesday, Israel launched a series of airstrikes in Gaza, killing hundreds of Palestinians. Hamas says the victims were mostly civilians, including children. Israel says they targeted terrorists. After the strike, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that it was, quote, only the beginning

and his country would continue pushing forward until Amos has been destroyed and all of the hostages brought home. Nanyahu says that not only has Hamas failed to abide by the terms of the ceasefire, but that Israeli intelligence had proof they were regrouping and preparing new attacks on his nation. For more on the situation, we spoke with Michael Orrin, the former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Hamas was actively recruiting, actively re-arming, and planning its next attacks across the border. So Israel concluded that the whole situation was untenable. And while the last thing I want to do was to endanger the lives of these hostages further, there was no choice but to ratchet up a military pressure on Hamas

and the hope that it'll actually come to the table and strike a deal. For their part, the White House stood by Israel Tuesday, saying the two countries were, quote, in lockstep. And the Nanyahu had consulted with the White House before launching those strengths. And a continued solidarity between the White House and Israel. Kappa, thanks so much for reporting. Anytime. Whether you're a startup founder navigating your first office,

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documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy. Here to tell us what we know from this latest batch of files released yesterday is Daily Wire Reporter Tim Pierce. So Tim, this was a huge promise and we just got these files. What did we find? Well, after waiting all day, the files finally began to appear on the National Archives website at around 6 p.m. Eastern Time. And it was apparently a sprint to get them. According to ABC News, DOJ attorneys were up all night sifting through documents, examining sensitive information, and making decisions on potential redactions. Trump said on Monday that about 80,000 pages of yet to be released documents on the JFK assassination would be made public. Here's Trump on Monday. We have a tremendous amount of paper. You've got a lot of reading. I don't believe

we're going to redact anything. I said, just don't redact. You can't redact. But we're going to be releasing the JFK files. They've been waiting for that for decades. Then I said during the campaign, I do it. And I'm a man of my word. No bombshells have turned up in the files yet. Again, 80,000 pages is a lot to get through. There are handwritten notes, old typewritten reports, and some blurry pages. Daily Wire reporters have found some entertaining nuggets, though. One document appears to show that John F. Kennedy Jr., before he died in 1999, called then Senator Joe Biden a traitor. Another show that CIA director Jay Edgar Hoover was tracking a set of safes and knew their combinations that were purchased for a Soviet embassy in Cuba. Another bit told of how Gary Underhill, a former U.S. Army captain in World War II, suspected a small click in the CIA was behind JFK's assassination.

The document said he was afraid and that six months later, he was found shot and pronounced dead by suicide. For her part, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, wrote in a post after the files released, quote, President Trump is ushering in a new era of maximum transparency. Today, JFK assassination files are being released to the public with no redactions. Promises made, promises kept. Now, there was a lot of buildup to this. For people who aren't dialed in with the conspiracy world, why were people so interested? Well, this has to be one of the most questioned events in U.S. history, as in so many Americans

either have doubts about or just don't believe the official story. And these doubts have been around for decades. Congress passed a law in 1992 to eventually release these files in part in reaction to the amount of questions that have been raised about Kennedy's assassination. Even back then, a majority of Americans believed that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone. Americans still do believe there is more to the story by a more than two to one margin. So what additional information did we get from these documents? Well, it will take at least a few days for lay people to scour the files.

But experts don't expect much new information. part of that is because some of the most interesting documents aren't public. Those include hours of taped interviews Jacqueline Kennedy and then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy did with author William Manchester in the months after the assassination. Jackie Kennedy also wrote a series of letters to President Lyndon Johnson, including three within a week of the assassination that will also not be released. And then there's what FBI director Cash Patel said in an interview with Glenn Beck last year after Patel revealed he has read the JFK files. The problem is the things that we can't release have nothing to do with the questions you guys are asking. That's about as far as I can go on it.

But like the answers you guys want, you pretty much have them. There is very minimal stuff that can't be seen for things that you wouldn't even think are related to that. So at least according to Battell, everyone who thinks it was a conspiracy of multiple people who assassinated JFK are likely to be disappointed with whether these documents hold. 60% of the Vance on Amazon, proven of a

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Well, decades later, Americans still intensely interested in this. Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. After a tumultuous month for stocks and new Trump tariffs, the Fed will meet today to discuss rate changes. Joining us to discuss what we can expect for the economy is CEO of Strategic Wealth Partners, Mark Tepper. Mark, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you, Georgia. I appreciate it.

Looking forward to this. So let's just start with some recent stock market volatility just in the past. month, there's been not a catastrophic dip, but a significant dip that's caused a lot of fear around Trump's so-called trade wars. How spooked should we be about the stock market? Well, look, I think if you rewind back to Trump Terrace 1.0, fourth quarter of 2018, top to bottom, stocks fell about 19.9%. And right before they hit 20%, they started to reverse course. And then you fast forward to 2019, the S&P was up around 30%. So what I would say is that when you look at what's going on with tariffs, obviously it's

creating a lot of uncertainty, which is causing a lot of fantastic stocks to pull back or sell off. That's presenting good buying opportunities because when you look at policy uncertainty, which is at its second highest level on record, second to only the lockdowns of 2020, Whenever you have a policy uncertainty this high, forward-looking returns in the stock market over the next three, six, and 12 months are substantially above average. So look, I'm viewing this as a buying opportunity. I'm trying to pick off my favorite high-conviction names and add to them where appropriate. Now, the legacy media, though, has been kind of pounding this message that this is because

the tariffs are bad and that it's only going to get worse. that's obviously the opposite of what we're hearing from Trump and his Treasury Secretary. What are your thoughts on Trump's use of tariffs and how do you expect them to impact, one, the stock market and two consumers? So if we look at kind of worst case scenario for tariffs, as a country, we have about $25 trillion of total personal income annually. We import about $3.3 trillion of goods. if there was a universal 25% tariff on every single good we import, that would equate to roughly a 3% income tax on the American taxpayer.

Not fun, but not the end of the world. But that's only if you're looking at tariffs in a vacuum. If then you start to pair it with the other pro-growth initiatives, lower taxes, less regulation, it actually seems pretty decent. And I also look at the fact that, you know, one of the latest things President Trump has talked about is potentially no tax up to $150,000 of income. He's talked about no tax on Social Security. He's talked about no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. The effective tax rate for someone making 150 grand a year is 15% right now, their federal income tax rate. If what President Trump wants to do happens, that goes down to zero, but then there's that extra 3% from tariffs.

So look, at the end of the day, I think this is actually going to be good for the economy, good for the American taxpayers, good for consumers, and ultimately beneficial for the stock market. Now, will there be a painful short term for citizens and consumers while the markets are getting used to what the new terrain looks like and while we're still paying down this massive debt? I mean, as long as the uncertainty exists, that's what is causing the most heartache right now. But what I can tell you, Georgia, is that we're not talking about demand destruction. We're just talking about a timing event whereby demand gets pushed out of quarter or two. So any of those growth initiatives that small businesses were thinking about putting in place this quarter, they still happen, but they just happen later. I would think that by Q3 of this year, you will start to see a big turnaround.

I do think the economy can be on solid ground. Well, Mark, I hope you're right about all this. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks, George. I appreciate it. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you enjoyed what you heard this morning, share this episode with a friend. What's the secret behind wildly successful businesses? It's not just great products or brilliant marketing.

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