Morning Wire - Shutdown Fallout Mounts & Congress Probes Political Violence | 10.28.25

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

The consequences of the government shutdown rear their ugly heads, a congressional hearing today examines the origins of political violence, and Trump continues his Asia tour as the Left melts down over his East Wing remodel. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Today's Sponsors: Lean - Get 20% off when you enter MORNINGWIRE at https://TakeLean.com  Vanta - Visit https://vanta.com/MORNINGWIRE to sign up for a free demo today! Balance of Nature - Go to https://balanceofnature.com/pages/podcasters and use promo code WIRE for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer PLUS get a free bottle of Fiber and Spice. - - - 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

The stakes get higher as the government shutdown approaches one month, with looming air travel delays and food stamps on the verge of running out. I can't guarantee you that your flight's going to be on time. I can't guarantee you that your flight's not going to be canceled. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Tuesday, October 28th, and this is Morning Wire. Nearly two months after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, political violence takes center stage in a congressional hearing today. Daily Wire's Michael Knowles is set to testify. The way that the Democrats are able to make the claim that most political violence comes from the right is by not counting any of the left-wing violence. And President Trump's seismic east-wing demolition continues to shake things up in D.C.

No matter what he's doing, that house doesn't belong to him, New York. It belongs to us. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. By the time the average person reaches 60, they've likely cycled through numerous fad diets, collectively losing and regaining several hundred pounds over the years. All that yo-yo dieting increases your risk of diabetes, liver problems, and heart issues. The truth is, most of us need more than willpower to break free from this pattern.

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The government shutdown is dragging on, but we've finally got some updates and they're not good news for Democrats. Here to walk us through it is Daily Wired D.C. Bureau Chief Tim, we're about to see the next big wave of repercussions, correct? Yeah, that's right, Georgia. 13,000 air traffic controllers are set to miss their first paycheck of the shutdown today, and that's bound to make an already bad situation significantly worse. We've already seen reports of air traffic controllers taking second jobs as door dash drivers and things like that to supplement their income, and that's led to some pretty significant staffing shortages. 8,700 flights were delayed on Sunday, and yesterday more than 3,000 flights were delayed, and over 100 were canceled outright.

Now, airports have become a real flashpoint during this shutdown. Air traffic controllers and TSA agents were among the first workers to see their pay impacted, and of course, hating flight delays is something every American can rally behind. We reported last week that a couple of major airline pilot unions were calling for an end to a shutdown, and that turned out to be a major precursor of what was to come. I spoke to Daily Wire congressional correspondent Amber Joe Cooper about another union that just threw a wrench at Democrats' plans. The largest union representing 800,000 federal workers, the American Federation of Government employees, they're issuing a statement calling for the Senate to pass the continuing resolution to end the shutdown.

The president, Everett Kelly, said that it's time for leaders to start focusing on how to solve problems for the American people, rather than who is going to get the blame for the shutdown that Americans dislike. And she's also calling for back pay for every single employee who has been forced to stay home. And just last week, they blamed Trump and congressional Republicans for keeping the government closed. And while this statement doesn't lay the blame on either party in particular, the union calls for a clean continuing resolution, which is what Republicans have introduced over a dozen times and what Democrats keep rejecting. So a pretty major upset for Democrats there.

Now, what about food stamps? Yeah, in addition to flight delays and organized labor turning against them, Democrats also have to contend with the fact that food stamp benefits will lapse starting this Friday in November 1st. Here's Amber Joe again. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are expiring on November 1st, and that will impact 40 million people. I think there's definitely some added pressure given that so many people are on food stamps.

You know, House and Jordi Whip Tom Emmer said on Monday that, not only is this affecting airports, but now some states such as his own are going to have to be forced to cut off SNAP benefits. So it's definitely one of the big talking points this week. Of course, food stamps are not an explicitly partisan issue, and lawmakers from both parties are going to have to explain this disruption to their constituents. And Republicans aren't the only ones going on the offensive. We reported yesterday that the California Department of Social Services is texting residents blaming the imminent snap disruption on Trump and Republicans. Now, Republicans were quick to dismiss this as Gavin Newsom using taxpayer money to spread political propaganda,

but we're now at a point where each new disruption is going to hit Democrats harder than Republicans. Well, something's got to give at some point. Tim, thanks for reporting. You bet. In today's fast-changing digital world, proving your company is trustworthy isn't just important for growth. It's essential. That's exactly why Vanta exists. To make building and maintaining, that trust seamless for businesses everywhere. Whether you're a startup just getting started with your first SOC2, HIPAA, or ISO-27-001 certification, or you're an enterprise dealing with the complexity of vendor risk management,

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it becomes automatic. If you're ready to see how Vanta can transform your compliance process and help you build trust automatically, visit vanta.com slash morningwire to sign up for a free demo today. That's VaNTA.com slash morning wire. The assassination of Charlie Kirk has prompted a congressional hearing today, organized by Republican Senator Eric Schmidt on politically violent attacks. The hearing seeks to examine the origins of political violence and extremism, which has come largely from the left in recent years. Senator Schmidt joins us now. Senator, thank you for coming on the show. So you've organized this hearing and this issue's obviously a high priority for you. What are the goals of the proceedings today?

Well, I think the assassination of Charlie Kirk brought left-wing political violence really front and center, and I think it needs to be exposed. This isn't a one-off thing. This is sort of an ideology that's taken hold now. When you have 25% of those who describe themselves as very liberal, believe political violence justified over 55% of those on the left believe it's at least somewhat justifiable to assassinate President Trump, there's a problem. And I think if we're ever going to get in the other side of this and get to healing where we can say free speech, yes, political violence, no, we have to expose the truth, which is that this is overwhelmingly coming from one Right. You and your colleagues have not shied away from putting the onus of political violence on the left in recent years. Democrats say that's unfair, but what's the truth here? Is there actual imbalance in terms of violence in the U.S.? Well, I think that's part of the hearing. We want to hear from people who've suffered from political violence specifically, but also to lay out the truth and the statistics of what's going on. You know, and this is not particularly new on the left. I mean, you could go back to the 1960s with the weather underground, but it's playing itself out now at a more rapid

a much bigger scale and an ideology that's sort of wrapped up in a culture of death, where assassinating people you disagree with is justifiable to these people. Senator, thank you so much for joining us. Now, among those testifying at the hearing today is Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, and he joins the show now. Michael, good to have you back on. It's my pleasure to be here. So you were obviously invited to this hearing for specific reasons.

Tell us about that and what you plan to address. Well, I was invited largely because I was the target of leftist violence on a few occasions, but of organized leftist violence, specifically two years ago. This was at the University of Pittsburgh. I was doing a debate on the topic of transgenderism. There was a large demonstration. They burnt me an effigy, lit the street on fire. And then two Antifa operatives showed up and through smoke bombs at the attendees and the police. and then threw an explosive, a large explosive firework at the police, and seriously injured one female police officer, gave her life-altering injuries, took right of work for at least a year, and also injured other police officers as well. Happily, there was one intrepid FBI agent in the crowd, and he had noticed the uptick in left-wing violence at these conservative speaker events,

and it was only because he really pushed this up through the DOJ that any charges were brought at all. So these are two people who were members of an anarchist cell, part of the Torch Antifa Network. The guy had set off TSA scanners with explosive material multiple times. It's an illustrative example of violence because if you look up left-wing ideologically motivated violence in any of the databases that concern it or at the federal government level, you won't find it. It won't turn up. That just doesn't exist. And this is true for a lot of examples of left-wing violence, perhaps most notably the BLM riots, which, you're just simply not classified as left-wing violence. So the way that the Democrats are able to make

the claim that most political violence comes from the right is by not counting any of the left-wing violence. So we're going to call attention to that fact, as well as to the fact that now, even the honest liberals cannot hold up the lie that the violence is coming from the right. What do you think the federal government's role should be in addressing politically motivated violence? Is there a line which they should not cross? I don't think we're at fear of over-policing left-wing terrorists, okay? I think we're barely policing them at all. The federal government has successfully dismantled the Ku Klux Klan, has successfully dismantled organized crime, using all sorts of statutes, going after them for RICO, for conspiracy, all the way up to tax evasion, I suppose. And so President Trump putting this renewed focus on it, I think, is very important because the left has dismissed this as a concern by lying and saying that the political violence is a right-wing phenomenon. And it has allowed this problem to fester so much so that we saw it's tragic apotheosis in the murder of Charlie Kirk. And we cannot allow that to continue anymore.

Indeed, well, we'll certainly be watching your testimony with interests here. In fact, I should note that Daily Wire is streaming it live today. Michael, thanks for coming on. A pleasure is all mine. Good to see it. 60% of the vans on Amazon proven to comeer independent, like sack magic. Hello, here Camille, of Sac, Magic. Our compresses, hot-fraud are fabriced here even,

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on Amazon.C. President Trump continues his swing through Asia as Democrat and media backlash builds over his White House

Renovation. Daily Wire, Senior Editor Cabot Phillips is here with more. So Cabot, let's start on the other side of the globe where Trump continues to seek out new trade deals ahead of his sit down with President Xi. What's the latest there? Yeah, after brokering that big peace deal Sunday between Thailand and Cambodia and then rolling out a slew of new trade deals elsewhere, Trump headed to Japan. And he got the rural treatment with famous landmarks across Tokyo all lighting up with red, white and blue displays. The president first joined Emperor Nauruito for a

brief ceremony at the Imperial Palace before meeting with the country. newly elected prime minister, Sinai Takeichi. Takeichi calls herself a protege of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was arguably Trump's closest friend and ally on the global stage. And thankfully for Trump, Takaiichi holds very similar views to Abe and made her affinity for the president well known, calling him a, quote, very cheerful and fun person following their sit down. Now, the new prime minister also vowed to increase purchases of American pickup trucks, oil and gas,

and agricultural products as well. There was also talk of new shipbuilding agreements, so Trump is not leaving Japan empty-handed. The White House says that it's yet more proof that the threat of Donald Trump's tariffs pushes our trading partners to make deals favorable to the U.S. So deals announced now with Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and also Malaysia on Sunday, and now Japan gets added to the list on Monday. But the world is still really waiting to see what will come of this high-stakes meeting on Thursday with China. Now, have we heard anything about that yet?

So officials from both sides have continued to meet and hammering. out the framework of this deal. The White House says they're confident that both sides will agree to lower tariffs substantially and maybe even strike a permanent solution to the battle over TikTok as well. Now, for his part, Trump put it more bluntly, saying, quote, I think we're going to come away with a deal. And while we certainly heard optimism like this before, only to see deals ultimately fizzle out and then even more tariffs rolled out, investors at least seem to think that this is a done deal. Gold, cryptocurrency, and oil prices all spiked on Monday. And global markets are rally to all-time highs across Asia. The same thing happened here on Wall Street as well. The Dow,

NASDAQ and S&P 500 all hit record highs on Monday, leading the way where tech companies like Nvidia, which have been hobbled this year as a result of massive tariffs on semiconductors. And this is worth noting, stateside shares fell for domestic mining companies. That is clearly a sign that investors believe that China is also about to open up the flow of rare earth minerals as part of this looming deal. Now, some other White House news here at home, President Trump has a major renovation going in the East Wing that has drawn a lot of ire from the left. Where do things stand there? Well, the East Wing of the White House has now been demolished to make way for a 90,000

square foot ballroom that the White House says will be funded entirely by private donations. The administration says that it's all a matter of practicality and safety, knowing that in the past, if a president wanted to hold a large event honoring four dictators, often they were forced to erect makeshift tents on the White House lawn, which they said didn't look as nice, and also, as you can imagine, posed a lot of security concerns. Here's Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret O'Lehann with more on this ongoing saga. Keep in mind, Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, FDR, Truman, Nixon, Obama, all of them added things to the White House or made certain renovations or removed things away. But it is Donald

Trump who is bearing the brunt of the criticism here for his addition of the ballroom, which many presidents have talked about wanting to have a bigger space. I'm also told that with this new ballroom, people will be safer. There will be security additions. And it will be a legacy for presidential administrations to come. So lots of controversy over this specific addition to the White House. Some are even calling for future presidents to tear it down. Now, it's worth noting there are already some on the left attempting to mount a legal challenge to block the project entirely. A Virginia couple filed a motion in a D.C. federal court last week, seeking a temporary restraining order against the demolition, arguing to the court that it violins.

violates the National Historic Preservation Act. But the administration says they are well within their authority to make renovations, the same way that so many presidents before them have done. Well, a little late for that lawsuit. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. Thanks for waking up with us. And for those listening to the show, you can also watch us now on Daily Wire Plus.

We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know. I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for ways to get more fruits and vegetables into my day. That's why balance of nature fruit and veggie supplements have become a part of my daily routine. I love the convenience of their capsules. They're super easy to take with you. Plus, I feel better when I'm taking them. What I love about Balance of Nature is that these aren't your typical supplements. They're made from ingredients of 16 whole fruits and 15 whole vegetables, freeze dried, and lab tested.

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