Morning Wire - Social Media Addiction Verdict & Iran Deal In Reach? | 3.26.26

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

U.S. ground forces build as President Trump tries to nail down an Iran peace deal, Hawaii is hit with the worst flooding in decades, and Meta loses back-to-back rulings over the effects of its platforms on children. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 2701- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/WIRE and use promo code WIRE at checkout.Lean - Get 20% off when you enter code WIRE at https://TakeLean.com- - -Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacymorning 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

Iran publicly rejects President Trump's peace offer, but the White House says they're making progress behind the scenes. It was made clear to the United States that Iran wanted to talk. President Trump is willing to listen. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, March 26th, and this is Morning Wire. Hawaii residents reel from historic flooding as massive storms wreak havoc on the islands. This is the largest flood that we've had in Hawaii in 20 years. The largest flood. since the flood Manoa back in the early 2000s. And in a landmark ruling on social media addiction, a court finds YouTube and Meta guilty of contributing to growing mental health problems.

The verdict was a finding of liability on all counts against both meta and YouTube. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Our sponsor, Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Fortunately, you can take control of your privacy with Delete Me. It's a trusted service for removing your personal data from these broker sites, and the New York Times Wirecutter even named Delete Me their top pick for data removal services.

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Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to join deleteme.com slash wire and use promo code wire at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to join deleteme.com slash wire and enter codewire at checkout. That's join deleteme.com slash wire code wire. As the U.S. continues to build up ground forces in the Middle East, President Trump is trying to nail down a peace deal to end the war in Iran. Wired in live host, Cabot Phillips, joins us now to break it all down. So Cabot, we have learned the details now of President Trump's offer to the Iranians. What kind of details do we find out? Right. He suspended those potential strikes

on Iranian power plants this past Saturday and gave a five-day window for peace talks to take place. And in the last 24 hours, we've gotten new details on the offer that he's making, which again is going not directly to the Iranians, but through intermediaries like Turkey. Egypt, and Pakistan. From what we know, this is a 15-point plan that includes a number of major concessions from the Iranians. For example, it requires they dismantle their three largest nuclear sites and remove all enriched uranium from the country while agreeing to cease all future enrichment. It also places severe limits on their ballistic missile capabilities and demands a full opening of the Strait of Hormuz. In exchange, the White House offered to let the regime keep a nuclear

program for civilian use, albeit with very close oversight. They also reportedly also reportedly offered to lift a number of economic sanctions that have hampered the Iranian economy for years now. Now, from a logistical standpoint, acceptance of this plan would reportedly result in an immediate 30-day ceasefire during which time a broader, more permanent solution could be decided upon. For their part, the White House said Wednesday that Iran's new leaders should take notes from the mistakes of their deceased predecessors and accept a deal. The remaining elements of the Iranian regime have another opportunity to cooperate with President Trump. The president's preference is always peace.

There does not need to be any more death and destruction. How are the Iranians responding? Well, initially they denied that they had engaged in any talks to begin with. However, on Wednesday, regime officials announced that they had, in fact, received Trump's offer, but rejected it completely. In their words, U.S. demands were, quote, excessive and inconsistent with the reality of its defeat on the battlefield. They added that, quote, Iran will end the war at a time of its own choosing, and only if the conditions it is set are fulfilled. It will not allow Trump to determine the timing of the war's end. But according to reports, they did privately signal a willingness to talk to Washington, though their demands right now are quite hefty to say the least.

And what are those demands? So according to the Wall Street Journal, the regime is saying any plan must include an immediate end to U.S. strikes, the closure of all American military bases in the Persian Gulf, a lifting of all economic sanctions, total control of the Strait of Hormuz, and the right to collect fees from passing ships, guarantees that no strikes will occur in the future. And the list goes on. Now, obviously, most of those points are never going to be accepted by the president, but the question is whether they are legitimate demands or simply just posturing. Iranian officials, for their part, have expressed doubts that even Trump's offer was legitimate, with some calling it a, quote, ploy to benefit markets or even a distraction to allow for the U.S. to continue its infantry buildup in the region while these talks go on. And to that point, Trump's five-day pause on power plant strikes will expire right as new troops arrive in the region. We mentioned yesterday that he deployed those 2,000 elite paratroopers. They'll be joined Friday by 2,200 more Marines from the 31st Expeditionary Unit. So if Trump decides the talks are not going anywhere, he could well use those troops to secure the Strait of Hormuz from the ground.

Now, Iran is also claiming that President Trump is planning a ground operation. What are they saying? Right. Iran's parliament speaker, Mohamed Ghalabov, claimed yesterday that, quote, Iran's enemies with the support of one of the regional countries are preparing to occupy one of the Iranian island. He went on to threaten new attacks on infrastructure in the region of such an operation took place. Now, the White House is yet to acknowledge those remarks, but he could be referring to Karg Island, which is home to much of Iran's oil infrastructure. And it's worth noting, online prediction markets currently have the odds of U.S. boots on the ground in Iran at 60% by April 30th.

Now, I know some people might roll their eyes when they hear that. They don't really care about prediction markets, but they had been remarkably accurate at predicting all sorts of geopolitical events in the past year. year, including the initial start of the war itself. So it is worth keeping an eye on. Well, if those betting markets are correct, boots on the ground would be a major development. Yes, it would. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. And just a reminder to our audience, you can hear more from Cabot on the next episode of Wired and Live, which airs today at 4 p.m. Eastern on DailyWire.com.

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at takelein.com today. The worst flooding to hit Hawaii in two decades has left parts of the islands destroyed and in need of help. Daily Wire reporter Lyndon Blake joins us now with the details, Aiden Linden, so some disturbing footage and reports coming out of Hawaii. What is the latest? Yeah, well, you have to keep in mind, the same parts that are getting hit by all this rain and flooding is the same parts of the island

that were hit by those horrible, deadly wildfires a couple of years ago. So right now in Hawaii, they're experiencing this thick, reddish volcanic mud that has been rushed through the islands because of all this rain they're getting in parts of Oahu. So the flooding has damaged homes, literally picked them up off their foundation, take him down the street, schools, and even a hospital in Maui. And the homes quickly washed away over the weekend because they had back-to-back heavy downpours, and that's what led to rain, just toppling over already saturated grounds. 230 people have actually had to be rescued, and some residents even had to use their surfboards to escape their homes that were flooding.

Other people had to brave the floods to help their neighbors, and you can hear from some of them right here. Just coming off the street and offering help, dropping off wheelbarrows and shovels. During the floods, we saw how... Self-reliant we needed to be, right? It was all left on us. We had to go get people. We had to feed people. We have to figure it on ourselves. So what made this a big problem in Hawaii is that rain just kept coming. So after the weekend downpour earlier this week, they had to deal with more rain on Monday, and that turned streets into rivers. So to give you an idea of how fast the water's piling up in some areas, it even went up to four feet in a matter of minutes, it was one of those

things that residents described as coming out of nowhere because you had them going to run errands. It's One woman went to run a quick errand, and within 15 minutes, by the time she left the store, she saw cars floating down the street. Hard to imagine experiencing that firsthand. So this has been described as historic. Just how unusual is this kind of flooding for Hawaii? So Hawaii has not had this type of flooding since 2004, and these storms are happening in the winter mines, and they're called Kona Lowe's. And these are the specific types of storms that happen in Hawaii between October and April, and they can bring.

massive downpours. And what's happening right now in Hawaii is they had back-to-back conalows, and that just made it almost impossible to recover and try to get some of that ground dry before the next downpour came in. So as of now, how much damage are we talking about? And is there any sign that this is going to let up? Yeah, so right now, Governor Josh Green says the damage is upwards of $1 billion. So he's reached out to President Trump to ask to send federal aid. they're going to have to use this money to repair airport, schools, roads, homes, and that hospital that I mentioned earlier in Maui. So the good news is it looks like the rains letting up now. I checked the forecast in Hawaii and the precipitation chances were low, but residents in the meantime

we're having to boil their water. It's not safe to drink right now, but hopefully the rain will hold off and another big storm holds off so they can start cleaning up and rebuilding. Let's certainly hope so. And as you said, this community has already experienced a lot of trauma in the last couple of years. Lyndon, thank you so much for reporting. Thanks. Air Canada, does a sold world.

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to RKanda com or to your agent of voyage, the conditions can't After years of parents sounding the alarm over the dangers of social media, the courts are echoing their concerns in back-to-back rulings.

Daily Wire, editor-in-chief Brent, sure, is here to bring us up to speed. So, Brent, we just saw two major verdicts. They're being called watershed rulings. First, let's start with the one, most recent one in Los Angeles yesterday. What happened there? Yeah, rough couple of days for Metis Public Image and Pocketbook. There are multiple California cases right now, but the big one that got to ruling yesterday is a personal injury case called KGM or Kaley versus Meta. And Google,

Kaylee, she's now 20 years old. She claimed she experienced serious mental health issues, all stemming from years of social media use, specifically on Instagram and YouTube. She says those companies are liable for her suffering because they knew that the product was addictive and causes mental health problems for young teens. So she began using YouTube, she says, at age six, Instagram at age nine, and she brought the suit when she was 19. She says she now has anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, suicidal ideation, all directly caused by those platforms. An L.A. County jury yesterday has now agreed with her. They found both META and Google were negligent. The case, which was tried in the California Superior Court, considered whether the platforms

knowingly designed their platforms to get young users addicted. The jury looked closely at interface features like infinite scrolling, auto play, beauty filters, as well as internal documents relating to discussion of those features and the fact that the company was well aware that the product caused the exact symptoms that Kaylee says she felt. The jury ended up awarding Kaylee $3 million with most of that coming from Instagram, But the big thing here is that it obviously paves the way for many other people to pursue similar claims. Because obviously, you know, she's not the only one who's been on YouTube and Instagram since they were six or 10 years old.

And addiction is just one of the issues the parents are concerned about. We also saw a case coming out of New Mexico relating to these platforms exposing children to child predators. Tell us about that New Mexico verdict. Yeah. So back-to-back days for Meta, that jury in New Mexico, ruled that meta-violated consumer protection laws and was ordered to pay the state $375 million. The case stems from a sting operation that the state conducted in 2023, where they posed as a 13-year-old girl on Facebook and found the account was absolutely inundated with messages and content from child predators. One of the more damning exhibits the state brought during the trial was internal communications between employees,

where they were explicitly discussing how a 2019 decision by Mark Zuckerberg to have all communications be encrypted would make it very hard for law enforcement to investigate child sex abuse. So clearly, Meta knew this was a big issue and that their policy of encryption would actually protect predators. But the platform, they fired back saying that the examples brought by New Mexico were cherry-picked. Ultimately, the jury cited against Meta.

they recommended that hefty $375 million fine. Now, they're calling the California case in particular a bellwether. What other cases are on the docket in California or elsewhere that could be affected by these verdicts? Yeah, it's huge liability. I mean, you see that California wants only $3 million. The New Mexico ones $375 million. The California ruling may end up being way bigger because there are 1,600 personal injury cases already filed. So if it's $3 million for each case, we can see a massive wave of settlements that come in and potentially changes to these platforms themselves to protect themselves from, you know, further lawsuits.

For New Mexico, 42 states have already filed similar child safety suits. So, you know, these things can pile up pretty quickly. For their part, META put out a statement saying they respectfully disagree with the ruling and that they are pursuing all legal options. options. Well, I think a lot of parents are really cheering on these suits and hoping there will be changes made. Brent, thanks for reporting. Yeah, of course. Thanks, guys. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show, you can also now watch the show free on Daily Wire Plus. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know.