Morning Wire - Spanish Citizens Are Fighting Back & Is Iran’s Regime Finally Collapsing? | 9.4.26

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

After more flare-ups in the Middle East and a high-profile shakeup in the Pentagon, President Trump says we’re operating from a position of even greater strength against Iran, tens of thousands of protesters surge the streets of Spain over the government’s handling of the invasion of Ceuta, and President Trump works to rescue Hollywood – prompting cheers from longtime enemies – and conservative complaints about a “bailout.” Reporting from Megan Basham. Plus, we speak with Steve Yates, national security expert at Heritage & Bev Turner, host of GB News “Late Show Live.” Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Ep. 3074 - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Today's Sponsors: Lean - Get 20% off when you enter code WIRE at https://TakeLean.com Good Ranchers - Start a plan at https://GoodRanchers.com/WIRE and they'll give you a FREE four-pound bundle of 100% American Angus ground beef with your first order. Plus, you'll get free meat with every order when you start a plan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if a few minutes with God could change the direction of your entire day? With pray.com, you can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories, and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life. Download the pray.com app today. After more flare-ups in the Middle East and a high-profile shake-up in the Pentagon, President Trump says we're operating from a position of even greater strength against Iran. We talk about the palace intrigue and the progress of the war. I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley, with Georgia Howe.

It's Friday, September 4th. This is Morningwire. Tens of thousands of protesters surged the streets of Spain over the government's handling of the invasion of Ceuta. And President Trump works to rescue Hollywood, prompting cheers from longtime enemies, but concerns from conservative pundits. Hollywood is dead, and they wanted to be revived. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. This episode is sponsored by Brickhouse Nutrition.

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It comes amid legacy media reports of tension among leaders inside the Department of War. Meanwhile, reports out of Iran say the regime's grip on the country is rapidly crumbling. Joining us now with his read on all this is Steve Yates, national security expert at Heritage. Great to have you back on. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. First, we saw activity in the Middle East flare up again this week, but we've also seen a lot of confidence from the Trump administration. It seems like they really feel like they have even more leverage than ever after the events of the last few weeks.

How do you read this situation? Well, I think recently it's become very, very clear that we've proven that they probably didn't mind the straight as much as was warned before, which caused a lot of panic in markets and among major players. Also, I think it's been proven that the economic pressure sustained against them has had, a much more meaningful impact than was assessed up to this point. I think the real proof in that pudding is their own president just recently was saying, if you will go back to the previous deal, we will. That, I think, is a major, major tell that obviously this is a deal that they dismissed and violated and now would beg to go back to. That means something's working better than

most of the world thought, maybe even more than the president thought. Now, meanwhile, we have all of these reports about tensions within the Department of War between Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who resigned this week and Pete Heggseth. Is that meaningful or more, you know, palace intrigue? Well, it's definitely palace intrigue, and there's often palace intrigue. Ultimately, somewhat serving in the Pentagon and if serving for the nation at a time of war, if you're not getting along with the president's chosen, Senate-confirmed policymaker in your line, then you probably do need to move along.

It's just like serving at the pleasure of the president and serving at the pleasure of the secretary. It's sort of sand in the gears that the president doesn't need. These kinds of personnel changes need to happen even if you're in a time of war. The most important thing is, what are the results out in theater, what are the results among the troops, what are the results with the supply chains and manufacturing base. That, I think, is the broad vision the secretary has been mandated to have,

and the secretary of the army didn't sound like he was in sync with that. So back to how things are going in the field, there's been reports that the Iranian regimes control over the country is really collapsing recently. It's hard to tell because there's, you know, little information coming out of there, of course. What have you seen on that front?

In recent times, we've gone to see video going out showing extremely long gas lines in Tehran and some other areas and a little bit more evidence of what the strain of the blockade and other financial measures is imposing upon the country. At some point, of course, theocratic regime has no heart for the suffering of the people, but at some point it has to get in their way of being able to pay soldiers. And the divide that Secretary Bessent talked about of when the regular army chooses no longer to aim its weapons at its people and says there's got to be a different way. That's the kind of sort of end of the Cold War down with the Berlin Wall moment that we might be

knocking on. But we didn't get to know when that was happening imminently in the Cold War. We might not get to know when it's imminently happening in Iran. But what you're alluding to is we feel like we're definitely getting some of that correlation of forces together for that. Final question. What do you see coming in the next few weeks? Well, I think that the maximum pressure is the right added ingredient. I think it could have been more maximum earlier on. I think that this operation economic outcast is the right nuclear-level economic toolkit. The thing that's coming in just a matter of weeks, that's the acid test of that, is the Xi Jinping visit to Washington, D.C., and does this apply equally to Chinese entities as it has to others?

If it does, then I think that what you are describing as those dominoes falling in Iran fall faster. A very complicated situation going on here. Thank you so much for bringing us your expertise. Thank you so much. In an effort to bring down beef prices, 300,000 metric tons of foreign ground beef are about to enter the U.S. market without the normal tariff. Now, cheaper beef certainly sounds good, but here's the catch when that meat reaches grocery store shelves. You may have no way of knowing it came from another country.

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Joining us now is Bev Turner, host of GB News Late Show Live. Great to have you on. Thanks, guys. So the last time we covered the situation, Spanish citizens were gearing up for this protest on September 2nd. That has taken place. What happened first at that large demonstration? Well, we saw this enormous demonstration in Madrid, of course, the capital of Spain.

Hundreds of thousands, it appears. It's hard to work out the numbers. But a huge number of Spanish people took to the streets to protest against Pedro Sanchez, their very left-wing president of Spain. And they are making their voices heard because they've had it. enough, they've reached a tipping point. There's some really emotional scenes, actually, on social media of locals, some older guys. There was one guy on a moped. I don't know whether you saw this. Yes. Crying on his moped. He pulled up to the side of the road because he obviously

had this sense that the Spanish people were finally taking matters into their own hands because the situation with Sweeter has been horrific for the local people there. Now, you mentioned Sanchez. he did give an official address regarding the situation in suit. What did we hear from him? The same rhetoric that Western European leaders give time and time again with their socialist outlook. We hear you. They can fake to their people. We understand this empathy. But they also then weaponize the movements of those on the ground to make a political point, blaming them for being our rights, this idea that you cannot reasonably protest.

about your country being invaded by hundreds of thousands of people who are nothing like you without being called far right. So it's no wonder that the Spanish people have now had enough because they know that he isn't listening to them. Yeah, you say they've had enough. Do you think that he might be forced out? It's really hard to say. It's not easy, as we know, it's not easy here in America. It's not easy in Europe to get rid of leaders unless there is an election looming. we we we do we it's impossible to say at the moment what will happen in that regard what we tend to see is the socialist leaders presidents and prime ministers across europe they are not easily extricated do you know how many of the morocans are still in suta now i'm hearing incredibly mixed

results about that we've seen the pictures on the beaches of the tented villages people barbecuing, cooking things on fires, like on the beach, looking like a shanty town, otherwise lovely, beautiful, European beach town, suddenly looking like something from the third world. I think it's hard to say, but certainly enough people that this has not gone away for the Spanish. Now, I understand it, you talk to President Trump about the situation in Ceuta. What did he tell you? I spoke to President Trump this week. Yeah, I had 40 minutes with him in the Roosevelt room in the White House. And every time he sees me, because I am British, he wants to talk to me about migration. He says that it is ruining your country. He said it repeatedly.

He uses the word invasion. He actually said, this is worse than a military invasion in some ways, is what he said, which I think was a very interesting turn of phrase, because I guess what he's saying, if it's a military invasion, you can fight back. If it's just a migration invasion, you are expected in Europe to welcome these people, whether it's our post-colonial guilt, whether it is the left-wing idea that we have to always give refuge to people from war zones. He recognises how difficult this is

and he feels very, very strongly that the collapse of Western civilization will happen under millions of people from countries which have a different religion, a different culture, a completely different, very patriarchal way of life, moving into Europe and changing things and affecting the safety of women and girls on the streets. As you've laid out a massive response from a lot of angry people in Spain,

we'll see if this moves the government to really take action or it's just more of this slow walking of a response, as we've seen. Beth, thank you so much for joining us. Pleasure. President Trump's new proposal to help rescue Hollywood via tax breaks is winning surprising bipartisan support. but some conservative commentators oppose the plan, calling it a bailout for the entertainment industry. Daily Wire Culture Reporter, Megan Basham, joins us now with the details. So, Megan, what exactly is the president proposing? Yeah, Georgia, so we don't have the specifics yet, but he did say that after meeting with actor John Voigt,

who is, of course, one of his three ambassadors to Hollywood, that he's now endorsing what's being called the Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act. And that big mouthful essentially just means that he's urging Congress to pass a federal tax credit that would cover around 20% of labor costs for movies and series that are produced in the United States. So he says that the reason Hollywood has become a, quote, complete and total disaster is because productions are looking to Canada, to Britain and to other countries who are offering generous government incentives.

Hollywood is dead, and they wanted to be revived. And I've spoken to Netflix, who's a fantastic, Ted, who's fantastic, and Ari Emanuel and many others. And all I'm going to do is offer the tax credits that other countries are offering. I don't have to do any more. They all want to be in Hollywood. They don't want to lose Hollywood. And the unions want that.

He says that the resulting jobs and the economic activity would more than offset the cost of this tax credit. Now, how serious is the production decline that he's trying to reverse? I mean, how big is this problem? Yeah, it's a pretty big problem, Georgia. Film L.A. reported that on-location shoot days in Los Angeles are down 12% in the second quarter of this year. It's down 36% below the five-year average. So, you know, that's some pretty jarring financial forecasting there. feature film activity is down nearly 20%. Now, some of that work has moved to other American states like Georgia, but as the president mentioned, more of them are going to countries like Great Britain, Canada, and Australia that have aggressively used these kinds of subsidies to attract American productions. So there are also,

though, some structural realities that are also causing Hollywood problems, things like labor strikes, the problem of streaming, the broad reduction in the number of films and series that are being ordered, simply due to lack of audience interest. So that's all contributing to this as well. I'm curious how Hollywood is reacting to this. They may welcome the proposal, but, you know, Trump is generally not their favorite person. Yeah, it's been interesting to see how quiet the stars are, even as studio execs and unions are praising this plan to the high heavens. As I looked around, I could really only find two named celebrities who have addressed it. One was Tim Allen who supports the plan.

He joked that since Democrat Senator Adam Schiff is working with Trump on this, all hell must have frozen over. And then there was actor Sean Aston from Lord of the Rings and Stranger Things, but he was more speaking in his capacity as the president of SAG AFRA. And he issued a statement thanking Trump for his leadership and saying that these tax breaks, are exactly what the industry needs, and pretty much all of the other big entertainment unions joined him in that statement. And as Tim Allen said, so has Adam Schiff. We should be focused on a federal tax credit like the one I've been carrying for years and years

that helps us compete with other countries that are basically stealing our industry because they're offering incentives that we're not matching. California governor, Gavin Newsom, also praised the plan. So really, we're getting a lot of lot of, you know, big bipartisan support for this. Very interesting. Although, as John mentioned at the top, some conservative pundits are very skeptical of this plan. What's their argument? Yeah, I'm hearing a lot of that. Essentially, what they're arguing from a free market perspective is that Hollywood should not get a bailout. So the committee to unleash prosperity, for instance, that's a well-known influential fiscal policy think tank. They published a piece pointing out,

And I think we can say pretty truthfully that Hollywood is simply being, quote, mugged by economic reality. They say that these unions have way too much power and that they have been standing in the way of mergers like the Paramount Warner Brothers deal that would make Hollywood more dynamic. And they also say that this proposal does not solve the problem of that kind of union stranglehold on California or the fact that California's high taxes overall simply make it a low. less attractive locale for filming. And then other arguments that I have seen gaining traction are that Hollywood generally hates conservatives, and that's part of the reason that they're suffering. But now these critics say AI is leveling the playing field, and it's finally breaking the industry's gatekeeping model that kept conservatives or even independent-minded creators out. And so they feel that new technology is leveling that playing field and that Trump shouldn't

disrupt that process. Well, I for one, I want to see. more American-made movies. So in that regard, I'm somewhat supportive. Megan, thanks for reporting. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for waking up with us. The reporting that fuels this show is only possible because you tune in every day and because of our Daily Wire subscribers. To enjoy the show, ad-free and join our mission, become a member at DailyWire.com. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know. What if a few minutes with God could change the direction of your entire day? With pray.com, you can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories, and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life.

Download the pray.com app today.