Morning Wire - Trans Shooter Claims Lives & Parental Rights Gain Traction | 2.12.26

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

A trans-identifying man commits one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canada’s history, Ohio Republicans move to protect parents who rebuff gender identity, and the FDA zeroes in on chemical preservatives in American foods. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 2629- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Good Ranchers - Get $25 off your first order and save up to $500 a year when you use code WIRE at https://GoodRanchers.comZipRecruiter - Go to https://ZipRecruiter.com/WIRE to try ZipRecruiter FOR FREE.- - -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

A tragic school shooting in Western Canada by a trans-identifying man leaves several dead and dozens injured. To the students, the teachers, the parents, every residence of Tumblr Ridge, all of Canada stands with you. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, February 12th, and this is Morning Wire. Ohio lawmakers move to protect parents who affirm their child's biological sex. These kids, just like every other kid in the state of Ohio, deserve people that love and care for them enough to tell them the truth, even when that truth is unsettling. And the FDA is setting its sights on chemical preservatives. We are now going to the next level of chemicals that affected foods that children commonly consume. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

At least nine people are dead and dozens more wounded after a mass shooting in British Columbia, Canada on two. Tuesday. The shooting is one of the deadliest in Canada's history. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to tell us what happened on Tuesday. So Tim, what do we know so far? As John alluded to, someone whom police initially identified as a gun person in a dress appears to have killed at least eight people across two locations and wounded dozens of others. That person has now been identified as an 18-year-old male who identified as a female and who had a history of mental illness. Two people were found dead inside a local home who have since been identified as the shooter's mother and 11-year-old brother. But most of the carnage took place at Tumblr Ridge Secondary School,

which is in a remote area of northeast British Columbia. There, at least six others were found dead, including the suspect. One more person died while they were being taken to a hospital. Students at the school said they were forced to barricade themselves in classrooms for roughly two to two and a half hours before they were evacuated by police. Now, what do we know about this individual and his potential motive? The police have not released any information about the motive, but they have said they believe he acted alone. He reportedly dropped out of Tumblr Ridge four years ago, though there's no evidence so far that he targeted specific individuals at the school.

Police were called to the home on multiple occasions for mental health concerns, including one occasion where guns were seized from the home two years ago, but were later returned when the lawful owner of the guns petitioned for their return. It's not clear who that owner is and whether those guns were used in this attack. Also, as we noted, this individual does identify as transgender and has been identifying as female for about five years, according to his Facebook page. In fact, when the news first broke, many outlets were reporting that the shooter was female. Female shooters are statistically extremely rare, though, that has been changing in recent years, and it appears to be in connection to the transgender movement. We talked to Penny Nance, the CEO of Concerned Women for America, about these trends. There's been this uptick in violence by women.

biological women that are transitioning into men. And often what that is includes is large doses of testosterone. There's been seven trans shootings in the United States since 2018 of mass shootings. You have, you know, think about the Nashville shooting. In that case, it was a biological woman, but she was transitioning at the time. And it's worth noting that this is part of a pattern. Nancy mentioned Nashville, but we also saw the non-binary shooter in Colorado, as well as the trans-identifying shooter at a Minneapolis Catholic school last year. Nance also said that psychotropic drug use in general could factor into this as well. Disturbing trend. How is Canada responding to this? Well, so far what we've seen is a nation in mourning.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has ordered flags to fly at half-mast in honor of the victims, and the Premier also addressed the nation on Wednesday. In the days ahead, there'll be important. questions to ask, difficult conversations to have. We owe that to the victims and their families. But now, it's time for grieving and remembrance. Palsy-wise, after mass shooting in 2020 in Nova Scotia, Canada enacted strict gun laws. So we could see a similar response this time. Of course, Canada already has strict gun control laws, but we'll see if lawmakers decide to revisit those again. Well, just worth reminding people, there were children included in these victims, so a terrible situation. Tim, thanks for reporting. Good to be on. This year, America turns 250. And while everyone's

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for refusing to affirm their gender identity. But Republicans announced in a press conference recently that they're looking to change that. Here's State Representative Josh Williams. Representative Gary Clems. and I introduce legislation to protect the constitutional right of all parents here in Ohio and the constitutional rights of caregivers, foster parents, and even prospective adoptive parents. They should not have to choose between maintaining their moral beliefs or abandoning those

beliefs just to raise their own children or provide a safe home for children that are most vulnerable in our state. Here are the latest and her Morning Wire debut as Daily Wire investigative reporter Meg Brock. Good morning, Meg. Great to have you on the show. Good morning. It's great to be here. So you've been following this very closely. What is the story here? People might be surprised to learn that Ohio, a deep red state, has some of the most radical gender-affirming child welfare policies nationwide. Families can lose custody or not be able to foster children simply for affirming a child's actual sex.

This is something that Ohio legislators are looking to change and they've introduced a bill that protects a parent's right to affirm their child's sex without being afraid of being labeled as abusive or neglectful. The bill is called the Affirming Families First Act and it seeks to modify parts of Ohio's legal code regulating child protective services, family court, and social services. And it prohibits parents from being penalized or labels as abusive for not affirming a child's gender identity, which is the term transgender activists used to describe how a child feels about their sex. The bill specifies that parents have a right to use their child's given name and correct pronouns, even if the child is experiencing gender confusion and wants to be transitioned to another sex. Like you said, I think a lot of people will be surprised to hear that this is actually even necessary in Ohio.

Are Republicans, do they have to kind of make the case that this is needed? It is very surprising to hear that this is going on in a red state like Ohio. Representative Gary Click in a press conference actually articulated some of the things that are happening under the noses of state legislators. Several of the things that they were doing in the Cuyahoga County Department of Youth and Children Services is they were proactively screening children for their sogy, their sexual or sexual or and gender identity and expression. So I'm not saying that a kid would come to them and they would say, hey, I'm this or I'm that. No, they were sitting down actively asking the child, do you feel like a boy or do you feel like a girl? Do you like boys or do you like girls?

And then they were creating a database based on this information. And they have one child in that database as young as five years old. Then they were re-educating parents that are putting out videos from this group called Affirm.Me and others to say that if you don't buy you. your son a dress or by your daughter a binder, if you don't call him her and her him, you are in danger to your child. You might be harming your child. You might not be a fit parent. And that could affect custody cases that they were disqualifying people who wanted to be foster parents because they would not affirm gender confusion in the expressed gender identity

of a child. Ohio has actually been an epicenter of radical gender affirming child welfare policies nationwide. The Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services was part of a federally funded multi-million dollar research project that aimed to create interventions and programs that would radicalize child welfare agencies across the country to be quote-unquote gender affirming. Leadership in this county were so good at radicalizing child welfare agencies, the Biden administration actually called upon their expertise when they were forming their September 2020 rule that demanded foster care families be affirming of a child's quote-unquote gender identity. This connection with the Biden administration was revealed through public records requests,

and we should note that that rule was actually entirely vacated in June 2025. Right. I remember when that happened. Have any other states taken action like the Republicans in Ohio are trying to do to protect parents over this issue? Yes, legislators in Texas, Indiana, and North Carolina have taken action to clarify that it's not abusive or neglectful to affirm your child's sex. I spoke with several parental rights advocates while reporting for the story, and they said why the state-by-state legislative. is a good start, there's really, uh, needs to be some federal action to make sure the rights of parents are protected all across the country. All right, there's always more work to be done.

Meg, thanks so much for reporting. And again, great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm just so excited to be here. There are a lot of young people trying to navigate the dating scene these days. And as you're trying to find the right person for you, you should probably ask the most important questions first. Well, the same goes if you're hiring. You definitely want to address key questions first to see if someone could be right for your role. That's why you need our sponsor, ZipRecruiter. When you post your job, ZipRecruiter suggests screening questions to help you hone in on top candidates faster. And today, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash wire.

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That's ZipRecruiter. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. The FDA has announced that they're targeting chemical food preservatives and making changes to food labels. The changes aim to bring American foods more in line with European standards, and make labels clearer. Joining us to discuss the new changes is FDA Commissioner, Dr. Marty McCarrie. Dr. McCarrie, thanks for coming on. Good to be with you, Georgia.

Now, your office just announced that you're going to be taking a harder look at a preservative called BHA as well as a few other common preservatives. First, can you tell us what BHA is and how common it is in our food? Sure, BHA is a chemical preservative that's very common in food. About 4,600 different types of food that are common in the U.S. food supply have BHA. It's an ingredient that's found in rubber, in plastic, in glue. And a National Toxicology Program Assessment said that there's a reasonable anticipation that it's carcinogenic or cancer-causing.

And there are low-cost alternatives like rosemary, vitamin E, green tea extract. So we want to see in general our food supply moved to, a healthier food supply, especially when it comes to children. There's also two other compounds called, one's called Bht, the other is azodicarbonamide. BHT is very common in cereal. It's known to be a hormone disruptor. And azodicarbonamide, which is a dough conditioner, it's what gives yoga mats the sort of air bubbles to give it the cushion. It's also used in shoes to make them more springy. And it's also found in breads and foods. And it just doesn't make sense that the same chemicals used to condition yoga mats and shoes is also being used in food for children.

So why are food manufacturers allowed to include these chemicals in their food? Why haven't we just banned them like the rest of Europe has? The reason why these chemicals are so common in the diet of children today is because of an old FDA regulation called grass, which stood for generally recognized as safe. And it allowed companies to self-declare chemicals as safe. It was originally intended for things like salt and things that were naturally in the environment, but companies over time use this loophole to be able to self-declare chemicals as safe without any real good solid testing and then just insert them into the food, not because it added any taste or flavor, but because it increased the shelf life.

of certain foods. Now that this medical field has matured and caught up, the data now shows that there are health concerns with some of these chemicals, and that's why we're asking for more information and letting people know of our action moving beyond the petroleum-based food dies. Now, just wondering, if these preservatives are banned, will food become more expensive due to a shorter shelf life and more waste? So the alternatives to these chemicals are cost-neutral. We have a real-world example, and that is the food in other countries, in Canada, in parts of Europe that don't have these chemicals and have cost-neutral alternatives, those foods are not more expensive. In some countries, if you use a compound like Bht or Azo-Dicarbonamide, you can be fined up to $140,000

as a food maker. And so other countries have taken a hard look at these chemicals. We're going to start to do the same as well. Last question, you're rolling out changes to food labels, specifically the label No Artificial Dyes. What is that new change? Well, first of all, the FDA is making it very clear what these labels should mean and what the criteria are. For example, the label No Artificial Dyes will now mean no artificial dies. In the past, if you used a natural dye from natural ingredients, you could not use that label. And it created a lot of confusion among parents shopping for groceries for their kids.

So now you can trust that label, no artificial dyes. And at the same time, the FDA approved last week two new natural dyes that can be used as alternatives to the petroleum artificial dyes. And that's what we need to do. We need to have cost neutral or lower cost alternatives so that we can move to a healthier food supply without increasing the cost of any foods out there. All right. Well, a lot of parents really appreciate these changes. Dr. McCarrie, thanks for coming on. Good to be with you guys.

Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show, now you can watch for free on Daily Wire Plus. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.