Morning Wire - Trump Gets Served & Meets Mamdani | 9.22.26

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

President Trump heads back to New York for a sit-down with Zohran Mamdani, ahead of his big speech before the UN General Assembly today. Three media outlets sue President Trump over his White House ban, as their colleagues boycott the press briefing. And, with Polymarket now giving Democrats the edge on flipping the Senate, we sit down with Republican Senator Bill Hagerty to talk about GOP plans to stave off a blue wave. Reporting from Ben Domenech and Megan Basham. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 3103- - -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 DeleteMe - Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://www.joindeleteme.com/WIRE and use promo code WIRE at checkout. My Patriot Supply - If you’re serious about preparedness like we are, you’re gonna want to head over to https://PREPAREWITHWIRE.COM right now. - - -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

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President Trump heads back to New York for a sit-down with Mayor Zoran Mamdani, ahead of his big speech before the UN General Assembly today. I certainly hope he will be a great mayor. You have to understand. I want what's good for New York. I want what's good for the country. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Tuesday, September 22nd, and this is Morning Wire.

Three media outlets. sue President Trump over his White House ban as their colleagues boycott the press pool. If you're going to engage in what is effectively far-left propaganda, why would a Republican White House give you special access? And with Polly Market now giving Democrats the edge on flipping the Senate, we sit down with Republican Senator Bill Haggerty to talk about the GOP plans to stave off a blue wave. I really do believe Republicans will maintain control of the Senate. It's going to take a lot of hard work. We're not going to take it for granted, but I think we have the right messaging and the right candidates to do that.

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. This episode is sponsored by Brickhouse Nutrition. Trying to lose weight can get complicated very quickly. Suddenly you're tracking everything that you eat, fighting cravings all afternoon, and trying to figure out which of the million weight loss options out there actually make sense for you. And while weight loss injections have gotten a lot of attention, plenty of people simply aren't interested in weekly injections. That's where Lean comes in. Lean is a weight loss supplement developed by doctors with researched ingredients designed to help manage blood sugar, turn stored fat into energy, and reduce hunger and cravings that make sticking to a healthy routine so

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For the first time since becoming president for a second time, Donald Trump traveled to New York for some high-profile sit downs and an upcoming speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Joining us now to discuss what we've seen so far from the president and what's planned for today is Ben Dominic, Daily Wire opinion editor and host of the District Club. Ben, thanks for coming on. Great to be with you. So first, President Trump being back in New York is kind of a big deal. He's had a very combative relationship with officials there, despite being kind of a hometown president. Big picture, how important is this visit? I think this visit is actually more important than people might understand because I think it's an indication about what the president's relationship might be like after this coming up midterm election with a lot of the new DSA members and people who have pretty radical views who have come out of the Zoranam Dani sort of cinematic universe and captured various.

primaries in blue districts across the country in ways that are going to lead to them entering Congress. The most prominent of these is obviously, of course, El-Sayed in Michigan, but there's tons of other members of the House who really were fueled by Mamdani's efforts, who he campaigned for, and to see him standing next to the president today talking about why he was more than willing to roll the red carpet out for him in order to achieve more housing for people in New York City, I think that's an indication of something that's very interesting that's going on in the Democratic Coalition. There is a faction of elite Democratic groups that believe that any kind of compromise with President Trump is unacceptable, that it renders you, you know, compromised in any kind of way to stand or resist against his sort of ill effects on the country. That's the one perspective within the Democratic Coalition.

The other perspective is one that the DSA has actually often kind of gravitation. for. And that's what I think is going on here. Mamdani is understanding that he actually could possibly crack a deal with Donald Trump over the course of the next couple of years that could benefit the people of New York City. I think you're going to see a lot of these DSA members start being nicer to Trump than some of these resistance foes within the Democratic coalition. All right. So the two discussed housing. We know that for sure. Do we know what else they discussed behind closed doors? Most of what went on there was actually apparently just like a glad-handed congratulations fest, which, of course, when it comes to Donald Trump, that doesn't really surprise you. He likes people who like him. And Zoranam Dani, I think, has done a very good job of navigating this moment by being someone who says, you know, hey, I appreciate aspects of how you were able to upend the establishment of your own party in the same way that I was able to upend the establishment of my party. Now, you know, Trump still, even though he is technically a Floridian, now loves and respects New York. It is his home, and I think that he wants to see a good relationship

with the mayor there. One thing, though, that I think is going to change, perhaps, is that he's doing this before he goes and gives that speech to the United Nations General Assembly, one which is probably going to be pretty aggressive if the tea leaves are correct when it comes to the Iran issue, his attitude toward the UN generally, which is, of course, viewed as an anti-Israeli entity by many people within his cabinet and, of course, himself. And that's, I think, going to be something that will perhaps change the tenor a little bit. I think that's one of the reasons why they did this first rather than after. Now, speaking of that UN General Assembly speech, what are we expecting to hear from him?

We're expecting to hear a pretty aggressive defense of the approach to ending the Iranian nuclear threat. That's been something that's been translated through a lot of different entities that are typically, you know, signaling what a president does when he goes. in front of these assemblies. That's something that doesn't always tend to be 100% accurate when it comes to President Trump. He's a little less, you know, tied to the script, as it were, when it comes to prior presidents. But I think it is generally what he is going to say. And I think it's an indication, frankly, that he's going to call on the world to back him up more. He feels that the European allies who were threatened by Iran's ballistic missile threat should have been more along his side and that they should have got.

and over frustrations about things like Greenland, which by the way, I'm sure he's going to mention in terms of a spike-the-football moment for his administration. All right. Well, a busy slate today. Ben, thanks so much for coming on. Great to be with you. It's unsettling how easily personal details like your home address and phone number can end up online. I think we should have more say in who gets access to that information. Go to www.com.org. Joindeletme.com slash wire and enter code wire for 20% off. Delete Me removes your personal information that's being sold online.

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Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners, get 20% off your Deleteme plan when you go to www.Jew2.JoinDeletMe.com slash wire and use promo codewire at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is go to www.jindleatme.com slash wire and enter codewire at checkout. That's www.jindleetme.com slash wire codewire. September is National Preparedness Month, which makes this a pretty good time to ask. If you couldn't get to the grocery store, how long could your family comfortably make it on what you have right now. My Patriots supply can help you prepare. If you're serious about preparedness like we are, you're going to want to head over to prepare withwire.com right now. Right now, when you get their best selling three-month

emergency food kit, they'll include a 72 serving mega protein kit free with real beef, chicken, and beans. That's 90 days of real food security designed to last up to 25 years when stored properly. Don't assume that you're going to find what you need later. Go to preparewithwire.com today. President Trump's battle with several legacy media outlets is escalating over his decision to bar their access to the White House briefing room. CNN, MS Now, and Politico are suing to regain access, and other major outlets are standing behind them. Here with the details is Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham. So, Megan, this has become yet another case of Trump versus the legacy media, and even some outlets that are normally pretty friendly with him are also objecting. Can you walk us through what happened and how we got here?

Yeah, Georgia. So all of this started on Friday when President Trump announced that Politico, CNN, and MSNOW would be barred from the White House grounds and from the White House press briefing room. And the following morning, journalists from those outlets attempted to enter the White House grounds and they were not allowed access and their credentials were disabled. Now, Trump has said that there is no single reason that he made this decision. Rather, he's pointing to a cumulative pattern of what he characterizes as dishonest and partisan reporting. So this was what he said on Friday. When you look at MS now, which used to be MSNBC, which some people called MSDNC Democratic National Committee, it's fake news. And when you look at PIS political, I mean, they got a government, the government under Biden gave him like $8 million to keep. them afloat and the stories they wrote a fake. Now, immediately after this, Fox News is Jackie Heinrich, who is the head of the White House Correspondents Association, well, she came out and she condemned this as a ban on the free press

and a violation of the First Amendment. So the debate really centers on whether the First Amendment protects not just the freedom of these outlets to cover the news as they see fit, but when. whether it guarantees them access to that White House press briefing room and the White House generally once that access has been granted. All right. So now we have those outlets, MS Now Politico and CNN suing to reestablish their credentials to get back in that briefing room. On what basis are they filing this suit? Yeah, John. So those three outlets filed that suit jointly on Monday morning and they are asking for a temporary restraining order to restore their assets. access while they're waiting for that case to progress. And as I said, Heinrich is backing them.

She's arguing that the courts have held that while all of these outlets don't have a right necessarily to access the White House, once it's been granted, it can't be revoked based on the content of their reporting. She says that would be unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. But Vice President J.D. Vance pushed back on that Monday. He essentially said that these outlets have offered slanted coverage in favor of Democrats. And he said that this is no different than Democratic administrations, not giving briefing room seats to conservative outlets. If you actually look at the objective analysis, Politico and Breitbart are, Politico is as anti-Trump as Breitbart was anti-Obama or anti-Biden. Now, why on God's Green Earth would Donald Trump be

expected to give Politico special access when nobody in the media expected the Biden administration or the Obama administration to give Breitbart special access. It's about basic fairness. They can still report. They still have the access to free speech. They're just not going to get an office in the White House anymore. But in the meantime, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, pretty much all of the legacy outlets are standing behind these three ousted outlets. And what they're saying, essentially is that they are going to pull out of the rotating White House pool coverage. And if you're not familiar with that term, it just means, you know, the system where they each take turns recording events of the day at the White House and then share that footage.

Do we have any sense about how this is going to play with the judge presiding over it? Yeah, you know, Georgia, I would say that that is a coin toss because it has been assigned to Judge Timothy Kelly, who is a Trump appointee. But back in Trump's first term, he actually ordered the White House to restore the credentials of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta on those due process grounds. And of course, if you were paying attention back then, Jim Acosta was arguably the most pugnacious personality to ever be in that White House press briefing room. But the administration can point to a more recent appeals court ruling, and that ruling did allow it to exclude the associated press from restricted spaces,

but that said, that same ruling distinguished between limited areas and those that are generally open to the credentialed press. So, you know, again, I would say this is a toss-up, but slightly in favor, probably of the newsrooms. All right, we're going to keep a close eye, but in the meantime, we're very grateful that our own Mary Margaret Ollahan is still in the briefing room. Megan, thanks for reporting. Yes, my pleasure. The chances of the Democrats flipping the Senate blue has just tipped past 50%. That's according to Polly Market.

But Republicans say they've got the money and the plan to keep control of the chamber. Joining us now in studio is Republican Senator Bill Haggerty of our home state, Tennessee. Senator, great to have you in the studio. It's good to be back. It's good to be back. So look, any party in power faces an uphill battle in these midterm elections. We also have fuel costs much higher than anybody wants them to be. Hormuz Strait is still more closed than we want it to be. What reason do you have to believe that the Republicans can keep the Senate?

Well, people always cite history and say this is typically the case, and you're right. But you don't have to go too far back, basically to 2022 when Joe Biden was in office. The United States Senate was at 50-50 at that point in time. Joe Biden had driven inflation through the roof oil was much higher than it is now $130 a barrel. Inflation running amok. The failure in Afghanistan, perhaps the the worst national security failure, the worst foreign policy failure, we've seen it certainly in my lifetime. Yeah. I would have certainly thought we would have seen a major shift at that point in time. In fact, I believe that.

I thought we'd pick up three or four seats. We wound up losing a seat. So I think conventional wisdom has changed. It really gets down to resources, and it gets down to, you know, having a pragmatic ground game in place and really, really fighting to win. We have a much more robust ground game in place now.

And also, we've fought very hard to put the genie back in the bottle of you will, to get some of these loose rules out of place, you know, back in order. So I think what we're looking at right now is a situation where if you just look at resources, Republicans have more resources at a national level. When you look at it on a candidate-by-candidate basis, that's not the case. Democrats have outraised at a candidate level, and the reason I think they're focused there is because they can spend those dollars more efficiently.

Those are called hard dollars. Those benefit from a discount, if you will. that's afforded those that want to advertise on television. People that are running for office are able to use those dollars for discount. When you put the money into some type of PAC structure, what they call soft dollars, you're just buying, you're competing with everybody else in the marketplace.

And often those rates can be double, can be triple, can be tenfold, depending on the market. I think the challenge for Republicans, again, given the fact that history usually does make it more challenging, is that we have to make the case. And that's the point I think you'll see coming out over these next six weeks, next five weeks,

And that is, Republicans are the only party that have actually delivered real policy solutions. There I'm talking about the Working Families Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the big beautiful bill, putting in place incentives to invest capital here in America like we've never seen in our lifetimes, delivering, you know, incredible new innovations like Trump accounts for new kids, new retirement accounts, no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime, no taxes on Social Security. If you look at what the Democrats have delivered for us, you don't have to look very far. Two government shutdowns, the longest shutdowns in history, by the way. And if you look at where they were prior to this, inflation, or collapse border, crime run amok,

I think we need to make the case. And the contrast actually is quite distinct. So I'm confident that we'll be doing that. We'll have the resources to do that coming into these next several weeks, and the American public will see the difference. I'm glad you mentioned resources. We've started to see spending in Texas and Michigan on, you know, from the GOP, Tala Rico in Texas and El Sajed in Michigan, a lot of the focus nationally to polarizing candidates that do have a shot at winning.

What are Republicans doing in general to combat those potential upsets? Well, I'll just remind you that we've heard Democrats talk about flipping Texas time after time after time. I think it's going to be very difficult to do that. And a candidate like Tala RICO is going to make it extraordinarily difficult. Again, once he's defined and he's being defined right now, I think people will see that the socialist policies that Tadar Rico is behind are not going to fit well with Texas. Let's go to Michigan. El Saeed, again, you mentioned divisive candidates, perhaps one of the most divisive that we've ever seen. You know, he, Graham Platin are some of the ones that the Democrats have come out with this time.

The whole Democrat Socialist Party of America platform, I think is frankly a shock to most Americans once they begin to understand it. So I'll go back to the original point. we will be defining these candidates and letting the public know what they stand for. So instead of standing on the street corner shouting free ice cream vote for me, we're going to get down to the details of what these candidates have actually advocated for. And when you look at an El-Said, it's absolutely radical. And the people that support him beyond radical. I mean, incredibly shocking that someone like this could get to the point that they have to be

the party's nominee for a U.S. Senator. Well, Senator, thank you so much for stopping in. Thank you so much. Good to be with you. Good to be with you both. Thanks for waking up with us. The reporting that fuels this show is only possible because you tune in every day

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