Morning Wire - Trump Salutes American Exceptionalism | 2.25.26

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

President Trump addressed the nation with fireworks last night, we examine Trump’s response to SCOTUS striking down some of his tariffs, and the nation’s largest bank officially acknowledges that it debanked President Trump following the January 6 Capitol riot. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Ep. 2650 - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Today's Sponsors: Alliance Defending Freedom - Visit https://JoinADF.com/WIRE or text “WIRE” to 83848 to send a note of encouragement to Gabby Stout. Fatty15 - Get an additional 15% off your 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to https://fatty15.com/MORNINGWIRE and using code MORNINGWIRE at checkout. - - - 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

President Trump addresses the nation in the first state of the union of his second term. Our nation is back. Bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before. We look at what the president prioritized and the Democrats' dissent. I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley, with Georgia Hal. It's Wednesday, February 25th, this is Morning Wire. The Supreme Court's decision to strike down most of Trump's tariffs has prompted sweeping new orders from the president.

The president will have to use alternative authorities that are more well established under the law to pursue its tariffs. And America's largest bank confirms that it did indeed debank Trump in the weeks following January 6th, though the reason remains disputed. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. I'd like to introduce you to Gabby Stout.

She's a high school junior in North Carolina who was inspired by Charlie Kirk and wanted to honor his legacy by painting a message on her school's spirit rock. But after school officials gave Gabby permission, they reversed themselves. censoring Gabby's message and publicly accusing her of vandalism. The accusation even aired in local news. Gabby was punished for standing up for the biblical values that Charlie spent his life defending. Now, our friends at Alliance defending freedom are representing Gabby in court to hold the school district accountable for violating her constitutional rights. We want to make sure Gabby knows she's not standing alone.

With just a few minutes, you can go to join ADF.com slash wire or text wire to 83848 and send her a quick message of support. That's join ADF.com slash wire. Send Gabby an encouraging note or verse that will lift her spirit today. Gabby's courageously standing up for the values that Charlie fought for and that the Daily Wire stands for, including free speech. Go to join ADF.com slash wire or text Wire to 83848 for Alliance defending freedom today and support Gabby. President Trump delivered a wide-ranging state of the union address last night, touting his wins over the past year and laying out his vision for the way forward. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here to break it all down for us, a cabot. So a lot to get to here.

There were some really moving guest appearances, a lot of policies touted, and of course, a lot of Democrat counter-programming all day. So where to start? Let's start big picture. What was the major focus for Trump? Well, President Trump said jokingly beforehand that viewers should be ready for a long night. And he was not kidding. By the time he left the podium, the runtime was about an hour and 45, minutes, making it the longest state of the union address in history. So it was a long one. I'll do my best to condense it all. Trump, of course, hit on the economy and affordability, immigration and foreign policy, but the main theme of the night really was American greatness. President Trump repeatedly framed his presidency as bringing America back from the brink,

while leaning into the looming 250th anniversary celebration this coming July. And what became arguably the highlight of the night Trump every few minutes. would introduce a new individual who represented American exceptionalism. There was a Coast Guard swimmer who rescued more than 100 little girls during flooding in Texas last year, then a National Guardsman who survived being shot in the head in a terrorist attack, and in two just indescribably moving moments he awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to two men, first a wounded hero who led the capture of Nicholas Maduro, and then a 100-year-old pilot who fought in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. But the loudest moment came when the U.S. Olympic men's hockey team came down from the balcony.

Listen to this applause. It went on for minutes on end. And as reported first by Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret O'Lahan, President Trump also introduced Eric Kirk and offered an emotional tribute to her late husband, Charlie. Last year, Charlie was violently murdered by an assassin and martyed, really, martyed for his beliefs. his wonderful wife, Erica, is with us tonight. Erica, please stand. Now, coming into the night, one of the big questions was whether Trump would offer new insights

into his plans for Iran. There were even some who believed that he might announce military action from the podium, but evidently he did not want to let the world or the I told her for that matter know his plans, though he did offer this thinly veiled warning to the Supreme Leader. They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program in a particular nuclear weapons, yet they continue and are at this moment

again pursuing their sinister ambitions. We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words. We will never have a nuclear weapon. My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain. I will never allow the world's number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon. Can't let that happen. Later on, President Trump called on members of Congress to pass a ban on congressional stock trading and to also crack down on fraudsters taking advantage of federal programs. To that point, he announced that Vice President Vance would be leading the, quote,

war on fraud, not just in Minneapolis, but nationwide. He also offered a direct response to the Supreme Court, which last week struck down many of his tariffs telling Congress, that he did not need their approval. Despite the disappointing ruling, these powerful, country saving. It's saving our country, the kind of money we're taking in.

Peace protecting, many of the wars I settled, was because of the threat of tariffs. I wouldn't have been able to settle them without. We remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes. And they have been tested for a long time. They're a little more complex, but they're actually probably better,

leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before. Congressional action will not be necessary. And of course, it would not be a Trump speech without quite a few references to illegal immigration. Trump spent plenty of time reminding folks of the record decrease in border crossings we've seen under his tenure. And in one of the more remarkable state of the union moments we've seen in recent memory, he challenged Democrats to stand up if they support American citizens over illegal.

immigrants. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. First duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. You can bet that you will see that clip in more than a few Republican ads this November. And more broadly, Democrats just rarely stood to applaud for nearly anything that Trump said, including a number of the guests that he brought out. And that really became one of the big stories of the night. Democrats had counter-programming running all day long. They held a just sparsely attended event outside the Capitol during the address. One of our reporters was there.

And Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger offered the official response. But the big store on the left was the constant interrupting of Trump from Democratic lawmakers. More than 50 liberal members chose not to attend, but those who were in attendance routinely and very loudly heckled the president. They were led by squad members Rashida Talib and Ilan Omar. After one particularly long and loud back. and forth, Trump had this to say. You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up.

He should be ashamed of yourself. So all in all, it was a very late and very wild night in Washington. President Trump using the occasion to celebrate American exceptionalism and tell the progress of the last year, while Democrats fought him at every turn. The White House seems very content with those optics. We'll see, though, how voters respond. So truly a jam-packed evening, a very long night for all of us. Before we let you go, we wanted to congratulate you on the launch of your new show.

Wired in live. Does this mean you're moving off of this show, though, Cabin? It does not. You guys can't get rid of me that easy. That's what we want to hear. Kevin, thanks so much for reporting. Absolutely. Hey, guys, producer Brandon here.

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90-day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com slash morningwire and using code morning wire at checkout. As President Trump made clear last night, his economic policies remain crucial to his agenda. And central to those policies are tariffs. After the Supreme Court, Delta Blow to his reciprocal tariffs last weekend, the president has responded with new sweeping actions. Joining us now to discuss is Mark DePlacito, senior political economist at American Compass. Mark, thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. So after the court struck down many of Trump's tariffs, he quickly announced a new global

tariff of 10%, which went into effect yesterday, actually. What authority did he do that under, and how long will that last? Sure. So the tariff authority that the president will be using now is called Section 122. It's under the Trade Act of 1974. That's the same Trade Act that gave the section through one tariff authority that the president used against China in the first administration. This particular provision, Section 122, has not been invoked by a president before, but the authority is based on what's called a balance of payments issue. That essentially means that the United States is running a trade deficit. It gives the president authority to respond to that temporarily, so the statutory limit on the authorities 150 days, up to a rate of 15%.

The president has initially put that rate at 10%, and the authority will expire and require Congress to approve the new rate in 150 days, which should be sometime in the third week of June, July, excuse me. So this is effectively acting as a bridge to more permanent solutions. So what that 150 days is going to allow the president to do is to pursue additional investigations under Section 301, which it has used in the past and has a strong legal backing at this point. and under Section 232, which are sectoral tariffs that are justified by national security concerns. This would be the authority that the president is used on steel and aluminum, copper, timber, computing, robots, and some other sort of major sectors at the U.S. economy. So I think the administration is really seeing an opportunity to buy some time

because those well-established authorities that are indefinite and don't have that 150-day cap require an investigation and a common period, essentially, like any other major regulation. And do you believe that those new tariffs will be more durable and be able to survive court scrutiny? Yes. So if you look at, for example, the 301 tariffs that were implemented against Chinese goods in 2018, those are still in place today. Those were kept, largely kept by the Biden administration and across the second Trump administration. So once they're put in place, they are indefinite. but they do require that work on the front end to establish the justification through an investigation by the U.S. Trade Representative's Office.

Will the President be able to, again, be more flexible in how he applies tariffs per country rather than a global percentage? Yes, he'll have a lot more flexibility on rates across different countries under either the Section 301 authority or the Section 232 authority. And I think that's going to be a key part of his leverage as the conversations and negotiations continue over the coming months. This Section 301 authority, which the president has already used on multiple countries for multiple different reasons, is going to be hanging over in the background. And I think given the president's negotiation style, it's pretty evident that he's going to be

willing to turn that authority on any country that tries to rent agon, the deals that have been established. Final question here. FedEx just announced that they're suing the government for a full refund of tariffs they paid. Do you expect to see more of that? And we'll Will the U.S. government actually have to repay businesses? So my understanding is that the Supreme Court case at the Supreme Court level really did not speak to that repayment issue at all. And so that's going to have to be remanded down to the lower courts. I know the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson spoke in a couple interviews about it this weekend and essentially said that that's going to be up to the lower courts to decide who gets these repayments and on what timeline. It'll be fascinating to see how that all plays out. Mark, thank you so much for your insight and for joining us on the show.

The nation's largest bank has officially acknowledged that it did close President Trump's personal and business accounts in the wake of the January 6th Capitol riot. The issue has reignited a heated national debate on debanking. Here with the details is Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham. So, Megan, let's start with the basics. What exactly did this J.P. Morgan filing reveal and how does it tie into Trump's larger legal? fight with them. Yeah. So these filings that were just released are part of President Trump's $5 billion lawsuit against J.P. Morgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Diamond. And those confirmed that J.P. Morgan did indeed close accounts that were held by Trump and several of his business associates in February

2021. So about a month after the Capitol Hill riot. So until now, J.P. Morgan has never formally admitted that they did indeed close Trump's accounts. So these filings confirm that yes, that did happen. And it's not exactly true that they denied it either. They had simply discussed it as a hypothetical when they were asked about it. So while this does confirm that Trump's accounts were closed, what it doesn't confirm is why that happened. So that's a key question here, because the Trump team says that these closures were politically motivated, which would mean that any resulting harm on his business interests were unlawful. But Diamond has consistently said that while J.P. Morgan does debank people, it doesn't do so

for political or ideological or religious reasons. This is what he said on Fox just a couple of months ago. We do not bank people, debank people because of religious or political affiliations. We do debank them. They have religious and political affiliation. We debank people who are Democrats. We debank people who are Republicans. We've debanked different religious folks. Never was for that for that. reason. So Diamond is saying they didn't debank Trump for political reasons. What reason did they cite? Yeah. So the note that J.P. Morgan Chase sent Trump in February 2021 said that he simply needed to find a

quote, more suitable institution, didn't specify a reason. But J.P. Morgan has said that these decisions are based on whether accounts pose, quoting here, legal or regulatory risks. And Diamond did hint in that Fox interview that government pressure, perhaps from an incoming Biden administration, may have played a role in the actions that the bank ultimately decided to take. We live under very strict rules and regulations and requirements and to protect the country. We're required to report the government. I can't even tell you when we do it, because I'm not going to tell you that either. And so I want to change these rules. I actually applaud the Trump administration who's trying to say the debanking's bad and we should change the rules. Well, damn it, I've been asking to change the

changed rules now for 15 years. So change the rules. And then in addition to that, Georgia, I spoke with sources at J.P. Morgan, and they told me that they often wish that they did not have to debank, but after decades of experience dealing with regulators who are sometimes politically motivated, they've learned to anticipate certain pressure if they don't take those actions. So that brings up the wider debate over debanking. On this show, we've covered some debanking stories in cases where Christian or conservative groups believed that they were debanked for their beliefs. Could this case have some precedent for those other cases? Yeah, already we're seeing some impact from the entire debate that's coming out because of

Trump's accounts. And I think because of his personal experience with this, he has moved on this issue. So last year, he signed an executive order targeting what his administration called, quote unquote, politicized debanking. And that order specifically, sought to prohibit the use of vague reasons like reputational risk as a reason for closing down someone's account. And as you heard there, Diamond actually said that he would like to see some further action in that direction just to clarify for the banks what they should and should not do. So a lot of legal analysts say that the Trump case could have implications for how much banks are required to disclose when terminating services and also what legal recourse customers may have

when they do feel that they've been treated unfairly. Well, this is also in the bank's interest because it protects them as well. Megan, thanks for reporting. My pleasure. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show, you can now watch the show free on Daily Wire Plus. We'll be back this evening with more news to know.