Morning Wire - Trump Survives Second Assassination Attempt | 9.16.24

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

President Trump survives a second attempt on his life, Venezuela arrests three Americans claiming they plotted to kill President Maduro, and the election case against Trump in Georgia hits a new snag. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Lumen: Get 15% off your Lumen at http://lumen.me/Wire Responsible Man: Be the man America needs you to be. Shop Responsible Man, and get an exclusive discount with code WIRE at https://responsibleman.com/ ZBiotics: The drink before drinking with ZBiotics. Get 15% off your order with promo code WIRE at http://www.ZBiotics.com/Wire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former President Donald Trump is safe and unharm. A suspect is in custody after the second attempted assassination of Donald Trump in two months. The U.S. Secret Service personnel opened fire on a gunman located near the property line, and this matters on their investigation. What do we know about how the incident unfolded and the would-be assassin? I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, September 16th, and this is Morning Wire. American citizens are arrested by the Venezuelan government, which claims they're part of a U.S.-led plot to kill President Maduro.

How is the Biden-Harris administration responding? And the election case against Trump and Georgia hits yet another snagg, casting scandal-plagued DA Fannie Willis back into the spotlight. Let's please note for the record that Ms. Willis has failed to appear in compliance with the subpoena and has failed to produce documents requested by a subpoena. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does, and optimizing your metabolic health

helps with weight management, improved energy levels, better sleep and more. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. I love my Lumen. I just breathe into it first thing in the morning, and it tells me what's going on with my metabolism in real time. Take the next step in improving your health today. Go to Lumen.m.me. slash wire to get 15% off your L-U-M-E-S-U-M-E-S-W-E-SachWIRE for 15% off your purchase. For the second time in two months, a gunman has attempted to take the life of former President Donald Trump this time in Florida. Here with the latest on the stunning second assassination attempt is Daily Wire Senior

Editor Cabot Phillips, Hay Cabot. So another terrifying story here. What do we know so far? Yeah, so here is the current timeline of events that we have. On Sunday afternoon, around 1.30 Eastern, President Trump was playing golf at his club in West Palm Beach. Now, typically when he plays a round of golf, Secret Service agents will progress a hole or two

ahead of Trump to clear the perimeter. And it was during that sweep when an agent noticed the gunman. Here is Palm Beach Sheriff Nick Bradshaw. The Secret Service agent that was on the course did a fantastic job. What they do is they have an agent that jumps one hole ahead of time

to where the president was at. And he was able to spot this rifle barrel sticking out of the fence and immediately engaged that individual, at which time the individual took home. According to Trump's staff, Secret Service agents tackled the former president to the ground when the shots began to ring out. Here is again, Sheriff Bradshaw speaking about just how close the shooter was to Trump.

How far away was Donald Trump when this gentleman was caught and stopped? Probably between three and 500 yards, but with a rifle in a scope like that, that's not a long distance. It gives you an idea of how differently this story could have turned out if those agents had not spotted the gunman. Now, Secret Service did open fire on the shooter, though it's unclear if he returned fire. When agents made it to the location where he'd been hiding out, they found a, quote, AK-47-style rifle with a scope and a GoPro camera that had been mounted on the fence. Thankfully, after those gunshots were heard, a witness in the area saw the gunman flee from the bushes and jump into his car. That witness was able to take pictures of his vehicle and police in the

area then used license plate readers to track the gunman down, eventually detaining him on a highway leaving town. Okay, so what do we know so far about this would be assassin? Well, according to reports, the suspect in custody is 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Ruth from Hawaii. I reviewed what appeared to be an ex-account belonging to Ruth, and it was full of anti-Trump messages. One post from April said Trump should change his MAGA slogan to Massa or make Americans slaves again, master. It added democracy is on the ballot and we cannot lose. We cannot afford to fail. The world is counting on us to show the way. Now, it's worth noting that sort of language about Trump being a threat to democracy has been repeated time and time again by Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party more broadly. That democracy is on the ballot line has actually been said and tweeted verbatim by Harris multiple times. Now, critics on the right say violence like this is only made more likely when one side portrays the other as an actual legitimate threat to. democracy. Lots of questions to be answered about this suspect. So to the question on a lot of people's minds, how was a gunman again able to get this close to Trump? Well, according to Sheriff Bradshaw,

because Trump is no longer the sitting president, the Secret Service resources allocated to him are not as large as those given to Kamala Harris. Here's Sheriff Bradshaw to that point. He's not the sitting president. If he was, we would have had this higher golf course around him. But because he's not, security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible. And keep in mind, this all comes as the Secret Service is already under investigation for security failures at the Pennsylvania shooting in July when Trump was struck. And in that case, we still know next to nothing about the shooter and his motives. Expect to see even more pressure on the agency from Congress.

They are going to want answers along with the American people about how this could have possibly happened again. As do we all. Cabot, thanks so much for reporting. Anytime. Men, it's time to take charge of your health with the Emerson multivitamins by Responsible Man, a new Daily Wire Ventures Company. The Emerson Multivitamin is packed with 33 key ingredients that support your immune system,

sharpen your brain while keeping your heart and muscles strong. American made and designed for men who mean business, the Emerson Multivitamins separates the men from the boys. Right now, take advantage of their fall sale. Visit Responsibleman.com and use code wire for 30% off plus an additional $9 off your first order. That's Responsibleman. com code wire. Venezuela says it has detained three U.S. citizens in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate President Nicholas Maduro. The arrests come just days after the United States announced

new sanctions on a group of Maduro's top allies. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the arrests. So Tim, what happened in Venezuela over the weekend? The Venezuelan government broke up what it said was a U.S.-led plot to kill Maduro and several top government officials. On Saturday, Minister announced that Venezuelan authorities had arrested three U.S. citizens, two Spaniards, and one Czech National. Authorities also seized hundreds of rifles that were allegedly sourced from the United States for use in PLOS to destabilize the country. This, of course, comes after Venezuela has faced massive and widespread protest after its July 28th election. Opposition leaders said they won the election in a landslide, as evidenced by voter tallies that they have released

that show Maduro lost by a wide margin. The Maduro regime has claimed that Maduro won the election and that the tallies released by the opposition are fate. Right, well, and leaders around the world have also denounced that election as tainted. What do we know about these three detained Americans? Any word from the State Department? The State Department has confirmed at least one of those arrests. It said in a statement over the weekend that it is aware of a member of the U.S. military being detained, and then it didn't confirm but was aware of reports of two other U.S. citizens also being detained. The statement and also denied any U.S.-led plot to assassinate Maduro. It said the allegations were categorically false.

The State Department didn't say whether it would take any further action on behalf of those detained. Now, in past dealings with Venezuela, the Biden administration has sometimes used the carrot rather than the stick. The U.S. relieved many sanctions on Venezuela earlier this year in exchange for guarantees of a free and fair election. That didn't happen to the United States liking, of course. so now the U.S. is placing sanctions back on the regime. Last week, the U.S. announced sanctions on 16 top Venezuelan officials, including members of the Venezuelan Supreme Court and Election Commission that certified Maduro's election victory.

That's after the U.S. seized Maduro's presidential plane earlier this month. Here's State Department spokesman Matt Miller talking about that at the time. The United States enforces its sanctions, and we're always going to enforce our sanctions. And so I would look at this less related to the election itself and more about the consequences that Maduro needs to continue to feel for his illegitimate and repressive anti-democratic actions. So those are actions for which he has been sanctioned. I'm not talking about with respect to the election, that we have sanctioned him over the years. So we have imposed sanctions on Maduro and his regime for their anti-democratic action.

Now, why would Maduro want to frame these individuals, assuming that's what's happening? Well, we can't know for certain what his intent is, and Maduro has not released any evidence of their guilt. But we do know that other hostile nations have captured Americans and use them as pawns in negotiation. And it's paid off. In 2022, Russia traded the WNBA star Brittany Griner for a notorious arms trafficker known as the merchant of death. Last year, the U.S. gave Iran $6 billion in frozen funds and five Iranian prisoners in exchange for five Americans. And then there's Hamas, which took five Americans hostage on October 7th and has faced no direct consequences from the U.S. for that. Hamas murdered one of its American hostages just a couple of weeks ago.

So with Venezuela, the timing of this post-election crackdown and the arrests of three Americans is certainly suspect. So more Americans arrested on flimsy charges. We'll see how the Biden administration chooses to handle it. Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis was back in the news this week, and things are not looking good for the prosecutor. Here with an update is Daily Wire Deputy Managing Editor Tim Rice-Aidem. So it's been a while since we've heard about Willis.

What's going on now? Hey, John, not much good for her. So late last week, Judge Scott McAfee tossed three counts in Willis's election interference case against former President Donald Trump and his allies. Two of the drop charges apply to Trump, and what applies to Republican state senator Sean Still and Trump attorney John Eastman. All three deal with the filing of false documents in a federal court. For those keeping track at home, McAfee has now dropped five of the original 13 charges included in Willis's indictment.

But in a separate ruling, McAfee upheld the indictment central racketeering charge. Still, the Trump team is taking this as a victory with Trump attorney Steve Saylor saying the president has, quote, prevailed once again and calling for the entire case to be quashed or dismissed. So some helpful news for Trump while this sort of stalled case remains mostly idle. Yeah, that's right. The case isn't expected to go to trial until 2025 at the earliest. So whatever the verdict, it likely won't have any bearing on the presidential election. Of course, the trial would have proceeded much quicker had it not been for Willis's personal scandals derailing the whole enterprise. Remember, Willis's case started falling apart last year after it came out that she had hired her boyfriend, Nathan Wade, to serve as a special prosecutor for the Trump case. Trump and his allies say that Wade was unqualified for the job and that both he and Willis are biased against the former president.

In March, McAfee ruled that there was not a clear conflict of interest, but told Willis she could only remain on the case if she fired Wade, which she did. Right, lots of people wondering how Willis was allowed to stay on. Now, she claimed at the time that she and Wade had broken up before the trial began and were just friends. But that wasn't the end of the Willis Wade saga, correct? Right. Earlier this month, police body. Body cam footage showed Willis arriving on the scene with Wade after his daughter was arrested for driving with a suspended license. That footage put Willis and Wade firmly back in the spotlight, with many people wondering if they had lied to McAfee about ending their relationship. This isn't the first time the two have aroused suspicion with their behavior.

In June, a member of Wade's entourage abruptly ended an interview with CNN's Caitlin Collins, pulling Wade aside to talk after he had started speaking about his relationship with Willis. Now, is Willis still facing any official scrutiny? She sure is, but she's doing her best to make it difficult for the people investigating her. A special committee of the Georgia State Senate subpoenaed Willis for documents related to her case against Trump, including five years of texts with Wade. The committee scheduled a hearing to question Willis about her alleged inappropriate relationship with Wade. Willis petitioned a judge to void the subpoena, but he didn't respond in time for the hearing. So Willis just didn't show up.

Willis and her lawyers insist that the entire investigation is beyond the scope of the committee's authority. The committee members, needless to say, disagree. Yeah. Now, we would be remiss if we didn't mention that all of this is going on as Willis is up for re-election in just a few weeks. What's the latest on that? Well, it seems like despite all the controversy, Willis is still on track to handily defeat her Republican challenger, Courtney Kramer. But Kramer isn't going down without a fight. She slammed Willis for skipping the committee hearing and suggested that Willis and Wade have not been forthcoming about the nature of their relationship.

Kramer is also pledging to dismiss a Fulton County case involving the rapper Young Thug if elected. Well, yet another election to keep on our radar. Tim, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. Another story we're tracking this week. The new Daily Wire comedy, Am I Racist, took the box office by storm over the weekend, becoming the third highest grossing film and beating major releases like Lions Gates, The Killer's Game. The film which stars Daily Wires Matt Walsh dives deep into the nature and cost of the diversity,

equity and inclusion industry. The film is now playing in over 1,500 theaters. Audiences have given it a certified hot score of 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and a cinema score of A. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know. If you enjoy an occasional glass of wine with dinner or a cocktail with friends, but have a busy day ahead, let me introduce you to Zebiotics pre-alcohol. Here's the scoop. It's not dehydration causing your sluggish mornings, but a toxic byproduct created when your body breaks down alcohol. Zbiotics pre-alcohol works by producing an enzyme that breaks this byproduct down. Take it before your first drink, enjoy your evening, and wake up ready for whatever tomorrow may bring. Head over to zbiotics.com slash wire to get 15% off your first order with code

wire at checkout. That's Z-B-I-O-T-I-S dot com slash wire today.