Morning Wire - Trump’s Gag Order Ruling & Anti-Israel Protests Escalate | 5.1.24

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Former President Trump is fined for contempt of court in New York, Anti-Israel protests escalate on college campuses– especially in New York, and an Arizona rancher accused of murdering an illegal immigrant gets a win in court. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Birch Gold: Text "WIRE" to 989898 for your no-cost, no-obligation information kit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former President Trump is fined for contempt of court in New York and threatened with possible jail time if he continues to criticize those involved in the case. The witnesses in this case have no gag. Their free speech, their First Amendment rights are completely intact. We have the latest on the hush money trial and Trump's public feud with the judge. The judge determined it in the case because they have no case. I'm Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley, with guest host Mary Margaret O'Lahan, senior reporter for the Daily Signal. It's Wednesday, May 1st, and this is Morning Wire. Anti-Israel protesters further escalate their attacks on college campuses,

smashing windows and taking control of buildings while some schools shut down. You're just a white person. You're a white person. We don't like white people. Free, free policy. And a big winning court for the Arizona cattle rancher accused of murdering an illegal immigrant. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Can your savings weather another economic storm? Think about what you've put away for the future. Inflation can render cash worthless, plus who can forget the real estate crash of 2008?

Birchgold understands the difficulty of navigating financial decisions. If you're considering converting an existing retirement account into a precious metals IRA, their dedicated in-house IRA department guides you every step of the way, making the process feel as simple as they walk in the park. Text wire to 989898 to talk to one of Birchgold's experts and claim your free info kit on gold. That's wire to 9898-988 today. Donald Trump was found in contempt of court in his New York City hush money case on Tuesday as the trial pushed into its third week. While there was some testimony in the courtroom, the headline moment was Judge Juan Mershahn finding Trump in contempt for posts he made about witnesses in the case.

Here to talk about the decision and where the case stands today as Daily Wire contributor David Marcus. Hey Dave. So let's start with this contempt finding. What was Trump's punishment? Morning, John. Donald Trump has been officially gagged. so to speak, as Judge Mershon found the former president in contempt of court for violating his order against commenting about the case nine times with fine set at a thousand bucks a pop. Trump was also given until about 2 p.m. on Tuesday to delete the social media posts in question, which was complied with. The most dramatic part of all this was the judge saying that the financial penalty may not be

sufficient and that if Trump keeps testing him, quote, jail may be a necessary punishment, end quote. This is a possibility that most observers think is very remote, even just logistically. Would Trump bunk up with his secret service protection? But the judge is the judge. That's what he said, and he has the authority to do it. It's also worth noting he made this threat just a day before Trump is set to appear at rallies in the Midwest, an opportunity perhaps to vent. So that's something to keep an eye on.

In good news for Trump, Marshawn will allow him. him to attend his son Barron's graduation. Well, there's that, I guess. As to the testimony itself, once they got to it, what did we learn from the slate of witnesses Tuesday? And were there any moments that stood out? There really weren't. The witnesses were mainly there to establish some facts in evidence, such as a deposition

and three videos. Trep's team doesn't dispute their authenticity, but has chosen not to stipulate to them. And that means prosecutors have to establish their veracity. Thus far, what's been remarkable is that there isn't a ton of disagreement about the general facts of this case. In a sense, both the prosecutors and the defense agree on what the puzzle pieces are here. They disagree on what picture it makes. The DA says it depicts election interference. Trump's lawyers say it shows a standard everyday non-disclosure agreement and that there is no crime.

Later in the day, Keith Davidson, who had been a lawyer for both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, who also was alleged to have an affair with Trump, testified about selling their stories, but he gave no evidence about Trump's motives or state of mind. Going back to Trump's decision to obey the judge's order to remove his posts, is that an indication that we might see Trump sort of back off on attacking figures like Michael Cohen and Daniels, or is this more of a strategic retreat?

I think there is some gamesmanship here. Trump, in all of his legal proceedings, has a tendency to walk right up to the line that judges said, in this case, he crossed it. There are people in Trump's orbit who have advocated essentially for open defiance, almost daring Marchand to jail a former president and current front-running candidate, the idea being that this would help him in the election. Others advise more caution, and after all, Trump is playing with his literal freedom here.

Just as Joe Biden has an administration and a campaign that might not always see eye to eye on policy, Trump has a legal team and a campaign that also at times maybe at odds with each other, leaving Trump to choose between the two. Ultimately, Alvin Bragg is attempting to put Donald Trump on trial while Trump is trying to put the trial itself on trial by calling it unfair. It seems very unlikely that Trump and his surrogance will stop making that point, but Trump himself may well tread more lightly so as to not spark the ire of the judge again. Well, a fascinating legal and political game being played out here. Dave, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. After my friend got peeled away and basically just carried off by the mob. Then I had a friend who they let through

and told me that he thought that I was an imminent extreme threat for my own physical safety. That was Rory Wilson, a senior at Columbia University describing what he witnessed when anti-Israel protesters stormed and occupied a campus building yesterday. Similar unrest has broken out at colleges and universities across the country. Daily Wire, reporter, Megan Basham is here now with the latest. So Megan, what's happened at Columbia's Hamilton Hall is certainly a big escalation. What do we know at this point in time? So what we know right now is that late Tuesday night, hundreds of NYPD officers, many of whom were wearing riot gear, began removing the trespassers who had taken over and vandalized Hamilton Hall, which, if you're not familiar,

is an historic campus building that was occupied back in 1968 during the Vietnam protests. So, So the police entered the building through a second floor window using a ramp extended from an emergency vehicle. And they then removed the occupiers one by one. We're hearing that they zip tied their hands behind their back and arrested them. In a statement, the university said they regretted that the protesters escalated the situation, adding, quoting here, after the university learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice.

Now, on some videos from earlier that morning, you can see Rory Wilson and his friend Charles Beck standing in front of the main doors of the building trying to stop that crowd from entering. Wilson told me that when he and Beck and another friend arrived, they saw protesters, many of them masked and dressed all in black, climbing through windows. Some were even carrying suitcases as if they plan to occupy this building for the long haul. They'd already barricaded the insides of the doors with a ton of the classroom. chairs and they had human chains all around the entrance that prevented anyone from getting in. They started grabbing these pretty large steel tables and were carrying them up to blockade the

doors. And we were just in the middle of the protest right by the doors as they were trying to put the tables against them and then tie them down. So Charles and I started pushing the table back, preventing them from continuing to barricade the door and stood in front of there, just to keep it from getting more blocked. At that point, it was all very spur of the moment. I just started telling people that I am fully entitled to stand here in an open area of my campus. I'm free to protest. This protest is completely inappropriate. This is completely inappropriate. You're violating the law. You're violating campus policy. You're defining all sorts of of things, and so I am free to stand here and register my dissent with this activity. And then they started manhandling us, trying to pull us away.

At that point, Wilson said Beck had been wrestled away from the door, and he felt that the situation was getting so dangerous they needed to leave. Now, as you say, this follows similar events all over the country. On Monday, Portland State was also forced to shut down after students broke into the library. They're still occupying that building. At UCLA, anti-Israel protesters have been harassing Jewish students. An eight-day occupation of an administration building at Cal Poly Humboldt just ended, and more than 80 demonstrators have also been arrested at Virginia Tech. And that follows encampments at a number of other schools, including Yale, the University of Pittsburgh, and UNC Chapel Hill. On a number of these campuses, students have torn down American flags.

and they're replacing them with Palestinian flags. Right, that footage has really gone viral. Now, some are saying that officials have not stepped in to stop these incidents and that they really turned a blind eye to this chaos. Right. We're hearing that in a number of places. Just one example, a mother of a Jewish student at UCLA called the school to ask why it was allowing protesters to block her son from attending classes or accessing the library.

And she recorded that call, and you can actually hear her being told that neither police nor the school plan to intervene. So the university has taken a stance that they will not, in fact, allow or help Jewish students get to their classes, that this is going to be tolerated. And that's very similar to what Wilson told me he experienced at Columbia yesterday. He said he and his friends called police and campus security, expecting one of them to come. There were multiple 911 calls. I called campus safety immediately and said there had been assault and no response for hours.

Actually, just I don't think there has been a response period. So you can hear a lot of frustration and even fear from parents and students who expect a lot more from administrators and local authorities. Yeah, it's not hard to see why. Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime. An elderly rancher in Arizona accused of murdering an illegal immigrant trespassing on his property will not be retried following a mistrial last month. The rancher George Allen Kelly has always maintained that he didn't shoot the illegal immigrant

and pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder last year. Here to discuss the latest developments in the case is Daily Wire Senior Editor Ash Short. Hey Ash, so what happened here? Well, in short, this is a major win for Kelly. This all began in January 2020, 3 when the body of 48-year-old Gabriel Quinn Bua Temea was found on Kelly's property. Bua Tomea had been deported from the U.S. multiple times before, most recently in 2016, and he was one of a group of other suspected illegal immigrants who ran onto Kelly's property last year.

Prosecutors arrested Kelly and blamed him for Bua Tomea's death, but Kelly told investigators from the beginning that he only fired warning shots from his rifle into the air and not at anyone. He also told investigators that he had seen people on his property with AK-47s. All right, so he was tried last month, but it mistrified. was declared. What led to that? A jury couldn't reach a unanimous decision on whether Kelly was responsible for Bua Temea's death, voting seven to one to find him not guilty, so that's seven of the eight ruling in his favor. The jury deliberated for more than 48 hours before saying they couldn't reach a decision.

So ultimately, no agreement on a ruling. What happens in those situations? Well, it's then up to prosecutors to determine whether they will retry the defendant or not. In this case, prosecutors decided not to retry Kelly, with Chief Deputy Santa Cruz County Attorney Kim Humley, attributing the decision to the, quote, unique circumstances and challenges surrounding this case. Basically, they don't feel that another trial would come to a different conclusion. And so going through it again would be a waste of time and money.

In the end, was this a lack of evidence or weak arguments from the prosecution? Likely both. Kelly says he fired warning shots in the air, and the prosecution says he didn't see anyone around with guns and had no right to fire his weapons since he wasn't in danger. Kelly had said he fired the warning shots because he worried about his and his wife's safety after seeing a group of men with rifles running on his property. Prosecutors argued he unnecessarily escalated the situation by using deadly force, while Kelly's attorney argued that he didn't use deadly force, but that he would have been justified

if he had done so. His attorney, Brenna Larkin, said, quote, he can fire warning shots to protect himself and to protect his wife, and that's exactly what he did. That's exactly what any man who cares about his wife and his home should do in this situation when faced with the threat that he was faced with, end quote. So many are seeing this as a stand your ground type argument and ultimately a victory for the Second Amendment. Right. Well, Ash, thank you so much for reporting. You're welcome. Thank you for listening this morning. We created this show to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you love our show and stand with that mission, consider subscribing, giving us a five-star rating,

and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.