Morning Wire - Trump’s Hormuz Deadline & ICE Reinforces TSA? | 3.23.26

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

President Trump’s evening deadline approaches for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, ICE officers back up TSA, and are news apps smothering conservative reporting on the nation’s biggest stories? Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Ep. 2695 - - - 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 learn more. Good Ranchers - Get $25 off your first order and free meat for life when you use code WIRE at https://GoodRanchers.com - - - 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

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voyage. The conditions The clock is ticking on President Trump's ultimatum to Iran with just hours left in the country's power plants in the crosshairs. We have unlimited ammunition. We have the greatest equipment in the world. And we are decimating Iran. It's about time.

I'm Daily Wire, executive editor John Bickley, with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, March 23rd, and this is Morningwire. With more airports at a crisis point over unpaid TSA agents staying home, President Trump sends in ice. Look at the line there. We have ICE agents who are trained and can provide assistance to agents. And as the debate over Epic Fury and DHS rages in D.C., a new analysis finds that big tech is blacking out conservative reporting on the stories. Zero coverage whatsoever. Why? Because the networks won't cover it. And so who are the apps in the bed with? The networks. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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Where do things stand with Trump's big red line? Yeah, the next 12 hours or so has the potential to be historic. So the Iranian regime has continued their blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, as we talked about all month long, that has wreaked havoc on the global energy supply. But on Saturday, President Trump issued an unprecedented threat to the regime, saying, quote, if Iran does not fully open without threat the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the U.S. will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first. And remember, the U.S. up to this point, has largely avoided targeting Iranian energy facilities, including power plants and oil refineries, focusing instead on military targets.

A major concern from the White House from the start was that those sorts of strikes would create even more turbulence in the global energy sector. But it appears that Trump is now willing to take that risk. At the moment the Strait of Hormuz is still blocked, the Iranians have not budged. And that means the 48-hour timeline will soon expire in just a few hours. So buckle up. Indeed, it feels like this could end up being a breaking point, but we'll see. How have the Iranians responded so far? Yeah, as you can imagine, as they've done with every other threat to this point, they struck a defiant tone.

saying, quote, if the enemy damages our power plants, nothing can stop us from continuing our operations to destroy the energy, oil, and industrial infrastructure of the U.S. and its allies in the region. The country's foreign minister followed up with a statement of his own, saying that such strikes from Trump would violate, quote, international humanitarian law because it, quote, concerns civilian objects.

Now, for obvious reasons that is ironic, coming from a regime that just slaughtered thousands, maybe tens of thousands of protesters in the streets. But zooming out here from a strategic standpoint, there is no doubt the Iranians are boxed in here. On the one hand, maintaining the blockade of the strait is undoubtedly their best shot in maintaining leverage. The thought is that they want to prolong the war as long as possible and use the blockade

to negotiate a more favorable peace agreement at the end. But on the other hand, if they maintain the blockade and Trump follows through with this threat, they risk decimating their economy. Losing that production capability obviously could cripple them. And if power goes out across the country, it could make an uprising of their own people even more likely. All right, so the Iranians under a lot of pressure, to say the least. Yeah.

Now, there's growing economic concerns here at home. What is the latest on the economic fallout in the U.S.? Yeah, this won't be news to most folks listening, but gas is going up fast. Right now, the national average is $3.94 a gallon. At the start of the war, it was $2.98. That represents the largest one-month increase in gas since Hurricane Katrina. The bottom line is higher gas prices,

equals higher inflation. And that means not only higher prices, but higher interest rates. Before the war, the expectation was that the Federal Reserve would continue cutting rates throughout the year. But given all of this economic uncertainty, the Fed is now expected to go the other way and actually raise rates. Traders now give about a 75% chance of rate hikes this summer. That is, it's hard to overstate just a dramatic reversal. And for President Trump, who we know obsesses over interest rates, inflation data, and market returns, it is even more pressure for him to wrap this conflict up as soon as possible. Now before we go, over the weekend,

we saw a particularly concerning Iranian missile strike that was also revealing in many ways. What did we see there? So the Iranians launched two intermediate range ballistic missiles targeting Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean. That is a joint U.S. and British facility. Thankfully, those strikes did not hit their target, but here's why the attempt was so concerning.

Diego Garcia is 2,000 miles away from Tehran. And this attempted strike proves for the first time, that the regime is capable of sending missiles far beyond the Persian Gulf. Keep in mind, 2,000 miles, that puts much of Central Europe in range. And it's worth noting up until this war began, Iran had completely denied having missiles that could travel this sort of distance. So the White House says it is just further proof of why this operation was necessary to begin with. Right, they've maintained that Iran has continued to be a major threat to the region and our interest. And here's evidence of that fact.

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Travelers are facing long security lines and missed flights as the partial shutdown of homeland security enters its second month. Democrats say they will not vote to fund DHS without changes to immigration enforcement, but Trump says they've actually now forced him to ramp up ice presence at airports. Here with the details is Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham. So, Megan, give us the 30,000-foot view. of what's going on here. Yes, Georgia. Well, you know, obviously this stems from the shutdown over DHS because Democrats don't want to fund DHS, which of course oversees TSA. However, TSA officers are considered essential employees. So that means they still have to work, even as they're not getting

paid, and then they'll receive back pay once the shutdown ends. But as it's dragging on for weeks now, probably not surprising a lot of TSA officials are deciding they don't really like that. deal. Travel analyst Francesca Page, host of the Beyond the Map travel podcast, spoke with Morning Wire, and she told us that at some airports, absentee rates have climbed to 30% or even higher, and these effects are being felt across the country. Flights get delayed, leaving those cities, which means they arrive late somewhere else, and that disrupts connections across the network. And what's especially challenging right now is that, impact isn't uniform. One airport might be functioning relatively smoothly while another is seeing

multi-hour security lines or even checkpoint shutdowns. And that unpredictability is what's frustrating travelers the most. So honestly, this is hitting the biggest airport's hardest. And because of that, it's affecting the entire national system. Now walk us through the politics here. All of this is stemming from Democrats, not wanting to pass. that DHS funding, what's their case there? So Democrats are unhappy about ICE arrests and immigration enforcement more broadly. So they're saying no money for TSA unless Republicans are prepared to make major changes to ICE, including banning them from wearing face masks and also requiring them to wear name tags, personal identification on their uniforms. Now, Republicans counter that this

would open up ICE agents to harassment, doxing, potentially even violent threats. This is what Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told ABC on Sunday. We know the Democrats are going to want to docks those ICE agents, go to their homes, harass their kids. That's a problem. And I think there's a bigger issue here that Democrats actually want to defund ICE or they want to defund CBP. And so the common sense Democrats have to come to the table, figure out a solution to, again, let these lines flow. This is spring break. We have families that are trying to go on vacation and they're stuck in lines for two, three hours at a time. at a time. So the upshot is you're hearing from a lot of Republicans that Democrats are willing to

hold our air travel hostage, basically, in order to get what they want when it comes to immigration reforms. And Republicans say that the American people elected Donald Trump to secure the border and to enforce immigration, so they're digging in as well. Well, and that brings us to the next wrinkle, which is the Trump administration now wanting to have ICE fill in for TSA at the airport. Tell us about that new development. Yeah, Georgia. Borders Tsar Tom Homan has been out making the rounds on cable news, including CNN, saying that starting as early as this week, ICE agents are going to step in and help fill the staffing gap that we're seeing with TSA. There are roles we can play to release TSA officers from the non-significant role, such as guarding an exit, so they can get back to the

scanning machines and move people quicker. And then another possible solution. On Saturday, Elon Musk posted this to X. He said that he will, quote, pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is so negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country. Now, legally, it's not entirely clear that he can do this if a private citizen is allowed to pay the payroll of federal staffers, but the offer underscores just how serious this issue has become. Well, we are definitely hoping for the best for every traveler out there. Megan, thanks for reporting. Yep, my pleasure.

The public perception of the war in Iran and the DHS shutdown is being significantly shaped by legacy media's coverage and platforms distributing those stories. A new analysis from the Media Research Center found that just 2% of Google News top morning stories last month came from conservative outlets, while Apple News served its users zero conservative sources in its top stories over the course of 100 days. Joining us now to discuss is the president of MRC, David Bozell. Thank you so much for coming on. So as I understand it, your team wanted to figure out why left-wing outlets absolutely dominate online news rankings, despite having trust ratings in the single digits often. And you found that extremely few and sometimes literally zero conservative outlets were included in the top stories lists on some of these news platforms like Google and Apple. Is that correct?

Yeah, well, Apple was the most egregious. So we studied Apple in the month of January. They had 620 stories in the top 20 slots aggregated through January. 440 of them were outlets considered to be left-wing. Now, we didn't want to be judged jury and execution. We're not deciding what is a left-wing outlet, what is a center outlet, what is a right-wing outlet. We use a company called All-Sides. 440 Apple stories were considered left-wing by all sides.

The rest were censored. Zero, right-wing. Amazing. Now, the month of February, they improved. They had 552 stories. I think it was 400 of them even were left-wing stories. Eight were right-wing stories. So, you know, a 2% improvement.

Oh, wow, that's great. Like, I mean, I guess it's progress, but, like, I say that sarcastically. You know, they're doing it because the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, and Andrew Ferguson, the chairman over there sent Tim Cook a letter and said, no, wait a minute. How is it that you're going to advertise this phone to be purchased, right? You're also going to get this neutral arbitration of the news that you can curate yourself when in reality the numbers prove otherwise completely. And the conservative ecosystem has come such a long way.

We're breaking stories all the time. That's one of the big criticisms the left has. Well, the right wing doesn't break any stories. Tell Miranda Devine that. I dare anyone to go to Miranda Devine's office and tell her that she didn't break the Hunter Biden story. Or our Luke Rosiak. Right, exactly. Tell Luke that.

You know, who's doing this on a daily basis? It's kind of a miracle that we've come this far without any help from these guys. Right, and as we've documented here at the Daily Wire, active hostility from the Biden administration for four years, where they were trying to take us out. As to how this bias operates in the real world, we have the Iran War going on. And when you look at it from the framework of your study, it's no wonder that many Americans have a negative perspective on that operation. How have you seen this play out, particularly with the Iran War? Arenda's still a little freshman. Obviously, there's been push-pulling from the jump.

Take the Washington Post obituary, right, which frame the Ayatollah as this bushy-bearded, it's a lover of poetry. Yeah, I laugh, but it's horrible. That's the kind of thing that gets into Apple and gets broadcast to 125 million people a month. Minnesota Star Tribune is a terrific example of this, okay? They rocketed up the top 50 website charts in the month of January. Why? because they were linked by Google News five times

and linked by Apple News 11 times. So the whole anti-ice framework, right, with headline gems such as ice shoots man and leg. You know, never mind that, you know, it's a Venezuelan National who's running from the ice guys and he turns around, slips sliding through the ice, and he realized he can't win. And so he attacks him and they shoot him in all it.

So politically, it's no surprise as to why the president's numbers crater on that issue in particular, right? It's no surprise that the Democrats feel emboldened to shut down DHS because they know their message is being broadcast to tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people a month for free. The shutdown story is another one. Zero coverage of the shutdown story on some of these apps. Zero, zero, zero coverage whatsoever. Why? Because the networks won't cover it. And so who are the apps in bed with the networks? So that's why politically this stuff is so important. Yeah, absolutely it is.

David, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate the work you guys do. Appreciate it. Thanks for waking up with us. And for those of you 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.