Morning Wire - Trump's Midterms Pivot & CA Threatens Journalism? | 4.16.26

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

The White House tightens its messaging on the economy and its plans to end the Iran conflict, a man naturalized by the Biden administration is arrested after going on an alleged killing spree, and a new bill in California ignites debate over fraud and the role of independent journalism. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 2736- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Balance of Nature - Go to https://BalanceofNature.com to subscribe and save over 30% today.Quince - Go to https://Quince.com/WIRE for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. - - -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

As the War Abroad rattles markets and voters' wallets, the White House works to shift the conversation with the midterms insight. The average refund this filing season is more than $3,400. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, April 16th, and this is Morning Wire. Officers located another adult female who had suffered not only gunshot wounds, but stab wounds as well. She was pronounced deceased on scene. A foreign-born repeat offender goes on an alleged killing spree that leaves a DHS employee dead in Georgia.

And more controversy erupts in California as lawmakers push the Stop Nick Shirley Act. They're trying to make it so citizen journalists or just average Americans who are going about seeing what's happening. They're trying to scare them from talking about potential fraud taking place inside of these communities. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. I am once again so excited to tell you about our sponsor today, Quince. Quince is an online retailer that sells high-quality, classic clothing and home items made of real materials like cotton, cashmere, silk, linen, and all of them at extremely affordable prices.

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with the midterms now clearly in view. Joining us now is Daily Wire opinion editor Ben Dominic, host of the Big Ben Show. Great to have you back on. Great to be with you, as always. So we're 200 days out from midterms very much on everyone's mind now. But I wanted to start actually yesterday, Tax Day. We heard some very clear messaging from the White House. And I wanted to get your perspective on what we heard yesterday.

What's the play, the political angle, and do you think it's landing with Americans? Well, you had the White House rollout, Scott Bessent, who is one of the most effective communicators that they have when it comes to the financial or as of Americans. And he obviously made the argument that enormous numbers of Americans are seeing tax benefits thanks to the big beautiful bill, thanks to the Trump administration's approach to cutting taxes across the board. And he's hoping, along with this White House, that that type of message is going to resonate with people, that they're going to credit it back to the Republicans who they had in office last year. Unfortunately for the White House, and I think this is a concern that's on the minds of a lot of people on Capitol Hill, they don't feel like they're going to get credit for that.

They don't think that it's going to actually connect with people the way that they would like. They wish that they had a better argument, a better message when it came to connecting with the American people on all of their concerns about affordability. And look, you know, the fact is that we're going to see a lot of Americans, you know, get tax reimbursements and the like that they haven't seen before, you know, potentially something that's going to boost Republicans going into this summer and potentially the midterms. But a lot of people feel like that's not something that they're going to get credit for. And so they're really worried that that's not a connection people will have in their minds. And because of that, I just think, you know,

this is a message that's kind of coming a little late, especially considering that the president has spent so much time focused on foreign affairs. So obviously there's a sense of urgency from the White House right now to get things under control in terms of fuel costs and inflation. What are we hearing from the White House now about that? Well, the White House is trying to say that basically this is going to be a situation where the war in Iran, and I think it's fair to call it a war at this point, is going to be wrapped up within the next couple of weeks. The president went on with Maria Bardo talking about a number of different steps that they were going to take, that he believed that things were going to be wrapped up soon.

And look, I think that this is a situation where, unfortunately, for Republicans, you know, as much as this is, you know, potentially a brief conflict, something that is not going to turn into some kind of forever war that people are going to attack, it did have an effect on the way that people think about energy prices. And even if they see those prices go down, they're going to assign the blame for what just happened with the president and with his party. And that's something that concerns the GOP. But the GOP is looking for some positive messaging or at least some counter messaging, negative messaging about the Democrats. They kind of have a gift here with Eric Swalwell. Speak to us about that. What's been the fallout

from his scandal? And is that going to have legs? Well, Eric Swalwell is one of the most prominent Democrats on Capitol Hill. And the fact that he has had the kind of collapse, the kind of personal collapse that he has experienced in the last week is something that, you know, Democrats certainly did not want to be something dogging them going into these midterm elections. You like to see a midterm election where all the scandals are on the other side of the aisle. But when it comes to this, they really have the worst scandal on their own side. And I'm not sure it's done yet. We'll see where things go. But the questions that are being put, for instance, to one of his best friends in the Senate, Ruben Gallego, the senator from Arizona, are significant. And the idea that he

didn't know about any of these things that were going on, it really doesn't pass the smell test. So we'll see what happens with that. But it's certainly a headache for Democrats that they did not anticipate and did not want going into a midterm election where they feel like they have the wind at the back. Well, we'll see if any of this is enough for the GOP to stave off this sense of inevitability about these midterms. Ben, thank you so much for coming on. Great to be with you. Getting a wide variety of whole food ingredients into my diet is key for me this year. And our sponsor Balance of Nature's Whole Health System makes it simple. With their convenient blend of fruits and vegetables in easy-to-take capsules, I can ensure I'm getting essential nutrients every day without the hassle of prep work or meal planning.

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Join hundreds of thousands of customers in one simple routine that's changing the world. And yet another high-profile murder case involving a foreign-born suspect. A DHS employee was allegedly murdered by a man who was naturalized under the Biden administration. Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Tarr joins us now with more. So, Jenny, this was a horrific series of events. Can you walk us through what happened? Right. So you have a U.K. national. He was born in the U.K., then came to the United States, was naturalized by the Biden administration, as you said, in 2022.

His rap sheet includes convictions for sexual battery, battery against a police officer, obstruction, and assault with a deadly weapon and vandalism, according to DHS. And now has been caught up in what appears to be a murder spree. So just to walk you through what happened Monday, after midnight, officers found a woman suffering for multiple gunshot wounds outside of a checkers. Then 2 a.m., this individual who is accused of killing, this woman, pulled. up his car and fired several times at a 49-year-old homeless man who appears to have survived the attack. Now, 6.50 a.m., police arrive at the scene of a 40-year-old woman. That's the DHS employee, Lauren Bullis, who had sustained gunshot and stab wounds, and

tragically, she later died. Now, something you've reported on this show before is that it's very difficult to revoke citizenship once someone has it. could Abel have been denaturalized and could that have prevented this crime? Denaturalization is really hard to obtain and the federal government has to find that there was fraud likely during their application process in getting citizenship to really revoke it in the end. Even if you commit a terror attack, let's say, you'll be tried and hopefully convicted as a U.S. citizen. Now, despite these difficulties, President Trump's administration is looking into denour.

naturalization for certain individuals. Where do those efforts stand? Right. So the Trump administration really started this denaturalization push with its war on fraud and it's continued from there. The Trump administration has also filed 22 such cases since inauguration day. And since January 2025, there have been 14 cases where they have secured denaturalization and six of those were filed under the Trump administration. Now, in comparison, there were eight denaturalizations in 2024 and seven in 2023. Last month, the Department of Justice actually secured the denaturalization of a Ukrainian-born man who was actually someone who failed to disclose his involvement in a smuggling ring where he was sending gun parts to Ukraine and Italy.

So they were able to revoke his citizenship after finding that he was doing that and failed to disclose it during his application process. So it sounds like you need to have some very significant crimes happening at the time of your citizenship application for the denaturalization process to have teeth. Exactly. And, you know, this case has actually gotten the attention of the new DHS secretary, Mark Wayne Mullen, who appears to be taking this very seriously and renewing calls to really push for denaturalization and to audit the system. Well, let's hope there's progress. Jenny, thanks for reporting. Thank you. A new bill in California is igniting a debate over fraud.

and the role of independent journalism. Free speech advocates say the bill nicknamed the Stop Nick Shirley Act could punish independent journalists exposing misuse of taxpayer money. Daily Wire Culture reporter, Megan Basham, joins us now with the details. So, Megan, before we talk about the specifics of the legislation, can you just remind our audience what prompted the California lawmakers to propose this Stop Nick Shirley bill? Yeah, Georgia.

So this started with a series of viral investigations from young independent journalist, Nick Shirley. He's just 24 years old, but he gained fame by going out and looking into allegedly millions of dollars of fraud going into a variety of daycare and adult care programs, primarily serving immigrants. So just one example, public records showed that one program in California build taxpayers nearly $20 million, but when Shirley arrived during regular business hours, the place looked pretty much deserted. There was really no clear evidence that anyone was enrolled there. So this is a bit of a longer clip, Georgia,

but it'll give our viewers a sense of Shirley's work. This is how crazy this hospice fraud is here inside of California. You have all these businesses. They literally open a business. They just put HFS hospice care ink. They don't want to do anything with the storefront. And then you have another one right here, relief home health care, absolutely empty inside. And then you have another one, S-K-H, home health care. They're just popping up

everywhere, and they're not even doing anything to try and hide what they're doing. So Shirley reported on those findings and has alleged that it points to a much bigger pattern of fraud and abuse in these kinds of programs. But while citizens are very interested, it turns out that California lawmakers aren't big fans of Shirley's work. And so they, they, have put forward this bill that would essentially criminalize this kind of investigation. Right. And as we mentioned, it's been referred to as the Stop Nick Shirley Act, although that's not the official name. What exactly would this bill do? And is it fair to say it would stop this kind of journalism? Yeah, I think it is fair to say. I mean, officially, its name is AB 2624. And supporters of the

legislation say that it's necessary to avoid harassment and intimidation of primarily, primarily staffers who work in these programs that service immigrant needs or immigrant resources. So the language of the bill really rests on the word intent. It would make sharing information like that, things like, again, images, work addresses with intent to harass, intimidate, or incite violence, a misdemeanor. So penalties could include fines of up to thousands of dollars and even time in jail. So supporters of the bill say that this is necessary. in order to protect the people who work in these NGOs. But critics of the bill say that the language is dangerously broad

and that people only became interested in such a bill after Nick Shirley's reporting started to draw national attention. So they argue that it could allow organizations receiving public money to demand that legitimate investigative videos be banned or suppressed. And they also say that it could potentially subject real journalism to charge. And I'll just note, Georgia being married to somebody who worked in local broadcast news for a long time, this is actually a time-honored tradition of seeing reporters showing up with cameras in tow. Right. Absolutely. Now, this bill has drawn interest from some very high-profile voices, not even just in California. Who's been weighing in on this and what are they saying? Yeah, I would say this became a somewhat more explosive debate once Elon Musk with his enormous platform weighed in. So he reposted some commentary that argued that this bill would

chill journalism and criminalized fraud investigations. And then also comedian, podcaster and California resident, Adam Carolla, devoted an entire segment of his show to this bill. And he's asking, why is the state focusing on targeting people who are drawing attention to fraud instead of going after rooting out the fraud and stopping it? So national names among Democrats are a bit more quiet. Gavin Newsom, who of course is a presidential hopeful, has mocked Shirley. He has posted some memes making fun of him, but he has not stated whether or not he supports this legislation. Well, it may pass in California, but I'm somewhat skeptical that it would hold up at the Supreme Court. Megan, thanks for reporting.

Yep, 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 you need to know.