Morning Wire - Trump's Ukraine U-Turn & Biden’s Autopen Admissions | 7.15.25

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

Trump shifts his policy on aid to Ukraine while threatening Putin, the midterms may spell trouble for the GOP, and Biden breaks his silence over the investigations into his autopen use. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.   - - -   Today's Sponsors:   Balance of Nature - Go to https://balanceofnature.com and use promo code WIRE for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer PLUS get a free bottle of Fiber and Spice.   Lumen - Go to https://lumen.me/WIRE to get 10% off your Lumen.   - - -   Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trump amps up the pressure on Russia, imposing additional tariffs and arming Ukraine with military weapons if Putin doesn't agree to a deal. We're very, very unhappy with him, and we're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Tuesday, July 15th, and this is Morning Wire. While Trump continues to rack up political wins, he and the GOP could be facing head. wins in the midterms. And Joe Biden lashes out of the Trump administration over their investigations into his use of the auto pen. I guarantee you he knew nothing about what he was signing.

I guarantee it. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Balance of Nature fruit and veggies is the most convenient way to get whole fruits and vegetables daily, especially if you've focused on creating a healthier, happier lifestyle. Nature is pretty good at giving us the nutrients we need through our fruits and vegetables. So Balance of Nature takes fruits and vegetables.

they freeze dry them, turn them into a powder, and then they put them into a capsule. I take these capsules whenever I'm traveling and on the go, keeping up with the latest news to ensure that I get my daily fruits and veggies. Balance of Nature is just one ingredient of a balanced lifestyle and has no intention to replace a healthy diet, exercise, sleep, or any other healthy habits. It's intended to be used in concert. Head over to BalanceFNature.com and use promo code wire for 35% off your first order has a preferred customer, plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's Balanceofnature.com. Code Wire. President Trump announced a massive sale of weapons to Ukraine Monday while issuing new economic threats for any country doing business with Russia. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips

has the latest. So Cabot Trump's initial stance towards Ukraine was somewhat isolationist, and now this is a big shift. So what changed? Yeah, it's certainly a shift. Remember, President Trump campaigned on a promise to, quote, stop the endless flow of American treasure to Ukraine, meaning weapons and money. And upon taking office, he did just that. On inauguration day, he signed an executive order that froze all new weapons and money shipments to Ukraine for 90 days. Now, initially, Trump said he was confident that pause would send a message to Zelensky that he could not continue fighting on forever, while showing Putin that the U.S. was acting in good faith to stop the conflict. And again, at the start, it seemed to be working with Putin saying that he would begin sitting down for negotiations.

But now that it's clear, those were empty promises as Moscow has stalled peace talks time and time again and continued their war. Trump is taking a very different approach, essentially telling Putin if he will not end the war, he'll ensure Ukraine is armed to the teeth. So what exactly is in this new deal? Well, Trump announced Monday that he would be selling tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including Patriot missiles, artillery shells, and air defense systems to NATO, and then NATO will then ship the weapons directly to Kiev as soon as this week, potentially. And it's worth noting, included in that arsenal will be long-range offensive missiles

that could strike deep within Russian territory. According to NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta, who joined Trump at the White House Monday, the idea was actually first presented by Zelensky at the NATO summit two weeks ago. President Trump initially was unsure of the idea, but as Putin intensified his attacks on Ukraine, especially population centers,

he saw giving Zelensky weapons as the best way to force Putin to come to the table. Here he is yesterday. I think this is a chance at getting peace. Europe has a lot of spirit for this war. They really think it's a very, very important thing to do, or they wouldn't be doing it. Look, they're agreeing to, just, you know, they're paying for everything. We're not paying anymore.

Now, White House officials were quick to note on Monday that unlike the Biden administration, which essentially gave billions of dollars in weapons and cash, no strings attached, this deal will ensure the U.S. is compensated for their support. Here's Matt Whitaker, U.S. ambassador to NATO making that case. We move the burden off the American taxpayer for European defense and onto European taxpayers where it should be. And the traditional defense of Europe is now going to be born by the European population. And for his part, Secretary General Ruta said it was completely reasonable for the U.S. to expect Europe to pay for this support. You want Ukraine what it needs to have to maintain, to be able to defend itself against Russia.

But you don't want the Europeans to pay for it, which is totally logical. Now, Trump is putting pressure on Russia, not just with these weapons, but also with economic threats, too. Right. President Trump has long threatened additional tariffs and sanctions against Moscow if they don't end the war. And on Monday, he issued a deadline, giving them 50 days to agree on peace or they would be facing, quote, severe tariffs. And those tariffs would not just target Russia, who the U.S. does very little trade with anyway, but countries who trade with Russia. That's important because it would most notably impact China and India who are heavily reliant on Russian oil. Now, in other White House news, a lot of people are still hoping for some updates on the Epstein case. What's the latest there?

Yeah, over the weekend, a shakeup at the DOJ seemed almost inevitable, with FBI deputy director Dan Bongino reportedly threatening to resign if Attorney General Pam Bondi was not replaced. But things do seem to be settling down a little bit on that front. First, President Trump offered support for both Bongino and Bondi, saying the latter was a, quote, good guy who is in good shape. And one interesting note, Daily Wire White House reporter, Mayor Margaret, O'Ahan was told by sources in the administration that VP J.D. Vance has been playing the role of peacemaker trying to smooth things over between the FBI and DOJ leadership. And some of the

conservative media outrage against Trump's handling of the Epstein case is sort of dying down a little bit in the last 24 hours. CNN reports that the president called a few MAGA loyalist commentators directly, urging them to tone down their criticism. So that could be playing a role in that coverage. But it remains to be seen if the GOP base themselves will relent in their criticism. Well, in about five years, we're going to get some books on this, hopefully, and find out what really happened. Cab, but thanks for reporting. Absolutely. I've discovered this incredible tool that gives me real-time insights into my metabolism through something as simple as my breath. It's called Lumen. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. All you got to do is breathe into it

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of my health game and improve my metabolic health. It's so simple yet so insightful for creating healthier habits in my life. The warmer months are coming. Spring back into your health and fitness. Go to Lumen.com.me.org to get 10% off your Lumen. That's L-U-M-E-N-D-M-E-S-Wire for 10% off your purchase. Thank you, Lumen, for sponsoring this episode. While President Trump and Republicans have enjoyed a series of major political wins, they also face some major potential headwinds, including the Epstein controversy, Elon Musk's threat to fund alternative candidates, and negative media coverage of ice raids. Joining us to discuss is Signal polling president Brent Buchanan. Brent, thanks for coming on.

Yeah, my pleasure. Good to be here. So let's start with Musk and his threat to launch a new party. Many people are dismissing this because of the failure of such efforts in the past. But what have you seen in terms of the viability of this kind of idea? Could this ask? actually hurt the GOP on some level. Well, I don't think that America is ever going to be anything but a two-party country. You know, if we were to ask a poll question and say, would you vote for Elon Musk's America Party, it's going to have a way higher number to it than in reality, because we can go look at history and see how independent candidates turn out.

I think what's more interesting to look at is what is Musk's image? And I was just pulling this up before we started talking, and we have Elon Musk. He was upside down by eight points, meaning eight points more unfavorable than favorable at the beginning of May, and we now have him upside down by 25 points. So if your standard bear has had that massive degradation of an image among voters, you know, what kind of starting point is that for starting a party? Now, what about Trump? How is he farring in polling so far? We have a major controversy brewing with this Epstein case. Do we see any downturn for him, or is he holding steady? You know, you would think based on the mainstream media that Donald Trump's image has been tanking, and there are some polls that say that, but I wouldn't even use them for toilet paper. But when we look at our data, and we've been tracking him every single week since the inauguration. He is at upside down by five in our polling data for the last several months, every single week, no change at all, no change in who's with him or who's against them.

And so the narrative that speaks anything to the contrary is just wrong. And so he really is Teflon Dawn. And we can't expect a public official to have a right-side-up image anyway where they're more favorable than unfavorable. Like you don't get to the top without having some folks against you. And so Donald Trump being upside down by five is actually not a bad thing. Yeah, and for him in particular, it's good, better than his entire first term, correct? Way better.

Now, the ice raids in Trump's battle, with blue states like California are dominating headlines. Is this to Trump's advantage or disadvantage? It's to his advantage because you always want to lean in. It's like jujitsu. You want to lean into an issue that you have your back on. And so voters really trust him on immigration more than any other issue, more than economic issues. It's one of the key points that when we did our post-election deep dive research,

that we found that many of the non-white, non-educated college voters who had moved, over to Donald Trump. When you asked them open into what caused it, it was issues of cultural decay, and they used immigration as an example of cultural decay, not that it was the immigration issue in and of itself, but they stand for the rule of law, and they believe you should come here legally. And so these ICE raids are actually something that is dividing an electorate further, but it's dividing it to Donald Trump's advantage. So really the law and order messaging winning out in that case. Overall, if you're looking at potential pitfalls for Trump and Republicans generally in the coming months and maybe years, what are the key issues to keep an eye on?

Well, it's not really the key issues as much as how well do they communicate the key issues, because Donald Trump did an incredibly good job in the campaign of executing the messaging behind the core issues, even bringing up and really closing with this, no men and women's sports and no transgendered surgeries paid for by taxpayers. And that's one of the challenges that I think Republicans, and even Trump to an extent, have right now, is they have so many wins in front of them, which ones do you prioritize? You've got to make it real to the voter. Okay, we did this. The Democrats are saying we're killing people, taking them off of Medicaid. But you know what we did? We made people who could get a job or could work at least try to show that they're working in order to get this benefit. We didn't take anything away from somebody.

And it's those examples of what Republicans not necessarily don't have to step on a landmine. it's don't lay a landmine for yourself. Yeah, always good advice. Brent, thanks so much for joining us. All right. Thanks, John. Joe Biden broke his silence over the weekend about the unprecedented use of the president's pardon power in his final days in office.

It's been widely speculated that White House staffers utilize the auto pen without clear presidential approval. Daily Wire reporter, Tim Pierce, is here to discuss. So, Tim, Biden famously commuted the sentences of thousands of inmates in his final days using the autopen. Trump has since argued that those pardons may have been illegitimate if the president was not in sound mind or even necessarily present when the auto pen was used. What is Biden now saying about it? Yeah, the former president spoke at length to New York Times, and he said that he was in control behind it all.

What he means by that, according to the Times, is that for the vast majority of those pardons and commutations, he gave his staffers orders to compile a list of prisoners and convicts who met certain criteria. So, for instance, all people convicted of low-level drug offenses. And then Biden appeared to be pretty hands-off after he gave the order. We know from the Times that staff updated the list as they received more information, but never ran the updated list past the president again. Instead, staff used the Autopin system to sign these mass pardons and commutations just based off the president's prior approval of the criteria.

Now the president said the Autopin was the only efficient way to sign all these orders. He told the Times, quote, the auto pen is, you know, is legal. And he added, quote, the point is that, you know, we're talking about a whole lot of people. The president approved a few names personally, such as the unprecedented preemptive pardon of General Mark Millie, as well as the blanket preemptive pardons of his family members. Those, he said, were necessary to keep them safe from political prosecution from Trump, even though they had yet to be charged with any crimes. Now, Republicans, though, have pointed out that some of these commutations were people, who'd committed very serious, heinous crimes. These weren't necessarily low-level drug offenses. Did Biden address that? No, but he did say that he was lobbied by various people to extend

favors to this or that person. But then we also know that he never saw the final list on those mass commutations. But clearly there were some vetting issues, even according to some Democrats. For instance, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said that, quote, someone dropped the ball on the clemency of Adrian Peeler. He was convicted in 1999 of conspiracy to murder a mother and her eight-year-old son. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison on state charges and 35 years in prison on federal drug charges that stem from the same case, except that he was one of 2,500 people granted clemency by Biden on January 17th. Now, no doubt, Biden came out and did this interview in order to throw water on the various

investigations into this issue. Do you think that he was effective at that? That doesn't seem likely. GOP Senator Eric Schmidt of Missouri has already posted on X five possible laws that may have been broken according to the Times report. Those include fraud, forgery, and misuse of government property. The House Oversight Committee put up a post that said the Times report quietly confirms Biden aides use the autopin to issue executive actions without a clear sign he even approved them. And then President Trump doesn't appear impressed with Biden's reasons either.

Look, the Odo Pen, I think, is maybe one of the biggest scandals that we've had in 50 to 100 years. This is a tremendous scandal. And I know the people on the other side of the Osseda desk, that resolute desk. Unfortunately, he used it before me. But the people on the other side of the resolute desk, I know them. Lisa, the whole group, and they're no good. They're sick people.

And I guarantee he knew nothing about what he was signing. So don't expect this scandal to die down anytime soon. We should note that the autopin controversy itself is much bigger than these pardons and commutations. There are orders on numerous subjects from Biden's White House that were signed by Audupin as well. Well, we will continue to report on what the investigations find. Tim, thanks for reporting. Good to be on. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're watching on YouTube, like and subscribe. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know.