Morning Wire - Ukraine Deal Emerges & SNAP System Shakeup | 11.20.25

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Trump and Russia reportedly near a deal to end the conflict in Ukraine, the administration looks to overhaul SNAP, and Charlotte’s ICE presence clears roads and classrooms. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Chevron: Build a brighter future right here at home. Visit https://Chevron.com/America to discover more. Vanta: Get started at https://Vanta.com/MORNINGWIRE - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A 28-point peace plan that could end the war in Ukraine is reportedly in the works as Washington and Moscow bargain behind the scenes. So many questions remain here, but it really does come down to the President of the United States. He's a man who is going to make the difference in peace and war in Ukraine. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, November 20th, and this is Morning Wire. This is obviously a program we need to make sure that people are citizens to reach. receive this benefit. We ought to figure out exactly what we should allow people to buy with this. Amid growing claims of widespread fraud and snap benefits, the Trump administration is set to roll

out sweeping changes to food stamps. And immigration raids in Charlotte have rippled through the community, clearing both highways and classrooms. The students whose parents come from Latin American countries were the students we were missing. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. built on hard work and powered by American energy. Chevron has spent $44 billion with local businesses across all 50 states since 2022, fueling infrastructure and communities, all while strengthening local economies. Last year, Chevron increased U.S. production nearly 20%,

powering communities and businesses from the heartlands to the coast. We're helping to fuel America's energy advantage, building a brighter future right here at home. Visit chevron.com slash America to discover more. The Trump administration is crafting a plan to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. According to a new report, officials are in talks to get both sides on board of a 28-point framework. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about President Trump's efforts to settle the war between Russia and Ukraine. So, Tim, potentially some significant movement. What do we know so far?

Not much on the details, but administration officials do appear to be confident about it. Politico quoted one official is saying, what we are going to present is reasonable. The plan has apparently come out of extensive talks between U.S. Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff and Russia-envoy Kareil Dmitrov. The two ambassadors met Miami last month and spent three days together on what a potential deal could look like. According to Axios, Dmitrov came out of that meeting feeling like the Russian position is really being heard. He went on to describe the deal as a much broader framework that seeks to bring lasting security to Europe, not just Ukraine. What's not so clear is how far talks move forward with Ukraine or with European officials who may be interested in any potential peace deal, especially one that may involve security guarantees that the Europeans have to provide for Ukraine. The White House seems to think that Kiev and Europe will eventually accept the deal, though, as long as flexibility is shown, as one White House official put it.

Now, how soon could we see a deal? Well, some reports suggest that a deal could be on the table as soon as the end of this week. That may sound fast, but we have seen a lot of movement. lately. According to Politico, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and other senior U.S. military officials traveled to Keith yesterday to meet with Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky, who then traveled to Turkey to meet with Turkish President Erdogan about restarting peace talks with Russia. Zelensky didn't talk anymore about any potential deal, though, and there have been times in the past when Zelensky hasn't been shy about dissenting from the White House. We will have to hear from

him, too, before any peace plan can move forward. According to Axios, part of the Trump administration's plan includes asking Ukraine to trade some land for security guarantees, including land that isn't currently in Russia control. That alone could be a sticking point for Ukraine, but we'll just have to see. Now, pivoting a bit, President Trump ruffled some feathers in Mexico recently with an exchange with the Mexican president. What happened there? Yeah, he hasn't committed to any action yet, but like he often does, he has floated certain ideas he might be mulling over. In this case, land strikes in Mexico. He wasn't clear on if he was. would act unilaterally or coordinate those potential strikes with the Mexican government.

Here's Trump. We're losing hundreds of thousands of people to drugs. So now we've stopped the waterways. But we know every route. We know every route. We know the addresses of every drug lord. We know their address. We know their front door.

We know everything about every one of them. They're killing our people. That's like a war. Would I do it? I'd be proud to it. I'd probably go into Congress and say, And you know what? The Democrats and the Republicans would both agree, unless they're crazy. And they are a little crazy on the Democrat side.

But we have lost hundreds of thousands of people of your death. And that's not talking about family destruction. It's talking about that. And much of it comes through Mexico. So let me just put it this way. I am not happy with Mexico, okay? After those remarks from Trump, Mexican president Claudia Scheinbaum made clear that any strikes on Mexico would not happen with her approval. According to the Associated Press, Shinebaum said on Tuesday that she has told him on every occasion that we can collaborate, that they can help us with information they have, but that we operate in our territory, that we do not accept any intervention by a foreign government.

So we'll just have to see how Trump responds to that. All right. So several high-stakes negotiations happening. Tim, thanks for reporting. customer trust can make or break your business. And as your business grows and scales, the security and compliance tools you rely on inevitably become more complex and harder to manage. Without the right system in place, managing security and compliance can quickly spiral into chaos,

and chaos isn't a security strategy. That's precisely where Vanta comes in. Think of Vanta as you're always on, AI-powered security expert that grows alongside your business, no matter what stage you're at. So whether you're a startup tackling your first SOC2 or ISO-27-0-1, or an enterprise managing vendor risk, Vanta's trust management platform makes it quicker, easier, and more scalable. Whether you're a fast-moving startup like cursor, racing to scale,

or an established enterprise like Snowflake managing sophisticated security requirements, Vanta integrates seamlessly into your existing workflows. This means your team can focus on what they do best, building and growing while maintaining that robust security posture that earns and keeps your customers trust. Head over to vanta.com slash morningwire. Again, that's V-A-N-T-A-com slash morningwire. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rawlins has announced a complete overhaul of the food stamps program, promising to rein in fraud and abuse.

Here are the details as Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presto. Hey Amanda. So we've been tracking this growing controversy over SNAP in the last few years. And now we're about to see some major changes to the food stamps program. What exactly is Rollins calling for? Yeah, I mean, she's going to change a number of things here. But most notably, the department is having everyone who is on food stamps. reapply for these benefits. Currently, there are around 43 million people in the SNAP program. That's about 12% of the population, and it costs taxpayers around $100 billion annually. The logic behind reapplication is obviously to try to crack down on fraud and abuse to make sure that these benefits are only going to Americans who really need the program. Rollins said Americans instinctually know that SNAP is extremely corrupt, evidenced by anecdotal accounts. We've all seen videos on social media of people admitting to selling their benefits or, you know, some of these insane grocery halls for people who don't really seem all that needy.

But, you know, without hard data, it's impossible to know how much of this is going on and where it's happening. So, Rollins asked every state to share their snap data to track down the fraud. So far, only 29 states have complied, mostly all red states. Here's what she's found so far. 186,000 deceased individuals receiving benefits. 500,000 people getting more than two times the benefit. We found thousands of individuals that were getting benefits in three to four or five, six different states. I mean, it is one thing after another.

And this is just from the red states. Rollins said that they're suing to get SNAP data from the remaining states, including New York and California. And she suggested that the fraud and abuse there will be even worse. Right. And possibly related to that, in fact. There's been a lot of discussion about welfare programs, including SNAP, going to illegal immigrants? Does that happen? Do we have any data on that? Yeah, well, like Rowland said, this stuff is hard to track. They don't have the hard data,

but we do have some insight from a 2024 survey of income and program participation. That's been analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies. Now, even though SNAP is restricted for applicants who have legal status, CIS estimates that about four and a half million illegals are using SNAP. This is especially alarming since illegals are already permitted to use WIC, which is another welfare food program that's a little more restrictive. CIS also found that 47% of all non-citizen households receive taxpayer-funded food assistance, and just generally, about 60% of illegal immigrant households use at least one major welfare program. Well, it's pretty remarkable. Now, you mentioned other changes coming to SNAP. What else can we expect? Yeah, we've covered this a little bit here,

but Rollins has teamed up with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And they're working together to push states to limit food and drink choices for SNAP. Soda is one of the most commonly purchased items with SNAP. And nearly 25% of all SNAP dollars are going to soda, candy, and other junk food, believe it or not. So states are now allowed to exclude those options. 11 states so far have asked for waivers to do that. All red states except for Colorado. There were also some notable changes from the GOP-backed Big Beautiful Bill.

For example, there are stricter work requirements, so now able-bodied adults without dependents, they have to work at least 80 hours a month or be in some sort of training or education program to receive benefits beyond three months. There's also new cost-sharing obligations on states. They'll have to pay more for administrative costs and pay a percentage of overpayments if they have a high error rate. Are these reforms strictly partisan? What are we hearing from Democrats? Yeah, I mean, by and large, this is partisan.

Democrats are not on board with any cuts or reforms to snap. High-profile Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar, just to name a few. They've all criticized the Big Beautiful Bill for this very thing. Obviously, Republicans see this differently. They say that they want fraud and abuse to be cut to protect American taxpayers, and they want the program to help the vulnerable while still incentivizing self-reliance. It's going to be fascinating to see how these changes affect the number. over time. Amanda, thanks for reporting. You're welcome. The Trump administration's immigration

sweeps in Charlotte have left schools with minimal attendance and roads free of traffic. Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Tear joins us now to tell us about the impact of Trump's boots on the ground approach in Charlotte. So Jenny, the Trump administration is rolling out their immigration agenda in Charlotte this week. What have we seen from the ground? Right. This is a place that we don't traditionally think about as a hotbed for illegal immigration. But now this is starting to expose this as one. So what we've seen so far is that school attendance is down. Like you said, 30,000 students around that did not show up to class in Charlotte Public Schools on Monday after the sweep started over the weekend.

And those raids had yielded about 200 arrests. It's also putting fear into other industries around the city. Traffic is down altogether. And then also construction sites have been completely abandoned. So you're not seeing those laborers working in construction. And so it's really brought about this issue of Charlotte being a really major hot spot for illegal immigrants that we really didn't think was before. Right. Well, I think Charlotte doesn't come to mind for a lot of people when they think about illegal immigration the same way, say, New York City or Chicago does. Why did Border Patrol choose to make that a priority?

So Border Patrol saw Charlotte and the Department of Homeland Security more largely saw Charlotte as a sanctuary after the sheriff of Mecklenburg County had taken away its partnership with ICE in 2018. He said that he would no longer allow ICE to come into his jails, to take in illegal immigrant criminals that were set to be released, effectively adopting a sanctuary policy that we see in places like New York City in Chicago, which ICE and Border Patrol have already been. pretty active in. So with Charlotte, they say that there were 1,400 illegal immigrants that are sitting in those jails there in the city that the authorities there locally are refusing to hand over to ICE. So they're trying to clean up the mess and say, okay, well, if you're not going to help us, we're going to take matters into our own hands. And that's what's happening. The commander of Border Patrol down there, Gregory Bovino, is saying that the sweeps are yielding more collateral arrest. So people that are with illegal immigrant criminals that they're already targeting,

and those collateral arrests actually have more criminal histories than they've seen in other cities where they're doing this. So this is a major issue that's come about. Now, while I have you here, you've been reporting on some of the updates on the case against the alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia. Where do things stand with his case? The Trump administration is going to bring forward a new witness in the Kilmar-Abrigo-Garcia case, which is, his human smuggling case. So this is the one where it's linked to that traffic stop from 2022 in Tennessee when he had about eight passengers in the car, no luggage. They'd been traveling for days from Texas trying to get to Maryland. And Kilmar-Abrego-Garcia, according to the Trump

administration and federal prosecutors, was regularly moving people into the country who were here illegally and is part of a broader smuggling enterprise. So now they're looking to bring more witnesses forward to really buffer this case. And one of those is a woman who says that Kilmarragher Garcia was trying to recruit her to help with the smuggling enterprise. And in her testimony, apparently, she says to the federal government that she was also someone that he solicited pornographic photos and videos from while they were talking and while she was a minor. She was 15 at the time. He was 25. He was sending her those experiments. explicit photos and videos, but also asking her for those. This just continues to build on this case

that the Trump administration is making. And it also flies in the face of what Democrats have put forward here that they've kind of created this darling out of Kilmarabrego Garcia. This was just clearly a poor mascot for them to choose to go after the Trump administration's mass deportations. Well, Jenny, thank you for following that case and we will continue to report on it. Thank you. 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.