Morning Wire - Ukraine Mineral Deal & Trump’s Gold Card Program | 2.27.25

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Trump makes a deal with Zelensky, the President announces a new fast track way to gain U.S. residency, and legacy media misleads their audiences about DOGE. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Delete Me: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan by texting WIRE to 64000. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Look, Air Canada F.A. Canada does a sold world. Super, an offer for the assort. Station

Thermal, Volcan. Parlant of Volcan. You've seen the price for the Japan? M. Pairn and sushi.

Wow, the sold are good for Mayork also. We could go to the plage and make a

of the beach in Sicil. Mmm, I'd adore the canol the canolie. Attain,

there's a other... DECidivit, this sold is an durer limited, reserved to RkCanada

com or to your agent of voyage. Trump hammers out a deal with Zelensky, designed to pay back Americans for years of financial and military support. The American taxpayer now is going to get their money back plus. We break down the latest on the negotiations. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley.

It's Thursday, February 27th, and this is Morning Wire. President Trump announces a new fast-track immigration program at his first cabinet meeting. You have a green card. This is a gold card. We're going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million. Will this help pay down our national debt? And several legacy media outlets are caught misleading their audience on viral anti-Doge protests. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Your personal data, from contact details to family information, is constantly collected and sold online by data brokers. There's more out there than you'd expect.

That's why I personally recommend Delete Me. Delete Me is a subscription service that removes your personal info from hundreds of data brokers. Delete Me sends you regular personalized privacy reports showing what info they found, where they found it, and what they removed. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now to special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20% off your Delete Me plan by texting Wire to 6400000. Text Wire to 64000. That's Wire to 6400.000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for.

details. The U.S. and Ukraine have reached a potentially game-changing agreement coming to terms on a long-awaited mineral deal. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips has been tracking this story and joins us now. Hey, Cabot. So Trump and Zelensky are finally ironing things out here. We'll get to the specifics of what's included. But first, how did we get to this point? Yeah, it's been a turbulent three years, John. So last year, as Trump campaigned on a promise to cut back funding for Ukraine and end the war quickly, Vladimir Zelensky threw out the idea of a minerals deal where the U.S. would get a piece of Ukraine's natural resources in exchange for continued military support and security guarantees

after the war ended. Now, once Trump won, he took him up on the idea, saying America deserved to be paid back to the tune of $500 billion in the form of oil, gas, and rare earth mineral contracts. Zelenskyy initially balked at those figures, saying he would not, quote, sell his country, but the two kept negotiating, as Trump loves to do, and ultimately reached a deal.

Trump says that he will meet with Zelensky on Friday to sign the final terms. Here he is at the White House Wednesday. It could be a trillion-dollar deal. It could be whatever, but it's rare earths and other things. We want to get that money back. We're helping a country through a very, very big problem. So the big question, what exactly is in this deal? Well, both sides have been tight-lipped on these specific numbers,

but according to Ukraine's prime minister, it would establish a, quote, reconstruction investment fund that would be jointly managed by the two countries. Moving forward, 50% of revenues from new oil, gas, and mineral projects would go into that fund. The deal is also expected to grant American companies more direct access to the country's mineral reserves, which is crucial. Remember, Ukraine has some of the world's largest deposits of graphite, lithium, uranium, and titanium, all of which are critical for producing high-tech batteries, electronics, and weapons. Now, at the moment, China is responsible for around 90% of rare earth mineral production.

So this deal could make the U.S. far less reliable on Beijing. Yeah, another key priority of the Trump administration. And what did the Ukrainians get from this? Trump says they've already gotten their part of the deal in the form of $100 billion plus in military and financial aid. But it does appear the U.S. will also agree to some form of security guarantee. According to The New York Times, the agreement says that in exchange for mineral rights, the U.S. would, quote, support Ukraine's effort to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace. That could mean Trump working out an agreement with European allies where they would supply boots on the ground after the war to prevent Russia from invading again. But it's worth noting, Trump has been hesitant to offer too much in the way of a security guarantee.

He's argued that the economic deal is all the assurance that Zelensky should need, that the U.S. is incentivized to keep Ukraine secure from Russia. Here's National Security Advisor, Mike Walts, to that point on Fox. We presented the Ukrainians really an incredible and historic opportunity to have the United States of America co-invest with Ukraine, invest in its economy, invest in its natural resources, and really become a partner in Ukraine's future in a way that's sustainable, but also would be, I think, the best security guarantee they could ever hope for much more than another pallet of ammunition. Now, this all comes as Trump is working on separate negotiations with Moscow to end the United States. the war there. What's the latest on that front? So the White House says they're still hammering out the details for his sit down with Trump and Putin. President says he's confident they'll finalize a deal that will be favorable for all parties. And that deal could also include some economic partnerships regarding oil and rare earth minerals. Trump said they've been, quote,

trying to do some economic development deals with Moscow. Russia has been largely shut out from the global economy since their invasion of Ukraine. And it's clear Trump wants to use that economic leverage to bring Putin to the table. That negotiating, though, has drawn criticism for many on the left who say Trump is playing into Russia's hand. Trump's cabinet convened for the first time yesterday. We'll hear more in that later. And VP Vance had some strong words in response. We're not going to do the negotiation in public with the American media. He's going to do it in private with the president of Russia, with the president of Ukraine, and with other leaders. Every single time the president engages in diplomacy, you guys preemptively accused.

him of conceding to Russia. He hasn't conceded anything to anyone. He's doing the job of a diplomat. So we'll be watching for that reported meeting between Trump and Zelensky on Friday. A lot going on between these two countries. And it would be a huge if they could make a deal to end this war. It's been three years now. Kevin, thanks for reporting anytime. President Trump previewed a new immigration program at the first cabinet meeting of a second term on Wednesday. The Trump administration plans to offer a gold card that grants permanent U.S. for $5 million. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the high-priced express pass to U.S. citizenship.

So, Tim, what are the details of the new program? Well, the aim is to use it to replace the EB-5 program. That's a program that was launched in the 90s to spur job creation and investment from foreigners in exchange for a green card. Here's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik explaining it during Wednesday's cabinet meeting. So the EB-5 program, which has been around for many years, had investment of a million dollars into projects in America. And those projects were often suspect.

They didn't really work out. There wasn't any oversight of it. And so for a million dollar investment, you got a visa, and then you came into the country and ended up with a green card. So the idea is we will have a proper business. We will modify the EB-5 agreement. Christy and I are working on it together. So the idea is this would give better oversight than

the current EB-5 program. Correct. Now, there's also a pro-business angle, though. What's in it for businesses? Right. The program can be used by companies to recruit top-tier talent internationally. Here's President Trump talking about that. I get calls from, as an example, companies where they want to hire the number one student at a school. A person comes from India, China, Japan, and lots of different places. And they go to Harvard, DeWarton School of Finance. They go to Yale.

They go to all great schools. And they graduate number one on their class. And they made job offers, but the offer is immediately rescinded because you have no idea whether or not that person can stay in the country. I want to be able to have that person stay in the country.

These companies can go and buy a gold card and they can use it as a matter of recruitment. The president said the money made from this program will be used to pay down some of the United States nearly $37 trillion debt. Now, another immigration initiative is the illegal alien registry. What would that look like? Sure. So the Trump administration wants to create a criminal penalty for those illegal aliens who are in the country and have never interacted with the government. Here's Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam on Fox News. The Alien Registration Act says that within 30 days of being in this country illegally, someone must register with the federal government.

they will be fingerprinted. They must announce that they are here. And if they do so, they can avoid criminal charges and fines, and we will help them relocate right back to their home country. And what this does is provide them an opportunity to come back someday and to be a part of the American dream. Now, is it actually legal to create a registry like that? The Trump administration would go to a law passed in 1940. That law created an immigration registry to help catch suspected communists. The authority fell out of use in the 60s, though, after lawmakers found the program to be too costly and not of much benefit. Well, interesting to see what happens with that. Tim, thanks for reporting.

Good to be on. Legacy outlets have published headlines over anti-Dodge protests targeting Republican members of Congress. But a recent investigative report from the Free Beacon exposes the AstroTurf funding behind the demonstrations. Joining us with more as the author of that report, Colin Anderson, executive editor of the Free Beacon. Colin, first of all, thank you so much for joining. us. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. So your report at the Free Beacon has generated a lot of buzz. We wanted to talk to you about it. What did you find when you looked into these anti-Doge demonstrations?

Who was behind the protests? So there were two groups primarily behind these protests, first being indivisible, the second being move on. They are very well-funded liberal organizations who have been organizing protests like this for some time. And what was interesting in this case, is these protests occurred during the congressional recess, the house recess. They just came back in session. And move on and indivisible were very public and very forthcoming in the fact that they were planning these protests. They had their own statements released. They had toolkits that they put out for their members on how to find these town halls,

what to say when they got to them, the whole works. They also planted a story with the Associated Press in which their leaders said very explicitly that we are ramping up these protests during the House recess, and here's what we're going to be doing, and you should watch for this. And so it was very telling then when we saw this wave of mainstream media coverage come out on these protests that portrayed them in a very different light and alluded to sort of the broad and bipartisan backlash that Doge and Elon Musk were generating through their efforts to slash government spending.

and you did not see mention of these groups and organizations driving them. What was so interesting about it to me is how public these groups were in touting their role in these protests even before they happened. And yet you don't see mention of these things in these stories. Now you name three different outlets, the New York Times, Washington Post, and CBS News. So really the tip-top of the legacy media in terms of influence. They specifically omitted this very clear, easy-to-discover detail in terms of the, funding and promotion of these protests, correct?

That's right, yeah. And there was some really interesting examples, particularly in CBS news. The protest in the town hall that went particularly viral was a rich McCormick town hall in Georgia, particularly in suburban Atlanta. He's in a deep red district. And there were some very sort of chaotic videos that came from it of folks shouting him down. And CBS quoted one of the organizers. Her name is Maggie Goldman. And they quote her essentially, as a McCormick constituent. She says that she brought lots of folks to the town hall. CBS doesn't explicitly say that these folks are Democrats or liberals or liberal activists. And yet if you just sort of Google around, it's very obvious. Maggie Goldman was a volunteer coordinator for Pete Buttigieg's

presidential campaign. She contributes routinely to Democrats. She ran for her county commission in this area as a Democrat on an agenda of inclusivity. And so that's what was so stunning to me going through this coverage is this was really low-hanging fruit in terms of the allegiances and the affiliations of these people. And it was either ignored or deliberately omitted. Right. And look, the larger context here is that the polling pretty consistently shows a lot of support right now for not just Trump, but also Musk's efforts. What have you seen in terms of the polling data, the focus groups? How are people responding so far to Doja's actions? Sure. On the polling side, it seems like as of now, the efforts are generally supported,

particularly when they're worded as targeting waste and fraud. We've seen a little bit of a mixed bag in the focus groups. There was an Axios focus group, for example, that featured swing voters in Arizona. And of these swing voters, there were 11 in total. Eight of them proved of Musk's efforts in the administration, and several of them particularly expressed the view that waste, fraud, and abuse are so prevalent in the federal government that those could go about slashing spending without. really hurting core services. The left seems to feel very confident in this case that regardless of

whether these protests are grassroots or astroturfed, that Elon and Doge is sort of this rallying figure that is uniting and exciting their members in a way that perhaps they weren't fired up before. I'm not so sure that that's the case yet. It does appear that Musk has become the new strategic target of the left after the repeated failures to bring Trump down. Colin, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, really appreciate it. Always happy to. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you enjoyed what you heard this morning, please consider sharing this episode with a friend.