Morning Wire - World Welcomes American Pope & Trump Secures Trade Deal | 5.9.25

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

An American born Cardinal is chosen as the next pope, the Trump administration signs a trade deal with the United Kingdom, and a Daily Wire investigation uncovers fraud in an African Aid group. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Vanta: Get $1,000 off Vanta at https://vanta.com/morningwire Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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RKKanda com or to your agent of voyage. The conditions The world has a new Pope, the first American in history, Pope Leo XIV, who blessed elated worshippers celebrating in St. Peter Square.

La Pache be with you all. What do we know about the Chicago-born pontiff? I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Hound. It's Friday, May 9th, and this is Morning Wire. Trump announces a massive trade deal with the UK, sending markets soaring. There won't be any red tape. Things are going to move very quickly both ways. And a Daily Wire investigation finds that an African aid group funneled taxpayer dollars to friends,

co-workers, and even themselves. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Trust isn't just earned. It's demanded. Whether you're a startup founder navigating your first audit or a seasoned security professional scaling your GRC program, proving your commitment to security has never been more critical or more complex. That's where VANTA comes in. businesses use Vanta to establish trust by automating compliance for in-demand frameworks like SOC2, ISO-27-001, HIPAA, and more. For limited time, our listeners get $1,000 off Vanta at vanta.com.com slash morningwire.

Again, that's V-A-N-T-A.com slash morning wire for $1,000 off. A new pope was named on Thursday. Cardinal Robert Provost, the Catholic Church's first American-born Pope. Provost was elected by over 100 Cardinals at the Vatican and addressed the world's Catholics afterwards. Daily Wire investigative reporter, Marad Alorty, is here to tell us more. Hey, Marad. So tell us about this new Pope. Hi, John. Yes, so Cardinal Robert Provost, who's from Chicago, was elected Pope on the second day of the conclave. This was signaled by white smoke billowing out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel as the Cardinals burned their ballots. The crowd in St. Peter's Square

erupted at that moment. Now, as you know, the Pope adopts a new name, and Provost has chosen Pope Leo the 14th. He's the church's 267th Pope, and he will lead 1.4 billion Catholics around the world. Pope Leo appeared visibly emotional as he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica and addressed the massive crowd in the square. Peace be with you all. Dearest brothers and sisters. This is the first greetings of the resurrected. This is the first greetings of the resurrected. Christ, the good shepherd who has given up his life for God. And I should also like this greeting

of peace to enter our hearts. Peace be with you. So tell us a bit more about him. You mentioned that he's from Chicago. He's also pretty young, correct? Yes, so Provost is only 69. He was born in Chicago, but he spent much of his priesthood in Peru. He became Bishop of Chiclio in Peru for eight years until 2023 when he was made a cardinal by Pope Francis. He also led the religious order started by St. Augustine. Francis then made Provost the prefect of the Dacastry for bishops. This means he was a Vatican official responsible for recommending priests to be made bishops around the world. Provost was not considered the most likely cardinal to become Pope,

but Vatican officials are often considered for Pope. Now, we know Catholics and conservatives were very interested in seeing if there is a political leaning to the new Pope. Where does Pope Leo stand? So Pope Leo has been strong on church doctrine, but he's overall seen as a centrist on political issues. We spoke to Sean Carney. He's CEO of the pro-life organization 40 Days for Life, and he had some insight on what Pope Leo could mean for the church. The Catholic Church has just been drug into so much stuff, whether it be telling the UN what to do, telling countries, whether they need an open border or closed border. Certainly that's an issue here in America. And just so many issues and just seem to get away from.

from the message of salvation and what the church teaches. And so I hope he's not as political as Francis, I guess. I think that's probably what a lot of people in their living rooms are saying, because we've just had so much of that. And I think we need to give him a chance. I think he can read the room. He came out in the traditional garb. He didn't, you know, make a swipe at that.

So I'm optimistic, but I think for most Catholics, honestly, they're just worried, basically, it's not Leo the 4th. 14th's fault. It's just the last 12 years have been chaos after John Paul and Benedict. He is not rash. This isn't an emotional guy. He's very stable. He does listen. He's a clear think one of the things that's cool aside for, I can see other countries just going nuts right now because there's an American Pope. So that part's kind of cool. Speaking plainly, I think that this was probably like for the liberal side, a compromise guy of, like, look, we can't do Francis all over again.

President Trump weighed in on the election of the new Pope yesterday. To have the Pope from the United States of America, that's a great honor. That's a great honor. Watching him, they said, he's from America. He said, that's great. Catholics are certainly rejoicing this week, and there's a sense of optimism around Pope Leo. You could really feel that throughout the day yesterday. And again, a historic election in the First American Pope.

Great, thanks so much for reporting. Thanks, John. President Trump announced a huge trade agreement with the United Kingdom on Thursday, and the markets responded well amid hopes of more trade deals to come. Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips, joins us from the White House to discuss the groundbreaking agreement. So Cabot, a huge day for the Trump administration. What did the president announce yesterday? Yeah, ever since President Trump announced the sweeping tariffs at Liberation Day,

he said other countries would come to the negotiating table to work out a trade deal. And on Thursday, we saw just that. Now, yesterday marked the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe Day. President Trump leaned into that shared history and special relationship during his announcement yesterday at the White House. This morning, I'm thrilled to announce that we have reached a breakthrough trade deal with the United Kingdom, credible country. Today is a victory day for World War II. We won the war together exactly 80 years ago, so there could be no more perfect morning to reach this historic agreement. Clearly, the president is very important.

enthused about this. Now, the big question is, what's in the deal? Well, on our side, the president did hold firm on that universal 10% tariff he put in place last month, but he did offer concessions elsewhere. For example, he cut the British auto tariff from 27% to 10%. He also completely eliminated the tariff on British steel and aluminum. That'll go down to zero. For their part, the British did open up their markets to American ethanol, beef, and poultry. The White House says that will result in billions of dollars in the pockets of American farmers and ranchers. The Brits also agreed to purchase $10 billion of American Boeing planes in exchange for the U.S. eliminating all tariffs on Rolls-Royce engines and other parts.

And of course, tech stocks skyrocketed Thursday on the news that the British had agreed to eliminate a digital tax that had been impacting American tech companies operating in the country. Right. So a big jump in the markets yesterday. Now, bigger picture, what does this mean for other future deals? Well, the president did hint that he was, quote, very close. on numerous deals with other countries. At that point, he said Treasury Secretary Scott Besant would soon travel to Switzerland for formal trade negotiations with China.

He also said that he would not be taking a piecemeal approach with the rest of the countries in Europe and instead would have looked to negotiate a broader deal with the European Union as a whole. And it's worth noting in a clear attempt to maintain leverage for future negotiations, President Trump said that not every country can expect to get terrorists as low as the ones that Britain just secured. Have a listen. That's a low number.

They made a good deal. Many, some will be much higher because they have massive trade surpluses. And, you know, in many cases, they didn't treat us right. One thing with the UK, they always treated us with great respect. They treated us with great respect. The template of 10 will, is probably the lowest. Later on, Daily Wire White House reporter Mayor Margaret Ollahan asked the president if this deal included assurances that the British would do more to protect freedom of speech

and freedom of religion in their country. Was there any assurances that you guys got on that front? You want to handle that? Yeah, that was not part of the conversation. Our conversation was an economic conversation from start to finish, closed by the president yesterday. This was a business deal, opened their markets, and also protect their workers, grow our markets,

and help our workers. This was about business religion. You know, business is sort of a semi-religion, but not nearly as a very religious. important. I don't want to get place off. And in a really fascinating moment, the president sort of phoned a friend, calling in British Prime Minister Kier Sturmer to offer his take on the groundbreaking deal. This is going to boost trade between and across our countries. It's going to not only protect

jobs, but create jobs. And I want to thank you for your leadership on that, Donald, and for the way in which your team have negotiated this. So big day here at the White House. One trade deal down, the president hopes many more to come in the future. Well, definitely a growing sense of optimism. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. A new Daily Wire investigation uncovers how one government agency went to great lengths to block a Doge audit.

The African Development Foundation was deemed a resistance hero to the media for stonewalling auditors, including literally locking their doors. Daily Wire's government efficiency reporter Luke Rosiak found that this four, foreign aid group had a lot of reasons to keep its books private. He joins us now. Hey, Luke, so what did you learn about the African Development Foundation? So this is a small federal agency, kind of like USAID. It's got 30 employees and a $45 million budget.

And by law, it's only allowed to give grants to Africa up to a quarter million dollars each. The agency locked the doors and refused to let Doge in and said it wouldn't recognize Trump's appointee to lead it. Peter Morocco, who was also dismantling U.S. aid. The group's board also filed a lawsuit claiming Doge was intruding on the privacy of its financial records, personnel, documents, and so on. Ultimately, the Trump administration seized the building with the assistance of U.S. Marshals. So Elon Musk has said when people get really angry about being audited by Doge, it's usually because they have something to hide. And that definitely applied here. What I found is that this group would give money to African organizations like it was required to by law,

but then it would require them to redirect that money back to the U.S. United States to pay officials at their headquarters or their friends or former employers, almost like laundering it. Americans who worked at the headquarters of this agency in D.C. were literally getting wire transfers from African entities into their personal bank accounts. So we've all gotten the emails where the Nigerian prints offered to do just that, but you're saying these people actually made this happen. Yeah. I literally have a receipt for $17,000 from Kenya to a woman who was working as the assistant to the African Development Foundation's CEO.

The CEO, a guy named C.D. Glenn, would push unwanted projects on Africans as a way of steering money to his friends. So in one case, they told African groups they'd give a grant to manufacture COVID masks, but they had to subcontract it to Glenn's friend in Colorado. And the African group said, we don't want that. We don't need any COVID masks. We've already got as many as we need. But Glenn didn't care. In another case, they gave a grant to a Ghana group that had to use it to hire Glenn's former employer in D.C. So this sounds like exactly what people were speculating about with foreign money for USAID, actually getting redirected back to Beltway types, correct? Yeah, exactly. I mean, there were so many conflicts of interest going on here.

At one point, the African Development Foundation pushed its board members pyramid scheme on poor Africans, the CEO of Herbalife, which was remember that basically pyramid scheme that was charged. with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and accused of, by the DOJ, of tricking people into opening these money-losing businesses. He was on the board of this government agency, and the agency entered into a partnership with Herbalife, where they were giving Africans some money and product and having Herbalife employees be their mentors.

And they acted like it was with a charity that was associated with Herbalife, but no, it was actually with the four-year-law. for-profit multi-level marketing scheme. Now, refusing to let the Trump administration into an agency is a pretty drastic move. Do you think this foundation was indeed hiding criminal conduct? The USAID Inspector General suspected at least some of it was outright criminal, for sure. The African Development Foundation's chief financial officer, Matthew Zahue, repeatedly steered about a million dollars in grants and contracts to an African company called

Ganyam Limited with no competition. One of them was for travel during COVID when there was no travel going on. A USAID Inspector General seized Zahue's phone and found that Ganyam was owned by his friend. And every time he gave it a contract, the friend sent money to Zahue's personal bank account. Zahue, though, was never arrested. Now, Zahue told me he's been back to the office since Doge locked staff out. I don't know if they did any purpose or they forget or they didn't know. There was a back door that they didn't lock.

So we're able to get access to the office through the back door. It sounds like lots of red flags over the years, but no reform at all. Now Doja's finally shuttered this agency. Luke, thanks so much for reporting. Thank you. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow with more news you need to know.