Transcript of A Killing at a Texas Track Meet & The Democrat With a Terrorism Problem | 6.5.26 New

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The racially charged case of Carmelo Anthony comes under the national spotlight as his trial gets underway.

Defense attorneys for Carmelo Anthony, they are expected to argue self-defense while prosecutors say that he provoked this attack and he brought a knife to a high school track meet.

I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howell. It's Friday, June 5th. This is Morning Wire.

Pressure mounts in New Jersey after Democrats elected a candidate with past ties to terror groups.

When your father was killed at the hands of terrorists while he was in his workplace, this is just something that I can't look past.

And the Justice Department files an updated indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, prompting declarations that the so-called anti-hate org is doomed.

The SPLC was funding cross burnings and had an employee who was literally in bed with a neo-Nazi.

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The murder trial of Carmelo Anthony is officially underway in Collin County, Texas. The Black teen athlete stabbed and killed a white rival in 2025, and controversy has already erupted over jury selection that has the defense crying racism.

Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham is here now with the details. So Megan, this was huge news when it happened. We covered it here. There was a lot of controversy that followed. Road. First, can you remind listeners about this crime? And then I want to ask you about the latest jury selection issue that's being raised now by the defense.

Yeah, Georgia, um, all of this stems from an incident that occurred in April of 2025 during a high school track meet in Frisco, Texas. So Anthony and Metcalf had a verbal dispute over seating. Metcalf had reportedly asked Anthony to move away from his team's seating area, and at that point, Anthony allegedly grabbed his bag, reached side and said, touch me and see what happens. Metcalf then reportedly pushed him. In response, Anthony allegedly pulled a knife from his bag and stabbed Metcalf in the chest, and Metcalf died there on the scene in his twin brother's arms. So as the trial got underway this week with jury selection, prosecutors used peremptory strikes against the 3 prospective Black jurors in the pool, and that left an all-white jury. So defense attorney Mike Howard strongly objected, and he argue that these strikes were racially motivated. What he said was that those 3 jurors that were excused were 100% of the available African American jurors in the strike zone. Now, that kind of challenge, which argues that jurors have been dismissed because of race, is what's known as a Batson challenge. And law professor Anna Offit told the local Fox affiliate that these kinds of challenges are rarely made and almost never successful, but it could provide grounds for appeal.

Prosecutors pushed back, saying that the strikes had nothing to do with race but were because all 3 of those jurors were teachers, and this case, of course, centers on high school students. So Judge John Roach ultimately sided with the prosecutors, and he allowed those strikes to stand. So what that means is that the final jury was seated without any Black jurors on the panel.

And that's on top of a case that was already racially charged from the get-go. What are we seeing in terms of people outside the courthouse or some of the media coverage?

Yeah, absolutely, very racially charged. And this has only contributed to the racial conflict as activists and left-wing commentators immediately began framing the jury's composition as evidence of racial bias in the justice system. Basically, supporters of Anthony are arguing that a non-Black jury cannot be trusted to fairly evaluate this case. So critics of that argument responded that jurors are supposed to evaluate evidence rather than represent racial constituencies. But outside the courtroom, supporters of Anthony have gathered and they are chanting Free Carmelo, and they are framing this as racial injustice despite the facts of this case.

They deserve protection too.

Now meanwhile, conservative commentators including The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh have pointed to the millions of dollars in donations that Anthony received on GoFundMe immediately after he was arrested for killing Metcalf. Now Walsh has argued that those donors seem to be indulging in some form of racial solidarity themselves, given the horrific nature of the allegations against Anthony.

Now, what kind of questions did the attorneys on both sides use when they evaluated the jurors?

Yeah, they asked a variety of questions on a variety of topics, including views on race, how they feel about serving on the case, whether they would hold it against a defendant if he didn't testify on his own behalf. The defense also tried to gage if potential jurors would be uncomfortable giving Carmelo Anthony a lower sentence if he did get a guilty verdict. But you know, in the midst of all that wrangling, Georgia, I do think it's important to remember that the key question jurors are going to actually be asked to decide here has nothing to do with skin color. It's about whether Anthony's use of deadly force was legally justified as self-defense. And that's what the defense is arguing because of that shove that Metcalf allegedly gave Anthony when he wouldn't move from his team's seating area, or whether that constituted murder.

Well, no doubt it's going to be a blockbuster case. Megan, thanks for reporting.

Yep, thanks, Georgia.

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One of the key primaries held this week resulted in Democrats electing an extremely controversial Squad-endorsed candidate for New Jersey's 12th Congressional District, and that has many on the right sounding the alarm.

Joining us to discuss the growing scrutiny over Democrat candidate Adam Homoway is Audrey Faulberg, Washington correspondent for the Free Press. Audrey, great to have you on the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

So first, who is Adam Homoway and why are so many people so kind of shocked about Democrats choosing him?

So this is a guy who's from Princeton, New Jersey. He's a plastic surgeon, he's an Army veteran, he did— was a trauma doctor overseas. He's credited with saving Tammy Duckworth's life. She's of course the senator who went down in a Black Hawk accident and is now in a wheelchair, right? So that has allowed congressional Democrats to kind of gloss over his pretty controversial passed, which is controversial for a number of reasons. So, uh, the biggest thing is over 30 years ago he served as a defense witness in the trial of the Blind Sheik, who was, you know, died in prison after being convicted on some pretty crazy terrorism charges related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He was credited with inspiring his followers to carry that out, um, and also soliciting the assassination of the Egyptian president. But this guy, after serving as a defense witness in that trial, Democrats Democrats are still not really condemning it. You know, I spent all day on Capitol Hill yesterday trying to get Democrats to say something acknowledging this is concerning, and only one, Jared Moskowitz from Florida, really had anything to say about it.

All right, so no real concern expressed to you from Democrats. So he was a defense witness. Uh, can you unpack that a little bit more? Uh, was he somebody very close to the Sheik or just in his broader circle? What kinds of ties did he have?

He met him in 1991 in his 20s. So, of course, Hammouei is from New Jersey. That's where the Blind Sheik had, you know, a mosque there. He met him during a trip to a middle school. After that, he had a pretty interesting association with the Blind Sheik. He served as a translator. On an occasion, he actually went on a 13-hour drive to Michigan for a conference, which was discussed at the trial. And so, basically, if you guys know Andy McCarthy at National Review, he's a— a great writer. He also served as a prosecutor on that successful case, and he explained to me that there was this informant named Ahmad Salem who described a long trip to Detroit, and, uh, Hamouei was actually on that trip. So his defense witness testimony actually ended up helping the prosecution. But he also admitted that, you know, regularly the Blind Sheik would just talk about jihad. So it was just— it's kind of ridiculous and crazy that, you know, congressional Democrats, um, you know, maybe they want to flip the House, but they admit that maybe this kind of association with somebody who died in prison on terrorism-related charges maybe isn't such a great thing for the, the House Democratic caucus.

Now, Hammawi also worked for a group connected to Al-Qaeda, correct?

He did. So he has multiple associations that are concerning. He volunteered in the '90s with a medical organization in Bosnia that was later revealed in the 9/11 Commission to have ties to Al-Qaeda. He also spent a month volunteering in Gaza. On what he said was, quote, "a completely benign civilian hospital with no tunnels underneath it," before Israeli leaders later found Mohammed Sinwar in a tunnel underneath that very hospital. It's important to acknowledge Hammouei was never charged or convicted on any terrorism-related charges. But again, it's kind of shocking that only one Democrat I spoke to had anything even remotely critical to say about Hammouei. That just says a lot about kind of where Democrats are today.

Final question: is Hammoway expected to win in November?

He is. This is a very safe Democratic seat. So the question now is, you know, if he, uh, runs away with this thing, which he's expected to, what kind of committees are he— is he going to serve on? You know, I asked Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic caucus, yesterday whether he spoke to Hammoway at all. He told me yesterday that he planned to speak to him last night. We'll see if that happens. But Moskowitz was basically the only Democrat who raised any concerns, like I said, about Hammoway and said that there needs to be a caucus-wide discussion about whether there are certain sensitive committees that maybe this guy shouldn't be on. Because remember, he's a veteran, so will he want to be on Foreign Affairs given his anti-Israel views and, you know, passion for foreign policy? Will he want to be on not just Foreign Affairs but Armed Services? These are very intense committees, um, and so I think there'll probably be a big caucus-wide conversation about whether that's appropriate.

And meanwhile, Republicans are saying they will investigate, uh, his background. We'll see if anything comes of that. Audrey, thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks so much for having me.

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Financeline.com/investment. A superseding indictment filed by the Justice Department this week lays out new stunning accusations against the Southern Poverty Law Center, including that it paid KKK members to remain active in the Klan.

Joining us now with more is Tyler O'Neill, senior investigative reporter at The Daily Signal and the guy who literally wrote the book on SPLC corruption. Uh, Tyler, thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me.

So you've reported extensively on this updated indictment that just dropped this week. What are the biggest takeaways here?

Yeah, I'd say some of the biggest takeaways are that the SPLC was funding cross burnings, was funding KKK hoods and robes, and had an employee who is literally in bed with a neo-Nazi, a member of a neo-Nazi organization.

Unbelievable. Their defense for this is that they're just funding informants. Is that holding up with what you've seen with these indictments?

It doesn't hold up with the specifics in this superseding indictment. They do have in their history, they've claimed a few situations where information from one of these field sources did lead to prosecutions from the DOJ. And of course, the SPLC did face violence. Their, their offices were firebombed in 1983. But all that said, most of the evidence in this superseding indictment suggests that they were using their informant program to prop up the very hate they claim to exist to dismantle.

Right.

Let's unpack that more. I mean, that's the major accusation being made here, is that they were actually ginning up the kind of hate that they could then fundraise off of. And this new updated indictment, you're saying, provides more evidence of that.

Yes. So the indictment goes through many different examples of field sources, uh, who were not just receiving money from the SPLC to lay low and then feed information to the SPLC, but who allegedly took the money from the SPLC and used it to grow new chapters of hate groups, to expand chapters of, of these extremist groups, to travel to and facilitate others travel to extremist gatherings, and of course to actually use materials to promote their white nationalist messaging. Over and over again, we see this, this pattern. And of course, some of this stuff, uh, makes sense as an outgrowing of their informant program, but it definitely does not meet the original understanding of what an informant program sets out to Now, the SPLC and their defenders on the left are saying this is political targeting, as you've said.

How solid does the evidence appear in this indictment? Does it seem like this is really grounded in, uh, something that can ultimately result in conviction?

Yes, I think the biggest, the biggest thing that has always stood out to me is the bank fraud charges, because the wire fraud allegations rely on a more complex theory. But in bank fraud, we have statements from the SPLC saying one thing— that they opened these accounts that the DOJ says are fictitious entities in order to funnel money to their so-called informants. They open these accounts with an SPLC employee saying, 'I am the owner of this account.' And then a few years later, they made a, a statement to the same bank from SPLC CEO Margaret Wong saying these accounts operated on behalf of the Southern Poverty Law Center. That seems to me to be open and shut, you know, false statements to a bank charge. And I don't know how they get around conviction on that specific claim. That's a very strong pleading if you ask me, right?

Well, final question: what's next in this process? What should we be looking out for?

We have a trial date set for October 5th. Uh, we also have— the SPLC is trying to have motions of discovery inquiry into the process by which the DOJ came about with these charges. I'm going to be following this case very closely. Next week, next Tuesday, the acting CEO of the SPLC is going to be testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. That's the next big development in this case.

A fascinating case, and I think a lot of people just shocked by the allegations in this indictment. Tyler, thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks for having me.

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