Transcript of China Summit Shows Promise & Are Teen Takeovers A Real Threat? | 5.15.26 New

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The White House says the Beijing summit is already stacking up some big wins for the US.

China and the United States both stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. We should be partners, not rivals.

We should help each other succeed and prosper together.

I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howell. It's Friday, May 15th. This is Morning Wire. The vice president takes his anti-fraud task force to Maine.

You have to ask yourself, why is it that you have a government that seems more focused on the illegal aliens growing weed illegally than it is on the taxpayers of this state?

Another so-called teen takeover wreaks havoc in Chicago as the trend continues to spread in other major cities, including New York and LA. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned, we have the news you need to know. We are gearing up for summer here in Tennessee, and a change of season is always an exciting time for me because I love to refresh my wardrobe. And as you all know, I get a lot of clothing from Quints, which is an online retailer that makes really high-quality basic clothing items and home items for a fraction of the cost of highly comparable designer versions. I got into Quints years ago when they were pretty new, and I have been consistently not just pleased but delighted by the quality of their products. I have put so many people in my life onto Quints, and everyone has the same reaction. They are so impressed with the value and the quality of Quints items. So if you love luxury fabrics like European linen, cashmere, leather, etc., and you like a more upscale look but you don't want to pay for designer labels, you need to try out Quints. So refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use.

Head to quints.com/wire for free shipping on on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com/wire for free shipping and 365-day returns. That's quince.com/wire. President Trump's meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping continue today. The two countries have already logged hours of talks, producing what the White House is calling progress on trade, fentanyl, and Iran.

Joining us now is Cabot Phillips, host of Wired In Live. Morning, Cabot. So this big summit still going on, a lot of progress the White House says made so far. What have we learned about the meeting so far?

Well, things have gone quite well, all things considered. These are two men who have traded jabs relentlessly over the last year, but the vibes were high. Beijing rolled out the red carpet for President Trump on Thursday, as they did on Wednesday, with celebratory cannons fired over Tiananmen Square as the band played the Star-Spangled Banner. The morning sit-down between the two leaders yesterday reportedly ran 40 minutes overtime. That's oftentimes a good sign in these sorts of settings. And details were slow to come out at first, but both sides have been publicly cordial, and both leaders say that they are pleased so far with how talks have progressed.

Now, we just got the White House readout of the meeting. What kind of items jumped out?

First, Trump did press President Xi on fentanyl, pushing for more progress on stopping the flow into the U.S. Second, market access. That's a big one for Trump. He brought a delegation of 16 CEOs, including Elon Musk, Apple's Tim Cook, and Jensen Huang from NVIDIA. And his first ask to Xi was to open China to more American companies, which they do seem open to. Musk said that the meeting was, quote, wonderful, and that many good things had been achieved. Third, and this is potentially a major win, Xi expressed interest in buying more American oil to reduce China's dependence on the Strait of Hormuz. If that materializes, it would be a significant shift given that China is currently the largest buyer of Iranian crude. That's something that Trump has not been happy about. And finally, both countries agreed, at least in principle, that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.

Now, the idea of China moving toward the US in terms of the oil trade would be massive, as you said. How likely is that to actually happen?

Well, again, there is no firm commitment to this right now, just, uh, some nice words exchanged between the two sides. But it is a sign that Xi might be willing to finally abandon Iran as an ally If the price is right. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pointed out on Air Force One Wednesday that Iranian hostility in the strait has been a complete disaster for the Chinese economy.

The Chinese have ships stuck in the Persian Gulf. It's in their interest to resolve this. We hope to convince them to play a more active role.

And it appears that that pitch may have worked. Here's President Trump during an interview with Sean Hannity with what appears to be a concrete commitment from President Xi on halting weapons shipments to Iran.

He said he's not going to give military equipment. That's a big statement. He said that today.

That's a big statement.

Said that strongly.

So Iran was obviously a big part of the U.S. agenda going into this. What about from the China side? What was Xi's main priorities?

Well, as you can expect, Taiwan was at the top of the priority list for President Xi. And that's a topic that President Trump seemed to prefer avoiding. If you remember, the U.S. has a complicated relationship when it comes to Taiwan. We don't officially recognize them as a country to keep relations with China from spiraling, but at the same time, we arm, support, and treat Taiwan as a vital partner. We just don't have an embassy there. Now, China has pushed for the end of US arms shipments to Taiwan, and Trump, uh, actually dodged a reporter's question regarding the island nation, clearly preferring to keep the focus of this summit on Iran and trade. The two sides did come out of Thursday's meetings though with notably different readouts on this topic. The US summary made no mention of Taiwan. But Beijing's led with it. Xi warned that a mishandling of the Taiwan situation by Trump would put their entire relationship in, quote, great jeopardy.

Now, there have also been some reports, though, that there's some behind-the-scenes tension. What do we know there?

Yeah, there have been more than a few bumps behind the scenes. Uh, during an event at the Temple of Heaven, for example, a Chinese official reportedly refused to admit a Secret Service agent because he was carrying a firearm, uh, which you would think they would expect as a standard practice for an agent whose entire job is protecting the president. But regardless, that did cause some tension. There was a similar standoff with a second agent who was escorting the US press pool concerning his firearm. Chinese officials were determined to confiscate his firearm. He refused. And a 30-minute good old-fashioned, we'll call it a Mexican standoff, ensued. Chinese standoff in this case. But it was ultimately resolved peacefully. And then in another scary situation, American journalists were physically restrained by Chinese security officials from rejoining the presidential motorcade as it was leaving. Trump administration officials have reportedly expressed their displeasure to the Chinese government and reminded them that they would never be treated this way at a U.S. summit.

Certainly something to watch for as this trip wraps up. Now, as for today, what should we be looking for in these final meetings?

Yesterday was definitely the more intense day so far of this trip, at least meetings-wise. Today, President Trump's top advisers will join China's in a working lunch and a tea ceremony before heading back to Washington. The two sides are expected to discuss topics more in the realm of cooperation and in areas like agriculture and trade.

Well, a lot going on over in Beijing. Kevin, thanks for the rundown.

Absolutely.

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With President Trump out of the country, Vice President Pence is spearheading his anti-fraud agenda here at home. Just traveled to Maine to speak on the issue and make an example of one unfortunate fraudster.

Joining us to discuss the VP's trip and break down the most recent press conference is Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret O'Lehan. Mary Margaret, thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me. So Vice President J.D. Vance, he traveled to Maine yesterday as part of this effort to show the country that he and his fraud task force are aggressively digging into fraud all over the United States. He's already talked about the fraud that they're investigating in California and Minnesota, for example. Those two of the biggest states where they found fraud. But he's really made a point to say that this is happening in not just blue states, but also in red states, as our colleague Luke Rosiak has uncovered. So now he's traveling to Maine to, you know, do a semi-campaign-related event, you know, to show the country that he and President Trump are incredibly invested in their welfare. But really, his speech centered on fraud. He talked about the importance of making sure that the federal government is using the American people's taxpayer dollars wisely. And he really stressed this idea that it's in both red and blue states that we're seeing this happening and it's completely unacceptable given the amount of money that Americans are paying in taxes every single year. Now, specifically in Maine, he talked about an instance where there was a woman who has since been arrested, and he said she is going to jail for this.

Her name was Rukaiya Mohammed. She was the owner of Reliable Language Resources in Maine. JD Vance says she received about $15 million from the federal government while doing zero services. Here's a little bit from the vice president on that point.

I have two questions when it comes to Raqi Muhammad stealing $15 million from every single person in this room. Question number one is, why was this person in the United States of America to begin with? But second of all, why on earth are we allowing a person to steal $15 million from all of you without the state government lifting a finger to stop it? Why did it take Washington coming in from the outside to ensure that this person who was defrauding you is going to go to prison? And ladies and gentlemen, that's exactly what she's going to happen— convicted guilty, and she's going to jail.

So the vice president really stressed that this woman is an example of the fraud that's happening all over the country, and he stressed her example to show the public that they are indeed getting results. So this was one that I haven't heard about him talk about very much, this specific example. There was one reporter in particular who questioned JD Vance about what actually he has evidence of in Maine that constitutes fraud, and his question was heavily booed by the audience, who really took issue with this specific reporter and his question. Uh, here's a little bit of that.

I'm Phil Hirschhorn from NewsCenter Maine. My question is, my question is, what else do you got? What else has your task force flagged that we should be concerned about? What I've noticed is a pattern that when you see certain types of fraud in certain types of programs, that's the tip of the iceberg.

Now, President Trump is, of course, overseas right now. Is there any significance to Vance doing travel at this time? Absolutely.

Look, this is an issue that polls really well with American voters. Most Americans obviously do not want fraud, and Vice President Pence's fraud task force is very popular. Also, messaging on fraud is very popular, and that's something I think we're gonna see resonating over the next couple of months as we head into the midterms.

All right, well, Mary Margaret, thank you so much for coming on and reporting.

Thanks for having me.

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A disturbing pattern of brazen teen crime is escalating in some of America's largest cities. The flash mob-style takeovers have hit Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham is here now with the details. Morning, Megan. So juvenile delinquency, obviously nothing new, but cops are saying there is something, uh, very serious going on here across the country. What is happening in these situations?

Yeah, John, so what started out as occasional flash mobs or illegal street racing has evolved into these incidents that are being described as teen takeovers. And in fact, you have some law enforcement comparing this to the horror movie The Purge. So essentially, hundreds of teenagers will coordinate on social media and they overwhelm the police, they shut down downtown districts and beaches, and they engage in things like shooting, assaults, robberies, and arson. And one common denominator here seems to be that these incidents are occurring in cities that are dominated by Democratic leadership that has historically in the past not been, um, particularly supportive of the police, right?

A trend that's gotten more obvious in recent years. Where specifically are we seeing this and what's happening?

Yeah, so Chicago has been hit especially hard. They've had two of these takeovers in just the last week. One happened just before 1 in the morning last Wednesday near Grant Park. That's a major recreational area that borders Lake Michigan. Video in that case captured a silver sedan actually ramming a Chicago Police Department squad car and continuing to shove it backward. Dozens of teens swarmed the cop car cheering. They were filming on their iPhones. They flipped off the officers. You can see them actually banging on the top of the squad car. And then just 2 days later, uh, there was a second takeover on Chicago's South Side. And then in another Chicago incident, uh, just last month, Teens set off fireworks inside cars, setting them on fire. Similar incidents have occurred in just the last few weeks in Washington, D.C., also in beaches and downtown areas in Los Angeles. I mean, I had so much video I could show you this morning, John. And in one case, a gunman opened fire and struck 5 victims ranging in age from 17 to 22 years old. All survived, but obviously you can see how out of control this is.

Yeah, indeed. Is this just random crime, or do we have any sense that there's an ideological or political motivation here?

You know, in some cases, ideology does appear to be playing some role. At least in New York, young Palestinian activists have used the opportunity of this lawlessness to target Jewish residents. And then a lot of it is social media-centered, with the violence and destruction being filmed for clout. In fact, that appears to be what was behind a horrific stabbing in Times Square just a few days ago. Police say after watching videos of a viral TikTok trend called Messing with Crackheads, 17-year-old Jayden Sanchez stabbed a 39-year-old homeless man who was sleeping on the street. And The Wall Street Journal recently described these takeovers as performative crime, and I think that's apt.

A lot of larger implications in that, uh, very loaded term. So what kind of solutions are being offered to stop this takeover trend?

Well, you know, that's a little bit of a complicated question, John. For one thing, the teens involved in these crime sprees tend to be overwhelmingly African-American. Attorney and Manhattan Institute fellow Heather MacDonald told Morning Wire that that's resulted in local municipalities being unwilling to make arrests and prosecute crimes in these cases. Policing obviously has been under one prolonged assault since the Ferguson riots, saying that if they arrest Black juveniles or Black criminals, that they're racist. And so the pressure is on them not to intervene at all because they don't want another, you know, George Floyd riot or Ferguson riot in their city. So there's a big pressure to just watch and be passive rather than proactive. And to McDonald's point, just a couple of days ago, the LA City Council voted 14-0 to end broken taillight policies. So what that means is LAPD will no longer be able to detain people for small crimes like broken tail lights or expired tags because they disproportionately impact minorities. But McDonald says this is how you prevent those small crimes from becoming crime waves like these takeovers. Right now though, John, we're not hearing from many blue city mayors who are willing to take any steps like that.

Maybe not so surprising to hear that. Megan, thank you so much for reporting.

Yep, my pleasure.

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