Transcript of ICE Shooting Backlash Mounts & LA Fires Revelations | 1.9.26

The political battle over the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis ratchets up, pitting governor walls against vice President Vance.

Last night, we saw Minnesotans meet the moment once again. Thousands of Minnesotans demonstrated last night, peacefully.

This was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order. This was an attack on the American people.

I'm Daily Wire executive editor, John Bickley with Georgia Now, it's Friday, January ninth. This is Morning Wire.

One year after the devastating LA wildfires, newly released evidence is bringing a troubling picture into focus. The state is playing high the ball.

They're not being transparent with the public.

And unrest in Iran grows more widespread and violent as the Islamic regime turns to foreign militias for support.

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.

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48 hours after the deadly shooting of an ICE protester, state and federal authorities are clashing over its legality. As violent demonstrations once once again, Grip Minneapolis.

Daily Wire senior editor, Kabbit Phillips, is here with the latest on the fallout, Hey Kabbit. Let's start with what's happening in the city. Protests, as George has said, really gripping Minneapolis. What's the latest on the ground?

Even before this shooting, There had been quite a bit of pushback against ICE agents operating in Minneapolis, but things have certainly escalated in the last 24 hours. Large crowds Thursday congregated outside of ICE detention facilities across Minneapolis, attempting to block the street and also clashing with federal authorities. Now there are real concerns that things could get even worse. In preparation, Minneapolis public schools canceled all classes on Thursday and Friday, and Governor Tim Walsh has ordered the state's National Guard to prepare for mobilization if Whitescale rioting does take place. Remember, he was widely criticized after waiting weeks during the George Floyd riots back in 2020 to actually mobilize the guard, and it looks like he's trying to avoid that this time around. Now, for her part, DHS Secretary Christie Noem offered a fiery defense of the ICE officer's actions and had this warning for agitators who were looking to riot this weekend.

If you lay a finger on one of our officers, we will catch you, we will prosecute you, and you will feel the full extent of the law.

All right, so that's Noem, who's been very vocal in the last couple of days. What have we heard from the White House?

As you can imagine, they are standing firm across the board in their belief that the shooting was justified. Multiple cabinet members on Thursday pointed to newly released slow motion video from the confrontation that shows the victim seemingly hitting the gas, causing her tires to spin forward as agents approach from the front and driver side of the car. Because of snow and ice on the road, the tires at first spun out, but they argue the agent obviously would have heard the engine revving. Multiple angles then show the tires catching traction and quickly accelerating as that one agent is still in front of her car. And it does appear that he is struck by the vehicle before firing his first of three shots as he dives out of the way. For his part, vice President JD Vance said Thursday that much of the blame for this tragedy lies with the far left.

You have a woman who aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator. Nobody debates that. I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it's a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe, against our law enforcement officers.

On Thursday, in another remarkable turn, multiple reports did finally confirm that this same ICE agent had actually been hospitalized back in June following an eerily similar incident. In that case, he was pinned to a car and dragged more than 100 yards by an illegal immigrant driver who sped off during an attempted stop. More broadly, Secretary Noem said Thursday that more than 100 such incidents have taken place in the last year alone.

When you take an action and use a weapon to harm someone and to incite violence against them and try to cause them injury or death, then it needs to be labeled exactly what it was.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walls again wade in on Thursday this day expressing outrage that the FBI wants to be solely responsible for the investigation into this shooting and saying that he was pessimistic that a, fair outcome would be reached. He says the Trump administration has already made up their minds about whether this shooting was justified. Later, he repeated his demands that ICE leave the state of Minnesota and then compared his battle with federal authorities to the Civil War. Have a listen.

When things looked really bleak, it was Minnesota's first that held that line for the nation on that July third, 1863. I think now we may be in that moment that the nation is looking to us to hold the line on democracy.

And later Thursday, responding to a question from Daily Wire Whitehouse correspondent, Mary Margaret O'Han, Vice President Vance referred to Governor Wallace as a, quote, joke, and again, repeated his calls for him to resign.

Tim Wallace is a joke. His entire administration has been a joke. The idea that he's some freedom fighter, he's not. He's a guy who has enabled fraud and maybe, in fact, has participated in fraud. That's what this new assistant attorney general position is going to find out.

So far, no sense that this is calming down. In fact, it feels like it's ratcheting up. Lots more to come on this in the next few days. Kevin, thanks so much for reporting. Absolutely.

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One year after the LA fires, new revelations have come to light of an apparent cover-up.

Here with the details is Daily Wire reporter, Amanda Prestigiacomo. Amanda, it's been one year now since those massive fires ripped through Los Angeles, a variety of neighborhoods, most specifically, Palisades. Can you remind listeners about just how severe that damage was?

Yeah, I mean, as you said, it really devastated Los Angeles, specifically the El Tadina and Pacific Palisades areas. 31 people were killed. Altogether, it's estimated that more than 18,000 structures, homes, and other buildings were completely destroyed or damaged. At the time, there was a lot of scrutiny over how this was handled, including the absence of LA Mayor Karen Bass, and an $18 million budget cut to the fire department just months before the fires. But it seems things were even worse than that.

Right. Well, now we're just getting some information about how things were handled. What are the main concerns?

Yeah, a lot of troubling information here. Text messages obtained by the Los Angeles Times show that fire crews that handled a small blaze known as the Lockman fire, they were ordered to pick up and leave the scene despite visible smoldering and hot terrain. This was before the Palisades fires. The Lockman fire sparked the much larger Palisades fire, and that killed a dozen people and destroyed thousands of homes. What's more, though, is that we have this LAFD after-action report. Instead of admitting what happened here, the report was apparently edited multiple times to soften or remove language that was critical of department leadership before it was released to the public. Current fire chief Jamie Moore has admitted that that is exactly what happened. To be clear, this didn't occur during his tenure.

Now, the rebuilding effort is also getting a lot of attention, in part because it's, one, been extremely slow, but also there's been changes to what's being green-lit, correct?

Yeah, that's right. A lot more bad news here. According to the Associated Press, not even a dozen homes have been rebuilt since these fires. Recent reporting showed that only around 1,000 permits were issued, and only hundreds of homes are currently under construction. Approaching this one-year anniversary, that number shot up to 2,600 residential permits being approved. But again, a very, very slow moving process. On the heels of those very dismal numbers, the House Judiciary Committee just released a report this week that alleges $75 million raised from a star-studded fire aid concert. They weren't distributed directly to fire survivors as promised or implied. Instead, it was spent on grants and various nonprofits, administrative costs, podcasters, and illegal immigrants.

Now, there's also been some controversy, though, that the state and some local efforts are now wanting to implement low-income housing in those areas rather than rebuilding the pre-existing homes. What do we know about that?

Yeah, there have been major efforts on this front, including from Governor Gavin Newsom, and this is already actually underway in areas near fires. Proponents argue that this is going to help victims. However, many residents are just not on board with this. Generally, there is a feeling that the rebuilding effort has turned into some political crusade instead of just helping the people who lost their homes.

What are we hearing from Newsom and/or local leaders about the recovery?

Well, Newsom is actually praising the permit levels as historic. He also said that the state is accelerating rebuilding, supporting mental health, reopening businesses, and pressing the federal government to deliver. Now, so far, the feds have made over $3 billion in support available to survivors. As for Mayor Bass, she's painting a rosy picture of the recovery efforts. Here she is on Spectrum News. If you look at the rebuilding process, the debris removal process, the whole process, and what we accomplished in one year, and you compare that to other cities, other states where there have been wildfires with similar damage, and In some instances, we are a year ahead. Again, 16,000 structures completely destroyed and thousands more damaged, so a lot to rebuild still.

Some of them were absolutely historic homes. Amanda, thanks for reporting. You're welcome. Protests in Iran close in on the two-week mark while pressure mounted against the regime. Part of that pressure comes from Washington, where President Trump continues to threaten action over the treatment of demonstrators.

Daily Wire reporter Tim pierce is here to talk about the current state of the protests in Iran. Hey, Tim. So this unrest has been going on for about two weeks now. Any sense that this is slowing down?

Not yet. The strength of the protest has fluctuated day to day, but we're still talking about demonstrations across dozens of cities and towns in Iran. And as we've reported before, economic concerns were the original spark of this unrest, and those have only gotten worse as this thing has gone on. Last week, Iran's Central Bank decided to end that gave importers and producers access to cheaper US dollars, which put more upward pressure on prices in the middle of this already steep inflation period that they're in. The economic concerns have mixed with political ones as well, as essentially all major protests in Iran have pushed for some regime change. But what makes this set of protests different is the extraordinary weakness of the regime right now.

On that point, are there signs that the regime is indeed cracking?

Yeah, there seem to be signs that the regime is aware of certain vulnerabilities it has. For instance, President Trump has threatened that the United States might get directly involved if the Iranian regime starts killing protesters en masse, and that could be having an impact. Here was Trump talking with conservative radio host, Hugh Hewitt, yesterday.

Well, I don't want to say it, but I will tell you they're not doing well, as you know, probably better than anybody. They're doing very poorly. I have let them know that if they start killing people, which they tend to do during their riots, they have lots of riots. If they do it, we're going to hit them very hard.

Human rights groups report that about 40 people have lost their lives so far, including a handful of members of the Iranian security forces. That sounds like a lot, but past widespread demonstrations have had many more deaths. At least 551 people were killed after women's rights protests of 2022. During the 2019 protests over fuel prices, Amnesty International estimated 300 people died, but a Reuters report quoted an Iranian official saying that as many as 1,500 people were killed during what became known as bloody November. But while fatalities are down, security forces are still arresting masses of people. Estimates are that well over 2,000 people have been detained with security forces, even raiding hospitals to take the injured. Now, that said, Iranian officials have called on their allies in Hezbollah and Iraq to come and crack down on protesters, so this could all change very quickly.

Right. Something to watch for sure. Now, Iran's Crown Prince, who's been in exile since 1979, he's making some noise. What are we hearing from him?

Yeah, Reza Palavi is, of course, on the side of the protesters. And talking about regime weakness, he says that he's never seen an opportunity to topple the Iranian regime like there is today. Here he was on Fox News earlier this week.

The Iranian people are more than ever committed to bring an end to this regime, as the world has witnessed in the last few days, the level of demonstrations unprecedented in Iran, over 100 cities and millions of people on the street, chanting death to the dictator and then to this regime. And by God, it is about time that Iran gets its opportunity to free itself from a tyrannical regime.

He has also offered to step in and lead the government in a transitional capacity if the time arises that Iran can transition to a democracy.

That would certainly be an incredible development. We'll see if he gets that chance. Tim, thanks so much for reporting.

Good to be on.

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