Transcript of Iran Ceasefire On President’s Desk & Trump Accuser Under Investigation New

The US and Iran negotiate a 60-day ceasefire extension that's awaiting one final hurdle: President Trump's signature. We are being patient. We do not have unlimited patience. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. Georgia's off today. It's Friday, May 29th. This is Morning Wire. The DOJ opens an investigation investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll.

Carroll had so many holes in her story that she couldn't even remember exactly when the sexual assault she claimed had supposedly happened.

And Democrats are running several faith-focused candidates in red states, including Texas. But is their message landing with voters? You can't call yourself a Christian and vote to cut food stamps for the poor. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned, we have the news you need to know. If you bought anything online recently, you probably know this experience. Where's my wallet? Why does this website need my life story just to buy a pair of shoes? And then you see it, that purple button, Shop Pay, and suddenly everything gets easy again. I'm always looking for my latest pair of running shoes. This exact same thing happened to me recently. Do I have a membership to this particular platform, which I'm not gonna name right now? Shop Pay makes it easy. One tap, No forms, no digging through your wallet. That experience, that's powered by Shopify. Shopify is behind millions of businesses worldwide and about 10% of all e-commerce in the US. If you're building your own store, it gives you everything you need in one place. See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their Shop Pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/morningwire. Go to shopify.com/morningwire. That's shopify.com/morningwire. Usandiraniannegotiators have agreed to a tentative 60-day framework extending the ceasefire and launching a new round of talks over Iran's nuclear program.

And this framework is now only awaiting President Trump's final approval. Joining us now is Cabot Phillips, host of Wired In Live. Hey, Cabot. So we've been hearing rumors about this coming for weeks now. We finally have this framework agreement. What exactly is in it?

Yeah, it's no doubt significant. So as for what's on the table, pending President Trump's final signature again, is a 60-day memorandum of understanding. Basically, this is just an agreement to keep talking. It would hold the ceasefire in place in order to begin negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. Uh, but to be clear, nothing here has been finalized yet. This is a framework to extend the ceasefire and open up the Strait of Hormuz. But ultimately, this is about getting talks going moving forward to hopefully secure a long-term deal.

Right now, we had what appeared to be agreements near completion, uh, for a few weeks now. Then we had these military flare-ups recently, a couple this week. What changed here?

Yeah, there's definitely more substance here than any of the previous near misses for sure, John. Uh, the actual terms of this deal appear to have been largely settled earlier this week, and the delay has just been both sides going back to senior leadership for a formal sign-off. US officials are saying that the Iranians have approvals lined up from senior leadership, but given all the turnover there and the different ideologies now in place, it remains to be seen if that's actually going to come come through. Trump reportedly wanted a few days to think this over, and he said this week that he's not in a rush to agree to anything. And if this all sounds like both sides are walking on eggshells, that is because they are. There's an air of obvious distrust between the two sides after months of failed talks, and the White House appears reluctant to announce anything definitive until Iran formally puts its name on this, uh, given just how many times they've pulled out of similar agreements at the last minute.

Right.

And there's lots of history to show that the U.S. should indeed be very skeptical going into this. Now, if this does go into full effect, What changes on the ground?

Well, the 60-day extension framework would mostly affect two headline items: the Strait of Hormuz and the US blockade. All shipping through the strait would be, quote, unrestricted. That means no tolls and no harassment from the IRGC. And Tehran would have to clear all of its mines out of the strait within 30 days. That would be a very heavy lift. The US naval blockade of Iranian shipping would then be lifted, pretty much returning commercial shipping back to the pre-war status quo for 60 days, at least on paper. There still needs to be some heavy lifting in terms of the Iranian nuclear question, but that is precisely what these 60 days would be used to address. Trump has never backed off his vow that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon, and that'll be at the top of his agenda heading into further negotiations with Tehran.

That's for sure. Now, I wanted to ask you one other question about something we've learned about the economics of the situation. A lot of pressure on Iran, obviously, because of the strait being closed. A lot of questions about how they were even getting any revenues. We appear to have learned more about this black market with tankers from The Wall Street Journal. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah, this report from The Wall Street Journal found what was essentially an open-air black market for oil floating about 45 miles off the coast of Malaysia. That's part of a complex Iranian scheme to bypass American sanctions, and they're doing it with China's help. And these reporters watched a sanctioned vessel called the Catalina 7 pump oil through a hose into a second ship whose name had been painted over in black. So it's pretty much exactly what it looks like: one tanker offloads Iranian crude onto another, onto another, to disguise its origin, and the second ship then delivers it on to China, in the process bypassing U.S. sanctions.

And the destination for this black market oil is ultimately China.

Yeah, overwhelmingly. As we've talked about on the show, China relies on Iran for nearly 15% of its oil. That accounted for about $31 billion in revenue for the regime last year. That equates to roughly 90% of all Iranian oil sold abroad last year and more than 45% of the regime's budget. So this is a huge area of their economy. Iran pretty much had to circumvent the US blockade in order to avoid complete economic catastrophe, and that is what it appears they've done, at least partially, with this shadow fleet.

Really highlights just how desperate they've become here. Cabot, thanks so much for reporting. Absolutely.

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Writer E. Jean Carroll is being investigated by the Justice Department over potential perjury during her civil litigation against President Trump. Trump critics say this is political retribution, while Trump supporters say this is the justice system at work. Joining us now to discuss is Andy McCarthy, former federal prosecutor and a columnist for National Review. Andy, thanks for coming on. It's been a while.

It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

So bring us up to speed on this. What exactly is Carroll being investigated for? And then how does a, a perjury investigation like this work?

Well, to answer your second question, which is easier to answer, it usually doesn't work because the Justice Department doesn't have time or resources to manage the civil justice system. As far as a perjury case is concerned, they're the cases that are among the most difficult to make because even if somebody intends to lie to you, If there's, for example, literal truth in what the person says, even if the person intends for it to be misleading, you can't make a perjury case. And on the, on the other side of the coin, even where people say things that ostensibly could be taken as misleading, unless you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they willfully intend to deceive you, you have no perjury case. So perjury cases are Highly unusual. And they're— the Justice Department generally does them only when you lie to the government or you lie to the court in a case that the government's involved in.

Now, specifically in this case with Carroll, this is connected to her initial litigation against Trump in which she's alleged to have perjured herself, correct?

This is in the deposition phase. That's the lead up to the trial. New York opened a window during the height of the MeToo fervor where they allowed what otherwise would have been time-barred claims. By the time this was raised, it was about 25 years old. I think the statute of limitations was probably 2, but they allowed these claims to be brought forward for a year. So the first trial involved the sexual assault claim and one defamation, and then we had the second trial involved two defamations.

And she had claimed that she was not receiving any help funding her legal cases when that turned out not to be true, correct?

I just looked in the last couple of hours at the transcripts. So she said that she was unaware of any funding. And then what she learned evidently was that her lawyers had drummed up some funding from like a nonprofit group. I don't want to say which one I think it is because I don't know that that's, that's proven at this point. And then the point is that they disclosed it to the other side when they realized that she had made a statement that was inaccurate. And for what it's worth, the Second Circuit, when, when this case went up on appeal, this issue came in front of the Second Circuit and they said it could easily have been just a failure of recollection. And in terms of the trial itself, it's ancillary to the issues in the trial. Like, who's paying for her legal help is something that has no bearing on whether Trump committed the thing he was accused of or whether he defamed her.

As for why the DOJ would single this case out, uh, there's an easy argument that Carroll and New York judicial figures were engaged in something that had a, a political purpose here.

There absolutely is that argument to be made. Here's the problem. Trump had a complete opportunity to make that argument, but he decided not to show up for the first trial. Now, he had political— that was a political calculation on his part. I think what he decided was this was a federal jury trial in Manhattan presided over by a Clinton-appointed judge. There was a very high probability that he could lose the case. I think actually if he had participated and made his case to the jury, there's a very good chance that he would've won the case. But the thing is, in a civil trial as opposed to a criminal trial, if a defendant doesn't testify, the judge instructs the jury that they can infer from his failure to testify that he doesn't have an innocent explanation for what he's been accused of. That doesn't happen in a criminal trial where the jury gets told they can't take it out against the defendant that he decides not to testify. I mean, Carroll, had so many holes in her story that she couldn't even remember exactly when the sexual assault she claimed had, had supposedly happened. She couldn't even put a date on it.

Right.

But it was at least 25 years before she first disclosed it. Yeah.

Major reason why so many people are very skeptical, to say the least, of her claims. Anything that we should be watching for in the coming weeks? What do you expect to happen here?

I think that if it turns out that she's got a black and white statement that the just— the Trump Justice Department can frame as a misstatement, the chances are that they will charge her. The one thing I would say, John, about this that's most important from Trump's perspective is he's trying to get the Supreme Court to take this case because he's got $90 million in damages that he has to pay. If the Supreme Court thinks that he's doing a lawfare exercise with the Justice Department, they're going to say, we don't want any part of this. They're never, they're never going to take this case. So I just think, you know, I understand why he wants to do it, but it just seems like self-sabotage to me.

Well, a complicated sort of legal conundrum here. Andy, thank you so much for lending us your expertise.

It's my pleasure. Thank you.

A new crop of Democratic candidates running in red states are appealing to their professed Christian faith, but their religious theme pitches may not be connecting with voters. Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham is here now with more. Hey Megan, so the legacy media has focused on these Democratic candidates kind of trading on their Christian bona fides. The New York Times said Texas Senate candidate James Talarico— this is a quote— poses a new kind of threat to Republicans, and specifically because of his pastoral image. Why has this become such a trend story?

You know, John, I think what we're seeing is something of a shift in how Democrats are approaching voters of faith, particularly evangelical Christians. You know, for years there's been this perceived, I would say, hostility between the Democratic Party and Christians. We saw, for example, the 2012 DNC remove God from the party platform. I'm also thinking of Barack Obama talking about how those voters tend to cling to guns and religion. So I think they've realized, though, that they can't afford to alienate those voters anymore. And so we've seen Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Gavin Newsom using biblical language. And now what we're seeing is a rollout of this new crop of candidates who are running in red states and they're really trading on their faith on the campaign trail. So Matt Schultz, for example, is a Presbyterian pastor who is running as a Democrat in Alaska's only House seat. This was his official campaign launch video.

For more than 25 years as a pastor, I've prayed with Alaskans from every walk of life. But these days I find myself praying for the Alaskans who have been forgotten by those in power.

And then Tallarico, who you mentioned, often talks about being a seminary student on the campaign trail. Sarah Trone-Gariot is a Lutheran minister running for a congressional seat in Iowa. So I'd say, Jon, that we're seeing enough of this that it seems like something of a deliberate strategy.

Yeah, indeed. Now, specifically, what issues are these candidates focusing on?

You know, I would say that many of them are the usual issues you would expect from religious progressives, like here with Tallarico.

You can't call yourself a Christian and deny health care to the sick. You can't call yourself a Christian and reject the stranger seeking asylum at our southern border.

Plenty of Christians would disagree with the application of those verses, but they would probably agree with the principles of caring for the sick and welcoming the stranger, that those are biblical. But candidates like Tallarico have also tried to argue for abortion by saying God endorses it. Um, also for transgenderism by saying that God is non-binary. So Tallarico has tried to walk that back a little bit.

I was being intentionally provocative with that statement, but what it means is that God can't be defined by human categories. All right. So like you said, trying to walk that back or soften that a little bit. Does it seem like evangelical voters are warming up to these Democrats?

You know, a few establishment figures in evangelicalism have thrown some support to Tallarico. New York Times columnist David French, for instance, He identifies as an evangelical, and he wrote a column in which he called Tallarico one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian. Christianity Today, of course, founded by Billy Graham, also praised Tallarico on a podcast this year.

I'm more encouraged by Tallarico's expression of Christianity in the public square than by a lot of what we've seen in the MAGA world.

You know, acknowledging those exceptions, I would say that the response from mainstream Christian leadership has mostly been negative. On Wednesday, Franklin Graham called Tallarico a, quote, wicked politician spouting lies. Texas megachurch pastor Josh Howerton went viral for rebuking him.

James Tallarico trying to use the Bible to permit abortion and gay marriage, but command socialism and open borders.

Professor and theologian Carl Truman wrote in The Washington Post that Tallarico's arguments, quoting here, damaged the Presbyterian religious tradition to which Tallarico and I both belong. So I would say if those other candidates aren't getting hit quite as hard as that, it's probably because they're a little less well-known.

Yeah, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that change in the coming weeks. Megan, thanks so much for coming on.

Yeah, thanks, John.

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