Transcript of Republicans Balk At Trump’s Fund & Cuba In The Crosshairs? | 5.22.26 New

President Trump clashes with Senate Republicans over his new anti-weaponization fund. Why are Republicans rejecting the new fund? Senator Thune, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, called up the acting attorney general to explain how this fund would work. They were not reassured about that fund at all. I'm Georgia Howe. John Bickley is out today. It's Friday, May 22nd, and this is Morning Wire. Is Cuba next on the chopping block for Trump? After the president's move to indict its former dictator, experts say Trump is teeing up a major geopolitical move.

The president's preference is always a negotiated agreement that's peaceful. That's always our preference. That remains our preference with Cuba. I'm just being honest with you. You know, the likelihood of that happening, given who we're dealing with right now, is not high.

And this graduation season, almost two-thirds of higher education degrees are going to women. We look at the gender gap trend and some of its downstream effects. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned, we have the news you need to know. I am looking forward to a vacation a week from now, and I was very excited to see that Quints just dropped a vacation edit. I've talked about Quints many times before. It's an online retailer that sells very high-quality clothing items that are often extremely comparable to designer items but at a much more affordable price point. I'm a huge fan. This sweater is actually from Quince, and this new vacation edit has a lot of linen, cotton poplin, and bathing suits, which is exactly what I need for my upcoming trip. I'm particularly excited to try the recently launched bathing suits. I have very high hopes based on everything else I've gotten from Quince, and I will have to report back to you about how those go. So refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com/wire for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com/wire. Quince.com/wire for free shipping and 365-day returns.

That's quince.com/wire. President Trump is at odds with Senate Republicans over his new $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund. The now fractured coalition of GOP senators has punted a vote on the GOP package to fund ICE and Border Patrol. Joining us now to discuss the fund and why it's riling up GOP senators is Daily Wire opinion editor Ben Domenech. Host of The Big Ben Show. Ben, thanks for coming on.

Great to be with you, as always.

So for people who are just hearing about this, what exactly is this new anti-weaponization fund?

Sure. Uh, this fund comes out of a back and forth between, uh, Donald Trump when he was a citizen, uh, and the IRS, which of course infamously leaked his tax returns. He had sued over this issue, and ultimately the money that came out of it is being put into a fund that over the next 3 years would essentially have an application process for for people who felt like they were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration via various, uh, vague kind of sounding weaponization. And the reason I say it's vague is because this is something where the White House has said, and JD Vance has said, that anybody could apply for this, that even Hunter Biden could apply for this if he felt that he was unfairly charged by the DOJ, that it has no kind of immediate connection to just the January 6th situation or anything like that. So I think that there's definitely a lot of people who could be interested in applying for this fund, and it's become a real item of frustration on Capitol Hill because Senate Republicans do not like it at all.

Now, you mentioned, uh, prosecution under the Biden administration. Is there some time limits imposed on this, or is it just government weaponization in times past or in times future?

It's, uh, government weaponization, but it's in— it's looking backward. The fund, essentially, any amount that is spent out of it, or that is not spent out of it, I should say, would revert to the government at the end of 2028, which of course coincides with the end of Trump's term. And the comparison that they're making are to various payouts that have gone to people. For instance, under the Obama administration, there was a mass fund that was established for some Native American people who had sued the government to apply for, for various monies. That's something that we've seen happen in the past in certain instances. It's the politically partisan nature of this, though, that has really gotten people's hackles up. Republicans are going to use this, I think, as a way of separating themselves from, from Trump. Even some of his loyal supporters on Capitol Hill are being openly critical of this and saying that there aren't enough guardrails, uh, to prevent people who have assaulted cops or something in that nature of trying to pursue these monies.

Now, how's the Trump administration responding? How are they defending this?

So JD Vance went in front of the press corps the other day, and he said that this was something that was meant to right wrongs, essentially to make up for the mass penalties that were assigned to everybody who was associated with the Trump movement during the early days of the Biden DOJ in particular, but for some people it's extended far beyond that. Keep in mind, we're talking in many instances about people who didn't qualify for public defenders. 60% of the people who had to go to court over the January 6th situation, uh, were using public defenders. So presumably they really wouldn't have a lot to argue for in this case, but a lot of them had to hire private attorneys because they didn't qualify. And many of— in many of those cases, you see people who could frankly go bankrupt or have significant damages to their finances even if The actual crimes that they were accused of were low-level, and the White House believes it was undeserved considering that they've pardoned the vast majority of them.

Now, we just saw in the primaries that Trump-backed candidates overwhelmingly trounced their opposition, but you're saying that this is an opportunity for congressional Republicans to show their distance, uh, between them and Trump. Can you clarify that a little bit? What do you think their goal is?

Well, I think that Senate Republicans are particularly ticked off at the president right now. He just went and endorsed Ken Paxton over John Cornyn, who's been a long-serving senator and colleague of theirs, uh, for a long time from Texas. Uh, and I think that they're irritated at that. I think they're also irritated that this is something that is a distraction from the issues that they want to be focused on. But I will point out, this is a Senate that really hasn't delivered on almost anything that Donald Trump wants them to. It hasn't delivered on the election reforms that he and most of the vast majority of Republicans support, voter ID and the like. House Republicans are still overwhelmingly united with the president, but there is now a big enough faction of Republicans who are headed for the exits in the Senate that, you know, you could see a situation where they're siding with Democrats to vote on issues that the president would prefer they not.

Now, before you go, this hits close to home for you. You've personally been through a pretty extraordinary free speech fight with the federal government over what you argued was an obvious joke tweet. Can you just tell us what your experience was?

Sure. The National Labor Relations Board came after me all the way back in 2019 at the behest of a leftist activist who basically sicced the federal government lawyers on me. In, uh, 2022, I won unanimously at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, uh, and it set kind of a precedent. The one lesson that I took away from that was how fortunate I am, just given the fact if I had had to pay for attorneys as opposed to counting on the NCLA, a wonderful organization that, uh, fought this case for me and fought it successfully, I would be in hoc to the tune of probably close to half a million dollars.

Ben, thanks for coming on.

Good to be with you.

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The Justice Department unsealed a federal indictment Wednesday against former Cuban President Raúl Castro, charging the 94-year-old brother of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro with playing a central role in a 1996 attack that left 4 Americans dead. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch announced the indictment in Miami to a cheering crowd.

Today we are announcing an indictment charging Raul Castro and several others with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals.

Joining us now is Cabot Phillips, host of Wired In Live. So, Cabot, this case is 30 years old. Why is the Trump administration acting now?

So there are really two parts to this based on what we've heard from the Trump administration over the past day or so. But let me bring the audience first up to speed on what exactly Castro is being accused of here. He's being charged with conspiracy to kill US nationals, destruction of aircraft, and murder. This is connected to the 1996 shootdown of two civilian planes operated by the Miami exile group Brothers to the Rescue. This was an attack that killed three Americans and one US resident. Now, we've pretty much known that the Cuban government was behind this attack for decades, which brings us back to your question: why now? First, there's the legal precedent. This case has been sitting on the shelf for decades, but it is still just as rock solid as you could get, and certainly as solid as it was 30 years ago. The federal government has an audio recording of Raúl Castro personally taking credit for ordering Cuban MiGs to, quote, knock them down into the sea. And the second part, of course, is the strategic calculus with the Cuban regime. The Trump administration is squeezing the regime on every front, and they've been ramping up that effort over the last few months, and reviving this indictment is certainly part of that.

Now, you mentioned Trump's pressure campaign against Cuba. We talked about that earlier this week, but what's the latest?

Yeah, in addition to these charges, uh, the State Department also announced a new round of sanctions targeting 11 Cuban officials and 3 more regime entities. That came on Monday. The Cuban economy is already in complete freefall. There were already food shortages, but the big problem lately has been that the island has endured several months of blackouts after the US cut off its primary energy life flying in Venezuela, uh, primarily through Maduro's capture in January.

So the big question is, is this Maduro 2.0? Are they planning to extradite?

Yeah, that is the big question right now. And it really comes down to a cost-benefit calculation for the president. The Castro indictment does the legal groundwork for the exact same playbook that was used against Maduro. Federal charges first and then a capture operation. But a lot of experts are warning that a Cuban operation would be a lot more complicated than Maduro's capture. For one, the Cuban government watched exactly what happened to Maduro, and its military has had plenty of time to prepare. And unlike Maduro's lieutenants, who pretty much folded immediately once US special forces arrived, the Cuban military is reportedly fiercely loyal to the Castro regime. It's important to remember that the Castros were the face of a movement, and Raúl still in many ways is that face. Nearly every Cuban official was handpicked by him or his brother, so even a successful operation would not necessarily decapitate the regime the way we saw down in Venezuela. It could just as easily isolate Cuba even further and make things even worse. So that's the math the White House has to do right now. Does the hit to Cuban morale and leadership outweigh the risks of this operation and the fallout that comes after?

And keep in mind also, he is well into his 90s now, so they may not view him as a target worth that risk.

Now, has President Trump indicated one way or another if he plans to do that?

So as you can imagine, the administration, uh, they're not showing their hand. Uh, they're giving some mixed signals, at least publicly. Uh, Trump did float the possibility of what he called a, quote, a friendly takeover back in late February. But on Wednesday, he told Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Ollahan that there would not be any further escalation.

Have a listen.

Should we expect any escalation here?

No, you won't. There won't be escalation. The place is falling apart. They've really lost control of Cuba.

And then for his part, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, uh, whatever his plans were, the White House, they're not going to tell us in the general public. However, the U.S. military is increasing its presence around the island in parallel with this week's moves by the president. Ultimately, whether this all ends with a diplomatic resolution or Raul Castro behind bars remains to be seen.

Well, high-stakes situation. Kavith, thanks for reporting.

Absolutely.

This spring, 60% of the graduates receiving higher education diplomas in the US are women. That's up from 57% 5 years ago. Meanwhile, male participation in higher ed has reached historic lows. Joining us to discuss the trend and what it means is economist and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Mark Perry. Mark, thanks for coming on.

Sure. Happy to be here.

So first off, you've been tracking this for decades now. Can you just give our audience a little overview of what this trend looks like and how long it's been going on?

Yeah, well, you know, this has actually been going on for a long time. It's actually, you know, women have outnumbered men in higher education in terms of enrollment degrees since the early 1980s. So it's really been going on for more than 40 years. And it just— the gap between men and women in higher education keeps getting bigger and bigger. But if you're just looking at, you know, let's say for bachelor's degrees now, it's about 60% female graduates and 40% male. And then for master's degrees, it's even a bigger gap. So it's 63%. It's almost 2 to 1 women versus men for master's degrees. Women get about two-thirds of associate's degrees and they get now about 60% of doctoral degrees. So at every level of higher education from community college to graduate school, women are outnumbering men. And that's been going on for a long time, as I mentioned. But it just seems like the gap keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger every year where women continue to outnumber men, but by bigger margins as time goes on.

Now, how does the data break out when you parse apart the different fields? Are there fields where men still do dominate?

There's only really 2 fields out of, you know, 15 or 20 fields, major fields in college where men outnumber women, and that's engineering and computer science. So I think right now for engineering, it's about 25% female, 75% male. And for computer science, it's even more. It's only about 22% female. Everything else is either balanced, like, you know, even math and architecture and business, it's almost balanced. And then you get into these fields where women are 80% or more, and that's, you know, health professions, which includes nursing, public administration, education, psychology are really dominated then by, by women. So it does vary from field to field, but overall women are in the large majority compared to men for college overall.

Now, what about the downstream social effects of women succeeding and men retreating from academia? Is this something we should be concerned about?

Well, some people have, have expressed a concern about that just because often when men and women were going to college in closer to equal numbers, then often that would lead to marriage eventually based on somebody that they, that they knew in college. And now if there's 2 women for every man in a college environment, then it could mean that there's fewer opportunities for, for women and for men in terms of matching. What happens is that it is a story of female success in higher education. That's clearly the case. Then there's also the flip side is that maybe now it's the men that are who are falling behind. Women are very successful. I think if women are behind, they get a lot of attention. But if it's the men who are falling behind, then often there's kind of this selective concern about gender imbalances. If the shares of college degrees were reversed and it was men getting most of the degrees compared to women, then it would be some kind of national crisis and there would be all sorts of hand-wringing and, and corrective action that would be proposed and so on. Because it's men falling behind, it, it doesn't— they don't get as much sympathy or attention as if it would be the women who were falling behind, right?

Well, let me tell you, I was a nurse and no one was concerned that we were 85% women in my nursing school. That did not come up even once as a concern.

Yeah.

Mark, thanks for coming on.

Thank you.

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