Transcript of Rubio Takes The Podium & Appalachia Strikes It Rich | 5.6.26 New

Secretary of State Marco Rubio declares the War Powers Act unconstitutional and the first phase of the Iran conflict officially over. Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howell. It's Wednesday, May 6th, Georgia's birthday, and this is Morning Wire.

Key primaries in several states highlight both parties' strategies, including Republicans' increased focus on fraud.

I'm doing this because I know we can get this done.

This is not complex stuff, you know, fixing the waste, fraud, and abuse.

And the discovery of a massive supply of lithium in Appalachia could disrupt China's grip on the crucial resource. Being able to reduce our reliance on China when we have these own resources within our own country, uh, we We should not only be extracting them here, we should be processing them here.

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

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The White House press briefing room looked very different yesterday, with Press Secretary Caroline Levitt now officially on maternity leave. In her stead, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a man of many roles, fielded a wide range of questions from the press. He also provided some crucial updates on the standoff with Iran.

Joining us now for her perspective from inside the briefing room and earlier at the Pentagon is Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret O'Lehan. Mary Margaret, welcome back to the show.

Hey guys, great to be here.

As John said, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt began her maternity leave yesterday, so we had Rubio in her place. What stood out to you from inside the room?

Yes, so Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the podium yesterday and he gave us our first White House press briefing from the Secretary of State. He was animated, he was excited, he was enjoying himself. The press were all laughing along with him. It seemed like everyone really enjoyed having him there. He was clearly a little overwhelmed by the absolute just packed nature of this room yesterday. Uh, so many reporters crowded in there. Uh, he joked a couple times that he had no idea who anyone was, so he was just taking a stab in the dark. So my fellow reporters and I, you know, we were all chomping at the bit trying to get a question. We were really hoping that we did. Not everyone did, obviously, but he did a great job of calling on people all over the room, back, front, didn't pay too much attention to the front row, which I personally love because it means that he's given all the reporters a chance. And he did, you know, he mixed in some levity with some more serious responses to questions, and he really didn't get mad at anyone, which I found interesting because I've seen him be a little more aggressive with reporters in the past.

So I think he came in prepared to be congenial, to give answers to all the questions, and to, to do Caroline's job.

That said, he does have some serious content to address. One main focus was Iran. What did we hear from him on that front?

So he talked a lot about the Strait of Hormuz, which obviously is one of the biggest issues in the news right now. He talked about how Iran has been planting mines in the Strait of Hormuz and how that's a direct attack on any of the people who are using it. He talked about how Iran has really made themselves the bad guy in this situation. And so places like China, he said he hopes that China is encouraging Iran to understand their situation on the global stage and realize that no one really likes them right now. He talked about whether or not there is an end to the ceasefire. He said that there is not right now. And he kind of echoed what Pete Hegseth told myself and other reporters that the ceasefire is ongoing and that it's up to the president ultimately to decide, uh, what will cause that ceasefire to end. He also talked about going to Rome. One of the reporters asked him a question about this. This is something that I covered for The Daily Wire this week for our website. He's heading to Rome to make peace with the Pope after a lot of different confrontation between the president, between Pope Leo, uh, between JD Vance.

A lot of angst going on all over the world between head of the Catholic Church and the president and the vice president. Now, Rubio, he didn't really buy into that framing, though we know that that's what's going on. He suggested that it was really the role of the secretary of state to get out there, to speak to the pope, um, to engage with him on a lot of different matters. But we've been told already by the State Department that this visit is about the Middle East. So they'll be speaking about all of these issues and more, and that will happen actually in the next couple days.

Now, you mentioned Hegseth. You attended a press conference yesterday with him and General Dan Cain. They also fielded a lot of questions from reporters —what did we learn from them yesterday?

So I specifically asked General Cain, you know, he mentioned this threshold, uh, that the Iranians had not yet reached a threshold that would cause us to end the ceasefire. And I said, okay, so what would necessitate that threshold being crossed? What does it take? He wouldn't really give me any specifics, but he did emphasize again that we— Iran had not crossed that threshold, so the ceasefire was still in place. My friend Reagan Reese also asked Secretary Hegseth, is the ceasefire still in place? And he definitively said yes, it is ongoing. So they answered a lot of questions on that. I also asked Secretary of War Pete Hegseth about the mines that Iran has been putting in the Strait of Hormuz. And I specifically asked him about kind of a funny question, but I think legitimate, about these kamikaze dolphins that we've been hearing about. I, I saw an analyst on CNN and Fox News separately talking about these kamikaze dolphins. Supposedly, Iran wanted to use dolphins in order to put explosives in the Strait of Hormuz and attack the United States.

I haven't heard the kamikaze dolphin thing. It's like sharks with laser beams, right?

I can't confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins, uh, but I can confirm they don't.

So a little bit of levity in a place we weren't expecting.

All right, well, Mary Margaret, thank you so much. A lot to keep your eye on. Thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me.

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Several key primaries took place yesterday, including for governor in Ohio, where we saw the two front-runners lock in Democrat and GOP nominations. And the messaging we're hearing from both camps is being echoed in other key races across the country.

Joining us now is Daily Wire opinion editor Ben Domenech, host of The Big Ben Show. Ben, great to have you back on.

Great to be with you as always.

So let's start with Ohio, key gubernatorial primary there with both of the favorites doing what we thought they'd do. Vivek Ramaswamy won for the Republicans the nomination, and then Amy Acton ran uncontested for Democrats, so lock that in. What stood out to you about the focus of their campaigns? Campaigns in Ohio?

Well, I think that what you saw here was pretty much a playbook for the way that this year is going to go politically. In the closing days of the election, you saw, you know, on the Democrat side, a focus on affordability, on an emphasis on pushing back against what's viewed as overreach by the Trump administration. And then when it came to the Republican side, Vivek Ramaswamy is someone who has always leaned into fighting against fraud, and basically the idea that he brings you know, a tech entrepreneur's approach to the way that he'd like to reform government. That type of reform candidacy is one that obviously elevated him within the presidential stakes to the point where he was considered for a lot of different positions. He decided instead to run for this office. And I think that what you're going to see across the country is a lot of Republicans embracing the idea that Democrats are the representatives and defenders of waste, fraud, and abuse that is happening on a scale that I think Americans until this this year perhaps were not as familiar with on a state and local level. They thought of Washington as being the place where your money goes to be wasted.

It turns out it can be wasted in your neighborhood and community just as well.

Yeah, great point there. And it is notable that Ramaswamy cited Luke Rosiak's report. So fraud clearly becoming a dominant focus. What else are Republicans specifically hitting? Obviously the economy and the Iran war, are kind of hanging over everything. How are Republicans positioning themselves?

I think Republican candidates are going to stress that affordability is a situation where Democrats just don't have an answer for it. They don't actually have any solutions really when it comes to increasing affordability for Americans. They aren't willing to actually go down the road of cutting government spending in any way or of dealing with the type of regulations they've put into place that increase the cost for the average family. And I think one of the other things that, uh, people are really hoping on the Republican side is that if the Iran war and the conflict-driven price of gasoline is something that can be addressed in short order, meaning before the summer, that it's something that they can recover from. And then finally, I think the message that they've got is about overall governance and competence. There's an attitude on the Democratic side that they can nominate all of these different radical people who have no record whatsoever in terms of doing anything for the communities that they are trying to represent. And what you can see in certain times like this is that candidates get nominated who don't deserve to be nominated. And if they turn out to be too radical, voters will still reject them.

Yeah, I think on this topic of radical candidates, Graham Plattner in Maine certainly stands out, especially with the national attention he's gotten and this Nazi tattoo. Is the party, Democratic Party, coalescing behind him there? And why isn't this seen as a major risk?

So that's a great question. Graham Plattner in Maine is one of the most radical people I think you've ever seen nominated for the US Senate. He's somebody who has said crazy things online and also, of course, had to deal with the fact that he had an SS tattoo on his chest, literally. And the thing that is so disturbing about it is all the Democrats are really going to line up lockstep behind this guy because they know there is no path for them taking the Senate without knocking off Susan Collins in Maine. And so because of that, they are willing to swallow a pill this bitter.

Clearly the Democrats very desperate to gain control again of the Senate. And, uh, we're seeing that really play out in these campaigns. Ben, thanks for coming on.

Great to be with you. The US Geological Survey has announced a potentially game-changing discovery in Appalachia, 2.3 million metric tons of lithium, a large enough deposit to last the US for 3 centuries. With lithium now crucial to most of our electronic devices, the discovery could disrupt China's near monopoly on the lithium supply chain.

Joining us now is Dan Turner, founder and executive director of Power the Future. Dan, thanks for coming on.

Great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

So we just had this major announcement about this massive lithium deposit found in Appalachia, enough to replace more than 300 years worth of imports. What can you tell us about this discovery?

Yeah, it's a remarkable discovery. What's valuable about lithium is that, like a lot of hard metals, it is an amazing energy conductor, um, but it is incredibly malleable. You can cut lithium with a knife, but you can bring it up to temperatures of 1,000 degrees and it doesn't lose its shape. And that's what makes it so valuable, is that you can bend it and twist it. And when you think of your smart devices and how thin they are, you need lithium that can conduct electricity without getting to that high temperature and also have these very intricate tiny little shapes. And so lithium's use and usage is, is going to explode tenfold. We need more lithium, not less. The fact that we have found it now in abundance in America is just great news. China dominates this market. Not only— they are the third largest lithium producers in the world, but the first and second largest, Australia and, and Chile, those are all Chinese mines. Most of the Australian mining is owned by Communist China. So this is a huge dent into their market share, and they have to be petrified.

Yeah. And I don't think a lot of people know that, that Australian mines are actually Communist China owned. This is a very exciting, you know, announcement from a resource independence standpoint. What would it take to get to the point where we're reliably using this lithium in domestic production flows?

This is going to be at least, you know, optimistically 5, more likely a 10-year plan, right? Mining like this does take an awful lot of time to bring online. They can get shut down really quickly, but to get this operational is going to take some time, but that will be built into market prices and market shares, kind of similarly the way we're seeing the, the huge spike in oil, even though we don't have a supply problem here in America, the markets look at what's happening in, in Iran and they're nervous and that's built into the price. So conversely, lithium markets are going to see this and say, wow, the future is really bright. The future is shifting. And that will have a huge impact on pricing as well.

So right now we have a very production and energy-friendly administration. If we do end up under a Democratic administration next, would you see that putting up roadblocks?

Oh, 100%. And they will try to reverse this if the White House flips Democrat in 2028. And this will be a campaign speech, right? And mostly because it's funded by, by those who have interests in overseas lithium. Tom Steyer is one of the largest— his hedge fund is one of the largest investors in overseas mining. And yet he will run on a green platform and say we need to have no coal in America. Those same forces will come out opposed to this and say, we can't have a lithium mine, what about the climate, what about the environmental impact? But they are funded by groups that have foreign investment interests.

Yeah, to put an even finer point on this, is it too far to say that communist Chinese actors will be very much involved in working against this operation?

Not at all, not at all. Similarly, go back to 2015 and '16, and this was proven by the House Committee on Science. The majority of the social media posts on fracking and banning fracking were paid for by the Russians because they did not want fracking to take place in America. They knew Donald Trump would expand fracking, and that's bad for their market share. So foreign interests have always co-opted the environmental movement, and quite frankly, a lot of the environmental activists here in America know they are foreign-funded, but they don't care. But China will absolutely pay groups. They'll use shell corporations and, you know, overseas nonprofits, and they'll funnel it through their myriad web of nonprofits to get the money. But, but They will fund direct campaigns to stop this because they don't want to see their corner of the market disappear.

Yeah, no doubt we'll be seeing that messaging battle heating up very soon. Dan Turner, thank you so much for joining us.

My pleasure.

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