Transcript of Shutdown Fallout Mounts & Congress Probes Political Violence | 10.28.25

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I can't guarantee you that your flight is going to be on time. I can't guarantee you that your flight is not going to be canceled.

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor, John Bickley. It's Tuesday, October 28th, and this is Morning Wire.

Nearly two months after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, political violence takes center stage in a Congressional hearing today. Daily Wire's Michael Knowles is set to testify.

The way that the Democrats are able to make the claim that most political violence comes from the right is by not counting any of the left-wing violence.

And President Trump's seismic east-wing demolition continues to shake things up in DC. No matter what he's doing, that house doesn't belong to him, New York.

It belongs to us.

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

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The government shutdown is dragging on, but we finally got some updates, and they're not good news for Democrats.

Here to walk us through it is Daily Wired DC Bureau Chief Tim Rice. So Tim, we're about to see the next big wave of repercussions, correct?

Yeah, that's right, Georgia. Thirteen thousand air traffic controllers are set to miss their first paycheck of the shutdown today, and that's bound to make an already bad situation significantly worse. We've already seen reports of air traffic controllers taking second jobs as DoorDash drivers and things like that to supplement their income, and that's led to some pretty significant staffing shortages. 8,700 flights were delayed on Sunday, and yesterday, more than 3,000 flights were delayed, and over 100 were canceled outright. Now, airports have become a real flashpoint during this shutdown. Air traffic controllers and TSA agents were among the first workers to see their pay impacted. Of course, hate flight delays is something every American can rally behind. We reported last week that a couple of major airline pilot unions were calling for an end to a shutdown, and that turned out to be a major precursor of what was to come. I spoke to Daily Wire Congressional Correspondent, Amber Joe Cooper, about another union that just threw a wrench at Democrats plans.

The largest union representing 800,000 federal workers, the American Federation of Government Employees, they're issuing a statement calling for the Senate to pass the continuing resolution to end the shutdown. The President, Everett Kelly, said that it's time for leaders to start focusing on how to solve problems for the American people rather than who is going to get the blame for the shutdown that Americans dislike. She's also calling for back pay for every single employee who has been forced to stay home.

Just last week, they blamed Trump and Congressional Republicans for keeping the government closed. While this statement doesn't lay the blame on either party in particular, the union calls for a clean continuing resolution, which is what Republicans have introduced over a dozen times and what Democrats keep rejecting.

So a pretty major upset for Democrats there. Now, what about food stamps?

Yeah. In addition to flight delays and organized labor turning against them, Democrats also have to contend with the fact that food stamp benefits will lapse starting this Friday, November first. Here's Amber Joe again.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are expiring on November first, and that will impact 40 million people. I think there's definitely There's certainly some added pressure given that so many people are on food stamps. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said on Monday that not only is this affecting airports, but now some states, such as his own, are going to have to be forced to cut off Snap benefits. It's definitely one of the big talking points this week.

Of course, food stamps are not an explicitly partisan issue, and lawmakers from both parties are going to have to explain this disruption to their constituents. Republicans aren't the only ones going on the offensive. We reported yesterday that the California Department of Social Services is texting residents blaming the imminent Snap disruption on Trump and Republicans. Now, Republicans were quick to dismiss this as Gavin Newsom using taxpayer money to spread political propaganda. But we're now at a point where each new disruption is going to hit Democrats harder than Republicans.

Well, something's got to give at some point. Tim, thanks for reporting. You bet. In today's fast-changing digital world, proving your company is trustworthy isn't just important for growth. It's essential. That's exactly why Vanta exists, to make building and maintaining that trust seamless for businesses everywhere. Whether you're a startup just getting started with your first SOC 2, HIPAA, or ISO 27001 certification, or you're an enterprise dealing with the complexity of vendor risk management, Vanta's trust management platform uses industry leading AI and automation to help companies of all sizes get compliant fast and actually stay that way. The platform can help you knock out those tedious security questionnaires up to five times faster, which means you're closing bigger deals sooner. And the impact is real. Vanta customers are saving over half a million dollars annually while becoming three times more productive. In today's business environment, establishing trust isn't optional anymore. But with Vanta's continuous monitoring and automation, it becomes automatic. If you're ready to see how Vanta can transform your compliance process and help you build trust automatically, visit vanta. Com/morningwire to sign up for a free demo today. That's V-A-N-T-A. Com/morningwire. The assassination of Charlie Kirk has prompted a congressional hearing today organized by Republican Senator Eric Schmidt on politically Violent Attacks.

The hearing seeks to examine the origins of political violence and extremism, which has come largely from the left in recent years.

Senator Schmidt joins us now. Senator, thank you for coming on the show. You've organized this hearing, and this issue is obviously a high priority for you. What are the goals of the proceedings today?

Well, I think the assassination of Charlie Kirk brought left-wing political violence really front and center, and I think it needs to be exposed. This isn't a one-off thing. This is an ideology that's taken hold now. When you have 25% of those who describe themselves as very liberal believe political violence justified over 55% of those on the left believe it's at least somewhat justifiable to assassinate President Trump. There's a problem. I think if we're ever going to get in the other side of this and get to healing where we can say free speech, yes, political violence, no, we have to expose the truth, which is that this is an overwhelmingly coming from one side. Right.

You and your colleagues have not shied away from putting the onus of political violence on the left in recent years. Democrats say that's unfair, but what's the truth here? Is there an actual imbalance in terms of violence in the US?

Well, I think that's part of the hearing. We want to hear from people who've suffered from political violence, specifically, but also to lay out the truth and the statistics of what's going on. This is not particularly new on the left. I mean, you could go back to the 1960s with the weather underground, but it's playing itself out now at a more rapid pace, a much bigger scale, and an ideology that's wrapped up in a culture of death, where assassinating people you disagree with is justifiable to these people.

Senator, thank you so much for joining us. Now, among those testifying at the hearing today is Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, and he joins the show now. Michael, good to have you back on.

It's my pleasure to be here.

You were obviously invited to this hearing for specific reasons. Tell us about that and what you plan to address.

Well, I was invited It was largely because I was the target of leftist violence on a few occasions, but of organized leftist violence, specifically two years ago. This was at the University of Pittsburgh. I was doing a debate on the topic of transgenderism. There was a large demonstration. They burnt me an effigy, lit the street on fire. Then two Antifa operatives showed up and threw smoke bombs at the attendees and the police, and then threw an explosive, a large explosive, firework at the police and seriously injured one female police officer, gave her life-altering injuries, took her out of work for at least a year, and also injured other police officers as well. Happily, there was one intrepid FBI agent in the crowd, and he had noticed the uptick in left wing violence at these conservative speaker events. It was only because he really pushed this up through the DOJ that any charges were brought at all. These were two people who were members of an anarchist cell, part of the Torch Antifa Network. The guy had set off TSA scanners with explosive material multiple times. It's an illustrative example of violence because if you look up left wing ideologically motivated violence in any of the databases that concern it or at the federal government level, you won't find it.

It won't turn up. That just doesn't exist. This is true for a lot of examples of left-wing violence, perhaps most notably the BLM riots, which are just simply not classified as left-wing violence. The way that the Democrats are able to make the claim that most political violence comes from the right is by not counting any of the left-wing violence. We're going to call attention to that fact, as well as to the fact that now even the honest liberals cannot hold up the lie that the violence is coming from the right.

What do you think the federal government's role should be in addressing politically motivated violence? Is there a line which they should not cross?

I don't think we're at fear of overpolicing left-wing terrorists. I think we're barely policing them at all. The federal government has successfully dismantled the Ku Klux Klan, has successfully dismantled organized crime, using all sorts of statuts, going after them for rico, for conspiracy, all the way up to tax evasion, I suppose. President Trump putting this renewed focus on it, I think, is very important because the left has dismissed this as a concern by lying and saying that the political violence is a right-wing phenomenon. It has allowed this problem to fester so much so that we saw its tragic apotheosis in the murder of Charlie Kirk. We cannot allow that to continue anymore.

Indeed. Well, we'll certainly be watching your testimony with interest here. In fact, I should note that Daily Wire is streaming it live today. Michael, thanks for coming on.

A pleasure is all mine. Good to see you.

President Trump continues his swing through Asia as Democrat and media backlash builds over his White House renovation.

Daily Wire senior editor, Kabbit Phillips, is here with more. So, Kabbit, let's start on the other side of the globe, where Trump continues to seek out new trade deals ahead of his sit down with President Xi. What's the latest there?

Yeah, after brokering that big peace deal Sunday between Thailand and Cambodia, and then rolling out a slew of new trade deals elsewhere, Trump headed to Japan, and he got the rural treatment with famous landmarks across Tokyo all lighting up with red, white, and blue displays. The President first joined Emperor Narehito for a brief ceremony at the Imperial Palace before meeting with the country's newly elected Prime Minister, Sonai Takeichi. Takeichi calls herself a protege of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was arguably Trump's closest friend and ally on the global stage. Thankfully for Trump, Takeichi holds very similar views to Abe and made her affinity for the President well known, calling him a, very cheerful and fun person following their sit down. Now, the new Prime Minister also vow to increase purchases of American pickup trucks, oil and gas, and agricultural products as well. There was also talk of new ship building agreements, so Trump is not leaving Japan empty-handed. The White House says that it's yet more proof that the threat of Donald Trump's tariffs pushes our trading partners to make deals favorable to the US. So deals announced now with Cambodia India, Thailand, Vietnam, and also Malaysia on Sunday.

And now Japan gets added to the list on Monday. But the world is still really waiting to see what will come of this high stakes meeting on Thursday with China.

Now, have we heard anything about that yet?

So officials from both sides have continued to meet and hammer out the framework of this deal. The White House says they're confident that both sides will agree to lower tariffs substantially and maybe even strike a permanent solution to the battle over TikTok as well. Now, for his part, Trump put it more bluntly saying, I think we're going come away with a deal. While we certainly heard optimism like this before, only to see deals ultimately fizzle out and then even more tariffs rolled out, investors, at least, seem to think that this is a done deal. Gold, cryptocurrency, and oil prices all spiked on Monday, and global markets rallied to all-time highs across Asia. The same thing happened here on Wall Street as well. The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all hit record highs on Monday, leading the way where tech companies like NVIDIA, which have been hobbled this year as a result of massive on semiconductors. This is worth noting, stateside shares fell for domestic mining companies. That is clearly a sign that investors believe that China is also about to open up the flow of rare earth minerals as part of this looming deal.

Now, some other White House news here at home. President Trump has a major renovation going in the East Wing that has drawn a lot of ire from the left. Where do things stand there?

Well, the East Wing of the White House has now been demolished to make way for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom that the White House says will be funded entirely by private donations. Patients. The administration says that it's all a matter of practicality and safety, knowing that in the past, if a president wanted to hold a large event honoring foreign dignitaries, often they were forced to erect makeshift tents on the White House lawn, which they said didn't look as nice and also, as you can imagine, posed a lot of security concerns. Here's Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olahan, with more on this ongoing saga.

Keep in mind, Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, FDR, Truman, Nixon, Obama, all of them added things to the White House or made certain renovations or removed things away. But it is Donald Trump who is bearing the brunt of the criticism here for his addition of the ballroom, which many presidents have talked about wanting to have a bigger space. I'm also told that with this new call room, people will be safer. There will be security additions, and it will be a legacy for presidential administrations to come. So lots of controversy over this specific addition to the White House. Some are even calling for future presidents to tear it down.

Now, it's worth noting there are already some on the left attempting to mount a legal challenge to block the project entirely. A Virginia couple filed a motion in a DC federal court last week seeking a temporary restraining order against the demolition, arguing to the court that it violates the National Historic Preservation Act. But the administration says they are well within their authority to make renovations the same way that so many presidents before them have done.

Well, a little late for that lawsuit. Kabbit, thanks for reporting.

Absolutely.

Thanks for waking up us. For those listening to the show, you can also watch us now on Daily Wire+. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know.

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