Transcript of Trump Honors Charlie Kirk & Letitia’s Hidden Houseguest | 10.15.25

Today, we're here to honor and remember a fearless warrior for liberty, beloved leader who galvanized the next generation like nobody I've ever seen before.

President Trump posthumously honors Charlie Kirk with the country's highest civilian award, the presidential Medal of Freedom. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, October 15th, and this is Morning Wire.

New York attorney general LaTisha James makes a defiant return to the spotlight just days after her federal indictment. We see powerful voices trying to silence truth and punish dissent, and yes, weaponize justice for political gain.

And you will not be able to work in the United Kingdom if you do not have digital ID.

It's as simple as that.

Britain rolls out a new digital ID that Conservatives say will curb the freedom of its citizens.

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President Trump posthumously honored Charlie Kirk yesterday on what would have been his 32nd birthday with the country's highest civilian award.

In front of a large audience in the Rose Garden, the President handed the presidential Medal of Freedom to Kirk's widowed wife, Erica Kirk. Daily Wire, Whitehouse correspondent Mary Margaret Ola attended the event yesterday, and she joins us now. A powerful and packed event there at the White House yesterday. Tell us what you witnessed.

Yes. This was a beautiful event honoring Charlie Kirk, awarding him the presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest honor that you can award a civilian. This was to honor Charlie for his patriotic contributions to the United States of America. He was killed for ideological and political reasons, and this was something that came up a lot today.

He was assassinated in the of his life for boldly speaking the truth, for living his faith and relentlessly fighting for a better and stronger America. He loved this country. That's why this afternoon, it's my privilege to posumiously award Charles James Kirk, our nation's highest civilian honor, the presidential Medal of Freedom. Thank you.

The President also directly called out those who have been spouting aggressive leftist rhetoric, violent rhetoric in the wake of Charlie's assassination.

We've seen that a candidate for attorney general in Virginia boasted that he would want to see the Republican legislator in Virginia shot in the head and to see his children murdered. He actually said this, especially in the wake of Charlie's assassination, Our country must have absolutely no tolerance for this radical left violence, extremism, and terror.

But he always circled back to Charlie, to Charlie's legacy, to Charlie's family, his beautiful wife, and the honor that he was bestowing on him during this awards ceremony.

We're entering his name forever into the eternal roster of true American heroes. I'm honored to be joined by a woman who has endured unspeakable hardship with unbelievable strength. That's Charlie's widow, Erika. I just want to thank you, Erika. He loved you so much.

What was the mood there among those who attended Well, I think at first the mood was a little celebratory because this is a high honor for Charlie, and it's his birthday.

So this was, as Eric has said, the best gift that the President could have given him. And so when we arrived, they were playing some happy music. We even heard dancing clean at one point. But when the event began, then it got a little more solem and a little more serious. They played the Ave Maria, which I was standing next to my colleague Isabel Brown, and we both got a little choked up when they played that, thinking of Charlie and his death. And then when event concluded, they were playing Amazing Grace, and the mood was definitely much more somber towards the end. A lot of these people who had gathered Charlie's friends, the admin officials, were more quiet, and quietly greeting each other and speaking and being Almost reverent, I would say, in the memory of their friend and this honor he had just received.

As we said, President Trump handed Charlie's Medal of Freedom to his wife, Erika. Tell us about that moment.

Right. This was obviously a really emotional moment for Erika. She was dabbing in her eyes with a tissue, and she was tearful and emotional. Here's a little bit of what she said.

The national interest of the United States has always been freedom. Our founders etched it into the preamble of our Constitution, and those words are not relics on basement. They are a living covenant. Charlie often said that without God, freedom becomes chaos. He believed liberty could only survive when anchored to truth.

She also talked about how it's his birthday.

Those of you that have spouses or loved ones, you know how difficult it is sometimes to buy a gift for someone that you love because he wasn't a materialistic man, so that also did not help. But now I can say with confidence, Mr. President, that you have given him the best birthday gift he could ever have. Thank you.

Well, a truly powerful moment yesterday honoring Kirk and his family. Mary Margaret, thank you so much for reporting and us a first-hand account of the event.

Thanks for having me.

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New York attorney general LaTisha James may have sheltered a fugitive in her Virginia home for the past five years.

Here to tell us more as Daily Wire reporter, Tim pierce. So, Tim, what do we know so far about James harboring this so-called fugitive?

Well, the Daily Mail dug up the documents. James, of course, was charged last week with bank fraud for allegedly lying on mortgage papers to get a lower interest rate on a house Virginia. She bought that place, and as far as we know, pays all the bills, but it's actually her grandniece, Nakea Thompson, and her three children who have lived in the house since 2020. According to the Daily Mail, Thompson is officially listed as an absconder. In the database, of North Carolina's Department of Adult Correction. She's wanted by authorities in Forcith County for skipping out on her probation. A spokesman for the North Carolina Department of Correction said Thompson was, quote, sentenced to probation for misdemeanor convictions for assault and battery and truspassing. He confirmed that she is considered a fugitive from the state, but he added that because her crimes are considered low-level, she is non-extraditable.

Now, despite the bank fraud charges and now this new wrinkle with her niece, LaTisha James is still out there attending campaign rallies. What has she been doing?

Yeah, normally your attorney advises you to be quiet in these situations, but James is doing the opposite of that. She seems to think that this indictment can be used to her political benefit. She may not be wrong. It's arguably that President Trump is the poster child of this ability to get political benefit out of legal problems. James was actually out on the campaign trail with New York City mayoral hopeful Zoraamamdani on Monday night. She was claiming to be the target of political prosecution.

We are witnessing the fraying of our democracy, the erosion of our system of government.

This, my friends, is a defining moment in our history. Now, she also released that video statement immediately after the indictment came down last week, so she's certainly not staying silent. But the thing I think that may make James less sympathetic in this scenario is that she's widely seen as a person who weaponized the justice system first against Donald Trump. She made her first campaign for attorney general about prosecution executing Donald Trump when she got into office. Here she was in 2018.

I believe that the President of these United States can be indicted for criminal offenses, and we were joined with law enforcement and other attorneys general across this nation in removing this President from office.

In addition to that, the Office of Attorney General will continue to follow the money because we believe that he's engaged in a pattern and practice of money laundering, laundering the money from foreign governments here in New York state, and particularly related to his real estate holdings.

Then there was a civil case she eventually brought against Trump. First, it was a victimless crime. Trump was found liable of bank fraud, even though no bank ever said that he defrauded them. Then second, that massive half a billion her judgment, she eventually won. An appeals court has already overturned that. So a lot of James's critics see a pretty big irony between the case she brought against Trump and now the straightforward fraud case being brought against her.

Now, she is in deep blue New York, though. So are people holding this against her, or are they going to give her a pass?

Well, the reaction seems to depend a lot on your political view. Democrats have lined up to defend James, but Republicans really see her as reaping what she sowed. Here's South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsay Graham over the weekend.

But what about Trump? He had 91 indictments. What about? Now, I think the grand jury is going to take care of this, but you didn't care any about this. You didn't care that Latissa James made up charges that no one's ever faced. But Senator Biden never publicly called for Trump to be indicted. Biden regreted that they didn't do it for the election. Jack Smith surveilled my phone records at eight other senators.

Again, it's hard to earn sympathy as being a victim when you're seen more as contributing to the problem.

Well, as of now, she is holding on to that job, so we'll see how it goes. Tim, thanks for reporting. Good to be on.

This government will make a new free-of-charge digital ID mandatory for the right to work by the end of this parliament.

Because decent, pragmatic, fair-minded people, they want us to tackle the issues that they see around them. And of course, the truth is We won't solve our problems if we don't also take on the root causes, looking upstream to tackle poverty, conflict.

That was British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer discussing a controversy commercial new law. The UK recently approved a mandatory digital ID, supposedly as a way to curb illegal immigration.

Here to break it down for us is Guy Dampier, Senior Researcher on Nationhood at the Prosperity Institute. Hey, Guy. A lot of frustration boiling over in the UK right now over immigration. Now we have this heated debate over digital ID. Let's start with Prime Minister Starmer. He's defending the party's immigration policies. He's also accusing the conservative Reform Party of pushing supposedly racist policies. Catch us up. What's the story here?

So the issue is to do with the reform's new policy on residency for immigrants. In Britain, this is called indefinite Lead to Remain. And what it means is that after five years in the country, you can get access to welfare and benefits the same way that British citizens can. Now, the vast majority of people that get ILR will stay forever. And that matters because in the last few years, there's been an unprecedented wave of immigration. Over 4 million people. Most of those have come in very low-skilled occupations. And over the course of their lifetimes, they will be a net drain on the taxpayer. Reform have announced that they will abolish indefinitely to remain. They will force all those who've come to apply for new visas instead. And that will include new checks on qualifications and language skills, which matters because the current rules are incredibly lax. The language only requires B1 English, which for context, is the equivalent of being able to read a book for toddlers, but not being able to read a newspaper. Because most of these 4 million migrants have come either from Africa or the Indian subcontinent, labor have branded the policy as racist.

Now, as I understand it, the Labor Party has actually also admitted that this indefinite Leave to Remain law needs to be reformed. What are they suggesting?

Well, that's why this is so incoherent. They've called Nigel Farage a racist, but they've also announced policies that are not a million miles away from it. Shabbat Mahmoud, the Home Secretary, has said that immigrants who want residency will now need to have better English skills, no criminal record, and evidence that they volunteer in the community to prove that they're integrating. The problem for labor is that whilst they need to win back voters on the subject of immigration, an awful lot of them don't really believe in reducing migration, and they definitely don't believe in tackling human rights law, which is what makes Britain's borders unprotected. Britain is becoming a rapidly changed country. It's over 16% foreign-born now, which is higher than the rate in America during the Ellis Island period, when the country became famously a nation of immigrants. At the same time, the economy is ground to a halt, and there's increasing evidence that migrants are overrepresented when it comes to crime and also to accessing welfare.

As we mentioned at the top, we also have this new digital ID that's supposed to help crack down on illegal workers. But that's been very controversial. How would that work?

This is the so-called brick card. Now, labor have long been advocates for some form of ID card. They're arguing that introducing a digital ID will stop illegal immigration, preventing them from being able to work and rent. But there's already a digital visa verification system which is supposed to do exactly this. So there's no reason to think this would be particularly different. In fact, there are a lot of European countries which already have ID cards and which still have large populations of illegal immigrants working and living there, like Germany. So it won't fix the problem. What it will do is it will increase the bureaucracy and further reduce the freedoms felt by your average British citizen. There's also another danger in there. Paul Mason, a well-known labor activist who's close to the senior leadership, has suggested that digital ID could be used to help regularize illegal immigrants, putting them on a pathway to legal residency. That could be anywhere between 750,000 to 2 million people. We don't know because the Home Office refuses to find out. So instead of discouraging illegal immigration, digital ID could end up being used to reward it.

That's something that many people here in the US are keeping a very close eye on. Guys, thanks so much for reporting.

Thank you very much for having me.

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