Transcript of Trump Warns Minneapolis & Iran On Edge | 1.16.26

With the violence escalating in Minneapolis, President Trump considers invoking the Insurrection Act to keep agitators at bay.

To invoke the Insurrection Act, he just has to make a determination that is impractical to enforce federal law because of the obstructionist activities.

What powers would the move give the President?

I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, January 16th. This is Morning Wire.

As the President dials back his heated rhetoric on Iran, the White House insists all options remain on the table.

The President understands today that 800 executions were halted. And so the President and his team are closely monitoring this situation.

And a Senate hearing this week could prompt the reversal of a Biden era law on the abortion pill. We speak to a Senator on the committee.

You can have an incomplete abortion, and that incomplete abortion can lead to infection or even something called sepsis, which is overwhelming infection.

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

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As tensions remain high in Minneapolis following another ICE-related shooting, President Trump is threatening to invoke a centuries-old law to crack down on violent protests.

Dailywire senior editor, Kabbit Phillips, has more on this very volatile situation and the White House response, Kabbit. So the unrest really growing over the last few days. We had another shooting in Minneapolis. What is the latest?

Yeah, throughout the start of the week, thousands of protesters had routinely descended on immigration facilities across Minneapolis, attempting to disrupt their operations. But things only got worse yesterday following another ICE-related shooting that we talked about yesterday. As we reported, an agent was attempting to detain an illegal immigrant on Wednesday when the man fled on foot. Then, as the agent caught up to him, two more illegal immigrants emerged from a nearby apartment and began attacking him with a snow shovel and a broomstick. The agent fired off a single shot in self-defense, striking the first man in the leg, and all three men were eventually detained. On Thursday, the DHS confirmed that each was living here illegally, while the initial suspect had actually been arrested multiple times in the past few years by Minnesota law enforcement, but released each time. Dhs Secretary Christie Noem released statement calling the incident a case of, quote, attempted murder. Despite those facts, though, the shooting only further enraged demonstrators across the city. Footage from one incident showed rioters hurling fireworks at law enforcement. Other footage showed rioters busting out the windows of a DHS car and eventually prying open the gun safe, seemingly making off with firearms and ammunition.

Elsewhere, videos showed rioters, again, breaking into other cars, ransacking vehicles, and then proudly displaying ICE warrants that they had taken from inside of and other materials like laptops and briefcases and whatever else you might find in a car.

The footage which our viewers can see now is just really shocking. President Trump is now threatening to intervene even further. Tell us about that.

On Thursday, President Trump posted on Truth Social that, If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don't obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of Ice, we're only trying to do their job. I will institute the Insurrection Act. Now, for context, the Insurrection Act is an 1807 law that allows the President to deploy the military on US soil to suppress an insurrection or violent unrest in cases where the state is unable to do so. It also applies to cases in which a state is unable or, importantly, unwilling to enforce federal law. Historically, the Insurrection Act has been invoked more than 30 times over the last few centuries, most recently by George H. W. Bush in 1992. That was during the widespread Rodney King riots. On Thursday, Secretary Noem defended the President's authority to invoke the act, but said she hoped it would not be necessary. We did discuss the Insurrection Act. He certainly has the constitutional authority to utilize that. My hope is that this leadership team in Minnesota will start to work with us to get criminals off the streets.

Remember, we are there in surged operations because of the largest fraud scheme in American history.

Clearly, this would be a major escalation. What has the response been from Democrats to this?

Well, Minnesota's Democratic attorney, General Keith Ellison, vow to fight Trump in court if he invoked the Insurrection Act, calling it, tyrannical federal overreach. Then for his part, as you can imagine, Governor Tim Walls, urge Trump to, Turn the temperature down and stop this campaign of retribution. But Republicans were quick to remind folks that Governor Walls has played a big role in riling up these protesters to begin with. They shared comments he made last week where he said that his state was, at war with the federal government, and elsewhere, he called on his state to fight for democracy the way that Minnesotans did during the Civil War. It's interesting. We also spoke with Polster Brent Buchana about whether these latest ICE operations and even these shootings have changed public perception about President Trump's immigration agenda. Here's what he had to say. Almost nothing has changed. If you pay attention to the mainstream media, you would think that approval for getting rid of people out of the country who are here illegally has fallen off a cliff, that everybody wants ICE to be done, enforcing our own laws. The reality is that still 60% of people want those who are here illegally deported.

President Trump was elected in large part due to his promise to cut down on illegal immigration and begin mass deportations. And despite the latest pushback, clearly, he is still dead set on doing just that.

He's leaving no room for doubt about that. Kevin, thanks so much for reporting. Absolutely.

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President Trump is keeping the world on edge with his plans for Iran, while he also works to bring Venezuela in line with US interests.

Daily Wire reporter, Tim pierce, is here to talk about all the questions now circling around the President's Iran strategy. So, Tim, reports have been all over the map on this. Where do things stand now?

Right. There's been a lot of questions, and the White House seems to be doing as little as possible to clear those up. But that's probably by design, though. White House Press Secretary, Caroline Levis, said yesterday that the President hasn't ruled anything out.

Well, look, Kelly, I know there's been a lot of speculation in the media about what the President is going to do at any given moment or any given night. And I would say a lot of these stories, to be with you. I've been reading them, and they have been based on anonymous sources who are pretending or guessing to know the President's thinking. The truth is, only President Trump knows what he's going to do, and a very small team of advisors are read into his thinking on that.

Reports that rocketed around Tuesday and Wednesday were full of conjecture on what's in Trump's mind. That's because on Tuesday, after Iran had crossed Trump's red line about targeting protesters, and when it looked like the US was just about to strike, Trump took a step back.

We have been informed by very important sources on the other side, and they said the killing has stopped and the executions won't take place. There were supposed to be a lot of executions today and that the executions won't take place. We're going to find I mean, I'll find out after this. You'll find out. But we've been told on good authority, and I hope it's true. Who knows?

Since then, the Treasury has put sanctions on what it said were Iranian leaders responsible for the crackdown on protesters. But before those remarks from Trump, the situation was pretty tense. The skies over Iran had closed, and reports said US personnel had evacuated Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Foreign embassies were emptying out in Tehran, and the President had told Americans to get out of Iran quickly. Then there were reports that the supercarrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, had been redeployed from the South China Sea to the Middle East. That would be a significant boost for US naval power in the region. But despite all that, little happened, and the world was left with a little bit of whiplash from that.

What are we hearing from lawmakers in Washington, both left and right?

Well, they appear to be overall okay with how Trump is approaching this situation so far. At least, Congress hasn't attempted to step in and curb the President's power like it did Tuesday night with Venezuela. Then, the President narrowly avoided what could have been an embarrassing rebuke, with Vice President J. D. Vance breaking a 50/50 tie for the administration. Meanwhile, there is narrow bipartisan support for a strike on Iran. Here Democratic Senator John Fetterman earlier this week.

People seem to forget that, and how that changed the entire dynamic in the Middle East after they destroyed their nuclear facilities.

Now that helped trigger this kinds of unrest right now in Iran.

That could actually create a new nation with these protests.

That's why I remain open to these kinds of strikes.

Gop Senator Lindsay Graham, a close ally of the President, has said that a question of the strike isn't Not so much if it will happen, but how big will it be?

Now, shifting gears a bit, President Trump spoke earlier this week with the acting President in Venezuela, that's Delce Rodriguez. He also met in person with the opposition leader this week. How did those meetings go?

The White House overall was pretty positive about both of these meetings. Rodriguez has deep ties to Communist revolutionaries in Venezuela and worked for decades with Maduro and before him, Hugo Chávez. But Trump appears to be getting along with Rodriguez despite all of that. Here's what Levet said about Trump's call with Rodriguez.

As for Ms. Rodriguez, the President did speak with her directly this week. As you know, he revealed that to all of you yesterday. Secretary Rubio and the administration have been in constant communication with Ms. Rodriguez and other members of the interim government in Venezuela. They have been extremely cooperative. They have thus far met all of the demands and requests of the United States and of the President. I think you have all seen that play out.

Then Trump also met with opposition leader Maria Karina Machado yesterday. The meeting appeared to be friendly, but not likely to change the situation on the ground in Venezuela anytime soon. Trump still appears unconvinced that Machado could successfully take over the machine built by Maduro.

Well, like the Iran situation, a very delicate foreign policy play to negotiate. Tim, thanks for reporting.

Good to be on.

Senators heard testimony this week about the abortion pill, which is now by far the leading means of abortion in the United States. At issue is the Biden era policy that stripped away the requirement that a woman consult with a physician in person before taking the pill.

Joining us now to discuss is physician and Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Senator, thanks for coming on.

Yeah, really good to be with you. Thanks for having me.

You were part of a really important hearing this week about the abortion pill and so-called Telehealth. You yourself are a physician, so of course, you approach this issue in part from that perspective. First, can you tell us about this hearing and why it was so significant?

Yeah. You're specifically referring to a hearing in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension, where we discuss the issue of the abortion pills and their use. I think what we are able to achieve is to inform the American people that these are not like taking a Tylenol, that it can be serious consequences from taking them, particularly when they're not taken as they're supposed to. The second thing is, one way to address this is to reverse what Joe Biden did, which is to eliminate the requirement to have an in-person interview with the doctor when the woman has given the pill. And we humanize that, if you will, by speaking of those, a couple of people in Louisiana, in which someone else ordered the abortion pill and forced the pregnant woman to take them. So you got to have humanity here. And the humanity is that some coercive person that was emotionally bullying or physically bullying the woman who was pregnant made her abort, as opposed to her visiting a doctor and the doctor speaking to her and saying, Do you really want this? Wait a second. It doesn't seem as if you do. Wait a second. They're making you take it?

That's what you lose when you eliminate the requirement for that in-person visit.

And what's the main argument from those who defend this Biden era policy?

That it's safe. And it's interesting. Then their argument, they kept implying that this was telemedicine. And we kept pointing out, No, we're speaking about signing up on a website. There's nothing tele about it. Venmo in 150 bucks and getting the pills in the mail.

Now, you mentioned the argument that this pill is safe. Dr. Verma, who testified, said that taking away the abortion pill would put women's health in even more danger than the pill itself. How do you respond to that?

One thing she suggested wrongly is that Louisiana would not allow the appropriate use of the drug to help a woman after she's had a miscarriage. The Louisiana law is that specifically you may take this medicine when it is appropriate addressing the issue of a miscarriage. It was also raised as if somehow we were suggesting that even if a woman's health was at stake, that we would not permit either these pills or something else to be done to make sure that the woman could survive the illness. That's also not true. The specific example from North Carolina, we pointed out that was not the case. We kept coming back to, this is not just like taking the Tylenol, that the in-person interview would be the way to address this and that there are people being coerced. One way to address that is to require the in-person interview. They didn't really have an answer for that.

After this hearing, what are your next steps?

Doing away with the requirement for an in-person visit started during COVID under President Biden's administration. I'm hoping that Secretary Kennedy and Commissioner McCarri of the FDA would eliminate that, would go back to the standard that if you're getting a prescription for this, you have to see the doctor in person. If they would do that, and they can do it just with an order, it doesn't take a whole lot to do that, that would address a lot of these concerns. Knowing that President Trump has run as a pro-life President, I'm hoping that the people who work for him are similarly pro-life.

All right. Well, Bal is in their court now. Senator, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you both. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show, now you can watch for free on Daily Wire+. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.