Transcript of USA Catches World Cup Fever & How Socialists Are Winning Democrats | 6.25.26

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Democratic socialists declare their day has finally come after a series of elections shakes the leadership of the Democratic Party.

This is a battle between the establishment and this insurgency, and the roof is collapsing on the Democratic Party establishment. This is a new era for the Democratic Party.

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, June 25th, and this is Morning Wire.

A first of its kind domestic terrorism case brings decades of prison time for a group of Antifa members. Antifa militants launched large explosive fireworks to lure out staff that were working inside the ICE facility, agents inside, and police. And then it was an ambush shooting.

And the US men's soccer team hits the pitch again today as as they're poised to move on to the next round.

The goal scorer was not in offside position.

Goal is good.

And the building shakes in Seattle.

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

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Controversy has exploded over New York Democrats' nomination of 3 far-left congressional candidates.

Joining us now to discuss the fallout from all of this is Katie Pavlich, host of Katie Pavlich Tonight. Katie, great to have you on again.

Great to see you. Thanks so much for having me.

So I would say that the dust has settled on what took place Tuesday in New York, but I feel like it's actually just ramping up. Things got really heated yesterday with the fallout from this. We had the election of 3 candidates, all endorsed by Mamdani against the wishes of the establishment Democrats, which is key. His candidates pulled off a clean sweep. First, big picture, why have these elections created such a stir?

Well, because the Democratic Socialists of America, you know, they tested out Mom Donny to become the mayor of the biggest city in the country, one of the most important cities in the world. And now they have successfully infiltrated the Democratic Party. And the reason why people are so concerned about these candidates is because of their backgrounds. They are openly pro-terrorism. They say things like, we believe in the Palestinian resistance and we need to translate that to unrest in and violence in America. And so this is, this is an organized movement. Movement. It's not just a one-off, and it's not even about Mom Donny. It's about the Democratic Socialists of America organizing to use the democratic system, which is why they say democratic socialists, to obtain power. And then once they have that power, to undermine everything that America stands for and to rebuild the systems that they want, which are socialist, communist, and Islamist.

Now, out of the 3 candidates, 2 have really gained the most attention. That's Claire Valdez and Daria-Liza Avila-Chavalle. Uh, they've both espoused some pretty extreme views. What do we know about them?

Well, in terms of the views that they've espoused, Dara Eliza has said we need to undermine and eradicate America as we know it. She's the one who talked about using the Palestinian resistance to bring violence and unrest to America. There's another candidate that also won a Senate seat in New York last night named Aubrey Kunis, and she is the one who was on the record openly saying that America deserved 9/11. She's been spotted at these pro-terrorism rallies holding Hamas headbands, uh, and she is now going to hold elected office in New York. So this ideology is far removed from what you would think would be a, quote, moderate Democrat. And the Democratic Socialists of America, which has 80,000 members, they have over 100 chapters on college campuses all across the country. And the strategy is they go into these deep blue districts that are kind of sleepy, where they don't expect a lot of turnout. They take on these establishment candidates, they win, and then they solidify their power and grow their numbers. And we're seeing that in real time.

How confident do Democrats feel about these candidates winning in November?

The mainstream Democrats— and Hakeem Jeffries, who is of course the minority leader in the House, is having a very difficult time grappling with this— but the DSA is very confident. They have a lot of funding. They are very good at the propaganda machine. They are quite good at selling this communist socialist ideology and the in the vein of Che Guevara, you know, the t-shirt style, making it look cool. Um, and their recipe is that Americans are struggling with things like inflation and the cost of living. So they say the right things, but underneath it all, their agenda is really to destroy the American experience as we know it.

Do you see the Democratic Party getting behind these candidates out of necessity like they have with Graham Plattner?

Yeah, I mean, Graham Plattner's a DSA-endorsed candidate, so yes, absolutely they will get in line because you're seeing that Democrats will do pretty much anything to maintain power despite the fact they're getting eaten alive by these far-left, uh, anti-American, uh, candidates who have espoused, you know, views of violence to meet their political ends.

Now, you mentioned, uh, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. He's seen as the biggest loser of the week. The National Republican Congressional Committee actually sent him flowers yesterday and condolences to losing all these elections. Has he already lost control of the party?

Yes, 100%. He has lost control of the Democratic Party. He's been a pretty terrible leader, and I would not be surprised if you see some challenging of him in his leadership position ahead of midterm elections.

Final question, the response to all of this on the Republican side. What are you hearing from your sources among Republicans?

There's two different camps. There's some Republicans who think this is great because these candidates are so extreme that the American people will be completely completely, you know, turned off, and they find these statements about, you know, America deserving 9/11, for example, um, completely revolting. On the other hand, there is this fear that the DSA is very strategic, and they are, and organized in being able to put in candidates against incumbents, whether they're Republican or Democrat, that people are kind of sick of, right? The establishment. You know, Susan Collins has been in the Senate for a very long time. She's, you know, Graham Plattner is much younger than her, has a different kind of presentation than she does. We're We're seeing the same thing in the Michigan U.S. Senate race. So they're very good at choosing their candidates despite the fact that these people have extreme views about America and what they plan to do once they're in power, um, that they, they should not be underestimated because they plan to win and they are.

And most of these, uh, candidates are very young. They'll be here for a long time if they do gain a foothold. Katie, thank you so much for coming on.

Great to see you. Thanks for having me.

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Morning, Wire. A first-of-its-kind domestic terrorism case brings decades of prison time for a group of Antifa members.

Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Ter joins us now with the latest. So Jenny, we saw a total of 8 defendants who were sentenced this week. I think a lot of people were very surprised by how severe those sentences were. First, what was the significance of that?

You're absolutely right, there were some pretty significant sentences here. And just to set the scene, on that July 4th day last year, outside of a North Texas ICE detention facility, these Antifa militants basically lured officers out of the building. They set off fireworks knowing that it was Independence Day. Those officers then came out, and that's when that group fired about 20 to 30 shots at them. And in the aftermath of this, we learned that a local police officer who was responding to the incident was actually shot in the neck. Uh, thankfully that officer did survive, but it just goes to show you exactly the severity of this attack. New body cam footage has also emerged showing how dramatic the situation was at the scene. So going back to those lengthy sentences, one of the individuals who is tagged as the ringleader of this, that's Benjamin Song. He's a Marine Corps reservist, actually, and he was the one who actually fired at that officer who was injured in this attack. For his part, he received a 100-year sentence. That is the maximum penalty for those charges. So that was the biggest one that we saw. Then, There were 7 others who had sentences ranging from about 30 to 70 years behind bars.

Going back to Song, he was accused of firing 2 AR-15-style rifles at 3 officers that day. Song also was said to have recruited his co-conspirators and communicated in encrypted chats with them online. Then he also was said to have instructed the group to actually get their rifles ready as they were preparing to shoot. He also fled the scene and was able to evade authorities for about 11 days after the attack.

Like you said, these are very heavy sentences. I've certainly seen some left-wing media suggesting that this is retribution and that these were politically targeted defendants. What do the prosecutors attribute these long sentences to?

So this is the first domestic terrorism case against Antifa. So this is pretty historic, and this comes after the Trump administration's designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization. So this being the first case, and then also the fact that the evidence pointed to this highly coordinated and motivated effort— this group bought military-style clothing. They used these bags called Faraday bags to conceal cell phone signals from law enforcement, actually. Then we can look at days after the attack when Song was fleeing. And we should also mention that the other members of this group had tried to flee from authorities but were unsuccessful. So with all of this, we can see that this was highly coordinated, right?

And it seems like federal authorities do want to make an example out of this. How did they tie this group to Antifa specifically in order to pursue those, uh, terrorism charges?

Those prosecutors looked at the ideology that this group was espousing. They said that they were looking to overthrow the government and law enforcement. Also, during the trial, an expert witness had testified to the tactics that were employed by Antifa. They said those really aligned. And that includes targeting ICE facilities increasingly, uh, due to their opposition to the Trump administration's mass deportation effort. Now, it was also revealed during the trial that Song himself wanted to free the detainees from the ICE detention center. Now, the group also left flyers behind that read, "Fight ICE terror with class war. Free all political prisoners. Resist fascism. Fight oligarchy." They also spray-painted a vehicle with the words "ICE pig" and the same thing on a guard shack at the facility.

Well, like you said, a first-of-its-kind case actually pursuing a terrorism charge against Antifa members. Jenny, thanks so much for reporting. Thank you.

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Here to explain what all of this means and break down the World Cup fandom that's sweeping the nation is Daily Wire reporter Lyndon Blake. So Lyndon, first off, the U.S. has a game today. Can you tell us what the stakes are, who they're playing, and what it means for the tournament?

This is going to be a fun match against Türkiye, but they're playing for dominance. Team USA has already won Group D. They already have their game scheduled for July 1st for the round of 32. So I think today's match— and no offense to Türkiye, they're not going to make it— they're playing for nothing. It's a good time to get to know the players and just enjoy a soccer match without the pressure of having to win. So this is interesting because Team USA is not going to know who they play in that round of 32 on July 1st until potentially Saturday, and that's because the World Cup expanded this time to 48 teams. Back in 2022, you had 16 of the 32 teams in the tournament advance, and with 8 groups of 4, the top 2 teams from each group advance. So now you kind of have to wait to see how it plays out. Again, today's a great day to learn the game of soccer. John, soccer fan? Huge.

Maybe not so much.

Do you know they call the field a pitch?

I've heard, I've heard that because I watched, uh, Wrexham. Okay.

Do you know they call the jersey a kit? No.

What do they call the bras that men wear?

Those monitor the heartbeats, and I don't know what they call them, but yes, it appears as the soccer players are wearing these sports bras, but it monitors their heart throughout the match. So very interesting. The more you know. And you can also learn some of the players. So, so far for Team USA, you had Florian Balogun He has scored a team-high 2 goals, and he had the option to play for Nigeria or the US because his parents were born in Nigeria, and he chose to rock with the US of A. So you can watch him. Chris Richards, he's from Alabama. He's one of the center backs, meaning he's one of the defenders for Team USA. He leads the team in passes. So you could say the US is on a tear right now. Dominated Paraguay, dominated Australia, and now they're entering as hot as ever into the round of 32. And it's very fun for Team USA fans to have their country mentioned among the greats like Argentina, France, Colombia, Mexico. So, you know, we're feeling pretty good heading out of the group stage.

Are they projected to maybe win now the way they're playing?

Yes. Going into the tournament, no. It was like 60-to-1 odds. And people were saying, these experts were saying, if Team USA got a win in the round of 16, that would be considered a huge success. And now people are saying, wait, I think they could win it all.

Well, I think a lot of people have been surprised at the fandom that's actually showed up for Team USA. We are still seeing tons of Europeans flooding social media with their, um, impressions from America, things they love about America. We've previously reported on Freddy with Megan Basham, but he's continued on his tear. So what has Freddy been up to?

Okay, well, I'm gonna credit my home state of Alabama being the reason why Freddy loves America so much. Get to go to my alma mater Auburn and see an eagle fly when he went to watch Messi play in Jordan-Hare Stadium. Stadium. He's just continuing to have the time of his life. Got to meet Ella Langley, arguably the hottest name in country music right now. He's gotten invited to the White House. But him and his friends, they are living the ultimate American road trip. And it's not just them. I've seen people from Japan tear into a turkey leg and it's the best thing they've ever done in their life. Free refills, they don't have that over there. So I love this Celebrate America that all the other countries are having, this like Americana pride. And it's especially fun for us because we're all celebrating 250 players.

Totally. Before we let you go, we wanted to talk about the Iranian situation. This is interesting, a change in policy maybe from the White House on this. What is the latest on how we're dealing with that from a security standpoint?

So far this tournament, they have not been allowed to stay on U.S. soil. They've had to go back to Mexico immediately after every match because there's been the obvious travel bans or restricted visas for Iranian team members and people that are with the team. I mean, it's just been a very locked-down situation. Obviously the team is planned. So for their next match, which is Friday in Seattle against Egypt, the US Department of Homeland Security allowed Iran to go up to Seattle 2 days prior to the match, which is a big deal to get ready for the match against Egypt. But as soon as that match wraps up, they will have to fly back down to Mexico. So that's been a fascinating area of the World Cup tournament to watch. But again, you have so many layers to this. The USA doing great, you have the fandom. It's just been an exciting thing to watch unfold.

Unexpected joy having the World Cup here. Lyndon, thanks for reporting.

Of course. And hey, go USA!

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