America 250 Celebration and Controversy

Your summer weekends fill up fast, but Crocs has your back. Road trips, beach days, last minute getaways, whatever's on the agenda, swing by your local store and find your new goat too Try it, style it, make it yours. becausecause the right pair doesn't just show up It shows off Wock out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest crox store today This episode is brought to you by Street Easy. You gota ask yourself, Want to talk about the time you lived in the greatest city on Earth or still live in it? In the city where a matinee leads to two AM tacos. Your New York era can last a lifetime. With twenty years of MYC know how, Street Easy can help you become a forever New Yorker. Visit streeteasy dot com to buy or rent in NYC. Street Easy is an assumed name of Zillow Inc, which has licenses in all fifty states The Iran ceasefire remains on the brink after both sides exchanged fire over the weekend, but talks are still on for Tuesday. While the administration hoped that the Iranians would take the economic incentives, they never took additional military strikes off the table. And so I think what we're seeing right now is the Iranians, they're pushing their luck I'm Georgia Howe. John is on vacation this week. It's Monday, june twenty ninth, and this is Morning Wire Rescuers race to pull survivors from the rubble in Venezuela as the disaster reaches its fifth day. It's a really dire situation. We have a very critical window of time where we're able to have survivors pulled from the rubble. And America celebrates her first quarter century this week with a blowout celebration of the fifty states on the National Mall But some states are leaving their booths empty These states are showing up maybe not through their governor's office, but we're going to make sure every state is represented on the mall. Thanks for waking up with the Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news You need to know If somebody Googled you right now, what were they find? Not just your LinkedIn profile or social media or that tyai place you love to review for, your actual information. homeome address, phone number, relatives, places you've lived. And in the age of AI, that information has become even more valuable to scammers, spammers, and bad actors looking for easy targets. Delete me removes your personal information that's being sold online The reality is that most people don't have the time or patience to track down hundreds of data broker websites and request removal one by one. Delete Me does the hard work for you. Delete Me named Wirecutters topop picks for data removal serervices, and it's never been more affordable. Individual plans started at a little over eight dollars a month with even bigger discounts for families and longer term plans. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me Now at a special discount for our listeners. Get twenty percent off your delete mee plan and you go to wWW d. join delete me dot com slash wire and use promo code wire at checkout. The only way to get twenty percent off is to go to wWW d. join deeletee dot com slash wire and enter code wire at checkout. That's wWW d. join deletee d. com slash wire, code wire The US and Iran exchanged missiles and new threats over the weekend as the fragile ceasefire appears ready to break at any moment. Cabbot Phips, host of Wired in, is here now with the latest. So Cabot first off, catch us up on what happened over the weekend. Yeah, this time last week, the vibes were high. Jadie Vance was wrapping up successful negotiations in Switzerland, and it looked like the two sides had finally reached an agreement they could both swallow But on Thursday, things started to take a turn for the worse. That's when Iranian drones targeted several commercial cargo vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz And at least one ship headed for Singapore suffered extensive damage In response, the US. executed a ninety minute operation with airirstrikes hammering Iranian radar and drone facilities along the coast As VP thenans put it, quote, Iran signed a ceasefire agreement We have honored it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone But violence will be met with violence But instead of backing down, the Iranians accused the U.S of quote treaty breaking under various pretexts. And then they launched attacks on more vessels in the strait. They also sent a barrage of missiles and drones into Kuwait and Bahrain, though most thankfully were shot down That prompted yet another retaliatory attack by the US., which again, hammered IRGC installations across the coast Saturday night And then hours later, the Iranians targeted U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, though again, no service members or civilians were harmed and hours after that, You guessed it, the U. S. responded with even more strikes. Here's UN Ambassador Mike Waltz in response on Sunday. The Iranian regime thinks for a second that President Trump is going to sit by, stand by while Iran continues to attack international shipping without a response or our bases without a response. They're sadly mistaken and they saw that loud and clear over the last few nights Now for their part, the Iranians have declared that American bases in the Middle East would quote soon experience hell. So the ceasefire is still technically in place, but There is a lot of firing going on Now, what are they trying to get out of this? Why would the Iranians do this? Yeah, I've posed this question to numerous Pentagon officials, both current and former, and they're always quick to say some variation of Tyrannical regimes run by radical Islamists do not act logically. So there isn't always some grand geopolitical strategy at play. So it could be just as simple as crazy people do crazy things Others told me that these repeated violations of the ceasefire and the sort of teasing Trump into renewing the war could be an example of dissent within the leadership structure itself. We tend to think of the regime as a monolith with singular goals, but that's not the case, especially when the top dozen or so leaders have all been killed in the last six months and the Ayatoll himself has been out of commission Yes, there are some members of the regime who want the war to end and feel the peace deal is beneficial in the long run. But as one retired army general put it to me, there are still plenty of Iranians there in control who want this war to continue and view any deal with America as weakness And it only takes a few people with that mindset to order rogue, drone, or missile strikes and kick things up all over again obviously puts President Trump in a very hard spot. If he feels the regime as a whole still wants this deal, he risks appearing weak by not restarting the war or at least going much harder with his strikes. But if he goes all in again, he could be dragged into a prolonged conflict that he desperately wants to avoid Now, what does this mean for the Strait of Hormoz? Is it currently open Yeah, that's the question that will have the biggest impact on Americans in the short term as global prices, as we've covered, have been greatly impacted by the strait's closure. It's technically open Again, there's still a lot of missiles going out towards vessels in the Strait. The Iranians know that control of the Strait of Hormuz is their biggest piece of leverage, and they have been very slow to cede any ground Now, this peace deal technically does not offer them control of the strait That is not how they see it. Iran's foreign minister said this weekend that the deal does give them total control, and they have been acting accordingly. In recent days, they've demanded that ships transit through Iranian waters directly off their coast instead of taking a separate longer course along the coast of Oman Now they are threatening to attack ships that violate that demand. Now for his part, President Trump issued a new series of threats over the weekend, saying Iran had quote, violated the ceasefire agreement again It is very possible they will never learn. There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable and will be forced to militarily complete the job we very successfully started. He then said, If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist. The next round of negotiations between these two sides will take place tomorrow in Switzerland And if those meetings actually happen, which given this fighting is now kind of up in the air, the two sides will have plenty to talk about. Right, and a lot of intrigue about what's actually being said behind closed doors. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely. So you may be surprised to hear this, but I had actually never tried anyQuint shoes until very recently, and a friend of mine got some Quince loafers and they were really nice. so I ordered a pair of suede driving loafers and they are just so luxe. As I've said before, I've been a quQuinince shopper for many years, but I had mostly purchased clothing and bedding, so it's great to see they can hit the mark on other things too. and it makes me think twice about spending on designer labels So elevate your summer wardrobe, go to quince d. com slash wire for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's QuNcE dot com slash wire for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. That's quince dot com slash wire The death toll continues to climb after two earthquakes struck Venezuela last week. Daily Wire contributor Tim Peerce is here with the latest. So Tim, what's going on in Venezuela now Well the situation on the ground is still very chaotic and very dangerous for the rescue teams. Since those seven point five and seven point two magnitude earthquakes hit Venezuela's Lag Guida region on Wednesday, hundreds of aftershocks have continued to shake the area. Those in particular pose a real risk to emergency workers that are digging through rubble to find survivors. If any of that rubble shifts the wrong way could cause a building to collapse again. So again, a very dangerous situation for rescue workers. We are also now well outside of the seventy two hour window that aid groups say is critical to find people who are trapped. After about three days, the odds of finding people alive drops drastically But throughout this obviously very tragic ordeal, there have been a few brights spots. Over the weekend, the State Department released a video of American rescue workers pulling a nine month old baby and her mother from rubble. Both only had minor injuries and are doing well Yeah. And it's really hard to actually understand the scale of the disaster there. And one of the reasons for that has been that officials have really struggled to get accurate assessments of the damage What kind of firm numbers do we have at this point The death toll seems to climb every hour. By Saturday, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said that at least one four thousand four hundred and thirty people have died and over three thousand are injured. At least another three thousand families have lost their homes, and officials estimate that the number of buildings that have collapsed is around one hundred twenty five. Now it's that last number that has worried officials about the ultimate death toll A UN official told The New York Times that one hundred and twenty five collapsseed buildings that includes huge structures like apartment and office buildings suggest that the real death toll is much higher than the current official number Now, fortunately, dozens of countries have promised to send or have already sent aid to Venezuela. Just to go through some of that aid, the United States has earmarked one hundred fifty million dollars for recovery efforts, and search and rescue teams from Virginia, Los Angeles, and Miami, Dade County are on the ground in Venezuela already alongside the US military. The European Commission has flown in hundreds of emergency workers from France, Spain, Italy, and other countries as well as promised five million euros in emergency funds. The United Kingdom has sent a sixty eight person crew and two million euros, and the list goes on Venezuelans were already in a pretty dire situation before all this. So how are locals coping with this disaster Yeah, in the immediate aftermath, there was a huge outpour of support from Venezuelans. Hundreds of people took supplies into the hardest hit regions, and some even began digging through rubble to freeach survivors. However, as laudable as those acts are, they actually caused quite a few problems with the emergency response. Professional search and rescue teams were slow getting to some areas because the roads were so clogged with people rushing in to help. And in situations like this, obviously every second matters. And then there have also been reports of people taking advantage of the situation and looting from those who can't protect their belongings right now Now, what about their healthcare system? What kind of capacity do they have to actually handle the emergency care Yeah, no healthcare system is designed to handle a major crisis like this, but even so, Venezuela's system was in particularly bad shape. It has been underfunded for decades and has suffered tremendously from economic collapse and workers immigrating out of Venezuela. Medical teams were understaffed, ambulance services were unreliable at best, and hospitals suffered chronically from water and electrical outages And then the disaster last week happened and all of those issues have exploded. Immediately, two of the three state hospitals in La Guirea, the worst hit region were knocked out. In Caracas, one trauma hospital's roof collapsed. Officials are now telling people to stay away from the hospital except in the most severe situations to avoid overloading the system. Communication is down across a lot of the country. so the only means of communication is through radio or Elon Musk's Starlink. That means for hospitals that medical staff often don't know about the extent of an injury until the injured person is brought through the doors of the hospital. no doubt it's going to be a long road for recovery. Tim, thanks for coming on Thanks for having me In less than a week, America will round the corner on her quarter century birthday. The Capitol is buzzing with anticipation, but some politicians say their states don't want to be represented in the celebrations. Joining us to discuss the events planned for the week, plus the drama is DC Bureau Chief Tim Rice. Tim, thanks for coming on Thanks for having me, Georgia So the great American state fair has kicked off. first, tell us about that Yeah, so I mean, it's exactly what it sounds like right there in the name. This is a massive state fair on the National Mall meant to capture the spirit of state fairs and carnivals and summer activities, you know, that Americans are used to having in their hometowns and home states. So it spans the length of the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument Every state or almost every state will talk about that has a booth that represents a little bit of their own state's culture, celebrates, you know what makes their state unique. So Kentucky's booth is all about bourbon and bluegrass. Wisconsin has cheese curds. Nebraska and Illinois both have Abraham Lincoln. A lot of states actually lay claim to Lincoln. But you know across the board, it kicked off earlier this week with the concert, the much bally hood concert A lot of musical acts dropped out of. and it's been a pretty rainy few days here in Washington. So that' threatened to throw a wrench in things, but the show went on. the president kicked things off with the great speech. crowds have been have been, you all over the mld. DC is absolutely packed in people in America to fifty gear. And you know one of the things that they're doing over the next couple of weeks that the fair will be in operation Every day has a theme day. So this week for instance, I believe Tuesday is about you know, American aerospace engineering. Wednesday highlights the future of technology, but Monday is maha Monday. And this made some people a little bit angry. They think this is a politically charged event. They don't necessarily want to make America healthy again, It's a little ridiculous. You could still buy your corn dogs and your cotton candy and all that normal fair food. So you know, not explicitly explicitly political. Now, you said some states are saying they don't want to be involved in this fair why not? And then how is that affecting the programming? Yeah, so the latest instance of people kind of claiming that this event is politicized and then actually politicizing it by refusing to participate in it. So I believe around ten states originally were not going to going to participate, including, ironically, a lot of the states that were the original thirteen colonies, So Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and a bunch others, right? So the reasons varied. You know, I believe it was Rhode Island that just sort of said that, well, we want, you know, it takes a lot of resources and people to set up the booth and we would rather those people work on America two hundred fifty events here at home Pennsylvania goveror Jhapiro, meanwhile explicitly said, Pennsylvania will not be participating because President Donald Trump, you know is a tyrant and is politicizing this event by being involved, blah, blah, blah. Notably, though, that sort of opened the window for a really amazing act of bipartisanship, which is Pennsylvania's two senators, Dave McCormick, who's a Republican and Joh Fetterman, who, of course, is a Democrat banded together with a bunch of businesses and you know, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce and they independently stood up Pennsylvania's booth. So even though Pennsylvania is not sending an official delegation, their Senate delegation and a bunch of businesses stepped in. So it's really that was really awesome to see. And to answer your question, you know, it hasn't really disrupted things that much. Obviously those states will be missed, but you know, the ferr is still going strong. And notably, a lot of reports, you know, I saw reports today from NBC newews, from NPR, from the Associated press, all sort of begrudgingly admitting that all the people they've interviewed have said, this isn't politicized. This is just a really amazing event to celebrate America's two hundred fiftieth birthday Well, great to hear. And last before you go, what other events can we expect to see for the rest of the week leading up to Fourth of July? Sure. So in addition to those theme days that I mentioned, the big one, of course is on the fourth of July. Fireworks, as there are every year in Washington, a pretty massive fireworks display. But this year is going to be something for the record books. There are eight hundred fifty thousand fireworks that are going to be set off on the fourth of July from around Washington. There are eight barges in the Potomac River that will set off fireworks, plus locations, you know, rocket locations, I suppose, by the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument all throughout DC. So it's going to be pretty loud and pretty bright here in Washington One thing to note is that Freedom two hundred fifty, the group that is putting on the Great American State Fair in conjunction with the Trump administration is doing events all around the country and we're going to see a lot of them this week. So there's a whole sailing tour and naval presentation in New York Harbor leading up to the fourth of July, every state has its own sort of, you know, different different showcase. the president is going to be in South Dakota on july third for a massive event outside of Mount Rushmore. and they have a great website. It's very interactive. You can see, you know, what's going on in your state in your city, all around the country. So a pretty interesting organization doing a lot of good work. But yeah,'re they're really going to kick it into gear in these last few days leading up to the official two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. All right, very exciting. I'm going to look up what Tennessee is doing. Tim, thanks so much for reporting Thanks for having me Georia. Thanks for waking up with us. The reporting that fuels this show is only possible because you tune in every day and because of our Dailywire subscribers. To enjoy the show, add free and join our mission, become a member at dailywire dot com. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know