Morning Wire XX
[0] The defense rests in Donald Trump's hush money trial, which will soon be in the hands of the jury.
[1] It's only in closing arguments that we expect the jury to actually hear what the theory is as to this second crime.
[2] Did the prosecution prove their case and how will the verdict play in the court of public opinion?
[3] I'm Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley.
[4] It's Wednesday, May 22nd, and this is Morning Wire.
[5] The Biden administration is withholding information.
[6] about illegal immigrants on the terror watch list, including an alleged attempt to infiltrate a military base.
[7] Some reporting was that one of them had hit the TSDS, the terror screening database.
[8] Can you shed any light on that?
[9] Yeah, I can't confirm anything like that right now.
[10] And a controversial new film about Trump is met with high praise at the Cannes Film Festival and legal threats from an investor and the Trump campaign.
[11] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.
[12] Stay tuned.
[13] We have the news you need to know.
[14] Hey, it's Leanne from Team Morning Wire.
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[22] The evidence phase of the hush money trial of former President Donald Trump is over with closing arguments scheduled to commence next week.
[23] The prosecution brought 20 witnesses, the defense only two, and soon it will be in the hands of the jury.
[24] Here to discuss this week's final day of court as Daily Wire contributor, David Marcus.
[25] Hey, Dave.
[26] So a fast wrap on witnesses for the defense.
[27] What did we see yesterday?
[28] Morning, John.
[29] It was a quick day in court.
[30] The only testimony came from former Michael Cohen associate Robert Costello, whose testimony began late Monday.
[31] He says that Cohen was suicidal after being arrested and has said in the past that Cohen told him he had nothing on Trump.
[32] The Trump team had wanted to bring one last witness, election law expert Brad Smith, basically to argue that no election law was broken here.
[33] But Judge Mershan did not allow it, saying that competing legal experts would just confuse the jury.
[34] Smith took to social media posting on X that he should have been allowed to testify because, as he put it, even Antonin Scalia famously called election law confusing and arguing that Marchand had given greater latitude to the prosecution.
[35] He did not mince his words saying he was not optimistic about jury instruction and ending his thread with, quote, why do pluralities of Americans see Biden as a greater threat to democracy than Trump, in part because of farces like this trial, end quote.
[36] Direct indeed.
[37] About those instructions, this is what the judge will tell the jurors after the closing arguments are made by both sides next week.
[38] How important could those instructions be?
[39] In a case like this, it is absolutely vital, because it's not like there's a dead body here.
[40] The question isn't so much whether Trump committed a crime, but whether Trump's actions even constitute a crime.
[41] In some areas, Marchand could essentially say to jurors, if you believe evidence X, then your decision should be why.
[42] almost an equation.
[43] So both the prosecution and the defense will offer proposals on how all of these things ought to be defined.
[44] But ultimately, these will be Marchand's calls alone.
[45] Right.
[46] As far as the media coverage goes, where did the top networks or outlets land at the end of all this evidence given by over 20 witnesses?
[47] Was there, if not a consensus, maybe a few points of agreement?
[48] There were.
[49] The experts who have been criticizing this case for some time, such as Andrew McCarthy, thought the prosecution's case just got worse and worse.
[50] Jonathan Turley went so far as to say there could be reversible error here if Trump is convicted, which is to say grounds for an appeal.
[51] But even on CNN, which is not friendly to the former president, there was legitimate shock at Monday's bombshell that Cohen had stolen $60 ,000 from Trump.
[52] Here's their legal analyst, Ellie Honig, basically saying that the prosecution finally found a crime, but one committed by Michael Cohen.
[53] It's a very fair question to ask, gee, folks, of the jury, they gave him a free pass.
[54] He committed larceny.
[55] It's a higher degree of a felony than what Donald Trump is charged with, yet they gave Michael Cohen a free pass, even though he's now admitted that he stole what amounts to $60 ,000.
[56] It goes to his credibility.
[57] It goes to his relationship with the DA.
[58] There were some attempts to downplay this testimony, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, somewhat comically suggested that Cohen was only, quote, rebalancing his bonus to reflect.
[59] what he thought he had earned, which most people just call, you know, stealing.
[60] Yeah.
[61] Could the media reaction actually end up influencing the outcome of this case?
[62] So there's really two ways that the coverage could impact the ultimate outcomes of this case.
[63] One is potentially influencing the jury, and the other is what the American voters take away from the case.
[64] As to the first, yes, they are instructed not to read about the case, but they aren't sequestered.
[65] They have phones and televisions.
[66] spouses.
[67] They might even listen to 15 -minute morning news programs.
[68] So some of this coverage could certainly seep through, and most of it has been pretty bad for the prosecution.
[69] Then there's the voters.
[70] A big question going into this was whether Trump would lose support should he suffer a conviction, as some polls had suggested.
[71] And look, I think it's just kind of obvious that the weaker the case looks, conviction or no, the stronger a position Trump will be in heading into the election.
[72] Yeah, it certainly seems true.
[73] Dave, thanks for joining us.
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[81] A man on the U .S. terrorist watch list traveled from the Middle Eastern country of Jordan to Mexico and then illegally crossed into the U .S. He then allegedly tried to break into the Quantico Marine Corps base in Virginia.
[82] Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Roziak found that this and the secrecy around it is becoming a bit of a pattern.
[83] He joins us now.
[84] Hey Luke.
[85] Hey, John.
[86] So when did this occur and how did we find out about it?
[87] Well, the remarkable thing, is that the quantum coincidence occurred way back on May 3, but authorities hit it from the public.
[88] They acknowledged it last week only when a freelance reporter for a local news outlet, Potomac Local, forced their hand.
[89] A Marine Corps spokesman then said that two men claimed to be delivery drivers, and when guards got suspicious and told them not to proceed onto the base, they drove onto the base anyway before being apprehended and turned over to ICE.
[90] That implies that both were illegal immigrants.
[91] But the Marine Corps and ICE, each refused to confirm whether the man from Jordan was on the terror watch list.
[92] Potomac local said the man had just crossed the southern border recently.
[93] All right, so we have known bad actors flying to Mexico in order to come across the border, then potentially attempting espionage or an attack on a military base.
[94] This sounds like something that would be big news.
[95] Yeah, absolutely.
[96] But the Biden administration and the Department of Homeland Security, which is in charge of both securing the border and preventing terrorism, have instead gone to great lengths to prevent Americans from learning about these security repercussions.
[97] of what's become the most open border in history.
[98] On Wednesday, the same day we found out about Quantico, DHS refused to fulfill a public records request listing how many suspected terrorists from each foreign country were known to have crossed the border.
[99] It acknowledged that it had those records, but it refused to release them, citing the, quote, privacy interests of the foreign suspected terrorists.
[100] Fox News reporter Bill Malugian, who filed the request, said that likely amounted to violating the Freedom of Information Act, as he didn't even want the name.
[101] names of the terrorists, just the number and the home countries.
[102] We know the man from Jordan who allegedly tried to infiltrate Quantico is not the only one on the terror watch list to make it in.
[103] The House Committee on Homeland Security said in December that about 300 illegals on that watch list were apprehended at the southern border since 2021, not to mention the ones who weren't caught.
[104] Now, the Biden administration lets many of those that does catch stay in the country.
[105] And last year it apprehended and then released a member of a Somalian terrorist group before realizing its mistake and arresting him a year later.
[106] About a month prior to the Quantico incident, a Chinese national was apprehended attempting to access another Marine Corps base in California.
[107] He was turned over to customs and border protection.
[108] Video from the border has shown individuals from all across the world traveling to Mexico to stream into the U .S. One Middle Eastern man looked into the camera and seemed to issue a threat.
[109] You are really not smart enough to know who I am, but soon you're going to know who I am.
[110] Well, meanwhile, we've still got journalists out there who have uncovered some of these incidents.
[111] Luke, thanks for reporting.
[112] Sure thing.
[113] That was Daily Wire investigative reporter, Luke Roziak.
[114] A new movie about the early days of Donald Trump's career is making waves at the Cannes Film Festival this week, but not all of the film's investors are happy with how the former president is being depicted and the Trump campaign is now threatening to sue.
[115] Here with more as Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham.
[116] Hey, Megan, so this film appears to have come out of sort of nowhere.
[117] Why are we just now hearing about this movie and what do we know about it?
[118] Yeah, you know, I'd say that producers did a pretty good job keeping it under wraps until now.
[119] It's a biopic titled The Apprentice, and it stars Sebastian Stan, who everyone probably knows as Bucky Barnes slash the Winter Soldier in the Marvel movies, and it follows Donald Trump's life when he was an up -and -coming real estate mogul in the 70s and 80s.
[120] In particular, it explores his relationship with his attorney and mentor Roy Cohn, who was a well -known Democratic operative and chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s.
[121] And then it also covers Trump's relationship with his first wife, Ivana.
[122] But the word is, the filmmakers took special care to keep this movie, and I'm quoting, shrouded in mystery.
[123] Ahead of its world premiere at Cannes on Monday night, none of the cast did any press on the ground.
[124] That's pretty unusual.
[125] And they seem to have worked hard to keep any details about the plot from leaking until just now.
[126] Well, apparently that work paid off.
[127] So how is Trump portrayed in the film?
[128] It's hard to imagine, given the mainstream stars in it, that it would be especially positive.
[129] Well, of course, I haven't seen it yet, but the early reviews suggest that it is not positive.
[130] No, in fact, pretty far from it.
[131] Both ABC and Variety used the word scathing to describe it.
[132] Other outlets have used terms like blistering and brutal.
[133] And there are scenes, that showed Trump using anphetamines to lose weight and one that depicts him raping Ivana.
[134] Now, she passed away in 2022, but though she used the word rape during their divorce proceedings, she later said that she was misunderstood and that she did not mean that literally.
[135] So at the very least, I think we can say that this does not sound like a flattering film.
[136] Yeah, not at all.
[137] And one of the film's investors is not happy about this, correct?
[138] Yeah, according to an exclusive new report from a variety, no. So Dan Snyder is the billionaire former owner of the Washington commanders.
[139] He's also been a Trump donor.
[140] He gave over a million dollars to Trump's inaugural committee and also contributed to his 2016, 2020 presidential campaigns.
[141] Well, Snyder is reportedly very unhappy with how the film presents Trump and he has demanded edits.
[142] So according to Variety, Snyder only agreed to back the film because he thought it was going to be more even -handed.
[143] And when he saw a rough cut back in February, variety sources say that he was furious and his lawyers have actually been fighting the release of this film.
[144] Also, as you said, complicating this, Snyder is not the only one making legal threats.
[145] On Tuesday, the Trump campaign announced that they'll be filing a lawsuit to, quote, address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers.
[146] Director Ali Abasi said he's not worried about that, though.
[147] Do we know when this film will be released?
[148] Is there a sense that the filmmakers are hoping it could have an impact on this election?
[149] It doesn't have a release date yet.
[150] That's the purpose of these film festivals to screen the film so that they find distributors, but it did make a major splash at Cannes.
[151] So the audience gave the film an eight -minute standing ovation.
[152] So with that and a well -known cast, I don't think it's going to have any trouble getting picked up.
[153] And for financial reasons alone, any distributor is going to want to release it before the election when interest is going to be at a peak.
[154] And obviously, Hollywood isn't exactly full of Trump, fans.
[155] So yes, I'm guessing there will probably be some political motivation to see it released in the fall.
[156] In fact, after the screening in Cannes, Abassi said, it's time to make movies political again, and he suggested that this film is a warning against fascism.
[157] So statements like that, if no other, certainly indicate that, yes, they are planning for this film to have some political impact.
[158] Yeah, that seems very clear.
[159] Megan, thanks for reporting.
[160] Anytime.
[161] Thanks for waking up with us.
[162] We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.
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