President Trump visits North Carolina and California using his first official trips to speak directly with victims of natural disasters. I've called and called and called FEMA. This happened on September 27th. Well, for us, today is still September 27th. You know, we haven't had help. I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, January 27th, and this is Morning Wire.
The Trump administration is filling out with Christie Noem and Pete Hegseth wasting no time after being sworn in. President Trump has picked these nominees because they are reformers. They are disruptors. And this election cycle is about the disruptors versus the establishments. Which cabinet nominees could be next? And thousands of pro-life Americans braved the cold for the annual March for Life, with both Trump and Vance speaking to an optimistic crowd.
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Head over to their site now for 20% off your purchase with code dailywire. On his first trip since taking office for the second time, President Trump met with hurricane victims in North Carolina before touring wildfire damage in California.
The visits come as the president continues to roll out executive orders at a frenetic pace. Here with all the latest is Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillip, say Cabot. So let's start in North Carolina. What happened over the weekend? Yeah, the president said the state had been, quote, abandoned by Democrats, but vowed to remember them and help them rebuild. During a press conference in Swannanoa, a town I visited for the Daily Wire back in October, Trump repeatedly called victims to the podium to tell their stories.
many described waiting weeks or even months for any relief from FEMA after Hurricane Helene. Others said they feel forgotten by the federal government. Remember, FEMA has been under an intense microscope this year after we hear it the daily wire broke that story about officials encouraging relief workers to skip homes that displayed Trump signs. But the president has long criticized the agency for being inefficient, ineffective, and overly bureaucratic.
And this weekend, he floated the idea of eliminating FEMA altogether and creating a new system in which states would receive funds directly from the federal government and allocated themselves. Whether it's a Democrat or Republican governor, you want to use your state to fix it and not waste time calling FEMA. And then FEMA gets here and they don't know the area. They've never been to the area and they want to give you rules that you've never heard about. They want to bring people that aren't as good as the people you already have.
Now after North Carolina, Trump then took a high-profile visit to California. Tell us about that. Similar in North Carolina, Trump has also criticized the emergency response in California, except in this case, he's been much more focused on state and city officials, who he says were unprepared ahead of the fires and incompetent after.
Ahead of his visit, Trump said he was prepared to open up federal relief for the state, but first he wanted to see Governor Newsom implement statewide voter ID laws and reverse environmental policies that he said made the fires worse.
But it is worth noting Trump struck a more conciliatory tone once he landed in California, professing a quote, great love for the state and assuring new some and other elected officials, both Republican and Democrat who were there, that quote, the federal government is standing behind you 100%.
But there were still some clashes, particularly between Trump and LA's much-maligned Democratic mayor, Karen Bass. During a press conference, the president called out Bass for policies that have kept residents from returning to their properties to begin the rebuilding process. The people are willing to clean out their own debris. It doesn't cost a lot. Yes, and they can. You should let them do it because by the time you hire contractors, it's going to be two years. I watched
Hundreds of people standing in front of their lots, and they're not allowed to go in. And they want to go in this standing. And I say, Warren, you're going in. We're trying to get a permit. And the permit's going to take them. Everybody said 18 months. Now, before we go, let's get caught up on the latest immigration news, something Trump has really been focusing on throughout his first week. What have we seen in the last few days? A lot, John. The president has continued to ramp up deportation efforts, focusing first on illegal immigrants with an existing criminal record.
Over the weekend, ICE agents arrested dozens of convicted gang members in Aurora, Colorado, and they made dozens more arrests in Boston, Chicago, and cities across the country. Trump has ordered many of those criminal migrants to be deported back to their home countries, but not all countries initially were willing to take them back.
On Sunday, Columbia's far-left governor Gustavo Petro refused to allow two deportation flights to land in his country. Trump responded in a major way, bowing to immediately implement 25% tariffs on all Colombian goods. That rate would rise to 50% next week if the flights are not allowed to land. He also announced a travel ban and immediate visa revocations on Colombian government officials, as well as sanctions on the president.
his family and members of his political party. Wow. So a lot. But within just hours of that news, Columbia completely reversed course and gave in with President Petro even offering his own plane to help repatriate deportees. So Trump's threat worked and the message has definitely been sent to other countries. Take your criminals back or be ready to pay the price. Yeah, pretty hard message to miss at this point. Kevin, thanks so much for reporting. Anytime.
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who are the latest on the nominations is daily wire deputy managing editor Tim Rice, a Tim. So lots of developments related to Trump's new administration over the weekend. Walk us through what happened. Yeah, John, hands down. The biggest news of the weekend is that late Friday night, the Senate confirmed Pete Haggseth as defense secretary.
Now, we've talked a lot on this show about the tough road Hegseth had to walk to confirmation. So, unsurprisingly, the vote was razor thin. Every Democrat voted against Hegseth, as did Republicans, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and surprisingly Mitch McConnell. That means Vice President JD Vance had to hustle back to the Senate chambers to cast the tie-breaking vote.
McConnell's come under a lot of flack for that no vote. He says that Hegset's desire to be a change agent is ill suited for the moment since the US faces more geopolitical threats than it did during World War II. That seems to be a reference to Hegset's vow to root out DEI from the Pentagon, which of course was one of Trump's major campaign promises.
It hangs out this wasting no time on that front. Speaking right after his confirmation, he said he was going to restore the warrior ethos to America's military. And just yesterday morning, he posted on X, the president's guidance is clear, no more DEI at the Department of Defense. Here he is talking about it. Three principles I talked about are what we will bring to that Pentagon. Restore the warrior ethos in everything that we do. Rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence.
We don't want to fight worse. We want to deter them, as you said, and we want to end them responsibly. But if we need to fight them, we're going to bring overwhelming and decisive force to close with and destroy the enemy and bring our voice.
Now, Hexeth wasn't the only cabinet member cleared over the weekend. Who else got confirmed? Yeah, that's right. On Saturday morning, the Senate confirmed South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary. Unlike Hexeth, every Republican voted for her as did six Democrats, including John Federman and Tim Kaine. Noem had a pretty smooth confirmation process, focusing mostly on the crisis at the southern border, which even Democrats pretty much agreed was a problem.
Even still, Gnome's confirmation happened quicker than anyone expected. She was supposed to get cleared on Sunday, not Saturday. And things happened so quickly that she was late to her scheduled swearing-in with JD Vance because she was waiting to get her late father's Bible. The story has a very cool ending, though. She wound up getting sworn in by Justice Clarence Thomas at his home with the family Bible. Well, so certainly a memorable swearing-in. And like Hegseth, Gnome probably won't have much of an adjustment period, correct?
Yeah, that's right. As Cabot mentioned, the Trump administration has already rounded up hundreds of illegal immigrants and is starting deportations. And Trump's announced he's imposing tariffs on Colombia and sanctioning some of its leaders after it turned away two US military planes carrying 160 deported migrants. It's an already volatile situation that'll probably get worse before it gets better and gnomes getting dropped right in the middle of it. Talk about hitting the ground running there. But before we let you go, give us a sense of what we can expect this week with confirmations.
Yeah, we've got another big week ahead of us on Wednesday. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services takes the hot seat. Kennedy is undoubtedly the most high profile of Trump's cabinet picks and he's been a controversial figure since launching his insurgent third party presidential bid.
So expect that hearing to be pretty fiery with Democrats grilling him on vaccines and Republicans grilling him over his past support for abortion. And then on Thursday, we've got a double whammy. Cash Patel, Trump's pick to run the FBI, has his hearing at the same time as Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated to serve as director of national intelligence.
So two important positions with two pretty controversial figures coming right on the heels of the Kennedy hearing. It's going to be a big week for the Senate and for all of us tuning into those hearings. And just a reminder, you can stream those hearings live on the Daily Wire. And of course, follow along for updates. Tim, thanks so much for reporting. You bet.
For Life Americans filled the streets of Washington, D.C. on Friday at the March for Life, where J.D. Vance delivered his first public remarks as Vice President. Daily Wires knew White House correspondent Mary Margaret Olahan was on the ground for the event, and she joins us now. So Mary Margaret, there was a big turnout over the weekend. Tell us about the crowd at March for Life.
Hey, Georgia, we don't have official crowd numbers yet, but the permit application estimated they would have about 150,000 markers this year. And as usual, this is a very youthful event. Many religious high schools and colleges bust students to the march from all over the country. Liberty University in Virginia, for example, sent a thousand students to the event to stand up for the unborn. This year's march also came only a few days after Trump's inauguration.
And given the political controversy surrounding abortion since the overturn of Roe, we wanted to get a pulse check on how the movement feels about Trump. How do you feel about our new president? I think it's pretty cool. I'm excited. I am very hopeful that he protects life. I know last term he did. He overturned Roe v. Wade. I know he's been a little hesitant about states rights and like keeping it out of the federal government, which I'm a little bummed about, but I'm hoping that was just for the election.
Now did you get the sense that the crowd is quite hopeful about another Trump presidency?
Absolutely. They hope and pray that Trump will protect life as he did during his first administration. And given Trump's actions just in the very first week of his presidency, things are looking good. Just this week, Trump pardoned 23 pro-life activists, saying they were unjustly targeted by Biden's DOJ. The new DOJ also issued guidance saying that the face act, the law that Biden's DOJ used to charge and imprison pro-life protesters, can only be used in really extreme circumstances going forward, like the burning of a pregnancy center or the murder of an abortionist.
Trump also signed an executive order ending the use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote abortions, both in the U.S. and internationally. In a pre-recorded video message to the March for Life, Trump promised the movement, in my second term, we will again stand proudly for families and for life.
Never again will religious persecution be allowed to happen in America. To all of the very special people marching today in this bitter cold, I know your hearts are warm and your spirits are strong because your mission is just
very, very pure to forge a society that welcomes and protects every child as a beautiful gift from the hand of our creator. Thank you for your tremendous support. God bless you and God bless America. Now, Vice President Vance made his first public remarks since inauguration at the March for Life. What did he say?
Yes, so we first broke the news at Daily Wire that Vance would be speaking at the March for Life signaling that he'll be a strong pro-family, pro-life voice in this administration. The presence of a vice president at any event lends significance, but at this particular March for Life it was very momentous after four years of the Biden DOJ targeting pro-life activists.
I was standing a little back from the crowd right as Vance began to speak and I saw a whole bunch of kids go sprinting up that hill to make sure that they could hear the vice president. Here's Vance on the March for Life and its significance. It is a blessing to know the truth and the truth is that unborn life is worthy of protection.
It is a joy and a blessing to fight for the unborn, to work for the unborn, and to march for life. God bless you all and thank you for having me. It's an honor to be with you. Overall, this was a very hopeful, excited crowd. They're energized and they're ready for the next four years. Sounds like it. Mary Margaret, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.