Trump’s Capital Crackdown & Border Wall Restoration | 8.12.25

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President Trump announces a federal intervention to clean up what he calls our crime-ridden and filthy nation's capital.

This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we're going to take our capital back.

We're taking it back.

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley.

It's Tuesday, August 12th, and this is Morning Wire.

Two major U.S.

chip makers were set to give Uncle Sam a big cut from their China AI product sales as part of a new deal with Trump.

And I said, if I'm going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something because I'm giving you a release.

And Trump's mission to build the border wall gets an infusion of cash and supplies.

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.

Stay tuned.

We have the news you need to know.

Hey guys, Producer Brandon here.

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Amid persistent violent crime in Washington, D.C., D.C., President Trump announced Monday that he would take over the city's police department.

Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here to break down this unprecedented action.

So, Cabot, what did President Trump mean when he said he was going to take over D.C.?

Yeah, he's been hinting for some time now that Liberation Day was coming for the nation's capital.

And on Monday, we finally got details of what that would look like.

Speaking for the White House, the president announced that he was placing Washington's police department under federal control.

The administration officially invoked Section 740 of the Home Rule Act.

That's a statute that allows the president to federalize the city's police force when, quote, special conditions of an emergency nature exist.

Now, as part of this move, Trump signed an executive order officially declaring a crime emergency in D.C.

That paved the way for federal intervention.

Here he is from the White House Monday.

Today, we're formally declaring a public safety emergency.

This is an emergency.

This is a tragic emergency.

I don't like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once beautiful capital was.

And from there, President Trump announced that he would be deploying at least 800 National Guardsmen, along with hundreds more federal agents from the FBI, DEA, ATF, and elsewhere.

Here he is elaborating on what their mission will be.

They'll immediately begin massive enforcement operations targeting known gangs, drug dealers, and criminal networks to get them the hell off the street.

So some very aggressive moves from the president.

What happens next?

So from a logistical standpoint, Attorney General Pam Bondi will now assume temporary control, at least 30 days, over the city's police department, while DEA head Terry Cole will take on the role of interim commissioner.

Trump also said he wants to enact a series of criminal justice reforms in the city, but that will require action from Congress, which technically has oversight over the district.

Among other things, he's pushing lawmakers to eliminate no cash bail, which he says has made it nearly impossible for criminals in the city to actually face trial and then be held accountable.

He also wants to implement new immigration crackdowns there that he says will make it easier to remove illegal aliens.

They turned our nation's capital into a sanctuary jurisdiction.

That's the other thing.

We have to get rid of sanctuary cities as quickly as possible.

We're going to do it too.

We have to

because it's sanctuary for criminals.

Releasing illegal alien gang members onto the streets in 2022, nearly 70% of criminals arrested in Washington went unprosecuted.

So what were the conditions in D.C.

that led him to make this declaration?

Right.

So last year, the city had the fourth highest murder rate in the country.

They were considerably above places like New York, L.A., and even Chicago.

And in recent years, large groups of roving teenagers have really just wreaked havoc on large parts of the district, breaking into cars and assaulting victims, and often avoiding jail time due to their age.

Now, Trump critics say the crime is actually going down in D.C.

year over year, but the White House says those numbers are inaccurate.

and intentionally inaccurate, I'll add.

To that point, a D.C.

police commander was suspended last month after allegedly intentionally falsifying data to make it appear that violent crime had been falling.

And he claims that he was ordered to fudge the numbers by his superiors.

Another apparent catalyst for the president's action came last week when a Trump staffer with Doge was brutally assaulted by a mob of teenage carjackers.

Trump posted photos of that staffer shortly after the attack and said it was time for something to be done in D.C.

And now he's clearly doing something.

Well, just based on the rhetoric there, I imagine there's been some pushback.

What are we seeing?

Yeah, the left has said that it was not only unnecessary, but further proof of Donald Trump's supposed supposed fascist desires.

Some Democratic lawmakers called instead for increased funding for social programs, while others like Governor Tim Walz went as far as calling it, quote, the road to authoritarianism.

Now, many of those criticisms were echoed by those in the legacy media who called it an assault on the rule of law.

But for his part, Trump actually had a direct message for those folks in the media.

I understand a lot of you tend to be on the liberal side, but you don't want to get

you don't want to get mugged and raped and shot and killed.

You want to have safety in the streets.

And it's worth noting, again, there was pushback here, but Trump's move also got the support of the D.C.

Police Union, which released a statement Monday saying, We stand with the president in recognizing that Washington, D.C.

cannot continue on this trajectory.

Crime is out of control, and our officers are stretched beyond their limits.

The federal intervention is a critical stopgap.

So the media might be against him, but it sounds like the police are on board.

Cabot, thanks for reporting.

Absolutely.

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In a new deal brokered brokered by the Trump administration, tech companies NVIDIA and AMD have agreed to give the U.S.

government 15% of the revenue they earn selling AI chips to China.

The controversial move comes amid heightened tensions over tech exports and national security.

Here with more on this groundbreaking agreement is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham.

Hey, Megan.

So unpack this for us.

Why is the administration targeting these specific chips and what's the significance of this 15% payment?

Yeah, so these chips are at the heart of the AI revolution.

Nvidia's H20 and similar chips from AMD power everything from machine learning to data centers.

And those are critical for both commercial and military capabilities.

The U.S.

has long worried that China could leverage these chips for its AI capabilities and bolster its AI technology, potentially threatening our national security.

That 15% revenue share is a compromise of sorts.

Essentially, it allows these companies to continue sales to China while also giving the U.S.

government a stake and hopefully more oversight.

Noteworthy, though, in a press conference on Monday, the president talked about negotiating with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, and he emphasized that these are not the company's most cutting-edge chips.

The chip that we're talking about, the H20,

it's an old chip.

China already has it in a different form, different name.

So he's selling an essentially old chip that Huawei has a similar chip, a chip that does the same thing.

And I said, good, if I'm going to give it to you, because they have a, you know, they have a stopper, what we call a stopper, not allowed to do it.

Now, that said, China is saying they're not interested in these H-20 chips.

A social media account linked to the CCP has said that the chip is not environmentally friendly or safe, by which they mean it could be used in spying capabilities.

Now, likely this is just a negotiating tactic for China to get the chips it really wants, which are the high bandwidth memory chips, but those are still blocked by export restrictions.

Got it.

Now, sticking with the chips in this deal, 15% is obviously a hefty price tag.

This has never been done before in quite this way.

How is the tech industry reacting to this?

I would say that you're seeing a mix of relief, but also some unease here.

On the one hand, NVIDIA and AMD are happy that they've avoided a total ban on sales to China.

That would have been catastrophic for their bottom lines.

But industry chatter suggests that some corporate leaders are panicking over the precedent this sets.

They're asking how this model of taking a cut of a private company's revenue might be applied to other industries.

And former Biden official Peter Hurrell was out this week arguing that he doesn't believe it's even constitutional.

But on CNN on Sunday, Huang seemed to dismiss those concerns, and he implied that he does support Trump's America First agenda, at least philosophically.

And he suggested that being able to sell these chips to China is a part of that agenda.

We would like the United States to be the world leader.

There's nothing wrong with that aspiration, and we should definitely try to achieve that and strive for that.

In order for America to be the world leader, we want the American Tech Stack to be the global standard.

And so our mission,

properly expressed, in order for America to to have AI leadership is to make sure that the American tech stack is available to markets all over the world so that amazing developers, including the ones in China, are able to build on American tech stack so that AI runs best on the American tech stack.

Now, how about Intel?

How do they play into this?

Yeah, that's a really interesting element because their CEO, Lit Bhutan, Trump called for him to resign last Thursday because of his alleged ties to the CCP.

And that's something that Senator Tom Cotton has also been out pushing.

But on Monday, of course, Tan was at the White House discussing manufacturing chips in the U.S.

So it remains to be seen what kind of deals may come out of that discussion.

And I presume he spent some time trying to convince the president he's not a national security risk himself.

Megan, thanks so much for reporting.

My pleasure.

The Trump administration is reclaiming portions of the border wall that were set to be sold off at auction by the Biden administration just a month before Trump re-entered office.

Here with the story is Daily Wire reporter Spencer Lindquist.

So Spencer, tell us about this agreement between the Trump administration and this company that's selling off the border wall.

Sure thing, Georgia.

So back in December, the Daily Wire revealed that the Biden administration had been selling off portions of the border wall just before Trump was set to enter office.

And things have done a complete 180 since then.

The company tasked with selling off the border wall, called GovPlanet, says that it has now reached an agreement with the Trump administration and will quote expedite the transfer of these materials to support the administration's border protection plans.

So this is another win for the Trump administration which has already drastically reduced illegal border crossings since January.

So what's the timeline for getting these materials back and then also what's the cost?

So it's going to happen pretty quickly and pretty cheap.

GovPlanet said that quote a third-party firm that has been contracted for construction of the border wall will take receipt of the materials over the next 90 days.

So the transfer should be complete within three months.

The company also said that it is giving the government back these portions of the border wall at cost in an effort to, quote, protect the millions of dollars U.S.

taxpayers had already invested in this initiative.

Now, the Big Beautiful bill had provisions for border security more broadly, but did it secure funding to complete the border wall?

Yeah, so this bill got a lot of press for all the funding that went towards ICE and customs and border protection, but there is also nearly $50 billion that is going towards completing the wall and physical barriers along the border.

There's also nearly $6 billion for new technology that will be used in border security efforts, like autonomous watchtowers.

And despite the drop in border crossings, the administration is saying that this is still very necessary, and it points to recent tragedies at the hands of illegal aliens.

Right.

And speaking of Americans who've been impacted by illegal immigration, we just saw the sentencing of the illegal immigrant who killed the mother of five, Rachel Morin.

Where does that case stand?

Right, really a heart-wrenching situation, but there has been some justice for the family.

Rachel Morin was a mother of five who was raped and killed in a random attack by an illegal alien in 2023 while she was out on a trail in Maryland.

Rachel's mother, Patty Morin, spoke out yesterday.

Here she is on Fox News.

I'm going to ask

that the judge would honor Rachel's life and preserve her dignity by giving her the justice that she deserves.

And in doing that, protecting other lives.

And as for Rachel's murderer, Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, he is believed to have entered the United States in 2023.

He was caught when DNA collected at the crime scene was matched to DNA at a home break-in in Los Angeles.

Now, as for the sentencing in Morin's case, what did the judge decide?

Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison for his crimes.

The judge explained her ruling in a pointed way, and she told him, quoting, you are not a candidate for rehabilitation.

There is simply no hope to rehabilitate you.

You took a life that was not yours to take.

Your acts not only brutalized a young woman, but also terrorized a community.

The state attorney for Harford County, Allison Healy, spoke at a press conference after the sentencing.

My wish for this family and Rachel's children is that they believe we gave them some sense of justice for the loss of Rachel and that they continue to honor her memory and her legacy in everything they do for the remainder of their lives.

Rachel Morin's children also spoke at the sentencing yesterday.

Her son said that Rachel was a good mom and that every time I see a picture of her, I think about the life I had with her and my four sisters.

I miss her.

Well, a heartbreaking story, and hopefully we can prevent more crimes like this.

Spencer, thanks for reporting.

Thank you.

Thanks for waking up with us.

And if you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to like and subscribe.

We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know.

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