Evening Wire: John Bolton’s Home Raided & Cracker Barrel Rebrands? | 8.22.25

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The FBI raids the home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

The administration halts work visas for commercial truck drivers, and Cracker Barrel identifies as barrel-less.

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

It's Friday, August 22nd, and this is Evening Wire.

The Maryland home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton was raided this morning in what officials call a high-profile national national security probe.

FBI Director Cash Patel posted, quote, no one is above the law, while top justice officials echoed that message, saying public safety comes first.

The FBI says the search was court-authorized and posed no threat to the public.

Bolton, a former Trump advisor-turned outspoken critic, wasn't home at the time.

The raid comes after past clashes over his memoir, which the Trump White House argued revealed sensitive information.

Meanwhile, as media pundits react, Bolton's past words have resurfaced.

Here seen in political commentator Scott Jennings.

I'm reminded of something that I heard someone say after the Mar-a-Lago raid, and the statement was, everybody ought to just calm down, whether you're pro-Trump or anti-Trump, and let the process work its way through.

That was said by John Bolton himself after the Mar-a-Lago raid on Trump.

Look, I try not to engage too much in conjecture on these things.

All we really know is what Caitlin just told us, that this is related to

an investigation regarding information he put in his book.

We know that they're searching for things, and that's it.

That's what we know.

And so Ambassador Bolton's previous views on this were that processes should be allowed to work their way through.

The State Department has slammed the brakes on new work visas for commercial truck drivers, effective immediately.

Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce has more.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the move last night, citing safety concerns and the impact on American truckers.

The decision follows a deadly crash in Florida that involved an Indian immigrant driving an 18-wheeler.

Investigators say the driver, Harjinder Singh, entered the U.S.

illegally in 2018 and was later granted work authorization and a California commercial license under the Biden administration.

Three Americans were killed after Singh made an illegal U-turn across several interstate lanes.

The case has sparked a political back-and-forth between the Trump and Biden camps over immigration and licensing policies.

Rubio says the pause will stay in place while safety and visa rules are reviewed.

An Obama-appointed judge in Florida has ordered that Alligator Alcatraz cease operation.

Federal Judge Kathleen Williams issued a temporary restraining order yesterday to shut the facility down within 60 days.

The ruling also blocks the Trump administration and the state of Florida from sending any new detainees to the facility.

State officials, including Governor Ron DeSantis, vowed to appeal, calling the decision judicial overreach.

The state's attorney general says another judge had recently declined to even hear a case on the same facility.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is signaling that interest rate cuts may be just around the corner.

Speaking at the Fed's annual Jackson-Hole Conference, Powell says risks to the job market are rising even as inflation remains high.

He didn't promise a cut at the September meeting, but he said balance of risks is shifting and that borrowing costs may need to come down soon.

Here's Powell.

The stability of the unemployment rate and other labor market measures allows us to proceed carefully as we consider changes to our policy stance.

Nonetheless, with policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance.

The comments come as President Trump pressures the Fed to slash rates more aggressively as tensions grow over the central bank's independence.

Stocks surged after Powell's speech with investors betting on a rate cut next month.

The Trump administration's Federal Trade Commission is putting tech giants on notice over privacy.

Daily Wire reporter Zach Jewell has the latest.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent letters to companies including Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet, warning them not to weaken data security or censor Americans under pressure from foreign governments.

Ferguson said end-to-end encryption and user privacy are non-negotiable, and that Section 5 of the FTC Act could apply if companies deceive consumers.

The move cites concerns over Europe's Digital Services Act and the UK's Online Safety Act, which encourage tougher content rules and could erode privacy.

The FTC says U.S.

firms must protect Americans' rights even when foreign laws conflict.

A Texas law reinstating the Ten Commandments in public classrooms hit a stone wall this week as a judge blocked it for 11 school districts.

U.S.

District Judge Ed Berry said, quote, there is insufficient evidence of a broader tradition of using the Ten Commandments in public education, and there's no tradition of permanently displaying them in public classrooms.

The law will go into effect for the state's other school districts on September 1st.

Americans don't trust journalists as much as they used to.

A new Pew Research Center study finds that while Americans value journalism's role in society, their influence is fading.

Nearly six in 10 adults say journalists are vital to the nation's well-being, yet about five in 10 say they're losing ground.

As you would expect, views on journalists remain deeply divided along political lines, with Republicans being more skeptical than Democrats.

The campaign advisor for New York Mayor Eric Adams has been suspended after giving a reporter a potato chip bag filled with cash.

Daily Wire reporter Amanda Pressa Giacomo has a story.

Winnie Greco, a longtime ally and advisor to Adams, was called out by a reporter from a local news outlet the city this week.

Greco handed reporter Katie Honin a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips.

The reporter initially refused, but accepted the bag after Greco insisted.

Inside were several $20 bills and at least one $100 bill.

Greco, who is Chinese, called the bag of cash a mistake, saying it was a cultural thing to give a cash gift in a gesture of friendship and gratitude.

That has not stopped the Adams campaign from tossing her from its operations, revealing that Greco now has been suspended from all volunteer campaign-related activities.

The number of Americans reading for pleasure has plummeted to a new low, dropping 40% over the past two decades.

Daily Wire senior editor Joel Niedler has more on the new data.

A study released Wednesday found that in 2023, only 16% of Americans aged 15 and up, quote, read for leisure every day.

As the Washington Post reports, quote, the new findings come as Americans' attention spans and print book sales are in decline, and artificial intelligence technology is aiming to summarize knowledge as quickly as possible.

Researchers from the University of Florida and University College London who produced the study say that while the decline of people reading for pleasure has been dropping for decades now, the latest decline is, quote, significant.

In business news, Bed Bath and Beyond is rebuilding after bankruptcy, but says it won't open new stores in California.

Executive Chairman Marcus Limonis blamed the state's strict regulations and high costs, saying, quote, this isn't about politics, it's about reality.

California's system makes it nearly impossible for businesses to succeed, and I won't put our company, our employees, or our customers in that position.

The first revamped bed bath and beyond store did open this month here in Nashville, Tennessee.

Limonis says Californians can still shop online.

Meta has frozen its AI hiring spree.

That's according to an exclusive report by the Wall Street Journal.

Facebook's parent company has already brought on more than 50 researchers and engineers for its AI division.

Executives say the pause is part of a broader organization, but the move comes as investors raise concerns over the company's heavy spending on talent.

Meta reportedly paid one AI engineer $250 million for a four-year contract.

ICE has more vehicles coming, including gold-wrapped trucks and maybe planes.

Daily Wire reporter Spencer Lindquist has more.

The Trump administration has requested a fleet of new ICE vehicles to assist with its crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C.

A fleet of 25 Chevy Tahos, each emblazoned with the phrase, defend the homeland, could soon be seen on the streets of the nation's capital as the administration seeks to turn Washington, D.C.

into, quote, one of the safest cities in the world.

But DHS Secretary Christian Om is also hoping that the agency can use funds from the One Big Beautiful bill to purchase new airplanes, giving ICE the ability to double the number of deportations.

And Cracker Barrel is getting blasted for its new rebrand, and it might be having a financial impact.

The beloved family restaurant is taking serious heat online for changing its logo for the first time in 47 years, as well as its interiors.

The Southern Country-themed restaurant chain got its name from the old practice of people gathering around a barrel full of crackers outside of a country store to chat.

The iconic logo, which debuted in 1977, shows an old man sitting in a chair leaning against a barrel.

But the new logo scraps the man and the barrel, opting for just a simplified version of the text.

Meanwhile, the store's interiors are getting a refresh too.

Amid all the buzz, the company lost about $200 million in stock value on Thursday.

All right, this is your drive-home updates.

To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire.com.

And in case you missed it this morning, we covered some major stories, including Trump getting a half billion dollar win in New York, Texas threatening to sue over abortion pills, and deportations reaching a a new high.

Thanks for tuning in.

We'll be back tomorrow morning with a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

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