Chicago’s Crime Standoff & India Courts China | 9.2.25

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Democrats accuse President Trump of planning an invasion of blue cities as he ramps up his crime and immigration crackdown.

Every weekend, there's shootings in Chicago.

What are they doing about it?

What they're doing is they're turning to politics and they're turning to anything anti-Trump.

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

It's Tuesday, September 2nd, and this is Morning Wire.

With this particular summit, U.S.

may not be at the table, but U.S.

is always present.

Trump faces big challenges on the foreign policy front as China meets with Russia and India while a court strikes down his tariffs.

And the FDA clamps down on a substance they say could be the fourth wave of the opioid crisis.

It is up to 13 times more potent than morphine, which means you can walk down the street in almost any neighborhood in America and buy an opioid.

Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire.

Stay tuned.

We have the news you need to know.

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson wants to Trump-proof his city as the president considers his next move to clean up crime in America.

Meanwhile, Democrat-appointed judges stall Trump's deportation agenda.

Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the federal efforts to crack down on crime across the United States.

So, Tim, let's start with Chicago.

What did we see from Mayor Brandon Johnson over the weekend?

Hey, Georgia, I hope you had a good Labor Day.

Mayor Johnson spent his leading a protest against Trump in Chicago.

Now, Trump has said that the windy city is next on his list to tackle crime after Washington, D.C.

He's even looked at a military base on the outskirts of Chicago to possibly run ICE operations out of.

Now, Mayor Johnson is really unpopular in the city.

He polled at just 26% support last month, but he's really leaned into this fight with Trump.

Here he is leading a protest on Monday.

And Illinois governor J.B.

Pritzker is threatening legal action if Trump moves National Guard troops into Chicago, which Pritzker said would constitute an invasion.

Here's Pritzker on CBS News on Sunday.

No one in the administration, the president or anybody under him, has called anyone in my administration or me.

I have not called the city of Chicago or anyone else.

So it's clear that in in secret they're planning this, well, it's an invasion with U.S.

troops, if they in fact do that.

The other thing is, you know, they ought to be coordinating with local law enforcement.

The day before that interview, Mayor Johnson had preemptively ordered local police to not cooperate with any federal law enforcement.

The mayor said he was forced to take action because the Trump administration won't collaborate.

But Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez, who is a Democrat like Johnson, said that that's not the full story.

There's nothing stopping the mayor of the city of Chicago, the governor of the state of Illinois, from picking up the phone and reaching out to the president of the United States and saying, what can we do to be on the same page?

We should all be looking to continuously decrease the amount of victims in our city and in our state.

And instead, we're getting into this tit-for-tat social media back-and-forth nonsense.

So as you can see, some local pushback to how Pritzker and Johnson are handling Trump's offer to help police crime in the city.

Now, what's Trump's response to all this?

Trump says that Chicago has more to gain with him than against him.

The president posted on True Social yesterday that crime is down to virtually nothing in D.C.

and that Mayor Bowser has become more popular because of it.

Trump also encouraged other leaders of major cities to work with him so that their cities too can have a giant victory like D.C.

As far as his efforts in the nation's capital go, Trump's emergency powers over D.C.

police are almost up.

By the start of last week, more than 700 arrests had been made, many of those of illegal aliens, and dozens of firearms had been confiscated.

So quite a feat that Chicago probably feels little pressure now.

Now, a lot of the focus has been on immigration enforcement, but President Trump actually hit some barriers in the courts recently.

Tell us about that.

Right.

Trump has run into a couple issues on the deportation side of things.

On Sunday, U.S.

District Judge Sparkle Suknanen, appointed by Biden, blocked the administration from deporting 76 Guatemalan children.

The government said the children were to be returned to Guatemala based off the request of the government and their parents.

But Suknanen appeared skeptical that those deportations would be legal.

That followed a decision earlier this week by U.S.

District Judge Paula Zinnis, an Obama appointee.

She stopped Homeland Security from deporting Kilmar Obrego Garcia.

There's been a huge push to protect Kilmar Obrego-Garcia from deportation despite his controversial background.

Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam said that that effort extends to the media.

She posted a clip over the weekend that CBS News cut out of an interview she did.

In the part that was cut out, she brought up allegations against Kilmar Obrego Garcia.

This individual was a known human smuggler, an MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife beater, and someone who was so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors.

And even his fellow human traffickers told him to knock it off.

So as you heard, the network essentially cut out all the reasons the administration cites for why Obrego Garcia really needs to be deported.

So some important context.

Tim, thanks for reporting.

Thanks for having me on.

American adversaries are gathered in China this week for a summit designed to reorient the world economy to undermine American influence abroad.

Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips has more on these closely watched meetings and what they mean for Trump's foreign policy.

Hey, Cabot.

So some aggressive moves by China lately in a series of meetings that are very high profile here.

What have we seen?

So this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping is playing host to world leaders from across the Middle East and Asia, including Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and most importantly, Russia and India.

On Monday, President Xi, Vladimir Putin, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered a rare public display of unity, looking like best friends in front of the cameras, appearing before the press, holding hands, laughing, and sending a message to the West.

It's no secret that Russia and China have been cozying up in recent years, forming this sort of new axis in the East, but the inclusion of India is setting off alarm bells in Washington.

For decades now, leaders in both parties have almost viewed it as a foregone conclusion that India would, in the future, become a crucial economic partner, serving as a much more palatable alternative to China in the region.

But now, India appears to be telling the United States, we've got other powerful friends.

Yeah, so let's talk about that dynamic.

What's in it for India exactly?

Well, Prime Minister Modi has made clear that he wants India to have more influence on the global stage.

So obviously being friends with Russia and China gives him more leverage.

And the fact that he's willing to play nice with Beijing, of all people, really proves that.

Remember, India and China have not been allies in the past.

Far from it.

For decades now, they've been at odds.

And over the last five years, they've engaged in an oftentimes bloody border dispute.

So this weekend's summit is unlikely to turn them into true allies.

But more broadly, it speaks to the rift between President Trump and Prime Minister Modi.

It's no coincidence that this meeting comes just weeks after the White House slapped 50% tariffs on Indian goods.

Remember, that came after they failed to reach a trade deal by the deadline.

And importantly, have continued purchasing Russian oil despite President Trump's warnings against them.

Trump said Monday that India is ready to drop all their tariffs, but Modi has sort of contradicted that, signaling that he's ready for a protracted trade war and does not need the United States.

For his part, President Trump responded Monday, saying on social media that, quote, we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us.

Their biggest client, but we will sell them very little.

So Trump's saying, hey, we don't need you.

All right.

So both leaders trying to show that they have the leverage in this negotiation.

Now, what about Russia and China?

What's in it for them?

Well, for Xi, he gets to play the power broker on the global stage and show the world that China is the best alternative to countries looking to move on from the United States economically and diplomatically.

At that point, Xi took clear shots at the United States this week during his opening remarks at the summit, accusing Washington of pushing a, quote, Cold War mentality.

Now, as for Russia, this summit sort of allows Putin to show that he is not being isolated on the global stage despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.

For example, one of Putin's Putin's top advisors posted footage of him chatting with global leaders, writing the caption, quote, isolated Russia, clearly mocking those who say Putin has been boxed out.

And from an economic perspective, by solidifying this relationship between India and Russia, Putin is able to help ensure that India keeps buying his oil at a time when Trump has been pushing sanctions and tariffs on any country who continues to do so.

Right.

And speaking of tariffs, a potentially major blow dealt to President Trump and his tariff agenda over the weekend.

What happened with this Court of Appeals ruling?

So on Friday night, a federal appeals court struck down many of President Trump's global tariffs, ruling that he was not justified in using emergency powers to unilaterally impose his trade policy.

President Trump responded over the weekend, saying on social media, quote, more than $15 trillion will be invested in the USA.

A record, much of this investment is because of tariffs.

If a radical left court is allowed to terminate these tariffs, almost all of this investment and much more will be immediately canceled.

Now, one silver lining for the president here, Friday's ruling allowed for the tariffs to continue until at least October.

They'll stay in place so that the Supreme Court has time to decide if they'll take up this case.

If they do, it'll set up a monumental showdown that could well decide the fate of President Trump's most consequential second-term economic policy.

So, once again, it's Trump versus the courts.

We'll see if the highest court in the land intervenes in this case.

Cabot, thanks for reporting.

Absolutely.

The FDA is taking action against an opioid substance derived from the Kratom plant, which is being aggressively marketed to use in gas station and vape shops across the nation.

Here with more is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestigiacomo.

So Amanda, first off, what is kratom and then what kind of action is the FDA taking?

So the kratom plant, which is native to Southeast Asia, in its natural state, some people find it to have healthful and medicinal qualities.

The FDA is not concerned about the natural kratom leaf.

However, they are targeting concentrated and synthetic forms of kratom, specifically 70H, which is a potent compound derived from the kratom plants.

At the end of July, the FDA recommended that 70H be classified as a Schedule I controlled substance that would make it illegal to sell or to possess.

The FDA is very concerned about this.

They say that it is an opioid, not just like an opioid, and it comes with significant health risks, including addiction and overdose.

70H, they say, is about 13 times more potent than morphine.

By recommending that it be restricted, the FDA is hoping to get ahead of another potential opioid-like crisis, especially since most people are unaware of what these kratom products actually are or how they're being aggressively marketed to minors.

Here's FDA Commissioner Dr.

Marty McCary issuing that stark warning.

We can't get caught flat-footed again.

We got burned with fentanyl.

We got burned with prescription drugs.

We cannot get behind the eight ball again.

This may be

the fourth wave of the opioid epidemic.

Concentrated synthetic 70H may be the fourth wave of the opioid epidemic.

Currently, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA, they're reviewing the FDA's recommendation to effectively ban the substance.

So, how big of an issue is this, the synthetic kratom, and also how is it being marketed?

Well, first of all, kratom overall is a billion-dollar industry in the U.S.

and it's growing very quickly.

In a matter of a couple of years, it's expected that the industry will double.

And while some people, or perhaps even most people, have not heard of Kratom before, they've certainly seen these 70H products in gas stations, corner stores, vape shops, or even online.

70H can come in the form of powder, it's in vapes and drinks, pills, and other forms that are extremely appealing to young people, like fruit-flavored gummies or even ice cream cones.

The FDA also says that these products are often not clearly or accurately labeled with regard to their 70H content, and they can be disguised or marketed as merely the kratom plant.

And again, you can just walk into a gas station and get this stuff.

So, this is very common.

How common are deaths from these products?

Well, the CDC says that there have been some overdose deaths associated with kratom products, but most of the time, other substances have been involved.

But there are new investigations coming out, and medical professionals who are sounding the alarm on 70H.

A recent report from the Tampa Bay Times, for example, links kratom products to hundreds of deaths just in the state of Florida.

Here's Dr.

McCary reading a letter from a grieving stepfather of a young man who had finally quit addiction only to purchase 70H without being aware of its contents.

He called me on May 31st to tell me he had stopped at the vape shop to buy a vape and was offered a fruity pill

and was told that it was kratom.

He said that he took the pill and became addicted

and that he should have done his research.

He died the night he took two 20 milligram 70H pills.

Wow, so terrifying for parents.

Now, we're also starting to see some states take action against 70H.

What's the latest there?

Yeah, we're starting to see Florida in particular lead the way on this.

Earlier this month, Florida Attorney General James F.

Meyer announced an emergency rule to classify 70H as a Schedule I controlled substance.

We also have GOP Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio urging the Board of Pharmacy in this state to designate synthetic and natural kratome compounds as illegal drugs.

A number of other states have also moved to add age restrictions for 7OH, or they've added limitations for the concentrations of this compound.

While very frightening, but good to see we might be getting ahead of this drug.

Amanda, thanks for reporting.

You're welcome.

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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