Evening Wire: Countdown To Shutdown & Hegseth Hardens Troops | 9.30.25

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Government funding runs out tonight.

Pete Hexeth challenges the top brass and Louisiana's governor calls on Trump to send in the troops.

I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howell.

It's Tuesday, September 30th.

This is Evening Wire.

The federal government is rapidly approaching a shutdown.

The current fiscal year ends tonight and negotiations for a new budget are at a standstill.

Barring an 11th hour intervention from Democrat and Republican leadership, the government will run out of authorized funding at 12.01 a.m.

tomorrow morning.

Our team will continue to follow this story.

During today's meeting of hundreds of generals in Virginia, Secretary of War Pete Hagseth gave America's top brass a blunt ultimatum, get on board or get out of the way.

If the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign.

Newly minted Daily Wire D.C.

reporter Amber Joe Cooper has more.

Hagseth declared the Pentagon's woke era dead, vowing no more DEI offices, no more gender politics, and no more lowered standards.

Instead, he unveiled 10 sweeping directives, including combat standards reset to pre-2015 levels, gender-neutral fitness tests twice a year, bans on beards and long hair, and a return to scary, tough basic training.

Hagseth blasted diversity programs as decay and said weak men and women alike would be cut if they couldn't meet the bar.

As foolish and reckless as the woke department was, those officers were following elected political leadership.

An entire generation of generals and admirals were told that they must parrot the insane fallacy that, quote, our diversity is our strength.

He also gave the following warning to our adversaries, F around and find out.

His closing words, you kill people and break things for a living.

You are warriors.

Today is Liberation Day.

While there's reportedly been some pushback behind the scenes among Arab leaders, Trump's 20-point plan to bring peace to Gaza is getting mostly positive responses from the region.

Eight countries issued a joint statement welcoming Trump's sincere efforts in crafting the plan, though without offering full support for it, at least not yet.

Signing onto that statement were foreign ministers of Qatar, Jordan, UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has put in a formal request for 1,000 state National Guardsmen to help fight crime.

Here's Landry announcing his plans on Fox News last night.

Tonight, we're sending the Department of War a request to send the National Guard asking them to deploy the National Guard here in Louisiana into our cities like New Orleans and Baton Rouge and others so we can continue to reduce the amount of violence on our streets.

Why would you not want your citizens to be safe?

Per Landry's request, the National Guard would protect critical infrastructure and supplement police presence in high crime areas across Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Shreveport.

Washington has reportedly struck a deal to return 400 Iranian nationals to their home country.

The first plane load of Iranians took off from Louisiana on Monday night.

An Iranian foreign ministry official told Iranian press that Tehran had agreed to accept a number of citizens who are in the U.S.

illegally, most of whom immigrated through Mexico.

The reported agreement comes amid heightened tension between Tehran and Washington.

Over the summer, the U.S.

Air Force delivered the final blows to three Iranian nuclear sites.

The attack is estimated to have set back Iran's nuclear program at least two years.

A New York City woman who sucker-punched a pro-life activist will avoid prosecution, as Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's office admitted to botching the case.

Daily Wire reporter Zach Jewel has the details.

Brianna J.

Rivers faced second-degree assault charges after she was caught on camera punching pro-life activists Savannah Craven and Tau.

A video posted in April showed Antau interviewing Rivers on the street in New York City before Rivers physically attacked the pro-lifer while the two were debating abortion.

The case against Rivers was dismissed by a court in July after Bragg's office missed a deadline to submit evidence to the defense team.

The DA's office admitted to committing an unacceptable error in the case, but a veteran NYPD officer told the New York Post that Bragg's office possibly botched the case intentionally for political reasons.

Now, Antao is looking to file a lawsuit against the woman who punched her, according to the New York Post.

The Thomas More Society is planning to sue Rivers on the pro-life activists' behalf.

Elon Musk and others on the right are blasting the Anti-Defamation League as a hate group after it smeared TPUSA.

Daily Wire reporter Amanda Press DiGiacomo has the story.

The ADL's page on Turning Point USA accuses the group's leadership and activists of having made, quote, multiple racist or bigoted comments and supposedly being linked to a variety of extremists.

In response, Musk, who's been a longtime critic of the ADL, he posted to X, quote, the ADL hates Christians, therefore it is a hate group.

The ADL's CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, responded to the growing criticism of his group among Christians.

He said in a statement, quote, the idea that the ADL is anti-Christian is offensive and wrong.

Many of our staff members are Christian.

Many of our supporters are Christian.

We are blessed to work with many Christian brothers brothers and sisters in the shared fight against anti-Semitism and all forms of hate.

Greenblatt, however, did not directly address his group's page on Turning Point.

A grieving North Carolina father's congressional testimony has gone viral.

In an emotional statement in front of lawmakers in Charlotte on Monday, Stephen Federico highlighted the lengthy criminal record of the man who murdered his 22-year-old daughter, Logan, during an armed invasion in South Carolina.

Despite dozens of felonies, her murderer, he said, was allowed to roam the streets.

Forced on her knees with her hands over her head,

begging for her life,

begging for her hero, her father, me

that couldn't be there.

She was five foot three, she weighed 115 pounds.

Bang!

Dead.

Gone.

Why?

Because Alexander Devontae Dickey, who was arrested 39 goddamn times,

25 felonies, was on the street.

Federico's daughter was fatally shot on May 3rd while visiting friends at the University of South Carolina in Columbia after Dickey broke into her friend's home.

A 24-year-old illegal immigrant dad was caught posing as a high school kid in the U.S.

through one phone call.

Daily Wire senior editor Virginia Kruta has more.

A high schooler in Ohio faces decades in prison following a shocking discovery.

He's actually a 24-year-old illegal immigrant man.

Anthony Emmanuel Labrador Sierra reportedly faked his identity, including a birth certificate, and lived for over a year with legal guardians in the town of Perrysburg under the assumed persona of a human trafficking victim.

He was exposed when his fiancé called the house where he lived.

Police searched Labrador Sierra's room and found a burner phone, a fake ID, and a pistol with loaded magazines.

Labrador Sierra pleaded guilty to lying on federal forms, including immigration forms, and an application to purchase a firearm.

Labrador Sierra is currently in ICE custody.

In another big legal win for Donald Trump against big tech, YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by him back in 2021.

Daily Wire senior editor Joel Niedler has the details.

Then-candidate Trump sued YouTube and its CEO over its suspension of his account after the Capitol riot in 2021.

The settlement makes Google, which owns YouTube, the third big tech company to settle lawsuits by Trump shortly after he left office.

The payout is just a little less than the $25 million Meta platforms agreed to pay back in January, and X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, agreed to pay Trump $10 million for likewise kicking him off their platform.

As for where exactly all the money is going, a majority of Google's money will go to the non-profit trust for the National Mall, earmarked for the construction of a Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom Trump is building at the White House.

Most of Meta's cash is being directed to Trump's presidential library, while the money from X will go directly to Trump.

Canada has begun the rollout of their controversial gun buyback program following comprehensive bans on what they call assault-style weapons.

Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce breaks down the program.

The bans came in 2020 when then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used executive authority to prohibit the sale or ownership of more than 1,500 firearm models.

The government offered an amnesty period to comply, but that time has now run out, prompting the buyback program.

Government officials insist that the program is voluntary, but in reality, the only choice Canadian citizens have been offered is whether to turn in their firearms or have them destroyed.

Failure to comply would leave gun-owning Canadians in violation of federal law.

The ban is said to focus on assault-style semi-automatic rifles, but also prohibits carbines, semi-automatic.22 caliber rifles, large-caliber bolt-action rifles, as well as many pump-action shotguns.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently shared a letter he received from Charlie Kirk earlier this year.

Daily Wire assistant editor Andy Valdez has the details.

In the letter, Kirk expressed his solidarity with Israel and his concern about rising anti-Israel and anti-Semitic trends.

Kirk admitted that Israel is losing the so-called information war, particularly among young people.

But he believed Israel could better communicate with this age group where they are most active, social media.

Kirk went on to challenge Netanyahu to assemble a team of experts to actively fight online misinformation and clearly expose the Iranian threat, saying, quote, Israel should not sit back and allow its enemies to define her.

Another superstar couple is splitting up.

Nicole Kidman and country singer Keith Urban are divorcing after almost 20 years of marriage.

Kidman filed for divorce on Tuesday amid allegations that Urban is involved with another woman.

The couple share two teenage daughters, Sunday and Faith, both born in Nashville.

Urban was already living apart from Kidman in in a rented home in Nashville for the past several months.

And Jimmy Kimmel's post-suspension rating surge fizzled fast.

After Disney briefly pulled the late-night host off the air over his false claim that Charlie Kirk's assassin was, quote, MAGA, his return last Tuesday drew 6.5 million viewers.

But by Thursday, that audience tapered off by 64% to just 2.3 million.

In the key 25 to 54 demo, Kimmel shed 73%,

while his 18-49 numbers collapsed as well.

Critics blasted his refusal to apologize fully, while Turning Point USA accused him of smearing conservatives.

Those are your drive-home updates this evening.

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 working high-stakes deals on the government shutdown and a Gaza peace agreement, anti-ICE riots in Portland, and a foster care scandal in Maryland.

Thanks for tuning in.

We'll be back tomorrow morning with another full edition of Morningwire.