Trump's High-Stakes Deals & Portland Crackdown | 9.30.25

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I think we're headed to a shutdown because the Democrats won't do the right thing.

I hope they change their mind, but we're going to see.

President Trump meets with congressional leaders in a last-ditch effort to avoid a government shutdown.

Plus, Trump and Netanyahu work to hammer out a war-ending deal.

Today is a historic day for peace.

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

It's Tuesday, September 30th, and this is Morning Wire.

Anti-ICE protesters in Portland turn riotous as Trump sends in the National Guard to protect federal agents.

And an audit reveals that Maryland foster children were placed with registered sex offenders.

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President Trump hosted Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Congressional Leaders Monday as he pushed to simultaneously end the war in Gaza and avert a government shutdown.

Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here with the latest.

So, Cabot, Trump is navigating two high-stakes deals this week.

First, let's talk about the shutdown.

Yeah, so at midnight tonight, fiscal year 2025 for the federal government will come to a close.

And at the the moment, the budget for 2026 has yet to be passed by Congress.

That means if they don't reach an agreement in the next 24 hours or so, a shutdown would commence with large swaths of the federal government closing their doors and then only essential services remaining operating.

Republicans have proposed a continuing resolution in the meantime.

That basically just means a temporary stopgap that would keep the lights on while lawmakers hammer out the bigger final deal of the budget.

The House passed that measure 217 to 212 earlier this month, but it has now stalled in the Senate.

That's because while Republicans do have a slim majority there, they have to get past the 60-vote limit for the filibuster.

That means they have to win over at least seven Democrats, and those Democrats are not budging.

So what are the major sticking points?

Well, Republicans want to pass a clean resolution.

That means let's keep funding levels exactly where they are across the board and worry about the big policy debates afterwards.

Their measure would maintain federal spending levels that were set under President Biden while offering some additional funding for personal security for lawmakers, judges, and other federal officials that came after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

But Democrats say that they will only pass this stopgap if it includes billions of new dollars in funding for Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid, some of which were cut under Trump's Big Beautiful bill.

They also want the deal to include measures that would prevent the White House from blocking congressionally appropriated funds.

Democrats know, though, that Republicans are unlikely to give in to those demands and sort of daring them to allow a shutdown.

Here's Chuck Schumer making making that case.

The American people will know it's on their back.

First, they're in charge.

They have the House, they have the Senate, they have the presidency.

So the heat will be on them if they do it.

Now, big picture here, government shutdowns can kind of feel like the boy who cried wolf scenario as the two sides often reach a midnight deal and keep the lights on.

But there is a real chance here that a shutdown does happen.

Remember, Democrats ultimately failed to stop Trump's Big Beautiful bill this summer, and the party's left-wing base was furious, and they don't want to let them live it down.

So they're facing pressure to push back this time.

That was clear yesterday when President Trump hosted Chuck Schumer and other congressional leaders at the White House.

Have a listen to some of those leaders.

We've made to the president some proposals.

Our Republican leaders will have to talk to him about them, but ultimately he's the decision maker.

And if he will accept some of the things we asked, which we think the American people are for, on health care and on rescissions, he can avoid a shutdown.

But there are still large differences between us.

Now, shifting gears a bit, President Trump also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday.

They are working to come to a deal on the Gaza hostage situation.

Where do things stand now?

Yeah, a very busy day at the White House.

The two men met privately before a press conference where Trump officially formally released a 20-point ceasefire plan to end the war.

That plan did offer some concessions we haven't yet seen from the White House.

For example, it offered Palestinians the right to stay in Gaza after the war, amnesty for Hamas members who turn in their weapons and meet other conditions, and also a vague acknowledgement of the potential for the creation of a Palestinian state in the future, assuming, again, certain conditions.

But it includes a lot of things the Israelis will like as well.

For example, it requires Hamas to, quote, not have any role in the governance of Gaza in any form.

It also calls for all military and terror infrastructure to be destroyed and never rebuilt.

And it demands all remaining hostages be released within 72 hours.

For his part, Nenyahu offered support for the proposal, saying it, quote, achieves our war aims.

He also added, importantly, that if Hamas accepted, Israel would withdraw its troops from Gaza and place them instead, quote, in the security perimeter for the foreseeable future.

However, he also did have this to say: But if Hamas rejects your plan, Mr.

President, or if they

supposedly accept it and then

basically do everything to counter it,

then Israel will finish the job by itself.

Now remember, Hamas has already rejected a number of the points included in that plan.

But Trump said because so many of their leaders have been killed by the Israeli military, they're dealing with, quote, new people now.

He also said that if they rejected this final offer, the U.S.

would support Israel in their goal to eliminate the group entirely.

So two very high-stakes deals on the table currently.

Cab, thanks for reporting.

Absolutely.

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The Trump administration has deployed troops to Portland as part of a nationwide crackdown on riots surrounding ICE facilities.

Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Tare joins us with the latest.

So, Jenny, earlier this week, President Trump announced plans to send in the National Guard to Portland.

First, what's his reasoning for doing that and what is he hoping to achieve there?

Right.

So, in response to some chaotic riots in Portland around the ICE facility, there was a request from Secretary Christine Noam at the Department of Homeland Security for President Trump to deploy troops to the area to stop the clashes, to stop the violence that's been going on.

We're seeing what, you know, we've seen across the country with these protests that have turned into riots at ICE facilities where rioters are going and trying to chastise and cause a lot of violence towards ICE agents and law enforcement who are trying to clean up the streets of illegal immigrant crime.

And so President Trump wants to stop this in its tracks.

And he's he's doing this here in Portland in this example.

And he's also done this similarly.

He's taken action in Broadview, Illinois very recently, where there have also been riots and protests.

They've made some arrests there, including of rioters who have had firearms and one who actually apparently had something that looks like an explosive device that they're still investigating.

So this is part of this nationwide effort to crack down on crime, to crack down on Antifa, which the president has called a terrorist organization, and he's wanting the violence to stop in the streets.

Now, another immigration item that made the news this week was the superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools was arrested on multiple charges, including immigration infractions.

What happened there?

Right.

So, Dr.

Ian Roberts, the superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, he was arrested by ICE last week on Friday.

ICE said that he has a standing deportation order from an immigration judge from last year.

So he's been not only here, despite a deportation order from a judge, but also he apparently has an arrest from 2020 for a firearms charge.

In addition to that, when ICE was pulling him over, at least attempting to, he drove away, they said.

He tried to escape them.

They later found his car abandoned in the nearby woods, and they found him a distance away from that.

With him, he possessed $3,000 in cash and also a loaded firearm.

One thing to note here is that illegal immigrants are barred from having firearms.

So there's also an investigation by the ATF looking into how he was able to obtain firearms in the first place, given his legal status.

But not only that, there are tons of questions right now as to how he was employed as the superintendent in Des Moines, given that he lacked legal status in the United States.

He underwent background checks according to the school district from a third party.

He also was recruited by a third party for the position.

He also, previously, according to his LinkedIn, held school leadership positions in several other states, including D.C., Maryland.

So he's had a track record here since he came in 1999 under a student visa, which he's since overstayed.

Well, no doubt the Trump administration will look into this guy and his record.

Jenny, thanks for reporting.

Thank you.

Maryland auditors have excoriated excoriated the state's social services administration for placing children with known sex offenders and failing to act on reports of abuse.

One state lawmaker is calling the findings abhorrent and is demanding for someone to be fired immediately.

Joining us now is Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Roziak, who published a report on this story on Daily Wire.

Luke, the story of yours was pretty hard to read, to be frank.

Tell us what you found.

Hey, John.

Yeah, this is definitely one of the most blistering government audits I've read.

In as many as half of all cases, Maryland's Social Services Administration faked the verifications that background checks had been done on foster parents, whether it's through incompetence or malfeasance.

The result was that last year, 10 kids were living with seven different registered sex offender adults in foster homes.

All right, so not only did they not run background checks, state employees actually claimed to have verified something that never actually happened.

Yes, in 2023, one branch of Maryland's Department of Human Services reviewed a group foster home, but missed that it was literally employing a man with a 2014 conviction for sexual assault on a minor.

Three months after they missed that opportunity to intervene, the man transported three children in his care to abuse them, prosecutors said.

In another case, the government was paying a convicted murderer to offer one-on-one care to foster children in hotel rooms.

It was paying $1,300 a night per kid to keep them in those hotels instead of placing them in homes that are a lot cheaper and safer.

Really, what's remarkable about this audit is that a lot of these problems have been raised time and again, and still the agency didn't change.

After that registered sex offender was arrested for abusing kids in his care, the Social Services Administration, quote, could not document any corrective action as a result of this incident to ensure that criminal background checks were in fact obtained, the audit found.

And these are the people paid by the government to protect children.

It's frankly hard to believe.

Yeah, it basically seems like they didn't want to do the work and they just wanted the data to look good, even if it meant kids were suffering.

One of the social services administration's jobs was to ensure that foster children were attending school.

It publicly claimed that virtually all of them were.

But when auditors actually looked inside their database, they found that there was no evidence that 38% of them were in school.

So many of these foster parents receiving money from this agency might not even be following through on their sort of basic responsibilities.

Exactly.

Auditors said the agency made a lot of excuses that, frankly, seemed false.

There were 17,000 allegations of abuse or neglect of foster kids, and county agencies are required to investigate them immediately.

If they don't, the state agency is required by law to report that to the legislature.

Neither thing happened.

The state made excuses for some investigations being delayed by months, citing a natural disaster, even though nobody could say what natural disaster occurred in that part of Maryland in 2024.

Now, this audit was conducted by the investigative arm of the Maryland state legislature.

What is the response from the agency?

What did social services have to say?

I tell you, their response did not satisfy auditors, and some parts of it actually made it worse.

It did acknowledge that, quote, our regulations for privately certified foster parents lacked a crimes of violence prohibition required by the Social Security Act, and we are updating this regulation.

It also said that after the cases of children living with sex offenders were identified, quote, we took action.

And this is a quote.

In one case, we contacted law enforcement who conducted a safety check and confirmed that the children were safe.

In another case, we contacted the Office of Parole and Probation and found that while an identified individual was on the sex offender registry, there were no restrictions prohibiting their presence around children.

For the remaining cases, law enforcement and probation officers determined that there was insufficient information to warrant a welfare check.

So not enough evidence to even check on them.

We hear about the missing migrant children, but I wonder if there's a class of missing foster children too.

Luke, thanks for digging in on this.

Thanks, John.

Thanks for waking up with us.

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