Epstein Files Fallout & China’s Intel Tentacles | 11.17.25

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Speaker 2 A political knife fight breaks out on the right between President Trump and a former ally as the House heads toward a vote on the Epstein files.

Speaker 3 Everybody's like, Marjorie Taylor Greene has changed. And I'm like, oh no, nothing has changed about me.

Speaker 2 I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Monday, November 17th.
This is Morning Wire.

Speaker 4 National security alarm bells are sounding on Capitol Hill after China-linked tech makes its way into U.S. military bases.

Speaker 2 And the Trump administration continues its immigration blitz as federal agents make arrests across North Carolina's most populous city.

Speaker 5 Secure border saves lives. One of the reasons no one talks about why we have the most secure border in the history of this nation is because exactly what ICE is doing.

Speaker 4 Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
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Speaker 4 President Trump dramatically withdrew his backing of Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene this weekend amid a fiery debate over the Epstein files and policy disagreements.

Speaker 2 Daily Wire political reporter Cameron Arkan joins us now with the latest on this political battle. Hey, Cameron.

Speaker 2 So the Epstein files back in the headlines and now at the heart of this political breakup that we're witnessing. Catch us up to speed here.
What exactly is happening between the president and Greene?

Speaker 7 Well, it's really interesting to watch.

Speaker 7 I mean, you think back to a few years ago, Marjorie Taylor Greene was considered one of the closest allies of the president in Congress, including during the Biden era as well.

Speaker 7 She was very vocally opposed to President Biden and very pro-Trump during that time period. Now, over the past few weeks, there's been some really, you know, some policy disagreements.

Speaker 7 There was some back and forth in terms of Obamacare, how to best handle health care and those sorts of issues, foreign policy, for example.

Speaker 7 And we finally kind of saw the dam breaking this week when we saw that the president referred to her as, you know, Marjorie Trader Greene, for example.

Speaker 7 And, you know, there was some disagreement there. And him basically also saying that a lot of this has to do with the fact that she expressed an interest in maybe running for Senate.

Speaker 7 or governor in the state of Georgia. He showed her a poll and

Speaker 7 they disagreed on how to best go forward with that. So he withdrew his support of her very notably over the weekend.

Speaker 2 Now, she's also been making a lot of appearances on legacy media outlets. Tell us about that.

Speaker 7 So the president mentioned this in one of his True Social Posts. She did go on the left-leaning talk show, The View,

Speaker 7 recently as well. And she's been doing interviews with CNN and other outlets, which is something that has gotten her a lot of criticism among other conservatives in that space.

Speaker 7 Here are some recent clips of the Congresswoman on these shows.

Speaker 8 We have seen these kinds of attacks or criticism from the president at other people.

Speaker 8 It's not new. And with respect, I haven't heard you speak out about it until it was directed at you.

Speaker 3 Dana, I think that's fair criticism. And I would like to say humbly, I'm sorry for taking part in the toxic

Speaker 9 politics.

Speaker 3 It's very bad for our country. I certainly hope that we can make up.
And there's, you know, again, I can only speak for myself.

Speaker 3 I am staying absolutely 100% true to the people that voted for me and true to my district.

Speaker 9 I am unapologetically America first.

Speaker 7 It's definitely something that seems to have been boiling over for weeks now. And the president calling her out is not coming off as a huge surprise at this stage.

Speaker 2 Now, we mentioned at the top that the Epstein files have become central to all of this. How so? How does this all tie in with the Epstein files?

Speaker 7 So Marjorie Taylor Greene has actually said that this is one of the main reasons that her and the president seem to have had a falling out.

Speaker 7 Others have disagreed with this premise.

Speaker 7 Like I said, the president said a lot of this has to do with some of her recent policy criticisms and the debate over whether or not she should run for higher office.

Speaker 7 But in terms of the actual context of the Epstein file debate right now in Congress, there was a petition that was signed by Marjorie Taylor Greene and a few other Republicans, along with all the Democrats, backing a trying to force a vote on Tuesday to release more of those files.

Speaker 7 We're expected to see more Republicans vote for that than did sign the petition. It's expected to pass.

Speaker 7 I know Trump has called it for some time the Jeffrey Epstein hoax, has said that he has strongly distanced himself from Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaker 7 Also want to note that Speaker Mike Johnson has echoed similar sentiments to President Donald Trump on these files as well. Here's what he had to say about that.

Speaker 10 It's been about politics. They're trying to attack the president.
They're trying to manufacture some sort of hoax that he had something to do with Epstein. And it is absurd.

Speaker 7 On Sunday night in a True Social post, Trump said that, quote, House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files because we have nothing to hide and it's time to move on from this Democrat hoax.

Speaker 7 But, you know, there's a lot of debate on this on the right as well on how to handle this issue.

Speaker 2 Well, we're going to be watching with interest for that vote on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a pretty ugly political breakup that we couldn't ignore at this point.
Cameron, thanks so much for reporting.

Speaker 7 Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 2 U.S. lawmakers and both parties are ramping up warnings about Chinese spying efforts on U.S.
military bases and personnel.

Speaker 4 Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips has more on the concerning trend.

Speaker 4 So, Cabot, you've reported on this a few times over the past year and a half, but we now have some concerning new developments. What have we learned?

Speaker 12 Yeah, it's no secret that Beijing has been engaged in an ongoing and now escalating espionage effort against the U.S.

Speaker 12 In recent years, Chinese companies were found to have gobbled up farmland near roughly 20 military installations nationwide, prompting warnings from the Pentagon that the CCP could use that land to film weapons and troop movements, intercept communications, and hack into software.

Speaker 12 Congress recently passed new laws requiring federal approval for foreign land purchases that took place within about 100 miles of most military sites.

Speaker 12 But it appears that Beijing is still circumventing those laws and continuing to purchase land near those sensitive areas.

Speaker 12 In just the last few days, the Daily Caller reported on a trailer park in Missouri that's owned by a married couple currently living in Canada.

Speaker 12 It sounds pretty harmless, but that trailer park just happens to directly border Whiteman Air Force Base that's home to the U.S. military's only nuclear-capable stealth bomber fleet.

Speaker 12 The land shares a fence with the base and sits just a mile from the runway, offering unobscured views of the stealth bombers taking off and landing.

Speaker 12 And according to the Daily Caller, that Canadian couple are actually Chinese immigrants with direct business ties to Miles Guo, a quote, disgraced Chinese tycoon and self-described former CCP intelligence affiliate.

Speaker 12 As one former CIA operations officer said, quote, this trailer park would hypothetically give Xi Jinping a range of options to wreak havoc.

Speaker 12 And according to a Missouri congressman, Mark Alford, the commander of this base, told him he had no idea that his next-door neighbors were potential Chinese spies.

Speaker 13 I just talked to the former commander of the base who retired two days before the Midnight Hammer strike, and he wasn't aware that this existed.

Speaker 4 So presumably this one property is being looked into.

Speaker 12 Right. Congress is calling for specific investigations into this case to make sure there aren't any others.

Speaker 4 But things like this, though, are just kind of the tip of the iceberg, correct? When it comes to Chinese espionage?

Speaker 12 That's exactly right. Another aspect involves Chinese tech products being used by Americans.

Speaker 12 Last week, 23 lawmakers from both parties, led by Senator Joni Ernst from Iowa, sent a letter to the White House urging them to investigate TP-Link, that is a large online retailer that sells Wi-Fi routers, home security cameras, baby monitors, et cetera.

Speaker 12 They're actually one of the most prominent sellers of those products on Amazon.

Speaker 12 Ernst says that those devices are easily accessed by the CCP and most concerning, quote, are sold through the Army, Air Force, and Navy exchanges, placing these devices in close proximity to U.S.

Speaker 12 military installations and providing a vehicle for Beijing to spy on America.

Speaker 12 The members in that letter are now calling for an investigation to determine whether products from TP-Link should be banned in the United States.

Speaker 12 Now, for their part, the company strongly denies any wrongdoing, saying their data for American users is housed on the Amazon cloud in Virginia, and that, quote, TP-Link does not enable foreign surveillance of U.S.

Speaker 12 networks or users. But lawmakers say that even if Chinese businesses aren't intentionally taking part in espionage against their U.S.

Speaker 12 customers, they can often be used for just that purpose by the Communist Party.

Speaker 12 Remember, Beijing passed new laws in recent years that require, quote, any organization or citizen to support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work.

Speaker 12 The Department of Homeland Security says those laws also now require tech companies to add secret back doors to the products they make, which then can be accessed later by the government.

Speaker 4 So these companies wouldn't even have a choice if the government asked them to spy on U.S. citizens.
Right.

Speaker 12 There's a law in place saying that they have to cooperate with the government's intelligence operation.

Speaker 12 And on top of all that, according to a new top-secret White House memo obtained by the Financial Times this weekend, Alibaba, that's basically Chinese version of Amazon, which is very popular as well here in the U.S., is allegedly working with Beijing to aid their cyber operations, handing over boatloads of sensitive data from American customers.

Speaker 12 In addition to IP addresses and payment information, the company is even allegedly alerting the Chinese Communist Party of software flaws that they find here in the U.S.

Speaker 12 that can then be easily exploited by hackers back in China.

Speaker 12 For their part, Alibaba, again, as you can imagine, denies any wrongdoing, calling the story totally false, but expect to hear a lot more from lawmakers on this issue in the coming days and weeks.

Speaker 4 Yeah, well, I hope so. And it just shows the cost of convenience in getting cheap stuff from China.
Cabot, thanks for reporting. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 Federal immigration agents flooded Charlotte, North Carolina over the weekend in the next major operation under President Trump's deportation surge.

Speaker 4 Here to talk about what's going on in Charlotte is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce.

Speaker 4 So Tim, Charlotte's streets were filled with protesters over the weekend due to ICE and Trump's immigration operations ramping up. What happened?

Speaker 11 Right. Immigration officials from both ICE and the Border Patrol launched what's known as Operation Charlotte's Web over the weekend.
It's more of what we've seen in a few major cities now.

Speaker 11 According to administration officials, the agents are targeting violent, criminal, illegal aliens, but they also get quite a few aliens that don't have violent records as well.

Speaker 11 That tends to happen because ICE and Border Patrol have trouble often working with local law enforcement to get the dangerous criminal illegals.

Speaker 11 Now, this has all caused a pretty predictable backlash between local Democratic officials and activists. For instance, here's the president of the Charlotte chapter of the NAACP, Corinne Mack.

Speaker 14 We have a little man

Speaker 14 sitting in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Speaker 14 who really believes that Hitler was the greatest man ever on earth and trying to create a 1940s Germany right here in the United States? And like then,

Speaker 14 many people said, well, it's them, it's not me.

Speaker 14 Until eventually it was them.

Speaker 14 We can no longer be silent.

Speaker 11 And here's just a taste of how some of those street protests looked in Charlotte over the weekend.

Speaker 11 Now, incidents like this with the media and the protests are becoming a deliberate strategy among Democrats to push back against the Trump administration's immigration agenda.

Speaker 11 As Axios reports, activists in Chicago have essentially made a playbook for resistance efforts and want to use it wherever immigration agents show up, this weekend being Charlotte.

Speaker 4 Charlotte's an interesting example because they have had some recent very violent crime.

Speaker 4 Listeners will remember Aruna Zarutska from over the summer that obviously brought to light the issue of repeat violent offenders. Has that recent memory played into the debate over immigration?

Speaker 11 Yeah, there are a lot of facets to the deportation debate, but crime is arguably one of the biggest. And Zarutska's murder in August was a flashpoint in the crime debate.

Speaker 11 Here, the suspected killer wasn't an illegal alien, but he does have a lengthy criminal record.

Speaker 11 DeCarlos Brown Jr., before he was arrested and charged with Zaruska's murder, had been arrested 14 times on charges ranging from assault to to felony robbery.

Speaker 11 Saruska's case, in particular, motivated the passage of what's been called Arena's Law in North Carolina, which does away with the cashless bail system and is aimed at keeping dangerous criminals off the streets.

Speaker 11 And this has all played a role in the larger law and order debate around what needs to be done to keep communities safe. Immigration enforcement, Republicans argue, is a major component of that.

Speaker 4 Now, tangentially related, but I want to ask you about the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. They recently waded in on the immigration debate.
What was their stance?

Speaker 11 Yeah, the bishops waded in in what is a pretty obvious shot against President Trump's immigration policies. Here's some of what they had to say.

Speaker 15 We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement.

Speaker 15 We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care.

Speaker 11 Now, much of the bishop's message doesn't seem that controversial as far as respect for human rights and the importance of national security is concerned, but it's the default repetition of Democratic talking points against Trump's immigration agenda that riled some Republicans.

Speaker 11 Here's borders are Tom Homan pushing back against that on Friday.

Speaker 5 I used to send a message to the whole world. Don't give your life savings to come to the country because you're not going to be released.
You're not going to cross the border legally.

Speaker 5 You're going to be prosecuted. So the Catholic Church is wrong.
I'm sorry, but I'm a lifelong Catholic. I'm saying it as

Speaker 5 not only a borders, I'll say it as a Catholic. I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church, in my opinion.

Speaker 11 So, Homan appearing pretty indignant about the accusations leveled by the bishops.

Speaker 4 Sounds like it. Tim, thanks for reporting.

Speaker 11 Good to be on.

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