Ukraine Deal Emerges & SNAP System Shakeup | 11.20.25

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Speaker 3 A 28-point peace plan that could end the war in Ukraine is reportedly in the works as Washington and Moscow bargain behind the scenes.

Speaker 4 So many questions remain here, but it really does come down to the President of the United States. He's the man who is going to make the difference in peace and war in Ukraine.

Speaker 3 I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. It's Thursday, November 20th, and this is Morningwire.

Speaker 5 This is obviously a program we need to make sure that people are citizens to receive this benefit. We ought to figure out exactly what we should allow people to buy with this.

Speaker 6 Amid growing claims of widespread fraud and SNAP benefits, the Trump administration is set to roll out sweeping changes to food stamps.

Speaker 3 And immigration raids in Charlotte have rippled through the community, clearing both highways and classrooms.

Speaker 7 The students whose parents come from Latin American countries were the students we were missing.

Speaker 6 Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
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Speaker 6 The Trump administration is crafting a plan to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. According to a new report, officials are in talks to get both sides on board of a 28-point framework.

Speaker 3 Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about President Trump's efforts to settle the war between Russia and Ukraine. So, Tim, potentially some significant movement.
What do we know so far?

Speaker 7 Not much on the details, but administration officials do appear to be confident about it. Politico quoted one official as saying, what we are going to present is reasonable.

Speaker 7 The plan has apparently come out of extensive talks between U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Russia Envoy Karill Dmitriev.

Speaker 7 The two ambassadors met in Miami last month and spent three days together on what a potential deal could look like.

Speaker 7 According to Axios, Dmitriev came out of that meeting feeling like the Russian position is really being heard.

Speaker 7 He went on to describe the deal as a much broader framework that seeks to bring lasting security to Europe, not just Ukraine.

Speaker 7 What's not so clear is how far talks move forward with Ukraine or with European officials who may be interested in any potential peace deal, especially one that may involve security guarantees that the Europeans have to provide for Ukraine.

Speaker 7 The White House seems to think that Kyiv and Europe will eventually accept the deal, though, as long as flexibility is shown, as one White House official put it.

Speaker 3 Now, how soon could we see a deal?

Speaker 7 Well, some reports suggest that a deal could be on the table as soon as the end of this week. That may sound fast, but we have seen a lot of movement lately.

Speaker 7 According to Politico, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and other senior U.S.

Speaker 7 military officials traveled to Kyiv yesterday to meet with Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky, who then traveled to Turkey to meet with Turkish President Erdogan about restarting peace talks with Russia.

Speaker 7 Zelensky didn't talk anymore about any potential deal, though, and there have been times in the past when Zelensky hasn't been shy about dissenting from the White House.

Speaker 7 We will have to hear from him too before any peace plan can move forward.

Speaker 7 According to Axios, part of the Trump administration's plan includes asking Ukraine to trade some land for security guarantees, including land that isn't currently in Russia control.

Speaker 7 That alone could be a sticking point for Ukraine, but we'll just have to see.

Speaker 3 Now, pivoting a bit, President Trump ruffled some feathers in Mexico recently with an exchange with the Mexican president. What happened there?

Speaker 7 Yeah, he hasn't committed to any action yet, but like he often does, he has floated certain ideas he might be mulling over. In this case, land strikes in Mexico.

Speaker 7 He wasn't clear on if he would act unilaterally or coordinate those potential strikes with the Mexican government. Here's Trump.

Speaker 9 We're losing hundreds of thousands of people to drugs. So now we've stopped the waterways.
But we know every route. We know every route.
We know the addresses of every drug lord.

Speaker 9 We know their address. We know their front door.
We know everything about every one of them. They're killing our people.

Speaker 2 That's like a war.

Speaker 9 Would I do it? I'd be proud to. I'd probably go into Congress and say, hey.
And you know what? The Democrats and the Republicans would both agree. Unless they're crazy.

Speaker 9 And they are a little crazy on the Democrat side.

Speaker 9 But

Speaker 9 we have lost hundreds of thousands of people a year. Death.

Speaker 9 And that's not talking about family destruction. It's talking about that.

Speaker 9 And much of it comes through Mexico. So let me just put it this way.
I am not happy with Mexico, okay?

Speaker 7 After those remarks from Trump, Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum made clear that any strikes on Mexico would not happen with her approval.

Speaker 7 According to the Associated Press, Scheinbaum said on Tuesday that she has told him on every occasion that we can collaborate, that they can help us with information they have, but that we operate in our territory, that we do not accept any intervention by a foreign government.

Speaker 7 So we'll just have to see how Trump responds to that.

Speaker 3 All right, so several high-stakes negotiations happening.

Speaker 10 Tim, thanks for reporting.

Speaker 7 Good to be on.

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Speaker 3 Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has announced a complete overhaul of the food stamps program, promising to rein in fraud and abuse.

Speaker 6 Here are the details as Daily Wire reporter Amanda Prestis Giacobo. Hey, Amanda.

Speaker 6 So we've been tracking this growing controversy over SNAP in the last few years, and now we're about to see some major changes to the food stamps program. What exactly is Rollins calling for?

Speaker 10 Yeah, I mean, she's going to change a number of things here, but most notably, the department is having everyone who is on food stamps reapply for these benefits.

Speaker 10 Currently, there are around 43 million people in the SNAP program. That's about 12% of the population.
And it costs taxpayers around $100 billion annually.

Speaker 10 The logic behind reapplication is obviously to try to crack down on fraud and abuse to make sure that these benefits are only going to Americans who really need the program.

Speaker 10 Rollins said Americans instinctually know that SNAP is extremely corrupt, evidenced by anecdotal accounts.

Speaker 10 We've all seen videos on social media of people admitting to selling their benefits or, you know, some of these insane grocery hauls for people who don't really seem all that needy.

Speaker 10 But, you know, without hard data, it's impossible to know how much of this is going on and where it's happening. So Rollins asked every state to share their SNAP data to track down the fraud.

Speaker 10 So far, only 29 states have complied, mostly all red states. Here's what she's found so far.

Speaker 13 186,000 deceased individuals receiving benefits, 500,000 people getting more than two times the benefit.

Speaker 13 We found thousands of individuals that were getting benefits in three to four or five, six different states. I mean, it is one thing after another.
And this is just from the red states.

Speaker 10 Rollins said that they're suing to get snap data from the remaining states, including New York and California. And she suggested that the fraud and abuse there there will be even worse.
Right.

Speaker 6 And possibly related to that, in fact, there's been a lot of discussion about welfare programs, including SNAP, going to illegal immigrants. Does that happen? Do we have any data on that?

Speaker 10 Yeah, well, like Rowland said, this stuff is hard to track.

Speaker 10 They don't have the hard data, but we do have some insight from a 2024 survey of income and program participation that's been analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies.

Speaker 10 Now, even though SNAP is restricted for applicants who have legal status, CIS estimates that about 4.5 million illegals are using SNAP.

Speaker 10 This is especially alarming since illegals are already permitted to use WIC, which is another welfare food program that's a little more restrictive.

Speaker 10 CIS also found that 47% of all non-citizen households receive taxpayer-funded food assistance. And just generally, about 60% of illegal immigrant households use at least one major welfare program.

Speaker 6 Well, it's pretty remarkable. Now, you mentioned other changes coming to SNAP.
What else can we expect?

Speaker 10 Yeah, we've covered this a little bit here, but Rollins has teamed up with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and they're working together to push states to limit food and drink choices for SNAP.

Speaker 10 Soda is one of the most commonly purchased items with SNAP, and nearly 25% of all SNAP dollars are going to soda, candy, and other junk food, believe it or not.

Speaker 10 So states are now allowed to exclude those options. 11 states so far have asked for waivers to do that, all red states except for Colorado.

Speaker 10 There were also some notable changes from the GOP-backed Big Beautiful bill. For example, there are stricter work requirements.

Speaker 10 So now able-bodied adults without dependents, they have to work at least 80 hours a month or be in some sort of training or education program to receive benefits beyond three months.

Speaker 10 There's also new cost-sharing obligations on states. They'll have to pay more for administrative costs and pay a percentage of overpayments if they have a high error rate.

Speaker 6 Are these reforms strictly partisan? What are we hearing from Democrats?

Speaker 10 Yeah, I mean, by and large, this is partisan. Democrats are not on board with any cuts or reforms to snap.

Speaker 10 High-profile Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchard, just to name a few, they've all criticized the Big Beautiful bill for this very thing.

Speaker 10 Obviously, Republicans see this differently.

Speaker 10 They say that they want fraud and abuse to be cut to protect American taxpayers, and they want the program to help the vulnerable while still incentivizing self-reliance.

Speaker 6 It's going to be fascinating to see how these changes affect the the numbers over time. Amanda, thanks for reporting.

Speaker 10 You're welcome.

Speaker 6 The Trump administration's immigration sweeps in Charlotte have left schools with minimal attendance and roads free of traffic.

Speaker 3 Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Tare joins us now to tell us about the impact of Trump's boots on the ground approach in Charlotte.

Speaker 3 So, Jenny, the Trump administration is rolling out their immigration agenda in Charlotte this week. What have we seen from the ground?

Speaker 12 Right. This is a place that we don't traditionally think about as a hotbed for illegal immigration.
But now this is starting to expose this as one.

Speaker 12 So what we've seen so far is that school attendance is down.

Speaker 12 Like you said, 30,000 students around that did not show up to class in Charlotte Public Schools on Monday after the sweep started over the weekend. And those raids had yielded about 200 arrests.

Speaker 12 It's also putting fear into other industries around the city. Traffic is down altogether.
And then also construction sites have been completely abandoned.

Speaker 12 So you're not seeing those laborers working in construction.

Speaker 12 And so it's really brought about this issue of Charlotte being a really major hotspot for illegal immigrants that we really didn't think was before.

Speaker 3 Right. Well, I think Charlotte doesn't come to mind for a lot of people when they think about illegal immigration the same way, say, New York City or Chicago does.

Speaker 3 Why did Border Patrol choose to make that a priority?

Speaker 12 So So Border Patrol saw Charlotte and the Department of Homeland Security more largely saw Charlotte as a sanctuary.

Speaker 12 After the sheriff of Mecklenburg County had taken away its partnership with ICE in 2018, he said that he would no longer allow ICE to come into his jails to take in illegal immigrant criminals that were set to be released, effectively adopting a sanctuary policy that we see in places like New York City and Chicago, which ICE and Border Patrol have already been pretty active in.

Speaker 12 So with Charlotte, they say that there were 1,400 illegal immigrants that are sitting in those jails there in the city that the authorities there locally are refusing to hand over to ICE.

Speaker 12 So they're trying to clean up the mess and say, okay, well, if you're not going to help us, we're going to take matters into our own hands. And that's what's happening.

Speaker 12 The commander of Border Patrol down there, Gregory Bovino, is saying that the sweeps are yielding more collateral arrests.

Speaker 12 So people that are with illegal immigrant criminals that they're already targeting, and those collateral arrests actually have more criminal histories than they've seen in other cities where they're doing this.

Speaker 12 So, this is a major issue that's come about.

Speaker 3 Now, while I have you here, you've been reporting on some of the updates on the case against the alleged MS-13 gang member, Kilmar Abrego-Garcia. Where do things stand with his case?

Speaker 12 The Trump administration is going to bring forward a new witness in the Kilmar Abrego-Garcia case, which is his human smuggling case.

Speaker 12 So this is the one where it's linked to that traffic stop from 2022 in Tennessee, when he had about eight passengers in the car, no luggage.

Speaker 12 They'd been traveling for days from Texas trying to get to Maryland.

Speaker 12 And Kilmar Obrego-Garcia, according to the Trump administration and federal prosecutors, was regularly moving people into the country who were here illegally and is part of a broader smuggling enterprise.

Speaker 12 So now they're looking to bring more witnesses forward to really buffer this case.

Speaker 12 And one of those is a woman who says that Kilmar Obrego-Garcia was trying to recruit her to help with the smuggling enterprise.

Speaker 12 And in her testimony, apparently, she says to the federal government that she was also someone that he solicited pornographic photos and videos from while they were talking and while she was a minor.

Speaker 12 She was 15 at the time. He was 25.
He was sending her those explicit photos and videos, but also also asking her for those.

Speaker 12 This just continues to build on this case that the Trump administration is making.

Speaker 12 And it also flies in the face of what Democrats have put forward here, that they've kind of created this darling out of Kilmara Braco-Garcia.

Speaker 12 This was just clearly a poor mascot for them to choose to go after the Trump administration's mass deportations.

Speaker 3 Well, Jenny, thank you for following that case, and we will continue to report on it.

Speaker 10 Thank you.

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