As Operation Epic Fury nears the one-week mark, Tehran scrambles to fill a deepening leadership vacuum, a process Trump says he must be involved in. Ultimately, I think the president's having a heck of a say in who runs Iran, given the ongoing operation we have. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, March 6th. This is Morning Wire. President Trump announces that Kristi Noem is out as head of Homeland Security. And Senator Mark Wayne Mullen is stepping in. It's just pretty humbling when you start thinking about it. A little kid from Westville, Oklahoma, gets to serve in the president's cabinet. That's pretty neat. And as the conflict in the Middle East rages on, the UK comes under fire for trying to walk a thin line. I took the decision that the UK would not join the initial strikes on Iran. When Iran started attacking countries around the Gulf and the wider region, the situation changed. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. 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If you use that link, you'll support our show and you'll be eligible for free shipping and 365 day returns. This also, by the way, applies to Canadian listeners. That's quince.com slash wire. and that really supports our show. Plus, you'll get that free shipping and a full year to decide if you like your items. As the joint military operation in Iran closes in on its first week, Tehran is in the middle of a leadership crisis. Here to talk about the latest in Operation Epic Fury is Daily Wire contributor Tim Pierce. Morning, Tim. So things looking increasingly grim for what's left of Iran's very much isolated regime at this point. Where does the military operation stand now? Yeah, Iran's navy has effectively been neutralized, its air force blown up, and it looks like it could be facing a ground invasion from domestic opposition. Right now, one of Tehran's top priorities is stabilizing its leadership and appointing a new supreme leader. The top candidate appears to be the late Ayatollah's son, Mostaba Khomeini. He has a more ruthless reputation than even his father. But Tehran's assembly of experts is somewhat split over concerns about hereditary leadership to that position. and because of pressure from Iran's Revolutionary Guard in the process. While Iran tries to keep its leadership breathing, the U.S. and Israel have knocked out thousands of Iranian military targets. War Secretary Pete Hegseth gave an update in a press conference yesterday. We have only just begun to fight and fight decisively. Our capabilities are overwhelming and gathering still, as are those of our Israeli partners. Our munitions are full up and our will is iron clad, which means our timeline is ours and ours alone to control. One of the next big questions is whether President Trump will order ground forces into Iran. Iran's foreign minister has said he's confident that they can counter any such invasion. But we've seen reports that Trump has reached out to Kurdish forces in Iran and Iraq. We brought on Daily Wire foreign affairs reporter Cassie Akiva to talk about that. Iranian Kurdish groups based in Iraq are considering returning home to Iran and taking up arms against the Islamic regime Now they not doing it yet despite any reports you see They waiting for a few things to happen First of all they cannot defend themselves adequately against the drones and the missiles of the Islamic regime. So they're waiting for those to get more depleted, and they're waiting for the U.S. and Israel to take more of the rocket launchers out. Now, they're also hoping that they have a long-term partnership formed with the United States. They want to make sure that if they risk their lives enjoying this fight, they will be protected and that the U.S. will not abandon them for whatever shiny new government comes next in Tehran. Now, Iran has still not landed a significant blow in the conflict. And part of that is due to the state-of-the-art defensive capabilities of the U.S. and Israel. Videos released by U.S. Central Command appear to show the use of a high-energy laser to take out drones. And Israel has reportedly been able to stop Iranian missiles and drones in part by using its own iron beam. While neither side has confirmed the use of lasers in the conflict, military experts believe that they are making a difference on the battlefield. Now, the operation has taken a toll on international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. That's a very important trade route between Asia and the Middle East. What kinds of effects are we seeing from the disruption there? Yeah, it's definitely a problem with the amount of energy especially that is shipped through the Strait. Traffic through the Strait has dropped off about 90% over the past week. Morning Wire spoke to Dr. Peter Earle. He's the director of economics at the American Institute for Economic Research, and he raised some good questions about the strait. One thing I would say, though, is that the Strait of Hormuz has been nominally closed for five days, and we still haven't seen half of the move in oil markets that we saw when Russia invaded Ukraine. So the wonder right now is, has the Strait of Hormuz, its importance, been sort of overvalued in the years? Has it been overstated? Or are the markets just that optimistic that this will be resolved quickly? So it's kind of an interesting quandary because one would have expected to see, upon the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, much, much higher oil prices than we see right now. Earl also said that for Americans, we're somewhat insulated from price spikes in energy. That said, the price of oil in the U.S. has risen well over 10 percent since the operation started last week. I think most of us have seen the price at the pump going up a bit over the last few days. Now, I wanted to ask you about the China angle before you go. what is going on with China in relation to this operation? Yeah, top officials are expected to meet in Paris at the end of next week. That meeting will reportedly involve Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and Trade Representative Jameson Greer for the U.S. and the Vice Premier for China. The meeting is aimed at finalizing trade deals before Trump and Xi meet in Beijing at the end of the month. Officials on both sides have talked about improving the relationship between the U.S. and China, but recently the U.S. military action may add some new attention to those discussions as Venezuela and Iran were two of Beijing's top trading partners until very recently. Right. The U.S. has taken direct aim at two of their allies. I'm sure Beijing is shaken somewhat by this. Tim, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. 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Stop putting off those doctor's appointments and go to ZocDoc.com slash wire to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com slash wire. ZocDoc.com slash wire. Thanks, ZocDoc, for sponsoring this message. Kristi Noem is out as Secretary of Homeland Security, and President Trump has announced her replacement. Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Tehr joins us now with more. So Jenny you been reporting on Kristi Noem and her various controversies for months now with her leadership at DHS What ultimately led to her firing Right So what ultimately was the straw that broke the camel back appears to be Noem's testimony this week, where she had said before a congressional committee that it was President Trump who ultimately decided to run these TV ads encouraging deportation and against illegal immigration. And these ads came at a huge cost, $200 million. She said it was a competitive bidding process, but it turns out it really wasn't according to documents that we've obtained here at The Daily Wire. It seems that this was all set up so that a company that was stood up by her former spokesperson's husband, that they went to that company essentially because it was done through like a subcontracting agency and it was set up that way. And not to mention the large bill that went with it. It appears that Trump had really no idea about them. That's what he said before her firing was ultimately announced. There's been a number of other things that have led up to this. Of course, her handling of the Minneapolis deportation raids. There was some issue with that when the two shootings happened, the two fatal shootings of Alex Preddy and Renee Good. And so that led when when Noam had sent in Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, he was there on the ground leading the operation. He was swiftly taken out after those shootings. He's a very aggressive type of law enforcement agent who is known for his roving, sweeping patrols. And that was getting a lot of backlash then. And she was ultimately sidestepped by the president who took Bovino out of there and put in Tom Homan. That was another thing that led up to this. So it was the contracts. It was the handling of Minneapolis that's led to this. And of course, going after him and essentially blaming him for this. It wasn't a good look and really made the president question her loyalty. Now, President Trump says he's going to tap Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen for this job. What does that mean about DHS's new direction going forward? Yeah, I think this is something that career law enforcement agents and officers at DHS are currently wondering. I've talked to a number of sources about this because one of the big things that made them take issue with Secretary Noem was the fact that she was not a law enforcement official like them and she didn't have that experience. And she often would sidestep the career law enforcement officials leading things like Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol and even ICE, that she was looking towards people like apparently Corey Lewandowski, who was her senior advisor at DHS and is also alleged to be engaged in an affair with her. So that was that's their biggest concern. Like the rank and file at DHS really were concerned about that. You know, what we know about Mullen is that he's a staunch Trump ally. And that's something that we can tell from this whole situation is something that the president really values, because in the end, this was really about Noam going against the president and essentially throwing him under the bus. Now, the president announced that he does have plans for Noam in the future. What does he want her to do next? So at this point, Secretary Noem will be continuing as the secretary through the end of the month. And then from there, she's essentially getting a demotion. But she's going to be leading kind of like this Western Hemisphere initiative to go after the cartels. So she'll still be in the Trump administration, just in a position that's at a lower level. Well, it'll be interesting to see what direction Mullen takes the department. Jenny, thanks for reporting. Thank you. The relationship between the U.S. and U.K. has been strained this week amid British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's reluctance to aid the operation against the Iranian regime. Joining us to discuss is Bev Turner, host of GB News Late Show Live. Bev, good to have you back on. My pleasure. So we've been watching with great interest how the U.K. has responded to the war from day one. We nearly a week in here and tensions have just been really rising by the day with Trump and Starmer What the latest from the UK How have they responded to this operation against Iran The prime minister is under huge pressure, massive pressure in the UK at the moment to respond in a way that is apparently trying to keep everybody happy at the same time. And frankly, it's an impossible task for him. He's just held a press conference because he's getting so much criticism and in this press conference one of the most striking elements for me is that somebody said to him have you been talking to the president and he said I spoke to the president on Saturday night now as you've just pointed out this year we are six seven days into this now and the bombing started early Saturday morning that means that the prime minister has just revealed to the world that he has not spoken to the president in all of that time and that is very indicative actually of the strained relationship between these two men. And Keir Starmer has been at pains every time he's stood up in the UK to say, we weren't involved in the strikes on Iran. We have not been involved. We're taking a defensive position. And partly, guys, this is because in the UK, the Muslim voter is incredibly influential. And we have so many Muslims now who are politically engaged in the UK, who take democracy very seriously. And so Keir Starmer is trying to keep everybody happy and keeping nobody happy. Now, by and large, do you see that the Muslim population is sympathetic with the Ayatollah or are they sympathetic with the Iranian people who we've largely seen celebrating? I think that's a really good question. And I think it's impossible to lump everybody into one Venn diagram of how they feel about that. However, we have seen a lot of Iranian people in the UK celebrating on the streets, as you've seen here in America as well. We've seen for the first time ever, actually, Jewish people celebrating alongside Iranian people, alongside Christian people. And that is wonderful. But for some of the Muslim population, they were obviously felt very strongly about the Palestine conflict. They felt very strong. We have on the streets of the UK every weekend, pro-Palestine marches, which bring London to a standstill. That is no exaggeration. I think the Iranian situation is obviously more complicated. As you said, Starmer emphatically came out early on and said, hey, we had nothing to do with these initial strikes, but we've now seen the UK agree to at least not get in the way of the US. What is the latest logistically? What are they providing or not providing for this campaign? Yeah, that's a really good point. We're not going to get in the way. We're not going to stop you, but we're not going to help you. I mean, those are the kind of friends you need in times of need, right? You see, we have all of these military bases, of course, around the world. And our understanding is that the president asked Keir Starmer, can we use your bases? And we understand that he said no. Now, that is the kind of thing that President Trump will not forget easily. Subsequently, in the preceding 72 hours or so, it looks like we changed our mind on that. And we are now allowing Diego Garcia in the Chagos Islands to be used by America. We've got bases in Cyprus that America is now being permitted to use. But we have one big ship, basically, that is able to go. It's called the Dragon. It is not breathing any fire. It's going to take it two weeks to get to the area. Our military has been so depleted over so many decades now that we really are incredibly ill-equipped to deal with a situation like this. And in the sense that the president has been saying repeatedly, we are carrying the weight of the world. Where is Europe? Where is the UK? He's been saying all of this before it kicked off in Iran. And it turns out he's been proved right. So one ship on the way. One ship. Not the kind of response you'd expect from the UK a few decades back. Bev, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you back on. Thank you. Thanks for waking up with us. And if you're listening to the show, now you can watch for free on Daily Wire Plus. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.
