President Donald Trump calls off all meetings with the Islamic regime — suggesting he may come to the aid of Iranian protestors, inflation holds steady as the administration touts an affordability push, and Congress tosses around a funding package to keep the lights on until October. It’s Wednesday, January 14, 2026, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below: Trump Puts Iran On Notice President Trump put Tehran on notice on Tuesday, cutting off discussions with Iranian leaders and telling protesters: “Help is on its way.” Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday that “the killers and abusers” in Iran “will pay a big price.” He urged protesters to continue their resistance and to take over institutions. The president also recommended that any Americans in Iran leave as soon as possible. Meanwhile, deaths during the protests appear to have surged past other recent instances of mass demonstrations in Iran. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency estimates that more than 2,000 people have been killed. The Saudi-funded outlet Iran International estimates a much higher death toll at around 12,000. Thousands more have been arrested. Reports say that 26-year-old Erfan Soltani is expected to be hanged on Wednesday after the government found him guilty of “waging war on God.” Labor Department Report Shows Inflation Cooling The latest Labor Department report released Tuesday showed that inflation continues to cool, once again defying expert predictions. The department released its highly anticipated CPI report for December, which showed inflation at 2.7% – tied for the lowest since March 2021. The pace of inflation has fallen dramatically since the 9% peak in 2021. Across former President Joe Biden’s four years in office, the average number was about 5%. The report surprised experts, who had projected a slightly higher number. EJ Antoni, chief economist at The Heritage Foundation, said the report likely understates the cooling, as the indicators used by the Labor Department lag behind reality. Rep. Brad Finstad Talks Congress’s Latest Funding Package The House is set to take up a two-bill funding package this week, after the Senate advanced it, as the government faces an end-of-month shutdown deadline. The bipartisan legislation would fully fund agencies like the State and Treasury departments, the IRS, and the federal courts through October, but it currently omits funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Minnesota GOP Rep. Brad Finstad told Morning Wire that one of the priorities of the bills is to “get some fiscal sanity back in our country.” The current version includes a 16% reduction in spending. “It’s an opportunity for us to kind of right-size government,” said Finstad. The package also aims to curb fraud by defunding some USAID programs and increasing reporting standards.

The world today stands at a historical turning point. Over the past two decades, the West has shown unmistakable signs of decline. Internally, it has lost confidence, been corroded by left-wing Marxist ideology, and been overwhelmed by massive illegal migration. Externally, a new “Axis of Evil” is ascendant, the anti-American alliance of repressive regimes including China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea. President Donald Trump understands the threat of this alliance — and China in particular — more than his predecessors ever did. And he realizes China cannot be defeated in isolation. It must be strategically surrounded, economically strained, and stripped of its allies. Armed with this understanding, Trump has moved with speed and clarity so far in his second term. Upon returning to office, Trump reignited the tariff war against China, deliberately targeting Beijing at a moment of extreme vulnerability, after Xi Jinping’s draconian COVID policies had already crippled China’s economy. Then came decisive blows against China’s key partners. In late June, Trump authorized the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. In September, the U.S. military began striking narco-terrorist vessels operating out of Venezuela. This campaign culminated in the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, shattering China’s and Russia’s primary foothold in Latin America. The effects were immediate and dramatic. Thousands of Venezuelan political prisoners were released, achieving in days what decades of U.N. resolutions and human-rights advocacy had failed to accomplish. At the same time, widespread anti-regime protests that erupted in Iran in late December began to intensify. Reports have emerged that Iranian demonstrators openly appealed to Trump for help. Trump publicly expressed support for the protesters, telling them, “help is on the way,” and warning Iranian leaders, “you better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too.” Beijing is watching with horror, knowing the same could one day happen in China. What we are witnessing is the rapid unraveling of the New Axis of Evil. For the Chinese Communist Party, unrest in Iran and regime collapse in Venezuela represent strategic disasters. China is losing key partners, critical energy access, and geopolitical leverage — along with up to $100 billion in Venezuelan investments that are now effectively unrecoverable. Worse, these crises expose Beijing’s inability to protect or stabilize its allied dictatorships. The dominoes do not stop there. Without Venezuelan oil subsidies, Cuba — the longest-lasting communist regime in the Western Hemisphere — cannot survive. North Korea, effectively a CCP client state, faces an even grimmer future as China’s own economy deteriorates. Russia, the last major pillar of this bloc, is bogged down in its costly war in Ukraine and increasingly dependent on Chinese economic lifelines — lifelines that are themselves fraying. After the Maduro capture, the American Left condemned Trump for violating international law. They fail to grasp a fundamental reality: international law has already collapsed. The greatest rule-breaker is Communist China, which violated nearly every international rule and norm on its path to superpower status. Trump does not seek to restrain rule-breakers with fantasies. He seeks to dismantle the ecosystems that sustain them. This is the essence of the Trump Doctrine: sever the links that allow repressive regimes to support one another, clear hostile powers out of America’s strategic backyard, and prevent regional conflicts from metastasizing into global catastrophe. From Latin America to the Arctic, Trump has moved to block Chinese and Russian encroachment — including openly asserting American strategic interests in Greenland, which Beijing and Moscow had already penetrated while Denmark stood idle. And the president is just getting started. Days into the new year, Trump proposed the creation of a “Dream Military,” calling for a 2027 defense budget of $1.5 trillion — an increase of more than 66%. By raising the military and technological bar across the board, the United States forces China into an impossible choice: fall further behind, or attempt to keep pace and cripple itself through runaway military spending, technological isolation, and economic slowdown. The Soviet Union faced this very dilemma — and collapsed. Trump does not need to defeat the CCP in battle. He only needs to force it into a competition it cannot afford. And that is how empires fall. From within. Xi Van Fleet and Yu Jie are authors of the forthcoming book “Made in America: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Enabled Communist China and Created Our Greatest Threat.” The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire. READ MORE: I Lived In The Communist World Zohran Mamdani Dreams Of. It’s Worse Than You Could Imagine. American Maoists, Part I: License To Kill: What Turns Normal People To Political Violence? American Maoists, Part II: The Wheel Of Misfortune: Victims, Victimhood, And Victimization American Maoists, Part III: From Red Guard To Blue Hair: Why Leftists Destroy Womanhood American Maoists, Part IV: Proletarian Profanity: Why Democrats Want To Trap Voters In A Linguistic Ghetto American Maoists, Part V: Erasing History: The Real Cultural Marxism

President Donald Trump could be seen on video flipping the bird and saying the phrase “f*ck you” in the direction of a heckler during his Tuesday visit to the Ford F-150 plant in Dearborn, Michigan. The president, in town for a speech at the Detroit Economic Club, toured the F-150 plant as well — and responded in the moment as someone in the crowd shouted at him, apparently accusing the president of “protecting” the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Entertainment site TMZ first reported the news, sharing video of the brief exchange that quickly made its way across social media. WATCH: #EXCLUSIVE ? President Trump was filmed flipping off a Ford worker who yelled “pedophile protector” at him. https://t.co/m5nLYtWxxT pic.twitter.com/512zEYV6WC — TMZ (@TMZ) January 13, 2026 “It’s hard to make out the full sentence shouted at Trump, but it seems to have included the words ‘pedophile protector,'” the outlet reported. Trump could be seen turning to look at the person who had shouted at him before apparently saying, “f*ck you,” and flipping him a middle finger for good measure. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung addressed the video as it circulated, explaining, “A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.” Throughout most of the president’s tour, the plant workers crowded around him as they shook his hand and posed for photos. ?? pic.twitter.com/OFqEPVD9LY — The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 13, 2026 While he was at the Detroit automotive plant, Trump also sat for an interview with new “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil. In that interview, among a number of other topics, Trump talked about what was going on in the auto industry – particularly since he’d put a stop to imminent electric vehicle mandates set in motion by former President Joe Biden’s administration. WATCH: .@POTUS: “I want electric, and I want gasoline, and I want hybrids — I want everything. But you were going to be forced, under the mandate, to buy an electric car in a very short period of time. I didn’t want that, and I ended that.” pic.twitter.com/jTU4v6bMev — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 13, 2026 “I want electric, and I want gasoline, and I want hybrids — I want everything. But you were going to be forced, under the mandate, to buy an electric car in a very short period of time. I didn’t want that, and I ended that,” Trump explained.

White House border czar Tom Homan said Tuesday that the immigration officer involved in the shooting death of anti-ICE activist Renee Good is in hiding. Homan said that Jonathan Ross is in hiding because of an excessive amount of threats made against him and his family since Good’s death last week. The border czar said that Ross would wait for the investigation to end before he comes out of hiding, and then potentially file lawsuits for defamation. “I think he’s going to, you know, wait for this investigation to play itself out and wait for them to come out with actual facts, what happened,” Homan said during an appearance on “Will Cain Country.” “Then, I think you may see him take action because I know for a fact, you know, now he has to be in hiding.” Host Will Cain asked Homan directly if Ross was in hiding now. “Yes, for the safety of him and his family,” Homan responded. “I mean, there are wanted posters with his picture, his license plate number, you know, and the death threats against him and his family.” People were seen at Ross’ home late last week packing boxes, a neighbor of Ross told NBC News. Some of Ross’ neighbors have spoken about leaving the area for a few days while the uproar around Good’s death rages. Last week, Ross shot and killed Good, a 37-year-old activist who blocked and antagonized immigration officials working in Minneapolis. Good blocked a street with her car and held immigration officials up for several minutes. After immigration agents requested she exit her vehicle, she backed up and pulled forward in the direction of Ross. After her car bumped him, Ross fatally shot her. The shooting has become a flashpoint of criticism over President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. Democratic politicians such as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz have demonized federal immigration enforcement as part of their criticisms of Trump’s agenda. Walz warned of a brewing “civil war” in the aftermath of the shooting. Last year, he compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Nazi gestapo. Protests against ICE have featured violent language and threats against ICE and top Trump officials. At a recent protest in Manhattan, activists chanted slogans such as “Save a life, kill an ICE,” and “Kristi Noem will hang.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting Democratic Rep. Adam Gray of California in a new ad campaign. The NRCC released its first ad targeting Gray on Tuesday. The ad targets Gray’s record on immigration. “Adam Gray voted to give criminal illegal aliens driver’s licenses. He voted against funding to deport dangerous criminals. Adam Gray is dangerously radical on immigration,” the ad states. Gray currently represents California’s 13th congressional district, a seat identified last year as one of the most vulnerable of the upcoming midterm elections. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s efforts to redistrict ahead of midterms may have given Gray some room to breathe, however. Immigration has been a top issue for Republicans since President Donald Trump returned to office in January. Immigration remains one of Trump’s most popular issues, though Americans’ approval of Trump’s handling of immigration has slipped since he effectively ended massive amounts of illegal immigration that poured into the country under the Biden administration. That ad hits Gray over a couple of votes on his record regarding immigration, one of them from over a decade ago. In 2013, while Gray was serving in the California assembly, he voted in favor of a bill that would allow illegal aliens to receive a California driver’s license. Last year, Gray voted against Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which, in part, provided funding for finishing the border wall along the United States’ southern border. It also provided a surge of funding for hiring thousands of federal immigration agents. The One Big Beautiful Bill included a slate of other Trump priorities, as well. The bill made permanent the 2017 tax cuts from Trump’s first term in office, secured $12.5 billion for the national air traffic control system, and funded development of the Golden Dome missile defense system. Gray is in his first term as a U.S. congressman, having flipped California’s 13th district from Republican control in 2024. Gray beat then-incumbent Republican Rep. John Duarte by less than 200 votes. Gray’s strongest opponent this cycle is Kevin Lincoln, the Republican former mayor of Stockton, a city added to California 13 under the new congressional map pushed for by Newsom. “From Assemblyman to Congressman, Adam Gray’s out of touch, radical immigration votes put criminal illegal immigrants first and the safety of California families dead last. Californians deserve a Congressman who will put their safety first,” NRCC spokesman Christian Martinez told The Daily Wire in a statement.