France’s Riots Intensify & Accused Student Wins in Court | 10.7.26

OK, first, before we give you the facts of the day, run-hide-fight in Fidel's is streaming now only on Daily Wire. It's an ode to the great action movies of the 80s and 90s. There is even a love story which nobody expected. And you can support Daily Wire's mission to continue making movies that people actually want to watch. Go check it out. [MUSIC PLAYING] Riot Police Clash with protesters in France as thousands of schools are forced to shutter. It's an absolute disgrace. That's what you're seeing in France. And it is a nightmare vision of Europe's future as a whole. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, October 7th. This is Morning Wire. [MUSIC PLAYING] A first of its kind, legal win for a male student accused of rape could create new precedent in campus sexual assault cases. We have the details. And anti-ice activists converge on a small Montana town to shut down Daily Wire's new film. [MUSIC PLAYING] Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. 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And frankly, it's really hard to believe some of the footage coming out of this. We're, of course, gonna be playing some of that in the background. What's the latest? - Yeah, Georgia, we are in week three now of these riots. And just looking at some of the totals as a press time, we are now well over 6,000 arrests. Most of them minors. Authorities are also telling us that more than 700 officers have been injured. And as you and John discussed with Bev Turner on Monday, many people are pointing out that while there have been some wider protests going on in France, the arrests in particular are heavily concentrated among these immigrant enclaves. And then this was some footage that independent journalist Enzo Raboui captured. It's of the mayor of the French city, Sandini. This mayor was born to West African Muslim migrants himself. And you can see him here putting himself in front of the protesters, between them and the police, shouting at the police to stop. - I know, I know, I know, I know. - And then along with those attacks that you previously covered with Bev, we have seen additional horrifying images. In one case, the rioters set a teacher on fire and by dousing her in gasoline. In another, they set multiple school buildings on fire and then prevented firefighters from reaching the building so that they could address these blazes. And in one particular case, they actually set a school on fire as teachers and students were still in the building and trapped inside. - Just apparent total lawlessness at this point. Now part of the debate here is just what is motivated these riots, the legacy media in France's government says, look, this is about education conditions and budget cuts, but that's receiving a lot of pushback, correct? - Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, one of those people that are pushing back is US ambassador to the UN, Mike Walts. - So he's pointing the finger squarely at the mass migration policies that France has adopted now for decades. - When you have open borders, when you have this pro migration unchecked immigration kind of policy coupled with policies over the years that deny people basic energy, that overspend on all kinds of other government programs that you see a level of frustration boiling to the surface. - And then Nile Gardner, who was an advisor to former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, told Fox News that it's hard to see how Palestinian flags are relevant to these claims about education and budget cuts and yet we're seeing a lot of those flags waving in these riots. - You are seeing the Palestinian flag being waved all over France right now. This is not only the heart of France here, Paris, but also the heart of the European Union. - Now, he added after that that France absolutely needs to be dispatching the military to deal with these rioters. - Now, the backdrop, of course, is France has an upcoming election this spring. How is this affecting the mood on the ground? - Well, so far, it's very much redundant to the benefit of right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen, who strongly opposes mass migration, particularly that coming from Muslim majority nations. Now, she has had a substantial lead going on months now. She's polling at roughly 33 to 35%. And that is much higher than her next closest competitor who is polling at around 15%. But in second place in the polling right now is far left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who supports more immigration. And similar to what we've seen here in the US with the democratic socialists putting pressure on traditional Democrats, his party, France Unbound, is making things pretty uncomfortable for Macron's more moderate administration. - Well, a pressure cooker situation in France right now. Megan, thanks for reporting. - Yeah, my pleasure. - Getting a flood of holiday orders is a great problem to have, until you actually have to ship all of them. Ship station is built for exactly that moment. It keeps orders from all of your stores together and can compare rates across major carriers in real time so you're not manually figuring out shipping for every package. More than a million businesses have used ship station to handle their busiest seasons. Several of our daily wire employees have used ship station for e-commerce shops and say that Shopify integration is seamless. Peak season doesn't wait and neither should you. 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Appointments usually happen within 24 to 72 hours and you can even find the same day availability. Plus, ZockDock is completely free to use. It's just a much easier way to turn. I really need to make that appointment and two. Okay, it's booked. Your health matters and taking care of yourself shouldn't be complicated. Find and book the right doctor with ZockDock. Head to ZockDock.com/wire to get started and check that appointment off your to-do list. That's zo-c-do-c.com/wire. - I'm at the ongoing national debate over the polarizing Cornell 7 case. A federal jury has just delivered what could be a landmark victory for falsely accused men on college campuses. - Here to discuss this daily wire reporter, Amanda Prestigiacomo. So Amanda, you first broke this story and this case involves a young man who was accused of sexual assault but the investigation later determined that he himself was the victim of sex-based harassment. What happened in this case and why is it so significant? - Yeah, well, this could signal a major shift. A step forward for due process and equal rights on college campuses and frankly a long time coming for all of that. So in this particular case back in 2020, there was a male student attending the University of Maryland who was falsely accused of sexual assault. The university's own Title IX investigation found him not responsible. There was a lot of evidence, including even forensic evidence that revealed that this female student frankly lied about what happened. Now after 10 months and more than $100,000 in legal bills, this student named only as John Doe in the lawsuit, he was finally cleared. But you know, the story doesn't stop there. He was the target of a student-led smear, campaign, he was publicly branded as a rapist, he was confronted at bars, he was shouted at, and ultimately, this pressure campaign got him kicked off of his lacrosse team. Well, so he was cleared by the university, but the argument here is that the university still didn't step in when the harassment continued. Yeah, exactly. And that's really at the heart of this case. So Doh says in his lawsuit, which I was able to review, that the University of Maryland repeatedly refused to protect his rights, even after he was fully exonerated. He says the university allowed him to be publicly defamed as a rapist by students who worked closely with the school's Title IX office, and then after he complained about this retaliation and sexual harassment, the school ignored him. And that's really why he's suing here. The case was heard before an Obama appointed judge, and the jury sided with Doh. What exactly did the jury find in this case? So they found that the harassment that Doh received was so "severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it deprived him of equal access to an education at the school." And perhaps, most importantly, the jury found that the school was deliberately indifferent to that harassment. I was able to speak to Doh's attorney Jason Greaves of the Benel Law Group, and he told me that this is a landmark case for falsely accused men in universities. He said that it's the first case where a jury found that false accusations of sexual assault can constitute sexual harassment. And it's the first time a university has been found liable for deliberate indifference to that harassment. And we should also note that Doh only sued for one dollar. Greaves told me that this case wasn't about money, but it was about holding the university accountable, clearing Doh's name, and making sure that all students are protected, you know, it both female students and male students on campus. Now about this being a landmark case, what kind of precedent does this set? So I think the biggest takeaway here is that Doh process matters even on a campus, false accusations have consequences, and the accused have rights too, obviously. So for years, the conversation around sexual assault on campuses has been focused entirely on the accuser, protecting the accuser, which, you know, can seem understandable, but as yours have passed, we have seen accusations fall apart before our eyes. But in this case, it's a reminder that universities have an obligation to protect students who are being harassed. That includes students who are falsely accused. Greaves put it pretty bluntly to me, he said, quote, "A school that will move heaven and earth for an accuser, then declare itself powerless once the accused has been cleared and is being publicly destroyed, has it discriminated on the basis of sex." Now, we mentioned at the top the Cornell 7 case, which is still dominating headlines. Could this ruling end up affecting that case down the road? Yeah, I mean, it's possible. The men named in that lawsuit, John, they've already faced intense public scrutiny and harassment over those allegations. You know, they all maintain their innocence and the DA at the time declined to prosecute the case because of a lack of evidence, and that was based almost entirely on the accuser's own statement. Now, as for the accuser, she also says that she's now facing harassment, and as we've reported, you know, this whole case has become extremely ugly and messy. Now, it's unclear what Cornell did at the time. Again, these are, you know, years old allegations in the Cornell case, or what they're doing now for those students who are still at Cornell. But it's going to be interesting to see if this recent legal end for the falsely accused mail on campus will have any sort of play in the Cornell aftermath. Amanda, thanks for reporting. You're welcome. Anti-ice protesters have converged on the small Montana town of Livingston after learning that the daily wire was filming a movie about an ice arrest of an illegal immigrant. The situation escalated to the point that the town officials officially voted to cancel daily wires permits before reversing course. Joining us to discuss is the man producing the film Dallas Sonnier founder of Bonfire Legend. So Dallas, not exactly the most drama-free production so far, before we get to the details. In broad strokes, what is this film about if you can even tell us that? Yeah. So it's basically about a nice agent who is in the middle of a bus gone wrong. He loses his partner, but he grabs the prisoner. And so he's trying to find refuge. And so he finds it in this pawn shop here, which ends up becoming kind of a microcosm of America. And then it turns into a siege movie where the pawn shop is basically the alamo. And so they have to defend themselves within the alamo. And so right now we're filming a sequence where all the rioters are trying to break in. And so we're literally in the middle shooting the movie right now. I can't imagine what is controversial at all about this. As for the activists, the activists have attempted to shut this production down major first amendment implications, obviously. The Livingston City Commission first caved to the demands of the protests over the weekend to shut you guys down, correct? Yeah, it was a really interesting situation. I mean, we've obviously, we love this city. It's a great place to make movies. We've been working closely with the city manager and the police department, everything like that. But it was a weird situation where the city commissioners just decided to spend the permit for a day. And we were, you know, that's not fair. Like we didn't do anything wrong. We've never even been cited. We broke no rules. We stuck to the permit, everything. So, you know, we were pretty mad about it. And we hired a high-powered attorney and fought back. And we won. What were the arguments for revoking your license? They were saying that the citizens were afraid of the armed guards, the armed security guards. And our rebuttal to that, of course, was we didn't want armed security guards. In fact, like we would, we would have been fine with just normal security. But we had so many people attacking us on set. We had protesters walking on to set and screaming free Palestine. We had a truck drive-on set, call us fascists, and drive literally into the middle of the set. And so we made a decision to protect ourselves, and it just kept escalating, kept escalating. Finally, we had to just get in the room with the city and work it out. So these activists actually forced the need for security and then sort of cited that as a reason to cancel the production. So it was like the Heckler's veto. And the Heckler's veto, that's exactly right. And basically at the meeting, at the public comment section, it was, you know, it was the protesters themselves, you know, who were, who were, you know, talking in the meeting. So it really was frustrating for us. And, you know, we did our best. And, you know, we're back here shooting the movie. Now, tell us about Livingston, where you actually are. Is this a pretty progressive area? Or how are you being received by the citizens there? For those who love daily wire movies, we shot terror on the prairie here. And it was awesome. It was a wonderful place. They welcomed us with open arms and everything like that. So we, you know, for us, it was really just, it was really just us, you know, not wanting to come to a town that we had to relearn. So this was all a surprise. I mean, we're in deep red Montana. Sure, Livingston's a little more progressive than maybe Billings, but, you know, we thought we were going to be totally cool here. Now, how are the cast and crew handling all of this? They are, they're awesome. The crew is really banded together. They've been incredible. And the cast really doesn't, you know, mine. They don't mind the distraction. They've been focused. And, you know, we're going to finish the movie on time. Meanwhile, we're, of course, excited to see this film that comes out of all this. I'm sure this just heightens everything about the making of the film. Probably a better product in the end. Dallas, thank you so much for taking a break from filming to come on. Thanks, guys. Thanks for waking up with us. The reporting that fuels this show is only possible because you tune in every day and because of our daily wire subscribers. To enjoy the show, add free and join our mission, become a member at dailywire.com. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know.