Nick Shirley Gets a White House Spotlight & Are Americans Losing College Roster Spots? | 10.21.26

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President Trump unveils a new fraud whistleblower program that offers big money for uncovering big scams. Thrilled to announce the fraud whistleblower incentive program. If anybody turns anybody in, a billion dollars, five billion dollars, a hundred billion dollars, you get a one percent commission. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howell. It's Wednesday, October 21st. This is Morning Wire. A Democrat senator is slapped with an ethics complaint after sending a controversial warning to Trump staffers. And college sports sees a massive increase in international players who now make up more than a third of D1 athletes. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. People disagree about a lot in this country. Taxes, health care, education. But wherever you land politically, I think most of us agree on this. Better information leads to better decisions. That's the mission of USA Facts, to make government data clear and accessible. Because public data should be easy to access, trust, and understand. So we can use it to make informed decisions. Read and sign our open letter to support public data at USAFacts.org. President Trump unveiled his new fraud whistleblower program. A whistleblower incentive program yesterday, flanked by independent journalist Nick Shirley. Mary Margaret Olihan, Daily Wire's White House correspondent, was on scene as it happened. So, Mary Margaret, can you just give us a general outline of what this program is, what it does, how it works? Yeah, so the president and the vice president unveiled this as part of a task force initiative, this task force combating fraud. And essentially, it offers incentives to Americans and to journalists and reporters and influencers and YouTubers to submit. Tips to the Trump administration about fraud. And President Donald Trump literally said yesterday, he wants reporters, with the permission of their outlets, to use this as a way to make some money from submitting these tips. Because the Trump administration is going to give 1% of the financial, you know, of the funds that this, the task force can stop these fraudsters from stealing to the person that submitted the tips. And of course, Trump kind of joked about how there's going to be people who fight over the tips. And he's going to give 1% of the financial, you know, who fight over who should receive the credit. And he said that ultimately, he will be the person that decides, gets the credit for what's going on. But look, this is a really interesting proposition because he's essentially saying that someone like Luke Rosiak, who we know has done so much fraud reporting for the Daily Wire, he could submit a tip to the administration for work that he does. And if the fraud task force, whatever, the DOJ, the Trump administration pursues that lead, and it ends in arrests, or it ends in fraud, it's going to be a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very big financial compensation from that for doing the right thing. So really interesting move on the part of the Trump administration. Yeah. Does this work retroactively? No. Great question. We don't know. Now we saw Nick Shirley there. He's made a lot of headlines over the last few months. How was he highlighted in this announcement? Yeah. So Nick Shirley, obviously, was, has become quite well known for his work exposing fraud in Minnesota. His videos that he made exposing this fraud have gone very, very viral. And the Trump administration says they are the reason that the Trump administration investigated the FBI and DHS and other agencies have found serious fraud in Minnesota and have pursued arrests and prosecutions because of Nick's work. So they brought him in yesterday, and they gave him $10,000 as an award for the work that he has done exposing fraud and used him as an example to say, look, this could be anyone else who submits tips in this manner and exposes fraud. They gave him a chance to say a few words about, you know, what he has done, what he has been through. And he specifically said that after he exposed this fraud, legacy reporters, instead of investigating the fraud, investigated him. And he talked about how hard that has been for him. And President Donald Trump asked him, did this surprise you that this played out in this manner? And they had a little bit of a back and forth, but then he feels very strongly that it was worth it and that he and others will continue to fight fraud. Now, there was a lot of press there. How did they respond? Well, for my part, I asked the president, you know, if there is a Democrat in office next who, you know, is perhaps from a blue state thinking Gavin Newsom or someone like that, that perhaps wants to seek retribution against Nick Shirley or a reporter that covered fraud in a blue state, if there's a way to protect them. The president told us, and this was newsy, he said he absolutely wants to protect reporters or anyone like Nick Shirley. From any kind of retribution like that. So we have a story on Daily Wire site about that point, which I think is really interesting and important. But there were some other reporters who took issue with the announcement. Andrew Feinberg from The Independent, he asked the president a question essentially saying, why are you doing this? It's unneeded. And the vice president, Stephen Miller and Nick Shirley and the president all fired back at him. And Trump was so frustrated that he even told that reporter, are you sick? There must be something wrong with you. So a fiery little exchange there at the end. Well, one thing that certainly does, I mean, it really is sort of a fund for independent journalists, potentially, like Nick Shirley. Absolutely. Well, definitely a fascinating program and something that reporters here at Daily Wire are definitely going to be paying attention to. Mary Margaret, thanks for reporting. Thanks for having me. At The Grocery Store, you can compare prices, check ingredients and read the nutrition facts. But one basic question can still be surprisingly difficult to answer. Where did this meat actually come from? Good Ranchers puts that answer right on every label. Born, raised and harvested in the USA. They work with more than 100 local farmers and ranchers to deliver 100% American meat directly to your door. So stocking your freezer also means supporting the American producers behind your food. 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First, for those who haven't been following this, what exactly did the senator say and why is it considered so problematic? So the senator was appearing before an audience at the University of Chicago, one where she probably felt pretty comfortable expressing her full views about her animal modesty toward people who work within this administration. There, she talked about openly the idea that within any kind of future Democrat authority in the Congress of the United States, assuming that they take the House, the Senate, or both, that she would like to go after the various people who worked in the Trump administration, including those who were working in junior roles, suggesting that intimidating them from avoiding the kind of trouble that they were in would be a good deterrent for people. joining up with the Trump administration or other Republican administrations in the future. The implication there, obviously, is one that is based on fear, that essentially the senator believes in using some form of lawfare against these junior staffers who are obviously not with the resources of someone like Donald Trump, who, you know, we already saw go, you know, have every kind of prosecutor and just about every other Democratic lawyer in the country, you know, go after him in some way, shape, or form. So, this is something that definitely caused an immediate blowback, including criticism from her fellow colleagues, notably Utah Senator Mike Lee. And Slotkin took the airwaves on multiple networks defending herself and suggesting that this was something that was, you know, tantamount to sexist targeting, that it was because she was a woman, any other sort of way to try to distract. But the truth is, this is something that is not very popular when it comes to, you know, the realm of politics that Slotkin lives in, which is this kind of vague bipartisanship centrism that likes to talk a good game about civic duty and the purpose of serving your government. But in this case, it's clear she doesn't believe these people should be in a Republican administration at all. So, we have an ethics complaint filed against her. Do we expect anything from that? You know, what are the potential ramifications here for her? So, this is an ethics complaint filed by a government watchdog that, you know, does the most of these types of things occasionally. James Langford is the head of the committee that would review it, the Republican senator from Oklahoma. I personally doubt that this will proceed anywhere, but the point really is to direct attention at this statement. And the fact that Slotkin has continued to double down on it, I think, gives an indication of a direction that I've said Democrats are headed in quite some time. They're not just going to be targeting the president of the United States anymore. They're going to be targeting the people who work for him. And they're not just going to be targeting cabinet secretaries or people whose names you already know. They might be reaching much further down, including the people who are making, you know, $30,000 a year salaries who just happen to work for the government because they're Republicans and they like to support the president. Certainly a chilling thought there. Yeah. Now, you've also been helping us to cover the midterms. And before you go, we wanted to ask you just to give us the latest. It's been a very busy week on the campaign trail. We're getting very close to election now. What were the most significant developments this week in your perspective? From my perspective, this week has had a number of good signs for Democrat candidates across the country. They've really, I think, you know, seen a lot of their momentum continue in key states, and they really would like to widen the map. At the same time, I think that that likelihood is diminished a bit by what we know from past midterm elections. It's very difficult to poll in a lot of these different circumstances. And the rural vote, I think, is really going to be the big question. That's the vote. It's come out consistently for President Trump and for his fellow Republicans over the past several cycles. And it's also notoriously the most difficult one to nail down beforehand. We'll know more about that, you know, as things approach. At the current stage, Republican consultants are pretty confident that they're keeping pace where they like to be with early voting numbers and the like. But I do think that Democrats are certainly more bullish about their chances to win both houses of Congress than they were perhaps a month ago. We've set it a million. We've set it a million times, but turnout is everything, particularly in midterms. Ben, thank you so much for coming on. Great to be with you. The number of international students competing at American universities has grown immensely as new ways to make money and win have shaped the new world of college athletics. Sports reporter and host of That's So Criminal, Lyndon Blake, joins us now. So, Lyndon, can you just explain the dynamics of these college sports rosters and why they're filling up with international students? Yeah, to give you guys some quick numbers. We're speaking just of Division I right now. 40% of the student athletes are international students. There is a great deep dive on this right now. Karen Krause did it for Sport and State. You've got to go check out the article. So this is an influx that people have started to notice. Think about it. The broadcasting of college sports is everywhere. You're seeing every sport from track and cross country to tennis to water polo. These are all really easily accessible now on a lot of people noticing, okay, there's almost as many international athletes competing for American colleges and universities as U.S. citizens. Really, it's because these colleges are businesses and they're trying to get the best roster. We joke about college athletes now getting paid through NIL being professional athletes, but really, you're looking at this being the last level before a lot of these people go pro. And so what you're seeing, and especially non-revenue sports, you're seeing people go to Europe. You're seeing people go to Africa. You're seeing people go to Europe. And they use these recruiting agencies to find these athletes in Australia, anywhere, and then it's a transaction. You pay the recruiting agency, you get the dynamic athlete, and that is taking up the roster spots, leaving Americans with not really too much stake in the game now. And then you hear coaches talk about this, and a lot of times in these smaller D1 schools or schools that are maybe in an area that's not as desirable as now. You'll see a lot more international students go because they won't be able to get recruits there, but you give someone an opportunity, pay for an American education, they're going to come over and go there. Now, one of the things that's great about athletics is it's merit-based. It's not about where you come from. It's about how good you are at this particular sport. So does this really violate the spirit of, you know, athletics, college athletics, or not? Is this what we should actually be hoping would happen? So international athletes have been competing for American colleges and universities since the 1920s. What experts are saying is they're not trying to eliminate this as a whole, but maybe put a cap on it so Americans can get their college education paid for, earn those scholarships, and then stay here. The issue is the way college athletics are right now with NIL, there are roster spots limitation. There's no more, oh, your kid knows me from growing up. I'm just going to let him walk on. I mean, that is non-existent anymore. So that's where this is also becoming noticeable. And I think that's a really good point. Because roster spots are limited. If you're giving them to the best athletes and mostly from international athletes, because everyone else is doing it and you want to compete and win, have the best team, there's just not a lot of Americans that may not be a pro tennis player, but are good enough to go get their education paid for that are missing out on roster spots. And part of the problem here really is that we have a hybrid system where we have part professional, part traditional collegiate athletics, correct? Oh, yeah. And of course you want to win. And so if everyone else is getting the best players in the world and ignoring US students that may not be the best, but are born and raised here, they want to get an education and get that diploma, you're going to get those players. And another layer is the age discrepancy. You have 18 year olds going straight to college out of high school in America and other countries. That's not the case. You go to school much later and that's when you have these big age gaps. And that has its own issues, whether you're talking about lifestyle issues and differences between an 18 year old and 26 year old, but also development in the sport. An 18 year old is not going to be able to compete in the sport. And that's not at the same level as a 26 year old strictly from a biological standpoint, because you want to get the best athletes, but then you're taking away opportunity for people who are raised in this country and want to get an American education. And paid taxes their whole life to get that education. Lyndon, thanks so much for reporting. Thanks. Thanks for waking up with us. Plus, stick around for the trailer of Daily Wire's newest film, Confession. To enjoy the show ad free and join our mission, become a member at dailywire.com. We'll be back this evening with more news you need to know. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Get started at aura.com slash dailywire. That's Aura, A-U-R-A dot com slash dailywire.