Plane Hijacking Foiled & Hegseth Reshapes the Military | 10.1.26

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One of the pilots stopped the other one and the passenger and the crew member took over. Got control. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley. Georgia Howe is off this morning. It's Thursday, October 1st. This is Morning Wire. Oil experts say flows are now near pre-war levels, while the U.S. economy is in a state of emergency. The U.S. economy grew beyond expectations last quarter. How will this affect Americans' wallets? While oil is flowing again, refinery capacity is still really constrained, both in the Middle East and, of course, in Russia. And as Secretary Hegseth reveals big changes in his State of the Force address, President Trump announces the full withdrawal of the last troops in Iraq. I had a choice to stay or to leave and felt without question that it was time for America to go, or for America to go home. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. 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It's a Boeing 737 MAX that was flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv with 174 passengers aboard, most of whom were Israeli. About two hours into the flight as the plane approached Israel, the Arab co-pilot from the country of Oman pulled out a knife and stabbed the captain, an Indian man. Flight tracking then showed the plane dropping 17,000 feet in less than two minutes. Passengers obviously were panicking and it sent out the transponder code signaling a hijacking incident to air traffic control. The Israeli Air Force scrambled fighter jets and had a secret security meeting. But by some miracle, the plane leveled out and landed safely in Saudi Arabia and everyone on board survived. And now we know that that miracle took place because of the heroic actions of folks on board. Right. And those heroic actions were carried out by passengers, correct? Yeah, that's right. So passengers say that they knew something was wrong when they began to hear screaming coming from the cockpit. Some passengers said they heard Akbar shouted out. And we now know that the co-pilot stabbed the pilot while they were at cruising altitude. And the heroic pilot, despite suffering severe injuries, was able to crawl to the door bloody of the cockpit and open up that door. And that is when passengers began rushing forward. A number of men can be seen on video just flying down the aisles to get to that cockpit. And some of the passengers said that once they got into the cockpit, they saw the co-pilot, quote, trying to destroy the controls in order to disable the plane. One passenger who met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, still covered in blood from the struggle that ensued, told Netanyahu that he put the co-pilot in a, quote, chokehold and then dragged him out of the cockpit while other Israeli passengers pinned him down. And still others appeared and helped tie him up reportedly with a set of headphones. And much of this happened while the plane's nose again was pointing down. A flight instructor who happened to be on the plane jumped back into the cockpit and pulled back the controls. He joked to Netanyahu that one reason he was able to do so is because he'd watched a TV show repeatedly about flight disasters. And he knew to pull the controls up as the plane was descending down. So again, miracle after miracle here and true heroism from this pilot who was able to get that door open despite suffering significant injuries. Yeah, and about that pilot, we have learned more about the captain there. What do we know about him? Yeah, he's been identified by the media as a veteran pilot by the name of Smit Mature, an Indian national with close to 10,000 hours of flight time. Passenger said that Mature fought back just long enough for relief pilots to then correct the plane's trajectory and land it without any casualties. He alerted the crew and passengers that something was wrong. And then crucially, after being again stabbed several times, he managed to get the cockpit door open before the co-pilot could barricade himself inside. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also praised Mature, said he believes that his actions averted a catastrophe. The Indian national was of course seriously injured and is being treated at a hospital in Saudi Arabia. So obviously an investigation is underway. Where do things stand now in terms of what they've uncovered? Yeah, the co-pilot, again, an Omani national, is in custody right now in Saudi Arabia. But we still don't know much beyond what Prime Minister Netanyahu has said, which is that this co-pilot did the hijacking with the intent of causing a mass casualty event, obviously terrorism in other words. So there's no evidence this was caused by mental illness or that this was merely an altercation between co-workers. That's something the New York Times suggested it was yesterday. Yeah. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that this was a, quote, jihadist terror attack. And another Israeli official put it more bluntly, saying the co-pilot, quote, tried to do 9-11 again. In the meantime, all the passengers are on their way back to Israel, or at least have already arrived there. And Fly Dubai has suspended all flights until further notice. Well, a truly harrowing incident. And just weeks after the 25th anniversary of 9-11. Kevin, thank you so much for reporting. Absolutely. Here's an interesting health story. There's been growing research around weight cycling. A familiar pattern of losing weight, gaining it back, then starting the whole process over again, or fluctuating, as many refer to it. And frankly, you don't need a study to tell you how frustrating that can be. You clean out the pantry, you swear off dessert, you lose some weight. Life gets busy and suddenly you're right back where you started. So the goal isn't just about losing weight. 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Iran says it's received the U.S. counterproposal after President Trump rejected Iran's seven-day ceasefire plan that will impact the Hormuz Strait. This comes as oil experts say flows are now back to near pre-war levels, while the U.S. economy grew more than expected. Here to discuss the impact of all of this on Americans' wallets is Scott Lincecum, Cato Institute Vice President of General Economics. Scott, great to have you on the show again. Oh, thanks for having me back. So let's start with the U.S. economy. So let's start with the oil flows. J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs experts say we're near the levels of oil we enjoyed before the Iran conflict. conflict. What are you seeing and how will this impact all of us at the pump? I think first there is still a little uncertainty out there about how much crude oil is actually getting out because some of those calculations like the Goldman calculation require on these mysterious shadow fleet numbers where the ships actually turn off their beacons to evade any Iranian attacks. So, you know, generally there is some question mark. But I think overall everybody agrees that the levels are getting pretty close to what we saw before the war ever broke out. And that is a very good thing for global energy markets. You know, I've noticed personally costs are ticking down a little bit at the pump, but we also see that refineries and all that stuff, the production levels are still way down. Is it going to take a while for this to have a real strong impact? Yeah, unfortunately, I think so. And there are a bunch of reasons for this. The first is that even though oil is flowing again, there's still a ton of risk around all of this. Not only the data questions, but more important things like the risk of things flaring up again. The other big question mark are inventory levels and strategic stockpiles that have really been drawn down. And all of that means that crude oil, prices are still pretty darn high compared to what we were seeing in January, February of this year. The bigger problem, though, is that while oil is flowing again, refinery capacity is still really constrained, both in the Middle East and, of course, in Russia because of the Ukrainian attacks on Russian supplies and an export ban in Russia. You put that all together, you combine it with the fact that refineries around the world, including in the U.S., are going full tilt and really can't produce any more. And you're going to still see higher fuel prices, gasoline, especially diesel prices for the foreseeable future. The Dallas Federal Reserve just released a survey of energy producers in that region that said we should expect this for maybe the next year or so before we get back to gas prices like we were enjoying last year. All right. So buckle up. We have to have some patience on our end. No pun intended. Yeah, for sure. We also have new economic numbers that are very promising. The U.S. economy grew at a solid 2.2 percent pace over the last quarter. That surpasses expectations. What is driving that growth? Yeah, AI, AI and AI. The reality is that we are really living through a historic AI build out in the United States, not just data centers, although that's certainly a big part of it, but just the data. Deployment of these amazing technologies throughout the U.S. economy. And that is providing a massive tailwind for growth. Some of the projections for total AI spending in the United States are somewhere around $10 trillion over the next several years, which is mind-blowing stuff, bigger than the railroads, bigger than the internet build out, you name it. And that means a lot of jobs in construction and manufacturing, anything that's going to be in the U.S. economy. And that's going to be a lot of jobs in the U.S. economy. economy. economy. Anything that's supplying the AI build out. But also, we're seeing jobs in sectors that are boosted by enhanced productivity and output, thanks to AI. You know, one of the classic examples is medical imaging. We thought AI was going to kill all those jobs. And it turns out we have more than ever because of the ability of specialists to focus, let AI do the boring stuff, and then they can focus on the serious stuff. So, this is all going to be a lot of good news for the U.S. economy. There are still some question marks. You do wonder how top-heavy the U.S. economy is, right? When you're so dependent, as we are right now, on one sector, even though it has filtered out, you get a little worried. There's a concern more about how long this is going to all last. Is this a 2026 issue? Do we get to enjoy it in 2027? We don't really know that as well. But for now, we can say, we really are going to have a lot of good news for the U.S. economy. We are enjoying this wonderful tailwind. And frankly, it's causing some of these other things, you know, whether it's energy price headwinds or tariff headwinds. You know, we can kind of ignore that stuff a bit in the macro level because of AI. We'll take the good economic news when we can get it. Scott, thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure. After more than 23 years from the beginning of the second Iraq war, President Trump has announced the return of all U.S. troops. Meanwhile, War Secretary Pete Hegseth is aggressively downsizing the senior level officers. Here are the details as our White House correspondent, Mary Margaret Olihan. Mary Margaret, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. So let's start with President Trump. He made an announcement yesterday that was, you know, 20 years in the making. What did he say? Yeah, so yesterday, President Trump formally announced the return of the last remaining American forces who were in Iraq. That ends over two decades of military presence and wraps up operations. Inherent resolve. And the president framed this return as a victory and a triumph. He called it a victory for the United States, a victory for Iraq, and a decisive victory over ISIS. He also condemned the original decision to enter Iraq, describing the conflict as kind of like a longstanding quagmire stemming from a very bad decision making. And that's the president's words. And he also emphasized how important it was to have an orderly departure compared to previous troop. A drawdowns. And he highlighted his direction to ensure that no U.S. equipment was left behind. And he said, I said, I want every screw taken. And of course, he's reminding us of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal and making sure Americans understand this is not the same thing. He also expressed strong support for Iraq's prime minister. And he called him a wonderful leader who had secured a landslide election victory and will successfully lead the new nation forward. Obviously, that'll draw us to criticism from those quarters of the world. But that was really what he had to say on that point. Certainly a significant milestone reached yesterday. We also wanted to talk to you about War Secretary Pete Hegseth's big address yesterday. He talked to U.S. troops, the State of the Force address, and he's made some big announcements this week. What did we hear from the war secretary? Yeah, so this one was really interesting because I was there in the room last year when the Secretary of War gave this address. And you guys will remember that it was a very controversial address where he said, we will be in the war. And he said, we will be in the war. And he also said, we will be in the war. And he also emphasized the importance of our military members understanding where we are in the place of civilization, in the place of our country's history. And I found that really interesting as well. Now, Hegseth also announced this week an additional reduction in senior level officers, a 20% reduction. Did he address that? And how significant is that move? Well, it's very significant because there's been a lot of media backlash to it. But essentially what Hegseth was saying in the War Department was saying is that they want, quote, less generals, more GIs. So the focus is more on having warfighters rather than people in command positions. And he did really talk emphatically yesterday about the importance of having skilled warfighters, of having people who understand what they're doing and the need to have strong leaders who really understand war and conflict. And that wasn't all, John. He actually, we reported a few days ago, too, that the United States will no longer appoint civilian employees to tenured positions at United States military. And that is also part of this push to really have warfighters teaching warfighters. And that's a word you'll hear a lot from the Secretary of War. Indeed. Well, Mary Margaret, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for waking up with us. The reporting that fuels this show is only possible because you tune in every day and because of all of our Daily Wire subscribers. 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. 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