Morning Brief: Trump Inks Peace Deal, Mamdani’s Money Mystery, & States Resist Guard Deployments

President Donald Trump returns from the Middle East with the Gaza peace deal secured, NYC mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani faces foreign funding accusations, and the Trump administration battles the courts as it moves to send National Guard troops to Portland and Chicago.

It’s Tuesday, October 14, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.

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Trump’s Middle East Peace Summit

Topline: President Trump ended his historic peace trip to the Middle East with a short stint in Egypt, where he led a summit on the future of Gaza.

After leaving Israel, Trump traveled to Egypt to cement “peace in the Middle East” by bringing the Arab and Muslim countries together. Trump went to the resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh to lead a summit with nearly three dozen world leaders and signed the “The Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity” alongside the leaders of Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar.

What comes next?: While many questions about the future of Gaza remain, Trump’s message in Egypt was optimistic: “Together, we’ve achieved what everybody said was impossible. At long last, we have peace in the Middle East.”

Israel has yet to recover the remains of numerous hostages. While those released alive have returned, the bodies of several victims who died in Hamas custody are believed to remain in Gaza, possibly lost amid the widespread destruction.

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Humanitarian aid is flowing into the warzone after Israeli forces pulled back from the interior of Gaza for the ceasefire. According to Trump, Gazans will be assisted in the rebuilding of the enclave by foreign money and manpower, with much of it coming from Arab and Muslim countries.

Hamas intransigence: Under the Trump peace plan, Gaza is to be administered by a mix of Palestinian and foreign technocrats led by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Their work would be overseen by a board chaired by Trump.

But Hamas must first give up any future role in running Gaza — something the terror group has refused to do. The plan also demands Hamas’s complete disarmament, another condition the group has not met.

Mamdani Campaign’s Foreign Funders

Topline: The high-profile race for mayor in New York City is just three weeks away – and a new controversy has erupted surrounding the leading candidate, far-Left Democrat Zohran Mamdani. A new report alleges that his campaign potentially accepted thousands of dollars in illegal foreign donations.

Morning Wire spoke to Miranda Devine, a columnist at the New York Post and host of the Podforce One podcast, for more on this story. (The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.)

Morning Wire: We just had news break from the New York Post that Mamdani’s mayoral campaign took in potentially $13,000 in illegal foreign donations. What are the implications of this? Do you think Mamdani will be held to account – or will this affect the race at all?

Devine: I doubt very much. I mean, Democrats all over the country have been caught red-handed doing all sorts of nefarious things or threatening to murder their Republican foes and nothing happens to them – unless the federal government, the DOJ, perhaps under Pam Bondi, is ballsy enough to actually charge him. There have been plenty of other politicians, particularly on the Republican side, who’ve gotten into trouble and been charged and even indicted and convicted of this kind of foreign fraud or election fraud. I don’t see why Mamdani would be any different. On the other hand, we had Donald Trump indicted and charged last year during his campaign – and there’s something on the nose about, you know, three weeks before an election, about intervening in a sort of illegal sense, which I think would backfire in New York, which is 70 percent Democrat.

Morning Wire: Right, so that might actually work to Mamdani’s advantage if Bondi continues to be aggressive, as she has been on the national stage. We’ve also just seen Mamdani’s wife on social media openly mourn the death of a Palestinian influencer – a man referred to as “Mr. FAFO,” who celebrated the October 7th terror attacks.

Devine: Yes, look, I mean, repellent, but not surprising. This is an influencer who is a Hamas guy. He’s a Hamas fan. For Mamdani’s wife to be openly celebrating him on social media just shows how clueless they both are about the optics – in a very Jewish city – of celebrating the murderers of so many Jews on October 7. And particularly at this time when the hostages are coming back, when Donald Trump has managed to pull off this immense peace deal. It seemed churlish and sort of yesterday. She’s operating on a yesterday view. And it really shows you how he and his entire family are so unsuitable for any kind of leadership role, let alone in America’s greatest city.

Morning Wire: What do you expect in the next few weeks in this race? Are there any signs of Sliwa dropping out, or any movement for Cuomo – or does Mamdani have this wrapped up?

Devine: Cuomo has surged in the polls most recently, and that’s because he’s benefited almost entirely from Eric Adams dropping out. Eric Adams was at the bottom of the pile, not doing well at all. Curtis Sliwa is at 15%. In a very Democrat city, he really hasn’t managed to make a mark. And, you know, there’s a lot of push for him to pull out, so that it’s just a Cuomo versus Mamdani race. Cuomo is now at about 33%, Mamdani is at 46%. With Sliwa in the race, there’s really no hope. Cuomo, he’s starting to up his game a little bit. There are a few ads that are coming out. Mamdani is being booed and heckled wherever he goes. It’s been noted that he has a vast security force around him. … He’s such a smiling sort of Teflon candidate and Cuomo is battered and bruised and has enormous amounts of baggage he’s lugging around from his governorship. And yet, now Mamdani is starting to have some of the gloss come off him. And look, it’s really up to Cuomo in the next three weeks. Is he going to be able to convince Sliwa to drop out? Is he going to be able to put some more energy and pep into his campaign?

Judges Block Trump’s Efforts To Deploy Guard To Blue Cities

Topline: President Trump says the deployments are needed to protect federal property and crush violent unrest in Chicago and Portland, but the efforts have been held up in the courts due to ongoing lawsuits.

The Trump administration is facing expected pushback from the sanctuary states of Illinois and Oregon, which don’t believe President Trump can federalize state National Guard from their own states, or from other states such as Texas and California, to come in amid a rise in anti-ICE demonstrations, some of which have turned violent.

Although judges in these cases say troops must stand down for now, the Trump administration is finding more ways to expand manpower in these areas. That includes continuing to pull Border Patrol agents from the border and ICE agents from other offices in other states.

The Trump administration is still pushing for National Guard deployments amid a 1,000% uptick in assaults on immigration agents. In the meantime, additional ICE officers and Border Patrol agents are deployed in Portland and Chicago to provide security, conduct immigration raids, and work in detention centers to process new detainees.

Missing children: President Trump inherited a massive crisis of lost alien children from the Biden administration.

John Fabbricatore is leading the Trump administration’s effort at Health and Human Services (HHS) to find the more than 320,000 migrant kids who crossed the border without parents and went unaccounted for under former President Joe Biden.

Some of these children were never even given court dates for their immigration cases, and others never showed. When children cross the border unaccompanied, they are sent to HHS, which is tasked with connecting them with their sponsor in the United States.

However, under Biden, HHS was vetting these sponsors with a phone call and a photo. As a result, many of these children ended up being trafficked and in very inhumane conditions.

Fabbricatore told The Daily Wire that the Trump administration is prioritizing not only finding these children, but also fixing the vetting system that allowed this tragedy to unfold. That means making changes to the system inherited from former President Biden.

The Trump administration requires sponsors and other adults living with them to submit their fingerprints to undergo background checks. Additionally, sponsors are required to submit proof of income to show they can support the child. Sponsors who claim they are related to the child will also undergo DNA testing.

Homeland Security agents also meet with the sponsor, and HHS officials visit the home to ensure it’s a safe place for the child. Migrants 14 or older can opt to leave with the help of the federal government, which will assist them in reconnecting with their families back home by offering flights and a $2,500 stipend. All of this is voluntary and has to be approved by an immigration judge.