John Bickley

And in case you missed it earlier today, we covered some major stories, including Minneapolis spiraling amid what the Trump administration calls engineered chaos, and as another government shutdown looms, plus U.S.

forces moving into position in a showdown with Iran.

Thanks for tuning in.

We'll be back tomorrow morning with another full edition of Morning Wire.

It's a campaign of organized brutality against the people of our state.

And today that campaign claimed another life.

Do I have any confidence Donald Trump will do the right thing?

No, I don't have a lot of confidence Donald Trump will do the right thing.

I do have a lot of confidence that the majority of the American people will do the right thing.

And I think there cannot be very many people across this country looking right now, after all the reporting that's been done, after everything that's been said under the pretense that they are here about immigration reform, and quit referring to these people as law enforcement.

They are not law enforcement.

You know, we have a lot of ships going that direction, just in case.

That was a scene from the new Daily Wire Plus television series, The Pendragon Cycle, Rise of the Merlin, featuring actor and writer Rose Reed, who plays the pivotal role of Karis, the young mother of Merlin. In this episode, we sit down in studio with Rose to discuss what drew her to the project, what it was really like behind the scenes, and how she hopes the show will impact the culture. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

You too. And I'm a little starstruck. I mean, we've got screens, people don't know this at home, but we have screens all over the office that are just playing pin dragon scenes. So you're all over the place. Yeah, that's a little alarming for sure. I was walking through the cafeteria there and was like, oh, that's the bull sequence. Okay, cool. That's always a little unnerving. Yeah, here I am injured badly again and again and again.

Yeah, and built-in protection. Look, it's an epic series, and I'm curious, I have a bunch of questions for you, but I'm curious what it's like to step back and look at yourself in a series like this. I mean, this is big. You've done a lot of projects, but this one seems like, in terms of scope, maybe the biggest you've worked on, right? Yeah, definitely. And what is that like for you? What is it like seeing yourself on the screen in this form?

There were some growing pains for sure on this one. You said daunting, and it was. When we first announced internally that we were taking on this project, I personally was like, we're going to pull off a high fantasy series when you have to compete with things like Game of Thrones? Were there fears for you that we're not going to be able to actually do this?

The reason I think this, no one's going to want to hear this. The problem with Dune is the world view that takes over, that is built in from the beginning, is very dark and very fatalistic. And so you realize it more and more as you watch that movie. So the second movie you realize, oh my gosh.

Where this is going is very dark. It's not what you think. It's not a Judeo-Christian perspective. It's not a good perspective on a messiah. And that's true of the entire series. I've read all of them. And they get kind of darker and darker. So I love that I can have some hope and optimism in the first one. Yeah, that's so fair. I think...

Well, I'm glad you brought that up. I do think part of the reason The Daily Wire and Jeremy Boring is drawn to things that he feels and we feel are true to life, true to human psychology, resonate with people, are not rose-colored glasses, are not putting a little beautiful shine on something that actually is dull and dark. And I think this series does that.

And do you, in terms of adding to the canon, so the follow-up question to the sort of bigger picture, you love fantasy, do you feel like this book series and now this TV series adds to the fantasy sort of canon in any significant way? I think so, because I think that, you know, you're taking...