Monday, April 27, 2026

Top U.S. & World Headlines — April 27, 2026

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Follow along using the transcript.

Welcome to democracyow democracynow.org the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. A gunman charged a security

9 seconds

checkpoint at the White House correspondents dinner Saturday night at the Washington Hilton exchanging gunfire

16 seconds

with law enforcement before being subdued and taken into custody.

21 seconds

President Trump and other senior administration officials were abruptly evacuated from the ballroom as Secret

28 seconds

Service agents swarm the venue and some attendees ducked under tables. The suspect has been identified as

37 seconds

31-year-old Cole Thomas Allen from Torrance, California. He'd checked into the hotel the day before, traveling by

46 seconds

train from Los Angeles to Chicago to Washington DC. Allen's expected to be

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formally charged in court today. He reportedly left behind a written manifesto in which he stated he wanted

1 minute, 1 second

to target officials in the Trump administration. In his so-called manifesto, the suspected gunman does not

1 minute, 10 seconds

mention President Trump by name, but writes, quote, "I'm a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me, and I

1 minute, 18 seconds

am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and trader to coat my hands with his crimes," unquote. In an

1 minute, 28 seconds

interview with 60 Minutes, President Trump became defensive when host Norah O'Donnell read an excerpt of the suspect's manifesto.

1 minute, 38 seconds

You think he was referring to Excuse me.

1 minute, 40 seconds

I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. Uh, I got associated with all stuff that has

1 minute, 49 seconds

nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were

1 minute, 58 seconds

involved with, let's say, Epstein or other things. But I said to myself, you know, I'll do this interview and they'll probably I read the manifesto. You know,

2 minutes, 7 seconds

he's a sick person, but you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I'm not any of those things, Mr.

2 minutes, 14 seconds

President. I was never Excuse me. Excuse me.

2 minutes, 18 seconds

You shouldn't be reading that on 60 Minutes. You're a disgrace. President Trump quickly moved to use the attack to

2 minutes, 25 seconds

promote the massive new ballroom he's constructing on the White House grounds, posting on Truth Social Sunday morning.

2 minutes, 33 seconds

This event would never have happened with the militarily top secret ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast

2 minutes, 42 seconds

enough, he said. The Justice Department also used the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner to try to pressure the National Trust for Historic

2 minutes, 51 seconds

Preservation to drop their lawsuit against Trump's $400 million ballroom project. Assistant Attorney General

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Brett Chumate gave the trust until 9:00 a.m. today to dismiss its lawsuit,

3 minutes, 6 seconds

writing in a letter that the ballroom quote will ensure the safety and security of the president for decades to come. and prevent future assassination

3 minutes, 15 seconds

attempts on the president at the Washington Hilton.

3 minutes, 21 seconds

Meanwhile, on Sunday, nine people were injured in a mass shooting near the campus of the University of Indiana,

3 minutes, 29 seconds

Bloomington.

3 minutes, 31 seconds

Ceasefire talks between the US and Iran collapsed over the weekend. President Trump abruptly cancelled a planned trip

3 minutes, 39 seconds

to Pakistan by special envoy Steve Witkov and his son-in-law Jared Kushner,

3 minutes, 44 seconds

posting the decision on Truth Social minutes after Pakistani officials announced that the Iranian foreign minister Abbasari had left Islamabad.

3 minutes, 56 seconds

Iraqi traveled today to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the ceasefire negotiations.

4 minutes, 4 seconds

Axios is reporting Iran gave the US a new proposal to reopen the straight of Hormuz and end the war with nuclear

4 minutes, 12 seconds

negotiations postponed for a later stage. Meanwhile, Reuters reports an

4 minutes, 19 seconds

internal Pentagon email has outlined options for punishing NATO allies the Trump administration believes failed to

4 minutes, 27 seconds

support the US operations in the Iran war, including suspending Spain from the alliance.

4 minutes, 37 seconds

Lebanon's health ministry reports Israeli strikes killed 14 people and wounded 37 others on Sunday, including

4 minutes, 46 seconds

two children. Despite the US brokered ceasefire, the Israeli military also ordered residents to evacuate seven

4 minutes, 53 seconds

towns north of Latani River beyond the so-called buffer zone Israeli forces have occupied. Meanwhile, Hisbullah said

5 minutes

it had attacked Israeli troops inside Lebanon, as well as the rescue force that came to evacuate them. One Israeli soldier was killed and six more wounded.

5 minutes, 10 seconds

More than 2500 people have been killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon since

5 minutes, 16 seconds

March 2nd, including 177 children and 100 medics. According to Lebanon's

5 minutes, 23 seconds

health ministry, more than 1.2 2 million people, nearly a fifth of Lebanon's population, have been displaced.

5 minutes, 33 seconds

In Gaza, Israeli forces killed at least 12 Palestinians Friday, including eight people killed when Israeli forces struck

5 minutes, 40 seconds

a police vehicle in Kanunas. A separate attack in Gaza City killed two police officers. Two others were killed in the

5 minutes, 49 seconds

bombing of a house in Bethleia in northern Gaza. Since the US brokered ceasefire last year, Israel's killed at

5 minutes, 56 seconds

least 984 Palestinians. This is Alaj Jabar. His brother was killed in Israeli attack on Friday.

6 minutes, 6 seconds

They should find a solution. Enough.

6 minutes, 7 seconds

They should find a solution. Where's the new government? Where is the new government? Where is it? You hear of five, 10 martyrs every day. Where? The

6 minutes, 15 seconds

Israelis advance on us. Fire and projectiles. And we are living in the east of Gaza, close to death. Where should we go?

6 minutes, 23 seconds

The US Justice Department said Friday it'll use firing squads and single drug lethal injections to kill condemned

6 minutes, 31 seconds

federal prisoners as it seeks to ramp up and expedite capital punishment. It's also planning to impose new restrictions

6 minutes, 38 seconds

on the ability of death row prisoners to seek clemency or pardons along with a regulation designed to cut years off the

6 minutes, 47 seconds

federal appeals process for state death penalty cases. At the Vatican, Pope Leo reiterated the Catholic Church's

6 minutes, 54 seconds

opposition to capital punishment on the same day the Trump administration announced its plans to expedite expand state sanctioned killings.

7 minutes, 5 seconds

In this regard, we affirm that the dignity of the person is not lost even after various serious crimes are

7 minutes, 12 seconds

committed. Furthermore, effective systems of detention can be and have been developed that protect citizens

7 minutes, 21 seconds

while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.

7 minutes, 28 seconds

Later in the broadcast, we'll speak with Sister Helen Pjan, the renowned anti-death penalty activist. We'll speak

7 minutes, 36 seconds

to her in Chicago where Pope Leo comes from. The Board of Immigration Appeals,

7 minutes, 42 seconds

BIA, has issued a ruling that makes it easier for the Trump administration to deport people with DACA. That's deferred

7 minutes, 50 seconds

action for childhood arrivals. The new president decision by a three judge panel outlined DACA can no longer

8 minutes

guarantee deportation relief for thousands of people. The BIA operates within the Department of Justice. The

8 minutes, 7 seconds

ruling came in the case of Catalina Soil Santiago, a DACA recipient and immigration rights advocate who was

8 minutes, 15 seconds

released from an ICE jail last October after being detained for about two months. The targeting of people with

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DACA has intensified under Trump's second term with nearly 300 DACA recipients arrested last year, according

8 minutes, 31 seconds

to the Texas Tribune. In Colorado, an Egyptian mother and her five children were detained by federal immigration agents for several hours Saturday, less

8 minutes, 40 seconds

than two days after a federal judge ordered their release from the only US family detention center where they'd been imprisoned for 10 months. Haimal

8 minutes, 49 seconds

Gamal was arrested when she complied with a requirement she check in with an ICE office in Denver. Her lawyer says

8 minutes, 57 seconds

she and her children were put aboard a deportation flight, but were removed from the plane before it could leave the

9 minutes, 4 seconds

US after a federal court granted an emergency injunction. The Elgamal family has already endured the longest known

9 minutes, 12 seconds

family detention under President Trump's second term at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilly, where they say their mental health suffered as they

9 minutes, 21 seconds

endured abhorrent medical care, rotten food, and a disregard for their religious freedom to practice Islam.

9 minutes, 28 seconds

They said the Department of Homeland Security has given guidance to immigration officers instructing them to deny green cards to immigrants who burn the US flag,

9 minutes, 40 seconds

criticize the state of Israel, or participate in pro Palestinian campus protests. That's according to the New

9 minutes, 47 seconds

York Times, citing internal DHS training documents which have not been previously reported. The guidance discourages

9 minutes, 56 seconds

officers from granting permanent residency to people with a history of quote endorsing, promoting, or

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supporting anti-American views or anti-semitic terrorism ideologies or groups unquote. One example of

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questionable speech provided to officers is social media post that declares quote stop Israeli terror in Palestine unquote and shows the Israeli flag crossed out.

10 minutes, 24 seconds

In Washington DC, a federal appeals courts ruled Trump's claims of an invasion in order to shut down asylum requests at the US Mexico border is

10 minutes, 32 seconds

unlawful. ACLU attorney Lee Alert, who argued the case, said, quote, "This decision puts an end to the inhumane Trump policy of sending people,

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including families with little children,

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back to horrific danger without even a hearing." Trump issued the proclamation on his first day back in office.

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The US military said Sunday it carried out another strike on a boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least

11 minutes, 1 second

three people. US Southern Command shared a video of a boat bursting into flames as it moved through open international

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waters. The Trump administration once again claimed the vessel was carrying drugs without providing any evidence.

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Since September, the Pentagon says it's killed at least 185 people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. The

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attacks have been widely condemned as illegal.

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The Mexican government said Saturday the two US CIA agents killed in a car crash in northern Mexico after a drug raid

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earlier this month were not authorized to participate in such operations in the country. The car crash prompted an

11 minutes, 44 seconds

investigation into the agents role with Mexico's Ministry of Security, saying in a statement, quote, "Mexican law is

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clear. It does not prot permit the participation of foreign agents and operations within the national territory." unquote. Two Mexican law

11 minutes, 59 seconds

enforcement officers were also killed in the crash. In Ukraine, Russian drone and missile attacks killed at least 16

12 minutes, 8 seconds

people over the weekend, including nine people killed in Denipro, where a Russian onslaught sparked fires across

12 minutes, 16 seconds

the city and partly destroyed several blocks of homes and businesses. Dozens of people were left wounded. This is a 74year-old resident of the Nepro who

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narrowly avoided death when his apartment building was bombed.

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Can you imagine the force of the explosion? It was so loud. I was laying down when the first blast went off.

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Debris started raining down on me and the balcony was blown away. I had just grabbed a cigarette and gone into the toilet and the last blast, it went off

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right next to me and everything came crashing down. If I hadn't gone to the toilet, I don't know if I'd still be alive.

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Meanwhile, Russian officials say a Ukrainian attack on the Russian occupied Zaparicha nuclear power plant killed a

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worker. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, said it had launched an investigation and reiterated that

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such attacks quote endanger nuclear safety and must not take place unquote.

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In Mali, armed to separatists joined fighters with an al-Qaeda linked affiliate in a massive coordinated

13 minutes, 22 seconds

attack on the capital Bamako and four other cities Saturday amidst reports of explosions and gunfire at Bamako's

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international airport. Officials reported Mali's defense minister Sajio Camo was killed when an apparent suicide

13 minutes, 37 seconds

attacker set off a truck bomb as his residence. Mali's military ruler,

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General Asimi Goita, was reportedly moved to a secure location after his home was targeted. He has yet to make a

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public statement. And Maine's Democratic governor, Janet Mills, has vetoed what would have been the nation's first

13 minutes, 58 seconds

statewide moratorum on large AI data centers. Mills said in a statement she'd blocked the landmark bill because it did

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not include an exception on a data center in the town of Jay at the site of a vacant mill that shuttered in 2023.

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Maine's data center moratorum had drawn strong bipartisan support and was backed by Maine residents who'd raised alarm

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about the potential threats to the environment and higher energy costs. At least a half a dozen states, including New York and Michigan, have considered

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similar measures. To see our coverage of this story with the sponsor of the main legislation, go to democracynow.org.

14 minutes, 40 seconds

And those are some of the headlines. This is democracyow democracynow.org,

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the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks for watching Democracy Now on YouTube. Subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications to make sure

14 minutes, 53 seconds

you never miss a video. And for more of our audience supported journalism, go to democracynow.org or where you can download our news app, sign up for our

15 minutes, 2 seconds

newsletter, subscribe to the daily podcast, and so much

Democracy Now!

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State Department Openly Admits Israel Pushed Us Into Iran War

state-department-admits-israel-iran-war

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling

April 24, 2026/4:18 p.m. ET

It’s becoming increasingly clear who is in control here.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Even the State Department recognizes that the U.S. entered the Iran war on behalf of Israel.

A government release written earlier this week by Reed D. Rubinstein, the department’s legal adviser, detailed how the U.S. “is engaged in this conflict at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States’ own inherent right of self-defense.” The release cited multiple letters issued by the agency to the U.N. Security Council as evidence of the apparent connection.

But the candid admission directly contradicts the White House and Donald Trump, who has repeatedly insisted that Israel had nothing to do with his decision to spark another unpopular Middle East war. Just this week, Trump complained online about the circling narrative, claiming on Truth Social that “Israel never talked me into the war with Iran” but that “the results of Oct. 7th, added to my lifelong opinion that IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON, did.”

U.S. involvement in the war was reportedly arranged following a February 11 meeting between Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and several U.S. and Israeli officials in the White House Situation Room, The New York Times reported earlier this month.

It was reportedly Netanyahu’s direct influence—and the ensuing pressure campaign—that thrust America into the war. U.S. military commanders advised Trump that components of Netanyahu’s plan to attack Iran were “farcical,” but by that point, Trump had already been inspired to throw over Tehran’s theocratic regime.

It’s likely that Netanyahu continues to hold the reins. Last month, Trump told The Times of Israel that the decision to end the Iran war will be a “mutual” decision he makes with the Israeli leader—though Israel has not made peace negotiations easy, repeatedly defying fragile ceasefire arrangements by relentlessly bombing its regional neighbors.

It is not clear exactly what the war in Iran has accomplished. Together, the U.S. and Israel have killed thousands of Iranian civilians and obliterated Iranian civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, 13 U.S. soldiers have died. But the regime has not been overthrown—if anything, it’s gotten more extreme.

The war also spiked the cost of living for people around the world and agitated international relations—particularly between the U.S. and longtime allies in the western hemisphere. It has cost American taxpayers more than $1 billion per day (the current total is estimated at more than $60 billion) and sparked a political rejection of MAGA ideology across the U.S. as the American public becomes more and more disillusioned with its increasingly infirm, unstable, and volatile president.

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Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling

April 24, 2026/3:44 p.m. ET

It Doesn’t Sound Like Missing GOP Rep. Is Coming Back to Work Soon

Representative Thomas Kean Jr. has been missing for more than a month.

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

Republican Representative Thomas Kean Jr. of western New Jersey hasn’t voted on a single bill since March 5. Apparently, he’s been ill.

Kean Jr. and his staff never explained to his constituents why the lawmaker was suddenly missing in action, but the 57-year-old politician was recently willing to share an update with Republican leadership.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told ABC News Friday that he spoke with Kean over the phone the day before, during which the lawmaker explained that he has been dealing with an unspecified “personal health matter.”

“I was happy to speak to Tom Kean Jr. this afternoon by phone,” Johnson said, referring to their Thursday call. “He is attending to a personal health matter and expects to be back to 100 percent very soon. Tom is one of the most dedicated and hardest-working members of Congress, and I am grateful for all he does and will continue to do to serve New Jerseyans and our country.”

That lone response was the culmination of a small pressure campaign led by the other two House Republicans from New Jersey: Representatives Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew. Both were unable to make contact with Kean. Van Drew told Politico that it had been “radio silence” from their conservative colleague.

New York Republicans were similarly stumped in their efforts to call and text Kean, while other Republicans—such as Representative Don Bacon—were completely unaware of their ally’s absence until they failed to find him on the House floor earlier this week.

“I was looking for him,” Bacon said Wednesday. “I didn’t know it was that long.”

Kean’s staff told Politico on Wednesday that the lawmaker was struggling with health issues, but did not provide additional details. Harrison Neely, a strategist for the lawmaker, told the publication that Kean will be “back on a regular full schedule very soon.”

Kean was elected to represent New Jersey’s 7th congressional district in 2022, and is months away from being thrust into a contentious midterm reelection cycle. He is currently unchallenged in the Garden State’s Republican primary, scheduled for June 2, but is likely to face tremendous opposition from Democrats come November. Over the last several months, New Jersey’s 7th congressional district has shifted from a “lean Republican” advantage to a toss-up, according to an analysis by the Cook Political Report.

Karoline Leavitt Gives Up Game on Trump’s Fed Chair Investigation

Senator Thom Tillis has stated he will not vote to approve Donald Trump’s pick for next Fed chief until the investigation into current Chair Jerome Powell is dropped.

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis

It sure seems that the Trump administration is trying to pull a fast one on Senator Thom Tillis.

Just hours after the Department of Justice announced Friday that it had dropped the investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over the renovation of the central bank’s Washington headquarters, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that the case was still ongoing.

“The case is not necessarily dropped, it’s just being moved over to the inspector general who has critical tools at their disposal to continue to look into the financial mismanagement at the Fed,” Leavitt said while speaking to reporters.

As a member of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Tillis has repeatedly vowed to exercise his ability to single-handedly block Trump’s nominee to chair the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, until the investigation into Powell is dropped. Committee Democrats are united in blocking Warsh, so Tillis’s single “no” vote can tip the scales.

Tillis has said he believes Donald Trump wasn’t behind the investigation into Powell, even though the president has mocked and threatened to fire him repeatedly. Tillis suggested instead that it was the work of “somebody in the DOJ” who was hoping to “maybe garner favor from somebody in the White House,” according to NBC News.

Leavitt didn’t even bother to pretend the president wasn’t behind the investigation. “This has obviously been a priority for the president,” she said. “So the investigation still continues, it’s just under a different authority.”

India Outraged by Trump’s Racist “Hellhole” Screed

Trump’s appalling four-page Truth Social post has drawn outrage in India..

Alex Wong/Getty Images

President Trump has offended U.S. ally India with his racist Truth Social post calling the country a “hellhole.”

On Wednesday evening, Trump posted a screed from far-right commentator Michael Savage railing against birthright citizenship, claiming Indian immigrants had poor English skills and that Indians in the technology industry weren’t hiring white Americans. Trump posted not only a four-page transcript of Savage’s remarks but a video as well.

Among Savage’s remarks was the line, “A baby here becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the entire family in from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet.”

In a statement on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Indian foreign ministry, Randhir Jaiswal, wrote that Trump’s post was “obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste.”

“They certainly do not reflect the reality of the India-US relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests,” Jaiswal added.

Indians in the U.S. were also offended.

“We are deeply disturbed by @POTUS sharing this hateful, racist screed targeting Indian and Chinese Americans,” the right-leaning Hindu American Foundation posted on X. “Endorsing such rants as the president of the United States will further stoke hatred and endanger our communities, at a time when xenophobia and racism are already at an all time high.”

Trump’s post came despite many Indian Americans being among his supporters, such as Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and FBI Director Kash Patel. But Trump has long railed against immigrants from what he has called “shithole countries,” making the remark in 2018 and repeating it in 2025. Those racist views are probably why he’s trying to overturn birthright citizenship and demolish pathways to legal immigration.

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Malcolm Ferguson

April 24, 2026/2:27 p.m. ET

Kash Patel Scandal Gets Worse With Confession of Drunken Arrests

The FBI director admitted he was arrested for peeing in public while drunk. Good luck with that lawsuit, Kash.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Just days into the fallout over The Atlantic’s reporting on his alleged drinking issues, FBI Director Kash Patel will now have to answer questions about a 2005 letter, in which he admitted to being arrested twice for public intoxication and public urination.

The letter, which was first reported by The Intercept, was part of Patel’s Florida Bar Disclosure Statement. Patel reported that his first arrest, in 2001, occurred while he was drunk at a basketball game as a student at the University of Richmond. He was escorted out of the game by campus police.

“Upon exiting the arena,” he wrote, “the officer placed me under arrest for public intoxication, as I was not yet of 21 years of age.”

The second arrest was while he was a law student at Pace University.

“We went to a few of the local bars and consumed some alcoholic drinks.… In a gross deviation from appropriate conduct, we attempted to relieve our bladders while walking home,” Patel wrote. “Before we could even do so, a police cruiser stopped the group. We were then arrested for public urination.

“Both of these incidents are not representative of my usual conduct of behavior,” Patel continued. “And it is my hope that the Board views them as an anomaly. I dually apologize for my improper behavior both to the Board and the community at large.”

While neither incident was particularly scandalous, they do not appear to have just been anomalies, as Patel said. The Atlantic’s Sarah Fitzpatrick has not only said she stands by her initial report about Patel’s drinking affecting his performance, but that she’d “been inundated by additional sourcing going up to the highest levels of the government, thanking us for doing the work, providing additional corroborating information.”

Patel has yet to comment on the letter.

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Edith Olmsted

April 24, 2026/1:37 p.m. ET

Trump DOJ Announces It Will Start Executing People by Firing Squad

Apparently, death penalty by lethal injection wasn’t enough for Donald Trump.

Nathan Posner/Anadolu/Getty Images

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche

The Department of Justice announced Friday that it will resurrect federal firing squads as part of an effort to implement Donald Trump’s day-one executive order to revamp capital punishment.

Trump’s order, signed in January 2025, demanded the attorney general pursue the death penalty on “all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” including murder of a law enforcement officer or any capital crime committed by an undocumented immigrant.

Under former President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland had paused federal executions. Trump became furious when, before leaving the White House, Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 prisoners to life without parole.* The Republican kicked off his second term in office with a bloodthirsty decree for more death.

The January order made no mention of firing squads. Still, the DOJ said in its Friday announcement it had directed the Bureau of Prisons to “expand the execution protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad.”

Some view firing squads as more humane than lethal injection, which do not have a 100 percent success rate and sometimes require multiple doses. However, execution by firing squad can also result in prisoners slowly bleeding to death if they are not immediately killed by the bullet.

In March 2025, the Supreme Court allowed South Carolina to carry out the country’s first execution by firing squad in 15 years. Since 1608, at least 144 prisoners have been executed by firing squads in America, most of them in Utah, according to the Associated Press. Firing squads have not gained much traction outside of Utah because they are considered to be barbaric. Currently only five states—Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah—allow the use of firing squads in certain circumstances.

* This article previously misstated Biden’s order regarding 37 prisoners on death row.

Trump Suffers Staggering Legal Loss in Quest to Ban Asylum

The president cannot enforce his executive order preventing immigrants from claiming asylum.

Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban immigrants from claiming asylum at the southern border was blocked in a federal court Friday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled 2–1 that Trump could not deport immigrants “under summary removal procedures of his own making” or suspend their rights to apply for asylum, even if they cross the border illegally.

Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee, and J. Michelle Childs, appointed by Biden, ruled against Trump, while Trump appointee Justin Walker ruled in the administration’s favor. The three-judge panel upheld a ruling from U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in July, who said that Trump’s January 2025 executive order ending asylum claims for those who cross the U.S.-Mexico border went against federal law.

“Barring foreign individuals who are physically present in the United States from applying for asylum and, if they make the statutory showing that they are eligible, from being considered to receive it cannot be squared with the statute,” Childs wrote in her ruling.

Last year, Trump adviser Stephen Miller railed against the lower court’s similar conclusion, calling Moss a “marxist judge” attempting to “circumvent the Supreme Court,” which is where the case is likely headed next. Asylum claims have plummeted under Trump, who has fired immigration judges and pushed mass deportations despite multiple defeats in court.

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Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling

April 24, 2026/12:53 p.m. ET

Trump Has Lost Almost All Gen Z Support, Brutal Poll Shows

Donald Trump has lost all the gains he made with younger voters—and then some.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

Donald Trump made significant gains with young voters, particularly young men, across the country in the 2024 election. But less than two years into his term, the MAGA leader has completely lost them.*

An NBC News Decision Desk poll published Friday reveals a stark reversal in Gen Z’s opinion of the president, indicating that just 24 percent approve of Trump’s performance, while 76 percent disapprove.

The nosedive is in no small part due to the war with Iran, and the subsequent cost of living crisis caused by sky-high fuel and oil costs. A collective 81 percent of Gen Z respondents said that they either somewhat or strongly disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Iran war, and 72 percent said that the U.S. should stop military operations in Iran altogether.

Some 48 percent of polled young Americans said that inflation and the rising cost of living were the most important economic matters to themselves and their families at the moment, an 8 percent increase compared to August 2025.

Meanwhile, roughly 80 percent of Gen Z respondents said that the U.S. is on the wrong track, the highest percentage of any age group polled, and nearly half (47 percent) of polled young adults said that they would choose to live in the past if they could. A minority of respondents appeared optimistic about the future: Just 10 percent said they’d choose to go less than 50 years into the future if the option was hypothetically available to them, and 5 percent said they would time-skip by more than 50 years.

Those polled said that their feelings about the future were informed by their relationship with technology and a “growing discomfort with being connected to the internet at all times,” reported NBC News. The current technological and geopolitical uncertainty has inspired a nostalgia for a less chaotic, less technologically dependent world.

The poll found that 62 percent of Gen Z respondents believed that life will be worse for them than for previous generations. Just 25 percent said that they thought that the quality of life would improve compared to the past, and 13 percent said it would remain the same.

* This article originally misstated the number of young Trump voters.

Elizabeth Warren Warns Trump’s Plot to Take Over Fed Isn’t Finished

The Democratic senator says it’s too early to celebrate the Justice Department’s decision to end its investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Senator Elizabeth Warren thinks that anyone celebrating the Trump administration ending its investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is “fooling themselves.”

On Friday, the Justice Department announced it would be dropping its targeted, flimsy investigation into Powell, who has been under threat of termination from President Trump for months due to his refusal to lower interest rates. But Warren doesn’t see the move as an admission of defeat—rather, as a brazen attempt to expedite the nomination of Powell’s replacement, Kevin Warsh, who is seen as much more favorable to the Trump administration. Just this week, Warsh avoided questions in a congressional hearing about his financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein and whether Trump spoke to him about lowering interest rates.

“This is just an attempt to clear the path for Senate Republicans to install President Trump’s sock puppet Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair,” Warren wrote in a statement on Friday. “Let’s be clear what the Justice Department announced today: they threatened to restart the bogus criminal investigation into Fed Chair Powell at any time while failing to drop their ridiculous criminal probe against Governor Cook.”

The DOJ’s decision to end the investigation follows Republican Senator Thom Tillis’s refusal to confirm Warsh as the next Fed chair “until this legal matter is fully resolved.”

“Anyone who believes Donald Trump’s corrupt scheme to take over the Fed is over is fooling themselves,” Warren continued. “The Senate should not proceed with the nomination of Kevin Warsh.”

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Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling

April 24, 2026/11:33 a.m. ET

Trump Has Mindblowing Reaction to Soldier Allegedly Betting on Maduro

Donald Trump mused that the world has become “somewhat of a casino”—but didn’t seem too put off by the idea.

Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Insider trading is of no concern to the Trump administration.

Federal prosecutors have charged Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a 38-year-old active-duty Army soldier involved in the planning and capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, with using confidential intel to win $400,000 on Polymarket predictions related to the raid.

But Donald Trump practically shrugged off the illegal activity while speaking with reporters Thursday evening, suggesting to the room that there was no issue with making extra cash off of insider knowledge so long as the soldier was betting on the U.S. to win.

“Mr. President, apparently there was a special forces soldier involved in the capture of [Maduro] who was arrested by federal authorities today on suspicion of insider trading and betting on Polymarket,” stated a reporter. “Are you concerned that federal employees are betting on these reduction markets and potentially getting rich?”

“Well, I don’t know about it,” Trump said, taking a long pause. “Was he betting that they would get him or they wouldn’t get him?”

“It sounds like he was betting on his removal from office, that Maduro would be removed,” the reporter clarified.

“That’s interesting. That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team, it’s a little like Pete Rose,” Trump said, referring to the former Cincinnati Reds manager.

Rose was permanently blacklisted from the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989 after he was caught betting on his team to win. Rose’s behavior also spurred the Hall of Fame’s board of directors’ eponymously titled 1991 baseball rule, barring anyone on the permanently ineligible list from running for election in the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

“If he bet against his team, that would be no good,” Trump added, referring to Van Dyke.

In the same press conference, Trump lamented that “the whole world has become somewhat of a casino.”

“I was never very much in favor of it, I don’t like it conceptually,” said Trump, whose social media company Truth Social is in the midst of launching its own prediction platform, Truth Predict. “It is what it is.”

Van Dyke was arrested Thursday and faces up to 60 years in prison. In a statement posted on social media, Polymarket said that “insider trading has no place” in its betting services, and claimed it had appropriately coordinated with law enforcement and the Justice Department investigation to hold Van Dyke accountable.

Yet despite the clear parameters of the law prohibiting such activity, some corners of Washington are already divided on what justice looks like for the soldier. Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna has already asked Trump to pardon Van Dyke, claiming in a social media post that “unless the DOJ plans on going after all the crooks in Congress currently insider trading, this is simply skewed justice.”

“I don’t agree with what he did and he should be required to disgorge all the profits; however, unless the DOJ plans on doing Congress next, this is not justice,” she affirmed.