ACTUAL NEWS: Friday, April 25th 2025 Daily Briefing
- Olga Nesterova
- 4 minutes ago
- 9 min read
QUICK HITS
The Trumps were en route to Italy earlier today to attend the funeral of Pope Francis, scheduled for Saturday.
President Trump held a gaggle aboard Air Force One, claiming that no matter how many wins he achieved, the press wouldn’t cover them fairly. He stated, “We were losing $5 million per day under Biden, and now we’re making $5 million a day.”
It was unclear what this comment referred to.
He repeatedly switched between saying “millions” and “billions.”
On Gaza, he said he had spoken with Netanyahu and told him, “You gotta be good to Gaza,” adding, “We will take care of it, we get food and medicine to Gaza.”
On Iran talks, he remarked, “The situation is coming well. I’d much rather get a deal than the other alternative—for humanity.”
He also claimed he was “saving [Iran] billions and billions of dollars just by not having a nuclear weapon, ‘cause that’s what it will cost.”
He then called on Susie Wiles to “bring Melania into the lion’s den”—referring to the press room—since she was having a “working birthday.”
Her birthday is tomorrow, April 26.
Q: Why did you feel it was important for you to go to the Pope’s funeral?
Trump: I just thought it was out of respect. I won the Catholic vote… I have a great relationship to the Catholics…I got 56% of the vote. I don’t know why I didn’t get more.
Several of you messaged me asking whether it hurts to hear these bogus “negotiation tactics” being discussed in relation to Ukraine. Honestly, not really—I’m used to words.
But seeing this right after reading the latest numbers on how many people Putin has killed in just the past 24 hours? That definitely leaves an impression.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for three hours in Moscow on Friday to discuss the U.S. plan to end the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin said the two sides’ positions had moved closer.
Meanwhile, according to the latest polls run by the New York Times, the majority of Americans is feeling scared and angry about the recent changes.
Trump’s Wide-Ranging TIME Interview: Power, Tariffs, Allies, and a Third Term?
In an interview with TIME magazine, President Donald Trump covered a vast array of topics, defending his use of executive power, addressing economic uncertainty, and floating bold geopolitical views. Trump dismissed concerns over inflation and job losses, insisted his tariff strategy was necessary for U.S. prosperity, and claimed potential "total victory" in trade disputes, especially with China. On foreign policy, he predicted peace in Ukraine if Zelenskyy remains in power but stated Crimea "will stay with Russia" and NATO expansion caused the war. He also floated the idea of making Canada a U.S. state, hinted at military options against Iran, and refused to rule out a third presidential term, citing “well known” loopholes but claiming he doesn’t believe in using them.
All this is questionable, to say the least.
TODAY IN HISTORY
1781: British forces under William Phillips and Benedict Arnold captured Petersburg, Virginia, during the American Revolution.
1792: The first guillotine in Paris was erected at the Place de Grève, where it was used to execute highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier.
1809: The Treaty of Amritsar was signed between the British East India Company and Ranjit Singh, establishing peace and defining territorial boundaries between the British and the Sikh Empire.
1859: Construction of the Suez Canal officially began, ultimately linking the Mediterranean and Red seas upon its completion in 1869.
1901: New York became the first U.S. state to require license plates on motor vehicles, with drivers instructed to display their initials on the back of their automobiles.
1915: ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops landed at Gallipoli in western Turkey, marking the beginning of a grueling campaign during World War I that became a defining moment in both countries' national consciousness.
1959: The St. Lawrence Seaway officially opened, creating a direct maritime link between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes and revolutionizing trade across North America.
1990: Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was sworn in as president of Nicaragua, becoming Central America's first female head of state.
1990: The Hubble Space Telescope was deployed by the space shuttle Discovery, ushering in a new era of space observation and scientific discovery.
2014: In a budget-cutting move, Flint, Michigan, switched its water supply to the Flint River—an action that led to one of the worst public health crises in recent U.S. history due to lead contamination.
2015: A devastating magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck near Kathmandu, Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people and injuring tens of thousands.
QUICK ACTUAL NEWS
NATIONAL
U.S. officials plan to conduct trade negotiations using a new template setting common terms for many of the talks over President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Officials plan to use a framework prepared by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office that lays out broad categories for negotiation, the report said citing unnamed sources and a draft document outlining the negotiating terms.
A Justice Department unit that handles criminal and civil enforcement of U.S. food and drug safety laws is being disbanded as part of an ongoing cost-cutting campaign by President Donald Trump's administration, according to three people familiar with the matter.
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the administration of President Donald Trump from stripping hundreds of thousands of federal employees of the ability to unionize and collectively bargain over working conditions.
President Donald Trump's administration aims to cut billions of dollars from programs that support child care, health research, education and housing in its fiscal 2026 budget proposal, the New York Times reported on Friday.
President Donald Trump's nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, was arrested on fraud charges in 2010 and faced lawsuits in two states for writing $2 million in bad checks to casinos, according to government records and court filings.
Former U.S. Representative George Santos, who was expelled from Congress after a brief and scandal-plagued tenure, was sentenced by a federal judge on Friday to more than seven years in prison for fraud and identity theft.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren asked the U.S. securities regulator on Friday about its plans to supervise exchange-traded funds due to be launched by a company founded and majority-owned by President Donald Trump, citing concerns about conflicts of interest.
The new head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday said that the agency has stifled innovation for the cryptocurrency sector by fostering "regulatory uncertainty" in prior years.
The White House wants to defund a bipartisan board that advises the president and Congress on Social Security policy, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, as the Trump administration moves to cut costs and eliminate independent voices in government.
U.S. President Donald Trump's purges and apparent acts of retribution aimed at top cyber officials put the nation's digital defenses at risk, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a post on Friday.
The Social Security Administration could lose thousands more staff beyond the 7,000 already targeted for cuts due to a move by the Trump administration to reclassify government employees, making them easier to fire, worker advocates said on Friday.
The Federal Aviation Administration's head of commercial space is among employees opting to take an early retirement offer, the agency said on Thursday. Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation Kelvin Coleman is opting to leave as are some other senior officials in the air traffic organization, officials said.
Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty on Friday to federal charges of gunning down health insurance executive Brian Thompson, a day after prosecutors formally stated their intent to seek the death penalty.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has appointed a former member of his Senate staff who primarily has experience as a business consultant as the U.S. State Department's top official for Europe, according to an internal email sent on Friday seen by Reuters and two officials.
U.S. officials arrested a Wisconsin judge on Friday and charged her with helping a man in her court evade immigration authorities in an escalating dispute between President Donald Trump's administration and local officials over immigration enforcement.
Lawyers for a group of at least 137 Venezuelan men sent to a prison in El Salvador last month have urged a judge to order Republican President Donald Trump's administration to facilitate their return to the U.S.
A 25% U.S. tariff on pharmaceutical imports would increase U.S. drug costs by nearly $51 billion annually, boosting U.S. prices by as much as 12.9% if passed on, a report commissioned by the industry's U.S. trade group and reviewed by Reuters shows.
The Trump administration said on Thursday the Federal Emergency Management Agency had made more than $2.2 billion in payments to a group of states over the past three weeks, meaning it was in compliance with a judge's order blocking an earlier sweeping pause of federal grants, loans and other financial aid.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer held a productive meeting with his South Korean counterpart on Friday in which they agreed on the importance of making swift progress toward reciprocal and balanced trade, his office said in a statement. (Please watch a fact-check video in the News Clips segment of this newsletter.)
Republicans in the U.S. Congress plan to introduce a sweeping $150 billion defense package that will give an initial $27 billion boost to President Donald Trump's controversial Golden Dome missile defense shield, according to a document and a congressional aide.
The costs of operating and modernizing America's nuclear forces through 2034 are projected to soar to $946 billion, 25% higher than a 2023 estimate, a report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday.
Jon Voight, Trump's Hollywood Envoy, Pushes for Industry Revival
Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight is stepping into his new role as one of President Trump’s "special ambassadors" to Hollywood by proposing bold measures to revive the U.S. film industry. With domestic production down nearly 40% in Los Angeles over the past decade, Voight plans to recommend federal tax incentives, production credits, and job training to counter the global pull of foreign incentives. Joined by his manager Steven Paul, Voight says the mission is to "create jobs" and restore what he calls the industry’s "Golden Age." He and fellow appointees Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson are expected to advise the president directly.
GLOBAL
U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States is very close to finalizing a tariff agreement with Japan. He made the remarks to reporters while departing the White House en route to Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis.
Meanwhile, a U.S.-India trade agreement under discussion will reportedly cover 19 categories, including expanded market access for agricultural products, e-commerce, data storage, and critical minerals, according to Bloomberg News. The terms of reference for the bilateral deal, finalized by both sides this week, include trade in both goods and services, the report said, citing sources familiar with the matter.
In Copenhagen, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives stated Friday that the U.S. Congress is unlikely to support any military action against Greenland, the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
Ukrainian and European officials this week pushed back against several U.S. proposals aimed at ending Russia's war in Ukraine, offering counterproposals on issues ranging from territorial claims to sanctions policy, according to full texts of the proposals reviewed by Reuters.
President Trump also said Friday that he has spoken "many times" with Chinese President Xi Jinping, though he did not specify when or what was discussed. China, for its part, reiterated that no recent conversations had occurred and urged the U.S. to stop spreading confusion.
As border crossings continue to decline, migrants deterred by President Trump's immigration crackdown are beginning to return to their home countries. In the Honduran town of Danlí, near the Nicaraguan border, dozens of migrants are waiting for assistance from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency, to return to Venezuela and other countries.
On rising tensions between India and Pakistan following a deadly attack in Kashmir—the worst in nearly two decades—Trump said Friday that the two countries will need to work out their relationship independently.
At the United Nations on Friday, the U.S. outlined a series of steps it wants Syria to take before reconsidering its position on the country. These include a complete rejection of terrorism, a commitment to non-aggression toward neighboring states, the exclusion of foreign fighters from official roles, prevention of
Iranian exploitation of Syrian territory, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, cooperation in locating missing U.S. citizens, and the safeguarding of Syrian civil liberties.
Finally, President Trump reiterated this week that he is open to meeting with Iran’s supreme leader or president and expressed optimism that a new agreement could be reached on Tehran's nuclear program.
CARTOON OF THE DAY
POSTS OF THE DAY
VIDEO QUICK NEWS
Trump talks about dealing with Russia and Ukraine
Excellent factcheck on US-South Korea tariff “negotiations”
Rutte: NATO members need to up their defense budget to 3% instead of 2%
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