What A Day

Congress is reeling after Democratic US Senator Alex Padilla was forcibly removed and handcuffed – all for the crime of trying to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question. There are lots of moving parts to this story, so to help us understand what happened to the California Senator, we spoke with his counterpart, US Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California.

And in headlines: the US Supreme Court drops some fresh ne...

The Supreme Court has been busy releasing opinions. Last week, it ruled against a ten billion dollar lawsuit from Mexico against American gun manufacturers. The Mexican government had alleged that US gun companies were fueling cartel violence south of the border. But in a unanimous opinion, liberal Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the lawsuit didn’t reach the burden required by a 2005 law. The court declined to take up two other gun ...

You know how people are always saying, "What happens in California often doesn't stay here"? They're so right! Case in point: home insurance. When natural disasters happen, home insurance is how folks are able to rebuild. But when natural disasters happen over and over again, like the wildfires in California, home insurance companies become overwhelmed. And it's not just a California issue. In Iowa and Oklahoma, residents are curre...

The Trump Administration has decided that diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are themselves a form of discrimination. And last week, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that members of majority groups can also experience discrimination. But what if the entire frame of "discrimination" is the wrong one? Brando Simeo Starkey, author of "Their Accomplices Wore Robes: How the Supreme Court Chained Black America to the Bottom of a...

People protesting against Immigration Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles and President Trump’s crackdown on immigration clashed with the National Guard over the weekend. Ruben Vives, a general assignment reporter with the LA Times, helped us break down what's happening across the city right now.

And in headlines, Republicans are still trying to persuade Americans the Big Beautiful Bill is somehow going to save us money, a Mary...

While President Trump demands his administration investigate the former president's pardons and executive orders, we're left thinking about President Joe Biden again…and where it all went wrong. Alex Thompson, national political correspondent for Axios and co-author of the new book, "Original Sin," joins us to talk about Biden's decline in office and how the people around him covered it up.

And in headlines, President Trump and Elon...

Some Republican lawmakers are backtracking their support for President Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” after realizing it’s …not all that beautiful. Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona joins us to talk about what’s actually in the legislation and what his constituents are saying about it.

And in headlines: Trump’s fifty percent tariffs on nearly all steel and aluminum imports went into effect and some of Musk’s DOGE volunteers ar...

President Donald Trump has made it his mission to single-handedly reverse basically every accomplishment of the Biden administration. That’s especially true when it comes to the former president’s climate agenda. Trump doesn’t want to just deemphasize the fight against climate change, his policy proposals would give climate change a helping hand. But states are stepping into the void left by the federal government. Longtime climate...

In the last few weeks, the Supreme Court has dealt more than half a million migrants a serious blow to their ability to live here in the U.S. legally. In separate orders, the court allowed the Trump administration to lift deportation protections for Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians living here under two programs — humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status. While the court’s orders are only temporary, it’s litt...

Can you believe it’s already June? So much has happened since President Donald Trump returned to the White House four and a half months ago, it’s hard to process. In that short amount of time, Trump has unilaterally thrown the global trading system into chaos and tried to end the constitutional right of birthright citizenship. His administration has stripped billions in federal grants from universities, arrested international stude...

This week marked more than 600 days since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. In the wake of Hamas' horrific Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, Palestinian health officials say at least 50,000 people – including thousands of women and children – have died from Israeli airstrikes and bombings in the Gaza Strip. As the war drags on, protesters on both sides are speaking out and demanding that their governments do more to end th...

Before Kash Patel, Dan Bongino and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. were prominent members of the Trump Administration (FBI Director, FBI Deputy Director and Health and Human Services Secretary, respectively), they were conspiracy theorists. But now that these men hold positions of power in the government, the various conspiracies they pushed are coming back to haunt them. Because their longtime supporters want them to act on all the wild cl...

To the average American, the world of cryptocurrencies can be completely inscrutable. Only about 17 percent of U.S. adults say they've ever invested, traded or used crypto, according to an October Gallup poll. But that relative obscurity might be exactly why President Donald Trump and his family have gone all in on crypto. From pay-to-play memecoin dinners to billion-dollar investments in bitcoin, the Trump family now has a huge st...

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has long been a pusher of junk science, especially when it comes to research around vaccines and autism. So it should come as no surprise that he appears open to revisiting the decades-old FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, at least in part based on a report from a conservative think tank that was neither peer-reviewed, nor published in a medical journal. What the r...

Today, the What A Day team is off. But we’re excited to bring you a recent episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams.

In the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, we’ve watched Republicans erode American democracy with alarming speed. While this political moment may feel unprecedented, it isn’t new. America has dealt its share of far-right movements, fascist provocateurs, and anti-democratic threats. But time and again, ...

In one of the most anticipated rulings of the term, the Supreme Court justices deadlocked Thursday in a case over the creation of a religious charter school in Oklahoma. The 4-4 split sets no precedent, meaning the justices could take up a similar case — and the underlying thornier questions around the separation of church and state — in the future. Later in the day, the justices also handed President Donald Trump a major temporary...

If you're a certain age, Sean' Diddy' Combs was inescapable during some really formative years of your music-listening habits. The entertainment mogul and producer showed up in music videos, hosted a reality show, and had a clothing line. His label Bad Boy Records helped launch the careers of iconic names in Hip-Hop and R&B, like Mary J. Blige, Usher and Notorious B.I.G. Now, he's standing trial on federal sex trafficking and racke...

As Congressional Republicans try to pass President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' through the House and Senate, Medicaid is one of the big programs in the party's legislative crosshairs. GOP lawmakers are eyeing upwards of $800 billion in cuts to the safety net health care program over the next decade, in part by imposing new work and eligibility requirements for recipients. But while the president keeps insisting 'no cuts to...

It's make-or-break week in the House for President Donald Trump's 'one big, beautiful bill.' House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he still believes his party can pass the president's legislative agenda by the GOP's self-imposed deadline of Memorial Day. But deep divisions remain within the caucus over cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, state and local tax deductions, and the bill's implications for the national debt. Marianna Soto...