Category: Politics

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump, responding to the arrest of an American soldier for allegedly betting on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, said the world “has become somewhat of a casino.”

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday he was unaware of the arrest of Gannon Ken Van Dyke, which was first reported by ABC News, but that he’d “look into it.”

Federal investigators said Van Dyke bet more than $33,000 on the prediction market Polymarket just days before President Trump announced Maduro’s capture by U.S. special forces in early January. In total, Van Dyke’s series of bets won more than $409,000, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

Trump was asked on Thursday if he was concerned about online prediction markets, through which bets are regularly placed on geopolitical events, such as the war in Iran, and the potential for insider trading.

“Well, you know, the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino,” Trump responded. “And you look at what’s going on all over the world, in Europe and every place, they’re doing these betting things. I was never much in favor of it. I don’t like it conceptually, but it is what it is.”

“No, I think that I’m not happy with any of that stuff,” the president continued. “But they have all these different sites. They have predictive markets. It’s a crazy world. It’s a much different world than it was.”

One of Trump’s namesake companies, Trump Media and Technology Group, announced last year that it would launch a prediction betting marketplace called Truth Predict. The White House has said all of President Trump’s assets, including his majority stake in Trump Media and Technology Group, are being held in a trust controlled by his sons.

Polymarket has cultivated close ties to the Trump family, announcing last August that the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., would join its advisory board. Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, also invested in Polymarket.

ABC News on Friday reached out to the White House for comment on Truth Predict and Trump Jr.’s involvement in Polymarket.

Polymarket on Thursday said they referred Van Dyke’s suspicious trades to the Justice Department and cooperated with its investigation. “Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today’s arrest is proof the system works,” their statement said.

Van Dyke, who was involved in Maduro’s capture, was charged with unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud and wire fraud.

He appeared in court on Friday and was expected to be released on $250,000 bond. He is set to make another court appearance on April 28 in Manhattan federal court, where the complaint was filed.

On Thursday, Trump appeared to compare Van Dyke’s arrest to the betting scandal baseball great Pete Rose faced.

“That’s like Pete Rose betting on his own team,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

Rose, who died in 2024, was a Cincinnati Reds star and later the team’s manager who received a lifetime ban from the sport after betting on games, including Reds games.

“Pete Rose they kept him out of the hall of fame because he bet on his own team,” Trump said on Thursday. “Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team.”

There are already two Republicans who are calling for a pardon for Van Dyke.

“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,” Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wrote on X.

ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman, Peter Charalambous and Lauren Peller contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Republican Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. of New Jersey has missed votes in the House for more than a month without personally providing his constituents with an explanation. 

Kean, 57, cast his last vote on March 5. Since then, he’s missed 50 roll call votes.

As House Speaker Mike Johnson navigates a narrow majority, a Republican member’s prolonged absence could impact the ability to move must-pass legislation and President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Johnson is currently trying to pass Department of Homeland Security funding, a long-term extension of FISA and the farm bill — all relying on Republican votes. Johnson can only afford to lose two votes on any party-line bill, and that’s if all members are present and voting.

Speaker Johnson said in a statement provided to ABC News that he spoke to Kean by phone on Thursday, and that he is dealing with an unspecified “personal health matter.”

“I was happy to speak to Tom Kean, Jr. this afternoon by phone. He is attending to a personal health matter and expects to be back to 100% 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,” Johnson said. 

Noelle Berriet, Kean’s congressional spokeswoman, did not reply to multiple inquiries asking about the congressman missing votes.

Harrison Neely, a strategist for Kean, told ABC News on Friday, “The congressman is dealing with a personal medical issue. He’s going to be 100% fine and he’s going to be back with a full schedule soon.” 

Neely did not share when Kean would return to Congress.

Kean, who was first elected in 2022, also faces a tough reelection campaign this year. Republicans are seeking to maintain majority control in Congress in this year’s midterm elections, a cycle that is historically unfavorable to the president’s party.

His district, New Jersey’s 7th, is rated as a toss-up by the Cook Political Report and is expected to be a top target for Democrats. Kean does not face any challengers in the Republican primary slated for June 2.

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(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republicans early Thursday morning approved a blueprint for their budget bill to fund immigration enforcement after an all-night voting marathon.

The vote marks the first step in a new plan to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down since mid-February — making it the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

The budget resolution, which kicks off the drafting process of a bill that Republicans said would provide billions of dollars to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, was approved by a vote of 50-48.

Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul joined with the Democrats in voting against the resolution. All other Republicans voted in favor of it, except for Sen. Chuck Grassley, who missed the vote as he recovers from a procedure to remove gallstones.

The Senate approved the resolution at about 3:36 a.m. after a vote-a-rama that lasted approximately six hours. 

During that time, the Senate considered 17 amendments. Democrats, as promised, forced a number of votes on affordability-related items. Their amendments aimed at lowering the cost of everyday expenses — ranging from health care to electricity to childcare to gas prices.

Though a number of Democratic amendments won the occasional Republican supporter, Republicans ultimately defeated every Democratic-led amendment.  

“What kind of bubble are they living in? How apart are they from people’s real needs? And instead, take that money, which should have gone to lowering people’s costs, and giving it to an agency that everyone knows needs reform,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the Senate floor after the GOP budget blueprint passed.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, vowed that Republicans are going to work to “get the job done” by June 1 — the deadline publicly set by President Donald Trump for Republicans to fund the immigration enforcement agencies.

“The vast majority of Republicans stuck together to do something Democrats are refusing to do: Fully fund the Border Patrol and ICE for three and a half years through the Trump presidency,” Graham said in a statement Thursday morning.

But the overnight vote-a-rama was just the first step in what could be a lengthy reconciliation process.

The GOP’s budget resolution now heads to the House where Speaker Mike Johnson hopes his rank and file will sign off on the Senate’s resolution next week. If approved, House members may begin directing committees to craft their bill that meets the instructions in the budget resolution. If House and Senate Republicans agree on legislation, both chambers will have to pass it again. That will include a second vote-a-rama in the Senate. 

The GOP’s funding push for ICE and CBP comes amid the record-long DHS shutdown, now in its 68th day.

Many federal employees across DHS, including the Coast Guard, Secret Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have gone without pay as Congress struggles to advance a funding deal. Throughout the shutdown, ICE and CBP have continued to receive funds due to an influx of cash provided in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill passed by Congress last summer, and the administration has redirected other funding to support TSA workers.

Democrats have said they won’t support funding for ICE and CBP without reforms to their operating procedures, after two American citizens in Minneapolis were fatally shot by federal agents earlier this year.

Republican leaders, meanwhile, are expected to hold off on passing a full DHS funding bill until they can successfully fund the two immigration enforcement agencies.

“We’ve got to make sure that we don’t isolate and, as I say, make an orphan out of key agencies of the department. And there’s some concern on our side that if you do the bulk of the department first before that, then they could be left out. We can’t allow for that,” Speaker Johnson said earlier this week.

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(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republicans approved early on Thursday a blueprint for their budget bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection after an all-night voting marathon.

The budget resolution, which kicks off the drafting process of a bill that Republicans said would provide billions to ICE and CBP, was approved by a vote of 50-48. It needed a simple majority of votes to be approved.

Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, and Rand Paul, of Kentucky, joined with the Democrats in voting against the resolution. All other Republicans voted in favor of it.

The Senate approved the resolution at about 3:36 a.m. after a vote-a-rama that lasted approximately 6 hours.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed the Iranian regime was “seriously fractured” as part of his pretext for indefinitely extending the ceasefire with Iran a day before the previous one was set to expire.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump wrote in a social media post Tuesday afternoon in which he announced he was prolonging the current ceasefire for an indeterminate period of time. 

Before that, however, Trump repeatedly telegraphed as recently that the U.S. was negotiating with “rational” and “reasonable” individuals in Tehran’s government after U.S. and Israeli strikes killed several of Iran’s senior leaders.

In the preceding days and weeks, the president praised what he portrayed as a new Iranian regime as a better negotiating partner than that which existed prior to the war. 

Even in the hours before his post on Tuesday, Trump said in an interview with CNBC that the leaders now in charge of Iran were “much more rational.”

“It is regime change, no matter what you want to call it, which is not something I said I was going to do, but I’ve done it,” Trump said. 

It’s a sentiment that the president has repeatedly conveyed. 

“Now it’s a new regime, OK, and we find them pretty reasonable, to be honest with you, by comparison pretty reasonable. It really is a new regime, and I think we’re doing very well,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News on April 15. “We have had regime change, because the people we dealt with yesterday were, frankly, very smart, very sharp, very good, very good.”

He followed up those remarks the next day, telling reporters as he departed the White House that Iran has “a new set of leaders, and we find them very reasonable.”

In a phone call on April 17 with ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, Trump said he believed he could trust the Iranians and that this will all be resolved “very soon.”

On April 7 as Trump’s deadline for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz approached, he threatened “A whole civilization will die tonight,” but said “now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS.” Hours later, he extended the deadline for another two weeks.

But since then, tensions have continued in the Strait of Hormuz and an effort to restart peace talks in Islamabad this week fell apart.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said Wednesday that Tehran would return to the negotiating table when “necessary and logical grounds” are met, according to Iranian state television.

“Diplomacy is a tool for securing national interests and security, and whenever we reach the conclusion that the necessary and logical grounds for using this tool to realize national interests and consolidate the achievements of the Iranian nation in thwarting the enemies from achieving their sinister goals, we will take action,” Baghaei said.

Asked Wednesday by the New York Post in a text message if talks with Iran could resume by Friday as its sources were telling it, Trump replied, “It’s possible! President DJT.”

At the same time, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who Trump had said was “much more reasonable” than the previous regime, said a ceasefire is only “if it is not violated by the maritime blockade and the hostage-taking of the world’s economy, and if the Zionist warmongering across all fronts is halted.”

Ghalibaf said opening the Strait of Hormuz is “impossible with such a flagrant breach of the ceasefire.”

“They did not achieve their goals through military aggression, nor will they through bullying. The only way forward is to recognize the rights of the Iranian nation.”

ABC News’ Desiree Adib contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — A cryptocurrency mogul who has invested tens of millions of dollars in various enterprises tied to President Donald Trump and his family filed suit against the Trump family’s flagship crypto venture late Tuesday for, among other claims, alleged breach of contract and fraud — a major escalation of a feud that erupted on social media earlier this month. 

Justin Sun, a Chinese-born billionaire who has cultivated deep ties to the Trumps, filed the lawsuit late Tuesday in a California federal court, accusing World Liberty Financial of freezing his investment in the firm’s digital tokens in a bid to “ratchet up pressure” on Sun to promote another one of the company’s offerings.  

Sun “has long been (and remains) an ardent supporter of President Trump and the Trump family” and has invested roughly $45 million in World Liberty Financial at least in part “because of the Trump family’s association with the project,” Sun’s lawyers wrote. 

But Sun’s lawsuit accused other World Liberty “operators” of “engaging in an illegal scheme to seize property … [causing] Mr. Sun and his companies to incur hundreds of millions of dollars in damages,” his lawyers wrote. 

A World Liberty Financial spokesperson directed ABC News to posts on X from Eric Trump, who called the suit “ridiculous,” and World Liberty co-founder Zach Witkoff called the claims in the suit “entirely meritless.” 

“World Liberty looks forward to getting the case thrown out promptly,” Zach Witkoff wrote. 

Eric Trump, the son of President Trump, and Zach Witkoff, the son of the president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, helped launch World Liberty Financial in 2024, shortly before Donald Trump’s election. 

Sun gained notoriety in part for his purchase of a $6 million banana art piece — an actual piece of fruit duct-taped to a wall — and has since invested in both World Liberty Financial and the president’s meme coin, called $TRUMP. He attended a gala last year for the top investors in the meme coin and currently sits atop the leaderboard for a luncheon scheduled for this weekend at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

Earlier this year, Sun agreed to pay $10 million to resolve a civil fraud case brought by the Biden-era Securities and Exchange Commission. 

In his lawsuit filed Tuesday, Sun accused executives at World Liberty Financial — excluding members of the Trump family — of using the firm “as a golden opportunity to leverage the Trump brand to profit through fraud.”

He accused the firm of seizing his coins as leverage to persuade Sun to promote World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin, called USD1, and “mint” it on his own platform, called TRON — a strategy he called “a pressure tactic that itself qualifies as criminal extortion.” 

Sun first raised these concerns on social media earlier this month. World Liberty Financial at the time denied the allegations and added in a post on X, “See you in court pal.” 

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in favor of a U.S. Army veteran wounded in a 2016 suicide bombing in Afghanistan, allowing him to sue a military contractor for damages after it allegedly failed to supervise the attacker who was an employee.

The 6-3 decision reverses lower court rulings which had said the contractor, Fluor Corporation, was immune from lawsuits because it was operating on behalf of the U.S. government and opens the door to other damages suits against war-zone contractors for activities outside the bounds of their responsibility.

The attacker, Ahmad Nayeb, was employed by Fluor to work in a nontactical vehicle yard on Bagram Air Base under an Army contract that required the company to ensure all personnel complied with base security policies, which included their confinement to works sites and “constant view of them.”  

In November 2016, Nayeb roamed the base freely for nearly an hour and used U.S. government tools to make his bomb inside the secure base, according to an Army investigation cited in court documents.

The explosion killed five and wounded 17, including then-Army Spc. Winston Hencely, who confronted the attacker just as he detonated his suicide vest. Nayeb was killed; the explosion fractured Hencely’s skull and resulted in permanent disability.

While damages claims against the U.S. government and its military contractors arising out of combatant activities are generally prohibited by federal law, Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court’s majority, concluded immunity does not apply to cases when “the contractor was not required or authorized to take the action at issue.”

“The government required Fluor to hire Afghan employees and to provide logistics for Bagram Airfield. But, it did not, Hencely contends, require Fluor to leave Nayeb unsupervised, allow him to walk alone for an hour after his shift, or permit him to obtain unauthorized tools with which he could build a bomb,” Thomas wrote.

The decision clears the way for Hencely to pursue a damages case against the company in federal court.

In dissent, Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts said while they believe Hencely deserves “a full measure of support from the American people,” a damages lawsuit is “not the way to give the petitioner what he is due.”

Alito wrote, “War is the exclusive domain of the Federal Government, but the Court [today] allows state (or foreign law) to encroach on that domain. The Constitution precludes that encroachment.”

Fluor Corp, which disputes liability for the bombing, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the court’s decision. 

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(WASHINGTON) — Veteran Democratic Rep. David Scott of Georgia has died. He was 80 years old.

Scott, who served as the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee from 2021 to 2025, served in the House for more than 23 years, taking office in 2003.

He was in the Capitol on Tuesday when he cast his final vote as a member.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — The sprawling UFC Freedom 250 event being held on the South Lawn of the White House and the Ellipse event in June are receiving the highest level of security possible, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told ABC News.

“The ‘UFC Freedom 250’ event held on the South Lawn of the White House and the Fan Festival on the Ellipse on June 13-14, 2026, are designated SEAR 1 events,” a department spokesperson said to ABC News. 

Other SEAR 1 events include the Super Bowl, the Chicago Marathon and the Rose Bowl Game.

In years past, the federal coordinator for the SEAR 1 events was an agent from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) or the U.S. Secret Service. This year’s  Super Bowl security posture in San Francisco was led by the lead HSI agent from the San Francisco Field Office.

The event is not a National Special Security Event, which is designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security and includes events like the Presidential Inauguration and the 250 Military Parade. 

UFC Freedom 250 — a UFC fight taking place on the South Lawn was an idea that President Donald Trump has been deeply involved in helping plan. UFC President Dana White announced that in addition to the fight, there will be a fan fest on the ellipse and events through the National Mall, including a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial.

The threat landscape has also never been more dynamic, according to law enforcement sources.

A March alert sent to law enforcement partners around the country from DHS talked about the threat of lone actors. 

“Lone offenders in the Homeland have not historically been motivated by issues related to Iran, the IRGC, or Shia violent extremism; however, the existential threat to the Iranian regime and increased US or Israeli actions could prompt some US-based violent extremists or hate crime perpetrators to attack targets perceived to be Jewish, pro-Israel, or linked to the US government or military,” the bulletin says. 

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(WASHINGTON) — Florida Democrat Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned from Congress on Tuesday afternoon, just before she was to face a House Ethics Committee sanction hearing.

The committee was set to hold a rare public hearing to determine what sanction would be appropriate for it to recommend to the full House against Cherfilus-McCormick.

Last month, Cherfilus-McCormick was found guilty of 25 House ethics violations, including acceptance of improper campaign contributions and commingling of campaign and personal funds. The congresswoman was indicted in November 2025 by a federal grand jury on charges of stealing $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds, which she is accused of laundering to support her successful 2021 congressional campaign.

Cherfilus-McCormick has denied wrongdoing, excusing the allegations as an accounting error.

In her resignation announcement, the congresswoman called the process a “witch hunt.”

“By going forward with this process while a criminal indictment is pending, the Committee prevented me from defending myself,” she said. “I simply cannot stand by and allow my due process rights to be trampled on, and my good name to be tarnished.”

Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest read out loud the congresswoman’s resignation letter after the committee briefly convened and said the committee had lost jurisdiction over Cherfilus-McCormick with her resignation.

“I will tell you that the committee has worked diligently to investigate this matter, that this was not a rush to judgment, as some would claim, that this was a very deliberate process to gather information into allegations that were extremely serious and extremely complicated,” Guest said.

Ranking Democrat Mark DeSaulnier told the committee, “Nobody’s happy. I don’t think any of us are happy at what we’ve gone through, but I am extremely proud of being associated with all of you.”

She is the third member of the House to resign in a week, following Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas and Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who were accused of sexual misconduct and were about to face efforts by their colleagues to have them expelled.

Expelling a member of the House is a rare occurrence. A two-thirds majority is required to remove a member.

Only six House members in U.S. history have been expelled from the lower chamber. Former New York Republican Rep. George Santos was the most recent lawmaker expelled from the House in 2023.

The committee could have recommended a range of sanctions, including expulsion, censure, reprimand, fine — and even denial or limitation of any right, according to House rules. The House may punish its members and may expel its members by a two-thirds vote, according to Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution.

The sanction recommendation against Cherfilus-McCormick was expected to be announced in writing after the hearing. Afterward, the panel was to break into executive session to conclude its deliberations and reach a judgment.

Before Cherfilus-McCormick announced her resignation, Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube said he would move to force a vote to try to expel the congresswoman following the sanction hearing. Steube was expected to make the expulsion resolution privileged, which required Speaker Mike Johnson to hold a vote on the matter within two legislative days.

The speaker signaled last week that expelling Cherfilus-McCormick over her alleged crimes would be “appropriate.”

Though he initially insisted that Democrats would not help Republicans expel Cherfilus-McCormick, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on Monday that Democrats would convene a caucus meeting to determine how they’ll handle the the bipartisan Ethics panel’s recommendations.

After her resignation, Steube called on the Department of Justice to put Cherfilus-McCormick in prison.

“This is a victory for our institution and the great state of Florida,” Steube wrote on X. “Thank you to everyone who stayed involved and kept the pressure on. Now it’s on the DOJ to put her in prison.”

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