If you find yourself be willedered by this moment where there's so much reaso...
and so much reason to hope all at the same time, let me say a hear you. I'm Ezra Klein from New York Times opinion, host of the Ezra Klein Show.
“And for me, the best way to beat back that be willedered feeling is to talk it out with”
the people who have ideas and frameworks for making sense of it. Here's going to be plenty to talk about. You can find the Ezra Klein Show wherever you get your podcasts. From the New York Times, it's the headlines.
I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Friday may first. Here's what we're covering.
To Secretary Heggseth and General Kane, the war powers resolution specifies that a war initiated by a president without congressional approval must be concluded within 60 days. We're right at the 60-day deadline. Lawmakers in Congress yesterday pressed Defense Secretary Pete Heggseth on whether the administration plans to follow the war powers resolution under that law.
President Trump has until today to either wind down the conflict in Iran or get Congress's support for it.
“I would defer to the White House and White House counsel on that.”
However, we are in a ceasefire right now, which our understanding means the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a ceasefire. So you're not in that it's our understanding, just so you know. Okay, well, I do not believe the statute would support that. I think the 60-day clock pauses.
Heggseth laid out an alternate theory that by his understanding, the clock is not up. Since there's no active fighting at the moment, a range of legal scholars dispute that reading of the law, though, with one former State Department adviser telling the Times, quote, "There is no pause button." The 60-day mark could be a turning point for some Republicans.
So far, the President's party has largely backed his campaign in Iran, but some GOP lawmakers have signaled that, after today, they may demand a vote on whether the war should continue. Meanwhile, in a rare public statement yesterday, Iran's supreme leader doubled down
“on two of the key issues at the center of any potential peace deal with the US.”
He said his country is planning to keep control of the straight-of-war moves and threaten that other countries, quote, "acting maliciously out of greed, have no place there except at the bottom of its waters." He also insisted that Iran would retain its nuclear capabilities, which has been a deal breaker in past negotiations with the US.
Afternoon, everybody, despite unrelenting predictions from many of you today in the press that we would fail this week, we did exactly the opposite. On Capitol Hill yesterday, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that, after 76 days, lawmakers had passed legislation to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, ending the record long shut down.
"We were all going to have lines at TSA, everybody get their paychecks now, we'll get moving forward." It was Democrats who originally held up funding for DHS back in February, saying they wouldn't support it without new restrictions on immigration agents. The parties eventually reached a deal about a month ago to fund all of the department except for ICE and parts of Border Patrol.
But Republican infighting tied up that legislation, extending the shutdown even longer. Yesterday, some GOP members still objected to it, concerned that it caves to Democrats, but Johnson maneuvered around them to push it through. Republicans already have a plan in motion to fund ICE and customs and Border Protection another way. They're pushing new legislation that could get around any potential Democratic filibuster
and pour an additional $70 billion into immigration operations through the end of Trump's
second term. Despite a lot of negotiations, including with the White House, none of the Democrats demands like a ban on agents wearing masks and ended up in any agreement. "I'm Tyler Pager, I'm a White House correspondent for the New York Times. I landed just a few hours ago here in Caracas, and when we landed, passengers cheered and waved and as well in flags as they walked off the plane."
Yesterday for the first time in nearly seven years, a commercial flight took off from the U.S. and landed in Venezuela. My colleague Tyler Pager was on board for what marked the latest step in reestablishing ties between the two countries, which just a few months ago were on the verge of an armed conflict. "I did speak to Erica Rula, who lives in Houston, but was born in Venezuela, where a parent still live. She said she obsessively checked the American Airlines website
when she found out direct flights were becoming available and said it was emotional to be on the
first flight back." Direct flights between Venezuela and the U.S. were banned back in 2019 by the
Trump administration, which cited security concerns at the time.
earlier this year after U.S. forces seized Venezuela's leader, Nicholas Maduro.
“Tyler says some of the people on his flight, like Erica, were desperate to see family again.”
Others were traveling on behalf of the U.S. government and are set to meet with Venezuela's new leader, Delcy Rodriguez, as well as executives from oil gas and mining companies in the country. Despite flights taking off again, though, some Venezuelans in the U.S. said they still don't consider it safe for them to return. Maduro may be gone, but his repressive socialist party is still in power. The mayor of Miami-Dade County, which has a large Venezuelan population,
said in a press conference, "What they dream of is the day they can fly to a free Venezuela." In Texas, Camp Mystic, where 28 people died in catastrophic flooding last year, announced it will not reopen the summer. The all-girls Christian camp had been planning to. They were set to welcome hundreds of campers, starting the end of this month. But the idea of that reopening had angered the parents of many of the girls who died when the river that runs next to the camp,
burst its banks and swept through their cabins last 4 July. There were widespread concerns about safety lapses. Some of the cabins were in a hazardous floodway, and investigators found the camp did not have an evacuation plan as required by the state. Were there any protocols at the camp in the event of a flash flood watch? Any protocols in place? I don't believe so, no sir. Okay. This week, there were hearings at the Texas State Capitol, where skeptical lawmakers questioned
whether the camp had done all it could to keep the children their safe. But in light of everything
“that I've just pointed out, do you really think you're ready to take on 500 children plus?”
Some Texas officials publicly called for the state to deny the camp a license to reopen, facing that scrutiny. Camp Mystic said in a statement yesterday that it would step back for the upcoming summer.
And finally, Amsterdam is famously a city where anything goes.
prostitution is legal, coffee shops sell marijuana. You can get a little taste of a hallucinogenic mushroom, but as of today, there's something that's no longer allowed there. Something that city counselors have deemed off limits. Advertisements for meat and fossil fuels. So no more ads for Big Macs, gas powered cars, airlines, cruises. It's part of the city's efforts to discourage
“consumption of goods linked with high carbon emissions, which are a key driver of climate change.”
The ban only applies to city-owned properties and public spaces like buses, billboards, etc. ads on the radio or online are exempt. One of the city counselors whose party helped push the bill,
likened high carbon lifestyles to an addiction. And she told the times, basically, if you're
trying to break an addiction to something, it's helpful to not see it everywhere. Those are the headlines. If you'd like to play the Friday News Quiz, stick around it's just after these credits. This show is made by Will Jarvis, Margaret Kadifa, Jake Lucas, Yon Stewart, and me, Tracy Mumford, original theme by Dan Powell. Special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Larissa Anderson, Sam Dolnik, Miles McKinley, Zoe Murphy, and Paula Schuman.
Now time for the quiz. Every week we ask you a few questions about stories the times has been covering, "Can you get them all?" Here we go. Recently, a bunch of AI-generated videos, sometimes complete with rap songs, have popped up online, skewering President Trump and his cabinet. The short, spoofy clips often portray American officials as hapless Lego figurines, and they're being shared and promoted online by officials from another country's government.
Do you know what country that is? The answer? Iran. While the satirical videos aren't made by the regime, Iranian officials have been sharing
them, and they have reached nearly a billion views since the start of the war.
The videos brag about Iran's military prowess, while mocking the Americans by playing up tropes
Trump's love of Diet Coke.
"slop aganda," and they say we've basically entered a new era of meme warfare.
Next question. King Charles was in the US this week for a state visit in which he assured the American people that really, truly, the UK is not trying to take the country back, right before the king got to the White House. President Trump wrote on social media that he was thrilled about a new tabloid report related to the royals that had just been published. Trump wrote, "Wow, that's nice," and that quote, "I'll talk to the king clean about this in a few minutes
“with three exclamation points." Your question, what was the supposed scoop that got Trump all excited?”
The answer? Well, the headline was "exclusive," how the daily mail traced Trump's family tree and found out he's the king's cousin. According to a genealogical analysis the paper
commissioned, "Trump and King Charles share a common ancestor," the third Earl of Lennox,
making the president a 15th cousin of the king. Though obviously, if you go that far back, millions of people could potentially claim that kind of royal connection, and this is not the first time that Trump has been genealogically linked to another big name in global affairs,
“the Daily Mail previously reported that Trump is also distantly related to Hillary Clinton.”
And last question, this week the New York Times magazine released a list of what it has deemed the 30 greatest living American songwriters. To narrow it down, they pulled over 200 experts and then had Times critics do get out over who should make the cut. Let's see if you can name three of the songwriters on the list based off of short clips of interviews they did with the times explaining their craft. Just a little hint right off the bat. All three of them are also
famous for performing their own songs. First one? It's a flow state. It's like I can't explain it.
I'll happen upon a word, and I'm like, man, I don't even know how I knew it at word. That's Jay-Z. And next one, I've said it many times. I'm a singer songwriter. I'm a singer songwriter from the very beginning, but it's still hard for me to say it. Yeah, I think I'm so good at songwriting. See if I said something like that that would make me sound arrogant and not old one. That is, Mariah Carey who has written or co-written almost 20 chart-topping singles.
And last one, it is tricky, but I will say she talks exactly like she sings. This guy came out to me and said, I want to know how to write songs like you do. I said, okay,
“well, the first thing you have to do is be willing and able to look way down to even side”
yourself. And to those dark corners that you maybe don't feel comfortable looking at. That is. You take my door, I own it back. You send a Williams. The full list of the best living American songwriters is in the Times App and on the site. There's also a link in our show notes. Don't worry. Dally Parton is on there. That is it for the news quiz. If you want to tell us how you did, you can reach us at the
headlines at NYTimes.com. I'm Tracy Mumford. The show will be back on Monday.
