—Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said he rejects President Trump’s plan to build a wall along the border between the two countries. More here
—Mary Tyler Moore, the actress who captivated television audiences first on TheDick Van Dyke Show and then on TheMary Tyler Moore Show, has died. More here
—Representative Tulsi Gabbard revealed that she met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a four-day fact-finding trip to Syria and Lebanon. More here
—We’re tracking the news stories of the day below. All updates are in Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5).
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said in a pre-recorded statement Wednesday that he rejects President Trump’s plan to build a wall along the border between the two countries. “Mexico does not believe in walls,” he said. “I have said it over and over again: Mexico will not pay for any wall.” Peña Nieto is scheduled to travel to Washington next week to meet with Trump. Earlier Wednesday, aides to the Mexican president said Peña Nieto was considering scrapping the trip after Trump signed an executive order which put into motion the construction of a border wall. There are still several questions remaining about his proposed border wall, including the cost of the project. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Mexico would eventually pay for the wall. Peña Nieto, in the video statement, did not mention whether he would still travel to the U.S.
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Meets With Syria's Assad
Brian Snyder / Reuters
Representative Tulsi Gabbard revealed Wednesday that she met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a four-day fact-finding trip to Syria and Lebanon, and reaffirmed her opposition to U.S. funding for rebel groups opposing the Syrian leader. In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, the two-term Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii said though she did not initially plan to meet with Assad, she did so because “we’ve got to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we could achieve peace, and that’s exactly what we talked about.” She later added in a statement: “This regime change war does not serve America’s interest, and it certainly isn’t in the interest of the Syrian people.” Gabbard has long supported Assad maintaining power. Conversely, both the Obama administration and its Western allies had repeatedly called for the ouster of Assad—who has been accused of war crimes—and have thrown their support behind some of the rebel groups opposing his regime during Syria’s nearly six-year civil war. President Trump has called for a different approach, arguing that the U.S. should focus instead on ISIS—a stance which Gabbard supports. As my colleague Krishnadev Calamur noted, Gabbard’s trip to Syria may constitute a violation of the Logan Act, which restricts unauthorized individuals from contacting foreign governments engaged in a dispute with the U.S. No one has ever been prosecuted under the act, though, and Gabbard is not even the first U.S. leader to make such a trip. Virginia state Senator Dick Black met with Assad government officials on a trip to Damascus in April, and has expressed hopes to return this year. Like Gabbard, Black has been a vocal opponent of regime change in Syria, and has previously praised Assad as “heroic.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 20,000 for the first time Wednesday, after hovering around that figure since the election of President Trump and boosted by several positive economic numbers over the past month. The Dow was at 10,000 in March 1999 and has more than recovered the ground lost during the Great Recession. But, as my colleague Adrienne LaFrance noted: “There’s nothing magic about the Dow hitting 10,000—or 11,000, or 15,000, or 19,000 for that matter. The number is just a calculation based on the sum of stocks from 30 major companies… .” Still, it does hold psychological significance among traders.
Mary Tyler Moore, the actress who captivated television audiences first on TheDick Van Dyke Show and then on TheMary Tyler Moore Show, has died, her representative told several news organizations. Moore, who was hospitalized earlier this month in Connecticut, was 80 years old. Moore is perhaps best known for her role in the eponymous show in which she played Mary Richards, a local news producer in Minneapolis, from 1970 to 1977. During the course of her career, Moore won six Emmys and received a Best Actress Oscar nomination in 1980 for her work in Ordinary People. As my colleague David Sims notes, “Mary was a liberated woman in an era of television where such characters were scarce.”
Russia Arrests Kaspersky Lab Department Head for Alleged Treason
Kaspersky Labs headquarters in Moscow (Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters)
Ruslan Stoyanov, the head of computer-incidents investigation at Kaspersky Lab, was arrested over charges of treason, Russian media reported Wednesday. Kaspersky, the Moscow-based cybersecurity and anti-virus firm, issued a statement confirming the investigation, but said it concerned “a period predating [Stoyanov’s] employment at Kaspersky Lab.” Previous jobs listed on Stoyanov’s LinkedIn profile include a position at the Russian Interior Ministry’s cybercrime unit. As Sputnik, the state-run Russian news agency, reports, Stoyanov was arrested in December alongside an employee with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), who has also been charged with treason, though the details of the investigation into either person remains unknown. Andrei Soldatov, a Russian journalist and security services expert, told the Associated Press that such an arrest was “unprecedented” for intelligence agencies and companies like Kaspersky, adding: “Intelligence agencies used to ask for Kaspersky's advice, and this is how informal ties were built. This romance is clearly over."
Usain Bolt Loses Gold Medal After Teammate Tests Positive for Doping
Nesta Carter and Usain Bolt pose at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Moscow, Russia, on August 11, 2013. (Dominic Ebenbichler / Reuters)
Nine-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt was forced to hand one of his gold medals back Wednesday after his teammate Nesta Carter tested positive for doping during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Carter, 31, was found to have taken methylhexaneamine, a prohibited performance-enhancing substance, ahead of competing in the first leg of the Men’s 4x100 meter relay, for which he earned the Jamaican team first place alongside sprinters Michael Frater, Asafa Powell, and Bolt—all of whom were stripped of their medals. The loss of the medal for the Jamaican team propelled Trinidad and Tobago to gold, Japan to silver, and Brazil to bronze.
An explosion takes place outside a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, on January 25, 2017. (Reuters)
Several people were killed and wounded Wednesday after two explosions rocked the Dayah hotel in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. Death toll estimates have ranged from at least eight to 15 people. Somali police said a group of attackers affiliated with al-Shabaab, an Islamist group, detonated a car bomb into the gate of the hotel before storming inside and opening fire. It is unclear how many attackers were involved in the attack, though Colonel Mohamoud Abdi, a senior Somali police officer, told the Associated Press that four militants were killed. A second blast was also reported outside the hotel, injuring some people in the area, including journalists. Al-Shabaab controlled much of Somalia before it was driven out by African Union and Somali forces in 2011l the group remains an active threat and is known for targeting hotels and other public places.
Economist Intelligence Unit Downgrades U.S. to 'Flawed Democracy,' Citing Longstanding Problems
(Brian Snyder / Reuters)
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the Economist’s data arm, has downgraded the United States from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy.” The move, the EIU said, wasn’t a result of President Trump’s election victory, but rather “the election of Mr Trump as US president was in large part a consequence of the longstanding problems of democracy in the US.” EIU counts 19 “full” democracies—down from 20—57 “flawed” democracies, including 17 of the EU’s 28 members; 51 “authoritarian” regimes; and 40 “hybrid” ones. Globally, the EIU said populist backlashes against the ruling elites in the U.S., U.K., and other Western countries “were an expression of deep popular dissatisfaction with the status quo and of a desire for change.” Norway tops the EIU’s Democracy Index; North Korea is last. Full index here
President Trump is expected Wednesday to announce his border wall with Mexico, fulfilling a longstanding campaign pledge that he believes will keep stop the flow of people crossing the border illegally. This morning he also said he’d order an investigation into voter fraud. Trump says he believes voter fraud cost him the popular vote, but most credible elections experts dismiss that such fraud exists on a large scale. Our Politics team will have more on Trump’s announcements.
In a recent story, the Atlantic staff writer Sarah Fitzpatrick writes about how FBI Director Kash Patel’s colleagues are alarmed by what they describe as erratic behavior and excessive drinking. Sources told Fitzpatrick that, on multiple occasions, members of his security detail had trouble waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated. Last year, Fitzpatrick reports, a request was made for “breaching equipment,” normally used by SWAT teams to break into buildings, because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors.
Patel called the story a “lie” and earlier this week sued The Atlantic for defamation. When asked about it at a press conference Tuesday, he said, “I can say unequivocally that I never listen to the fake-news mafia. And when they get louder, it just means I’m doing my job.”
On Monday morning, CNN reported that the United States and Iran had been on the verge of striking a deal to end the war when Donald Trump made a series of comments to reporters and on social media that undermined the talks. “The Iranians didn’t appreciate POTUS negotiating through social media and making it appear as if they had signed off on issues they hadn’t yet agreed to, and ones that aren’t popular with their people back home,” complained one source, who apparently pleaded with his boss to stop.
This was Trump’s signal to begin binge-posting about the Iran negotiations. The Iranians may not have appreciated Trump’s stream-of-consciousness messaging, and apparently their American counterparts did not either. But one very important person did.
For the richest men on Earth, everything is free and nothing matters.
At the end of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 movie, There Will Be Blood, Daniel Day-Lewis’s oil-baron character, old now and richer than Croesus, beats Paul Dano’s preacher to death with a bowling pin. Dano’s Eli Sunday, a nemesis of Day-Lewis’s Daniel Plainview during his seminal, wealth-building years, has come to sell Plainview the oil-rich land that he once coveted. But Plainview doesn’t need the land anymore, because—as he explains in one of the most famous monologues in modern cinema—he has sucked out all the oil hidden beneath it from an adjoining property, like a milkshake.
Desperate for money, Eli begs for a loan. Instead, Plainview chases him around a bowling alley and murders him with great enthusiasm. Once it’s over, a butler comes to see what all the noise was about. “I’m finished,” Plainview yells.
I remember screaming, though I don’t know what words I screamed. And I remember resisting, though there was little I could do in heels against two military-trained men intent on shoving me into the back seat of their vehicle.
Video surveillance captured the moment I was taken. In it, you can see two burly men walk past, watching nonchalantly as I struggle. Inside the vehicle, the men zip-tied my wrists and ankles, and blindfolded me. I kept asking them: Why?
I had been working in Iraq as a journalist for more than a decade. I had documented Iraq’s fight against the Islamic State from the front lines as a freelancer—at my own expense and at great risk. I had covered social, political, economic, and environmental issues, and had been welcomed into the homes of many Iraqi families whose stories I tried to tell with sensitivity and fairness. Why, I asked these men in Arabic, had they taken me? Why were they hurting me? What purpose did this serve?
The tech billionaire wants to shape humanity’s future. Not everyone has a place there.
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Updated at 2:28 p.m. ET on June 24, 2025
In April, Ezibon Khamis was dispatched to Akobo, South Sudan, to document the horrors as humanitarian services collapsed in the middle of a cholera outbreak. As a representative of the NGO Save the Children, Khamis would be able to show the consequences of massive cuts to U.S. foreign assistance made by the Department of Government Efficiency and the State Department. Seven of the health facilities that Save the Children had supported in the region have fully closed, and 20 more have partly ceased operations.
Khamis told us about passing men and women who carried the sick on their shoulders like pallbearers. Children and adults were laid on makeshift gurneys; many vomited uncontrollably. These human caravans walked for hours in up to 104-degree heat in an attempt to reach medical treatment, because their local clinics had either closed completely or run out of ways to treat cholera. Previously, the U.S. government had provided tablets that purified the water in the region, which is home to a quarter-million people, many of whom are fleeing violent conflicts nearby. Not anymore, Khamis says; now many have resorted to drinking untreated river water. He told us that at least eight people—five of them children—had died on their journey that day. As he entered a health facility in Akobo, he was confronted by a woman. “She just said, ‘You abandoned us,’” Khamis told us.
Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.
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On Friday, April 10, as FBI Director Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend, he struggled to log on to an internal computer system. He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.”
Patel oversees an agency that employs roughly 38,000 people, including many who are trained to investigate and verify information that can be presented under oath in a court of law. News of his emotional outburst ricocheted through the bureau, prompting chatter among officials and, in some corners of the building, expressions of relief. The White House fielded calls from the bureau and from members of Congress asking who was now in charge of the FBI.
I spent a month with a group of people who aspire to a state of offline bliss.
In March, I put my iPhone into a yellow cardboard box with MO stamped on top—the M looked like a riff on the Motorola logo; the O looked like a flower. Over the next several weeks, I left my phone there for roughly 23.5 hours out of every day.
I did so as a participant in “Month Offline,” which started last year in Washington, D.C., as a kind of Dry January challenge, but for smartphones. Now it is a fledgling business with a footprint in New York City. Members of each monthlong “cohort” pay $75 for the experience, during which they swap their iPhones for a lower-tech device and participate in weekly meetups. I joined the cohort that began on March 2 and received an email just before the first meeting: “Excited 2 see u soon,” it said.
Patients are getting stuck in the emergency department for days while waiting for a spot in an inpatient ward.
In the last months, weeks, and days of his life, “I will not go to the emergency room” became my husband’s mantra. Andrej had esophageal cancer that had spread throughout his body (but not to his ever-willful brain), and, having trained as a doctor, I had jury-rigged a hospital at home, aided by specialists who got me pills to boost blood pressure; to dampen the effects of liver failure; to stem his cough; to help him swallow, wake up, fall asleep.
“I will not go to the emergency room”—emphasis on not—were his first words after passing out, having a seizure, or regurgitating the protein smoothies I made to pass his narrowed esophagus. He said it again and again, even as fluid built up in his lungs, rendering him short of breath and prone to agonizing coughing spells. He had been a big, athletic guy, but now, in the ugly process of dying, he was looking gaunt. Ours was a precarious existence, but I understood his adamant rejection of the emergency department. Most prior visits had morphed into extended trips into a terrifying medical underworld—to a purgatory known as emergency-department boarding.
The economist Adam Posen on the effect of the war in Iran on the world’s economy and the darkening economic outlook for the United States. Plus: A shifting partisan balance of power and Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed, by Maureen Callahan.
In this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with a discussion of the likelihood that the partisan balance of power will shift from Republicans to Democrats at state-government level.
Then, David is joined by the president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Adam Posen, for a conversation about the state of the world’s economy. Frum and Posen discuss the economic effect of the war in Iran, the United States’ reputational hit caused by Trump’s tariffs, and the chance of global recession.
Finally, David ends the episode with a discussion of Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed, by Maureen Callahan, and reflects on why reactions to the abuse of women by men in power seem to have become a partisan issue.
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President Trump reportedly likes to go around asking aides about who his successor should be: J. D. Vance or Marco Rubio. If Trump were to ask his own voters the same question, he would, at least based on my recent experience, come away with a pretty clear answer.
I run weekly focus groups, and the moderators regularly ask Trump voters whom they would like to see inherit the party in 2028 and beyond. More and more, what we’re hearing in response is a strange new respect for Rubio. Although Vance might seem like a more natural MAGA heir, many Trump voters see Rubio as a stabilizing force who comes off a lot better than many of his peers inside the administration, including the vice president.
