--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, April 28th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, how Americans feel about Trump's first 100 days in office, a major election in Canada, and Wrexham, the Welsh soccer club, is just one step away from the Premier League. But first, there have been some big immigration crackdowns across the country in recent days.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yesterday in Colorado, NPR reports 114 immigrants were arrested at a nightclub. Drug Enforcement Administration officials on X said those individuals were placed on buses for processing and likely eventual deportation. NPR is calling it one of the largest single-day arrests of people without legal status since Trump returned to office. And in Florida, ICE arrested close to 800 immigrants in a week-long effort. The arrests started a week ago and marked the first time federal agents worked in partnership with local law enforcement in Florida, under a formal agreement to make immigration arrests. And some other major immigration stories made headlines, too.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: On Friday, the FBI arrested a judge in Milwaukee for allegedly escorting a man out of a side door when she learned ICE agents were waiting for him. The man, an immigrant who had a deportation order against him and was in court on battery charges, was later apprehended after being chased on foot. Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan is charged with obstructing and impeding an immigration proceeding and concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest. Dugan appeared in court on Friday and was released on bail. FBI Director Kash Patel posted an image on X of Dugan being arrested, writing, quote, No one is above the law.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Her arrest drew immediate backlash from Democratic leaders and sparked protests in Wisconsin. Over the weekend, hundreds gathered outside different FBI offices in Milwaukee in support of Dugan and immigrants. Regarding the charges against Dugan, MSNBC legal analyst and former top DOJ prosecutor Andrew Weissman was on the network saying that in addition to a tough legal case for the government, what this was really about is sending a message.
--:-- Andrew Weissman: I can't imagine this case is going to hold up for a whole variety of factual and legal reasons. It's going to be so hard to prove, even if you could somehow show this was the judge's intent was to obstruct. Why would you possibly do this? And the answer is because we want to send a signal to the judiciary. And that's what you shouldn't be doing. I mean, that is fighting the last branch of government to oppose the executive branch.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Attorney General Pam Bondi defended Dugan's arrest on Fox News, saying the DOJ is sending a, quote, very strong message to judges that they will be prosecuted if they obstruct the administration's efforts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And lastly, three children from two different families, a two-year-old, a four-year-old, and a seven-year-old, all of whom are U.S. citizens, were deported on Friday. The Washington Post reports the children were all deported with their mothers to Honduras. The Post also reports the four-year-old has stage four cancer and was removed without medication or the chance for their family to talk to their doctor beforehand.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The father of the two also sought to stop the deportation in an emergency court filing on Thursday but the removal flight had already taken off by the time the court opened the next morning Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked about these deportations directly on Sunday on NBC Meet the Press. He refuted the notion that anything nefarious happened.
--:-- Marco Rubio: Three U.S. citizens ages four, seven and two were not deported. Their mothers who are legally in this country were deported. The children went with their mothers. If those children are U.S. citizens, they can come back into the United States if there's their father or someone here who wants to assume them. But ultimately, who was deported was their mother, their mothers who were here illegally. The children just went with their mothers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Rubio also said in that interview, all citizens and non-citizens are entitled to due process. The Trump administration, however, has come under fire for ignoring due process rights for many people who have been deported or detained. Trump himself last week posted on social media, quote, we cannot give everyone a trial because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to a major milestone. This week marks 100 days since President Trump took office for his second term. And all week we'll be examining his impact so far on the nation. Today, we start with public opinion.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump's initial job approval rating when taking office for the second time was about where it was at the start of his first term. And like many presidents, Trump's honeymoon period didn't last long, but his drop-off was more pronounced. It's one of the quickest falls that we've seen, really only matched by what we saw in Trump back in 2017.
--:-- Harry Enten: You look across the board, different poll data, and you see that Trump is underwater. That is, his disapproval rating is above his approval rating. More than half of people say they disapprove of the job Trump is doing in office. That's according to the New York Times' average of the latest polls.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, the share of people who approve of the president's performance is down into the mid-40s, a drop of about eight percentage points per the New York Times average since he took office. Most polls show his base still strongly behind him, but certain polls show his numbers fell disproportionately among independents, young people, and Hispanic Americans, all groups that he generally overperformed with in the 2024 election.
--:-- Harry Enten: When you look at his numbers group by group and issue by issue, he's lost meaningful support among the communities and on the issues that won him the election. In Donald Trump's first term, his strength was the economy. than in his second term, it's his Waterloo. It is very clear, looking at the data, that the way that he has handled, for instance, the trade wars with China, with Canada, with Mexico, with the entire world really, has really had an impact on his popularity.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Fewer people approve of his handling of the economy than approve of the job he's doing overall. While he's in the mid-40s overall, he's been in the low 40s or even high 30s on the economy. and people graded him even more harshly on trade and more harshly still on inflation and the cost of living.
--:-- Harry Enten: Enten says the data paints a clear picture of where Americans think Trump is going wrong. I think he took his eye off the ball. The number one issue is the economy. The number one issue within the economy is inflation. All of a sudden, you go off and start a trade war that was, at least according to the polling data, completely unnecessary, and you hurt the economy, You put a lot of uncertainty into the economy. And that to me is almost the entire ballgame
--:-- Shamita Basu: The public is also largely unhappy with Trump and Elon Musk efforts to shrink the government and slash spending A Fox News survey from March found nearly six in 10 people disapproved of how the Trump administration is identifying and reducing spending they consider wasteful. And almost two thirds said not enough thought and planning was going into cuts. It is popular in the abstract to cut government spending. But the way Donald Trump has allowed Elon Musk to go about it has absolutely hurt. Absolutely hurt Donald Trump's brand.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At the other end of the spectrum, Americans have generally been more approving of Trump's handling of trans issues, particularly his effort to block trans girls and women from girls and women's sports. And recent polling from AP Nork and from The Washington Post, ABC Ipsos, shows his approval rating on his handling of immigration is starting to dip.
--:-- Harry Enten: That said, Enten says the early verdict from the American people is clear. Overall, he's certainly in the negative. He's in the red. But just remember, it's early. We're just about 100 days into a four-year term.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to Canada, where voters go to the polls today to elect a new government in the middle of one of the most dramatic political turnarounds in recent memory.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Just three months ago, the conservative candidate, Pierre Polyev, appeared to be headed toward a landslide victory that would make him the next prime minister. The previous prime minister, Justin Trudeau, resigned back in January as his popularity plummeted. And around that time, Polyev had a 20-point lead, with his Canada-first platform and a political style that's somewhat similar to President Trump's.
--:-- Althia Raj: But it was Trump's presidency, and specifically the global trade war he started, which heavily hit Canada with a 25% tariff on all imports that turned the political climate on its head. And now this election between Poliev and the current prime minister, Mark Carney, from the Liberal Party is much more of a toss-up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is an election like no other in Canadian history. The polls have swung like 30 points. We've never seen anything like this.
--:-- Althia Raj: That's Toronto Star columnist and political journalist Althia Raj, who's been deeply embedded with both campaigns. She says Paulyev still has a path to victory, but it's Carney who now has the polling edge, in large part, Raj says, due to Trump.
--:-- Althia Raj: And not just that he came back in the White House and his divisive rhetoric that reminded people that maybe Mr. Poiliev, the conservative leader, resembles Donald Trump, but it was his threats to annex Canada, his talk of Canada as the 51st state, the sense of Canadian pride, thinking, how are we as a country going to defend ourselves against Donald Trump?
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Mark Carney and the liberals who had the benefit of incumbency grabbed on to Donald Trump threats and presented themselves as the party who could be trusted because they were nothing like Donald Trump.
--:-- Althia Raj: Carney previously led the banks of Canada and England, and he likes to say he is a pragmatist, not a politician. Raj says he has tried to present himself as the candidate of unity, whereas Polyev considers himself the change candidate.
--:-- Althia Raj: And Carney has been successful at pulling otherwise conservative-leaning voters toward the centre. And because the threat seems to be on the economy, how to manage Canada's economy if we are no longer dependent on the Americans, he has the best CV that could guide Canada through this crisis.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Both parties are offering tough policies They each said they want to diversify energy supplies away from the U both want more money for defense and both have promised retaliatory tariffs and support for the industries that have been hit hardest by Trump's tariffs.
--:-- Althia Raj: Trump has a clear favorite candidate, and it's not who you might expect. He has praised Carney and attacked Poliev. But regardless of the shadow he has cast on these campaigns so far, Raj points out many of the challenges Canada's next prime minister will inherit are longstanding issues that predate Trump's presidency.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We don't have enough houses for the number of people that we have. We have the stress on social services. We are running structural deficits. I think there will also be hang-ups just in terms of political ideology, just like we see in the United States in terms of political division. We have a lot of Canadians who are not reading the same news anymore. They don't believe in the same set of facts. And that means that they don't believe that the same problems exist.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. Continuing in Canada, authorities in Vancouver say at least 11 people are dead after a man in an SUV rammed into a crowd Saturday night during the Filipino Lapu-Lapu Day Festival. Vancouver police ruled out terrorism and say the suspect, who is in custody, has a history of mental health issues.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Vancouver's interim police chief called it the, quote, darkest day in Vancouver's history. Pope Francis was laid to rest on Saturday, but some of the focus at the Vatican centered on President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who held war talks in the halls of St. Peter's Basilica just before the funeral started.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It was the first time the two leaders met face-to-face since a disastrous Oval Office meeting where Trump berated Zelensky in front of reporters in February. Trump and Zelensky both called the meeting productive. Afterward, Trump openly questioned whether Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to strike a peace deal with Ukraine and floated the idea of new sanctions against Russia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Secretary Rubio said Sunday on NBC this will be a critical week that will determine whether the U.S. remains in talks to end the war. Meanwhile, Russia carried out drone attacks and airstrikes on Ukraine just hours after Zelensky and Trump met.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, to European soccer. On Sunday, Liverpool captured its record-tying 20th English Premier League title. The season began with big doubts for the club as its longtime manager left. The team, however, was able to capture the league title convincingly with four matches left to play in the season.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, it was also a big day for Wrexham, who are now just one step away from the Premier League as the team secured its third straight promotion on Sunday. The Welsh club's celebrity owners, actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, are credited with breathing new life not only into the long-ailing club, but the city of Wrexham itself.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got an episode of our weekly interview show in conversation for you. My guest is Brian Goldstone, who writes about a growing group of people who are often overlooked in the homeless count. People who work a full-time job but can't afford stable housing. That's queued up for you to listen to next, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
