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What recent demands has President Trump made regarding the Strait of Hormuz?
Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Janine Hurst. Several U.S. allies have declined President Trump's continued demands to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz, which is largely closed off. Twenty percent of the world's oil and liquefied gas flows through that strait. Iran says it's open to all ships, except those from the U.S. and Israel.
Empire's Franco Ordonez says Trump launched the war in Iran without building a coalition with U.S. allies. Clearly, the U.S. made a choice to go at this alone with Israel. And as with so many other global issues, Trump moved forward with little to no consultation with European allies.
And those allies were very surprised and have since kind of taken this defensive posture, both tactically and politically. So I think you do have to wonder if the U.S. had consulted with these allies before, would such an ask that he's making now be different? Maybe he never would have gotten a buy-in, but if he did, I think you can say it could be different. And Piers Franco, Ordonez reporting.
President Trump signed an executive order tasking the federal government with rooting out fraud on the state and national level. And Piers Deepa Shivaram reports, Trump says it's not an issue specific to blue states, but so far, the administration has focused fraud allegations on states led by Democrats.
The White House has cited Minnesota, New York, and California as examples of places with fraud, though the president says this isn't an effort that's divided by party. This is not a Republican-Democrat thing. This is wherever it's taking place. It seems that it's usually in blue states. If it's in a red state, we're going there too.
Trump claims that cutting down on fraud will help balance the federal budget. He's tasked Vice President J.D. Vance with leading the effort. Deepa Shivaram, NPR News, the White House. America's democracy rating plunged by nearly 25 percent since President Trump's return to office, according to a leading report on global democracy that's out today. NPR's Frank Langfitt has more.
The report by the Wiedem Institute, which is based in Sweden, said the U.S. fell in its annual democracy ranking from 20th to 51st out of 179 countries. Wiedem scholars downgraded America based on everything from Trump's concentration of presidential power to his attacks on the media. Staffan Lindbergh is the Institute's founding director.
Under the Trump administration, democracy has been rolled back as much during just one year as it took Modi in India and Erdogan in Turkey 10 years to accomplish. Lindbergh is referring to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who have undermined democracy in their countries over time.
NPR reached out to the White House for comment, but is yet to hear back. Frank Lankford, NPR News. U.S. futures contracts are trading lower at this hour. Dow futures are down about 22 points. Nasdaq futures are down about 26 points. This is NPR.
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