Hormuz Deadlock, Presidential Laugh Lines, Prediction Markets

0:01The U.S. tries again today to unwind the war in Iran with another delegation to Pakistan. It's unclear if Iran and the U.S. will even meet this time. The deadlock in the Middle East is still choking off supply chains worldwide. I'm Ayesha Rascoe. And I'm Scott Simon, and this is Up First from NPR News. The U.S. and Iran will both have representatives in Pakistan. What could bring them to the table? The prediction markets like Kaoshi and Pali Market have been nearly impossible to regulate. But a special forces soldier who placed a suspicious bet on a military operation may have finally crossed the line.

0:42And is there anything to laugh about in the media's relationship to President Trump? Tonight is the White House Correspondents Association dinner. So please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

1:24Thank you. multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. This is why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Support for NPR and the following message come from Washington Wise. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. Washington Wise from Charles Schwab is an original podcast that unpacks the stories making news and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Host Mike Townsend and his guests explore policy initiatives for retirement savings, taxes, trade, and more. Download the latest episode and follow at schwab.com slash Washington Wise or wherever you listen.

2:11This message comes from NPR sponsor Certified Financial Planners. Asking the right questions can greatly impact your future, especially when it comes to your finances. So if you're looking for a financial advisor you can trust, Certified financial planner professionals are committed to acting in your best interest. That's why it's got to be a CFP. Find your CFP professional at letsmakeaplan.org. A U.S. delegation is traveling to Pakistan today for a new round of talks about possible peace with Iran. That's as Iran's foreign minister is also in Pakistan, although Iran has denied that direct talks with the U.S.

2:52will take place. All of this occurs as a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon was extended, something Iran demanded in order for those talks to take place. We're joined now by NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in Beirut. Kat, thanks so much. Hey, good morning. What more can you tell us about the U.S.-Iran peace talks? Well, both the U.S. and Iran have representatives in Pakistan, which is a good start and a more promising sign than we've had recently. On the U.S. side, Special Envoy Steve Whitcoff is going, joined by President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqji, is also in Islamabad, but Iranian officials have made it clear they plan to meet only with Pakistani officials, not with the U.S.

3:35All of these meetings are happening after Trump unilaterally extended the temporary ceasefire with Iran earlier this week, hours before it was set to expire, without indicating a new expiration date. Iran has dismissed that extension as, quote, meaningless, saying that the continued U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports is a violation of the deal. And that standstill between the U.S. and Iran in and around the Strait of Hormuz has been at the center of the back and forth overtalks, hasn't it? Right. And neither side seems to be budging. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said yesterday that the U.S.

4:11will maintain the blockade around the Strait for, quote, as long as it takes. The U.S. says it's intercepting any ships coming to or from Iranian ports, more than 30 so far. That's as Iran has maintained its military control of the strait itself, keeping most commercial ships from passing through. So basically, most ships are stuck. And we're waiting to see if these indirect talks in Pakistan can possibly help unlock that situation. We note you're in Lebanon. President Trump recently announced a three-week extension of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. That's a part of this whole process, isn't it?

4:46Right, yeah. Hezbollah here in Lebanon is backed by Iran and largely answers to that state. Iran had said it wouldn't engage in any further talks with the U.S. unless a ceasefire here was in place. So it was crucial that this ceasefire get extended in order for the U.S.-Iran talks in Pakistan to keep moving forward. And Kat, you've recently reported from the south of Lebanon where most of the fighting has been taking place. What did you see? Yeah, you know, it is relatively calmer in the south now, but life is definitely not back to normal there for most people. The Israeli military is still occupying a large swath of Lebanese land along the border, which includes dozens of Lebanese villages and towns.

5:27So many people still can't return home. And destruction from Israeli air and drone strikes is really everywhere. Whole buildings toppled to the ground. It's important to point out that while diplomatically the ceasefire agreement is still in place, both Israel and Hezbollah are still acknowledging attacks almost daily. Israel's been carrying out airstrikes against what it says are Hezbollah targets. Just this week, an Israeli airstrike killed prominent Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil while she was reporting in the south, making her the eighth journalist killed by Israel in Lebanon since March.

5:59After that, Hezbollah says it fired rockets into northern Israel, all of which were intercepted by Israel. Many of the people I talked to in the South told me that they're worried that if talks between the U.S. and Iran fall through, the war here in Lebanon will almost certainly reignite in full. And Pierce Kat Lundsdorf in Beirut, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you.

6:29It's been quite a week in the strange world of prediction markets. Those are the sites like Kaushy and Polymarket where people bet on everything from the war in Iran to the weather in Paris. In fact, police in France are looking into whether someone tampered with a weather reading device at Charles de Gaulle Airport to win a Polymarket bet. Political candidates have been betting on their own campaigns and a special forces soldier was charged for allegedly using classified military information for a big payday on Polymarket. Bobby Allen has dived deep into this world for NPR. He joins us now to talk about what's coming next for prediction markets.

7:11Thanks for joining us. Good to be here. So we saw the first criminal charges this week ever filed in the U.S. over a prediction market bet. Is this a sign that there will be more to come or was this more of a one off? So the boosters of prediction markets and the CEO of Polymarket are saying, yes, that this U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who has now been indicted by the Justice Department for allegedly making$400 ,000 on these military secrets, that that happening shows that we're going to see more of this. But the truth of the matter is on Polymarket, there are suspiciously well-timed bets about things like military strikes, about world leaders being toppled, about what's going to happen in some international negotiation involving the Trump administration.

8:00And none of those have ever initiated any kind of real criminal investigation or charges coming down. And we've seen so many examples of suspected insider trading on these sites. How was this soldier the first one to be caught and charged by the Justice Department? Yeah, you know, it's a curious case and an interesting question because most polymarket traders are using cryptocurrency and hiding behind crypto wallets, which basically keeps their trades anonymous. Trying to figure out who's behind these polymarket accounts, it can be really hard. But in this instance, the soldier who made all this money used his personal email to open his polymarket account.

8:42And when I and others did stories saying, whoa, this trade looks really suspicious and kind of fishy, he contacted Polymarket and said, hey, I've been logged out of my account. Can you please shut it down? And then shortly after that, this is all according to the indictment, he changed the email address associated with that profile. So that's how they caught him. And so, like, just to set the record straight on this, how is this legal? Like, how is it legal to be betting on, like, you know, military actions or things of that nature? There are laws in place that say prediction markets cannot have any kind of bets on things like assassinations, on terrorism, on war.

9:31But we see these kinds of markets regularly on Polymarket. And that's because their most popular market operates overseas in Panama, kind of outside the reach of regulators. The U.S.-based prediction markets have more rules, but the Trump administration has taken a kind of anything-goes, hands-off approach. They say they are a cop on the beat, but for the most part, these platforms are policing themselves, and the laws that apply to, say, Koushi are not being applied to Polly Market. And so the long and short of it is they're kind of in this gray area, and it's being litigated all across the country.

10:08Well, talk to me more about that, because there has been a lot of pushback to Polymarket and Calci at the state level. What are those fights about? Yeah, there's more than two dozen lawsuits from state officials alleging that Polymarket and Calci are nothing other than unlicensed sports gambling operations. And remember, on a site like Calci, I mean, you're seeing billions and billions of dollars in bets every week, but like 80 percent of that is associated with sporting events, but they have found a workaround state regulations by being overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. So technically, if you ask Kalshi, they are not a sports betting app, but they are an app that provides event contracts on future events, right?

10:53And so what all of these state-level battles are over is this question. Who should have jurisdiction over this industry, the federal government or states? And it's really unsettled right now. That's NPR's Bobby Allen. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Asha.

11:17President Trump is set to attend the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner in Washington, D.C. tonight. the glitzy gathering is historically a chance for presidents and the press who cover them to come together to celebrate the First Amendment and show they can take a joke. But these are not normal times. And for this president denigrating and undermining a free and independent press, the standard operating procedure. We're joined now by NPR senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, who is a past president of the WHCA. Tam, thanks for being with us. You're welcome. You've been to this dinner a dozen times and watched a lot of presidential comedy routines.

11:59Which one stands out for you? You know, some of the best jokes from presidents are self-deprecating, like this one from George H.W. Bush in 1992. There's a lot of name calling out there. Candidates calling out terrible epithets like corrupt, liar, hypocrite, fascist, racist, incumbent. Incumbent turned out to be the biggest insult of them all. Bush lost in his bid for reelection that year. The thing with comedy is when you're president of the United States, it is really hard to deliver a roast without punching down. And if you do punch down, it's a bad look that can earn you some ooze or just plain uncomfortable silences in a ballroom full of Washington insiders.

12:46I've been to a few of these dinners myself, and at some point, the president usually strikes a serious note and talks about the importance and their respect for a free press. That's usually been as about predictable as the chicken entree. Yes, though often it's turf and turf. No presidents like their press coverage, and they grouse privately and sometimes publicly about how we're always focusing on the negative. And as reporters, no matter who occupies the White House, we are trying to expose the truth and ask hard questions on behalf of the American people. In his last speech at the WHCA dinner in 1988, President Ronald Reagan captured this pretty well.

13:27As my goodbye, I'm not going to stand up here and deliver one of those worn out sentimental homilies about the press and the presidency. Neither of us would believe it. But then he actually did just that. And President Biden in 2023 somehow found a way to combine a sentimental nod to the importance of a free press with some of that self-deprecating humor. I believe in the First Amendment, not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it. The dinner that year was right after Biden announced he was planning to run for re-election and his age was a huge issue, obviously. And he was trying to neutralize it with humor.

14:10This will actually be President Trump's first White House Correspondents Association dinner as president. He did notably attend once as a celebrity guest in 2011. I was there for that time. Were you? I remember that night. It's become kind of a political legend, hasn't it? It has. This was right around the time that Trump was going around demanding that President Obama release his long-form birth certificate. and at that dinner, Obama roundly mocked him for it. No one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter.

14:54Like, did we fake the moon landing?

15:00What really happened in Roswell? and where are Biggie and Tupac? Trump recently talked about that night during a phone interview with Fox News. I said, you know, I love this. I'm having a good time because every joke was about me and I sort of liked it. I can handle that stuff. He didn't look like he was having a good time, but he will certainly be the center of attention again tonight. As we said at the top, these are not normal times. This is a president who doesn't mention the press without first inserting the word fake. So what kind of presentation are people expecting? I think there's a lot of suspense about that.

15:41This is a dark time for the press, and this is a president coming to assert his dominance. It's like inviting the arsonist to your housewarming party. This president and his administration have undermined the press by punishing news organizations for their coverage decisions and punishing reporters who asked questions the president doesn't like. He has sued multiple news organizations and, of course, successfully defunded public broadcasting. At the same time, though, this president needs the press like he needs oxygen, and he routinely still takes calls from journalists. When I asked if President Trump plans to deliver comedy, Press Secretary Caroline Levitt told me, stay tuned.

16:22It will be great. Tam Rakeith, thanks so much for being with us. Have a good time. Thank you. And I'd also just like to thank C-SPAN's Howard Mortman for helping me find some of these great presidential moments.

16:36And that's up first for Saturday, April 25th, 2026. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Aisha Roscoe. Dave Mistich produced today's podcast with help from Martin Patience and Fernando Naro. Our editors were Diana Douglas, Miguel Macias, Megan Pratt, and Brett Neely. Here in the studio, our directors, Andy Craig and Elena Twork, and our technical director, to get technical about it, is Simon Laszlo Jansen. They've got engineering support from Jay Sizz, Stacey Abbott, and Zoe Van Genhoven. Shannon Rhodes is our senior supervising editor, our executive producer is E.B. Stone, and Jim Cain is our deputy managing editor.

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