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Transcript60 lines

[00:02]
A
The U.S. constitution says people born in the United States are citizens.
[00:07]
B
The Supreme Court will soon tell us if that right still stands.
[00:10]
A
I'm Ayesha Rascoe.
[00:11]
B
I'm Ada Peralta. And this is up first from NPR News. Hundreds of thousands of children are born to non citizen parents every year. Will the Supreme Court allow the president to revoke their birthright citizenship?
[00:25]
A
Also, prediction markets are burning up with people claiming fraud as votes are being counted in the election for mayor of Los Angeles Angeles. They're all pro Trump influencers and hundreds
[00:36]
B
of Mexican families whose loved ones have disappeared. Hope the World cup is a chance to have their stories heard.
[00:42]
A
Stay with us.
[00:51]
C
This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab with its original podcast on investing. It's hosted by Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist, and Colin Martin, head of fixed income research and strategy for the Schwab Schwab center for Financial Research. Each week, Liz Ann, Colin and their guests analyze economic developments and bring context to conversations around stocks, fixed income, the economy and more. Download the latest episode and subscribe@schwab.com oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:22]
D
This message comes from Progressive Insurance Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers have enjoyed Progressives name your price tool for years. Now, with the name your price tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law.
[01:51]
C
This message comes from Midi Health CEO Joanna Strober shares why they started a virtual care platform for women in perimenopause and menopause. Our goal at MITI is to make sure that all women have access to really expert care starting around 35 and 40, making sure that they get access to all the things that can help them thrive as they're growing older. Midi Health committed to helping women in midlife with perimenopause and menopause care accessible via telehealth visits@joinmidi.com
[02:25]
A
the Supreme Court is entering the final weeks of this term, with decisions likely before the end of the month and near nearly two dozen cases, including some that may be blockbusters.
[02:37]
B
NPR Supreme Court correspondent Kerry Johnson joins us to give us the rundown. Hey, Kerry.
[02:42]
E
Hey, how are you?
[02:44]
B
Good. Kerry, the Supreme Court hasn't Yet ruled on birthright citizenship. What's at stake here?
[02:50]
E
The biggest case of this term, and the one that's most important to President Trump, involves immigration. Specifically that executive order he signed on day one after he returned to the White House. That order would strip the guarantee of birthright citizenship to bay babies born on American soil. For more than a century, people have understood the 14th amendment to ensure all persons born here are Americans. At oral argument, the Trump administration had a rough go of things. Even several of the conservative justices cast doubt on the administration's position, most notably Chief Justice John Roberts, who told the solicitor general, it's a new world, but it's the same Constitution.
[03:30]
B
And the president has another immigration policy under review at the Supreme Court. Temporary protect status for people who can't safely return to their home countries. What's happening with that case?
[03:41]
E
This dispute involves the decision to revoke that temporary protected status for thousands of people from Haiti and Syria. They'd been covered under a program designed for people from countries that have been torn apart by war or natural disasters. And they got protection from deportation and temporary work status here in the U.S. but the Homeland Security Department revoked that status, and the question is whether federal courts can review those decisions.
[04:07]
B
Kerry. President Trump famously says he likes to fire people. Now the justices are reviewing his power to fire government officials. Right.
[04:15]
E
There are two outstanding cases about the president's removal power. One involves a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission that Trump fired last year without giving a good cause. A federal law says the White House would need to show inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance. Ninety years ago, the Supreme Court backed that approach. It stood all this time. But there's now good reason to think that conservative majority on the court is likely to throw out that precedent and make clear the president has the power to fire these kinds of federal officers.
[04:47]
B
How far does that power extend? Tell us about the other case.
[04:53]
E
President Trump, of course, also tried to fire Lisa Cook, a governor on the Federal Reserve Board. The president cited some vague allegations related to mortgage loans before she got a job at the Fed. And during oral argument in the Lisa Cook case, several of the conservative justices seemed uneasy about whether Cook had a chance to contest those allegations, whether she had due process, and whether allowing Trump to fire her could really pierce the Fed's historic independence.
[05:21]
B
We did see one big ruling this week on some of the voting districts that are changing all over the country. Tell us what happened.
[05:29]
E
This week, the conservative majority sided with Republicans in Alabama to allow the state to use a map, a lower court had found to discriminate on the basis of race against black voters in that state. The decision came after voting had already begun in that midterm election, and it drew fierce criticism from civil rights groups and many election lawyers. They say the Supreme Court is putting a hand on the scale to favor the GOP and ignore damage to minority voters. Howard University law professor Sherrilyn Ifill. The high court is marching this country's civil rights laws off a cliff.
[06:05]
B
That's NPR's Kerry Johnson. Kerry, thanks for the update.
[06:09]
E
Thanks for having me.
[06:17]
B
Pro Trump social media influencers are claiming that last Tuesday's mayoral election in Los Angeles was riddled with fraud. There's no evidence of wrongdoing in that race, just slow vote counting. But influencers have been citing odds on prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket to reinforce their claims. Some of those same influencers are also being paid by those companies, companies for promotion and visibility.
[06:43]
A
Now Kalshee says it's asking some influencers to take their posts down. Joining us to explain all this is NPR's Ju Jaffe block. Welcome to the podcast.
[06:53]
F
Hi. Good morning.
[06:54]
A
So what's in these posts that cow she is asking influencers to take down?
[06:59]
F
Well, one of the influencers involved in this is a prominent Trump aligned commentator named David Freeman. He posts under the handle Gunther Eagleman. And here's a recent video of his.
[07:10]
B
Talk about California for a second. You know they're cheating. I know they're cheating. You know they're cheating. We all know they're cheating.
[07:16]
F
Now the thing is, Freeman also has a paid partnership with Kalshee. He boosts the company's social media posts to his audience of over a million followers. And those posts are basically intended to draw people to bet on the site. Freeman is rooting for former reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the LA mayors race and he shared a Kalshee post that showed Pratt's odds of making it to the runoff election have been falling. On the betting site, Freeman added commentary that said, is California cheating to get Spencer Pratt out? And that post had a paid partnership logo on it, which means he's getting paid for it by Kalshee. My colleague Bobby Allen asked Kalshee about that post and others like it from other influencers they have partnerships with. Kalshee got back to us on Friday afternoon and told us they were asking Freeman and other influencers who have made similar posts to take them down because they violated their policies.
[08:13]
A
Kalshee's rival site is Polymarket. What do we know about how they are handling posts like these.
[08:20]
F
We never heard back from polymarket, which operates mostly offshore and is less regulated. But there are a number of influencers with polymarket partnerships who are also sowing doubt about the LA mayoral election while promoting polymarket. And those posts are still up. And, you know, and I should say there's not been evidence of misconduct in this election, but one kind of allegation we're seeing is people pointing to changes in betting market odds on prediction sites to try and suggest those fluctuations. And those graphs are some kind of evidence of something suspicious when they just reflect betting behavior.
[08:56]
A
President Trump has also made unfounded fraud allegations about California's election, focused in on how long it's taking to count the votes. Why is the vote count so slow in California?
[09:09]
F
Well, yeah, here in California, everyone gets a mailed ballot. And this election, a lot of people held onto their ballots until the last day. And the process for verifying those vote by mail ballots take longer than those cast in person. Also, historically, the ballots that get counted later in the process skew more democratic. And that's been a source for conspiracy theories for years now. But those kinds of explanations rarely get the same kind of attention online as out allegations of fraud. You know, and there's also an extra layer of potential confusion when it comes to posts about races on prediction markets, because these posts announced that a candidate's odds have fallen to 8% or surged to 72%. And they're talking about the betting market odds of whether someone will win or lose, not what the actual ballot count says. But not everyone is understanding that.
[10:01]
A
Obviously we have midterm elections where control of Congress is coming up in a few months. What does this tell us about how those elections might be contested?
[10:12]
F
It's not looking great. I spoke with Stephen Richer, who was the Maricopa County Recorder in Arizona in the aftermath of the 2020 election and dealt with a lot of false claims about election fraud that cycle. He's very worried about what the LA election means for the rest of the year.
[10:28]
D
I think we're going to get punched
[10:29]
B
in the face so badly on election denialism in November.
[10:34]
F
He said the election denial movement has been able to normalize itself in recent years. And one sign of that could even be that these predict market sites are so far happy to partner with influencers whose brands have been tied to trying to delegitimize elections that were not favorable to Trump.
[10:51]
A
That's NPR's Jude Joffe block. Jude, thank you so much for joining us.
[10:55]
F
Thank you.
[11:03]
A
The city of Guadalajara in Mexico will soon host four of the World cup games. And aider you report from Mexico, so tell us all about it.
[11:14]
B
You know, this is a country that loves its football, so hosting the World cup is cause for celebration. But it also, it comes at a complicated moment. Mexico is in the middle of a vicious drug war that's left tens of thousands of people disappeared.
[11:30]
A
I mean, I'm sure that the government would probably hope that people would just focus on sports, but what about the people who are living through this drug war?
[11:42]
B
NPR producer Fernando Narro and I went to Guadalajara, which is the capital of one of the most violent states, to talk to them. The families of the missing gather in the shadow of the golden spires of Guadalajara's Metropolitan Cathedral. On one side, workers put the finishing touches on a massive TV screen in the middle of FIFA's fan zone. On the other, the bells announce a mass. And in the middle of the screen square, the families begin their ritual. The most important thing is that their faces are visible, Ruth Alejandrina says. The families shuffle hundreds of posters with pictures, mostly of young men, but also women and kids, who are among the more than 130,000 Mexicans who are reported missing. Alejandrina warns, paste the pictures only on the ballerina. If someone screams at you, don't pay attention. It's people without a conscience. They grab paintbrushes and buckets full of glue, and they fan out onto the street. They do this every week because the government removes the posters, sometimes the day after they put them up. Hector Flores moves with intensity. Visibility bothers governments, he says. Five years ago, his son Danny was picked up by local authorities, and he hasn't heard from him since. The government doesn't want tourists or people out shopping to see the reality. The reality is that Flores never stops thinking about his son, who was 19 the day he disappeared. Every week, he puts up posters. Nearly every week, he picks up a shovel and digs through fields trying to find him. We say the families of the disappeared die every night, only to be reborn every morning. And we suffer, or the worst kind of torture, which is hope. It's not wrong to celebrate the World cup, he says. It's not wrong to cheer on your national team. What is wrong, he says, is to forget. What's wrong is to stop searching, to stop naming the people we miss. But as he moves from bollard to bollard, papering the city with the faces of the disappeared, the world around him keeps spinning. The construction crew puts up a bright pink stage. A group of young women practice Shakira's latest dance moves. And as the street musicians begin their set, the families of the missing play a pickup game of football. For as long as anyone remembers, football in Mexico has had mystical powers. The great Mexican soccer scribe Juan Vioro once wrote that football is a profession that authorizes the use of magic. Andres Fabregas, an anthropologist who studies football, says football can do great things. He remembers when the southern state of Chiapas got a football team. It came after an armed rebellion by the Zapatistas, at a moment when that part of the country felt left behind. Their first game was against the Chivas of Guadalajara, Mexico's de facto national team. People faced a major dilemma, and they solved it by cheering for both teams. As soccer gods would have it, the match ended up tied. People were so happy. Both the national and the local identity had won, and the local soccer team took on a greater meaning as a symbol of reunification. Like others, Darwin Franco, a journalist in Guadalajara, says he also believes in the magic of football. But things have changed. With prices so high, FIFA has made tickets to the stadium unaffordable. A tight security perimeter keeps most people away. The fan fest the government built in downtown Guadalajara, he says, has used up nine times more money than what they spend yearly looking for the disappeared. The government, he says, has bet on a lie instead of reality. And the biggest affront, he says, is that the government has never acknowledged there's a crisis. I meet Leticia Ramirez at a neighborhood a stone's throw from Guadalajara International Airport. Leticia is part of a collective of mothers who searches for their missing children. A few weeks ago, her group received an anonymous tip that there was a mass grave in the patio of an abandoned house less than two miles from the airport, where most soccer fans will fly into. They dug and found human remains, and that's when they turned the scene over to authority. So far, she explains, they have found 60 bags full of remains, mostly extremities. This is remarkably common in Mexico. By the government's own accounting, in the past eight years, there have been 242 clandestine graves found in the state of Jalisco alone. Human bodies are dismembered and then buried in graves as deep as 10ft. This grave was in the middle of a residential neighborhood with lots of traffic, with lots of life. This happens because people don't say anything and because the police don't do their job. As we talk, a truck full of cadaver dogs arrives, and the dicia says goodbye. She crosses the police line to supervise, to make sure authorities count all of the dead. We walk down a hill across a ravine to a little farm just below the mass grave. From there, we can see investigators working the scene. But here things feel oddly normal. Jorge Luis Reyes sells pajaretes, a traditional breakfast drink made with raw milk and moonshine. You want to try it? Reyes asks. He pours a little agave honey, a little instant coffee into a mug. He reaches under a goat and squeezes its milk right into the mug. I take a drink. It's warm and sweet and a little bitter. I ask him, did you know about the mass grave? He bought this place 15 years ago, but he would come and go. Then a memory surfaces. Two and a half years ago, he said, they found a head. They reported it, but that was that. Sometimes, he says, you think about what's happening and you can't explain why or how. It's like we have a veil over our eyes, he says, and we don't realize what's right in front of us. We're full of distractions, he says. And this week, there's one more FIFA's World Cup.
[20:03]
A
We've been listening to Ada Peralta's reporting from Guadalajara, the state of Mexico, Mexico that will soon host four games of the World Cup. You visited there, Ada, earlier this week with NPR producer Fernando Onaro.
[20:17]
B
Yep. And that's up first for Saturday, June 6, 2026. I'm Ader Peralta.
[20:22]
A
I'm Aisha Roscoe. Dave Misch produced today's podcast with help from Gabe o'. Connor.
[20:27]
B
Our editor is Diana Douglas, assisted by Anna Yukonanov, Brett Neely and Tara Neal.
[20:32]
A
In the control room today is our director, Andy Craig, and our technical director, David Greenberg, with engineering support from Zoe Vankenhoven, Jay Siz and Simon Laszlo Jansen.
[20:44]
B
Shannon Rhodes is our senior supervising editor. Our executive producer is Evie Stone. Jim Cain is our deputy managing editor. Jim, we were so lucky to have you. We miss you already. But on to the next big adventure.
[20:58]
A
Jim, you have been a steady hand for us on the weekend, and we're just gonna miss you so much, you know. So best of luck to you. But it's a big loss for us. Tomorrow on the Sunday story, teams and fans hoping to attend the World cup are getting dragged into the geopolitics of Trump's America.
[21:18]
B
Thanks for joining us in the podcast feed. We've got so much more for you on the radio.
[21:22]
A
To find your local NPR station, just go to stations.npr.org.
[21:37]
C
This message comes From Takeoff by IXL For 25 years, IXL has been listening to educators describe the same challenge with traditional textbooks. They can't meet each student where they are. That's why IXL created TakeOff, a K through 5 core math curriculum that continuously differentiates learning for every student. The curriculum is built on a digital platform with lesson plans, adaptive practice assessments, and real time insights. Learn more at takeoff by IXL.com this
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[22:35]
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Com.
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Zip.

Summary6 min read

NPR Up First – Podcast Summary

Episode: Supreme Court, California Elections, The Missing in Mexico
Date: June 6, 2026
Hosts: Ayesha Rascoe, Ada Peralta
Length: Approx. 20 minutes (excluding ads and credits)

Overview

This episode covers three major stories shaping the news:

Looming Supreme Court decisions on birthright citizenship and immigration powers
Conspiracy theories and influencer manipulation in the Los Angeles mayoral election
Mexico’s World Cup preparations unfolding against a backdrop of families searching for missing loved ones amid the ongoing drug war

Comprehensive reporting and expert guests shed light on urgent issues of law, democracy, and justice, both in the U.S. and Mexico.

1. Supreme Court Prepares for Historic Immigration and Power Rulings

Guest: Kerry Johnson, NPR Supreme Court correspondent
Segment Start: [02:25]

Key Points

The Supreme Court is approaching the end of its term with nearly two dozen major cases yet to be decided, several of which could be blockbusters.
The most consequential case relates to President Trump’s executive order aiming to revoke birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents—challenging a principle long held since the 14th Amendment.
- Quote: "For more than a century, people have understood the 14th amendment to ensure all persons born here are Americans." – Kerry Johnson [02:49]
- At oral arguments, several conservative justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, showed skepticism about overturning this right.
  Quote: “It's a new world, but it's the same Constitution.” – Chief Justice John Roberts (paraphrased by Kerry Johnson) [03:16]
Another major case addresses the revocation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people from countries devastated by war or disaster, such as Haiti and Syria, and whether these decisions are subject to judicial review. [03:40]
Trump’s power to remove government officials is also before the court, with two cases:
- The firing of an FTC commissioner without “good cause,” which challenges long-standing limitations on presidential removal power. [04:15]
- The attempted dismissal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, raising concerns about due process and the independence of the Fed. [04:52]
Recent ruling: the conservative majority allowed Alabama to use a congressional map found by lower courts to be discriminatory against Black voters, drawing criticism for harming minority representation.
- Quote: “The high court is marching this country's civil rights laws off a cliff.” – Sherrilyn Ifill [05:57]

Notable Quotes

"The president has the power to fire these kinds of federal officers." – Kerry Johnson [04:42]
“Visibility bothers governments.” – Hector Flores (referenced in later segment but thematically linked) [12:46]

2. Conspiracies and Influence: Election Denialism in LA's Mayoral Race

Guest: Jude Joffe-Block, NPR reporter
Segment Start: [06:17]

Key Points

Pro-Trump social media influencers, many paid by prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, are spreading baseless rumors about fraud in the Los Angeles mayoral election as vote counting drags on. [06:17]
- Video example:
  Quote: “You know they're cheating. I know they're cheating. You know they're cheating. We all know they're cheating.” – David Freeman, Trump-aligned commentator [07:10]
- Freeman and others used their large social media followings to promote betting market odds as evidence of wrongdoing.
Kalshi responded to NPR’s inquiries by asking paid influencers to remove posts that violated company policy. Rival Polymarket, headquartered offshore, has not commented and continues to host similar content. [08:12]
Betting market odds have been weaponized to stoke suspicion, even though odds simply reflect betting behavior, not voting tallies. [08:56]
The slower vote count in California is due to widespread mail-in ballots and standard verification processes—not fraud. Late-counted ballots typically favor Democrats, perpetuating unfounded conspiracy theories.
With upcoming midterms, election officials are bracing for intensified denialism.
- Quote: “I think we're going to get punched in the face so badly on election denialism in November.” – Stephen Richer, Maricopa County Recorder [10:27]
- The alliance of betting sites and influencers signals the normalization of efforts to delegitimize elections.

3. Mexico’s Missing: Families Fight for Justice as World Cup Arrives

Reporters: Ada Peralta (host), Fernando Narro (NPR producer)
Segment Start: [11:02]

Key Points

Guadalajara is preparing to host four World Cup matches, a major event for a country passionate about soccer.
The tournament arrives as Mexico faces a humanitarian catastrophe: more than 130,000 people are missing amid ongoing drug violence.
- Families of the missing gather weekly, posting photos of lost loved ones, risking harassment and confrontation.
- Quote: “The most important thing is that their faces are visible.” – Ruth Alejandrina, family member [11:52]
Authorities routinely remove these posters. Grieving families persevere, conducting their own searches when official efforts fail.
- Quote: “Visibility bothers governments.” – Hector Flores, father of a missing son [12:46]
- Flores: "We say the families of the disappeared die every night, only to be reborn every morning. And we suffer, or the worst kind of torture, which is hope." [13:32]
Journalist Darwin Franco highlights the contrast: Millions spent on World Cup festivities dwarf resources allocated to missing persons’ cases.
- Quote: “The fan fest the government built in downtown Guadalajara… has used up nine times more money than what they spend yearly looking for the disappeared.” [15:33]
Leticia Ramirez describes the grim discoveries: a mass grave near the airport, with 60 bags of remains found. This is only one of 242 clandestine graves in Jalisco in the past eight years. [16:36]
Everyday life and distraction continue around the horror.
- Jorge Luis Reyes, local farmer: “It's like we have a veil over our eyes, he says, and we don't realize what's right in front of us. We're full of distractions, he says. And this week, there's one more – FIFA's World Cup.” [19:44]

Memorable Moments & Timestamps

| Timestamp | Theme | Memorable Quotes/Moments | |:---------:|:---------|:-------------------------------------------------------| | 02:49 | Supreme Court | “For more than a century... 14th amendment... Americans.” – Kerry Johnson| | 03:16 | Supreme Court | “It's a new world, but it's the same Constitution.” – Chief Justice John Roberts (via Kerry Johnson)| | 05:57 | Supreme Court | “The high court is marching this country's civil rights laws off a cliff.” – Sherrilyn Ifill| | 07:10 | LA Election | “You know they're cheating. ... We all know they're cheating.” – David Freeman | | 10:27 | LA Election | “We're going to get punched in the face... on election denialism” – Stephen Richer| | 12:46 | Mexico Disappeared | “Visibility bothers governments.” – Hector Flores | | 13:32 | Mexico Disappeared | “We suffer, or the worst kind of torture, which is hope.” – Hector Flores | | 15:33 | Mexico Disappeared | “...has used up nine times more money than what they spend yearly looking for the disappeared.” – Darwin Franco| | 19:44 | Mexico Disappeared | “It's like we have a veil over our eyes... What's right in front of us.” – Jorge Luis Reyes |

Tone & Style

Clear, urgent, empathetic, and investigative
The episode weaves together high-stakes legal analysis, political challenges to U.S. democracy, and deeply personal reporting from Mexican communities.

This summary provides the essential facts and standout narratives from today's Up First, capturing its careful blend of news, analysis, and human experience.

Loading summary

Transcript60 lines

[00:02]
A
The U.S. constitution says people born in the United States are citizens.
[00:07]
B
The Supreme Court will soon tell us if that right still stands.
[00:10]
A
I'm Ayesha Rascoe.
[00:11]
B
I'm Ada Peralta. And this is up first from NPR News. Hundreds of thousands of children are born to non citizen parents every year. Will the Supreme Court allow the president to revoke their birthright citizenship?
[00:25]
A
Also, prediction markets are burning up with people claiming fraud as votes are being counted in the election for mayor of Los Angeles Angeles. They're all pro Trump influencers and hundreds
[00:36]
B
of Mexican families whose loved ones have disappeared. Hope the World cup is a chance to have their stories heard.
[00:42]
A
Stay with us.
[00:51]
C
This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab with its original podcast on investing. It's hosted by Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist, and Colin Martin, head of fixed income research and strategy for the Schwab Schwab center for Financial Research. Each week, Liz Ann, Colin and their guests analyze economic developments and bring context to conversations around stocks, fixed income, the economy and more. Download the latest episode and subscribe@schwab.com oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:22]
D
This message comes from Progressive Insurance Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why drivers have enjoyed Progressives name your price tool for years. Now, with the name your price tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law.
[01:51]
C
This message comes from Midi Health CEO Joanna Strober shares why they started a virtual care platform for women in perimenopause and menopause. Our goal at MITI is to make sure that all women have access to really expert care starting around 35 and 40, making sure that they get access to all the things that can help them thrive as they're growing older. Midi Health committed to helping women in midlife with perimenopause and menopause care accessible via telehealth visits@joinmidi.com
[02:25]
A
the Supreme Court is entering the final weeks of this term, with decisions likely before the end of the month and near nearly two dozen cases, including some that may be blockbusters.
[02:37]
B
NPR Supreme Court correspondent Kerry Johnson joins us to give us the rundown. Hey, Kerry.
[02:42]
E
Hey, how are you?
[02:44]
B
Good. Kerry, the Supreme Court hasn't Yet ruled on birthright citizenship. What's at stake here?
[02:50]
E
The biggest case of this term, and the one that's most important to President Trump, involves immigration. Specifically that executive order he signed on day one after he returned to the White House. That order would strip the guarantee of birthright citizenship to bay babies born on American soil. For more than a century, people have understood the 14th amendment to ensure all persons born here are Americans. At oral argument, the Trump administration had a rough go of things. Even several of the conservative justices cast doubt on the administration's position, most notably Chief Justice John Roberts, who told the solicitor general, it's a new world, but it's the same Constitution.
[03:30]
B
And the president has another immigration policy under review at the Supreme Court. Temporary protect status for people who can't safely return to their home countries. What's happening with that case?
[03:41]
E
This dispute involves the decision to revoke that temporary protected status for thousands of people from Haiti and Syria. They'd been covered under a program designed for people from countries that have been torn apart by war or natural disasters. And they got protection from deportation and temporary work status here in the U.S. but the Homeland Security Department revoked that status, and the question is whether federal courts can review those decisions.
[04:07]
B
Kerry. President Trump famously says he likes to fire people. Now the justices are reviewing his power to fire government officials. Right.
[04:15]
E
There are two outstanding cases about the president's removal power. One involves a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission that Trump fired last year without giving a good cause. A federal law says the White House would need to show inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance. Ninety years ago, the Supreme Court backed that approach. It stood all this time. But there's now good reason to think that conservative majority on the court is likely to throw out that precedent and make clear the president has the power to fire these kinds of federal officers.
[04:47]
B
How far does that power extend? Tell us about the other case.
[04:53]
E
President Trump, of course, also tried to fire Lisa Cook, a governor on the Federal Reserve Board. The president cited some vague allegations related to mortgage loans before she got a job at the Fed. And during oral argument in the Lisa Cook case, several of the conservative justices seemed uneasy about whether Cook had a chance to contest those allegations, whether she had due process, and whether allowing Trump to fire her could really pierce the Fed's historic independence.
[05:21]
B
We did see one big ruling this week on some of the voting districts that are changing all over the country. Tell us what happened.
[05:29]
E
This week, the conservative majority sided with Republicans in Alabama to allow the state to use a map, a lower court had found to discriminate on the basis of race against black voters in that state. The decision came after voting had already begun in that midterm election, and it drew fierce criticism from civil rights groups and many election lawyers. They say the Supreme Court is putting a hand on the scale to favor the GOP and ignore damage to minority voters. Howard University law professor Sherrilyn Ifill. The high court is marching this country's civil rights laws off a cliff.
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That's NPR's Kerry Johnson. Kerry, thanks for the update.
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Thanks for having me.
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Pro Trump social media influencers are claiming that last Tuesday's mayoral election in Los Angeles was riddled with fraud. There's no evidence of wrongdoing in that race, just slow vote counting. But influencers have been citing odds on prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket to reinforce their claims. Some of those same influencers are also being paid by those companies, companies for promotion and visibility.
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Now Kalshee says it's asking some influencers to take their posts down. Joining us to explain all this is NPR's Ju Jaffe block. Welcome to the podcast.
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Hi. Good morning.
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So what's in these posts that cow she is asking influencers to take down?
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Well, one of the influencers involved in this is a prominent Trump aligned commentator named David Freeman. He posts under the handle Gunther Eagleman. And here's a recent video of his.
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Talk about California for a second. You know they're cheating. I know they're cheating. You know they're cheating. We all know they're cheating.
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Now the thing is, Freeman also has a paid partnership with Kalshee. He boosts the company's social media posts to his audience of over a million followers. And those posts are basically intended to draw people to bet on the site. Freeman is rooting for former reality TV star Spencer Pratt in the LA mayors race and he shared a Kalshee post that showed Pratt's odds of making it to the runoff election have been falling. On the betting site, Freeman added commentary that said, is California cheating to get Spencer Pratt out? And that post had a paid partnership logo on it, which means he's getting paid for it by Kalshee. My colleague Bobby Allen asked Kalshee about that post and others like it from other influencers they have partnerships with. Kalshee got back to us on Friday afternoon and told us they were asking Freeman and other influencers who have made similar posts to take them down because they violated their policies.
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Kalshee's rival site is Polymarket. What do we know about how they are handling posts like these.
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We never heard back from polymarket, which operates mostly offshore and is less regulated. But there are a number of influencers with polymarket partnerships who are also sowing doubt about the LA mayoral election while promoting polymarket. And those posts are still up. And, you know, and I should say there's not been evidence of misconduct in this election, but one kind of allegation we're seeing is people pointing to changes in betting market odds on prediction sites to try and suggest those fluctuations. And those graphs are some kind of evidence of something suspicious when they just reflect betting behavior.
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President Trump has also made unfounded fraud allegations about California's election, focused in on how long it's taking to count the votes. Why is the vote count so slow in California?
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Well, yeah, here in California, everyone gets a mailed ballot. And this election, a lot of people held onto their ballots until the last day. And the process for verifying those vote by mail ballots take longer than those cast in person. Also, historically, the ballots that get counted later in the process skew more democratic. And that's been a source for conspiracy theories for years now. But those kinds of explanations rarely get the same kind of attention online as out allegations of fraud. You know, and there's also an extra layer of potential confusion when it comes to posts about races on prediction markets, because these posts announced that a candidate's odds have fallen to 8% or surged to 72%. And they're talking about the betting market odds of whether someone will win or lose, not what the actual ballot count says. But not everyone is understanding that.
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Obviously we have midterm elections where control of Congress is coming up in a few months. What does this tell us about how those elections might be contested?
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It's not looking great. I spoke with Stephen Richer, who was the Maricopa County Recorder in Arizona in the aftermath of the 2020 election and dealt with a lot of false claims about election fraud that cycle. He's very worried about what the LA election means for the rest of the year.
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I think we're going to get punched
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in the face so badly on election denialism in November.
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He said the election denial movement has been able to normalize itself in recent years. And one sign of that could even be that these predict market sites are so far happy to partner with influencers whose brands have been tied to trying to delegitimize elections that were not favorable to Trump.
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That's NPR's Jude Joffe block. Jude, thank you so much for joining us.
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Thank you.
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The city of Guadalajara in Mexico will soon host four of the World cup games. And aider you report from Mexico, so tell us all about it.
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You know, this is a country that loves its football, so hosting the World cup is cause for celebration. But it also, it comes at a complicated moment. Mexico is in the middle of a vicious drug war that's left tens of thousands of people disappeared.
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I mean, I'm sure that the government would probably hope that people would just focus on sports, but what about the people who are living through this drug war?
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NPR producer Fernando Narro and I went to Guadalajara, which is the capital of one of the most violent states, to talk to them. The families of the missing gather in the shadow of the golden spires of Guadalajara's Metropolitan Cathedral. On one side, workers put the finishing touches on a massive TV screen in the middle of FIFA's fan zone. On the other, the bells announce a mass. And in the middle of the screen square, the families begin their ritual. The most important thing is that their faces are visible, Ruth Alejandrina says. The families shuffle hundreds of posters with pictures, mostly of young men, but also women and kids, who are among the more than 130,000 Mexicans who are reported missing. Alejandrina warns, paste the pictures only on the ballerina. If someone screams at you, don't pay attention. It's people without a conscience. They grab paintbrushes and buckets full of glue, and they fan out onto the street. They do this every week because the government removes the posters, sometimes the day after they put them up. Hector Flores moves with intensity. Visibility bothers governments, he says. Five years ago, his son Danny was picked up by local authorities, and he hasn't heard from him since. The government doesn't want tourists or people out shopping to see the reality. The reality is that Flores never stops thinking about his son, who was 19 the day he disappeared. Every week, he puts up posters. Nearly every week, he picks up a shovel and digs through fields trying to find him. We say the families of the disappeared die every night, only to be reborn every morning. And we suffer, or the worst kind of torture, which is hope. It's not wrong to celebrate the World cup, he says. It's not wrong to cheer on your national team. What is wrong, he says, is to forget. What's wrong is to stop searching, to stop naming the people we miss. But as he moves from bollard to bollard, papering the city with the faces of the disappeared, the world around him keeps spinning. The construction crew puts up a bright pink stage. A group of young women practice Shakira's latest dance moves. And as the street musicians begin their set, the families of the missing play a pickup game of football. For as long as anyone remembers, football in Mexico has had mystical powers. The great Mexican soccer scribe Juan Vioro once wrote that football is a profession that authorizes the use of magic. Andres Fabregas, an anthropologist who studies football, says football can do great things. He remembers when the southern state of Chiapas got a football team. It came after an armed rebellion by the Zapatistas, at a moment when that part of the country felt left behind. Their first game was against the Chivas of Guadalajara, Mexico's de facto national team. People faced a major dilemma, and they solved it by cheering for both teams. As soccer gods would have it, the match ended up tied. People were so happy. Both the national and the local identity had won, and the local soccer team took on a greater meaning as a symbol of reunification. Like others, Darwin Franco, a journalist in Guadalajara, says he also believes in the magic of football. But things have changed. With prices so high, FIFA has made tickets to the stadium unaffordable. A tight security perimeter keeps most people away. The fan fest the government built in downtown Guadalajara, he says, has used up nine times more money than what they spend yearly looking for the disappeared. The government, he says, has bet on a lie instead of reality. And the biggest affront, he says, is that the government has never acknowledged there's a crisis. I meet Leticia Ramirez at a neighborhood a stone's throw from Guadalajara International Airport. Leticia is part of a collective of mothers who searches for their missing children. A few weeks ago, her group received an anonymous tip that there was a mass grave in the patio of an abandoned house less than two miles from the airport, where most soccer fans will fly into. They dug and found human remains, and that's when they turned the scene over to authority. So far, she explains, they have found 60 bags full of remains, mostly extremities. This is remarkably common in Mexico. By the government's own accounting, in the past eight years, there have been 242 clandestine graves found in the state of Jalisco alone. Human bodies are dismembered and then buried in graves as deep as 10ft. This grave was in the middle of a residential neighborhood with lots of traffic, with lots of life. This happens because people don't say anything and because the police don't do their job. As we talk, a truck full of cadaver dogs arrives, and the dicia says goodbye. She crosses the police line to supervise, to make sure authorities count all of the dead. We walk down a hill across a ravine to a little farm just below the mass grave. From there, we can see investigators working the scene. But here things feel oddly normal. Jorge Luis Reyes sells pajaretes, a traditional breakfast drink made with raw milk and moonshine. You want to try it? Reyes asks. He pours a little agave honey, a little instant coffee into a mug. He reaches under a goat and squeezes its milk right into the mug. I take a drink. It's warm and sweet and a little bitter. I ask him, did you know about the mass grave? He bought this place 15 years ago, but he would come and go. Then a memory surfaces. Two and a half years ago, he said, they found a head. They reported it, but that was that. Sometimes, he says, you think about what's happening and you can't explain why or how. It's like we have a veil over our eyes, he says, and we don't realize what's right in front of us. We're full of distractions, he says. And this week, there's one more FIFA's World Cup.
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We've been listening to Ada Peralta's reporting from Guadalajara, the state of Mexico, Mexico that will soon host four games of the World Cup. You visited there, Ada, earlier this week with NPR producer Fernando Onaro.
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Yep. And that's up first for Saturday, June 6, 2026. I'm Ader Peralta.
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I'm Aisha Roscoe. Dave Misch produced today's podcast with help from Gabe o'. Connor.
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Our editor is Diana Douglas, assisted by Anna Yukonanov, Brett Neely and Tara Neal.
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In the control room today is our director, Andy Craig, and our technical director, David Greenberg, with engineering support from Zoe Vankenhoven, Jay Siz and Simon Laszlo Jansen.
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Shannon Rhodes is our senior supervising editor. Our executive producer is Evie Stone. Jim Cain is our deputy managing editor. Jim, we were so lucky to have you. We miss you already. But on to the next big adventure.
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Jim, you have been a steady hand for us on the weekend, and we're just gonna miss you so much, you know. So best of luck to you. But it's a big loss for us. Tomorrow on the Sunday story, teams and fans hoping to attend the World cup are getting dragged into the geopolitics of Trump's America.
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Thanks for joining us in the podcast feed. We've got so much more for you on the radio.
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To find your local NPR station, just go to stations.npr.org.
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