Thursday Afternoon News Updates: Strait Chaos — 4/23/26

Hi all, Ben here. It’s Thursday. Here are the latest updates. First, let’s start with the quick headlines:

• Trump orders the Navy to shoot Iranian boats near the Strait of Hormuz based on a minesweeping operation that doesn’t exist

• Trump fires Navy Secretary John Phelan, replaces him with Hung Cao, a man who jokes about KKK hoods and claims to be African American because he once lived in Africa

• Trump reposts a call to “kill” Iranians who don’t want a deal

• Trump then says he doesn’t need a deal

• Iran mocks Trump’s leadership, collects transit fees in the Strait, and refuses to meet with his negotiators

• Howard Lutnick admits only one person has been approved for the Gold Card visa program he promised to sell 200,000 of

• Eric Trump brags on television about his company landing a $24 million Pentagon contract during the war

• Democrats introduced another bill last night to end Trump’s Iran war — Republicans blocked it again

• The Warner Bros.-Paramount merger faces a California AG investigation, with “red flags everywhere”

• Fox News polling shows Democrats leading Republicans on the economy for the first time in at least 27 years

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