Welcome back to TLDR's Daily Briefing for Friday 2nd May 2025. In today's episode, we cover England's local election results. the AFD's new classification, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the imminent Australian election. But first, Trump sacks his national security adviser. US President Donald Trump has fired his national security adviser Mike Waltz.
after he fell from favor among other administration officials and was implicated in the so-called Signalgate scandal. Waltz will not be entirely gone from Trump's administration though. as Trump announced on Truth Social that Waltz would be nominated to serve as US Ambassador to the UN, a position that needs Senate approval. Trump also said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would fill in as National Security Advisor on an interim basis. Watts' deputy, Alex Wong, will also be leaving his post.
Walter's position became particularly precarious after he accidentally added the editor of the Atlantic magazine into a Signal group chat in which he and other officials, including Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and US Vice President J.D. Vance, discussed sensitive information related to US airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. But adding to Waltz's precarity is the fact that he and his team increasingly became the focus of individuals in Trump's MAGA movement.
who considered him too much of a neoconservative and foreign policy hawk. and not sufficiently aligned with the MAGA agenda. For example, far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer claimed credit for the ousting of Waltz and his staff, stating that he had been loomered.
At a meeting with Trump a month ago, Luma pushed for the sacking of several National Security Council staffers who she claimed were not sufficiently loyal. It remains to be seen if Trump appoints a new national security adviser who's viewed as more of a loyalist. But for now, the rapid fall of Mike Waltz has echoes of Trump's first term, when he cycled through four different national security advisors in four years.
You're listening to TLDR's Daily Briefing. If you want more explainers on what's happening in the world, then you should check out TLDR's other channels. Today, we released a video explaining the UK's local election results. You can find it linked in the description or show notes for this episode, or by searching for TLDR on YouTube on Nebula.
With results still filtering in from England's local elections, which were held yesterday, it looks like the hard-right Reform UK party is set to continue its winning streak, with strong results expected for the centrist Liberal Democrat. and the Greens also hoping to make gains. Meanwhile, early results indicate that the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, have suffered heavy losses. As expected, reform performed well across all three kinds of elections.
winning its first mayoralty in Greater Lincolnshire with a former Conservative MP, Andrea Jenkins, standing as Reform's victorious candidate. Labour narrowly held on to three mayoralties in North Tyneside, Doncaster and the West of England, with reform finishing only a few points behind. Regarding councils, as of 3pm on Friday, reform had won 418 council seats. compared to the Conservatives 167, the Lib Dems 167, Labour's 43, the Greens 37, and 54 won by independents.
with the majority of councils still to be declared throughout the afternoon. Reacting to the results so far, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer said they have been disappointing, while Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch says she is determined to win back the trust of the public.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, meanwhile, said his party is now the opposition party to this Labour government. If you want more explanation of what the early results mean for UK politics, you can head to the TLDR UK channel and watch the full video we released this morning.
Germany's domestic intelligence agency has officially classed the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AFD, party as a proven right-wing extremist organization, the most serious ruling yet on the AFD's democratic legitimacy. The decision, announced on Friday by Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,
means the agency now has definitive evidence that the AFD works against Germany's democratic system. According to Germany's public broadcaster ARD, A more than 1,000-page internal report by the agency provides evidence relating to the AFD's violations of human dignity, the rule of law, and democratic principles. It follows several previous rulings between February 2021 and March 2024.
classifying the party as a suspected extremist organisation. The new formal classification allows German authorities to intensify surveillance of the AFD under judicial oversight, including through undercover informants and monitoring communications. It also increases pressure on Germany's other parties to rule out working with the AFD at any level of government.
The Red Cross has warned that their humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse, two months after Israel halted aid deliveries to the territory on 2 March. In a statement published on Friday, the organisation said, Without an immediate resumption of aid deliveries, the International Committee of the Red Cross will not have access to food, medicines and life-saving supplies needed to sustain many of its programmes in Gaza.
It added, if the blockage continues, programs such as the ICRC Common Kitchens will only be able to operate for a few more weeks. And finally, tomorrow, on Saturday the 3rd of May, Australians will go to vote in the 2025 federal election, which polls suggest will be won by the incumbent centre-left Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
For context, until only a couple of months ago, the centre-right Liberal National Coalition was polling ahead of Labour, and looked on track for a victory at the 2025 election. But from a peak of around 50% support in mid-January, the coalition has experienced a steep decline, while Labour has surged. We'll be releasing a full video on the TLDR Global channel after the results, so be sure to keep an eye out for that.
That's all for today. It's the early Maybank holiday in the UK next week, so we'll be back with more Daily Briefing on Tuesday. In the meantime, you can check out the latest episode of our UK Politics podcast Armageddon. You can find the link in the podcast description. This was a TLDR News production, hosted by Georgina Finley, written by Georgina Finley and Rory Taylor, and produced by Scarlet Wachon. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back again on Tuesday.