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The president backed a right-wing candidate as he announced a pardon for former President Juan Orlando Hernández—despite his involvement with drug trafficking, which Trump claims he's fighting in Latin America.
The US Congressional Progressive Caucus on Friday accused President Donald Trump of "flagrantly interfering" in Honduras' upcoming presidential election after Trump announced his endorsement of right-wing candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura and repeated threats he's made previously ahead of other electoral contests in which he sought to secure a conservative win.
On the social media platform X, Trump warned that only a victory for former Tegucigalpa Mayor Asfura and the National Party in Sunday's election will allow Honduras and the US to "fight the Narcocommunists, and bring needed aid to the people" of the Central American country.
He accused Asfura's opponents—former finance and defense minister Rixi Moncada of the left-wing Liberty and Refoundation (Libre) Party, which is now in power, and sportscaster Salvador Nasralla of the centrist Liberal Party—of being communists and said Nasralla is running as a spoiler in order to split the vote and weaken Asfura. He added that a loss for the right-wing candidate would allow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro "and his Narcoterrorists [to] take over another country like they have taken over Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela."
The president also wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, that "if [Asfura] doesn't win, the US will not be throwing good money after bad," repeating a comment he made during New York City's mayoral election in which he urged voters to reject progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani or risk losing federal aid for the city. Trump also offered Argentina a $40 billion bailout if voters elected his ally, Javier Milei, earlier this year.
Under President Xiomara Castro, the Libre Party's government has invested in hospitals and education, and has made strides in halting the privatization of the country's electricity system, Drop Site News reported. The poverty rate has also been reduced by about 13% since Castro took office in 2021, although, as the outlet reported, some rights advocates have criticized Castro's government for keeping "many of her predecessor’s militarized policies in place, despite her commitment to implement a more community-minded strategy."
Trump added in his social media post that he was issuing a pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who represented the National Party and is currently serving a 45-year prison sentence in the US after being convicted of working with drug traffickers who paid bribes to ensure more than 400 tons of cocaine were sent to the US. The pardon was announced as Trump continues his threats against Venezuela, which he has accused of trafficking drugs to the US.
CPC Deputy Chair Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Whip Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) called Trump's "smearing" of Asfura's opponents "completely unacceptable," and noted that the president has been joined by other congressional Republicans in making "wild, unsubstantiated allegations" regarding Honduras' election—including Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), who voiced "support for a military coup."
Salazar said recently that "16 years ago, the military saved its country from communism and today, they need to do the same thing," referring to the US-backed overthrow of democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya.
“These Cold War-era threats and blatant interventions create hostile conditions for free and fair elections and must stop immediately," said Omar and García. "We also cannot tolerate premature declarations by prominent US politicians regarding the election results before ballots are fully counted. Attempts to delegitimize the vote based on who wins could be disastrous in light of the harmful history of US interference in modern Honduran politics."
The two progressive leaders were echoing concerns brought up by Honduran Vice Foreign Minister Gerardo Torres, who spoke at a gathering of left-wing leaders on Thursday in Tegucigalpa.
Torres warned that the Electoral Council could claim Nasry is winning "with an irreversible trend" before the actual winner of the wide-open race is clear on Sunday.
"Even Trump could congratulate him—and that’s when real trouble will erupt in this country,” said Torres.
The chaos that could result could lead election officials to "nullify the elections and hold new ones in six months, leaving Libre weakened and allowing the right to win," reported El País. Torres posited that this is the National Party's "strategy."
“The right wing cannot win on Sunday; that needs to be clear and repeated ad nauseam,” Torres said, urging advocates to promote Moncada's candidacy on social media and help mobilize voters to get to the polls early.
Omar and García noted that after Honduras' 2017 election, the Trump administration endorsed Hernández's reelection "despite evidence of fraud and the killing by his security forces of Hondurans who protested the results."
More than 20 people were killed in the aftermath of the disputed 2017 election
The two progressive leaders said that "Sunday’s elections are taking place at a critical moment, as the country aims to elect and transfer political power to a new leader for the first time outside of the context of the repressive post-coup regimes that persisted from 2009 to 2021."
"At a time of global democratic fragility, we must move beyond US bullying and political interference in Honduras’s sovereign affairs. We need a relationship based on mutual respect, including respect for the will of Honduran voters," said Omar and García.
Torres expressed hope that Trump's backing of Asfura will have the opposite effect that the US president intended, saying Trump's comments on social media were "a blow to the right; it hurts one of their candidates."
“If there was anyone who didn’t know there were elections in Honduras this Sunday, now everyone knows,” said Torres. “There are even people who went to look at a map to see where Honduras is and find out who Rixi Moncada is... It puts us in an important position, which creates a wonderful scenario, because Rixi’s victory will be more famous and important. We have no doubt about her victory."
Torres added that many conservative voters in Honduras are likely to reject the party formerly led by Hernández.
"These are right-wing people who opposed the narcostate, who stood with us in 2015 against [Hernández's] embezzlement of social security, and who know what those criminals are,” he said, referring to previous governments. “Trump can tweet all day and those people aren’t going to vote for the return of the conservatives."
José Mario López of the Jesuit Reflection, Research, and Communication Team in Honduras also told Drop Site News that the "red scare" tactics that the National and Liberal parties have joined Trump in using in the final weeks of the election are likely to have some sway with older people, but are "not expected to impact younger voters."
“It’s a discourse that doesn’t really land, in my view,” López told the outlet. “I think what can move votes is the economic issue, because historically one of the main problems identified in public opinion polls is unemployment and lack of economic opportunities.”
"Exploiting a single incident to cast suspicion on Afghans—people who have already endured decades of displacement and America's forever wars—is both irresponsible and cruel."
Advocates for refugees in the United States continued to raise alarm Friday after President Donald Trump moved quickly to exploit the murder of one National Guard soldier and the wounding of another—allegedly shot by a national from Afghanistan who worked for the US military and CIA during the war there before seeking asylum in the US—by issuing a sweeping ban against asylum-seekers and halting all immigration from what he termed "all Third World countries" in response to Wednesday's shooting in Washington, DC.
“Regardless of the alleged perpetrator’s nationality, religion or specific legal status," said Matthew Soerens, a vice president with the faith-based World Relief, speaking with the Associated Press, "we urge our country to recognize these evil actions as those of one person, not to unfairly judge others who happen to share those same characteristics.”
Shawn VanDiver, president of the San Diego-based group AfghanEvac, a group that helps resettle Afghans who assisted the US during the war in Afghanistan, explained to the AP that many people in the Afghan refugee community that he knows are terrified by the tone which has been set by Trump after the shooting, afraid to leave their homes for fear of being snatched up by federal agents or otherwise targeted.
“They’re terrified. It’s insane,” VanDiver told AP. “People are acting xenophobic because of one deranged man. He doesn’t represent all Afghans. He represents himself.”
"The perpetrator should face accountability, but the entire Afghan community must not be punished due to the actions of one individual." —Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan
On Thursday, it was announced that Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, deployed with the National Guard under orders from Trump, had died from her injuries while Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remained in critical condition in a local hospital.
While heartbreak and mourning were widely shared for the victims of the shooting, Trump's xenophobic response to the violent assault, including his racist social media posts on Truth Social that critics said echoed white nationalist rhetoric, proved, for many observers, once again his shortcomings as a national leader during times of crisis, but also as a human being.
"The perpetrator should face accountability, but the entire Afghan community must not be punished due to the actions of one individual," said Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, on Thursday. "That would be terribly unjust and complete nonsense. Cool heads must prevail."
Arash Azizzada, co-director of Afghans For A Better Tomorrow, which long-opposed the US war in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 and continues to advocate on behalf of the Afghan-American community, condemned Trump for "using this tragedy as a pretext to demonize, criminalize, and target an entire community. Exploiting a single incident to cast suspicion on Afghans—people who have already endured decades of displacement and America's forever wars—is both irresponsible and cruel."
Azizzada also pointed out how the alleged gunman now in police custody, identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, "worked alongside US Special Operations forces and served in a CIA-backed covert paramilitary group known as 'Zero Units' that functioned outside the purview of any accountability and has a documented history of widespread human rights abuses against Afghan civilians over two decades."
"We both condemn the violence by one individual on the streets of Washington, DC, as well as the violence perpetrated by the US in Afghanistan and elsewhere," said Azizzada. "America must confront the decades of violence it inflicted on Afghanistan and acknowledge that its forever wars are a major reason why Afghans seek safety here. Blaming refugees for the consequences of those actions is unjust, and we call for the promises to Afghans to be honored, not abandoned."
Journalist Ryan Grim, co-founder of Drop Site News, put it this way: "The idea that we should freeze all migration because one of the CIA’s death squad recruits went on a rampage is absurd. Smarter would be to stop training death squads."
Evacuate Our Allies, a group that advocates on behalf of Afghans who helped the US during the war and now seeking to resettle, expressed deep sympathies for the victims of the shooting and their families and condemned the "reprehensible attack." The group also denounced the "alarming vilification of an entire community based on the actions of a lone individual."
"No community, Afghan or otherwise, should be judged, demonized, or collectively punished for the behavior of one person," the group said. "Such narratives cause real harm, inflame tensions, and overlook the truth: one individual does not represent millions. Collective blame is not only unjust but dangerous. It undermines the immense sacrifices our nation's Afghan allies made, sacrifices that cost many their safety, their homes, their loved ones, and, in too many cases, their lives."
"We are joining Make Amazon Pay to demand the most basic rights: safety, dignity, and the chance to go home alive," said one Amazon worker from India.
Amazon workers and their allies worldwide took to the streets on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, to protest the e-commerce behemoth's exploitation of workers, relentless union-busting, contributions to the worsening climate emergency, and plans to replace employees en masse with robots.
“Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and their political allies are betting on a techno-authoritarian future, but this Make Amazon Pay Day, workers everywhere are saying: enough,” said Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union. “For years, Amazon has squashed workers’ right to democracy on the job through a union and the backing of authoritarian political figures. Its model is deepening inequality and undermining the fundamental rights of workers to organize, bargain collectively, and demand safe, fair workplaces.”
From Germany to Bangladesh, thousands of workers walked off the job on Friday and marched against Amazon's labor practices to push for better wages, working conditions, and union protections. Last month, Amazon reported over $21 billion in profits for the third quarter of 2025—a 38% increase compared to the same time last year.
“During the heatwaves, the warehouse feels like a furnace—people faint, but the targets never stop,” said Neha Singh, an Amazon worker in Manesar, India, referring to the company's productivity quotas. "Even if we fainted, we couldn’t take a day off and go home. If we took that day off, our pay would be cut, and if we took three days off, they would fire us. Amazon treats us as expendable."
"We are joining Make Amazon Pay," said Singh, "to demand the most basic rights: safety, dignity, and the chance to go home alive.”
HAPPENING NOW 🌎 Amazon workers and their allies in 38 countries around the world are striking and protesting to #MakeAmazonPay. pic.twitter.com/srMRsymCh7
— Progressive International (@ProgIntl) November 28, 2025
Make Amazon Pay is an alliance of labor unions and advocacy groups organizing to stop Amazon from "squeezing workers, communities and the planet."
The 2025 strikes and protests, which organizers described as the largest mobilization against Amazon to date, mark the sixth consecutive year of global actions organized by the coalition.
The strike in Germany was characterized as the largest in Amazon's history, with around 3,000 workers expected to join picket lines across the country. The union representing Amazon workers in the United States voiced solidarity with striking German workers in a social media post on Friday, crediting them with "inspiring the global Amazon worker movement for over a decade."
Amazon Teamsters stand in solidarity with our German Amazon colleagues today as you engage in courageous strike action. To the long-time strikers - you’ve been inspiring the global Amazon worker movement for over a decade. To those who are joining the growing movement for the… pic.twitter.com/42ul1bbFb5
— Amazon Teamsters (@amazonteamsters) November 28, 2025
"Across the world, Amazon workers are walking off the job, marching through their cities, and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with communities to demand what every worker deserves: fair wages, safe conditions, the right to organize—and a future not dictated by algorithms and billionaires," Progressive International, a member of the alliance, said Friday.
"But the target is not only a company. It is the emerging system that Amazon now anchors: a techno-authoritarian order that fuses the power of Big Tech with the prerogatives of the far right—from Trump’s ICE raids to Israel’s genocide in Gaza," the group added. "This week's actions point toward another horizon. One in which supply chains become sites of struggle, not submission; where warehouse workers link arms with tech workers, garment workers, Indigenous communities, and migrants; where a global labor movement is capable of confronting a global system of power."