Latest / The Daily Sarcast / April 27th, 2026: The Chaotic Correspondents' Dinner, Measles And Freelance Life

Transcript

April 27th, 2026: The Chaotic Correspondents' Dinner, Measles And Freelance Life · The Daily Sarcast

• 0:00
  Today's episode is brought to you by making a TikTok you can never recreate
• 0:04
  because it's so in the moment, then it gets deleted before you can even edit it.
• 0:09
  It will be funny. It will be entertaining.
• 0:11
  There will be some shots fired tonight in the room.
• 0:14
  Caroline Levitt's joke just moments before gunfire at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
• 0:19
  Insert theme song here. This is the Daily Sarcast. I give you the news and maybe a laugh.
• 0:25
  I'm Lindsay Vernick and it's April 27, 2026.
• 0:29
  Happy monday i'm officially back in new york
• 0:31
  city and god i am just so relieved it just
• 0:34
  feels so good to be back in your own bed
• 0:37
  and to be working in the city i haven't worked in the city this is my second
• 0:42
  time ever working in the city and i'm so excited today is like my first day
• 0:47
  of school so wish me luck i'm really excited to start on this new gig and i
• 0:53
  will keep you guys updated on how this one goes.
• 0:55
  In real news, South Carolina has officially ended a measles outbreak after 42 days with no new cases.
• 1:02
  It's the public health version of hearing silence after your loud upstairs neighbor
• 1:07
  who never stops stomping finally moves out.
• 1:10
  The outbreak hit nearly 1,000 people, making it the largest measles outbreak in recent U.S.
• 1:16
  History since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000.
• 1:20
  21 people were hospitalized with some suffering pneumonia and brain swelling
• 1:25
  because measles is not a quirky childhood throwback.
• 1:28
  It is a serious virus with a terrible publicist.
• 1:31
  Most of the cases were concentrated in Spartanburg County, where a close-lit
• 1:36
  Slavic evangelical community was hit very hard.
• 1:39
  Vaccination rates there had fallen from 94% just a few years ago to 89% this school year.
• 1:46
  Public health experts say communities need around 95% coverage to prevent spread.
• 1:51
  So yes, they missed the cutoff like a student who forgot there was a test.
• 1:55
  They said the outbreak was controlled through a major vaccination push,
• 1:59
  with nearly 4,000 extra measles, mumps, and rubella shots administered compared with the year before.
• 2:04
  It also slowed because the virus eventually ran through many of the unvaccinated
• 2:09
  people couldn't infect, so it really couldn't spread anymore.
• 2:12
  And it wasn't just infections that were affecting people.
• 2:15
  More than 870 kids had to quarantine, a lot of them twice for 21 days at a time.
• 2:22
  That's a lot of alone time.
• 2:24
  Doctors also warn measles can cause long-term issues like immune amnesia,
• 2:29
  where the virus weakens previously-built immunity, making kids more vulnerable
• 2:33
  to other illnesses for months and years.
• 2:36
  In rare cases, it can also cause a fatal degenerative brain disease years later.
• 2:41
  So again, it's not just a cute little rash.
• 2:44
  Meanwhile, measles outbreaks are still active in Florida and Utah, and the U.S.
• 2:48
  Had a 34-year high in cases last year and may surpass it again this year.
• 2:52
  America remains committed to turning solved problems into sequels.
• 2:57
  Our wonderful House Secretary, RFK Jr., recently said the government advises
• 3:02
  every child to get the MMR vaccine, a statement that landed like a firefighter
• 3:07
  announcing he supports water.
• 3:08
  So yes, South Carolina ended the outbreak, but nationally, measles is still
• 3:13
  out here trying to chart a comeback that nobody wants.
• 3:17
  Yesterday, Trump canceled a last-minute trip by top aides to Pakistan for Iran
• 3:21
  peace talks and told Tehran they could call him instead.
• 3:24
  This is the one time a meeting should most definitely not be a conference call,
• 3:29
  and of course, Trump does the opposite of what he's supposed to do and is like,
• 3:33
  yeah, no, we're not going there.
• 3:35
  Trump pulled Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner from a flight shortly before they
• 3:39
  were supposed to take off, and he said, we have all the cards.
• 3:42
  Like, dude, this is a little bit more serious than a poker game.
• 3:46
  He also complained that the Iranian guys that they were supposed to meet weren't
• 3:50
  senior enough and that the trip was too long, too expensive,
• 3:53
  and just not worth the gas.
• 3:55
  The bigger issue here is that the U.S. and Iran still remain far apart on ending the war.
• 4:00
  The biggest things here are Iran's enriched uranium stockpile,
• 4:04
  its nuclear program, and control of the Strait of Hormuz, which handles a huge
• 4:08
  share of global oil traffic and has the world economy stress-eating right now.
• 4:13
  Iran says it won't negotiate while the U.S. naval blockade remains in place. And the U.S.
• 4:19
  Seems to think economic pressure will crack our van first.
• 4:22
  So currently, both sides are in that classic toxic relationship stage known
• 4:26
  as waiting for the other one to blink.
• 4:28
  And in more good news, Georgia is currently on fire in the most literal and least helpful sense.
• 4:36
  Two massive wildfires in the southern part of the state have burned more than
• 4:39
  40,000 acres and destroyed over 120 homes.
• 4:44
  Apparently, there's this extreme drought going on there right now,
• 4:47
  and there's a ton of high winds, which is helping the flames spread.
• 4:51
  Residents were urged to evacuate immediately, with one county manager bluntly
• 4:56
  saying, please leave, which is refreshingly clearer than most government messaging these days.
• 5:02
  One woman fled with four kids and ten dogs to Florida and then watched her home
• 5:07
  burn down through ring cameras until the devices went offline. Brutal.
• 5:11
  And another man lost the automotive business he started in 1996 and says the
• 5:17
  insurance denied the claim because it was considered an act of God,
• 5:21
  which feels like a policy category invented by a villain.
• 5:26
  Governor Brian Kemp said one of the fires may have started when a balloon hit
• 5:29
  a power line, and another fire began from welding sparks.
• 5:34
  These are currently among the most dangerous fires in the country,
• 5:37
  while firefighters are also battling more than 150 other blazes across Georgia and Florida.
• 5:44
  And Lindsay Life. So as I mentioned, I was working on this show back in Philadelphia
• 5:49
  for a couple weeks, and I got offered a new job on another show in New York City.
• 5:54
  And I only had two weeks of the Philadelphia show left and the show is about two months in New York.
• 6:03
  If you don't know about freelance, it's really hard, obviously,
• 6:07
  right? Like, nobody is setting me up with these jobs.
• 6:10
  Like, no one's managing me, and it's up to me to make sure that,
• 6:13
  like, I'm always working.
• 6:15
  And typically, I've only been a producer now for about four or five years,
• 6:20
  but it typically has always knocked on wood, worked out for me.
• 6:24
  Like, I have turned down other jobs because I like the one that I'm working
• 6:29
  on at the moment, or you don't want to leave a job to go to a different one,
• 6:34
  which is called jumping.
• 6:35
  And unfortunately, for the first
• 6:37
  time, I just jumped, which is such a bad look. You never want to jump.
• 6:41
  But this show is a lot longer, and
• 6:45
  the Philadelphia show was only two more weeks, and it wasn't that long.
• 6:48
  Anyway, I don't know if you care about this, but that's just a little bit about the industry.
• 6:54
  So I'm officially back in New York City for I think
• 6:57
  the next month-ish or so until I
• 7:00
  go on location to another place but that's a story for
• 7:03
  another time because this is already a very long sarcastic day
• 7:06
  but so I was on my way back to New York
• 7:09
  on Saturday I took the bus back from the city
• 7:12
  from Philadelphia and we made this most random stop I'm on the phone with my
• 7:18
  mom and we just like pull into this like compound with this big building and
• 7:25
  we pull up to like a buddhist temple and there's like this golden massive golden.
• 7:31
  Buddha like in a tree pose and there
• 7:34
  was like these huge archways with fountains everywhere it
• 7:37
  was very crazy and i was just like the whole time i'm like we're at a freaking
• 7:41
  like i'm at a buddhist temple right now like where it was like 9 a.m on a saturday
• 7:46
  morning i was very confused it was very confusing keep in mind i'm also like
• 7:50
  somewhere in the middle of new jersey which makes it all the more weirder.
• 7:55
  And thing of the week this week is the elephant in the room on today's Sarkast.
• 7:58
  Another bad assassination attack.
• 8:01
  So thing of this week goes to security systems and the White House collectively
• 8:06
  saying, we're going to do our best and then immediately needing a follow-up
• 8:10
  meeting the next morning.
• 8:12
  So obviously, as you know, and it's kind of really strange if you don't know.
• 8:18
  On Saturday night, it was the White House Correspondents' Dinner,
• 8:21
  and an armed man somehow got through multiple checkpoints with a shotgun,
• 8:27
  a handgun, and knives and fired at Secret Service agents, none of who were really harmed, thank God,
• 8:35
  and triggered a full evacuation of Trump, the First Lady, and top officials,
• 8:39
  and everybody else, which I mean were thousands of people at this White House
• 8:43
  Correspondents' Dinner.
• 8:45
  Guests, including my aunt and cousins hid under tables while security stormed
• 8:50
  the ballroom and the event was shut down before dinner was even served.
• 8:54
  They think that he was trying to target Trump and probably some other top people,
• 8:58
  and he even had a manifesto referencing government officials.
• 9:02
  The shooter had traveled cross-country
• 9:04
  by train and checked into the hotel that was hosting the event.
• 9:08
  I'm sure Amtrak and Hilton PR teams are feeling pretty good right about now.
• 9:13
  But now all of this asks one very simple question.
• 9:17
  How did this happen inside one of the most secured political events in the entire country?
• 9:24
  And the government is calling this a success because the suspect didn't reach the ballroom.
• 9:29
  I mean, that's doing a lot of emotional heavy lifting for that word.
• 9:34
  But the craziest part in all this for me is that my grandmother is more upset
• 9:40
  that the president wasn't killed in all this,
• 9:43
  more so than the fact that her daughter-in-law and grandwriters were hiding
• 9:48
  under a table from a gunman.
• 9:50
  So this week's theme is high-level security breach, national investigation,
• 9:55
  political fallout, and a family reaction that somehow manages to feel like its
• 9:59
  own separate emergency.
• 10:01
  Cooking tip of the day keep ordering out so
• 10:04
  you don't have to do it feedback comments question a nice jewish play looking
• 10:08
  for a date email me at lindsay at the daily sarcast.com thank you so much for
• 10:13
  listening have a great day and please don't text me to have a great day you
• 10:17
  can think about it it's just you don't have to text me but thank you i really
• 10:21
  appreciate it and i will talk to you guys tomorrow.