memeorandum: Ted Cruz warns Trump tariffs could be ‘terrible for America’ (Ben Leonard/Politico)

4:45 PM ET, April 4, 2025

Top Items:

Inside President Trump's whirlwind decision to upend global trade — Ultimately, Trump resolved to follow his own instincts — and was surrounded by senior officials who enabled him. — Not long after President Donald Trump's inauguration, the administration's economic staff went to work …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Mediaite and PoliticusUSA

New Republic:

“Horrifying”: Trump's Weird, Confused Rant to Media as Markets Tanked — After President Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from all over the globe, prompting the markets to implode, he took a question about it on Thursday. He ranted and rambled delusionally about how everything is just great.

Discussion: The Hill, Washington Examiner, ABC News, Associated Press, New York Times, MeidasTouch News, Raw Story, CBC News, Reuters, CBS News, HuffPost and New York Post

Financial Times:

America's astonishing act of self-harm — Trump's tariffs will upend the global economic order and tarnish US prosperity — If it endures, Donald Trump's decision on April 2 2025 to enact sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs on US trade partners will go down as one of the greatest acts of self-harm in American economic history.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Reason, Wealth of Nations, To the Contrary, Vox, Los Angeles Times, New Republic and Raw Story

Ivana Saric / Axios:

Gavin Newsom angles for California exemptions to Trump trade war — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday he is pursuing agreements with other countries to ensure California is exempted from retaliatory tariffs aimed at the U.S. — Why it matters: President Trump's “Liberation Day” tariffs spurred global blowback.

Discussion: Fox News, Reuters, Business Insider, New York Times, WAGA-TV, The Hill, Politico, New York Post, The Wrap, Los Angeles Times, Raw Story, Washington Post and Wausau

Keith Bradsher / New York Times:

Trump's Trade War Escalates as China Retaliates With 34% Tariffs — The Chinese government said it would match President Trump's tariff, and also barred a group of American companies from doing business in China. — China has struck back at President Trump on Friday.

CNBC:

Dow drops 1,400 points, Nasdaq set to close in bear market as Trump tariff sell-off worsens: Live updates — The stock market took another pounding Friday after China retaliated with new tariffs on U.S. goods, further lending credibility to fears of a trade war that could spark a global a recession.

Discussion: Associated Press, Reuters, Forbes, Homeless on the High Desert, Barron's Online, IJR, The Independent, Fortune, WCCB Charlotte's CWWCCB …, UPI, KOIN.com, Mercury News, Washington Examiner, The Hill, CBS News, Magnolia Tribune, Yahoo Finance and NPR

Ben Leonard / Politico:

Ted Cruz warns Trump tariffs could be ‘terrible for America’ — Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz is warning about major risks for the American economy and its automotive industry thanks to President Donald Trump's trade war, saying it could result in the biggest tax hike in a “long, long time.”

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Media Matters for America, Blaze Media, The Daily Wire, Washington Examiner, The Hill, New Republic, Representative Jared Golden, Breitbart, Raw Story and Mediaite

Nikki McCann Ramirez / Rolling Stone:
Trump Shares Video About How He Is ‘Purposely Crashing the Stock Market’

Discussion: CNBC, New York Times, New York Magazine, New Republic, Forbes, Blaze Media, Raw Story and Mediaite

New Republic: Transcript: Trump's Tariff Madness Can Be Stopped. Here's How.

South China Morning Post:
Breaking | China hits back at US with 34% tariff on American imports in retaliation for Trump's duties

Nate Silver / Silver Bulletin:
Wall Street thinks Trump's tariffs will eat Main Street alive

Discussion: Center for Strategic …, Yahoo Finance and Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal:
Dow Futures Slide and Bonds Rally After China Retaliates to Trump Tariffs

Discussion: CNBC, Fortune, al.com, KTVZ-TV, Magnolia Tribune, Axios, Associated Press, Deadline, Mock Paper Scissors, The Independent and Fox Business

Dharna Noor / The Guardian:
‘Oligarchy’: Trump exempts big oil donors from tariffs package

Discussion: Politico, Barron's Online and Canary Media

Rebecca Robbins / New York Times:
Trump's Next Tariffs Target Could Be Foreign-Made Medicines

Discussion: The Hill and Forbes

Caitlin Oprysko / Politico:
‘Everyone is terrified’: Business and government officials are afraid to cross Trump on tariffs

Discussion: Raw Story

Kevin Breuninger / CNBC:
Congress has power over tariffs, but stopping Trump isn't likely as of now

Discussion: National Constitution Center and The Hill

New York Times: Swiss Indignant to Make the Top 10 of Trump's Tariffs List

Ruxandra Iordache / CNBC:
China to impose 34% retaliatory tariff on all goods imported from the U.S.

Discussion: Reuters, The Daily Wire, Associated Press, RedState, Daily Mail, Al Jazeera, Daily Caller News Foundation, New York Post, NPR, Axios, Automotive Dive, CBS News and Wausau, more at Techmeme »

Associated Press:
How Trump's latest tariffs could affect your wallet

Discussion: The Federalist and Las Vegas Review-Journal

Carolina Journal:

Appeals Court orders new vote calculations in NC Supreme Court election dispute — The North Carolina Court of Appeals split, 2-1, in ordering the state elections board to recalculate vote totals in the disputed 2024 state Supreme Court election. — Voters with incomplete registration records …

Discussion: New York Times, The Hill, Washington Post, Slate, The Guardian and American Greatness

Gary D. Robertson / Associated Press:

North Carolina judges side with Republican colleague in close Supreme Court election — A North Carolina appeals court sided Friday with the trailing Republican candidate in an extremely close state Supreme Court election, a ruling that could flip the result of the nation's only 2024 race that is still undecided.

Discussion: WRAL-TV, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Axios, The Gateway Pundit, WCCB Charlotte's CWWCCB … and Democrats

Adam Edelman / NBC News:
New court decision in a disputed North Carolina race means 65,000 votes are a step closer to be being thrown out

Discussion: Democracy Docket

Matt Cohen / Democracy Docket:
NC Voters Must Fix Ballots in 15 Days, Court Rules

Discussion: Twitchy

Liz Essley Whyte / Wall Street Journal:

Ousted Vaccine Chief Says RFK Jr.'s Team Sought Data to Justify Anti-Science Stance — Peter Marks says the new health secretary's team wants to show vaccines aren't safe while promoting dangerous and unproven treatments — The top vaccine regulator ousted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr …

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:

National Security Agency and Cyber Command chief Gen. Timothy Haugh ousted — The director of the NSA, the powerful wiretapping and cyber espionage service, was fired and reassigned Thursday, according to U.S. officials. — just now — The director of the powerful wiretapping …

Julian E. Barnes / New York Times:
Head of National Security Agency and Cyber Command Is Ousted

Discussion: Reuters, TechCrunch, NBC News, Fox News, Roll Call, Federal News Network, CBS News, Associated Press, The Status Kuo, The Independent, Defense One, DefenseScoop, KTVZ-TV, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Mike Scarcella / Reuters:

US judge to hear lawsuit of man deported to El Salvador in error — A U.S. judge in Maryland is scheduled to hear arguments on Friday over the erroneous deportation of a Salvadoran man who was flown to El Salvador last month as part of an agreement by President Donald Trump's administration …

Discussion: USA Today and KTVZ-TV

Washington Post:
Judge orders Trump administration to bring back Md. man mistakenly deported

Discussion: Fox News and Axios

Associated Press:
The US must return a Maryland man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison, judge says

Discussion: Politico, NPR, The Hill, New York Times, RedState, KTVZ-TV, WAGA-TV, Townhall, Baltimore Sun, Associated Press, The Gateway Pundit, CBS News and Forbes

Ben Quinn / The Guardian:

Russell Brand charged with rape and sexual assault — Actor and comedian charged with rape, indecent assault, oral rape and two counts of sexual assault, say police — The comedian and actor Russell Brand has been charged with one count each of rape, indecent assault and oral rape as well as two counts of sexual assault.

Jordain Carney / Politico:

More Republicans back bill giving Congress a say on tariffs — A bipartisan bill to give Congress a vote on new tariffs is gaining notable GOP backing. Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Jerry Moran of Kansas signed on as cosponsors of the bill …

Discussion: The Hill, Spectrum News, Talking Points Memo, The Daily Signal, Fox News and ABC News

Jennifer Scholtes / Politico:
Budget experts of all stripes howl about Senate Republicans' price tag ‘abuse’

Discussion: National Review and NOTUS

Holly Otterbein / Politico:

Poll: AOC leads Schumer in head-to-head New York primary matchup by double digits — The liberal group Data For Progress conducted the survey of likely Democratic voters. — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is leading Chuck Schumer by double digits in a new head-to-head poll of the 2028 New York primary.

Discussion: Data For Progress, The Washington Free Beacon, Blaze Media, Latin Times, New York Daily News, Daily Caller News Foundation, Townhall, New York Magazine, The Daily Caller, The Gateway Pundit, Daily Mail, New Republic, 19FortyFive, Twitchy and Saywhat Politics

Ethan Gach / Kotaku:

Nintendo Halts Switch 2 Pre-Orders Over Trump's Tariffs — New tariffs threaten massive price hikes on gaming hardware and other consumer goods — Switch 2 pre-orders were supposed to begin on April 9. No longer. In an unprecedented move, Nintendo announced on Friday that it's halting pre-orders …

Discussion: IGN, Bloomberg, GameSpot, The Verge, New Republic, CNBC, Daily Kos, The Wrap, Reason, New York Post, Daily Mail, Mediaite, Forbes, Dexerto, TechCrunch, Business Insider, Gizmodo, Engadget, Windows Central, BGR, Ars Technica, Consequence, The Hollywood Reporter and Daring Fireball, more at Techmeme »

NPR:

Trump's VA is ending a rescue program that's saved 17,000 military veterans' homes — The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said Thursday that it will end a mortgage-rescue program designed to help veterans who have fallen behind on their mortgages keep their homes.

Discussion: Daily Kos and MBA

Rebecca Shabad / NBC News:

Obama says he is ‘deeply concerned’ with the Trump administration's targeting of students, journalists and law firms — His comments came on the same day that former Vice President Kamala Harris also spoke out against the administration. — Former President Barack Obama said he is …

Discussion: CNN, Barack Obama, The Hill, Washington Examiner and The National Pulse

Lauren Rosenthal / Bloomberg:

US Weather Agency Websites Set to Vanish With Contract Cuts — The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency is poised to eliminate most websites tied to its research division under plans for the cancellation of a cloud web services contract, a move that could snarl operations at several labs.

Discussion: KTVZ-TV

Andrew Freedman / Axios:
Canceled contract means NOAA research websites slated to go dark

Discussion: Washington Examiner

Yair Rosenberg / The Atlantic:

Trump's Jewish Cover Story … The Trump administration wants you to know that it's just looking out for Jews. In recent weeks, the White House has cited anti-Semitism as the motivation for many of its controversial moves, whether deporting foreign students who allegedly engaged …

Discussion: MPR News and The Bulwark

Samantha Cole / 404 Media:

Massive, Unarchivable Datasets of Cancer, Covid, and Alzheimer's Research Could Be Lost Forever — Almost two dozen repositories of research and public health data supported by the National Institutes of Health are marked for “review” under the Trump administration's direction …

Zach Schonfeld / The Hill:

Judge finds FEMA withholding grants in violation of court order — A federal judge Friday ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to disburse millions of dollars of grants to Democratic-led states, finding the administration's withholding of the funds breached his previous ruling.

Discussion: Reuters, Business Insider and The Gateway Pundit

Jill Lepore / New York Times:

The Failed Ideas That Drive Elon Musk — President Trump has reportedly told cabinet members that Elon Musk may soon leave the administration. If and when he goes, what will he leave behind? — Mr. Musk has long presented himself to the world as a futurist.

Siddarth S / Reuters:

Global brokerages raise recession odds; J.P.Morgan sees 60% chance — J.P.Morgan ratcheted up its odds for a U.S. and global recession to 60%, as brokerages scrambled to revise their forecast models with tariff distress threatening to sap business confidence and slow down global growth.

Discussion: CNBC, New York Post, NPR, Washington Examiner, MarketWatch, Econbrowser, Wall Street Journal, NOTUS, Bloomberg, Fox Business, Quartz, The Wrap, Fortune, New Jersey Online, Business Insider, New Republic and Raw Story

John Sexton / HotAir:

Antifa's Disrupts UC Davis Event While Police Stand By and Do Nothing — Turning Point USA was holding an event on the campus of UC Davis featuring a black conservative named Brandon Tatum. Just prior to the event, the group set up a pop-up tent and a table outside to promote the event.