Morning Report — Wild week ahead: Trump tariffs, elections  ...0

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President Trump will shake up global trade again this week, add new pressures to a slowing U.S. economy and pay new attention Tuesday to voters in Wisconsin and Florida, who may send early feedback about Republican governance.

The president has said that reciprocal tariffs on imported goods and higher levies on autos and car parts built outside the United States will take effect on Wednesday. Trump touts his policies as tools to return trade fairness and a boom in domestic manufacturing to America, but economists argue he risks inflating prices while slashing consumer and business spending because of uncertainty, including in financial markets. 

Trump has publicly rebuffed retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Europe, weighed outreach on trade from Mexico and Japan, and levied tariffs on Chinese goods, hoping to jump-start deal-making. He is still working out major details of the new tariffs he’s slated for this week.

Most experts eyeing the overall situation insist a recession is not inevitable. But the direction of the economy depends largely on how Trump and his team proceed in the weeks ahead. 

▪ The Hill: Trump faces a crucial week on the economy.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Back on the table: an across-the-board tariff hike of up to 20 percent. Also under review: a slate of new industry-specific tariffs that could hit critical minerals and products that contain them.

The president told NBC News during a Saturday interview that he “couldn’t care less” if foreign automakers raise their prices abroad in reaction to U.S. tariffs because U.S.-made auto sales would benefit.

“The world has been ripping off the United States for the last 40 years and more,” Trump added. “And all we're doing is being fair, and frankly, I'm being very generous.”

Trump told NBC there’s still room for negotiations with the U.S. if countries that “have things of great value … are willing to give us something.”

The president touted a “Boomtown USA” vision aboard Air Force One on Sunday en route from Florida to the White House.

"People [who] manufacture automobiles in the United States are going to make money the likes of which they've never seen before,” he told reporters. “But beyond that, we have the computer companies, the chip companies, the pharmaceutical companies. We have lumber, we have everything, steel. They're all going to do really well as long as they do their product in the United States.” 

WHAT DO POLLS SHOW?: A quarter of Americans say Trump’s economic policies are making them financially better off. Nearly twice as many say he's making their finances worse, according to a new CBS News survey conducted last week. Seventy-five percent of Republicans said before he took office that Trump's policies would make them better off. Now, less than 50 percent say that's what is happening so far. Trump's report card on handling inflation remains negative, and his rating since last month on broadly handling the economy showed majority disapproval.

CNBC: European markets fell this morning as traders await the full implementation of Trump’s pending tariffs.

TUESDAY’S POLITICAL TESTS: A race to determine control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court has profound stakes for voting, abortion and labor rights in the state. It’s also shaping up to be a litmus test of Elon Musk’s political sway, making it one of the most consequential elections of Trump’s second term (The Hill and The Guardian).

The winner between liberal Judge Susan Crawford and conservative Judge Brad Schimel for a seat on a swing-state court with a 4-3 liberal majority will determine which party has control to rule on the future of the state’s 1849 abortion ban, rights to collective bargaining and the makeup of the state’s six congressional districts.

“The Democratic-aligned candidate may be a little better positioned there than the Republican-aligned candidate,” wrote J. Miles Coleman with the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Musk through super PACS has spent more than $20 million on the Wisconsin Supreme Court contest beginning shortly after Tesla sued the state over a law that blocks the company from opening car dealerships there. The president’s government efficiency adviser took the stage at a Green Bay, Wis., rally to hand out facsimiles of two $1 million checks to attendees, an effort that was challenged in court but upheld by a state court judge.

Musk was booed by some. “The reason for the checks, is it’s really just to get attention,” he said, noting he attracts more mainstream news coverage for Schimel’s candidacy with his financial giveaways.

Two Florida House seats in Republican-dominated Florida had been expected to remain in GOP control, but the president and his party are concerned that the seat in the 6th Congressional District formerly held by White House national security adviser Mike Waltz could be touch-and-go Tuesday for GOP nominee Randy Fine.  

Trump, nervous about razor-thin margins in the House ahead of an ambitious budget agenda he aims to enact by August, called into two tele-town halls for Fine in an effort to drive turnout among Republican voters. 

▪ The Hill: Republicans look to avert humiliation in Florida special election.

▪ The New York Times, looking ahead at the election calendar, by Nate Cohn.

SMART TAKE with NewsNation’s BLAKE BURMAN   

America’s pastime is fully underway. Ballparks filled up over the weekend for the start of baseball season. If you love baseball like I do, you probably know the stat called WAR, or “wins above replacement.” Basically, it explains how valuable a player is compared with an average replacement player of the same position. 

Turns out, the folks over at Split Ticket have their own WAR modeling for political candidates, and how they fared in the 2024 race. Here’s one takeaway: Moderate Democrats over-performed. 

“You’re seeing the Blue Dogs consistently outperform the expectations of their districts,” said Democratic strategist Brad Howard, president and founder of Corcoran Street Group. On more progressive candidates, Howard said, “they’re doing much worse than they should, to the tune of 5 and a half points.” 

As Democrats try to chart a path toward the 2026 midterms and beyond, should they turn to a tried and tested baseball-inspired metric? 

Burman hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ Third term? While talking with NBC News by phone, here’s what the president had to say on the subject: He’s serious. His supporters want it. There are unspecified “methods” to get past the Constitution. It’s too soon.

▪ Near the Reagan National Airport in the past week, two commercial planes experienced separate incidents involving worrisome midair risks, one involving an Air Force jet and another a kite.  

▪ Voice of America is silent after Trump effectively shut down the broadcaster, but VOA journalists are speaking out about what this could mean for a global audience of 360 million.

LEADING THE DAY

© The Associated Press | Mariam Zuhaib 

CONGRESS & THE COURTS: Republican senators warn that any efforts to impeach James Boasberg, the judge who has ruled against Trump's deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members and now is presiding over a lawsuit related to the Signal chat among senior Trump administration officials, would stall in the Senate. 

Senior Senate Republicans told The Hill’s Alexander Bolton they will oppose any effort by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to defund federal courts that rule against Trump's agenda. Johnson says that Congress may exercise its power of the purse to defund or eliminate what he views as hostile courts. But Senate Republicans are trying to quash that idea before it gains any momentum, as GOP senators fear that Trump's growing war with the federal judiciary is a bad political move and would give a future Democratic administration an opening to do the same thing when judges try to curtail its rulings. 

“We’re not even 100 days in [to the new administration]. We just can’t be impeaching every judge that we don’t like their decisions on,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “The threats about going after judges and then going after attorneys who are going to file lawsuits — and not only forward but going back eight years to see who’s done what” doesn’t make sense.

Meanwhile, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing for passage of legislation to undo what they’ve described as a recent “mistake” by Congress that could force the District of Columbia to make significant cuts to its own local budget. Trump called on the House to immediately consider Senate-passed legislation that would "fix" language in the recently passed government spending measure, but hard-line conservatives want GOP leadership to delay consideration of the bipartisan bill and are pressing for additional “requirements”  for the Democratic-led district to be able to spend its own local dollars.

▪ Politico: Senate GOP leaders will move as soon as Wednesday to begin advancing a budget plan — the next step to pass Trump’s massive agenda through a party-line bill.

▪ The Hill: A federal appeals court on Friday lifted an order blocking Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from further cuts at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

▪ CNN: Is DOGE actually an agency? The answer could have major ramifications.

? Signalgate was not fading quietly as this week began. Is use of Signal, a commercial end-to-end encrypted app, allowed or appropriate for top federal officials to use during sensitive conversations? Were discussions of ongoing military operations against the Houthis classified? Inclusion in mid-March of a journalist on a group chat with 19 officials was dubbed a “mistake,” but how did it happen? 

Looking ahead, members of both parties on Capitol Hill have called for oversight and/or an internal inspector general investigation to prevent national security leaks or accidental disclosures in the future. The White House promised a National Security Council review. 

The public debate continued Sunday. “It’s entirely appropriate for the inspector general to be able to look at it and be able to ask two questions,” Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

The Hill: Signalgate gave Democrats a changeup in messaging.

“Clearly the subject matter that’s being discussed, the status of ongoing military operations, should be … considered classified information,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC’s “This Week.” “And it’s surprising to find it in an unclassified manner.”

No Republican in Congress has to date called for resignations of any officials who participated in the Signal group chat, as reported by The Atlantic. 

Trump has repeatedly praised the U.S. strikes against the Houthis in Yemen as a “success,” and he said on Saturday he does not intend to fire national security adviser Waltz, who formed the Signal group, or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who detailed ongoing military operations to his colleagues on Signal. “I think it's just a witch hunt and the fake news,” the president told NBC News during an interview. 

Nevertheless, Waltz’s role is viewed as tenuous by some inside the West Wing, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

WHERE AND WHEN

ZOOM IN

© The Associated Press | Myo Kyaw Soe, Xinhua 

MYANMAR: Myanmar, already suffering the brutal toll of four years of civil war, is facing the humanitarian crisis of a powerful Friday earthquake that has killed at least 1,700 people and counting. Those in need are struggling to receive aid amid buckled roads and crumbled infrastructure.

Rescuers were still pulling survivors from the rubble when one of several aftershocks struck on Sunday. Many fear that the number of people who can be rescued will dwindle this evening at the crucial 72-hour mark. After that time, experts say the chances of survival drop sharply. Meanwhile, the country’s ruling military junta continued to drop bombs as the civil war intersected with the natural disaster.

▪ The Wall Street Journal: Why the Myanmar earthquake was so destructive. 

▪ The New York Times: Maps show the scale of the 7.7 magnitude earthquake’s destruction.

▪ NPR: Medical supplies in great need as aid flows into Myanmar after earthquake.

UKRAINE: Trump said he is “very angry” and “pissed off” at remarks Russian President Vladimir Putin made Friday about the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, suggestingthat heis not a legitimate leader and an interim government is needed. The president threatened to slap a new tariff on Russia if it is at fault for stalling an end “to bloodshed.”

The Russian president said Friday that his Ukrainian counterpart does not have the legitimacy required for a peace deal signature. In the first months of his second term, Trump and advisers have sought to end the war in Ukraine, meeting with representatives on both sides to try to gain a durable ceasefire.

“If I feel, if we’re in the midst of a negotiation, you could say that I was very angry, pissed off, when Putin said yesterday that — you know, when Putin started getting into Zelensky’s credibility, because that’s not going in the right location, you understand?” Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker on Sunday.

▪ The Economist: Zelensky, Trump and Putin may all have done a U-turn on elections in Ukraine. Preparations are underway for a presidential vote, though many doubt one can be held in wartime.

▪ The Kyiv Independent: “If he does that, he's got some big problems”: Trump claimed Zelensky wants to back out of the minerals deal.

▪ The New York Times: The untold story of America’s hidden role in Ukrainian military operations against Russia’s invading armies.

▪ The Hill: The Trump administration’s sharing of sensitive military information on Signal shocked allies. Other U.S. messages further eroded transatlantic trust.

IRAN: Trump on Sunday threatened Iran with bombing and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program. 

“If they don't make a deal there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” Trump told Welker during a phone interview.

The comments came after Iran's president said that Tehran had rejected direct negotiations with the U.S. over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.

GAZA: Israel and Hamas signaled over the weekend that efforts for a renewed ceasefire in Gaza were underway. The developments come less than two weeks after the breakdown of a temporary truce, after which Israel resumed its air and ground campaigns in the enclave. Hamas said on Saturday that it had accepted a proposal for a new ceasefire. Israel said it, too, had received a proposal via third-party mediators and had responded with a counterproposal in coordination with the U.S.

“The military pressure is working,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, adding that Israel was “suddenly seeing cracks” in Hamas’s position.

The Israeli military on Monday issued sweeping evacuation orders covering most of Rafah, indicating it could launch another major ground operation in southern Gaza soon.

▪ CNN: Netanyahu’s endgame is as unclear as ever.

▪ The New York Times: French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty of embezzlement by a Paris criminal court. The conviction could jeopardize her plans to compete in France’s 2027 presidential election.

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press | Damian Dovarganes

MORE POLITICS: Encouraged by recent results during town hall sessions in Republican territory, House Democrats say they’ll return to battleground districts and perhaps expand the visits. Campaign arms for the Democratic Party are helping to coordinate the effort in some cases.  

“People are mad — they’re mad and fearful that their health care might be taken away. That’s the thing that I heard the most,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who recently staged town halls in three California districts held by Republican lawmakers — Reps. Ken Calvert, Young Kim and David Valadao — where he estimated crowds of roughly 1,000 people. “It was just frustration of: What are you going to do to stop this?” 

Politico magazine: “If we don’t get our s--- together, then we are going to be in a permanent minority.” It’s been months since Democrats suffered a devastating defeat at the polls. For all the talk about the party’s need for change, few seem actually willing to make the leap.

NEWS MEDIA: Trump has responded to news media questions and suggestions by taking action. It’s a trend members of the Washington press corps and national political insiders recently told The Hill underscores Trump’s focus on media and his strategy to dominate headlines.

▪ The Washington Post: Trump has long been described as particularly susceptible to reacting to news accounts and the last person to jawbone him. 

▪ The Hill: The Trump administration’s request for the Supreme Court to intervene in a fight over federal grants for teacher development programs has elevated an expanding series of legal battles implicating the administration’s sweeping shifts in education policy. 

▪ The Hill: Transboundary water experts are voicing alarm over the Trump administration’s recent decision to deny a delivery of water to Mexico — a move they fear could jeopardize future cross-border negotiations in an increasingly thirsty region.

OPINION

■ Trump’s hostility to foreign visitors will hurt America, by The Washington Post editorial board.

■ What Democrats can learn from Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), by Nancy Jacobson, opinion contributor, The Hill. 

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press | Kevin Wolf

And finally … Indiana Jones would want to pore over declassified agency documents that describe how the CIA used unusual methods in the 1980s in “Project Sun Streak" to try to find the ancient Ark of the Covenant. It’s still undiscovered, by the way.

In documents first declassified in 2000, the CIA recorded how it used "remote viewers" to undertake a special search. The psychics did not know the experiment was about the Ark, a sacred, gold-covered wooden chest constructed sometime around 1445 BC carrying the Ten Commandments, according to Biblical history.

In a session in December 1988, “viewer #32” pointed to an Arabic-speaking area of the Middle East as the site of an object the psychic described in detail and said was “protected by entities.” Check out original CIA memos HERE.

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