President Donald Trump was confronted over mixed messaging on his tariffs by different members of his administration on Monday while fielding questions from reporters alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sunday, Trump
surrogates discussed
the sweeping tariffs on numerous Sunday shows. Trade Adviser Peter Navarro told Fox News the tariffs would go into effect Thursday as scheduled and they were non-negotiable.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC News the tariffs could be negotiated while Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett bragged to ABC News calls were flooding in from world leaders who wanted to negotiate.
Trump also contributed to the confusion
last week when he first declared the tariffs were non-negotiable but similarly said his phone had been ringing off the hook.
Monday, amid a third day of market chaos over the tariffs, a reporter pressed the president about the “mixed messages.”
A reporter asked, “Do you expect any of these deals to be made before April 9th? And secondly, there have been some mixed messages from your administration. You’re talking about negotiations, and yet others in your administration are saying that these tariffs are actually permanent.”
Trump replied, “Well, it can both be true. There can be permanent tariffs and there can also be negotiations because there are things that we need beyond tariffs.”
The president complained that he also wanted access to foreign markets such as China’s and concluded:
And so there are a lot of things outside of tariffs, but tariffs are very important. But there are lot of things like opening up countries that were totally closed. China is essentially a closed country. In fact, it is a closed country. And what they do is they charge tariffs so that if you sell cars or if you sell anything, nobody’s going to buy it because the price is out of control. But that’s true with a lot of other countries also. So we’re going to get fair deals and good deals with every country. And if we don’t, we’re going to have nothing to do with them. They’re not going to be allowed to participate in the United States.
President Donald Trump revealed on Monday that the United States will engage in direct, high level negotiations with Iran on a potential nuclear deal.
While taking questions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump
announced that this coming Saturday there would be a “big meeting” between American and Iranian officials in an effort to avoid a military intervention to prevent the Middle Eastern nation from developing nuclear weapons.
Later, Trump was asked for “more information at what level the U.S. is represented.”
“High level, very high level,” replied Trump. “We’re dealing with the Iranians. We have a very big meeting on Saturday, and we’re dealing with them directly. You know, a lot of people say, ‘Oh, maybe you’re going through surrogates or you’re not dealing directly, you’re dealing through other countries.’ No, we’re dealing with them directly.”
“And maybe a deal is going to be made. That’d be great. It’d be really great for Iran, I can tell you that. But hopefully we’re not going to have to get into that,” added Trump. “We’re meeting very importantly on Saturday, at almost the highest level, and we’ll see how it works out.”
During his first term, Trump pulled the U.S. out of a nuclear deal with the Iranians that had been negotiated by former President Barack Obama’s administration.
“At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction: that a murderous regime desired only a peaceful nuclear energy program,” argued Trump
upon withdrawing from the accord in 2018. “The fact is, this was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.”
Comic, pundit, and podcast host Bill Maher told NewsNation host Chris Cuomo that while there’s plenty about President Donald Trump that he “hates,” there are moments that he “fucking loves!”
Cuomo was the guest on this week’s edition
of Maher’s Club Random Podcast
, during which Trump was a frequent topic of conversation..
Maher — a frequent critic of Trump who nevertheless agreed to meet
the president at the White House recently — told Cuomo of several moments he said show Trump’s unique ability to “lean in” to who he is. One of them was Trump’s infamous
“Abdul” story:
CHRIS CUOMO: I’ll tell you, it’s the only time I’ve seen him booed. He was on stage with Bill O’Reilly and they were doing something like this, and O’ Reilly out of nowhere. You know, cause he’s pretty deferential to Trump. I don’t care what he said.
But he looks at him and he says, “Let’s just get this out of the way. You were vaccinated, right?”.
And Trump says, “yeah.”.
Boo! “And you got the booster. I know you did cause I got it too because of our age.”.
“Yes, I did.”.
Boo.
And he turns and he says “Don’t you boo me. And they keep booing And he says, I’m all you got. Don’t you boo me. I’m all you’ve got.”.
And they settled down. And it was a really interesting moment. Really interesting.
BILL MAHER: I mean, Trump is one of the most effective politicians, whatever you think of the policy and him as a person, just as a politician, just understanding that always lean in to being more who you are.
The people are not savvy about issues, but they smell a phony a mile away. And that kind of shit, nobody else does it.
You know, there’s a couple of times when… I mean, look, I’ve been his biggest critic for good reason. And when he got reelected, I said, I’m not going to pre-hate anything. And then the first week I said “Well, there’s lots of things I hate,” because I do.
Okay, there are some things I don’t hate also, but the way he can do that and sometimes kind of make me go, “Oh man, I got to give it up!”.
Like when he… did that thing where the guy came in from the Taliban and he said, “This is an aerial picture of your house. If during a withdrawal, one American is hurt, just know I know where you live.”.
I was like, oh, can we just play the music now? Because I don’t care, it’s Donald Trump and he’s the worst person ever, blah, blah blah. I fucking love that!
One time they were doing something, something was going on and he said, “You know what? When you come after New York. You gotta go through me.”.
It’s like, oh, hometown boy, you know, he has those moments that no other politician has and the Democrats have to find that guy.
The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro backed Elon Musk over his criticism of the Trump administration’s sweeping imposition of tariffs on Monday, calling him “100% right.”
Musk, who had emerged as one of President Donald Trump’s most loyal — and powerful — advisers over the last year, offered some scathing criticism of Trump trade counselor Peter Navarro and the administration’s trade policy over the weekend.
Responding to a clip of Navarro defending said policy on CNN, Musk mused “A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing. Results in the ego/brains>>1 problem.”
In another post, Musk wrote “He ain’t built shit.”
Then in a conference call with a right-wing Italian political party, Musk said
he had advised Trump to eliminate trade barriers with Europe.
“Ideally, both Europe and the United States should move to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America,” argued Musk. “If people wish to work in Europe or wish to work in North America, they should be allowed to do so in my view.”
Meanwhile, Navarro fired back
at Musk on Fox News, submitting that Musk’s opinion was based on his personal, rather than national interests.
Shapiro took Musk’s side on his show Monday.
“The most obvious manifestation of debate inside the administration is coming courtesy of Elon Musk. Elon happens to be 100% right about this. So Elon Musk is ripping into trade adviser Peter Navarro. Navarro is a big tariff advocate. He’s been a big tariff advocate for years. And the Tesla CEO ripped Peter Navarro as someone who ‘ain’t built bleep’. And then when asked about his Harvard PhD in economics, he said, that’s a bad thing, not a good thing. And then he posted a quote from economist Thomas Sowell that said “in every disaster throughout American history there always seems to be a man from Harvard in the middle of it.’” began Shapiro, setting the stage.
Meanwhile Musk himself suggested that he wants a zero tariff situation, which again, this is the good explanation for why you would do the tariff game. I urge the president to do precisely what Musk is saying here. Go to zero with all these countries. Go to zero That’s a win, take the win, move on. That would be good for the economy, good for you, you’d have flexed your muscle, you’d flexed American muscle. That’d be good.
Here’s Elon Musk:
[CLIP BEGINS]
“I’m hopeful, for example, with the tariffs, that at the end of the day, I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America.”
[CLIP ENDS]
Navarro, for his part, started fighting back. Here was Peter Navarro on Fox News trying to push back against Musk:
[CLIP BEGINS]
“I mean, look, Elon,, look, Elon, when he’s in his DOGE lane is great, but we understand what’s going on here. Do we just have to understand. Elon sells cars, and he’s in Texas, assembling cars that have big parts of that car from Mexico, China, the batteries come from Japan or China, the electronics come from Taiwan, and he’s simply protecting his own interests as any business person would do.”
[CLIP ENDS]
Okay, so open battle between Elon and Navarro. Navarro is wrong, Elon is right. It’s that simple. The reality is that Navarro’s trade prescriptions, which is this giant trade war where he believes the tariffs are in and of themselves good, not to get to zero, they in and of themselves are good. That is a bad economic policy.
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy took exception to Fox host Will Cain and OutKick’s Clay Travis telling the American public not to worry about the market’s reaction to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Last week, Trump announced sweeping tariffs with virtually all of the United States’ trade partners. The stock market did not responded well to the news, with consecutive days of losses resulting in trillions of dollars done. The sharp declines were some of the worst since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Days after Trump’s big presentation, Portnoy revealed in a live stream that he was down $7 million
as a result of market losses. In another live stream broadcast Monday, Portnoy called out Cain and Travis for suggesting the market indicators were nothing to worry about.
“I’ve seen a little bit of — like, this was last week — like, Clay Travis, Will Cain,” Portnoy said. “They’re like, ‘Just don’t look at your 401(k). Since when do people care about the stock market?’ That’s bullshit. That’s fucking bullshit! Let’s be honest. And I prefer Trump — and he says it sometimes — he’s been like, ‘I don’t want things to go down.’ I would rather people on the right who support Trump, no matter what he does, what he says — like, when you say stuff like that, to me, it’s like, well, Trump could fucking cut someone’s head off [and] you’ll be like, ‘Well, you know, did he really?’
“Let’s call a spade a spade. Everybody has the right to panic — ‘panicking party’ — and be worried about the stock market, their 401(k), their portfolio. Don’t suddenly be like, ‘Oh, don’t look at your portfolio. Don’t worry about it.’ Bullshit. Everybody looks at their portfolio. Everyone looks at their stock market. Everybody looks at how much money is in the bank.”
Dave Portnoy: “Clay Travis, Will Cain, they’re like ‘just don’t look at your 401k. Since when do people care about the stock market?’ That’s bullshit. That’s fucking bullshit.” pic.twitter.com/BGo88ZfpuM
President Donald Trump on Monday went on a bizarre tangent about the Los Angeles Dodgers’
injuries during the team’s White House visit.
The team arrived at the White House on Monday morning. During his remarks about the team, Trump praised the abilities of two-way star Shohei Ohtani and infielder Mookie Betts. The Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in five games to capture their second World Series title in the last five seasons.
Throughout much of the season and their postseason run, the Dodgers battled through more than a few injuries from key players. Despite this — as noted by Trump — the team overcame it all.
“The resilient group used 40 different pitchers — the most ever by an eventual World Series championship team,” Trump said. “They had to go and get them. I don’t know how they got him, and where they got them, but they got them because they won.”
After offering some praise for Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw, the president went back to detailing the extent of the team’s injuries in 2024.
“All year, the Dodgers faced down adversity,” he continued. “You entered the playoffs battered and bruised, but not broken. When you ran out the healthy arms — you ran out of really healthy — they had great arms, but they ran out. It’s called sports. It’s called baseball in particular; and pitchers, I guess you could say, and really particular.”
Michelle Obama might be one of the most recognizable women in the world, but the former First Lady’s podcast has struggled to get off the ground a month after its launch.
Four weeks after rolling out IMO
(In My Opinion) alongside her brother Craig Robinson, Mrs. Obama’s
new media venture is stalled in a media marketplace with no shortage of options
.
Despite a high-profile launch and popular guests, the podcast has seen a notable drop-off in viewership on YouTube
and is lagging behind other shows on the charts.
The first episode, released on YouTube on March 12, got off to a promising start with 335,000 views. But each subsequent episode has struggled to maintain that momentum.
The next episodes released clocked in at:
252,000 views
225,000 views
194,000 views
140,000 views
IMO‘s most recent episode — uploaded five days ago – racked up only 62,000 views on YouTube.
That’s a steep decline in less than a month, especially for a show fronted by someone as universally known as Michelle Obama.
The situation on audio platforms isn’t much better for Obama and Robinson. As of Monday, IMO was ranked 34th on Spotify’s podcast chart
, and 19th on Apple Podcasts – respectable numbers, but not exactly the breakout success many would expect given the star power involved.
When the podcast was announced
in early March, The Hollywood Reporter billed it as a thoughtful, conversation-driven series designed to tackle life’s big questions.
Michelle Obama said at the time the podcast would be a haven for chats about life, family, and “hope.”
“My brother Craig and I launched the IMO podcast to create a space for people to come as they are, ask honest questions, give their opinions, and have thoughtful conversations about life,” she said. “There is no single way to deal with the challenges we may be facing — whether it’s family, faith, or our personal relationships — but taking the time to open up and talk about these issues can provide hope.”
While IMO is still in its infancy, the show has stumbled out of the gate at a time when Democrats are eager to expand their media footprint and advance their messaging after last November’s election.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average spiked and then crashed on Monday morning after an inaccurate claim, apparently started on social media, went viral and somehow made its way onto the air at CNBC and into the reporting of Reuters.
The reporting was an incorrect summation of remarks from Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, which said that during an interview with Fox News he claimed that President Donald Trump was considering a 90-day pause on sweeping his global tariffs.
The botched reporting created a sharp uptick that was a brief bright spot as stocks cratered on Monday as a result of Trump’s ongoing global trade war. Overall, the reporting created a multi-trillion dollar swing in the market.
While the true origin of the false reporting is unclear, CNN
suggested it may have originated from several unreliable news aggregating accounts on X.
Soon after those accounts posted the news, Reuters ran a headline that read
, “Wall Street reverses course after Hassett’s comments on tariff pause.” The opening sentence of the report stated: “Wall Street’s main indexes reversed course and moved sharply higher after White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said in an interview that President Donald Trump
was considering a 90-day tariff pause on all countries expect China.”
Trump’s National Economic Council Director Hassett was noncommittal on Fox about a 90 day pause, but social media misreports his comments, CNBC reports the rumor on the air and the market takes it to be real before it turns out to be fake https://t.co/QkM96A4V87
A few hours later, Reuters withdrew the story and said
, “Reuters, drawing from a headline on CNBC, published a story on April 7 saying White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett had said that President Donald Trump was considering a 90-day tariff pause on all countries except China. The White House denied the report. Reuters has withdrawn the incorrect report and regrets its error.”
During CNBC’s coverage on Monday morning, co-anchor Carl Quintanilla told his colleagues, “I think we can go with this headline. Apparently, Hassett’s been saying that Trump will consider a 90-day pause in tariffs for all countries except for China.”
the Dow turns positive as CNBC talks about reporting that Kevin Hassett is saying Trump is considering a 90 day pause on tariffs for all countries other than China pic.twitter.com/ODJOsGVqWU
As the panel all added, “That’s huge,” Quintanilla’s co-host cautioned, “We’ll try and source that exactly in terms of where that’s coming from, you know. But to your point, longer term, let’s say, OK, we get a 90-day pause. I don’t know. I’m curious to get your thoughts about credibility.” CNBC also reported on quote in its news chyron at the bottom of the screen.
CNBC later ran a comment from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt calling the report “fake news.”
“The White House dismissed a wire headline that said Trump is considering pausing new tariffs for 90 days,” reported CNBC’s live blog.
CNBC spokeswoman later commented
on the error: “As we were chasing the news of the market moves in real- time, we aired unconfirmed information in a banner. Our reporters quickly made a correction on air.”
It could very well be a double heartbreak for one of Duke basketball’s brightest stars.
Duke freshman Khaman Maluach faces possible deportation
days after the Blue Devils were knocked out of the NCAA men’s hoops tournament, according to an X post
by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The 7-foot-2 center, a Duke freshman born in South Sudan but raised in Uganda, started for the Blue Devils in their Final Four matchup Saturday night against the University of Houston.
But hours before tip-off, Rubio fired off a curious X post, saying, “I am taking actions to revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and to restrict any further issuance to prevent entry into the United States, effective immediately, due to the failure of South Sudan’s transitional government to accept the return of its repatriated citizens in a timely manner.”
I am taking actions to revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and to restrict any further issuance to prevent entry into the United States, effective immediately, due to the failure of South Sudan’s transitional government to accept the return of its repatriated…
A State Department spokesperson told USA Today
that the move would “impact all those who have a U.S. visa in a South Sudanese passport and anyone with a South Sudanese passport who is applying for a U.S. visa.
“We will provide further information and instructions to affected visa holders and applicants as it is available,” the spokesperson told the paper.
Duke is examining what the move means for Maluach.
“We are looking into the situation and working expeditiously to understand any implications for Duke students,” Duke spokesman Frank Tramble said in a statement.
No. 1 seed Duke all but had their ticket punched to Monday’s title game, but Houston had other ideas — scoring 8 points in the final 33 seconds of the game to hand the Blue Devils a crushing 70-67 loss. Maluach, who’s the subject of NBA draft chatter, played for 21 minutes and was held to just 6 points.
The championship between Houston and the University of Florida will take place on Monday night in San Antonio.
Fox’s Maria Bartiromo acknowledged the possibility of a tariff-induced recession on Monday morning.
In an appearance on America’s Newsroom, Bartiromo
observed that “the panic continues on Wall Street” and lamented that “we’ve lost more than six trillion dollars in market value in just two trading sessions” at the end of last week.
She continued:
I will say that there were some signals over the weekend that we could see some signs of de-escalation, because the White House said that 50 countries have contacted them to renegotiate tariffs lower. The president is going to have a press conference today with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from Israel. We will likely hear a conversation about tariffs, perhaps they will cut tariffs there, that could be a good market moving sign. You had some good positive comments from the prime minister of the UK saying we don’t love what Trump is doing, but we understand, and there is a room for renegotiation there as well.
And I just want to point out some positives here. Because while you have the stock market selling off, oil prices are down and interest rates are down. These are two very good signs and that will help the consumer and certainly rein in inflation. So yes, we’re still in this panic moment where people are reacting to the tariffs. But there are some signals that we could see the president talk about renegotiating tariffs with certain countries. All we need is one announcement to actually change sentiment here because a lot of people are looking at this market saying this is a wild overreaction.
“So for people who are heavily invested in Wall Street, obviously that’s a big deal. But at what point, Maria, do these effects on Wall Street start to have an effect on Main Street?” asked anchor Dana Perino after Bartiromo offered her initial take.
“Well, it is going to have an effect on Main Street. Some things will become higher priced. We will see some products actually be raised in price because companies will pass on the cost of tariffs to consumers. I would expect that. That’s why you have some people saying that we could see a recession
, we’ll see a growth slowdown.,” answered the Fox Business Network host. “This morning, Nancy Lazar, who I follow very closely, and I think she’s terrific from Piper Sandler. She says if the tariffs stay in place for at least the next six months, even if only 50 percent of the price shocks where we’re seeing products go higher in price show through the economy, U.S. real GDP is on track to decline about one percent in the second quarter, and in the third quarter with unemployment rising.”
“But look, President Trump told us that we were going to see a disruption. We are in that disruption right now,” added Bartiromo. “The bottom line is when you’re looking at this situation from 30,000 feet above, he’s trying to rejigger the economy so that the U.S. is not reliant on China for prescription drugs, or Taiwan for advanced semiconductor chips, to try to get manufacturing here. So yes, I do expect this to hit the Main Street and hit prices that will go higher, and that’s why you’re seeing this reaction in the market.”
