Trump dwell updates: Stock futures down and markets anticipated to open decrease as president doubles down on tariffs
A Trump administration official defended the 10 percent tariffs imposed on the Heard and McDonald Islands, which are only inhabited by penguins.
On CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning, host Jake Tapper asked Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins about the peculiar levy on the Australian external territory.
“They have zero human inhabitants. They have zero exports. They have zero imports. They do have a lot of penguins,” Tapper said. “Why are you putting tariffs on islands that are entirely populated by penguins?”
“Come on, Jake,” Rollins said, before dodging the question. “We live under a tariff regime from other countries.”
Tapper interjected that these islands haven’t imposed any tariffs.
After Trump unveiled his tariff plan, Australia’s trade minister Don Farrell told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation these levies were “clearly a mistake.”
Farrell continued: “Poor old penguins, I don’t know what they did to Trump, but, look, I think it’s an indication, to be honest with you, that this was a rushed process.”
In the wake of the new tariffs, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “It just shows and exemplifies the fact that nowhere on Earth is safe from this.”
The president is in Jupiter, Florida Sunday golfing in the championship round of the Senior Club Championship after he won the second-round matchup Saturday, the White House said.
Best signs from the nationwide ‘Hands Off’ protests
As thousands came together on Saturday in nationwide protests to denounce President Donald Trump’s administration, several rallygoers held noteworthy signs emblazoned with clever phrases and imagery to relay messages of defiance.
Dubbed the “Hands Off” protests, rallies cropped up across the U.S. and the globe, with the sole purpose of putting a stop to the “most brazen power grab in modern history,” according to organizers.
While many attendees marched empty-handed, others displayed handmade signs featuring fighting words aimed at Trump, JD Vance, and tech billionaire Elon Musk, leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, which has cut tens of thousands of government jobs.
One Wisconsinite held a sign that read: “Wisconsin hates Elon Musk so much it could be one of his kids.” The message, in reference to the Tesla CEO’s strained relationships with his estranged daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson, appeared to entertain The Handmaid’s Tale actor Bradley Whitford, who shared a picture of the woman and her sign on X.
Inga Parkel has the story.
AG says Trump is ‘probably finished’ after current presidential term is over
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an interview this Sunday on Fox News that President Donald Trump is “probably finished” as commander-in-chief after his current term ends.
Bondi was speaking on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream when she was asked about Trump’s various remarks surrounding a third term in office.
“I wish we could have him for 20 years as our president, but I think he’s gonna be finished probably after this term.”
When questioned on her use of the word “probably,” Bondi replied: “We’d have to look at the constitution.”
Bondi picked up on Bream’s use of the phrase “heavy lift” when describing what actions would need to be taken in order to remain in office past 2028.
“There are methods which you can use,” Trump insisted on NBC News in a telephone interview last Sunday.
Here’s the full story.
VOICES: Trump has made China appear an apostle of free trade
The Chinese Communist Party, apostle of free trade. In a strange new world, that was the strangest thing, as shares crashed in reaction to President Donald Trump’s opening salvo of tariffs in a global trade war.
“The market has spoken,” said the foreign ministry spokesman, Guo Jiakun, writing in English on Facebook – which is, by the way, banned in China. No double standards there, then. Beijing can always keep a straight face when it matters.
Politically, the Chinese government can scarcely believe its luck. It has stepped forward as a voice of reason and stability in a chorus of discord to promote the false narrative that it has been a model of good behavior since it joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on December 11, 2001, a date that seems destined to live in the textbooks as the peak of globalization.
The Trump tariffs “are a typical act of unilateral bullying”, complained a spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry.
“This approach disregards the balance of interests achieved through years of multilateral trade negotiations and ignores the fact that the US has long gained substantial profits from international trade,” the spokesman added.
Read the story from Michael Sheridan.
ICYMI: Elon Musk takes swipes at Peter Navarro over tariff policy
There’s trouble in Trumpland; Tesla CEO and head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, has taken public swipes at Donald Trump’s adviser on trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro, who helped shape the president’s reciprocal tariff policy that tanked markets across the world.
Musk is typically vocal in his support and defense of the president, but has been quiet since Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement that killed $2.5 trillion from the U.S. stock market — a loss of value that cost the Tesla CEO more than $30bn, according to CNBC.
On X, which Musk owns, he took swipes at Navarro, a Harvard-educated economist who advises Trump on trade. Navarro who was originally tapped for a spot in the White House by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is the author of books on China and the economic threats he says the nation poses to the U.S.
A user on X posted a video from CNN in which Navarro defends the tariffs, noting positively that he went to Harvard. Musk took issue with that, calling it a “bad thing.”
Graig Graziosi has the story.
RFK Jr. visits Texas after second child dies of measles in the state
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. visited Texas after a second measles-related death of a child, according to the Associated Press.
The news comes after an 8-year-old girl died early on Thursday morning from “measles pulmonary failure” while she was being treated at a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, the New York Times reported.
Her death is the second tied to a measles outbreak in West Texas and the second tied to the disease in the U.S. in a decade. Dozens of residents in the region — including in bordering states — have been infected. She was not vaccinated, the UMC Health System said.
The first death in the region was also an unvaccinated child who died in February. There may be a third death — an unvaccinated individual in New Mexico — who tested positive for measles. Health officials are still trying to confirm if measles was the individual’s cause of death.
Graig Graziosi has the details.
WATCH: ‘Hands Off’ protests are held throughout the United States on April 5th
SNL censors audience profanities during Ego Nwodim’s Weekend Update segment
Saturday Night Live made sure to remove a brief moment of audience swearing from the latest episode’s live broadcast before it was rebroadcasted.
During the Weekend Update segment, co-host Colin Jost welcomed fellow cast member Ego Nwodim to comment on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner organizers’ controversial decision to axe Amber Ruffin from the comedy slot at the forthcoming event to avoid “politics of division.”
“I’m just gonna come out and say it. They should let me do the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” Nwodim declared, explaining that each year comedians ruffle feathers by “talking trash” about the White House and media rather than making fun of the dinner itself.
Inga Parkel has the story.
Trump posts Mexican government’s anti-fentanyl ad on his social media platform
On his Truth Social account Sunday, President Donald Trump posted an anti-fentanyl video ad on behalf of the Mexican government.
“Fentanyl kills. It destroys your body the first time you use it,” the narrator says as clips show people grabbing their heads in pain, slumping over while standing and missing teeth.
“Exercise makes you strong and gives you life,” the narrator continues. “Stay away from drugs.”
Trump’s Truth Social post comes as he imposes tariffs on Mexico and Canada to curb the influx of fentanyl entering the United States.
“President Trump is taking bold action to hold Mexico, Canada, and China accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country,” he said in a February executive order.
Trump officials struggle to explain tariff strategy
CNN’s Jake Tapper clashed with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Sunday as she and other Cabinet-level officials hit the interview circuit to reassure Americans in the wake of a stock market plunge as the fallout from “Liberation Day” continues.
The Texas native and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were the face of the Trump administration’s PR offensive on Sunday. The White House battled a wave of negative headlines surrounding two days of steep market losses and the criticism of free trade advocates in both parties who claim that the president’s actions will crash the US economy.
Tapper questioned the USDA director over one of the more questionable aspects of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff rollout — an imposed duty of 10 percent on exports from the Heard and McDonald Islands, a pair of uninhabited rocks off the coast of Australia used for legal purposes for occasional small-scale exports.
“Why are you putting import tariffs on islands that are entirely populated by penguins?” asked Tapper. US imports from the island chain in 2024 totaled just under $14,000, according to the World Bank.
“Well, I mean — come on Jake, obviously here’s the bottom line: we live under a tariff regime from other countries,” the secretary responded.
The CNN host interjected: “The McDonald islands is not imposing–”
“I mean, come on. Whatever,” Rollins said. “Listen, the people that are leading this are serious, intentional, patriotic, the smartest people I’ve ever worked with. I did not come up with the formulas, I’m the [Agriculture] Secretary.”
John Bowden has the story.
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks out on Trump’s future plans
Senator Bernie Sanders has broken his silence over President Donald Trump’s teasing that he will seek a third term in the Oval Office in 2028.
The 83-year-old Vermont senator was asked if he, like many Republicans, laughs off the suggestion of a third term.
“No, I don’t. The idea of a third term? Why not? They don’t believe in the rule of law. They don’t believe in the Constitution. So, yeah, I would take that seriously,” he told CBS News.
Last week, Trump told NBC News in an interview that he was considering “methods” to seek a third term.
Later, on Air Force One from Florida to Washington, he elaborated to reporters that “I have had more people ask me to have a third term, which in a way is a fourth term because the other election, the 2020 election, was totally rigged.” Trump lost that election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Read the full story.
Source: independent.co.uk
