Business reporters, hedge fund managers, and Wall Street analysts are all looking at President Trump's sweeping tariffs and saying: Make it make sense.
Trump's tariff chart was "illogical and absurd," full of "factually incorrect" numbers about what other countries charge the U.S., Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities wrote to clients this morning.
Daniel Dale's CNN fact-check of the speech found false claims about who pays tariffs; the U.S. trade deficit with Canada; U.S. wealth; Canada's dairy tariffs gas prices; and previous presidents' tariffs on China.
"The president relied on claims that have been debunked many times before," the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler wrote overnight. But now his nonsensical statements "are determining policy that will increase the costs of goods for many Americans."
So if Trump's policy is built on "astonishing historical falsehoods" and "mathematical sleight of hand," as Zev Shalev wrote in his Narativ newsletter, news outlets need to keep the facts front and center while also covering all of the market fallout.
To that end, CNBC's Neelabh Chaturvedi and Asriel Chua wrote overnight about how journalists have tried to "reverse engineer the formula — to confusing results." And CNN's David Goldman just came out with a helpful story titled "this is the dubious way Trump appears to have calculated his 'reciprocal' tariffs."
>> To be clear, it's not just journalists asking "WTF?" Economics professor Justin Wolfers wrote on Bluesky that the "incoherent, ill-informed tariffs based on fabrications, imagined wrongs, discredited theories and ignorance of decades of evidence."
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Right-wing media's familiar divide |
I'll be keeping a close eye on conservative media reactions to the tariffs today. Principled right-wing voices like radio host Erick Erickson are scrutinizing the president; Erickson called the tariffs "one of the largest tax increases on Americans and done by fiat. Just wow."
Over at National Review, Veronique de Rugy dissects Trump's "Liberation Day" slogan by asking, "Are you ready to be liberated from rising wages, massive foreign direct investments, a growing economy, and friends worldwide?" And the Wall Street Journal's editorial board continues to criticize "Trump's New Protectionist Age."
But more MAGA-centric outlets – ones that are frankly more influential with Trump and his inner circle – are assuming Trump's claims are true and cheering for his actions. VP JD Vance gave interviews to Breitbart and Fox this morning praising the tariffs. When you look at the Dow today, "it might not feel so liberating," Fox's Jesse Watters warned his viewers last night. "Neither did the day after D-Day. But eventually we won."
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Media firms feeling the pain |
Trump's timing couldn't be worse for major media companies, since the "upfront" ad sales season is right around the corner, THR's Alex Weprin writes: "The media business might not be built on imported physical goods, but many of its largest advertisers are, and the ad business is already beginning to feel the pain."
>> On the other hand, we have written in the past about newspaper publishers fearing tariffs on Canadian newsprint, and at the moment, it looks like newsprint will continue to be exempted from all tariffs, per the News/Media Alliance, which is lobbying to keep it that way.
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>> "It was Jeopardy!, or The Price Is Right, come to Washington:" David Smith says Trump went "full game show host," except "nobody's a winner." (Guardian)
>> Video clips of CNBC showing stocks falling sharply during Trump's speech are making the rounds on social media. (Daily Beast)
>> Apple "is the most prominent tech company to feel the sting of tariffs," and Tripp Mickle explains why here. (NYT)
>> "War" and "pain:" The Guardian rounded up European newspaper headlines about the trade war. (Guardian)
>> Chuck Todd tweeted just now, "I have the same feeling THIS morning pre-markets opening that I have had while waiting for a hurricane to come ashore. You know it’s going to be damaging, you just don’t know how bad and you hope you dodge the worst of it." (X)
>> Check out CNN's live updates page about the trade war, which includes a series of "Your questions, answered."
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Trump has a "menu of options" about TikTok, as this story on the front page of today's Washington Post says. Who knows what he'll choose, when he'll announce it, and whether it'll match the letter and/or spirit of the law Congress passed.
A leading possibility, according to The Information's Kaya Yurieff, is "TikTok America," which "would be roughly 50% owned by new U.S. investors" and would license TikTok's algorithm from ByteDance. So many tech companies and investors want to be in the mix. There were new reports yesterday about Amazon and AppLovin.
Common sense suggests Trump's friends have some advantages here. "Trump could make Larry Ellison the next media mogul," David Streitfeld and Theodore Schleifer write for the NYT, as Ellison's Oracle "keeps emerging as a possible bidder for TikTok."
Ellison is also funding his son David's bid to take control of Paramount. As Rich Greenfield put it, "all these pieces are coming together to form something that isn't quite clear yet except for this: The Ellison family will be at the center."
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Newsmax ringing the opening bell |
Shares in Newsmax came back down to earth yesterday. After touching $250+ on Tuesday, the stock closed at $52 on Wednesday and is set to open even lower this morning. Viewers who bought the stock at its $10 ground floor are still sitting pretty, however. This morning Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy "will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange." Given the market plunge, I'm sure he would have preferred a different day...
>> Trump's Truth Social has filed paperwork that will allow the president to sell up to $2.3 billion in stock, Ben Berkowitz reports for Axios, adding that the troubled social media company "may be hoping for a halo from Newsmax."
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"Disney's new fairy tale" is that "appeasement will satisfy the White House," Beth Kowitt writes in this strong opinion piece for Bloomberg. She says the FCC's investigation into Disney's DEI efforts "is a warning to corporate America — the moment you cave, the goal posts will move." |
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Thanks to hard-nosed reporting, we're still learning more about how Trump aides use Signal and other publicly available tools. Mike Waltz's team has set up least 20 such group chats "for crises across the world," Politico's Dasha Burns reported yesterday. Earlier this week the Washington Post reported on Waltz and other top advisers using personal Gmail accounts for work...
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'The Elon Musk experiment...' |
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>> Take a bow, Deborah Norville! The television icon is leaving "Inside Edition" at the end of this season. (USA Today)
>> CNBC has secured distribution deals with Apple and Roku for CNBC+. (Variety)
>> "Former Vice CEO Nancy Dubuc is back, this time tackling women's sports." (WSJ)
>> Patreon is “inking podcasting partnership deals with Sony Music Entertainment and Amazon's Wondery." (Bloomberg)
>> Liechtenstein's public radio broadcaster "is to disappear from the airwaves on Thursday after voters decided to pull state funding and the government was unable to find a way to privatize it." (AP)
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This week's new best sellers |
Graydon Carter's "When The Going Was Good" is debuting at #5 on the NYT best seller list. David Pakman's "The Echo Machine" is debuting at #7 and Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater's "Mad House" is at #12.
There is one other new entrant on the Times list this week: A 12-year-old self-published book titled "Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History." One of the two authors, Suzanne Humphries, appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast recently, and that's what caused the book's sudden sales jolt. Miles Klee, who wrote about the episode for Rolling Stone, said Humphries "made one outrageously false claim after another" about diseases and vaccines, and Rogan appeared "to accept everything she told him as fact."
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>> Mark Zuckerberg, who was seen in the West Wing yesterday, has been lobbying Trump and top aides "to resolve a federal antitrust lawsuit against his company that is set to go to trial on April 14, three people with knowledge of the matter said," Mike Isaac and David McCabe report. (NYT)
>> Zuckerberg has bought himself a $23 million "personal embassy" in DC. (Politico)
>> Meta and UFC have struck a multimillion-dollar partnership deal. (The Hill)
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>> "The great blockbuster drought of 2025 may finally cease thanks to Warner Bros.' big-budget A Minecraft Movie," which opens Friday and could enjoy a $100 million opening weekend. (Boxoffice)
>> "Antoine Fuqua's upcoming Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, may be split into two movies. As a result, the Lionsgate and Universal Pictures International project will likely push its current Oct. 3 release date." (Variety)
>> Fox has given four-season renewal orders to The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers, and American Dad! (Deadline)
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Take me to Mario Kart World |
A new, more immersive version of "Mario Kart" was one of Nintendo's many announcements when it unveiled the Switch 2 yesterday. The new system "will launch on June 5 for $449.99, which is significantly higher than the first-generation model’s $300 price," Lisa Eadicicco reports.
Among the interesting aspects: The system's camera accessory "will let you see your friends while you play games." But amid all this global tumult, I'm mostly just excited to go visit "Mario Kart World." Polygon has a fantastic preview of the game here. Nintendo's official trailer already has millions of views on YouTube...
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