Good morning! Who’s ready to party like it’s 2020? In response to Trump’s humongous list of new tariffs (more on that below), Rich Guy™ Mark Cuban is suggesting that everyone go out and stock up on nonperishable items like toothpaste and soap to avoid potential price hikes. In the event his dumb tweet accidentally launches the Great Walmart War of 2025, let’s all agree to hoard something more fun than toilet paper this time around.

TRADE

📦️ Trump declares ‘Liberation Day,’ unveils more tariffs

Happy belated Liberation Day, everyone! No, it’s not a newfangled TikTok-fueled holiday. It’s what President Trump dubbed his announcement yesterday of loads of new tariffs to fight back against what he views as other countries screwing us.

• Here’s the money quote on that: “April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn… and the day that we began to make America wealthy again.”

Reciprocal tariffs are the name of the game. He called his new policy a simple “They do it to us, and we do it to them” move. If a country is tariffing goods we ship to them, Trump believes we should be doing the same to goods they send here. As a bonus, the added tax revenue from tariffs could help him out on the budget front. His plan to cut taxes on things like tips and overtime pay doesn’t come cheap.

Which countries are affected? All of them. Trump announced a baseline 10% tariff on all trading partners beginning on Saturday. Then, depending on how they treat U.S. goods, imports will be hit with tariffs equal to about half what they charge us. For example, Trump's plan says India charges 52% tariffs on American goods, so the new "discounted reciprocal tariff" on Indian goods is 26%.

• The new rate for China is 34%, while Japan's is 24%.

• FYI, these new reciprocal tariffs won’t stack on top of the new 25% auto tariffs.

Opponents of this plan (which, to be honest, includes most modern economists) believe it’s reckless and will only drive up costs for Americans. They also say the plan treats various non-tariff policies, like European consumption taxes, as trade barriers when calculating the rates.

• Even the president’s allies admit this could cause short-term pain. Whether that’s followed by long-term gains is the big question.

Does Congress get a say? Congress always gets a say… if it wants one. The Senate voted 51-48 to block Trump’s tariffs on Canada, but the House is unlikely to bring that measure to a vote. Don’t bet on Congress overturning any of these things. But the White House’s wheeling and dealing with other countries has already begun, so rates could change rapidly moving forward.

GOVERNMENT

☮️ The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) is getting DOGE-d. Most of the peace-promoting nonprofit’s 300 employees were laid off last weekend, and the Trump administration argued in court this week that its plan to transfer USIP's headquarters and assets to the government's General Services Administration (GSA) is legal. While the USIP isn't technically a government agency, it is federally funded, and its board is appointed by the president. Tech entrepreneur and DOGE staffer Nate Cavanaugh is nominally president of USIP. His appointment, however, is being challenged by the organization's former chief.

💊 As many as 10,000 employees are set to lose their jobs as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) begins layoffs this week. Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. called it a "difficult moment" but defended the policy because what HHS has "been doing isn't working." He said the department would "be recalibrated to emphasize prevention, not just sick care." TBD on what that means in practice. While the reorg will shrink HHS from 28 to 15 operating divisions, Kennedy claims Medicare, Medicaid, and "other essential health services" won't be affected.

CONGRESS

🏆️ Senator breaks talking record, everyone claps

Politicians and talking. Name a more iconic duo. It’s not surprising that Democratic voters are pretty unhappy with the way things are going and want their party to do more to fight what they view as President Trump’s overreach. Hearing those complaints, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) took action. What action, exactly? Well, he stood up and talked… for 25 hours straight.

How does that work? The rules are simple. You can’t sit down — Booker had an aide remove his chair to avoid temptation — and you can’t leave. You’re not supposed to eat, though small bits of candy are usually fine. Glasses of water are a Senate mainstay, but since you can’t leave to go to the bathroom, you’d best go easy on that. Past senators have been rumored to wear diapers or catheter bags to solve that lil problem.

• You don’t have to talk the entire time, either. You can maintain control of the Senate floor by yielding for a “question” (read: short speech to give you a break) from a friendly colleague.

• Booker used his time to hit Trump and Republicans from every angle, but reading random books aloud is a classic time-filling strategy.

This wasn’t technically a filibuster. It’s only a filibuster if it’s from the specific filibustré region of France. Just kidding. Booker’s speech wasn’t a filibuster because he wasn’t trying to clog up the Senate floor to run out the clock on legislation he opposed. He talked for so long because, in his words, “we all have a responsibility, I believe, to do something different, to cause, as John Lewis said, good trouble—and that includes me.”

• His marathon speech lasted 25 hours and 5 minutes, breaking a 1957 record set by Sen. Strom Thurmond (D-SC). Thurmond spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

• Booker previously opposed the filibuster. Like many Democrats during the Biden era, he wanted to dump the procedure during and even called the weird Senate rule an “abuse of power.”

What’s the result of this? Booker’s 2020 presidential campaign was a dud. But capturing the nation’s attention for a day (and grabbing 350 million TikTok likes in the process) doesn’t hurt ahead of a potential second bid in 2028.

Q&A

❓️ TikTok, Badgers, and Maryland dads

Q: Did the Trump administration deport an innocent dad from Maryland?

A: That depends on whom you ask. Kilmar Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. illegally in 2011 from El Salvador. After being picked up by immigration cops in 2019, a judge found him to be a "verified member of MS-13" (a violent gang) — a claim he disputed. Another judge, though, found him to be in danger of persecution back home and thus ineligible for deportation. He’s lived in Maryland with his American wife and child ever since… that is, until being deported to a huge prison in El Salvador on March 15. A U.S. official admitted they goofed by overlooking that 2019 court order, but the White House doubled down and said there’s nothing they can do now that he’s gone. A final resolution is still TBD here.

Q: Is TikTok getting banned on Saturday or what?

A: Maaaaybe. Thanks to a 75-day extension given by President Trump in January, TikTok has until this Saturday, April 5, to sell itself to an American company or get the boot. Amazon recently joined the fray of companies who want to take over, and the White House is working overtime to close a deal ASAP. Trump is allowed to grant another short, 15-day extension if needed, but time is running out. And TikTok’s opponents are prepared to challenge any purchase that doesn’t cut China out of the picture completely — a detail they say the 2024 ban law requires.

Q: Who won Tuesday’s elections?

A: The Democratic candidate won the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court (apparently that's something we all care about now?). Democrat Susan Crawford defeated Republican Brad Schimel in a $90 million fight backed by out-of-state billionaires on both sides, solidifying her party’s control of the Badger State’s highest court. On the flip side, voters overwhelmingly approved a Republican-backed voter I.D. initiative. Down in Florida, Republicans easily won both congressional races.

TRIVIA

Ever since their little, ahem, situation in World War 2, Germany has avoided permanently deploying troops to foreign countries. No more! The German military launched a new brigade of 5,000 soldiers to help bolster the forces of NATO countries near Russia. The troops are stationed in Lithuania, one of the three so-called Baltic States. Which three European countries are known as the Baltic States?

Hint: Not to be confused with the Balkans (near Greece), these lil guys sit on the Baltic Sea across from Sweden.

BRIEFS

● Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Luigi Mangioni. The prep-school rich-kid-turned-nutjob faces federal and state charges for murdering middle-class Iowan-turned-UnitedHealthcare-CEO Brian Thompson.

● The White House threw cold water on claims that Elon Musk had become a liability for Trump and was on his way out. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Musk will leave when his "work at DOGE is complete," which she said would be later this spring.

● National security advisor Mike Waltz, however, is on shakier ground after launching the Signalgate scandal. Rumors that he used “at least 20” similar Signal chats and his personal Gmail account for government work have him continuing to take fire.

● The U.S. House is heated over whether to allow new parents in Congress to vote by proxy (via another representative). Democrats support the idea, but Republicans are split as many think the Constitution demands representatives be “present.”

QUOTE

ANSWER

These fellas all border Russia and, seeing as how they’re each only about the size of West Virginia, are very pro-NATO (and anti-Russia). Basically stacked on top of one another, from south to north, the Baltic States are: Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.