Trump's Pals Cash in on Chaos - The Thursday AM Quickie 4/10/25
My cats, who can already open doors, have also figured out how to turn off my computer while I'm working in order to get my attention so I can feed them. Things are getting out of hand everywhere! - Corey
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ON THE SHOW TODAY
4/10: It's an EmMajority Report Thursday! The guests will be civil rights lawyer and "Copaganda" author Alec Karakatsanis and Zeteo News reporter Prem Thakker.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
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Today you'll read about the latest insane conspiracy theories from Donald Trump's top law enforcement and national security officials, the union rallies around the country protesting cuts to education and health research, and how Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer may have just torched her chance to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.
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THE BIG NEWS
The Brazen Corruption at the Heart of Trump's Chaotic Economic Policies
Whoopsie! After throwing the global economy into chaos with his imposition of blanket tariffs on dozens of other countries, Donald Trump yesterday changed his mind, announcing "a 90 day PAUSE" that would reduce most tariffs to 10 percent – with the exception of China, which will face even higher tariffs of 125 percent, and which has retaliated with an 84 percent tariff of its own on US goods. "This was his strategy all along," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent lied to reporters yesterday, even though Trump denied on Monday that he would back down on tariffs. By Trump's own account, he's making up economic policy as he goes along, telling reporters yesterday that he and his advisers decided to reverse the tariffs that morning without legal advice, saying, "we wrote it up from our hearts."
This roller coaster could still fly off the track at any time. Trump didn't just crash global stock markets and trigger a recession with his tariffs – he nearly plunged the US into a depression by sparking the widespread sell-off of US Treasury bonds, which have long been considered a "safe harbor" for investors, and which serve as a rough measure of confidence in the US economy, the dollar, and America's international leadership role. "The bond market is very tricky," Trump acknowledged. "People were getting a little queasy" and "yippy."
"No other president would have done what I did," he added. That much is probably true.
Why gamble his presidency on a nonsensical, whiplash trade policy? There's a good chance Trump may be intentionally sowing chaos so he and his rich friends can personally profit. Shortly after US stock markets opened yesterday morning, Trump wrote on Truth Social "BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well." A few minutes later, he wrote "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT." He announced the pause on tariffs a few hours later, at around 1:30pm Eastern Time. Stocks surged in response to the news.
"This is a scenario that could expose the president to accusations that he engaged in market manipulation," Richard Painter, a government ethics professor at University of Minnesota's law school and the former chief ethics counsel to President George W. Bush, tells NBC News. Kathleen Clark, a government ethics and corruption professor at the Washington University School of Law, tells the New York Times that Trump's posts should trigger a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying, "If we still had a rule of law, a robust system for the rule of law, it would be investigated." By Trump's own admission, he was thinking yesterday morning about reverting the tariffs – so the signal he was sending to his followers was pretty clear.
In a video released by the White House yesterday afternoon, Trump can be seen gesturing to two corporate executives, and heard saying, "he made $2.5 billion today, and he made $900 million. That's not bad." It also turned out to be "the largest one-day gain in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index."
Too bad for everybody else.
MORE STORIES TO WATCH
Top Trump Intel Lackey Suggests FBI Staged Jan. 6
Two-time failed Republican congressional candidate Joe Kent enjoyed quite the promotion thanks to Donald Trump. Kent, a former US Army Green Beret and self-described "CIA paramilitary officer" now serves as chief of staff to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, making him argubly the highest-ranking Proud Boys associate in the federal government, that is if you don't count Trump himself. Now Reuters reports that Kent, whom Trump has nominated to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, told Congress that his conspiracy theory that the FBI secretly organized Trump's mob to attack the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is "being looked into" by the intelligence community. Don't be surprised if he declares at some point that it was all Antifa's doing.
Also yesterday, Trump signed executive orders punishing two security officials from his first term who criticized him: Christopher Krebs and Miles Taylor, whom Trump called a "traitor" while also claiming "I barely remember him." And FBI director Kash Patel was replaced as the acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives by Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll; officials say Patel was actually removed as head of the ATF days after his appointment in February, but nobody bothered to tell the agency's workers. Strange stuff!
ICE Boss Invites Corporations to Cash in on Deportations
The fact that the Trump administration is spending hundreds of billions of dollars building an unaccountable Gestapo that's focused, for now, on the mass deportation of immigrants is scary enough. But it's becoming clear that Trump's henchmen share an even more frightening vision that employs the vast troves of data on individuals hoarded by the government and corporations to build a high-tech 21st century totalitarian state. The Arizona Mirror reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement's acting leader told the 2025 Border Security Expo in Phoenix this week that "his dream for the agency is squads of trucks rounding up immigrants for deportation the same way that Amazon trucks crisscross American cities delivering packages.
"'We need to get better at treating this like a business,' Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said, explaining he wants to see a deportation process 'like (Amazon) Prime, but with human beings.'"
The private prison expo also drew brutish "Border Czar" Tom Homan and Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem. Homeland Security yesterday announced that it would use "data analytic tools to scour the social media histories of the estimated 1.5 million foreign students studying in the United States for potential grounds to revoke their visas," including advocacy for Palestinian rights. According to the Washington Post, the surveillance regime will also extend to green card applicants. "The spirit of Joseph McCarthy is alive and well in the Trump administration," Edward Ahmed Mitchell of the Council on American-Islamic Relations tells NPR. Finally, Bloomberg reports that 90 percent of the Venezuelans deported by the US to El Salvador's torture prisons so far had no criminal record; and two federal judges in New York and Texas issued separate orders yesterday again temporarily barring those deportations after the Supreme Court weighed in on Monday.
QUICKEST QUICKIES
- House Speaker Mike Johnson Vows to Try, Try Again Today After Caucus Squabbles Stall Trump's Budget Bill The Republican spending package "allows for budget increases with some $175 billion to pay for Trump's mass deportation operation," but doesn't include enough cuts to social services to satisfy GOP holdouts. via the Washington Post and the Associated Press.
- Death Toll Reaches 184 in Dominican Republican Nightclub Collapse Dust from the ceiling of Santo Domingo's historic Jet Set nighclub began falling into people's drinks minutes before the roof fell in the early hours of Tuesday morning during a merengue concert. via the New York Times and the Associated Press.
- Social Security Administration Cancels Planned Cuts to Phone Services After 'Chaos and Backlash' "The shift amounts to a wholesale retreat by [Elon] Musk's team and the Social Security leadership." via the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.
- 'Kill the Cuts': Unions Rally for Science, Health, and Education at 37 Locations Across US The Trump administration's "cuts to science, STEM funding and health research funding really threaten to undermine entire generations' worth of progress in science, medicine and health," says UCLA political science professor Michael Chwe, who joined the labor coalition protest there on Tuesday. via the LA Times, Nonprofit Quarterly, and Chalkbeat Newark.
SOME NUMBER
1.6 petabytes
That's how much data scientists collected while mapping the 523 million neural connections in a sample of a mouse's brain the size of a grain of sand, or a poppy seed. The data scientists gathered is "the equivalent of 22 years of nonstop high-definition video," the New York Times reports – and the map of neurons they created was once thought to be an impossible feat.
DON'T MISS MR CLIPS
Dave Rubin's Tariff Wisdom for Idiots
If you don't understand something, it's okay not to talk about it at length.
Republican Tells Fired Worker 'You Probably Deserved It'
That's Indiana Sen. Jim Banks, a real working man.
PARTING WORDS
"If you're not at the table, you're on the menu."
-- Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, obliquely justifying her decision to join Donald Trump for a friendly Oval Office appearance yesterday after she expressed equivocal support for his tariffs policy. Whitmer's office later claimed she "was surprised that she was brought into the Oval Office ... without any notice of the subject matter" and that her presence at Trump's side was "not an endorsement of the actions taken or statements made." One Democratic operative who admires Whitmer tells NBC News the Oval Office visit was "just a f*cking disaster" and "removes some of the momentum she had as a politically savvy swing-state Dem" and possible 2028 presidential candidate.
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