Letters from an American - April 6, 2025

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

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April 6, 2025. After President Donald Trump's tariff announcements on April 2 wiped $5 trillion from the stock market, the Republican Party is scrambling. Farmers who were a part of Trump's base are struck and shocked by the tariffs, the president of the South Dakota Farmers Union told Lauren Scott of CBC News, saying they will have a devastating effect. Rob Copeland, Lauren Hirsch, and Maureen Farrell of the New York Times report that Wall Street leaders who backed Trump are now criticizing him publicly, with one calling for someone to stop him. The size of yesterday's peaceful protests around the country, less than a hundred days into Trump's term when he should be enjoying a honeymoon, demonstrated growing fury at the administration's actions. Yesterday in the midst of the economic crisis, and as millions of protesters gathered across the country, the White House announced that the President won his second round matchup

of the Senior Club Championship today in Jupiter, Florida, and advances to the championship round tomorrow. This afternoon, President Donald J. Trump posted a video of himself hitting a golf ball off a tee, perhaps as a demonstration that he is unconcerned about the chaos in the markets. When Trump administration officials, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett appeared on this morning Sunday shows, their attempts to reassure Americans and deflect concerns also sounded out of touch. Besant, a

billionaire, told Kristen Welker of NBC's Meet the Press that the administration is creating a new, more secure economic system and that Americans who have put away for years in their savings accounts, I think don't look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what's happening. He went on to suggest that the losses were likely not that significant and would turn out fine in the longterm.

Lutnick insisted that the tariffs are about national security and bringing back manufacturing. Although the administration has frozen the Inflation Reduction Act funding for the manufacturing President Joe Biden brought back to the U.S., overwhelmingly in Republican-dominated districts.

Lutnick kept hitting on the MAGA talking point that other countries are ripping the U.S. off and insisted that the tariffs are here to stay. On this week by ABC News, Hasse took the opposite position that countries are already calling the White House to begin tariff negotiations. Host George Stephanopoulos asked Hassett about the video Trump posted on his social media account claiming that he was crashing the market on purpose,

forcing him to say that crashing the economy was not part of Trump's strategy. Hassett claimed that the tariffs will not part of Trump's strategy. Hassett claimed that the tariffs will not cost consumers more and that Trump is trying to deliver for American workers. The tariffs have not only forced administration officials into contradictory positions, but also have brought into the open the rift between old MAGA and billionaire Elon Musk. Trump's tariff policy reflects the ideas of his senior counselor on manufacturing and trade, Peter Navarro, a China hawk who invented an expert to support his statements in

his own books. Musk, who opposes the tariffs, has taken shots at Navarro on a social media platform X. On Saturday, Musk directly contradicted Trump and MAGA when he told a gathering of right-wing Italians that he wants the US and Europe to create a tariff-free zone as well as more freedom of people to move between Europe and North America. On the Fox News channel this morning,

Navarro retorted that Musk sells cars and is just trying to protect his own interests. Republicans also have to quell fires as the demands of the very different constituencies Trump brought into his coalition to win in 2024 are creating growing anger. A second child has now died of measles in West Texas and as of this morning Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a history of opposing vaccines, had continued to call vaccines a personal decision. Although he is not a doctor, he pushed the idea that ingesting vitamin A

helps patients recover from measles. Since his suggestion, a hospital in Texas says it is now treating children whose bodies have toxic levels of vitamin A. During the confirmation process for his post, Kennedy seems to have promised Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, chair of the Committee on Health, Education,

Labor and Pensions, and a medical doctor, that he would not alter vaccine systems. But since taking office, he has made dramatic cuts. Today, Cassidy posted on X, everyone should be vaccinated, and added, top health officials should say so, unequivocally, before another child dies. Evidently feeling the pressure

as the measles outbreak spreads, Kennedy this afternoon conceded on X that the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine. Today, Dan Diamond and Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post reported that cuts to the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, have even Republican lawmakers and former Trump officials from his first term worried

that the country is at risk of food-related disease outbreaks like the 2022 contamination of infant formula. On April 4th, Heather Vogel of ProPublica reported that the Abbott Laboratories factory at the heart of the 2022 crisis continues to use the same unsanitary practices. Employees told her that workers still take shortcuts when cleaning and checking equipment for bacteria as supervisors try to increase production and retaliate against those who complain about problems. The White House told Diamond and Naitenson that cuts to the FDA and other health agencies will make them more nimble and strategic. Abbott Laboratories told Vogel that the workers assertions

were untrue or misleading and said it stands behind the quality and safety of all our products. Diamond and Naitenson note that experts who worked under both Republican and Democratic presidents as well as former Trump officials and Republican lawmakers are also concerned about cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA, which monitors atmospheric and ocean systems and predicts weather, and to the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA that responds to disasters. Storms across the south have been wreaking havoc in the past days. Today alone saw deadly weather in Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. The governors of Tennessee and

Kentucky have declared states of emergency. Reporter James Fallows notes that the US senators from the state's hardest hit, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas, are all Republicans and are all backing Trump and Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, which is behind the cuts to Noah and FEMA. Today, Michael Senato of The Guardian reported that workers at the Social Security Administration say that cuts to staffing and services, along with policy changes, have created complete utter chaos at the agency that is threatening to cause a death spiral. Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Lee Lindudek, told Senado

that, We are updating our policy to provide better customer service to the country's most vulnerable populations. Late Thursday, Trump fired General Timothy D. Hoff, the Director of the National Security Agency, or NSA, and of the U.S. Cyber Command, as well as Hoff's deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, and several staff members from the White House National Security Council.

He apparently did so at the recommendation of right-wing conspiracy theorist, Laura Loomer. The NSA collects information from overseas computer networks while cyber command engages in both offensive and defensive operations on them. While Democrats are out front, lawmakers across the political spectrum

are concerned about the firings. Senator Angus King, an independent of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Julian E. Barnes of the New York Times, our country is under attack right now in cyberspace, and the president has just removed our top general from the field for no reason at the recommendation of someone who knows nothing about national security or even the job this general does. And then there's the crisis over the arrest and rendition of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia to prison in El Salvador. Abrego-Garcia was in the U.S. legally,

is married to a U.S. citizen, and is the father of a U.S. citizen. In 2019, a court barred the government from deporting him to El Salvador. On March 31st, an official from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, told the court under oath that Abrego Garcia had been arrested and deported to prison because of an administrative error. And yet the government also said it could not get him back because he is no longer in US jurisdiction. After a hearing on Friday,

US District Judge Paul O'Sheeney's ordered the government to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States no later than 1159 p.m. on April 7th. The administration immediately filed an emergency motion to stop the order while it appeals her decision. Today, Shanice filed her opinion which said that there were no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention, or removal. His detention appears wholly lawless. It is a clear constitutional violation and yet administration officials cling to the stunning proposition that they can forcibly remove any person, migrant and US citizen

alike, to prisons outside the United States and then baldly assert that they have no way to effectuate return because they are no longer the custodian and the court thus lacks jurisdiction. Today Cecilia Vega, Eliza Chasson, Camilo Montoya Galvez, Andy Court and Annabel Hanflig of CBS News' 60 Minutes reported that 75% of the Venezuelans the Trump administration sent to prison in El Salvador have no apparent criminal convictions or even criminal charges. Another 22% have records for nonviolent crimes like shoplifting or trespassing. A dozen or so are accused of murder, rape, assault, or kidnapping.

When the reporters reached out to the Department of Homeland Security about these numbers, a spokesperson said that those without criminal records are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters, and more, they just don't have a rap sheet in the US. This utter disregard for the constitutional right to due process is raising alarm among Americans who have noted that when Trump declared an emergency at the southern border on January 20th, he ordered the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security to advise him whether they thought it necessary to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act.

That act allows a president, during times of civil unrest, to use the military against U.S US citizens. US stock futures plunged again tonight with Dow Jones industrial average futures down 1,250 points or 3.3 percent, S&P 500 futures down 3.7 percent, and NASDAQ futures down 4.6 percent. And yet Trump is doubling down on tariffs, posting that they are a beautiful thing to behold. Someday people will realize that tariffs

for the United States of America are a very beautiful thing. Republican leaders have not silenced the chatter about Trump serving a third time despite its obvious unconstitutionality, at least in part because they know he is the only person who can turn out MAGA voters. But their calculations appear to be changing. Today, Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News Sunday that Trump is a very smart man and I wish we could have him for 20 years as our president, but that I think he's going to be finished probably after this term. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.

It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.