Morning Wire - Trump Tariffs Unveiled & FBI Censored Biden Laptop | 4.3.25

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

President Trump finally unveils his tariffs at White House, new internal messages reveal FBI verified Hunter Biden laptop in 2020, and free speech is at risk in the UK as they jail a pro-life supporter. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Acorns: Join over 14 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested. Visit https://acorns.com/wire or download the Acorns app to get started. Old Glory Bank: Go to https://oldglorybank.com/wire today to open your account and put your money in the hands of people you can ACTUALLY trust. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Trump unveils his highly anticipated tariff plan in a Rose Garden speech. My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day. Did Trump win over his critics? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, April 3rd, and this is Morning Wire. Damning new evidence points to an FBI cover-up ahead of the 2020 election. It's inescapable now that it was clearly so they could help steer the election towards Joe Bauer. And trade negotiations between the U.S. and the U.K. Hang and the balance as the fate of a pro-life

protester becomes a bargaining chip. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to now. Acorns makes it easy to start saving and investing for your future in just five minutes. You don't need to be an expert either. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. And you don't need to be rich. Acorns let you start with the spare money you've got right now, even if all you have is spare change. Sign up and join the over 14 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $25 billion with Acorns.

Head to Acorns.com slash wire or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non-client endorsement. Compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Tier 1 compensation provided. Investing involves risk. Acorns advisor LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at Acorns.com slash wire. After months of anticipation, President Trump rolled out his plan to implement historic tariffs on Wednesday, transforming American trade policy with the stroke of his pen. Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here with the highlights.

So Cabot, everyone has been waiting to hear this tariff plan. What did Trump announce? Yeah, world leaders, investors, the business community, everyone has been holding their breath ahead of what Trump described as Liberation Day. And it did not disappoint. Speaking from the Rose Garden before an audience of lawmakers, small business owners, farmers, and auto factory workers, the president kicked things off with a simple message.

April 2nd, 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again. So no doubt this will transform the global economy. What did the final plan look like? So first, the U.S. will establish a minimum baseline tariff of 10% on all countries, regardless of what they charge now. From there, the president announced that rates will be reciprocal,

aka will decide what to charge based on what other countries charge us. But according to Trump, the U.S. will be gracious. In his words, quote, kind reciprocal, not full reciprocal. In a truly just remarkable scene, the president held up a giant poster board displaying dozens of countries along with the exact rate that they'll now pay. Trump says that number was decided by adding up each country's tariffs, value-added taxes and currency manipulation. That number was then divided by two, and the final rate was decided.

For example, according to Trump, China's overall rate on U.S. imports is 67%. So they'll get 34%. The EU will face 20% rates, Japan, 24%, Australia, 10%, India, 26. The list goes on. If you look at Switzerland, 61% to 31%, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Oh, look at Cambodia, 97%. We're going to bring it down to 49. They made a fortune with the United States of America.

United Kingdom, 10%. And it was interesting. The president noted that while he views existing tariff discrepancies between the U.S. and trading partners is unfair, he did not blame those other countries for those policies. Such horrendous imbalances have devastated our industrial base and put our national security at risk. I don't blame these other countries at all. for this calamity. I blame former presidents and past leaders.

Now, Trump devoted much of his address to the auto industry, saying foreign tariffs have driven American companies to outsource production, leaving our manufacturing base decimated. In an effort to bring back that auto production to the U.S., he announced additional 25% tariffs on all auto imports across the board. Following that move, he called Brian Panbacker, a united auto worker to the podium. My entire life, I have watched plant after plant after plant in Detroit and in the metro Detroit area close. The UAW members, and I brought 20 of them with me, they're sitting right over here. We support Donald Trump's policies on tariffs 100%.

So what sort of political response did we see from yesterday's speech? Yeah, it's interesting. This plan marks not just a transformation of global trade, but also a political transformation. That was on full display yesterday. For decades, Republicans, at least the Reagan-style free market types, have loudly opposed tariffs. While it was Democrats who were the ones generally in favor, but Donald Trump has flipped things entirely. As you can imagine, the left came out hard before and after yesterday's announcement. They argue tariffs are a tax on consumers and will only drive inflation higher.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, for example, said Trump was, quote, taking a sledgehammer to the U.S. economy. and he vowed to fight those tariffs tooth and nail. We'll have to see what exactly that fight from Democrats looks like. In the meantime, the White House has flooded the airwaves making their case to the American people. They argue tariffs go beyond the economy and have national security implications. In the past, for example, the president has argued that tariffs have even stopped wars. I said, if you go to war and they do a lot of business with the United States, I'm putting 100% tariff on everything you do.

The White House also says that tariffs may not be preferred in a free. market, but that the global economy is, in their view, no longer a true free market. They argue that other countries are manipulating markets and currencies, and that we cannot continue playing by what they call an outdated set of rules. Obviously, now the big question becomes how those other countries will respond or we'll have to wait and see. Well, this is a big test of Trump's economic plans. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Anytime. America is back, and it's time to stand with a bank that shares your values. That's Old Glory Bank. They support hardworking Americans, small businesses, and your constitutional rights.

No cancel culture, no woke nonsense, just a bank that believes in faith, freedom, and the flag. Join the movement today at old glorybank.com slash wire and be part of something bigger. Trust the FDIC insured bank that was created to protect your privacy, security, and liberty. That's Old Glory Bank. House investigations revealed Tuesday that the FBI sought to silence its own agents from discussing Hunter Biden's laptop publicly. Daily Wire reporter Tim. Pierce is here to talk about the cover-up pay-tem. So these newly released internal messages reveal some pretty damning things about the FBI. What did they say? First, I wish we could see more of them.

The messages received by the Judiciary Committee were heavily redacted. Still, what we can see looks a lot like a cover-up. To set the stage, an FBI analyst actually confirm the laptop's authenticity in a phone call with Twitter on October 14th of 2020, the day that a story in the New York Post dropped on information found in Biden's laptop. After that, the FBI's brass shut down public discussion. According to these messages, an FBI official told Elvis Chan, the FBI liaison for social media companies, that there was a, quote, gag order on talk about the laptop. Now, this was apparently as the FBI was actively investigating the laptop for criminal conduct.

Chan asked what specific crime was suspected of being committed, and the response is censored, but it was apparently shocking enough to make Chan right back, oh, crap, okay, it ends here. So the allegation is that the FBI is, knew the laptop was actually real as early as October 14th, 2020, but then went on to censor the New York Post anyway. Right. Morning Meyer spoke with Washington Free Beacon reporter John Levine about that. He was reporter at the post when the laptop story first broke. Here's what he said.

I mean, if the FBI had just been like, look, you know, we're looking into this, but we're not going to comment, that would, I mean, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. It was their active effort to not just discredit, but to discredit when they were actually the ones who were speaking the phone. falsehoods. We were trying to tell the truth. They essentially ran an information operation on the American people. They spread us a bunch of BS because the truth was detrimental to Joe Biden. They didn't want it out. All the FBI had to do was confirm the laptop's existence. Instead, it allowed a huge censorship operation to take place on what was a very real news story.

And then, of course, you even had news outlets propping up the FBI narrative from NPR saying it didn't want to, quote, waste our time on stories that are not really stories. to Politico publishing a story on dozens of foreign intelligence officials that suggested the laptop was somehow Russian disinformation, all while the FBI was, in fact, investigating a very real Hunter Biden laptop. Right. So the fact that dozens of intelligence officials joined to sign that letter would suggest that it's beyond just the FBI that's involved here, right? Right. Levine also had some insight on that as well.

It's all part of the deep state web of intelligence. You know, there's like 15 intelligence agents. They all know each other. They all collude with each other. And what But we learned later was that Anthony Blinken, who became later Secretary of State, he was instrumental in organizing this effort among those 51 officials. And some of them have sort of walked it back. Some of them have never apologized for it. Clapper, to this day, remains the most stubborn. I know that the Post has reached out to him several times, and he'll never back down from it. And I think it's just pride.

And obviously, Trump revoked all their security clearances, which is good. I don't see any reason why they're not currently in government anymore. they should have that. And especially if they're going to use their security clearances and the good names that that gives them to do partisan politics. So when President Trump complains about the deep state and bad actors, it's evidence like this that gives those accusations a lot of weight. It makes it pretty hard to argue against that point, Tim. Thanks for joining us. Good to be on. The State Department announced that it's closely monitoring the case of a woman targeted by the British government for her pro-life activism. This comes as the United Kingdom negotiations,

a trade deal with the U.S. Here to break down the implications of the negotiations is Daily Wire White House correspondent Mary Margaret O'Lahan. So Mary Margaret, first, who's the woman being targeted and what's the context of her case? Good morning. So yes, over the weekend, the State Department announced that it's monitoring the case of retired medical scientist Libya-Tiske-Bolt. She was arrested in Bournemouth, England, in 2023 for holding a sign near an abortion

clinic that read, Here to Talk, if you want. And she's one of many pro-life activists who have been prosecuted for pro-life activism and silent prayer in the vicinity of abortion clinics. The UK has buffer zone laws that prohibit this kind of activity, including silent prayer in the vicinity of abortion clinics. She faced criminal trial on March 6th, and a verdict is expected to be handed down on April 4th. Now, why is the State Department getting involved in Libya's case and monitoring? And how has her case become a trading chip in this current trade negotiation between the U.S. and the U.K.? Well, the announcement from the State Department was sort of an oblique warning that the U.S. was watching the way the U.K. handles Libya's case.

Headlines from the Telegraph and other high-profile European publications indicate that the United Kingdom censorship of its citizens could actually become a massive liability in regard to the transatlantic relationship, which historically has been very friendly. And the State Department confirmed to me on Tuesday night that it is monitoring Levy's case and it's very important to the U.S. that the UK respect and protect freedom of expression. Also, the State Department confirmed to me that its senior advisor, Sam Samson, met with Libya in the UK recently. So has the White House commented directly on this? No, but Vice President J.D. Vance continues to make this type of censorship a trademark issue. Vance spoke at the premiere of Rod Dreher's Live Not by Lies documentary at the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday night. And he argued that if citizens around the world, quote, speak the truth

and refuse to bend the need to censorship, we can redeliver on the promise of civilization. We can rebuild the kind of society where virtue and freedom and our ancient liberties are preserved and enforced and facilitated by our government rather than torn down by our government. And that's ultimately what this is all about.

Yes, there are bad things happening. You see in Europe people arrested for praying and you have the police asking them, well, what are you praying about as if it was any of the police's business? Another thing worth noting, Sebastian Gorka, the deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, chimed in on the topic to GB News, saying, this isn't about politics, it's about the values upon which our civilization was founded.

I think Europe, large, has to step back and just assess what it has done to the rights of individual citizens in the free expression of their political or religious beliefs. I spoke with Lorkin Price, the Irish barrister and legal counsel for ADF International, He told me that this increased attention on Libya's case could have massive implications for free speech in the UK. It's now reached a point where we have a real crisis, I think, for free speech in the United Kingdom. It's really come to such a situation that now senior government officials and elected officials in the United States are starting to take notice of it and they're starting to speak about it. One of the issues that seems to have emerged is can the United States regard Europeans and the United Kingdom of being allied, and partners where there is this extraordinary divergence when it comes to freedom of expression

and censorship. Now, has Livia herself commented on the larger implications of her situation? She said on Monday that she's very grateful to the United States for the role they're playing and tackling UK censorship. She also said she's grateful for, and I'm quoting, the United States prioritizing the preservation and promotion of freedom of expression and for engaging in robust diplomacy to that end. A verdict in her case is due on Friday, so we'll have to be.

development coming very soon. All right. Well, we will have you back on to discuss them. Mary Margaret, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more news you need to know.