Morning Wire - Trump’s Retaliatory Tariffs & North Carolina Recovery | 2.11.25

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Trump announces more tariffs, the lawsuits pile up as Trump and DOGE continue to expose waste, and FEMA help ramps up after a rough patch of failures. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Balance of Nature: Go to https://balanceofnature.com and use promo code WIRE for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer PLUS get a free bottle of Fiber and Spice. Shopify: Go to https://Shopify.com/morningwire to sign up for your $1 per month trial period and upgrade your selling today. Black Rifle Coffee: Get 20% off your first order or Coffee Club subscription with code DAILYWIRE at https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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enlarge our clientele to the world entire. Trouvee de petitions like another on Amazon.com. President Trump announces sweeping tariffs on all steel

and aluminum imports while reaffirming his promise of retaliatory tariffs. If they are charging us 130% and we're charging them nothing,

it's not going to say that one. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, February 11th, and this is Morning Wire. The lawsuits pile up as Trump and Doge continue their quest to strike at the heart of government waste and fraud. I believe that this Doge program in my adult life is one of the most important audits of government are changes to government structure we have seen. And months after Hurricane Helene ravaged North Carolina, recovery ramps, up, but FEMA's past failures raise questions about its future.

The city of Asheville went for almost two months without water, and FEMA failed to answer nearly half of the calls from people that were asking for assistance. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Hey guys, producer Brandon here. Balance of Nature, fruits and veggies provide a convenient way to get your daily whole fruits and vegetables. Using a special freeze drying process, they transform fresh produce in the easy-to-take capsules that you can bring anywhere. While not replacing a healthy diet, Balance of Nature works alongside your other healthy habits to support your wellness journey. I take these capsules whenever I'm traveling to ensure I get my daily fruits and veggies.

Head to Balance of Nature.com and use promo code Wire for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer, plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's Balance of Nature.com promo code Wire. President Trump announced broad tariffs this week on all steel and aluminum coming into the country and promise to roll out new tariffs in the coming days. Here to break down what it means for consumers and how other countries are responding is Daily Wire Senior Editor Cabot Phillips. So, Cabot, we've been hearing about these tariffs for a long time. What are they going to look like?

Yeah, Donald Trump stressed over and over on the campaign trail his affinity for tariffs, which he calls, quote, the most beautiful word in the dictionary, saying he would use them to prevent other countries from taking advantage of us and spur domestic manufacturing. And after three weeks in office, he showed he was not kidding. On Monday, Trump announced that he'd be ordering new 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports. It's time to be reciprocal. If they charge us, we charge them. If they're at 25, we're at 25. If they're at 10, we're at 10.

And if they're much higher than 25, that's what we are too. And the president says this is just phase one. And by the end of the month, he'll roll out plans for similar across-the-board tariffs on everything from computer chips and copper to oil, gas, and pharmaceuticals. According to Trump, these tariffs are simply a response to those already in place from other countries. As he put it, quote, they charge us, we charge them. Here's White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Fox speaking to that point. Other countries around the world cannot charge us 20% or 30% or in the case of some countries, 100%, and then we charge them nothing. It is bankrupting our industry.

It is driving up our deficit. It is stealing our jobs. So as Trump allies put it, the president sees two different types of tariffs. punitive and structural. For example, punitive tariffs would be like those threatened against Canada and Mexico last week. They're intended more as punishment in that case for illegal immigration, and the goal is non-trade related. These latest steeled aluminum tariffs, though, are different. In fact, they're meant as a long-term structural change to U.S. trade policy more broadly. Trump firmly believes that tariffs are a quick way to increase revenue, offset trade deficits,

and spur manufacturing here in the U.S. Remember, he believes businesses will be encouraged to bring production stateside to avoid paying these tariffs at the border. But that is a gamble for a few reasons. First, Trump himself has admitted that the plan could result in price increases as businesses past the cost of these tariffs onto consumers. He says those price spikes would be short-term, but even a short-term increase would hurt him politically. And second, other countries could well respond with tariffs of their own, something we're already starting to see. Now, let's get into that. What sort of response have we seen abroad? Well, on Monday, Chinese tariffs officially went into effect.

Those include 10 to 15% on crude oil, natural gas, and other American goods. Beijing issued a statement saying, quote, we urge the U.S. side to stop its wrongful actions and refrain from politicizing and instrumentalizing economic and trade issues. Likewise, the EU vowed Monday to respond with higher tariffs of their own, calling Trump's order unlawful and counterproductive. So things certainly could get messy. Now, domestically, the response has been mixed.

American steel and auto workers celebrated the move, and domestic steel and aluminum stocks soared, while Democrats and a handful of more traditional free market Republicans expressed opposition saying no one wins a trade war and the consumers will ultimately foot the bill. Now, turning elsewhere before you go, there was some movement on Washington regarding Trump's cabinet on Monday. Tell us about that. Yeah, on Monday night, Tulsi Gabbard moved one step closer to being confirmed as the next director of national intelligence. The Senate voted to advance her. nomination to a final vote and opened up a 30-hour window for debate on the floor.

So we'll need to get 50 votes. That vote will likely be held this week. And then all eyes will turn to RFK. Well, a lot of people are watching that one. Cabot, thanks for reporting. Anytime. What's the secret behind wildly successful businesses? It's not just great products or brilliant marketing. It's the unsung hero, the business behind the business. It's time to make those business goals or reality. For millions of entrepreneurs, that hero is Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout we use with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash morningwire all overcase.

Go to Shopify.com slash morningwire to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash morning wire. President Trump's push to slash and streamline the federal government is under pressure from the courts. After a slew of lawsuits, several of the audits and workforce reductions are on pause. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce is here to talk about the latest in Trump's plan to reshape the federal bureaucracy. So, Tim, let's start off with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That agency apparently shut down over the weekend. What happened? Yeah, so Russell Vote is President Trump's head of the Office of Management and Budget,

and he's also the acting head of the CFPB. The CFPB is an independent agency in the executive branch that's funded directly by the Treasury. So uniquely for the government, Congress isn't involved in funding it. Vote sent out a memo to CFPB workers over the weekend. telling them to stop almost all their work. The pause is so the agency's work can be reviewed and better aligned with Trump's agenda. Vote also told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the agency doesn't need any more funding next quarter. Democrats held a rally outside the CFPB yesterday. Here's what some of that sounded like.

Now these moves by vote have been challenged in court, so we'll have to see what a judge makes of the lawsuit and how that impacts the CFPB. But for right now, the agency is on ice. Well, speaking of, we reported last week that thousands of federal workers accepted that buyout offer from the Trump administration, but now a judge is saying that that offer might not be legal. What's the status of the worker buyout? Yeah, federal judge in Massachusetts put a freeze on Trump's fork-in-the-road offer yesterday. The program was a buyout. Any takers would continue to be paid for eight months if they agreed to resign by Monday.

Federal labor unions sued over it. They said the program is arbitrary and capricious, and that at last, tax-designated funding, so in other words, the Trump administration is making promises it can't keep. The judge didn't make a ruling on it, but he did on Monday place a temporary restraining order on the program to give him time until he does. So what happens with the employees who accepted the buyout and also how many people does that apply to? At least 65,000 employees have accepted it so far and now their buyouts are in limbo.

The White House is getting some help from 22 Republican Attorneys General who filed a friend of the court brief on Sunday and pushed back again. the labor unions. The brief said the courts should refrain from intruding into the president's well-settled Article 2 authority to supervise and manage the federal workforce. So the court could upset a lot of federal employees who don't get the severance package they jumped on. Now, several members of the White House have accused another judge of overstepping executive authority regarding the Treasury Department. What's the White House saying there? Right. This is from a lawsuit filed by Democratic Attorney General over the Department of

government efficiency. Here's Treasury Secretary Besson explaining what's happening at his department in an interview on Bloomberg TV on Friday. There's a lot of misinformation out there. First of all, when you say the Doge team, these are treasury employees, two treasury employees, one of whom I personally interviewed in his final round. There is no tinkering with the system. They are on read only. They are looking. They can make no changes. It is an operational program to suggest. improvement. Because of the lawsuit, a federal judge in Manhattan put a broad freeze on who is able to look at Treasury Department systems and information. The order was so broad, however, that the White House says that even Besson is blocked under it. Here's White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller

on Fox News on Monday. That ruling is an assault on the very idea of democracy itself. What we continue to see here is the idea that rogue bureaucrats who are elected by not. No one, who answered to no one. This unelected shadow force that is running our government and running our country. So that was Miller on the ruling about the Treasury, but he could easily extend that argument to include the lawsuit on the Fork in the Road program and many other legal actions over Trump's presidential authority. Well, Trump is clearly determined to cut the waste, but it's going to be a fight.

Tim, thanks for joining. Thanks for having me. Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noem visited North Carolina over the weekend to tour hurricane damage. Noam announced that as of early February, 80% of Hurricane Helene victims cases were now closed. Here to discuss the ongoing recovery efforts is Daily Wire Senior Editor, Ash Short. So Ash, the hurricane struck in September. Where are we at with recovery? Well, since Trump took office, he is focused on recovery efforts in North Carolina. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was there Monday looking at ways to rebuild Interstate 40 and promising fast, cheap, safe rebuilding in the area.

The HHS Secretary Christine Noem, whose department oversees FEMA, was there this weekend saying the agency has made significant progress. According to the official numbers, we know that 138,000 homes have been visited by FEMA disaster survivor assistance crews. 66,000 people have visited a disaster recovery center. 3,284 households have received rental assistance. 150 households are currently living in FEMA provided temporary housing units, and 18,000. households have received money for basic repairs. Nome also stressed that recovery efforts have stepped up considerably since Trump took office. Here's Nome.

The disaster after the disaster ended, when President Trump came in and visited this community and in less than 20 days secured over $54 million for families in need, President Trump is ensuring that communities aren't forgotten, and he launched the first major initiative to connect farmers with recovery assistance as well. When Trump took office, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was also dispatched to repair roads and bridges that were destroyed in the storm. We should also note that Trump's first presidential trip was to North Carolina, where he met with families and surveyed the damage. Right. And Nome also mentioned what she called political targeting. That, of course, is referring to the Daily Wire exclusive report last year about FEMA leaders telling workers to avoid assisting homes that had a vote for Trump sign on their lawn. We know Noam made some waves for somewhat addressing this on CNN on Sunday.

What did she say about it? Well, she suggested Trump should, quote, get rid of FEMA the way it exists today, adding that we still need the resources and the funds and the finances to go to people that have these types of disasters like Hurricane Helene and fires in California, end quote. Nome made sure to note that Trump should work with Congress to make sure FEMA is reformed correctly. Now, speaking of reforming the agency, it was just reported that FEMA sent $59 million just the last week to luxury hotels in New York City for housing illegal immigrants. What do we know about those payments?

Musk posted the claim on X, at which point acting FEMA director Cameron Hamilton responded, announcing that such payments have been suspended and that personnel will be held accountable. Now switching gears to California, what are the updates on the recovery efforts there? Though the fires have been put out, recovery is a long way off. Los Angeles County announced on Friday that it had hired a private firm to investigate how the county responded to the fires. And California Governor Gavin Newsom recently said that people would not be able to build their homes back as they were, but would instead need to build in a way with, quote, climate reality in mind. And L.A. Mayor Karen Bass has also come under fire for appointing a recovery czar that would

be paid $500,000 for just three months of work. While the pay was coming from reported charity groups, The backlash causes are to announce he would not accept the money. Rick Rennell, Trump's envoy for special missions, was one of those who called out the astronomical salary. Yeah, that is terrible optics. Ash, thanks for reporting. You're welcome. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.

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