The NPR Politics Podcast - Roundup: Trump Vs. The Fed; Harvard Fights Back

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

As the White House continued to adjust its tariff policies, President Trump lashed out against Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, saying his "termination cannot come fast enough." Trump thinks the Fed should be more aggressive in lowering interest rates. Then, a look at why Harvard University is fighting against efforts to have billions of dollars in federal funding rescinded.And, a star-studded trip to space.This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, education correspondent Elissa Nadworny, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Wait, wait, don't tell me. Fresh air up first. NPR News Now, Planet Money, Ted Radio Hour through line, the NPR Politics podcast, code switch, embedded books we love, wild card are just some. Of the podcasts you can enjoy sponsor free with NPR Plus. Get all sorts of perks across more than 20 podcasts with the bundle option. Learn more at plus.npr.org. option. Learn more at plus dot npr dot org. Hi, this is Liz and I'm enjoying the sounds of morning on my back patio in Lake Chapala, Mexico. This podcast was

recorded at 1234 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday April 14th, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I'll be enjoying the sunrise over Mount Garcia. Enjoy the show. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Oh my gosh, it's amazing how much this instantly like lowered my blood pressure. Yeah, that was so nice. That is zen.

I love the rooster. Excellent touch. Sounds like quite the escape. Yeah, seriously. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And it's time for our weekly news roundup. There was a lot of big economic news this

week from the White House. Let's start with President Trump's ongoing push for tariffs. Danielle, we've talked a lot about tariffs these last few weeks, and even in just those few weeks, things have changed a lot. Yeah, so the latest started just after our last Friday News Roundup went out. So last Friday, Customs and Border Protection released a list of products that are now being excluded from tariffs on overseas goods. And it turned out it was a lot of electronic stuff. It was semiconductors, laptops, and cell phones,

among some other more technical things. And this was a real surprise because a lot of those electronic things that are excluded now come from China. And China is where the US has really, really high tariffs of 145% and then some on some goods. So this was a really big deal. But then the White House came out and clarified those goods that are listed as exempt, they're still subject to a 20% tariff that we've imposed on Chinese

goods. And that's not nothing. 20% is still quite a bit, even if it's not over 100, which is just off the map. Then within the next day or two, White House officials came out and said, look, this doesn't get those Chinese goods off the hook. We are still going to start the process of putting tariffs on semiconductors again from all these overseas markets, as well as pharmaceuticals and critical minerals. So it was a lot of whiplash. No one quite knew what to make of it at first. Yeah. Can you tell me what the White House's rationale is for changing this again? Sure. So last weekend, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick went on ABC's This Week. He said this is not like a permanent sort of exemption. He added that Trump was, quote,

just clarifying that these are not available to be negotiated away by countries. These are things that are national security that we need to be made in America. So what Lutnick and Trump seem to have been saying, and the wording that I've seen used is that they're moving these tariffs from one bucket to another. The idea being that semiconductors, as well as those other things like critical minerals and pharmaceuticals, are about national security. And this is the process that they have set into motion this week. Trade and economic officials are starting an investigation to look at what kind of capacity does the U.S. have for producing those things,

and is the U.S. lack of capacity, in so far as there is one a national security threat so that is what the White House is saying but that said this was all super confusing for anybody watching it yeah and you know I think that what it means is higher prices in the short term which is what the Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said is highly likely this week of course that irritated president Trump. He's been irritated with Powell because he's somebody who acts, he says too slowly because he acts with due diligence on this stuff and his job is to create certainty. Right.

And the last thing that Trump is doing is creating certainty. And I think that's why he was upset according to a lot of reports internally with Lutnick because it essentially stepped on the message of saying that these are only temporary and they'll be washed away and that's why Trump went on social media immediately after that, essentially to say that nothing is temporary, you know, we're just moving this to these different buckets because he wants to be able to use these tariffs as leverage and that's the big thing here where he wants to be able to use these tariffs as leverage. And that's the big thing here, where he wants to try to negotiate with other countries.

But what it's done has created a ton of volatility in the stock market. Things are up and down. Businesses don't know what to expect. And again, prices likely to go higher. The very thing that Trump was arguably elected to do was to bring prices down. Tariffs are now just a waiting game. Trump has said, look, I'm talking with all these world leaders, so you're going to hear about deals soon. Okay, but you're going to hear about deals soon. Once again, is uncertainty. There is nothing definitive about that. That

uncertainty has stock markets really jumpy. And this is all real stuff, right? It means for businesses, small businesses, big businesses, where do I get my stuff from to make the things that need to be made that I want to sell to people, whether you're somebody who's a pottery maker in North Carolina or you're a major auto supplier in Canada trying to supply big companies in the United States. So yeah, just a ton of uncertainty at a time when, you know, like Powell said, this is going to potentially create this tension between what the Fed's job is, which is to do one of two things, keep inflation down, keep unemployment down. And

those are often at odds with each other. And if both are going in the wrong direction, you don't know what you're supposed to be able to pull on. So Powell says it's going to do nothing right now. Well, I do want to talk a little bit more about Powell on his social media platform, Truth Social. Trump said that, quote, Powell's termination cannot come fast enough. Domenico, I think it's worth talking about the fact that Trump appointed Powell to run the Fed in his first term and the Fed is supposed to be a political by design. I mean, can Trump just up and fire Powell if he wants to? Like what are the sort of mechanisms available to him here to deal with Powell if he wants to?

Well, Trump is likely to test this at the Supreme Court. There was a 1935 Supreme Court precedent called Humphreys executor versus US that basically allows Congress to require presidents to show cause for firing someone, not just fire them because you don't like them, but because there's malfeasance, corruption, taking bribes, things like that. That's not generally the spirit of what we're thinking about when we're thinking about what Trump wants, which is control. So I think a lot of this is going to come to a head and we're going to see in the next few months. SONIA DARA-MARGOL. What I would add to that is that Supreme Court case

that Humphrey's executor won from the 1930s, the current Supreme Court, at least some of the conservatives on it who do have the majority, have shown that they have some appetite to chip away at that in terms of getting rid of some high ranking people in independent agencies. So should this make it to the Supreme Court,

existing precedent does seem to be on Powell's side here, but who knows exactly how the Supreme Court would rule. One other thing that I think is really important to get at here, and that's easy to skate right by, is that Trump this week accused Jerome Powell of playing politics. Now, Federal Reserve Chairs work very, very hard to remain apolitical, and the Fed is set up to be independent. And Powell has said, just in recent

weeks, when asked by reporters about some of Trump's comments about him, he said, as a matter of course, I do not respond to comments made by elected officials. The idea of the Fed is to sit there and tweak the dials of monetary policy. That's it. And some regulation as well. So that is a really big thing to accuse a Fed chair of. Okay, Danielle, feel free to grab a coffee or something, but don't go too far away as we'll see you again for Can't Let It Go. When we come back, a look at the Trump administration's fight with some colleges and universities.

Oh, hey there. I'm Brittany Luce. And I don't know, maybe this is a little out of pocket to say, but I think you should listen to my podcast. It's called It's Been A Minute. And I love it. And I think you will too. Over the past couple months, over 100,000 new listeners started tuning in. Find out why. Listen to the It's Been A Minute podcast from NPR today. And we're back. And NPR's Alyssa Nadwarni is here. She covers education.

Hey, Alyssa. Hi. So you're here because the Trump administration has stepped up its attacks, this time on higher ed. A number of universities have had federal grants and contracts put on hold. Today we're going to focus though on Harvard, which has had upwards of $2.2 billion frozen. Alyssa, first, why is the government holding this money back? So this all kind of stems from a civil rights investigation from the Ed Department looking into anti-Semitism.

So basically a number of colleges, the administration said, had failed to protect Jewish students on campus. Harvard is among them. And so in this back and forth, they sent Harvard a list of demands in order to get their federal money reinstated. And some of those demands included overseeing academic departments, giving students and faculty less power,

reporting international students to federal agencies if they violated campus conduct. And this week, Harvard basically said, no, we're not going to meet those demands. And in response, then the government canceled this $2.2 billion in federal funding. Yeah, and what was that money supposed to be used for? Well, these are federal research grants,

and they're multi-year. So they're usually for longer-term studies. Some of the money went to things like studying ALS, studying new vaccines for tuberculosis, mostly in the health and science department. So Harvard Medical School said that this is going to lead to them having to cut jobs and lay people off. And this week, President Trump suggested that Harvard might lose its tax exempt status over

all this. Domenico, what do you make of that? Well, I think Trump has shown that he's willing to use the IRS against his enemies, you know, be able to target them to say that we want to stop you from having this tax exempt status. And doing that is something that ironically the Trump administration and conservatives have accused Democrats of doing to target conservatives more than they did Democratic groups and they said that that would be a terrible thing to do and no one should ever do it.

And here we are on the other side of it with it explicitly being done. Yeah. So far, what have we heard from Harvard about this? How have they responded to the cuts? So there is a lawsuit in the works. Harvard faculty along with the Association of University Professors sued the federal government over this kind of back-and-forth of withholding funding. And Harvard has really doubled down in its response. If you go to the Harvard landing page on their website

they list what all of the research funding goes to, they post the letter from their president, and their lawyers are kind of readying for what this ultimately is going to mean for them. Yeah. And Domenica, what's really interesting here is that Harvard has decided to fight back when other universities, Columbia for example, have decided not to. I mean, I know there's some obvious financial calculus that's being done here, but it seems like there's some political calculus too. Well, I think that, you know, Harvard obviously is one of the biggest names in higher education in the world, not just in the United States.

So I think that there is a degree to which the faculty and staff at Harvard believe that they have to plant a flag and be able to fight back and be able to give some cover to other universities. And look what's happened when it comes to some of these law firms as well. I mean, the Trump administration has gone after some of these law firms. Some of the law firms have made deals with the Trump administration. And then the Trump administration has asked for more. So I think that Harvard wants to be able to say, we can't continue to go down this road.

And I think that's also interesting, you know, when Alyssa talks about the kinds of research that's done mostly in health and science, you know, this can come across as feeling like blackmail from the Trump administration, because these grants are not given because a university, you know, aligns completely with a presidency, but the Trump administration saying, hey, we give you this X amount of dollars, We don't like your quote unquote DEI policies. And therefore we're going to hold these other things that have absolutely nothing to do with any of that over you to be able to get you to do what we want you to do to change, to basically socially engineer how higher education is run. And Domenico, like I've talked to a number of institutions that had grants canceled from

the Department of Defense, NASA. I mean, these are grants that also do research on semiconductors and cybersecurity and defense with China. I mean, so it's all kind of related to much larger ideas for the nation. Yeah. And do you actually think, Alyssa, that Harvard providing this kind of cover for other universities might mean that there might be more universities taking the Harvard route versus the Columbia route? Yeah, I think absolutely. A lot of colleges were telling me they were waiting for someone to do it, and if someone

was going to do it, it was going to be Harvard with their $50 billion endowment. And I think, yes, Harvard absolutely showed other colleges what is possible and where the red lines can be. I also want to talk about some reporting that the administration wants to end funding for Head Start. First, what's this program and what's their reasoning for wanting to end funding there? So Head Start is early childhood care and preschool for low-income families. So it's funded by Health and Human Services. I have done a lot of reporting in Head Start classrooms. And essentially this federally funded program

allows parents to work. So they have a place for their children to go. The administration wants to cut the funding and in the document reported by the Washington Post, they said that they didn't want to be in the business of mandating curriculum. And so some of this is tied to a lot of what we've seen in their approach to K-12 and even with some of the stuff with Harvard, kind of wanting the federal government to get out of the business of dictating curriculum. And then on the flip side,

of course, you have their demands at Harvard to oversee their academic programs. So it's a little bit of both and. Well, before we go, I want to get a sense from y'all about what you will be watching moving forward as these funding fights with universities and education programs sort of continue. Yeah, what are you looking out for? Well, I'm certainly watching what Domenico just talked about

with that tax exempt status. And then also I'm watching two lawsuits to see if the courts are going to weigh in on whether or not this is legal. I talked to a lot of legal experts who said, yeah, this as Domenico called it blackmail, like that's actually not following federal law. So we'll see. Yeah, I think moving to the Supreme Court is a huge piece of everything that I think that we're watching here as we near what some people think is a constitutional crisis.

And if the Trump administration defies the Supreme Court, then I think we're at a point where most people would say we are at a constitutional crisis. Yeah. Okay. Well, Alyssa, thank you so much for your reporting. You bet. Always happy to be with you guys. When we come back, can't let it go.

And we're back. And so is Danielle. Hello again. Hey there. All right. It's time for Can't Let It Go. That's the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about, politics or otherwise. Danielle, why don't we start with you? What can't you let go of this week? Okay. So if you missed it, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket took a space flight on Monday with an all-female crew of six. It included pop star Katy Perry, journalist Gayle King, Bezos' fiance, also a journalist Lauren Sanchez, a couple of scientists slash activists.

And I just think this was a mad lib of celebrities and space and internet weirdness. It was everything. First off, the flight was only 11 minutes, which was shorter than I was expecting, but okay. I think this stunt was built in a lab to annoy me and it was successful, at least in that way. Oh, it was built in a lab to delight me. You're ruining Ashley's Friday.

I'm rolling, just listen up. No, there are these memes of Gayle King, a journalist, looking just less than enthusiastic about the whole affair. There's videos of Jeff Bezos kind of face planting as he runs to meet his fiance, Lauren Sanchez, after they land. It was my soap opera for the week. Can't let it go. Thank you for letting me go on for a while.

Ashley's ready to let it go. All right, yes. Ashley, what can't you let go of? So what I can let go of this week is this weekend is actually a very big weekend for fans of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie featuring Keira Knightley. We definitely went from low brow to high brow. Yeah. It's like 20 years since that movie first came out, and so they're re-releasing it into

theaters and I am so excited. I'm watching it on Saturday. This is the movie that, no joke, I have watched more than any other movie in my life. Even when I was a kid and I was like mainlining Disney movies a lot, still in my adult life, I have not watched a movie more than I have this particular movie. I mean, it's pretty popular, the 2005 Pride and Prejudice. I don't remember it. I think I saw it at some point, read the books, but it's not my thing, but I understand why. Oh, Jane Austen's not your thing.

I mean, I don't dislike it. I need to rewatch it. I watched it years and years ago, but now I was a succession super fan. So I need to rewatch it. I watched it years and years ago, but now I was a succession super fan. So I need to rewatch it so I can get the Matthew McFadden whiplash of Mr. Darcy and Tom Wamskans. Yeah. Well, I will say for lovers of this movie, it is like, I wouldn't even say a cult classic, but there are, there's like a community of folks who are super obsessed with this movie. So like, they will have viewings of this movie at the estate where they film, like Mr. Darcy's house, I believe.

So there's a whole subculture of people who are obsessed with this movie. I'm a member of that subculture, so I'm very excited. What is the core obsession? It's a perfect movie. If you watch it a hundred times, I'll tell you this, it becomes cozier every time. I don't know if you want to start that experiment. It's a big deal for me. I'm very excited. All right, Domenico, on to you. What can't you let go of this week? Domenico Grigori, M.D. The Masters was last weekend, and this is less about golf because

I'm not a huge fan, but I did watch part of it. It was interesting watching Rory McElroy win the Masters after having, you know, missed it several times. But what I was more obsessed with and what I couldn't let go of was Ken Griffey Jr. being there as a credentialed photographer. And if you're not aware of who Ken Griffey Jr. is, he is a Hall of Fame baseball player who hit 630 home runs. And he was a credentialed professional photographer. And not only that, he wound up getting the shot of the Masters that went viral of Rory McElroy on the green head down and that was Ken

Griffey Jr.'s shot. It's amazing. The kid. Incredible. It's like a second act. Totally. And I went down the rabbit hole a little bit of like where what other things he's done and he did still a lot of MLB games, he's done NBA games. And he said he started doing this because he would go to his kids games and people were trying to talk to him all the time. And his daughter was getting really annoyed with him looking over in the stands and seeing him not paying attention to the game. And what he noticed was that nobody messes with the camera guy. So he picked up a camera and he just started shooting his kids games. And now he's really gotten very good at it. And apparently this is a hobby others have picked up as well. And it's really fascinating. They're good shots and it was

a nice feel good second act story. I love that. That's great. Okay. Well, that's all for today. Our executive producer is Mithoni Maturi. Casey Morell edits the podcast. Our producers are Bria Suds and Kelly Wessinger. Special thanks to Krishna Dev Kalamer. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Danielle Kertsley. Then I cover the White House.

And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.