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Billionaire special adviser lashes out at trade guru, calling him ‘truly a moron’ on X
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Elon Musk has launched an extraordinary attack on Donald Trump’s economic adviser Peter Navarro, calling him “truly a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks” on X over the administration’s controversial tariff policy.
China has meanwhile shown no sign of giving in to Trump’s threat to add a further 50 percent levy on its exports, taking the total to 104 percent, as the deadline the U.S. president set on Monday approaches.
Trump demanded that Beijing drop its retaliatory countermeasures but the Chinese Commerce Ministry said it preferred to “fight to the end”, saying it “firmly opposes” the president’s trade war and that it considers its response “entirely justified.”
The White House is standing by the sweeping tariff program Trump imposed on some of the United States’ biggest trading partners last week, despite a global backlash that has left the world’s stock markets jittery.
After the president dug in his heels and insisted he was “not looking at” delaying their implementation, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow that 70 nations had already approached the administration about agreeing new trade deals to ease the pain.
The U.S. attorney general, seemingly never off conservative news channels these days, joins in the victory lap over the Supreme Court’s decision to temporarily allow the Trump administration to continue deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members.
“Those inmates, those violent gang members, those violent alien enemies will remain in El Salvador,” Bondi tells Lawrence Jones on Fox and Friends.
“[Judge James Boasberg] cannot get them back, so his jurisdiction is over… going forward, these terrorists better look out.”
Bondi describes the deportees as “terrorists” there but the only supporting evidence that any of the people sent to El Salvador meet that description is a sworn statement from an ICE official who said that the lack of evidence and criminal records involved means that they are terrorists by default.
“While it is true that many of the TdA [Tren de Aragua] members removed under the AEA [Alien Enemies Act] do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time,” the agent said.
“The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat. In fact, based upon their association with TdA, the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
Trump has been publicly musing about running for a third term since the campaign and now a new poll shows how he would fare in a hypothetical matchup against fellow two-term president Barack Obama of the 22nd Amendment could be somehow overcome.
“I’d love that. Boy, I’d love that,” Trump said late last month when a reporter pressed him on the prospect of squaring up to Obama.
Here’s Kelly Rissman on how the numbers currently indicate that would play out.
Responding to a clip of Navarro describing him as a “car assembler” (as opposed to a car manufacturer) on an interview with CNBC, Musk writes: “Navarro is truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false.”
In a follow-up, he declares: “Tesla has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.”
In a third, he writes: “By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content. Navarro should ask the fake expert he invented, Ron Vara.”
Here’s a screenshot before it gets deleted:
The U.S. stock markets have opened much more strongly this morning, apparently in response to growing optimism about the prospects of America’s allies coming forward to express their willingness to sign new trade deals and sidestep the economic chaos Trump’s tariff war promises to yield.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 1,419 points or 3.7 percent while the S&P 500 rose 3.8% and the Nasdaq 4.3 percent.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s claim that 70 countries have already approached the administration about doing import deals appears to have reassured investors, with his comments backed up just now by Trump saying that South Korea is ready to talk.
Beijing has shown no sign of giving in to Trump’s threat to add a further 50 percent tariff on its exports, taking the total to 104 percent, as the deadline the U.S. president set on Monday approaches.
Trump demanded that China drop its retaliatory countermeasures but the Chinese Commerce Ministry said it preferred to “fight to the end”, saying it “firmly opposes” the president’s trade war and that it considers its response calling its previous countermeasures “entirely justified.”
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In his latest post on the South Korea deal, he insisted: “China also wants to make a deal, badly, but they don’t know how to get it started. We are waiting for their call. It will happen!”
The president’s first Truth Social post of the day sees him claim that Seoul is following Tokyo in reaching out to agree a new trade deal, rather than risk getting its exports tangled up in his tariff regime.
A mother and three children who were “snatched” from their home by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and detained for 11 days were released Monday following an outpouring of community anger, including a protest outside the house of Trump’s tough guy border czar.
The unnamed family was taken from their home on March 27 in the village of Sackets Harbor in upstate New York, where the acting head of ICE, Tom Homan, also lives.
Richard Hall reports.
Here’s Greg Evans with the latest from The Daily Show legend.
The president said yesterday that he was not considering pausing his tariff program but failed to explain the contradictions inherent in the policy, Richard Hall writes.
As confidence drains from the world economy, the stock market contagion sparked by Donald Trump’s tariffs could yet spread to the banks, with a trade recession joined by a credit crunch.
If he presses on, the dangers are unthinkable.
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