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--:-- Georgia Howe: Good morning, and welcome to Morning Wire. I'm Georgia Howe, and I'm here with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley.
--:-- John Bickley: Good morning, Georgia. Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Today's top story: President Trump is holding firm on his tariff policy, and markets are swinging wildly in response. Joining us to break it down is Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Thanks, Georgia. Yeah, the roller coaster continued Monday as uncertainty remained over how long those tariffs will stay in place and what they'll mean for the cost of goods.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Stocks in Hong Kong saw their worst day in nearly 30 years, plunging more than 13%. It was a similar story for markets across Europe and the rest of Asia.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here on Wall Street, we saw wild swings throughout the day, but ultimately the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq each ended up within 1% of where they began when markets opened. So a little less craziness.
--:-- Georgia Howe: For his part, President Trump continued urging Americans to trust his plan. Let's listen to what he had to say.
--:-- [Audio clip of President Trump speaking]
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, he's really emphasizing the importance of this trade deal and how it will benefit the country in the long run.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But markets are less than confident, and we saw an example of that volatility yesterday amid a fake headline saga.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, a wild story. So around 10:10 yesterday morning, a large Twitter account posted that President Trump was considering a 90-day pause on all tariffs. By 10:05 minutes later, a CNBC guest repeated the claim, and markets soared, gaining literally trillions of dollars in value in literally minutes.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But moments later, the White House issued a statement calling the report fake news, and markets fell right back down, erasing all of those gains.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I spoke with Kenny Pocari, the senior market strategist for Slate Stone Wealth, for his take on that swing.
--:-- Kenny Pocari: What it tells you is that the market is aching and looking for anything positive in this mess. Because as you and I both know, the market hates uncertainty. It just hates it.
--:-- Georgia Howe: It can take bad news as long as there's some certainty to it. The market can then adjust. But when the market remains so uncertain, then the anxiety level rises, volatility rises, and it's that shoot first, ask questions later, and it's lower prices.
--:-- Kenny Pocari: Pocari said that he thinks we've already seen the worst of the market drops. You can never really pick the bottom, and you kind of want to make sure you're not still jumping into, you know, catching a falling knife.
--:-- Georgia Howe: My sense is that we're getting probably closer to a bottom than not, which doesn't mean that we're not going to keep churning and maybe trading a little bit lower. But I don't think we're going to see three or four more down days of five and six percent down days like that.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: All right. So a more measured take from Pocari. Now, the president also signaled Monday that he'd be willing to implement even more tariffs on China if they don't come to the table. What's he proposing?
--:-- Georgia Howe: So rather than expressing an openness to a deal, as we've seen from dozens of other countries, China responded with 34 percent tariffs on American goods.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: President Trump expressed a willingness to go tit for tat in response. If that tariff isn't removed by tomorrow at 12 o'clock, we're putting a 50 percent tariff on above the tariffs that we put on.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Hundreds of billions of dollars a year they'd make on us on trade, and it shouldn't be that way.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Officials in Beijing even accused President Trump of, quote, bullying their country.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And in a remarkable twist, the Chinese embassy in Washington responded by posting clips of then-President Reagan expressing his distaste for tariffs.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I never thought we'd see that.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So President Trump and his allies seem to remain in lockstep, but some in the GOP have begun to waver.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Right. A number of senators have crafted the Trade Review Act of 2025, a new bill that would require congressional approval for future tariffs.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Among other things, the law would give Congress the power to dissolve unilateral tariffs issued by the president.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Seven Republicans have already joined a number of Democrats in endorsing that measure, including Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell, and Tom Tillis.
--:-- Georgia Howe: President Trump, for his part, threatened to veto the legislation if it's passed.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: All right, Kevin, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Georgia Howe: My pleasure.
--:-- [Audio clip of Lumen ad]
--:-- Lumen: Head to http://lumen.me/WIRE for 20% off your purchase.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, the Trump administration is suspending hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding for elite colleges and universities over their handling of anti-Semitism and DEI programs.
--:-- Megan Basham: Thanks for having me on the show, Georgia.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So, Megan, can you first explain what this funding is and then why the Trump administration is threatening to pull it?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, sure. So primarily these are grants that are flowing to universities under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services for research projects.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, the White House says schools are not eligible for this taxpayer money if they fail to protect Jewish students and uphold new civil rights standards, which includes doing away with those race-based admissions.
--:-- Megan Basham: This is what Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Fox News last week.
--:-- [Audio clip of Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaking]
--:-- Megan Basham: When you see students barricaded in the library, people pounding on the glass saying, death to USA, death to Israel. And I've talked to students at Columbia, Jewish students who told me that they were afraid to go across campus.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And a lot of the Jewish interaction on campus has been driven underground.
--:-- Megan Basham: And that's just not the way our education should be.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, which schools have lost funding so far?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, Columbia University was the first school to have its funding suspended in early March, $400 million.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That's really not surprising given the campus saw so much unrest during pro-Palestinian protests last year.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then the University of Pennsylvania, Trump's own alma mater, is losing about $175 million in federal funding over a biological male swimmer who previously competed on the girls team.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The school still hasn't changed its policy on transgender athletes.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then last week, $210 million in research grants to Princeton University were halted over anti-Semitism.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Then just a few days ago, $510 million in funding to Brown.
--:-- Megan Basham: That's the latest cut for the same reason.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, these are all Ivy League schools so far. And as far as funding goes, Harvard dwarfs the rest.
--:-- Megan Basham: Harvard is the gorilla in the room here with $9 billion in contracts and grants under review.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And that funding is halted pending an investigation into its handling of anti-Semitism.
--:-- Megan Basham: Former Harvard president Larry Summers commented to the Wall Street Journal that if Harvard folds, he thinks every school will.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But so far, Harvard has been threading this needle very carefully.
--:-- Megan Basham: Its current president, Alan Garber, acknowledged the anti-Semitism problem on campus, and he warned that losing $9 billion would halt life-saving research and imperil scientific innovation.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But it's still not clear that the school's going to comply with all of these new federal standards.
--:-- Megan Basham: And we have to keep in mind that Harvard was the epicenter of the DEI admissions scandal.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So far, the president is only commenting on the anti-Semitism part of this investigation.
--:-- Megan Basham: Christopher Eisgruber, president of Princeton, told Bloomberg News that this funding isn't to the benefit of the schools per se, but for the American people in general.
--:-- [Audio clip of Christopher Eisgruber speaking]
--:-- Megan Basham: This pact between the government and research universities, which goes back to shortly after World War II, has been fundamental to the excellence of American research universities, and it has contributed tremendously to the prosperity, health, and security of our country.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And that pact has depended on the idea that the American government will come to universities and ask them to do research that is in the interest of the American people, and universities have done that spectacularly, making both the country and the universities stronger.
--:-- Megan Basham: On NPR on Sunday, he called the funding halt a threat to academic freedom and said it's the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And he also said that while he's not judging other university presidents, Princeton isn't going to be making concessions.
--:-- Megan Basham: So overall, right now, every Ivy League school, with the exception of Dartmouth, has had some funding frozen.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, it'll be interesting to see how the courts view this, as it will no doubt end up there.
--:-- Megan Basham: Thanks for reporting.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Anytime.
--:-- [Audio clip of Lumen ad]
--:-- Lumen: Head to http://lumen.me/WIRE for 20% off your purchase.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Despite Trump executive orders against males and women sports, many trans males are still being allowed to play and win against women.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Thanks for having me on the show, Georgia.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So, Mairead, first off, tell us about this special investigations team.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Hey Georgia, so the Education and Justice Departments announced this joint task force to protect female athletes from what they say is, quote, the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The education department says they're currently receiving a staggering volume of Title IX complaints.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: This task force will have investigators and attorneys thoroughly investigate violations, which will include males in women's sports, as well as bathrooms and locker rooms.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And we are seeing a trend, too, of more female athletes taking a stand against this publicly, correct?
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Right. Several have made headlines in recent weeks.
--:-- Georgia Howe: One is professional disc golfer Abigail Wilson. She walked off the course at a tournament in Nashville on Friday to protest a male player in the women's division.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: In case you couldn't hear that, Wilson said, females must be protected in our division. This is unfair. I refuse to play.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I talked to Wilson afterward, and she said she was pressured not to speak out by the disc golf world tour.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Not only were they telling me they weren't going to protect me and offer me safety, but they were also starting to compel my speech, which is something I wouldn't stand for.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And I just felt like I was just pushed a little too far.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Honestly, it's time for women in our division, in all sports, to stand up for themselves, because no one else is going to do this for us.
--:-- Georgia Howe: If we let these girls lose their voices, then we have failed them as women, and I just don't want to be part of that.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Another protest just happened at the University of Maryland. Stephanie Turner was disqualified from a fencing tournament last weekend after forfeiting a match against Redmond Sullivan.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Sullivan used to compete as a male, but after switching to the female division, he won first place at the Connecticut Division Junior Olympic qualifiers.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Turner has talked about her protests.
--:-- [Audio clip of Stephanie Turner speaking]
--:-- Mairead Elordi: I'm a woman and this is a man and I will not fence this individual. Women's sports are designed to demonstrate female athletic excellence, and that gets lost when there are men in the tournament.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We reached out to USA Fencing for an explanation about their decision to disqualify Turner.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: They said while the conversation on this topic is evolving, they'll always err on the side of inclusion.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, both of these incidents occurred just in the past week. How frequently is this happening?
--:-- Mairead Elordi: It happens quite a lot. A UN report found last year that over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports.
--:-- Georgia Howe: To cite just one example, Zachary Rose, who now identifies as Leah, easily won the high jump at the Portland Interscholaskan League varsity relays.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: He beat the girls in the competition by two inches.
--:-- Georgia Howe: For context, in 2023, Rose came in dead last in the same event for boys JV.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Now, we've reported on this show about Trump's battle with Maine and Maine's governor on this issue.
--:-- Georgia Howe: What's the status there?
--:-- Mairead Elordi: So last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture paused federal funding to Maine's athletic programs.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That followed Governor Janet Mills refusing to comply with President Trump's executive order on Title IX.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Yesterday, Maine's attorney general filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the Department of Agriculture's halt to the state's federal funding.
--:-- Georgia Howe: This is the first such suit over a Title IX dispute and will likely not be the last.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Well, even in a liberal state like Maine, this is not a popular issue.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Right.
--:-- Mairead Elordi: Thanks for reporting.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks, Mairead.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
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