--:-- Tracy Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, February 4th.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Here's what we're covering. I don't want to use countries. I don't want to use names. But tariffs are very powerful, both economically and in getting everything else you want.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: President Trump hit pause on parts of his massive tariff plan yesterday after striking a last-minute deal with Mexico and Canada. Trump had threatened to put a 25 percent surcharge in place on imports from those countries unless they agreed to do more to stop the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the U.S.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That could have been the first move in a crippling trade war, with deep economic consequences for all countries involved. But after getting on the phone with Trump, the prime minister of Canada and the president of Mexico both promised to take action.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Mexico said it would send 10,000 troops to secure its side of the border. Canada said it will appoint a fentanyl czar and put $200 million into cracking down on the drug and fighting organized crime.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In exchange, Trump agreed to hold off on the tariffs for one month. Trump's tariff on China, though, kicked in at midnight. It's a 10% surcharge, and China immediately fired back, slapping its own tariffs on a range of American products like farm machinery and natural gas.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Overall, the back and forth underscores Trump's willingness to pressure and intimidate foreign countries using tariffs. He said this week that tariffs against Europe will definitely happen.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But one trade expert told The Times that this new drumbeat of threats could backfire, since companies and investors might be scared off by the uncertainty and pull back from the U.S. economy.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: She said, quote, trade policy is an economic weapon that becomes less powerful every time it is used.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: As Trump's administration has been shaking up the federal government, cutting programs freezing spending one advisor has been at the center of a lot of the upheaval Elon Musk is leading what been labeled the Department of Government Efficiency with orders to drastically cut the federal budget.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He's assembled a team of young engineers to help him, at least one as young as 19. They come from some of his companies like X or SpaceX, but have little to no experience in government policy.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: They've been working around the clock. Musk even had beds moved into a federal office building so that he and his team can sleep there when they work late.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And over the last two weeks, the team has been sweeping through agency after agency. They've bombarded government employees with messages telling them that they're lazy and encouraging them to quit.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: They've taken aim at USAID, which doles out foreign aid, calling it a criminal organization. And Musk bragged about feeding the agency into the wood chipper.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Elon Musk is waging a largely unchecked and certainly unprecedented war against the federal bureaucracy.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: My colleague Jonathan Swan has been looking into how Musk is operating. He says one of the most unprecedented moves that Musk made was gaining access to the Treasury Department's payment system.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It contains sensitive information about millions of Americans and data about almost all government payments.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Jonathan says that Musk's unfettered access has raised questions about whether he might use that data for his own interests.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: We've never seen anything like this. He's still a private citizen. He still retains his interests in all of his companies, which have billions of dollars of federal contracts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Many of his companies have been under investigations by the federal government. So he's effectively reviewing, auditing, embedding himself and his team within the government that does business with his companies and that regulates his companies.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's a scale of conflict of interest that we've never seen before.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And when we talk to senior administration officials, it's pretty clear that Musk effectively reports to no one.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He keeps President Trump apprised of what he's doing. He tells him for sure and he obviously only doing this with Trump's blessing.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: But in terms of operating like a normal federal government employee and seeking approval, that's not how he's rolling.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: He is moving really fast, aggressively, and with the full authority of President Trump.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: We don't have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk, and that's going to become real clear.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Meanwhile, there has been some pushback to Musk and his role in the administration's efforts to drastically cut government spending.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: This is illegal, unconstitutional interference with congressional power is threatening lives all over the world.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Yesterday, Congressman Jamie Raskin and other Democratic lawmakers joined a protest outside of the USAID headquarters, which Musk continues to target.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: They said the recent spending cuts overstep presidential authority by effectively gutting programs that Congress authorized.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: In Southern California, a stretch of the iconic Pacific Coast Highway was reopened on Monday, almost a month after the Palisades Fire forced it to close.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The wildfire tore through the hills above the PCH, jumped the lanes, and destroyed a long strip of houses between the highway and the beach.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The mayor of Malibu urged people not to go gawk at the damage now that the road is open, saying in a statement, please remember that what you are seeing is not just burned structures.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It is someone's home, their memories, and their loss.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: As the cleanup and recovery continues throughout L.A., there's a new sign of how the fires have pushed California's fragile insurance market to the edge.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: State Farm now wants to raise the rates for homeowners' policies there roughly 20 percent.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Yesterday, the company asked regulators to approve the hike, calling it urgent.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The company said it already paid out more than a billion dollars because of the fires and expects that number to go way up.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It already raised rates by 20 less than a year ago.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: At the same time State Farm and other insurance companies are trying to pull back from California altogether, citing the growing threat of wildfires and other disasters fueled by climate change.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: State Farm stopped writing new policies there last year because of what it called rapidly growing catastrophe exposure.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: And finally.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Oh my God. Since finishing this book, I have become obsessed.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It's got romance, it's got dragons, and it's got a decent chunk of America reading it right now.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I cannot believe I'm holding this in my hands.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The book Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yaros has become the fastest-selling novel for adults in 20 years.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: It sold more than 2.7 million copies in its first week, and right now the top three slots on the Times hardcover bestseller list are all Yaros.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Onyx Storm is her third novel in a series about dragon riders, trained at a military academy.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The excitement has been driven in part by BookTok, video reviews posted on TikTok that can help a book go viral.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Videos about Yaros and her books have more than a billion views.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Fans were so hungry for Onyx Storm that they lined up at midnight release parties late last month, something booksellers say they haven't seen since the heyday of Harry Potter and Twilight.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: The book's bestseller status cements the fact that the romance fantasy genre, aka romanticy, with spicy sex scenes and supernatural elements, is not a fleeting trend, but a major new force in publishing.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Those are the headlines.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: Today on The Daily, a play-by-play of Trump's last-minute tariff negotiations with Mexico and Canada.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: That's next in the New York Times audio app, or you can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Tracy Mumford: I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
