President Trump’s tariffs are set to take effect, France’s leading candidate barred from presidential ballot, and Musk and DOGE uncover Social Security abuse. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.Lumen: Head to http://lumen.me/WIRE for 15% off your purchase.Shopify: Go to https://Shopify.com/morningwire to sign up for your $1 per month trial period and upgrade your selling today.
Chapter 1: What are the implications of Trump's tariffs?
President Trump's tariffs go into effect at midnight tonight as foreign leaders and state governors scramble to negotiate last-minute deals.
President Trump doesn't want American industries to survive. He wants them to thrive. And that's exactly what his tariff and trade policy is going to do.
How do voters feel about the new economic order?
I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, April 1st, and this is Morning Wire. Populist leader Marine Le Pen is barred from running for office in France after being found guilty of embezzlement.
Chapter 2: Who is Marine Le Pen and why was she convicted?
If this stands, I think you can't argue that democracy is alive in France.
Chapter 3: How is Elon Musk involved in Social Security issues?
And Elon Musk uncovers millions of non-citizens on the Social Security rolls, including thousands who allegedly voted.
If you create a massive financial incentive for people to come to the United States illegally, then that's what they will do. The thing that actually has the Democrats losing their mind is that we're going to turn off the payments to illegals.
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Just hours out from Donald Trump's Liberation Day, consumers, corporations, and international trading partners are preparing for a slew of new tariffs that could reshape the global economy.
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Chapter 4: Why is Trump's tariff strategy controversial?
Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here with more on the economic ramifications heading into this crucial deadline. So Cabot, all eyes on the White House as we wait for the final details of Trump's tariffs. What's the latest?
Well, if there's anything we've learned from Trump, it's that he is full of surprises. And that is certainly the case here. For weeks now, the president has floated a variety of ideas on tariffs, sometimes saying he would match the rates set by other countries, then floating the idea of a universal 20% rate, and then saying that he could be, quote, much more generous with our trading partners.
So to put it simply, we are in the dark on what exactly this Liberation Day will look like. And that sort of plays into Trump's strategy on these things.
So what is the strategy there? Why is he waiting to unveil the full plan?
Well, by waiting until the last minute, he leaves the door open for more negotiating. On Friday, for example, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum met with Trump officials to discuss her plans to improve border security. clearly hoping to ease looming tariffs on her country. And in recent days, the president has fielded calls from the prime ministers of Canada and Great Britain.
Both men reportedly made their last-minute pitches seeking to dodge tariffs. And more broadly, in the last 72 hours, lawmakers in both parties have... been lighting up the White House phones, lobbying for exemptions for particular industries in their states.
And of course, we've also seen a flood of business leaders making their case to the president, some vowing to bring manufacturing stateside and pour money into investments and jobs in exchange for lower tariffs. So Trump is seemingly content to let the pressure build and make final decisions once all offers are on the table.
So let's talk about the political ramifications of some of that uncertainty. What are we seeing when it comes to voters?
So amid the market swings and concerns over potential price increases from these tariffs, there is no doubt that more voters have soured on Trump's handling of the economy, the issue typically he's been the most popular on. Numerous polls this week show his approval rating on the economy lower now than at any point in his first or second term. The Associated Press, for example, had him at 40%.
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Chapter 5: What are the political ramifications of Trump's tariffs?
The White House has also been quick to argue that they are essentially cleaning up the mess left by the Biden administration, which in their view created massive trade disparities and sped up the hollowing out of America's manufacturing capabilities. Here's Antonio to that point.
You know, the Fed cut interest rates when they had no business doing so back in the autumn. That caused commodity prices to spike. That is now turning into higher wholesale prices and higher retail prices that you and all the listeners have to pay. That's one of the reasons why we're still dealing with some inflationary fallout.
So that's basically the mess that has been dumped into this administration's lap and that they're now having to deal with.
So a lot riding on these next few days. Liberation Day now upon us.
Well, no doubt everyone's going to be watching the markets. Cabot, thanks for reporting.
Anytime.
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Chapter 6: How are businesses responding to potential tariff impacts?
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Maureen Le Pen, the populist frontrunner for France's 2027 presidential race, has been convicted of embezzlement and banned from seeking office for five years. Her supporters say this is pure lawfare.
Here are the latest is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham. Hey, Megan. So for those who don't closely follow European politics like we do, give us the background on Le Pen and these charges against her.
Yeah, so Le Pen is the prominent leader of the right-wing National Rally Party. She's a very Trump-like figure in France, very much feared by the political establishment who characterize her as an extremist, but she's also very popular with the French public. Recent polls and elections show that nearly 40% of French voters back her and her party, and no other candidate comes close to that.
So she was found guilty of misappropriating several million euros in European Union funds. Essentially, her party was entitled to a certain amount of European funding for things like paying staff to work on general European political operations. Well, the court found that she used that money to the benefit of her national party, essentially a co-mingling of funds.
But Ellen Fantini, managing editor of the European Conservative, told me that virtually every major party in Europe does this same kind of thing. She says that the way this conviction is being carried out makes it very clear that this is about sidelining Le Pen as a candidate.
What's crazy about it is that under French law, of course, she can appeal the conviction like in the United States, which means that while she's pending appeal, she's not going to have to serve any parts of her sentence, which were house arrest, two years of house arrest, as well as then kind of probation after that. But the prohibition on running for office is in execution as of basically today.
even though she has the right to appeal. So it's obvious that that's the real thing they wanted.
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Chapter 7: What is Shopify's role in business success?
Some heightened rhetoric there. What are other European leaders saying about this?
Not much from those on the left, but those on the right are speaking out loudly. So on Monday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban posted, «Je suis Marine. I am Marine». Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League Party, called the ruling a «declaration of war by Brussels», meaning the European Union establishment.
Populist party leaders in the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, all of them are characterizing this as an attempt to stymie the success that the right has been experiencing across Europe. Many are comparing it to Colin Georgescu of Romania. He's another popular right-wing presidential candidate who a court just banned from running.
Piantini also expects the Trump administration to weigh in here in support of Le Pen.
If we think about JD Vance's comments about Europe, particularly at the Munich Security Conference where he set the world on fire by telling them the truth, the fact is that anybody who says, oh, JD Vance is exaggerating about the state of democracy in Europe should probably think twice about that assessment. It's an exoneration of him for having criticized European democracy.
Le Pen herself says she's a fighter and she says she is not going to allow the courts to eliminate her from this race.
Very interesting that so many of these same political shifts are happening in Western countries. Megan, thanks so much for reporting.
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Chapter 8: What is the reaction to Marine Le Pen's conviction in France?
Anytime.
Elon Musk and venture capitalist Antonio Gracias are alleging widespread abuse of the social security system. The businessman said Sunday that millions of non-citizens have been given access to benefits and many have even been allowed to vote.
Here to discuss what Musk and Gracias found is Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce. So, Tim, these two have been digging around the Social Security Administration. What have they found?
Abuse, and a lot of it. Musk brought Gracias up on stage at a town hall on Sunday and had him explain.
In 21, you see 270,000 people goes all the way to 2.1 million in 24. These are non-citizens that are getting social security numbers. Yeah, this is a mind-blowing chart. Yeah, just, this literally blew us away. Like, we went there to find fraud, and we found this by accident. My parents are immigrants. Yeah, this country's been great to us. I'm pro-legal immigration.
This is not, this is not political. This is not political.
Again, that's 2.1 million non-citizens who received social security numbers last year alone, 4.8 million under four years of Biden. I should note that this isn't necessarily fraud. Non-citizens in the country under certain rules are eligible for social security numbers, but the number of non-citizens receiving them surged under Biden.
Gracias went on to say that many of these non-citizens are receiving max benefits from the system.
The defaults in the system from Social Security to all of the benefit programs have been set to max inclusion, max pay for these people, and minimum collection. That's what's happening. We found 1.3 million of them already on Medicaid, as an example.
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