Up First from NPR
Trump's 'Liberation Day', Wisconsin Supreme Court Race, Mistaken Deportation
Wed, 02 Apr 2025
President Trump is set to impose sweeping tariffs on an array of countries. Liberal judge Susan Crawford was elected to the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin. And, the Trump administration has admitted to deporting a Maryland father by mistake. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Roberta Rampton, Acacia Squires, Anna Yukhananov, Lisa Thomson and Alice Woelfle. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis and our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What are the implications of President Trump's 'Liberation Day' and tariffs?
President Trump calls this Liberation Day, as in Tariff Day.
We are going to be very nice by comparison to what they were.
Markets have been jittery in anticipation. Will tariffs help or hurt the economy?
I'm Steve Inskeep with Leila Fadal, and this is Up First from NPR News. It was the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. And despite Elon Musk putting his money and support behind a conservative candidate, liberals held on to their state Supreme Court majority in Wisconsin.
I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world.
How did this race become a referendum on Musk?
And the Trump administration has admitted to deporting a Maryland father by mistake.
If they're allowed to get away with this, then it means that the immigration laws are meaningless, all of them.
Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
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Chapter 2: How did Wisconsin's Supreme Court race become the most expensive in history?
It's a big day on President Trump's calendar, something he's been calling Liberation Day.
A day when he says he's going to make good on a promise to impose tariffs on many, many countries.
I think people will be pleasantly surprised, but it's going to make our country very rich because we're the piggy bank that everybody steals from. And they've been doing it for many years, for decades, and we're not going to let it happen.
The president says he's made up his mind on which tariffs to impose where, although we don't know the details yet. Markets have been nervous leading up to this day amid concerns that taxes on imports hurt rather than help the U.S. economy and also raise consumer prices.
NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is here to tell us what to expect. Good morning, Danielle. Hey, good morning. What do we know about these tariffs?
Well, we know Trump's going to lay them out at a big Rose Garden event at 4 p.m. Eastern, but his team has given few details on this. He and his advisers, in fact, were still working on the tariffs yesterday, which is itself notable. I mean, this is a potentially sweeping trade policy that has not been clearly communicated yet.
But as for what he's announcing, these are what he's been calling reciprocal tariffs, which he has said could apply to many different items and all countries. And he's long described them as mirroring other countries' tariffs. So give us an example there. Sure. So this week, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt showed reporters a graphic of all kinds of tariffs on U.S. goods.
And one example was Mexico's 150 percent tariff on American alcohol. So a reciprocal tariff in this example could be the U.S. imposing a 150 percent tariff on Mexican alcohol. Now, again, I want to stress this is just a hypothetical I'm giving. But in this example, that would mean U.S. importers would pay a 150 percent tax to bring that alcohol into the country.
And in most cases, we could expect American businesses to either eat that cost or pass it on to consumers. OK, so that sounds like it could get pretty expensive. Yeah, it could. And stock markets and consumers are taking Trump seriously on this. Consumer confidence and stock indexes have been plummeting as reciprocal tariff day has grown closer.
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Chapter 3: Why was a Maryland father mistakenly deported by the Trump administration?
Well, in the end, the liberal judge from Madison Crawford won with a comfortable margin, about 235,000 votes, nine percentage points over Schimel, the conservative judge from suburban Milwaukee. Crawford even took some counties that have gone pretty often for Republicans in recent years. including Brown County, that's mainly Green Bay, where Elon Musk held a rally Sunday night.
One of the other big stories from last night was the surge in voter turnout on both sides. Early voting and in-person voting exceeded many clerks' expectations. And, of course, there was the spending. Both sides spent really big. Yeah, Musk and groups associated with him spent about $20 million. Crawford had a lot of money to spend, though, too, including from mega donors like George Soros,
and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.
Now, Elon Musk became a big part of this race, as you point out, and Trump's endorsement too. Anything to take away from Schimel's loss in that regard?
Well, a few things. This race, even though the court is nonpartisan, it was definitely a win for Democrats, and they're claiming victory against the president, his administration, and Musk. And I heard that from voters, too. They say Musk's doge effort is going too fast, too broadly.
From young voters, though, I also heard a lot about reproductive rights, which was the big issue in the last state Supreme Court election we had here two years ago. For more conservative voters, I heard support for the president and for Musk and that Schimel could protect Trump's policies and agenda.
The state GOP says they're disappointed about last night, but are looking forward to 2026 when they say they'll have the opportunity to defend President Trump's agenda in more elections.
OK, so back to the court. Liberals have kept their majority. What cases are expected to go before the justices?
Well, abortion is already in front of the court. They're going to have to decide soon on whether an 1849 Wisconsin law that halted abortions here for 15 months right after the Dobbs decision is constitutional. Next, the matter of Act 10. That's the big fight from 15 years ago that curtailed union bargaining rights for most public sector workers.
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