• Economists, Wall Street traders — really, anyone who has a stake in the health of the U.S. economy — are all holding their breaths right now ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned ‘Liberation Day’ Wednesday. That’s when he’s promised to put in place a slew of new tariffs on imported goods from all over the world. But the scope of Trump’s plans is still unclear, and that’s injecting a ton of uncertainty into an already uncertain economy, all while polls show voters are losing confidence in the president’s ability to bring down prices. Neil Irwin, chief economic correspondent for Axios, explains what Trump’s murky tariff plans could mean for average Americans.
• And in headlines: Republicans sweat over a pair of special Congressional elections in Florida today, the Trump administration said it deported more alleged gang members to El Salvador, and Attorney General Pam Bondi told the Justice Department to drop a Biden-era lawsuit against a Georgia voting law.

• Check out Neil’s work – www.axios.com/authors/nirwin
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• What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Tuesday, April 1st. I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that’s not doing an April Fool’s Day thing. Because look around, things are weird and confusing enough. [music break] On today’s show, Republicans sweat over a pair of special congressional elections in Florida, and the Trump administration says it deported more alleged gang members to El Salvador. But let’s start by talking about tariffs, which is not a beautiful word. You know what is a beautiful word? Aurora. Big fan of the word Aurora. Anyway, tomorrow is according to the Trump Administration, Liberation Day, in which President Donald Trump plans to announce tariffs on a host of other countries to make America rich or something. Which countries? Well um, I don’t know. And neither does President Trump. Here he is on Air Force One Sunday. 

[clip of unnamed journalist] On the tariffs that you’re planning, so there are you’re expecting to hit something like ten to 15 countries, is that right? 

[clip of President Donald Trump] No, no. 

[clip of unnamed journalist] All of the countries. Is it across the board?

[clip of President Donald Trump] Not ten, I don’t know who told you ten or fifteen? 

[clip of unnamed journalist] Well we heard that. So we heard that you were going to aim for the fifteen percent. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] But you didn’t hear it from me. 

[clip of unnamed journalist] So how many countries will be in that initial [?]? 

[clip of President Donald Trump] You’d start with all countries, so let’s see what happens. There are many countries. 

Jane Coaston: There are many countries. That’s true. Anyway, what Donald Trump does know, despite all of the evidence available from economists across the political spectrum, is that everything is going to be awesome. And there is definitely no chance of stagflation, stagnant growth combined with high inflation rates that made the 1970s only cool for music reasons, not economic ones. Instead, things are going to go well, here’s Trump.

[clip of President Donald Trump] This country is going to be more successful than it ever was. It’s going to boom. We’re gonna we’re going to have boom town USA. We’re gonna boom. 

Jane Coaston: Boom. Now businesses love plans, they do not like surprises or adjusting their budgets on the fly. Which is a problem, because we are recording this on Monday evening, and as of right now, we have no idea what Trump will do with tariffs. Seriously, he’s been asked. Here he is in the Oval Office Monday. 

[clip of unnamed journalist 2] A universal tariff for different individual tariff rates on a whole variety of different countries. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Well, you’re going to see in two days, which is maybe tomorrow night or probably Wednesday, you’re gonna see, and they’re reciprocal. 

Jane Coaston: And neither do business leaders and political figures, whose cities and towns depend on businesses that work across international borders. The Republican mayor of Rochester Hills, Michigan, Bryan Barnett , is a good example. Rochester Hills is a focal point for the auto industry in Michigan. Here he is on CNN Monday. 

[clip of Bryan K. Barnett ] We’ve gone through really challenging times in Southeast Michigan before, uh and I’m not sure, you know, these are just negotiation tactics. Um. I hope the president and his team are able to move quickly. I was pleased that he had a very positive meeting with the prime minister at the end of last week, but the uncertainty, you  know you see the markets reacting to it, um it’s daunting, it’s impossible to prepare. 

[clip of unnamed journalist 3] You think this could lead to job losses in Rochester Hills? 

[clip of Bryan K. Barnett ] I think it could very quickly, I think most of the folks I’m talking to say, you know, they can survive this kind of back and forth for about maybe 30 days. 

Jane Coaston: So to tell us more about tariffs and the Trump administration’s plan for them, I spoke with Neil Irwin, Chief Economic Correspondent for Axios. Neil, welcome to What a Day. 

Neil Irwin: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: Okay, so Wednesday is Liberation Day, as the White House would have us believe. What is actually going to happen that day in terms of the tariffs that are going into effect? 

Neil Irwin: Well, we think what they’re going to announce is a series of tariffs on a lot of countries, maybe 10, 15, 20%, layered on top of all the other stuff that’s been announced, auto tariffs, you know fentanyl-driven tariffs on Mexico and Canada. So this is kind of the big one. This is the big escalation of this trade war to be not just Mexico, Canada, China, but also the entire world, or at least a large chunk of it, in ways that you know we might start to see at the at the supermarket. 

Jane Coaston: Why don’t we know exactly what’s going to happen on Wednesday? Because if I know anything about businesses, they like certainty. 

Neil Irwin: Yeah, look there’s been dueling leaks over the last few weeks where you can almost see the push and pull of one set of advisors, more economics based, more pro-business, really would like to see these used cautiously, gingerly, tactically. You know you implement a tariff to get some concession, then you back off once you get that concession. Uh. That’s one kind of faction within the administration. The other is saying, no, tariffs are a good thing in and of themselves. We got to ramp up this trade war, rebalance the entire US economy. raise revenue for years and years to come, and that this, you know, even if there’s some pain, it’s worth it. It’s fine if there is a downturn. And ultimately, the question is where the president comes down. And and his latest round of comments suggest he’s coming down with the hardliners, which kind of aligns with his personal instincts. 

Jane Coaston: Also, you mentioned that these tariffs are going to be on top of other tariffs that have already been announced. So is Mexico going to paying like a 50% tariff on avocados? Am I ever going to have guacamole again? How is this going to work? 

Neil Irwin: Yeah, that seems to be what they’re talking about. Stacking them is what people refer to. There’s been no hint that, okay, the Mexican tariffs are net of the what was already announced. And these auto tariffs last week are a big deal, you know 25%, uh you know if you buy an imported car or even a US-made car that has imported parts, which is basically all of them, uh you know you could be looking at some of the estimates are four, five, $6,000 in additional cost on your on your new car. Um. So if these are all layered on top of that, even if they’re not huge in isolation, suddenly you might be getting at a 50, 60% tax on certain items from certain countries. And so yeah, you’re right. That uh that is the kind of thing that people will notice, right? And this it gets back to 2018, 2019. People think, you know, there was the trade war, there were tariffs. I didn’t really notice it. Inflation was low, and that’s true, but those were a lot smaller, a lot more targeted, and especially targeted to not affect consumer goods, but more kind of intermediate things, steel and aluminum, things like that, that you don’t buy directly. And that’s why that wasn’t as significant an experience as what we’re expecting after this is implemented. 

Jane Coaston: How are US businesses responding to all of this uncertainty, especially those that are directly affected by these planned tariffs, like carmakers, as you said. I mean, I saw that the mayor of Rochester Hills, Michigan was on CNN on Monday talking about how, like, he doesn’t know what to do or what to tell people who are coming to him. 

Neil Irwin: So look, in the near term, there are only three options. One is you raise your prices and you know just suffer the loss of demand. Two is you take a reduction to your profit margins. You eat it as a company and say, I’m just gonna you know pay these taxes and it comes out of my margins. Three is you try and force it on your suppliers and try and get companies in other countries who are supplying you to eat it in their profit margins, that’s the near-term. In the medium-term, you can consider reshoring, building domestic factories. That takes time, right? So if you’re, you know, if you are an automaker. and suddenly your parts are coming in and have a 25% or greater tariff attached to them, you can’t just flip the switch and have a new auto plant overnight. That’s a medium term investment. And that’s where the kind of volatility of this policy is problematic, right? If you are a CEO and you’re not sure whether this policy will even be there a month from now, six months from now let alone four years from now you don’t wanna spend a billion dollars on that new car factory. So that’s that’s one of the internal tensions of this kind of messy policy process. 

Jane Coaston: Have businesses indicated which of these admittedly not great options they’re leaning toward? 

Neil Irwin: It varies a lot by industry. You know, if you’re in a low margin kind of commodity business, if you make drywall, you know, and imported gypsum from Canada, suddenly is a lot more expensive. Well, all of your competitors have that same issue and your margins are so thin, you kind of just have to pass it on and hope for the best. If you’re in a high margin business, some really high-end kind of machine tools, things like that, machinery, you know maybe you do have the room to to exploit that and take a temporary hit, but you gain market share and some of your competitor’s are worse off. Um. So I think we’re going to see it highly variable. You know I would put agriculture in that uh that kind of low margin, not a lot of room to maneuver field. So that’s where if you, if you do assuming these do apply to to produce and other kind of food products, that’s where you might see Mexican produce, avocados as you say, more expensive in the months ahead. 

Jane Coaston: And that means a lot for everyday people like me or you or most people. So how is the average consumer feeling about all of this? 

Neil Irwin: Look the, all the sentiment measures, all the measures of what people expect for the economy have really taken a dive in the last few months, really just since January. Uh. We just got the University of Michigan sentiment numbers on Friday. Expectations have declined a lot for Republicans since inauguration day. They’re really in the pits for Democrats and independents. You know, people are starting to become aware of this and starting to worry what it means for them and I’ll say, look, I think a lot of Trump swing voters in this last election, on some level, wanted it to go back to normal again, wanted to go back to 2019. and have nice low inflation, low prices, and uh we’re hoping that he could deliver that. If we do see grocery prices, car prices, some of these products become more expensive, they’re not gonna like what they see based on you know the survey evidence I see. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I mean, Trump took back the White House in 2024 in large part because Americans believed he could bring back 2019 and bring down the price of goods. And they trusted him more on the issue of the economy, but multiple polls have shown Americans are losing faith in him on these pocketbook issues while he’s yelling about Greenland. What could getting this wrong potentially mean for his presidency? 

Neil Irwin: Look uh, let me describe it a different way. The team around him thinks you’re ripping off the band-aid. You’re causing some short-term pain for what they view as a stronger domestic economy, stronger stronger manufacturing base um in the years to come. I think the experience shows that people really don’t like recessions. People really, really don’t like inflation. And so, if you have a stagflationary environment, if have a mild downturn or stagnant growth or even a recession paired with elevated inflation. That’s bad news. But you know, look, the president talks about this all the time. He wants tariffs to be a meaningful piece of US revenue and pay for the federal government, which was true in the 1890s when we had a much smaller government, but that’s that’s his goal. 

Jane Coaston: I mean, we have seen Trump back away from his plans for tariffs or delay them. That’s happened a couple of times. I’m aware we don’t know, but what is the likelihood that happens again? 

Neil Irwin: Yes, but you’re look you’re right that that he’s announced some things or announced them on social media and then backed away or reduced their impact. Um you know but these auto tariffs last week are real. That’s 25%. You know that he has shown a greater willingness this time around. Um. I take it seriously. I take it literally, you know to use the old term. Uh you know the exact timing, the exact products, will there be some exceptions and some exclusions? Probably, uh but by and large will the goods that US businesses import get more expensive? I think that’s more likely than not. 

Jane Coaston: If the White House gets this wrong, could we end up in a recession? 

Neil Irwin: Yeah, certainly. Um you know I think most of the forecasts that people have tried to sketch out, it lowers GDP growth, but not to recessionary levels, but you know throw in some other things, throw in unpredictable retaliation from trade partners, throw in if you know DOGE federal cutbacks get large enough to really impact aggregate demand and spending. You can tell a story where this kind of cycles through the economy. You know if tariffs get high enough, it really hits the stock market more than it has so far that creates people have less wealth, they might spend less. So if you add up all these channels, you can get to the point where you can model and believe that a recession’s coming. That said, the tariffs, you know, 15, 20%, you know in terms of the scale of the entire U.S. economy, that would just mean slower GDP growth, probably not a recession. The question is how that combines with everything else going on in the world. 

Jane Coaston: Neil, thank you so much for joining me. 

Neil Irwin: Really appreciate it, a lot of fun. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Neil Irwin, Chief Economic Correspondent for Axios. We’ll link to his work in our show notes. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Our people have done an incredible job. You know, I got elected on the basis of getting bad people out of our country that shouldn’t be here. Very dangerous people out of our country. 

Jane Coaston: President Donald Trump celebrated the news Monday that his administration deported more migrants, alleging they were members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 and the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. According to a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S. military flew 17 migrants he called, quote, “violent criminals” to a prison in El Salvador Sunday night. The statement did not provide any details on who was deported or what their crimes were, just that the group allegedly included, quote, “murderers and rapists.” And that the deportations were part of a, quote, “counter-terrorism operation with El Salvador.” Earlier this month, the Trump administration said it deported more than 100 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. It’s unclear if Sunday’s deportations were carried out under the wartime law that allows the U.S. to deport migrants without due process. If so, it would be a violation of a federal court ruling that orders officials to halt any deportations under the act, while a legal challenge to the administration’s use of the law is heard. Trump asked the Supreme Court to lift the order last week and allow the U.S. to resume deportations while the case plays out. As of our recording, the High Court has not weighed in. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Monday that she has instructed the Department of Justice to dismiss its lawsuit against a Georgia voting law. Former U. S. Attorney-General Merrick Garland sued Georgia back in 2021, under President Joe Biden, alleging that the law sought to suppress Black voters. The law limited access to ballot drop boxes in several counties and added a voter ID requirement for absentee voters. But most alarmingly, it gave the GOP-led state the power to bypass county election boards and theoretically remove any election officials and disqualify any voters it wants to. Republicans passed the legislation after President Trump lost his re-election bid in 2020. In a press release Monday, Bondi said, quote, “Georgians deserve secure elections, not fabricated claims of false voter suppression meant to divide us.” Bondi also claimed that Black voter turnout, quote, “actually increased after Georgia’s new election rules went into effect.” She’s not completely wrong. A study by the Brennan Center last December found that the number of ballots cast by Black voters in Georgia did increase between 2020 and 2024. But that increase was not proportional to the number Black voters eligible to vote in the state. Earlier this week, we told you about the big state Supreme Court race happening today in Wisconsin, but Florida is also holding two special congressional elections today. The seats in the house up for grabs were previously held by Michael Walz, who is now president Trump’s national security advisor and at the center of the whole Signalgate scandal thing, and former Republican representative Matt Gaetz, who resigned his seat after Trump tapped him to be attorney general only to watch his nomination go up in flames amid a house ethics investigation. Trump won both Florida districts by more than 30 points in November. But now, Democrat Josh Weil is giving Republicans some major anxiety. The public school teacher is running against GOP state Senator Randy Fine to fill Walz’s seat. The race has attracted millions in campaign donations, and some polls show it’s a lot tighter than expected. Here’s Weil in a video posted to Twitter Monday encouraging people to vote. 

[clip of Josh Weil] This isn’t just about winning this seat. This is about starting a movement across the nation where we start taking seat after seat back. 

Jane Coaston: Republicans currently have a two seat majority in the House, with four vacancies. And the anxiety the White House is feeling over those Florida races was on full display last week when Trump asked another one of his cabinet picks, New York representative Elise Stefanik, to stay in the house instead, rather than tee up another special election. 

[clip of unnamed journalist 4] When you found out you were not coming home, what was your first thought? 

[clip of Suni Williams] You know, my first thought was we just gotta pivot, right? So if this was the you know the destiny, if our spacecraft was gonna go home based on decisions made here and we’re gonna be up there till February, I was like, okay, let’s make the best of it. 

Jane Coaston: Meanwhile, I get anxious if an Uber ride takes too long. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams made a public appearance Monday after their long-awaited return to Earth last month. We all know the story by now. The pair launched into space last year on a Boeing Starliner capsule for what was supposed to be a three-hour tour. Okay, for the youths out there, that’s a reference to Gilligan’s Island. In all seriousness, the trip was supposed last about a week. But problems with the capsule extended their stay at the International Space Station to almost 300 days. Williams told reporters at a news briefing in Houston Monday that the first thing she wanted to do when she got back was hug her husband and dogs. And of course, she said she ate a good grilled cheese sandwich. And in an interview that aired Monday with Fox News’ Bill Hemmer, Wilmore opened up about being quote, “stuck in space.” 

[clip of Butch Wilmore] Okay, in certain respects, we were stuck. In certain respects maybe we were stranded, but based on how they were couching this, that we were left and forgotten and all that, we were nowhere near any of that at all. So stuck, okay, we didn’t get to come home the way we planned. So in one definition, we’re stuck. But in the big scheme of things, we weren’t stuck. 

Jane Coaston: And when asked if they’d go back… 

[clip of Butch Wilmore] If I’m called to go back, sure I’ll go back. Suni?

[clip of Suni Williams] I’d go back. Absolutely. Yeah. I love being in space. [laugh] Space is great. I joke around that it’s a little vacation from Earth. 

Jane Coaston: That’s why they are astronauts and I am a podcast host because man, I love the ground. And that’s the news. [music break] One more thing. I voted for this. If you’ve been online or around some of Donald Trump’s legion of weird fans, not the people who voted for him, mind you, the fans, they’ll say this in response to basically anything he does or is rumored to be doing. But I have to ask, did you? Now, I’ll level with you. I did not vote for Donald Trump. Maybe you figured that out. Because I do not like immigration restrictionism, and I do not think the economy of 2019 was the zenith of humanity. But based on conversations with people who did and looking at the data and polling, many people who voted for Donald Trump did do so on the basis of those two issues, the economy and immigration, maybe something about ending reckless military engagements overseas? Ha, but seriously, the economy, and immigration. According to the Associated Press, quote, “Those who said inflation was the most important factor for their vote were almost twice as likely to support Trump over Harris.” And about six in ten voters who said the economy and jobs were the most important issue facing the country were in his camp. But it seems to me that Donald Trump thinks people voted for him to do basically any weird shit that enters his strange little head. A mandate, for lack of a better term, to do, well, anything. For example, annexing Greenland. See, I did a little research, and from January 2024 to election day, I could only find one reference to the idea. A Newsweek article from March of last year referencing Trump’s first-term interest in the island that had never amounted to anything. The article doesn’t even have a quote from the campaign. And yet now, Greenland is apparently deeply critical to the future of the United States. Sure now I’ll be honest. Personally, I think some people, once again, believe that the policies Donald Trump talked about the most were the policies he just wasn’t going to do, like tariffs. Donald Trump loves tariffs. But according to the Wall Street Journal, a host of business leaders chose to believe that Donald Trump would be the Trump of, say, 2019. Quote, “investors assumed Donald Trump’s second term would be like his first, giving priority to tax cuts, deregulation, and economic growth. Tariffs would come later, after lengthy deliberations. Trump would treat the stock market as his real-time report card.” Oh, honey, no. That was old Trump. New Trump is doing tariffs right now and says that maybe we’ll have some bad times, like a recession on the road to something. Here he is on Fox News last month. 

[clip of unnamed Fox News host] Are you expecting a recession this year? 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Um. I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of it takes a little time. It takes a little time. But I don’t I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think should be great. 

Jane Coaston: So, it’s not very surprising to me that Americans who once thought that Trump’s policies were going to make their lives better don’t think that anymore. According to a new CBS News YouGov poll, in January, 42% of Americans thought Trump’s policies were going to make them better off. Now, 42 percent of Americans think the exact opposite. Trump had support on two issues, that is, two, dos, zwei issues, but he decided that actually, Americans wanted him to go after vaccines, the island of Greenland, the nation of Canada, and uh follow that up by talking about a third term in office. And no, you didn’t vote for that. But that’s what we’re getting. Sorry. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, enjoy the fact that you are not personally related to Elon Musk in any form, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how when I was a kid I kind of wished my family was famous or notable in some way, and now I absolutely do not wish that because whew boy that sounds awful, like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and hooray for boring families. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. 

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