| | | |  | | By Jack Blanchard | | Presented by |  | | | With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine
| | | | Good Thursday morning. This is Jack Blanchard, certainly feeling liberated from getting any sleep this week. But keep the news coming! And do hit me up with your thoughts. This morning’s most important number: Alex Ovechkin is now on 892 … with three to go for Wayne Gretzky’s all-time NHL goals record. In today’s Playbook: — Liberation Day is over … and now comes the market chaos. — How the math was done: Trading partners bemused by Trump’s bizarre tariff charts. — Worried GOP senators keep their heads down and press ahead with budget plan. But let’s kick things off with two big election scoops: FIRST IN PLAYBOOK I: New York City Mayor Eric Adams is quitting the Democratic primary and will run for reelection as an independent, POLITICO’s Sally Goldenberg reveals this morning. In an interview with Sally, Adams vows to “mount a real independent campaign” at the Nov. 4 general election and admits it is “not realistic” for him to win the Democratic nomination after the hit to his reputation from last year’s federal bribery charges, which were dropped this week. The juice: Adams’ decision may see him facing off in November against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, another seriously scandal-hit figure who is currently leading the Democratic primary. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK II: House Speaker Mike Johnson is endorsing Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) in his campaign for Florida governor, POLITICO’s Dasha Burns scoops. “Byron Donalds is a principled conservative leader who Floridians can trust as their next governor,” Johnson said in a statement shared exclusively with Playbook. “In Congress, Byron has been tenacious in standing up for Florida and President Trump’s America First agenda. I have no doubt he will bring that same fighting spirit with him as governor.” The juice: Donalds has already bagged the coveted Donald Trump endorsement, but still faces a major roadblock on his path to governing America’s third-largest state: term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has criticized Donalds while talking up the possibility that his own wife, Casey DeSantis, may run to succeed him instead. Florida politics really is the best.
|  | DRIVING THE DAY | | | 
President Donald Trump is handed a chart by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick displaying reciprocal tariffs between the U.S. and foreign countries during a "Make America Wealthy Again" event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | GOING FULL McKINLEY: The global economy is in flux this morning as Donald Trump’s surreal, chart-waving TV performance in the White House Rose Garden ushers in a new era of 19th century-style protectionism. With Trump’s allies fanning out across the media to sell his tariffs to a skeptical public, global investors are braced for carnage when the U.S. markets open at 9:30 a.m. Economists are issuing dire warnings about the impact on prices, trade and growth if the tariffs remain in place. And America’s allies and foes around the world are digesting what just happened — and carefully weighing their response. First, the markets: Stock markets in Asia tumbled dramatically when they opened overnight following Trump’s attack on the regional economy, with emerging Asian economies seemingly being targeted to break their roles in U.S. supply chains. Those falling share prices are likely to be replicated when the U.S. stock markets open later this morning. The tariffs levied by Trump were "far above the levels that we and the market expected," Andrew Hollenhorst, the U.S. chief economist at Citi Research, wrote in a research note Tuesday evening. No wonder last night’s Rose Garden event kicked off just after the markets had closed. But Trump is untroubled: The president has already dismissed the doom-mongering he knew was coming from “globalists” who believe in free trade. For Trump, this is simply the enactment of a long and deeply-held belief about how America’s economy should operate, and another “promises made, promises kept” moment from a president who — very clearly now — must be taken at his word. He told us what he was going to do. And once again, he did it. And he went big: We’ve seen plenty of tariffs before from Trump, both in his first term and over the past 73 days. But this is on a different scale. A 10 percent universal tariff on all goods — barring certain exemptions — imported into America from April 5. Goods from China hit with a crippling new tariff rate of 54 percent. Imports from other emerging Asian economies hit almost as hard. Japan taxed at 24 percent; imports from Europe taxed at 20 percent; and so many more among the “reciprocal” tariffs which take effect April 9. And don’t forget the 25 percent tariff on all automobile imports has just kicked in this morning. He even tariffed the damn penguins: Gloriously, one of Trump’s meme-friendly charts revealed a 10 percent tariff on the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands near Antarctica, home only to several large colonies of penguins. They did say no exceptions. History-maker: According to multiple analysts including Evercore ISI and JP Morgan, America’s weighted average tariff under the Trump regime will now be higher than under the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which plenty of historians — though not Trump himself — believe helped deepen the Great Depression. Capital Economics has U.S. tariffs at a “131-year high.” “On a static basis,” JP Morgan wrote last night, “today’s announcement would raise just under $400 billion in revenue, or 1.3 percent of GDP, which would be the largest tax increase since the Revenue Act of 1968.” So to be clear: We are talking about 1890s-levels of protectionism. We are talking about the biggest one-off tax hike since Lyndon Johnson’s drive to fund both the Great Society and the Vietnam War nearly 60 years ago. We’re talking about the tearing-up of a decades-old global system which the U.S. itself had built. And we’re seeing all of this implemented not via a hard-fought act of Congress — which once again, is watching meekly from the sidelines — but by a single order of the U.S. president. Risky business: Playbook has made this point repeatedly, but the political risks for Trump could hardly be higher. Yesterday’s Rose Garden event emphatically tied him personally to these tariffs — and economists are united in what they expect. Citi’s Hollenhorst predicted core inflation will be pushed to roughly 4 percent if the tariffs remain in place. EY Chief Economist Gregory Daco predicted stagflation — the politically toxic mix of low growth and inflation — and warned “a significant adverse financial market reaction would … push the U.S. economy into a recession.” But the $6 trillion question remains … Will these tariffs remain in place long term? Or will Trump use them as leverage to cut improved trade deals? Certainly, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent believes — or hopes for — the latter, as he made clear in various TV interviews last night. “One of the messages that I'd like to get out tonight is everybody sit back, take a deep breath, don't immediately retaliate, let’s see where this goes," he told U.S. trading partners, via CNN. "Because if you retaliate, that's how we get escalation." He added later: “As long as you don't retaliate, this is the high end of the number.” And sure enough … Despite a cacophony of complaints from around the world last night, no significant trading partner came out with immediate retaliatory measures — though China and the EU both made clear they’ll respond soon enough. But space is clearly being left open, just in case Trump’s in the mood to cut a deal. The view from business leaders: The Bessent-endorsed “let’s see where this goes” approach is precisely why “many businesses won’t be rushing to shift their supply chains to U.S. shores,” POLITICO economics correspondent Victoria Guida writes this morning. “For all the detail in Trump’s Wednesday announcement, his endgame is still shrouded in confusion. That’s lethal for long-term investment, making confident planning all but impossible.” And from Europe: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU feels “let down by our oldest ally,” my Brussels Playbook colleagues report. But the British, who were hit with lower tariffs than the bloc, told our London Playbook authors things could’ve been much worse — for them, at least. Still, everyone is vowing to keep calm and carry on negotiating. “One of the great strengths of this nation is our ability to keep a cool head,” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this morning.
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Learn more. | | | | Meanwhile in Canada: Canada and Mexico were among the precious few nations spared additional new tariffs — though they have their own ongoing trade battles to fight. “An army of analysts north of the border openly disagreed in their interpretation of whether or not the Canadian side had scored a ‘Liberation Day’ win — even a tepid one — amid so much global trade uncertainty,” Ottawa Playbook’s Nick Taylor-Vaisey emails in. “Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney took a day away from a fiercely fought federal election campaign to warn that Trump’s overall package ‘will directly affect millions of Canadians.’ He pledged countermeasures to be announced today.” Sense of injustice: One of the aspects of Trump’s announcement enraging U.S. trade partners is the simplistic method used to calculate each tariff. This internet sleuth figured out the U.S. tariff rates are based entirely upon America’s trade deficits with individual countries — meaning these are not really “reciprocal” tariffs at all. The approach has taken a fair amount of flack from online economists, though the White House is naturally pushing back. Expect plenty of debate around the approach today. Moments to watch for: Vice President JD Vance is on Fox News in the 8 a.m. hour. … Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt are both doing TV hits this morning. … Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Brussels for a NATO summit and has some super-awks meetings lined up with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts. … And Trump himself departs for Florida at 2 p.m., and could always take media questions — both on the White House lawn and aboard Air Force One. Also worth watching for … The reactions from nervous GOP types on the Hill. The Senate last night issued a stern rebuke of Trump’s tariffs on Canada, with four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul joining Democrats in passing a resolution which aims to end the state of emergency Trump used to underpin the tariffs. The measure will not pass the House.
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| | | | MEANWHILE ON THE HILL RECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES: Senate Majority Leader John Thune has confirmed the chamber will today take its first vote to advance its budget blueprint ahead of tomorrow’s big kickoff of an extended vote-a-rama, POLITICO’s Jordain Carney reports. Senate Republicans are aiming to vote on final adoption of their budget resolution as late as Saturday morning. The legislative text of the proposal is now public, giving senators — and their staffers — a chance to dig into the details. Shoring up support: Though Senate Republicans have an “aspirational” goal of reducing the deficit by up to $2 trillion via reconciliation, some conservatives want to go as high as $6.5 trillion, POLITICO’s Jordain Carney and Katherine Tully-McManus report. Trump met with the hawks in a closed-door meeting yesterday, during which he committed “to publicly support Senate Republicans in their efforts to massively reduce the deficit — and directly engage with them in a legislative process for clawing back federal funds.” Trump’s intervention may well prove enough to get the package across the finish line. At the same time … Senate Republicans are moving to appeal to Trump. Last night, Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) unveiled a plan to include a $5 trillion debt-ceiling hike in the reconciliation plan — long something Trump has advocated — as part of an effort to “prevent Democrats from having leverage down the road,” Fox News’ Julia Johnson reports. ALSO ON THE SCHEDULE: At 9:30 a.m., the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on Scott Kupor’s nomination to head up the Office of Personnel Management and Eric Ueland’s nomination as deputy director of OMB. At 10 a.m., the Senate Banking Committee will vote on several Trump nominees, including Paul Atkins for SEC Chair. And at 10:30 a.m., the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing on David Perdue’s nomination to be ambassador to China. MARGIN CALL: House Speaker Mike Johnson wasted no time swearing in the newly elected Reps. Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine of Florida, AP’s Kevin Freking reports, giving Republicans much-needed breathing room in the form of a 220-213 majority, with two House Democratic seats vacant. The House is expected to take up the budget resolution once it gets through the Senate . 2026 WATCH: Behind closed doors, Republicans are growing increasingly nervous about the political fallout of Tuesday’s loss in Wisconsin and underperformance in Florida as well as Trump’s latest tariff announcement, POLITICO’s Holly Otterbein and colleagues report: “[I] think that these elections are going to be proxies, or almost like weather devices for figuring out what kind of storm we’re going to be up against next year,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. News from New Hampshire: Amid reports that he’s considering a Senate bid, Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas teased yesterday that he will be making an “important” announcement today at 5 p.m, per POLITICO’s Lisa Kashinsky. Pappas is a top Democratic recruit to hold the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.
| | | | Cut through policy complexity and turn intelligence into action with POLITICO’s Policy Intelligence Assistant—a new suite of tools designed to save you time and demonstrate your impact more easily than ever—available only to Pro subscribers. Save hours, uncover critical insights instantly, and stay ahead of the next big shift. Power your strategy today—learn more. | | | | | FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) raised $1.55 million in the first quarter of the year. It’s a big haul as buzz grows that he could launch a Senate campaign, with an outside group running a seven-figure ad campaign to boost him in Texas markets.
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| | | | BEST OF THE REST TRUMP’S LONG WEEKEND: The president heads to Florida this afternoon — one day earlier than usual — for a dinner at the first LIV Golf event of 2025, taking place at his resort in Doral. He then heads on to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend. On the president’s mind: How to handle the Tik-Tok sales deadline looming on Friday night … What to do about Elon Musk, now widely seen as a political liability in GOP circles … and how to handle Signalgate supremo Mike Waltz, who POLITICO’s Dasha Burns revealed yesterday has been using similar Signal chat groups to coordinate on at least 20 global crises in his role as NSA. SAVED BY A BROKEN-DOWN PLANE: A judge in Texas has ordered the immediate release of a man who appears to have narrowly avoided being put on one of a series of deportation flights the Trump administration orchestrated last month that took Venezuelans to a notorious prison in El Salvador, POLITICO’s legal ace Josh Gerstein writes in. After a hearing yesterday in Brownsville, U.S. District Judge Rolando Olvera not only mandated the release of Adrian Gil Rojas, but instructed the government to pay for his travel back to his New York City home. “The Court holds that petitioner is a Venezuelan national with valid Temporary Protected Status and was wrongfully detained,” Olvera wrote in a terse order. “The Court further holds that [the government] produced no evidence that Petitioner is a danger to the public.” Lawyers for Gil Rojas said he was arrested in New York in January, eventually moved to a detention center in south Texas, and was informed on March 14 that he was being deported. However, the aircraft had “mechanical problems” and the flight was rescheduled for the following day. Within hours of the scuttled flight, Gil Rojas’ attorneys got Olvera to issue an order blocking his deportation. As a result, Gil Rojas was not on board when at least three flights took off on March 15 from a nearby airport, proceeding to unload more than 100 Venezuelan deportees at the brutal San Salvador prison where the Trump administration is paying to El Salvador to hold them. ABORTION IN AMERICA: In a good sign for abortion rights advocates, the Supreme Court signaled yesterday that it’s likely to back Planned Parenthood and rule that South Carolina cannot fully cut off Medicaid funding to the organization, WaPo’s Ann Marimow reports. BIG LAW BENDS THE KNEE: A fourth major law firm struck a preemptive deal with the Trump administration yesterday to avoid being targeted by a punishing executive order, POLITICO’s Daniel Barnes writes in. Milbank, the home of former acting U.S. Solicitor General, MSNBC contributor and frequent Trump critic Neal Katyal, agreed to provide “at least $100 million” in pro-bono work to causes supported by the president, among other commitments. Just like other firms who have negotiated settlements with Trump, Milbank initiated talks with the administration, according to a White House statement. Related read: “Granddaughters of a Paul Weiss Patriarch Deplore the Firm’s Trump Deal,” by NYT’s Benjamin Weiser
| | | | California's tech industry is shaping national politics like never before. We’re launching California Decoded to unpack how the state is defining tech policy and politics within its borders and beyond. Sign up now to get it free for a limited time. | | | | | | | TALK OF THE TOWN | | IN MEMORIAM — “Richard Bernstein Dies at 80; Times Correspondent, Critic and Author,” by NYT’s Roger Cohen: “Over more than two decades at The Times, Mr. Bernstein brought deep historical knowledge, a gracious writing style and a stubborn contrarian streak to subjects as various as the meaning of the French Revolution, the nature of Chinese authoritarianism, the ‘multitudinous strands’ in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial, and the significance of parentheses in the politics of academic language. … His journalism had sweep, an elegiac sense of the tragic inherent in human affairs, and often a subtly crafted argumentation rooted in thorough on-the-ground reporting.” PLAYBOOK REAL ESTATE SECTION — “Mark Zuckerberg Is the Mystery Buyer of a $23 Million DC Mansion,” by POLITICO’s Michael Schaffer PODCAST PALOOZA— The Atlantic has launched its first video podcast on YouTube, “The David Frum Show,” which will come out weekly starting Wednesday. The trailer PAC IT UP — Garret Brubaker has launched a new PAC called Donald Trump’s a Bitch, which is aimed at Gen Z and millennials. He’s the owner of Studio Brubaker and a former Pete Buttigieg video editor. Their video OUT AND ABOUT — SPOTTED at the American Global Strategies conference Tuesday at the Ritz-Carlton: Robert O’Brien, Chad Wolf, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Robert Lighthizer, Larry Kudlow, Julia Bristol, Mark Youngblood, Allison Hooker, Anthony Ruggiero, Erin Walsh, Marvin Park, Lee Levy, Madeleine Westerhout, Sean Cairncross, Arthur Herman, Ivan Kanapathy, Katie Pavlich, Fei-Fan Lin, French Ambassador Laurent Bili, Kevin Rudd, Italian Ambassador Mariangela Zappia, South Korean Ambassador Cho Hyundong, Danish Ambassador Jesper Sørensen, EU Ambassador Jovita Neliupšienė and Polish Ambassador Bogdan Klich. — SPOTTED at a Defend The Vote Action Fund meet and greet on Capitol Hill yesterday for new members Reps. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), Josh Riley (D-N.Y.), and Kristin McDonald Rivet (D-Mich.): Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), David Hogg, Brian Lemek, Tiernan Sittenfeld, Jermaine Simmons, Jody Murphy, Lauren Harmon Murphy, Cindy Brown and Joe Britton. FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Van Ness Creative Strategies is adding David Davies as digital fundraising manager (previously on the Harris campaign), Asmarah Yaqoob as senior digital strategist (previously at the DCCC) and Maisie Cook as social strategist (previously at American Bridge), and elevating Justice Eiden to partner. — John Tass-Parker is now executive director for Al policy and partnerships at JPMorgan Chase. He most recently was director of external affairs at Nasdaq. — Tia Nearmyer and Maura Tracy are launching a new women-owned Democratic direct mail firm, Valkyrie Strategies. Nearmyer was previously a principal at Agency Strategies. Tracy was previously a SVP at Agency Strategies. TRANSITIONS — Rebecca Matwijkow is joining Rokk Solutions as VP of digital and paid media. She previously was a director at Purple Strategies. … Brett Freedman is joining the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology as its inaugural senior director for emerging technology. He previously has been at Washington Office and WestExec Advisors, and is a DOJ and Senate Intelligence alum. … Darshak Dholakia is now a partner in McDermott’s regulatory practice group. He previously was a partner at Dechert. … … Robby Starbuck is joining the Heritage Foundation as a visiting fellow for its capital markets initiative. He is a conservative activist and host of “The Robby Starbuck Show.” … Savannah Zanic is joining Smart Media Group as digital director. She previously was deputy digital director at the Senate Leadership Fund. … Connor GIisson is now tech policy counsel for Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). He most recently was associate regulatory counsel for SES Satellites and is a David Vitter alum. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: POLITICO’s Goli Sheikholeslami, Alex Burns, Jonathan Martin and Samantha Latson … Greg Honan … Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes … Jeff Forbes … Chanse Jones … Susannah Wellford of Running Start … Russ Newell of Penn State … Hope Goins of the House Homeland Security Dems … Ed Cash of Frontier Security Strategies … Savannah Lane … Troy McCurry of the Pew Charitable Trusts … Keith Norman … Eliot Cohen … Brian Zuzenak … Sam Newton … Greg Martin Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us at 202-556-3307. Playbook couldn’t happen without our deputy editor Zack Stanton and Playbook Daily Briefing producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
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