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In today’s issue:
- Uncertainty clouds Trump tariffs in courts
- DOGE on a new leash
- U.S. outlook upbeat for Israel-Hamas ceasefire
- Judge: Harvard may enroll international students
President Trump’s signature trade policy is hitting a series of hurdles in the courts, as multiple panels this week sought to block their implementation.
First came the U.S. Court of International Trade, which on Wednesday declared the levies illegal. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras followed suit, blocking the bulk of the April 2nd “Liberation Day” tariffs.
A federal appeals court lifted the first of two rulings blocking Trump’s tariffs on Thursday, handing him a temporary win after a lower court rejected the administration’s legal defense hours earlier.
▪ The Hill: These tariffs weren’t affected by the court rulings.
▪ The New York Times: Companies welcomed the court decision striking down Trump’s tariffs. Then a stay of that ruling left no one breathing easy.
▪ CNN: Trump’s tariffs are under threat, but ports aren’t seeing a big rebound yet. That’s bad news for prices.
During a briefing Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt derided the court rulings as “judicial overreach” and said they were part of “a troubling and dangerous trend of unelected judges inserting themselves into the presidential decision-making process.”
The back-and-forth tariff policies, which have changed rapidly this year, have created uncertainty for businesses that import and export products, for stock markets across the world, and for consumers, who could see price increases in the coming weeks and months. For businesses, the ruling opens up the possibility that businesses will be able to apply for refunds from the government, trade and legal experts told The Hill.
As the legal cases play out, the White House’s top economic advisers asserted that even if they lose the case, they will find another way to impose tariffs.
“We just do some other things,” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Bloomberg TV. He and other administration advisers outlined several legal authorities the president could use, but most of them take time and have limits.
In Congress, Republican lawmakers breathed a sigh of relief when the trade court ruling came down, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton, putting the brakes on the president’s trade war. But the legal battles over Trump’s trade agenda are just beginning, with Republicans uncertain how Trump is going to respond to adverse rulings that strike at the core of his economic and foreign policy agenda.
Senate Republicans are mulling legislation to require congressional approval for Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, but they have been content to let the courts take the lead in reining in Trump’s aggressive approach to foreign trading partners. For now, they are mostly hoping Trump takes a potential political win — as outlined by The Hill’s Niall Stanage in The Memo.
Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide, said GOP lawmakers are “quietly applauding the decision” by two courts Wednesday and Thursday to halt Trump’s tariffs “because it saves them from having to deal with the tariff issue, which has proven to be unpopular.”
🚨 The Wall Street Journal: Federal authorities are probing recent efforts to impersonate White House chief of staff Susie Wiles during calls to senators, governors and business executives. FBI officials don’t believe a foreign nation is involved.
Blake Burman’s Smart Take is off today and will return next week.
3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY
▪ A new World Meteorological Organization report spells the end of the goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in the next two years.
▪ Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told Trump on Thursday when they met at the president’s request that monetary policy decisions would be “based solely on careful, objective and non-political analysis.” Trump wants lower interest rates.
▪ Join The Hill’s June 4 half-day summit, “Invest in America,” at 8 a.m. EDT featuring titans from Washington and Wall Street. Participants share insights about economic developments, tariffs, artificial intelligence, crypto, taxes and more. RSVP HERE.
LEADING THE DAY
© Associated Press | Jose Luis Magana
Billionaire Elon Musk wraps up his assignment with the Trump administration today with an incomplete record on federal cost-cutting and a mountain of criticism about his Edward Scissorhands methods, if not his intended mission. He’s expected to join the president this afternoon for an Oval Office press availability to mark the end of his 130-day tenure as a “special government” adviser.
After months by Trump’s side in the White House and at Mar-a-Lago, Musk has eased back into his CEO sphere and maintained his presence on X, his social media platform, while also being interviewed by the mainstream press, including CBS. He’s knocked Republicans in Congress for crafting “big, beautiful” spending and tax legislation that he says is awash in red ink. And he’s differed with the president over tariffs.
Musk, in an interview on “CBS Sunday Morning,” set to air this weekend, said he has some “differences of opinion” with the administration but is “stuck in a bind” when it comes to publicly sharing those views.
Musk entered national politics for the first time because of Trump, saying he felt called to step away from his business empire to help prevent the U.S. from going bankrupt. He promoted the idea of a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to the incoming president, who embraced the concept and put his high-profile benefactor in charge to catch the spears.
Musk and his team single-handedly shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), hollowed out the Education Department, fired tens of thousands of civil servants, vacuumed up federal databases and ran roughshod over Senate-confirmed Cabinet members, some of whom were infuriated when they were left to pick up DOGE-detonated pieces.
Bloomberg News: Musk exits DOGE leaving threadbare agencies and strained workers.
The actions of Musk’s team remain contested in federal courtrooms, and one analysis by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service said DOGE’s claims of $160 billion in federal savings cost taxpayers $135 billion this fiscal year.
The Hill: Top DOGE officials are leaving as Musk departs.
Trump previously praised Musk as “brilliant,” a “super genius” and “a patriot.” Musk also proved to be a super supporter, contributing $288 million to help Trump and other GOP candidates get elected last year. In that effort, he became the nation’s largest and most prominent donor. More recently, Musk acknowledged the reputational hit he and his companies, particularly Tesla, experienced amid public criticism of his actions with DOGE. He said during a recent Bloomberg News interview conducted virtually that he’s “done enough” political spending for the near future.
WHERE AND WHEN
- The House will convene on Monday at 11 a.m.
- The Senate today will hold a pro forma session at 7 a.m.
- The president will speak at 1:30 p.m. to reporters in the Oval Office, accompanied by Musk. Trump will depart the White House for Pennsylvania to deliver remarks at 5 p.m. about ownership of U.S. Steel Corporation in West Mifflin, Pa. He will return to the White House by 8 p.m. ET.
- Economic indicator: The Bureau of Economic Analysis at 8:30 a.m. will report on personal income and spending in April, offering clues about consumers and their wallets.
ZOOM IN
© Associated Press | Shuji Kajiyama
2028: As many in the Democratic Party call for a fresh bench, young sensibilities and unifying ideas ahead of the next presidential campaign, a familiar figure keeps coming up in conversation: Rahm Emanuel.
The former campaign and White House adviser, former Illinois congressman and ex-Chicago mayor and most recently, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, has an insider’s résumé and a colorful reputation. Time magazine in 2009 hailed Emanuel, a surprising choice to be former President Obama’s West Wing chief of staff, as “a hard-cussing, old-school-campaign knife fighter and pragmatic congressional arm twister who plays to win.”
Emanuel, 65, is making news media rounds to argue that the Democratic brand is “toxic” (while showcasing his own brand). He says the party has to unite to defeat Trumpism and insists the party’s direction should be to the center, not to the left.
In 2010, when Emanuel ended two years by Obama’s side, the president praised his aide’s candor, opinions and “passionate desire to move this country forward and lift up the lives of the middle class and people who are struggling to get there.”
Former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) told The Hill’s Amie Parnes, “As well known as he is, people don’t really know him.” Don’t count Emanuel out, he added.
“What fascinates me about him is that for him it’s all about winning,” Israel continues. “And he knows how to win the most challenging of battles.”
Immigration politics: The administration created a target list of sanctuary cities and counties in 30 states, threatening to pull funding from jurisdictions that don’t cooperate with immigration enforcement.
2026: Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), 85, on Thursday attracted a primary challenger, former “Jeopardy!” contestant Harry Jarin, 35, who said the incumbent, elected to Congress in 1981, represents a “bygone era of politics that isn’t working.” Hoyer has not said if he will seek reelection.
New York City: The June 24 Democratic primary for mayor divides party factions and voters. The Nation, opposed to mayoral candidate Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who is challenging Mayor Eric Adams (D), today endorsed Zohran Mamdani, a state assembly member from Queens, and Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller for the office, while “urging New Yorkers to rank Mamdani as their first choice and Lander as their second.”
COURTS: The Supreme Court on Thursday in an 8-0 ruling narrowed the scope of environmental review under one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
International students: A federal judge in Boston gave Harvard a temporary victory on Thursday in a legal battle with the Trump administration over whether it can enroll international students. The enrollment at Harvard of international students has grown steadily over the past 19 years and now exceeds 27 percent.
▪ The Hill: International students say they’re in chaos as Trump broadens the administration’s attacks on visas.
▪ The Hill: Texas is set to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in public classrooms as the American Civil Liberties Union vowed to sue.
ELSEWHERE
© Associated Press | Ronen Zvulun
GAZA: The White House is optimistic that a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas could be finalized soon, Axios reports, as a new proposal from Trump envoy Steve Witkoff could help bridge the remaining gaps.
“If each side moves just a bit, we could have a deal within days,” one U.S. source said.
Trump has made clear he wants to end the war — which has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians and more than 1,600 Israelis. But talks were stalled for weeks, and Israel is undertaking a massive ground operation to occupy Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told families of hostages that Israel accepts Witkoff’s new Gaza truce proposal. Hamas officials gave the Israeli-approved draft a cool response, but said they wanted to study the proposal more closely before giving a formal answer.
▪ The New York Times: A new aid site in Gaza brings more scenes of chaos. The United Nations says food being distributed by a new Israeli-backed system is “less than a drop in the ocean.”
UKRAINE: Russia said it has yet to receive a response from Ukraine over its proposal to hold another round of ceasefire talks in Istanbul next week, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged the two sides not to “close the door” to dialogue.
Moscow said earlier this week it wanted to hold new talks with Ukraine to present a memorandum that would outline what it referred to as the key elements for “overcoming the root causes” of the war. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Heorhii Tykhyi. said on X on Thursday that Russia’s hesitancy to share its plan suggests that it was “likely filled with unrealistic ultimatums.”
▪ CNN: Ukraine scrambles to set up a “drone wall” as it braces for a Russian summer offensive.
▪ NPR: What does Trump’s changing rhetoric on Russian President Vladimir Putin suggest about his relationship with the Russian leader? An interview with William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
▪ BBC: How the West is helping Russia to fund its war on Ukraine.
▪ The Washington Post: Russia once struggled to field its own long-range drones, until Iran sold it the technology to do it. Now hundreds of the devices hit Ukraine every night.
▪ Axios: Gulf leaders all argued against a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities during Trump’s recent visit and encouraged him to continue pushing for a new nuclear deal.
OPINION
■ President Trump isn’t a tariff king, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.
■ Goodbye, Elon: A rich man takes his toys, then up and leaves, by Aron Solomon, opinion contributor, The Hill.
THE CLOSER
© Associated Press | Ministry of Communications and Information, Singapore
And finally … 👏👏👏 Congratulations to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! Here’s who aced our puzzle tackling perceptions of youth, the elderly, experience and officials who influence world events.
🧩 Readers who went 4/4: Sol Brotman, Michael McGinnis, Brian Hogan, Lee Harvey, Bob DiMaggio, Roger Langendoerfer, Jack Barshay, Richard E. Baznik, Mark Roeddiger, Luther Berg, Robert Bradley, Sharon Banitt, William D. Moore, Mark R. Williamson, Jenessa Wagner, Tim Burrack, Paul F. Schnabel, Linda L. Field, Gary Kalian, Stan Wasser, Phil Kirstein, Carol B. Webster, Carmine Petracca, Rick Schmidtke, Jess Elger, Sari Wisch, Harry Strulovici, Chuck Schoenenberger, Terry Pflaumer, Clare Millians, Steve James, Larry Mason, Pam Manges, Savannah Petracca and Michael B. Kitz.
When the House’s youngest current lawmaker, 28-year-old Florida Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D), was born, the Oval Office occupant was Bill Clinton. The Sunshine State governor at the time was Lawton Chiles (a Democrat who died the following year at age 68 while in office).
Former President Reagan, then 73 and the oldest president in history, was in the midst of a campaign debate when he famously said he would not “exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
In 1967, a series of U.S. events led to the ratification of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution spelling out how a vice president can take over for a president who is unable to perform official duties.
Trump will be 79 on June 14.
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