Trump Trade War & Defunding the Ivy League | 4.8.25

Stocks slow their fall as President Trump stands firm in his tariff and trade plan. We're going to have one shot at this, and no other president's going to do this.
I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, April 8th, and this is Morning Wire.
The Trump administration pulls billions of dollars in federal funding from Ivy League colleges over their handling of anti-Semitism. Harvard has $50 billion sitting on it.
If any university can survive four years of having its funding with help from the federal government, it's Harvard. And female athletes across the country take a knee rather than face off against men allowed to play in women's sports.
This is not a moment. It is a movement of truth and bravery that has begun.
Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
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Again, that's shopify.com slash morningwire. President Trump is holding firm on his unprecedented tariff policy as market swing and trade partners look to make a deal.
Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips is here to break down what it means for the economy and the consumer at home. Hey, Cabot, so the market turmoil continuing to dominate the global conversation.
We discussed this Monday, new developments since then. What's the latest? Yeah, the roller coaster continued Monday as uncertainty remained over how long those tariffs will stay in place and what they'll mean for the cost of goods.

Stocks in Hong Kong saw their worst day in nearly 30 years, plunging more than 13%.

It was a similar story for markets across Europe and the rest of Asia.

Here on Wall Street, we saw wild swings throughout the day,

but ultimately the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq each ended up within 1%

of where they began when markets opened, so a little less craziness. For his part, President Trump continued urging Americans to trust his plan.
Here he is speaking at the White House Monday afternoon. We have an opportunity to change the fabric of our country.
We have an opportunity to reset the table on trade. I don't mind going through it because I see a beautiful picture at the end.
And while his base and allies are certainly holding strong, reminding folks of the economy's success during his first term, there's no doubt that markets are less than confident. And we got an example of that volatility yesterday amid a fake headline saga, which was very interesting.
What happened there? Yeah, a wild story. So around 10.10 yesterday morning, a large Twitter account posted that President Trump was considering a 90 day pause on all tariffs.
By 1015, five minutes later, a CNBC guest repeated the claim and markets soared, gaining literally trillions of dollars in value in literally minutes. The S&P 500 spiked 7%, going from down 4% to up 3%.
But moments later, the White House issued a statement calling the report fake news, and markets fell right back down, erasing all of those gains. I spoke with Kenny Pocari, the senior market strategist for Slate Stone Wealth, for his take on that swing.
What it tells you is that the market is aching and looking for anything positive kind of in this mess. Because as you and I both know, the market hates uncertainty.
It just hates it. It can take bad news as long as there's some certainty to it.
The market can then adjust. But when the market remains so uncertain, then the anxiety level rises, volatility rises, and it's that shoot first, ask questions later, and it's lower prices.
Pocari said that he thinks we've already seen the worst of the market drops. You can never really pick the bottom and you kind of want to make sure you're not still jumping into, you know, catching a falling knife.
My sense is that we're getting probably closer to a bottom than not, which doesn't mean that we're not going to keep churning and maybe trading a little bit lower, but I don't think we're going to see three or four more down days of five and six percent down days like that. All right.
So a more measured take from Pocari. Now, the president also signaled Monday that he'd be willing to implement even more tariffs on China if they don't come to the table.
What's he proposing? So rather than expressing an openness to a deal, as we've seen from dozens of other countries, China responded with 34 percent tariffs on American goods. President Trump expressed a willingness to go tit for tat in response.
If that tariff isn't removed by tomorrow at 12 o'clock, we're putting a 50 percent tariff on above the tariffs that we put on. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year they'd make on us on trade, and it shouldn't be that way.
Officials in Beijing even accused President Trump of, quote, bullying their country. And in a remarkable twist, the Chinese embassy in Washington responded by posting clips of then-President Reagan expressing his distaste for tariffs.
I never thought we'd see that. Yeah.
So President Trump and his allies seem to remain in lockstep, but some in the GOP have begun to waver. What are we seeing on that front? Right.
A number of senators have crafted the Trade Review Act of 2025, a new bill that would require congressional approval for future tariffs. Among other things, the law would give Congress the power to dissolve unilateral tariffs issued by the president.
Seven Republicans have already joined a number of Democrats in endorsing that measure, including Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell, and Tom Tillis. President Trump, for his part, threatened to veto the legislation if it's passed.
All right, Cabot, thanks for reporting. My pleasure.
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The Trump administration is suspending hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding for elite colleges and universities over their handling of anti-Semitism and DEI programs. Some of the schools are saying they'll fight back.
Here with the latest is Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham. So Megan, can you first explain what this funding is and then why the Trump administration is threatening to pull it? Yeah, sure.
So primarily, these are grants that are flowing to universities under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services for research projects. Now, the White House says schools are not eligible for this taxpayer money if they fail to protect Jewish students and uphold new civil rights standards, which includes doing away with those race-based admissions.
This is what Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Fox News last week. When you see students barricaded in the library, people pounding on the glass saying death to USA, death to Israel.
And I've talked to students at Columbia, Jewish students who told me that they were afraid to go across campus and a lot of the Jewish interaction on campus has been driven underground. And that's just not the way our education should be.
Now, McMahon added that the task force investigating the schools was formed between the Department of Education, DOJ, and HHS and Government Services Administration, and that they're giving the schools a chance to comply so that funding can be restored. So which schools have lost funding so far? Well, Columbia University was the first school to have its funding suspended in early March, $400 million.
That's really not surprising given the campus saw so much unrest during pro-Palestinian protests last year. And then the University of Pennsylvania, Trump's own alma mater, is losing about $175 million in federal funding over a biological male swimmer who previously competed on the girls team.
The school still hasn't changed its policy on transgender athletes. And then last week, $210 million in research grants to Princeton University were halted over antisemitism.
Then just a few days ago, $510 million in funding to Brown. That's the latest cut for the same reason.
Now, these are all Ivy League schools so far. And as far as funding goes, Harvard dwarfs the rest.
So what's Harvard's status? Yes, absolutely. Harvard is the gorilla in the room here with $9 billion in contracts and grants under review.
And that funding is halted pending an investigation into its handling of anti-Semitism. Former Harvard president Larry Summers commented to the Wall Street Journal

that if Harvard folds,

he thinks every school will.

But so far,

Harvard has been threading this needle

very carefully.

Its current president, Alan Garber,

acknowledged the anti-Semitism problem on campus

and he warned that losing $9 billion

would halt life-saving research

and imperil scientific innovation.

But it's still not clear that the school's going to comply with all of these new federal

standards.

And we have to keep in mind that Harvard was the epicenter of the DEI admissions scandal.

So far, the president is only commenting on the anti-Semitism part of this investigation.

Christopher Eisgruber, president of Princeton, told Bloomberg News that this funding isn't to the benefit of the schools, per se, but for the American people in general. This pact between the government and research universities, which goes back to shortly after World War II, has been fundamental to the excellence of American research universities.
And it has contributed tremendously to the prosperity, health and security of security of our country. And that pact has depended on the idea that the American government will come to universities and ask them to do research that is in the interest of the American people.
And universities have done that spectacularly, making both the country and the universities stronger. On NPR on Sunday, he called the funding halt a threat to academic freedom and said it's the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare.
And he also said that while he's not judging other university presidents, Princeton isn't going to be making concessions. So overall, right now, every Ivy League school, with the exception of Dartmouth, has had some funding frozen.
Well, it'll be interesting to see how the courts view this, as it will no doubt end up there. Megan, thanks for reporting.
Anytime. Despite Trump's executive orders against males in women's sports, many trans-identifying males are still being allowed to play and win against women.
In response, the Trump administration announced a new special investigations team that will probe schools violating Title IX by letting males play on girls' teams. Joining us with the details is Daily Wire investigative reporter Mairead Elordi.
So Mairead, first off, tell us about this special investigations team. Hey, Georgia.
So the education and justice departments announced this joint task force to protect female athletes from what they say is, quote, the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities. The Education Department says they're currently receiving a staggering volume of Title IX complaints.
This task force will have investigators and attorneys thoroughly investigate violations, which will include males in women's sports as well as bathrooms and locker rooms. And we are seeing a trend, too, of more female athletes taking a stand against this publicly, correct? Right.
Several have made headlines in recent weeks. One is professional disc golfer Abigail Wilson.
She walked off the course at a tournament in Nashville on Friday to protest a male player in the women's division. Females must be protected in our division.

It's unfair. I'm a division player.

In case you couldn't hear that, Wilson said,

females must be protected in our division.

This is unfair. I refuse to play.

I talked to Wilson afterward,

and she said she was pressured not to speak out by the Disc Golf World Tour.

Not only were they telling me they weren't going to protect me

and offer me safety, but they were also starting to compel my speech, which is something I wouldn't stand for. And I just felt like I was just pushed a little too far.
Honestly, it's time for women in our division, in all sports, to stand up for themselves, because no one else is going to do this for us. If we let these girls lose their voices, then we have failed them as women.
And I just don't want to be part of that. Another protest just happened at the University of Maryland.
Stephanie Turner was disqualified from a fencing tournament last weekend after forfeiting a match against Redmond Sullivan. Sullivan used to compete as a male, but after switching to the female division, he won first place at the Connecticut Division Junior Olympic qualifiers.
Turner has talked about her protests. Here she is on Fox and Friends.

I'm a woman and this is a man and I will not fence this individual.

Women's sports are designed to demonstrate female athletic excellence

and that gets lost when there are men in the tournament.

We reached out to USA Fencing for an explanation about their decision to disqualify Turner.

They said while the conversation on this topic is evolving, they'll always err on the side of inclusion. Now, both of these incidents occurred just in the past week.
How frequently is this happening? It happens quite a lot. A UN report found last year that over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports.

To cite just one example, Zachary Rose, who now identifies as Leah, easily won the high jump at

the Portland Interscholaskan League varsity relays. He beat the girls in the competition by

two inches. For context, in 2023, Rose came in dead last in the same event for boys JV.

Now, we've reported on this show about Trump's battle with Maine and Maine's governor on this issue. What's the status there? So last week, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture paused federal funding to Maine's athletic programs. That followed Governor Janet Mills refusing to comply with President Trump's executive order on Title IX.
Yesterday, Maine's attorney general filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the Department of Agriculture's halt to the state's federal funding.

This is the first such suit over a Title IX dispute and will likely not be the last.

Well, even in a liberal state like Maine, this is not a popular issue.

Right.

Mairead, thanks for reporting.

Thanks, Georgia.

Thanks for waking up with us.

We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.