President Trump on Sunday denied engineering a stock market sell-off, and likened the pain of re-ordering the global economy to taking medicine for an illness.

Why it matters: After plunging Thursday and Friday, global markets sank even further Sunday night, threatening one of the worst three-day routs in history.

• Investors who spent all weekend hoping for some kind of policy reversal on tariffs realized that none was coming, and sold off across asset classes in earnest.

What they're saying: "I don't want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something," Trump told reporters on Air Force One, heading back to Washington, D.C.

• He denied crashing markets on purpose, saying "no, that's not so," after he shared a video on his social media accounts that suggested he was intentionally bringing markets down.

Zoom out: Trump's comments came hours after his topic economic advisers, in Sunday TV interviews, said markets shouldn't expect a rescue from the tariff-driven sell-off.

By the numbers: As of 8pm Sunday ET, early trading indicated U.S. stocks would open more than 4% lower, continuing a sell-off that already cost investors more than $6 trillion.

• The dollar continued to weaken, oil fell below $60 for the first time in years, and even tariff safe-haven gold sold off.

The intrigue: Billionaire hedge fund manager and Trump supporter Bill Ackman warned of an "economic nuclear winter" if the president didn't pause the tariff regime.

• Later Sunday, Ackman called the tariffs a "mistake" and said they were "massively in excess" of what the world charges the U.S.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with market details and investor comments.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advocated for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine during a visit to West Texas on Sunday to comfort two families whose children died of the disease.

Why it matters: Kennedy has been criticized for downplaying measles risks and the efficacy of vaccines, notes Axios' Marc Caputo, who first reported on the secretary's visit to Texas.

• The secretary has a long record of sowing skepticism about vaccines.

Driving the news: Both children in Gaines County were not vaccinated when they died of measles, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

• Texas has the largest number of reported measles cases in the U.S. Kennedy wrote on X Sunday that 499 of the 642 confirmed cases in 22 states were in Texas.

What he's saying: Kennedy said on X Sunday he's visiting Gaines County, Texas, to "quietly to console the families and to be with the community in their moment of grief."

• He said he's also there to support Texas health officials and to learn how our HHS agencies "can better partner with them to control the measles outbreak."
• Kennedy pointed to the deployment of a CDC team "to bolster local and state capacity for response across multiple Texas regions, supply pharmacies and Texas run clinics with needed MMR vaccines and other medicines and medical supplies," among other measures he said he'd taken.
• "Since that time, the growth rates for new cases and hospitalizations have flattened," Kennedy said. "The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine."

Flashback: In the face of criticism of his handling of the federal response to the outbreak, Kennedy wrote an op-ed for Fox News Digital last month with the headline "Measles outbreak is call to action for all of us" and the subheading "MMR vaccine is crucial to avoiding potentially deadly disease."

• In the article, Kennedy wrote "Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons," but said the decision to vaccinate is "a personal one."

Go deeper: White House fed up with RFK Jr.'s sluggish press shop

The world faces an "economic nuclear winter" if President Trump doesn't immediately pause his sweeping reciprocal tariffs, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said Sunday night.

Why it matters: The billionaire Ackman, a staunch Trump supporter, put the market's fears about the fate of the global economy in the starkest terms possible.

What they're saying: "The President has an opportunity on Monday to call a time out and have the time to execute on fixing an unfair tariff system. Alternatively, we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down," Ackman wrote in a lengthy post to X.

• "May cooler heads prevail."

Zoom out: Ackman's Sunday post follows another Saturday where he suggested the world would be better off with a pause on Wednesday's reciprocal tariffs, warning of a "potentially severe" recession otherwise.

• Sunday's rhetoric, though, raised the stakes.

Between the lines: Ackman's new post acknowledged the administration's position that decades of unfair trade practices by other nations disadvantaged the U.S.

• But he said the downsides of rushing into a tariff regime were far worse, framing the current moment as an "opportunity" for Trump to pause the tariffs for 90 days and negotiate.
• The alternative, he said, was that "business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate."

Context: Ackman endorsed Trump last summer, shortly after an assassination attempt against the then-former president at a presidential campaign rally.

• In October, he made a lengthy case on social media for Trump as the better candidate.
• He later said he hoped Trump's victory would lead to the "implosion" of the Democratic Party.

Go deeper: Trump tariffs based on massive error, conservative think tank says

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) slammed the decision to fire Gen. Timothy Haugh, the National Security Agency director and head of U.S. Cyber Command, without any explanation as "heartbreaking" Sunday.

The big picture: Haugh, along with his civilian deputy Wendy Noble, was fired Thursday, the same day that several members of President Trump's embattled National Security Council were ousted.

• Their firings followed conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer's Oval Office visit, where she pressed Trump to fire specific NSC staffers, Axios previously reported.
• Trump denied to reporters on Air Force One Thursday that Loomer had anything to do with the firings but said "she makes recommendations ... and sometimes I listen to those recommendations."
• Loomer on Friday wrote that Haugh and Noble had "been disloyal to President Trump" and "[t]hat is why they have been fired."

Driving the news: The decision to boot Haugh "puts us back," Bacon, a member of the Armed Services Committee and a former Air Force brigadier general, said on CBS News' "Face the Nation." "It hurts us."

• He continued, "Russia and China are laughing at us today because we just fired the absolute best leaders."

What's next: Asked if there would be hearings on reporting that the firings came after Loomer, a far-right activist who has frequented Mar-a-Lago, met with Trump, Bacon said he's sure there will be "some oversight."

• As the chairman of the Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation Subcommittee, Bacon said he would "guarantee" the panel would have questions for military leaders and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
• He predicted administration officials would defend the decision as "the president's right." But he added, "He may have the constitutional authority to do it, but it doesn't make it right."
• Bacon continued, "We have an opportunity to probe into this and ask why. And I have a responsibility to make clear this was wrong ... it hurt our country."

Between the lines: Bacon has broken with the administration and party members on several recent policy debates, including on its approach to Russia, sweeping tariffs and the proposed impeachment of federal judges.

• Loomer's presence in Trump's circle has led GOP lawmakers, even close Trump allies, to sound alarms in the past. That friction was present during the 2024 campaign after she shared a racist post about former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Go deeper: MAGA media tiptoes around Loomer-Trump meeting and NSC firings

A federal judge on Sunday slammed the government over its "grievous error" in wrongly deporting a Salvadorian national and refused to lift her order demanding he be returned to the U.S.

The big picture: The government's shocking admission that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was legally living in Maryland, was erroneously deported has sparked further concern about the questionable tactics the government has used amid its immigration crackdown.

• Abrego Garcia, who had "withholding from removal" status, was removed to El Salvador because of an "administrative error," Justice Department attorneys wrote in a Monday filing.

Driving the news: An immigration judge in 2019 granted Abrego Garcia protection from return to El Salvador, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis noted in her order. But "[s]ix years later, without notice, legal justification, or due process," the Trump administration deported him.

• Veteran DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni, who is listed in court documents as the acting deputy director for the Office of Immigration Litigation, expressed his frustration in court Friday over the lack of information he had received from DOJ officials regarding Abrego Garcia's arrest and acknowledged he should not have been deported.

What she's saying: "That silence is telling," Xinis wrote. "As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador—let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere."

• The risk of harm to Abrego Garcia "shocks the conscience," Xinis wrote, adding that "[d]efendants have claimed—without any evidence—that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 and then housed him among the chief rival gang, Barrio 18."
• Abrego Garcia has not been convicted of gang-related crimes, despite members of the administration accusing him of having such ties.

The intrigue: Reuveni was placed on administrative leave by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche over the weekend, Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed on "Fox News Sunday."

• Citing her direction to "vigorously advocate on behalf of the United States," Bondi said Reuveni "did not argue" for the Department of Homeland Security in court.
• "He shouldn't have taken the case, he shouldn't have argued it if that's what he was going to do," she said, comparing his behavior in the case to "a defense attorney walking and conceding something in a criminal matter."
• The Justice Department did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.

The latest: Xinis ordered Friday that the administration return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by midnight Monday.

• The administration quickly appealed the Friday order and has argued there's little they can do to get him back.
• Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele responded to the news of Xinis' initial order on social media with a gif of a confused-looking cartoon rabbit.

Between the lines: Xinis' order that Abrego Garcia be returned tees up yet another high-profile battle between the executive and judicial branches as the administration lashes out against judges who have hindered its sweeping policies.

Go deeper: Trump takes Venezuelan deportation case to Supreme Court

Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout with new information.

If there was one consistent message from Trump administration economic officials Sunday morning, it was this: We're not worried about the stock market plunging, and the cavalry isn't coming to save you from tariffs, either.

Why it matters: Investors lost more than $6 trillion Thursday and Friday as stocks sank on President Trump's sweeping new tariff plan.

• Major investors like hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman fear markets could be dire on Monday if Trump doesn't do something beforehand to ease up on the trade levies.

Yes, but: Trump's economic team made clear no one should count on any last-minute relief from the reciprocal tariffs that are set to be imposed Wednesday.

• "The tariffs are coming. He announced it and he wasn't kidding. The tariffs are coming, of course they are," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sounded the same note on NBC's "Meet the Press," when asked if Trump was open to negotiating tariffs.
• "No. No, no, no. I think that we are going to have to see the path forward. Because, you know, after 20, 30, 40, 50 years of bad behavior, you can't just wipe the slate clean," Bessent said.

Zoom out: The administration's unified stance Sunday — from Lutnick, Bessent, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett and senior trade adviser Peter Navarro — was that everyday Americans are less concerned about market fluctuations than the media.

• "Americans who want to retire right now, Americans who have put away for years in their savings accounts, I - I think they don't look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what's happening," Bessent said.
• Hassett, for his part, rejected any suggestion that the market declines were part of some greater plan to bring down stocks.
• "It is not a strategy for the markets to crash. It's a strategy to create a golden age for the American worker," he told ABC's "This Week."

The bottom line: Economists widely believe that the tariffs, if not lifted, will cause inflation to rise and growth to fall, and lead ultimately to a U.S. and global recession.

• But Lutnick, for one, looked past those impacts and framed the tariffs as the only way to restore American manufacturing as a matter of national security.
• "There is no postponing," he said. "The president needs to reset global trade."

The formula used by the Trump administration to levy reciprocal tariffs contains a serious math error that over-inflates the impact by about a factor of four, economists at the American Enterprise Institute said.

Why it matters: The conservative think tank says the error led to tariff rates massively higher than they should have been to achieve the goals the administration sought.

Catch up quick: After announcing the tariffs last Wednesday the Trump administration released a complicated-looking formula, which it said was developed with the Council of Economic Advisers, used to determine how to set the rates.

• It turns out the formula is simply the U.S. trade deficit with each country, divided by the value of the goods the U.S. imports from that country.
• Two other variables in the equation cancel each other out, rendering them effectively meaningless.

Yes, but: AEI's economists Kevin Corinth and Stan Veuger say they shouldn't cancel each other out, because Trump's team used the wrong level for one of them.

How it works: One of the variables relates to the "elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs," which is to say, how much import prices move as tariffs are applied.

• The administration's calculation assigns a value of 0.25 to that variable, which in the math of price elasticity suggests most of the tariff impact does not hit the import price of an item as it enters the country.
• But the AEI paper says they used the wrong value for import prices, and instead used the value for a retail price, or what happens to the final consumer price after the good is imported and distributed.
• They argue, instead, that the right value is 0.945 — in other words, almost all of the tariff hits the import price of a good as it's brought into the country.
• "It is inconsistent to multiply the elasticity of import demand with respect to import prices by the elasticity of retail prices with respect to tariffs," the authors write.

For example: Corinth and Veuger write that if the tariffs had been calculated correctly, with the same ultimate goals in mind but using the right kind of elasticity figure, the levy on a country like Vietnam would have been 12.2% and not 46%.

The intrigue: In making the case for their approach, including their formula, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative cites research on price elasticity by the Harvard Business School professor Alberto Cavallo.

• Cavallo himself says it's not clear the USTR used his findings properly.

For the record: The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on AEI's assertion.

The bottom line: "Now, our view is that the formula the administration relied on has no foundation in either economic theory or trade law," Corinth and Veuger write.

• "But if we are going to pretend that it is a sound basis for US trade policy, we should at least be allowed to expect that the relevant White House officials do their calculations carefully."

If you watched or read any legacy media outlets last week, President Trump's firings at the National Security Council and National Security Agency after an Oval Office meeting with conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer were hard to miss.

• If you only paid attention to MAGA media, the news was hard to find.

Why it matters: There was plenty of big news last week, chiefly Trump's tariff plan. But taking staffing advice on national security from a 9/11 truther also qualifies as news. Coverage around it was one of the starkest examples of the different media universes that exist for different parts of the country.

Zoom in: The New York Times called the Loomer-fueled firings "a remarkable spectacle." Reuters reported that "Loomer, who has a history of peddling Islamophobic conspiracy theories, did provide Trump with a list of national security staff perceived by her to be disloyal to Trump."

• Trump told reporters on Air Force One that Loomer didn't influence the firings. Loomer has declined to say what she and Trump discussed, but said in a statement she "will continue reiterating the importance of strong vetting, for the sake of protecting the President and our national security."

MAGA media barely tiptoed near the story.

• Top MAGA podcaster Charlie Kirk posted on X: "Any person who helps expose and expel the warmongering cabal from power does this country a service."

MAGA online outlets and social media accounts focused heavily on tariffs, but also highlighted transgender teachers, local politicians and the live-action "Snow White" film's poor box office performance.

• The NSC story is a "silly distraction," said Mike Davis, the president of The Article III Project and a frequent MAGA media guest.

The bottom line: Where people get their news is an increasingly powerful indicator of how they formulate their politics and helps explain how divided the country has become. And few stories like the NSC and NSA firings so succinctly capture just how wide the country's media gap is.

A bipartisan consensus on how to compete with China that took shape in President Trump's first term has exploded at the start of his second.

Why it matters: Nearly everyone in Washington agrees that to win the battle for the 21st century, the U.S. needs to strengthen its alliances in Asia, shift supply chains to friendlier countries, and convince the world Washington is a more dependable partner than Beijing. Nearly everyone, that is, except Donald J. Trump.

Driving the news: It's not that Trump is taking it easy on China. He just increased tariffs on Chinese goods to a staggering 54%.

• China, which retaliated on Friday, faces sharp near-term economic pain.
• But this time, the trade war is global and so is the backlash.
• "China is on the move, and they're going to press their advantage and try to appear as the stable, pro-trade, pro-globalization global power," says Elizabeth Economy, a China expert at the Hoover Institution and former Commerce Department official.

Breaking it down: "Trump helped create the bipartisan consensus on China but was never really part of it — even in his first term," argues Rush Doshi, a key architect of former President Biden's China strategy.

• Trump's first administration laid the foundation Biden built upon: tariffs, export controls on critical technologies, pressing allies to take stronger action on China and leaning on platforms like the Quad (U.S., Australia, Japan and India).

But Trump returned to office with a different team and a clearer sense of his own foreign policy powers and priorities.

• He's trying to unravel the CHIPS Act — which subsidized domestic production of key tech like semiconductors that are at the heart of U.S.-China competition — and has broken with his own party on everything from banning TikTok to standing with Taiwan.
• He demolished USAID, which officials including then-Senator Marco Rubio had seen as a key lever for countering China's influence. Ditto for Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. He's withdrawn the U.S. from international institutions like the World Health Organization and ripped up trade rules the U.S. largely set.
• Trump's abandonment of soft power is by design, but it also cedes the field to China, Economy argues. "If we're not in the game, we certainly can't win."

The intrigue: While his national security team has signaled continuity in some areas, like export controls, Trump's personal commitment to those policies is uncertain. He's suggested everything could be on the table in negotiations for a potential "grand bargain" with Beijing.

The other side: A White House official claimed that as a result of Trump's policies, "our allies and partners are raising their commitments to better compete with China" by spending more on defense and tightening trade and technology controls.

• The official said Trump's tariffs would bring "fairness to our trade relationships," including the "imbalanced" relationship with China.
• Trump's policies, the official argued, will "reshore our manufacturing base, especially strategic industries and supply chains — semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, critical minerals, autos, and steel and aluminum."

However, the tariffs are also sending those allies and partners into a tailspin. Consider Vietnam, a major beneficiary of the recent trend — strongly encouraged by U.S. policymakers — of companies shifting production out of China.

• While allowing the U.S. to reduce its dependence on China and strengthen strategic relationships in the region, that trend also ballooned bilateral trade deficits.
• Trump's unorthodox tariff math means Southeast Asian countries now face some of the highest tariff rates in the world. Vietnam's is a crippling 46%.
• The tariff shock gives U.S. partners in the Indo-Pacific an urgent need to hedge away from the U.S. economically, says Patricia Kim, a China expert at Brookings. "They're going to be looking towards each other and towards China. I mean, that's a given."

Trump is certainly ignoring what recently departed ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said this week was his most important advice: "Be nice to allies."

• Burns noted that the U.S. and China are peers in terms of economic, military and technological power — but the U.S. and its allies together are far stronger. If they stay together, that is.
• Ahead of Trump's tariffs announcement, Japan and South Korea held a trilateral meeting to discuss deeper economic integration — with China.
• Beijing is "enthusiastically" courting countries caught up in the tariff crossfire, Kim says. Xi will travel this month to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia.

What to watch: Xi's heavy-handed foreign policy has also led to friction with countries in the region and around the world in recent years.

• "We are essentially now depending on Xi Jinping to score own goals to keep the United States reputation and position afloat," says Economy.

Teams manning government hotlines for reporting adverse events from foods, supplements and cosmetics, and call centers that provide other essential safety information, were among the thousands of Health and Human Services Department employees laid off last week.

The big picture: Though the department is hurriedly calling some workers back, the episodes show how information blackouts are becoming a feature of the Trump administration's efforts to reorganize the health bureaucracy.

• "Very important offices that were directly involved with food safety and public health were axed," one FDA employee, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation, told Axios.

Zoom in: The Food and Cosmetic Information Center fields tens of thousands of calls annually from consumers and industry representatives about recalls, nutritional information and food business requirements, along with unintended health consequences from using FDA-approved products.

• It also operates a toll-free number for information about the Food Safety Modernization Act, the law that regulates the production and distribution of food.
• Reports about health-related problems with cosmetics, infant formula, meat, poultry, restaurants and more can be made through online portals or over the phone.

But communications and outreach staff within the FDA's Human Foods Program that operates the center were caught up in the workforce cuts that began last Tuesday.

• HHS's reorganization plan includes cutting communications teams across the agency and consolidating them into a central office.
• The FCIC staff were "swooped up with traditional communications," the FDA employee said.

The phone hotline was available to take reports on Friday but the webform and online chats were offline.

• "All employees affected by the reduction in force may be asked to temporarily work until their government service ends on June 2," HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said when asked whether staff had been re-hired to manage the hotline.
• "This decision is focused on ensuring that the transition is as seamless as possible, minimizing any disruption to the agency's mission and operations," he added.
• Nixon did not respond to questions about the long-term plan for the center.

HHS also laid off staff overseeing other hotlines that help people who want to quit smoking and new mothers with postpartum depression, per Stat.

What they're saying: "The layoffs were random and arbitrary," said Steven Grossman, president of consulting firm HPS Group and former executive director of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA.

• "FDA functions associated with communications appear to have been heavily targeted because communications is to be centralized at HHS," he said in an email. There's "[n]o evidence anyone would have looked at this and said — specialized function not appropriate for centralization."

Zoom out: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said staff cuts wouldn't compromise core agency functions.

• But some scientific roles were terminated, including at a San Francisco-area lab that supported food inspections and investigations, including testing for dangerous bacteria and heavy metals.
• The lab also analyzed food colorings and additives, which the new administration has said is a priority, per the New York Times.

What to watch: Kennedy said after the layoff notices went out that 20% of terminated HHS staff could be hired back because of "mistakes," the Wall Street Journal first reported.

• Some laid-off HHS employees have been called back to work without their termination notice being rescinded, while others have been more permanently reinstated, NPR reported.
• Confirmation on who still works at the agency is hard to come by — partly because human resource teams are among those who've been laid off, per NPR.

Americans will benefit more from lower energy prices and interest rates than they will be hurt by falling stock prices as a result of President Trump's tariffs, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday.

Why it matters: Economists broadly fear a global recession, perhaps even a dire stagflationary environment of rising prices and slowing growth, after Trump's sweeping attempt to re-order the world's economy.

What they're saying: "Oil prices went down almost 15% in two days, which impacts working Americans much more than the stock market does. Interest rates hit their low for the year, so I'm expecting mortgage applications to pick up," Bessent told "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker.

By the numbers: Stocks fell more than 10% Thursday and Friday, wiping out more than $6 trillion in investor assets. But Bessent was adamant the economy will hold up.

• "I see no reason that we have to price in a recession," he said.
• He also insisted that the day-to-day gyrations of the market weren't relevant over the long term, even for people nearing retirement now.
• "Americans who have put away for years in their savings account ... don't look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what's happening," he said.

Editor's note: This is a developing story and will be updated with more information.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. late Saturday was planning a hastily arranged visit to Texas after the state informed his department that a second child's death there could be linked to measles.

• The death that triggered Kennedy's trip is under investigation.

Driving the news: The child involved was a member of the same Mennonite religious community that in February reported the death of an unvaccinated 6-year-old girl who had had measles.

Zoom in: Kennedy has been sharply criticized for downplaying the risk of the virus and the efficacy of vaccines for them. He's not expected to echo mainstream medical experts who are worried about his leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services.

• Details of Kennedy's trip to the Lubbock, Texas, area are being closely guarded by his press-averse department, but the White House was informed of his travel plans Saturday.
• "This was a surprise trip," an administration official said, noting it coincided with the "tragic" death of a second child that could stem from measles.

The big picture: Texas has the nation's highest number of reported measles cases — 481 since late January. The nation's first confirmed death of a child with measles occurred in Texas on Feb. 26.

• The parents of that child are Mennonites and have said they stood by their decision not to vaccinate.

White House officials have wanted Kennedy to travel more and take ownership of HHS, so his Texas trip could be seen as a first step in a more public-facing role.

• A spokesperson for HHS could not be reached Saturday.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's tax-cut negotiators say big progress has been made on Capitol Hill, and are optimistic about final passage by summer despite the measure's complexity, Treasury officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: With markets plunging after President Trump's tariffs, top administration officials see the extension of Trump's first-term tax cuts — set to expire at year's end — as a chance to show consumers and businesses that he has a broad growth and affordability agenda to benefit them.

State of play: Bessent on Saturday tweeted praise for the Senate's early-morning adoption of a "mega-MAGA" budget plan — which includes tax cuts and raising the debt ceiling — as "a major step toward pro-growth tax certainty and economic strength."

• "Making ... Trump Tax Cuts permanent will reward work, drive investment, and give families room to grow. Now it's time for the House to finish the job," Bessent added.
• Trump posted on Truth Social Friday night: "Big business is not worried about the Tariffs, because they know they are here to stay, but they are focused on the BIG, BEAUTIFUL DEAL, which will SUPERCHARGE our Economy. Very important. Going on right now!!!"

Behind the scenes: Trump and Bessent have both signaled urgency on the tax cuts. Administration negotiators say they've learned from Trump's 2017 tax-cut fight to get it done as quickly as possible.

• Administration officials are optimistic about final passage before Congress leaves for August recess.

What they're saying: "We're able to deliver on the urgency because of the unity" between the White House and congressional leaders, a Treasury official tells Axios.

• "Locking in tax policy will provide stability and certainty in the economy, and remove uncertainty for families, workers and small businesses," the official said. "Productivity will come from certainty. Growth is a big piece of this."

Millions of "Hands Off!" protesters, by organizers' count, took to the streets, state capitals, federal buildings, congressional offices and city centers to protest the Trump administration on Saturday.

Why it matters: President Trump's political, economic, social, health and legal changes have mobilized a wide cross-section of Americans.

What they're saying: "We are seeing estimates go beyond what was anticipated," organizers told Axios in an email Saturday. "We had about 2,000 RSVPs for cities like Raleigh, where we saw 45,000 show up.

• "DC and NYC are well over 100,000 attendees, each."
• The total attendance estimate far surpasses the 500,000 RSVPs organizers counted as of Friday night.

By the numbers: More than 1,100 rallies, visibility events and meetings were scheduled in all 50 states as of Wednesday.

• Dozens of advocacy organizations are supporting the mass mobilization against Trump policies.

Protesters are also rallying against Elon Musk's involvement in the federal government as an unelected official leading DOGE.

Context: The anticipated protests prompted the White House to reschedule its Saturday spring garden tours.

See more:

New York City

Washington, D.C.

Lansing, Michigan

St. Paul, Minnesota

Boston

Go deeper:

• What to know about Saturday's nationwide "Hands Off!" anti-Trump protests
• Protests force rescheduling of Saturday White House tours

Editor's note: This piece has been updated with additional photos and attendance estimates.

Elon Musk blasted top Trump administration trade adviser Peter Navarro and told an Italian political gathering he wants more free trade, not less.

Why it matters: The two-day rout in the stock market this week, after Trump announced sweeping new tariffs backed by Navarro, cost Musk nearly $18 billion just on his Tesla stock.

• By wading into the tariff debate, a subject he's mostly stayed away from, Musk could inject more uncertainty into U.S. efforts to re-order the global economy.

Catch up quick: Friday morning, a user on Musk's social media platform X defended the controversial Navarro as a skilled voice on tariffs, citing his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard.

• Musk, in a reply in the early hours of Saturday morning, disagreed.
• "A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing," he wrote, suggesting it resulted in having more ego than brains.
• Another user stepped in to defend Navarro as right on trade, to which Musk replied "He ain't built s--t."

The intrigue: Later Saturday, Musk appeared by video at an event for an Italian political party, where he reportedly called for trade barriers to fall.

• "Both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America," Musk said at the event, per Bloomberg.

For the record: The White House did not immediately reply to requests for comment on Musk's posts.

• Besides Navarro, other top Trump officials with Harvard Ph.D.'s in economics include Council of Economic Advisers chair Stephen Miran.

Zoom out: Navarro has been ubiquitous on TV in recent days, defending Trump's tariff program and touting a possible $600 billion in new annual revenue.

• Trump calls the tariffs an "economic revolution" and says big businesses will do well in the end because of pending tax cuts.

Zoom in: Musk, who has wielded significant influence in the Trump administration, may be stepping back in coming months, the president said Thursday.

• The DOGE head recently said most of his work cutting $1 trillion from the deficit could be done soon.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with further comments by Musk.

President Trump on Saturday touted his tariff regime as an "economic revolution" and told businesses to "hang tough" in the face of widespread market panic.

Why it matters: Economists say a recession is highly likely, potentially even a dire stagflation scenario, as Trump fundamentally re-orders the global economy.

Catch up quick: Trump took to social media early Saturday to defend his tariffs, after one of the worst two-day routs in stock market history.

• "THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won't be easy, but the end result will be historic," the president wrote.
• That followed a post Friday night in which he said big businesses were "not worried about the tariffs" because of the sweeping budget and tax bill being negotiated.

Yes, but: Investors lost more than $6 trillion the last two days, just in the U.S. stock market, because of fears about the impact of those tariffs.

What they're saying: "What these tariffs are going to do is make the cost of production much more expensive," University of Rhode Island economist Nina Eichacker wrote in a Saturday blog post.

• "Workers are going to take this on the chin as their employers try to cut costs."

Between the lines: The full reciprocal tariffs don't start until April 9, but the economic impacts are already kicking in.

• Reuters reported a key supplier to both Airbus and Boeing may stop shipping parts if they are hit by tariffs.
• Some car makers have already started suspending shipments to the U.S.
• Economists warn certain grocery prices could rise in a matter of days, especially things like coffee, chocolate and perishable produce.

The bottom line: The tariffs Trump unveiled Wednesday were far more severe than the market expected. Now, the question is whether they stick or not.

• "Whether we will have a recession or not depends on the duration of this shock," Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok wrote Friday. "If these levels of tariffs stay in place for several months and other countries retaliate, it will cause a recession in the US and the rest of the world."

In one 48-minute speech, President Trump scrambled every American's budget, every U.S. company's balance sheet and every global alliance.

• Tariffs, a sometimes obscure economic tool, have massive power, especially when enacted this expansively.

Why it matters: Think fundamental re-ordering of the economy. Americans are staring down a disruption to their standard of living. Companies are about to find out how bad bad can get. The ripple effects may be felt for years to come.

Zoom out: Trump is right that plenty of countries engage in unfair trade practices, and that globalization has hollowed out key parts of America's industrial base, Axios' Zachary Basu reports.

• But this historic tariff barrage isn't about targeted leverage or negotiated fixes. It's about unwinding decades of perceived injustices through blunt force — even against uninhabited islands and impoverished enclaves, incapable of "victimizing" the U.S.
• Trump believes the American people share his grievances, and he's willing to radically remake the global economic order, no matter the cost.

Reality check: That cost will likely be steep.

• Trump is inviting American factories to rise up and fill the demand for goods that consumers and companies get from other countries — but factories can't do that overnight, if at all.
• One big reason the U.S. has trade deficits is that we spent decades becoming a services economy, with the economic might to make our goods more cheaply elsewhere and buy lots of them.
• In the 1970s, a quarter of Americans worked in manufacturing. Now, less than 10% do. Recruiting and training a manufacturing workforce will take time and money.

Case in point: While America has existing infrastructure for some types of manufacturing, like cars, it's not that simple for every product. The U.S. has lost the ability to make some things as its economy has transitioned away from manufacturing.

• "Things like magnets, which are really critical for batteries and other core electronic technologies. We've really lost the capacity to build in the U.S.," Ben Armstrong at MIT's Industrial Performance Center told Marketplace.
• Bringing that back takes years, plus big investments from the government and companies.

The stakes: That means, at least in the short-term, everything from clothes to coffee to iPhones to wine will likely get more expensive.

• Companies are expecting to take a hit, and asking themselves whether they can afford to absorb increased costs, or if they have to pass them along to a potentially unwilling consumer.
• The latest jobs report was solid, but there are plenty of dark economic clouds, and Wall Street says recession odds are rising quickly.

What to watch: Whether the Trump administration does anything to offset the pain.

• Tariffs will bring in some money themselves (the administration says up to $600 billion a year, which would cover about a third of the U.S. budget deficit).
• There's been speculation he could bail out farmers, as he did during his first term.
• And Trump still wants to cut taxes —  not just extending his 2017 cuts, but new reductions on things like overtime and tips.

But Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said Friday that bigger-than-expected tariffs will translate into higher inflation and slower economic growth — and that the higher inflation could be persistent, not temporary, Axios' Neil Irwin reports.

• He didn't use the dreaded s-word — stagflation — but it's the thing economists fear most on the horizon.

President Trump's tariff revolution is rooted in a simple thesis: America has been humiliated and exploited by foreign nations for decades, and only he has the guts to make them pay.

Why it matters: Trump's personal victim complex has powered much of its political career. Now it's going global — with the entire world, not just Trump's domestic enemies, feeling the weight of retribution.

The big picture: Never mind that the U.S. boasts the world's largest economy, most powerful military, record household wealth, and historically low unemployment.

• Trump has been remarkably consistent in casting America as a global pushover, including in a 1988 interview with Oprah that resurfaced in the wake of this week's tariff announcement.
• "For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike," Trump declared in his "Liberation Day" speech Wednesday. "But now it's our turn to prosper."

Zoom in: From uninhabited islands to impoverished enclaves, no country is too small, too irrelevant, or too loyal to escape the wrath of a president who believes America has been cheated for decades.

• That includes Israel, where officials were shocked to face a 17% reciprocal tariff despite removing their own tariffs on the U.S. a day prior.
• It includes Lesotho, a tiny African nation where most people are too poor to import American goods, and which is now facing an existential crisis because of Trump's 50% tariff.
• It even includes the volcanic Australian territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, whose population of mostly penguins was punished with a 10% tariff.

Zoom out: Trump is right that plenty of countries engage in unfair trade practices, and that globalization has hollowed out key parts of America's industrial base.

• China, the world's second-largest economy, has a long record of trade abuses: IP theft, forced technology transfers, state subsidies and market access restrictions for foreign companies.
• The European Union doesn't cheat the way China does, but it protects its own through generous agricultural subsidies and strict regulatory standards that often double as trade barriers.

But Trump's historic tariff barrage isn't about targeted leverage or negotiated fixes.

• It's about unwinding decades of perceived injustices through blunt force — even against countries incapable of "victimizing" the U.S.
• Trump believes the American people share his grievances, and he's willing to radically remake the global economic order, no matter the cost.

Between the lines: Victimhood — real and imagined — has always been central to Trump's political identity.

• His 2024 presidential campaign was fueled by grievances, beginning with the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against him.
• He's cast every investigation and indictment as a "witch hunt," from Russia to Signalgate.
• He survived an assassination attempt, and used it to turbocharge the persecution narrative that underpins his brand.

"They always said nobody got treated worse than Lincoln," Trump publicly mused in 2020 and many times after.

• "I believe I am treated worse."

When everything gets more expensive everywhere because of tariffs, that starts a cycle for businesses, too — one that might end with layoffs, bankruptcies, and higher prices for the survivors' customers.

Why it matters: The cycle is just starting now, but the pain is immediate.

• From clothing retailers who get all of their production from heavily tariffed Asian countries, to bakers whose pastries depend on newly levied imported vanilla, to the tech companies whose batteries need the minerals China just cut off in retaliation, this weekend will be a scramble to figure out how to survive the new world order.

The big picture: The stock market is not the economy, but if you want a decent proxy for Main Street businesses, look at the Russell 2000, a broad measure of the stock market's small companies across industries.

• It's down almost 20% this year alone.
• That in and of itself doesn't make a business turn the lights off, but it says something about public confidence in their prospects.
• "The market is like a real time poll ... this is going to impact all businesses in one way or another undoubtedly," Ken Mahoney of Mahoney Asset Management wrote Friday.

Zoom out: The early signs are everywhere, large and small.

• Electronics trade group IPC estimates the cost of critical components coming from overseas will rise 30% to 50%. Even if you're already manufacturing domestically, the parts you need from somewhere will get expensive, quickly.
• Automaker Stellantis paused production at multiple factories and laid off hundreds of people.
• Irrigation company Lindsay Corp. said the tariffs would increase its cost of goods, which it would pass through to customers. Those customers are farmers, who are now getting squeezed by foreign retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.
• It's only April, but already Christmas is getting complicated, too. Forty-eight hours after announcing a pre-order date for its new video game console, Nintendo had to cancel it. Turns out there's now massive tariffs on the countries where it's manufactured.

The bottom line: Businesses need to plan. In this environment, they can't.

• Meanwhile, their costs will keep rising and their customers will keep pulling back.

Let's go back to basics. What is a tariff, what role do they play in the economy, and how have they been applied, both historically and now?

The big picture: Tariffs were once the primary way the United States collected tax revenue, but over time elected leaders and economists alike have rejected them for their many downsides.

• President Trump is seeking to reverse that long tide.

The basics: A tariff is a tax on imported goods. When a ship full of bananas or T-shirts or Toyotas arrives at a U.S. port, part of the paperwork for crossing the border is paying the applicable tariff, also known as an import duty.

• In recent years, those taxes have been relatively low — down to 1.5% in 2017, after decades of bipartisan efforts to craft global trade deals.
• President Trump then pushed those upward to around 3% in his previous term (which President Biden mostly maintained).
• The policies announced so far in Trump's current term are on track to push the average tariff to 22.5%, per the Yale Budget Lab.

Flashback: From the colonial era through the early 1900s, tariffs were the predominant source of the federal government's revenue.

• Taxes on imports were relatively easy to enforce even in the days before computers, Social Security numbers, and the like. When a ship arrived at a port, customs officers could inspect the goods, charge the appropriate tariff, and ensure tax compliance.
• The Constitution limited the federal government's taxing authority, so that a modern income tax was not legally permissible until the enactment of the 16th Amendment in 1913.
• Politicians sought to protect domestic industry from European competition as it matured. (There are echoes in how Japan and South Korea used protectionist policies in the latter half of the 20th century to allow their countries to catch up to world leaders).

Yes, but: This reliance on tariffs had deep-seated problems, which is why their use has been mostly in retreat over the last century.

• They disadvantaged agricultural interests and other U.S. exporters, as other countries put in place corresponding barriers to trade.
• The tax burden disproportionately fell on lower-income people, who spend a bigger share of their money on basics than the rich.
• They didn't raise nearly enough money to pay for a modern government, with a large military, social welfare programs like Social Security and Medicare, and the like.
• At the heyday of America's tariff-centric era, they raised revenue around 1.1% of GDP. Government spending is now around 23% of GDP.

Moreover, they distorted economic activity. Major U.S. industries spent more effort trying to lobby for preferential treatment via tariffs than they did building great products that could compete on the world stage.

• When the world economy stumbled in 1930, nations rushed to implement tariffs in hopes of bolstering domestic industry, particularly the Smoot-Hawley Act in the U.S. Mainstream economists view this cascade of protectionism as a key part of why that episode became the Great Depression.
• Based on those lessons, and as part of a broader effort to knit together the economies of the world's democracies in hopes of ensuring lasting peace, the U.S. and other advanced nations spent the postwar era gradually removing tariffs and other trade barriers.

Reality check: Even in the heyday of free trade enthusiasm, tariffs did not move to zero.

• In some cases, it's a simple matter of realpolitik, such as when President Bush raised steel tariffs in 2002 to try to bolster support in steel-producing states.
• Agricultural interests exert major political sway and have historically secured high tariffs on imported foods including dairy and sugar.
• There are cases for limited tariffs that even pro-trade economists can live with, such as protecting and nurturing domestic industries seen as important for national security.

Zoom out: In his first term, Trump used provisions of trade laws that allow a president unilateral authority to implement tariffs on specific countries and products on national security grounds, or in retaliation for unfair practices.

• Those came with careful legal limitations and a process for companies to seek exclusions — and their total scale wasn't enough to have much effect on the overall U.S. economy
• This time is different. Trump is implementing tariffs on a scale an order of magnitude higher, on every country on earth and nearly all goods, and by invoking an emergency authority never used for this purpose.

The bottom line: If the new tariffs announced this week stand, America's average tariff burden will be higher than nearly any living human has seen— higher than they were in the Smoot-Hawley era and roughly at 1909 levels.

• That's why markets have reacted so furiously to the president's announcements.