President Trump said Monday that the U.S. had been holding "direct talks" with Iran at a "very high level" and that a "very big meeting" will be taking place this Saturday.
Why it matters: The surprise announcement from Trump follows his repeated warnings that Iran must sign a new nuclear deal or face military strikes.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had ruled out direct talks with the U.S. so long as Trump kept his "maximum pressure" policy in place.
Tehran has not confirmed Trump's claim that talks had already "started" and would soon ramp up.
Trump emphasized that the talks with Iran will be direct — rather than through intermediaries — and take place "at almost the highest level."
What he's saying: "I think everyone agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with, if they can avoid it," Trump said, speaking from the Oval Office alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"So we're going to see if we can avoid it. But it's getting to be very dangerous territory, and hopefully those talks will be successful. And I think it would be in Iran's best interest if they are successful."
Between the lines: Netanyahu believes the chances of a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal are extremely low, but intended to present what "a good deal should look like" during Monday's meeting with Trump, a senior Israeli official said.
"Netanyahu want the Libya model. Full dismantling to the Iranian nuclear program," the official said. Iran denies it wants a bomb, but rejects the idea of shutting down its nuclear program.
The official added Netanyahu wants to reach an understanding with Trump about striking Iran's nuclear facilities when diplomacy fails.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
With the world waiting for word from President Trump about whether he will slow his tariff offensive or press full-steam ahead, the White House canceled a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned for Monday afternoon.
Netanyahu and Trump are currently meeting. The White House said they would take questions on camera in the Oval Office around 2pm ET.
Why it matters: Netanyahu is the first foreign leader to meet Trump since he launched the global tariff regime. If the two can work out a deal to lift the 17% tariffs Trump slapped on Israel, global markets and other world leaders will see it as a sign the president is willing to be flexible.
State of play: U.S. markets have been swinging wildly Monday on any indication of the direction the trade war might take.
Between the lines: Trump is coming under increasingly sharp criticism from American billionaires and business leaders, including some who supported him in the election. But he sent an uncompromising message in a flurry of Truth Social posts before the meeting with Netanyahu.
He called his critics "weak, stupid and PANICAN" and claimed "countries from all over the World are talking to us" about negotiating new trade deals.
State of play: Netanyahu landed in Washington on Sunday. He met Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to discuss the tariffs. The Prime Minister's Office said the meeting was "productive."
The big picture: Iran and Gaza are expected to be on the agenda, in addition to tariffs.
Netanyahu thinks the chances of a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal are extremely low but will present to Trump what "a good deal should look like," a senior Israeli official said.
"Netanyahu want the Libya model. Full dismantling to the Iranian nuclear program," the official said. Iran denies it wants a bomb, but rejects the idea of shutting down its nuclear program.
The official added Netanyahu wants to reach an understanding with Trump about striking Iran's nuclear facilities when diplomacy fails.
Trump held a call earlier Monday on Gaza with French President Emmanuel Macron, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and King Abdullah II of Jordan.
Netanyahu also met Monday with White House envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss the efforts made by Egypt and Qatar to draft an updated ceasefire proposal.
The National Park Service is retelling the Underground Railroad story as an episode of "Black/White cooperation," and has removed a photo of abolitionist Harriet Tubman.
Why it matters: The rewriting of abolitionist sites and history, first reported by the Washington Post, comes as the administration is reinterpreting Civil Rights-era laws and history to focus on "anti-white racism" rather than discrimination against people of color.
The big picture: It's the latest Trump administration purge of federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
That executive order takes aim at what he called a "revisionist movement" that he says has infiltrated the Smithsonian Institution and other federal sites dedicated to America's history.
Zoom in: The National Park Service webpage has removed an introductory quote from Tubman about being a conductor in the secret network and replaced it with postal stamps of white and Black people working together.
The introduction also dropped references to enslavement and instead focused on white/Black allyship during the lead-up to the Civil War.
"The Underground Railroad bridged the divides of race, religion, sectional differences, and nationality," the website now says.
"(It) joined the American ideals of liberty and freedom expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the extraordinary actions of ordinary men and women working in common purpose to free a people."
Reality check: The Underground Railroad was a secret network of routes, safe houses and people who aided Black Americans who were enslaved in violation of the "American ideals of liberty and freedom."
Though it consisted of a network for Black and white abolitionists, many had become disillusioned with American ideals and many Black Americans sought to escape to Canada and Mexico.
The U.S. Department of the Interior did not immediately respond to Axios for comment.
A spokesperson for the White House also did not respond.
Zoom out: The rewriting of the Underground Railroad follows a purge of articles about soldiers of color on government websites following President Trump's executive order ending federal DEI initiatives.
It removed — then restored — a webpage featuring baseball and civil rights pioneer Jackie Robinson, who served in the Army during World War II and segregation.
A National Guard article on the celebrated 442nd Regimental Combat Team — made up almost entirely of Nisei, or second-generation Japanese-Americans and who liberated Nazi concentration camps — was removed.
The National Guard also removed two of its articles about the 369th Infantry Regiment, a highly decorated, segregated unit renowned in the U.S. and France for its heroics in World War I.
Between the lines: Historians are uncovering new evidence about the Underground Railroad to Mexico — a loosely organized path allowing enslaved Black people in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Alabama to escape bondage by fleeing south.
Other recent works, like Erica Armstrong Dunbar's 2017 book on Ona Judge, a woman who fled enslavement from President George Washington, have garnered national attention.
President Trump would veto a bill introduced by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that would limit the president's authority to unilaterally impose tariffs, according to a White House statement seen by Axios.
Why it matters: In the midst of a potential trade war, Trump wants to ensure that the president retains full authority to tariff products entering America.
"If passed, this bill would dangerously hamper the President's authority and duty to determine our foreign policy and protect our national security," according to a statement of administration policy that was sent to congressional offices today.
"If S. 1272 were presented to the President, he would veto the bill."
Driving the news: Seven GOP senators have signed onto the bipartisan legislation, which is emerging as a proxy for Republicans to express their concern over Trump's tariffs.
"You don't get a first introduction and get so many people on board, but I think it shows the anxiety that people have," Cantwell said on CBS yesterday.
House Democrats are planning to try to force a vote on ending the national emergency upon which Trump's new tariffs are based.
What we're hearing: Trump was rankled by the bill's introduction, according to a person familiar with his thinking.
Just nine days ago, we wrote about the signs pointing to an imminent stagflation. It's time to revise that outlook; now, a plain ol' recession looks more likely.
The big picture: The shifts in global markets since President Trump's tariff announcement last Wednesday carry the unmistakable signs of a looming downdraft in economic activity that would bring inflation, interest rates, and job market conditions with it.
In effect, there has been a push-and-pull over whether the inflationary impact of higher import taxes will prove more powerful than the disinflationary impact on economic activity.
When Trump announced tariffs far larger than Wall Street was expecting — and followed up with rhetoric suggesting few off-ramps that might lead to their reversal anytime soon — the smart money tilted toward that recessionary/disinflationary outlook.
State of play: Despite higher import taxes that economists widely believe will push consumer prices up in the near term, bond markets are pricing in medium-term inflation that is lower than anticipated a week ago.
The five-year inflation breakeven — the spread between the yield on regular versus inflation-protected Treasury securities — was down to 2.34% on Friday, from 2.61% a week earlier.
Commodity prices have plunged, with West Texas Intermediate crude oil down 15% over the last week, to under $61 a barrel. Copper is down 18% in the last two weeks.
Bond yields have fallen over the last week, as investors have gained confidence that the Federal Reserve will soon be in interest rate-cutting mode — essentially, a bet that the downward drag of less economic activity will spur the Fed into action, overriding near-term inflation worries.
Between the lines: The normal order of things is for price pressures to fall when economic activity halts or turns negative.
Demand for commodities falls as people drive and fly less, and building and other investment activity dries up. A weak job market means even those who hang onto their jobs are in less of a position to demand raises, and may pull back on spending as a precaution.
The open question is how those deflationary forces will intersect with tariffs, including a cumulative 54% on Chinese imports, 46% on Vietnam, and 20% on the European Union.
It's easy to imagine a scenario in which commodity prices stay low and wage pressures are non-existent, but many consumer goods become more expensive.
Of note: Administration officials emphasize the benefits of some of the recent market moves.
"Everyone wants to look at the stock market going down. You know what else went down? Oil prices went down almost 15% in two days, which impacts working Americans much more than the stock market does," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
"Interest rates hit their low for the year. So I'm expecting the mortgage applications to pick up."
President Trump on Monday threatened to impose an extra 50% tariff on China, but opened the door to talks with other nations on a path to lowering their tariffs.
Why it matters: The administration's steadfast message in recent days has been that the tariffs were coming and there was no way out.
Now, it appears there may be a glimmer of hope.
Stock markets remained lower at midday, after a frenetic morning where a false rumor of a tariff pause caused global markets to briefly skyrocket.
Driving the news: Trump threatened the new levies on China in a social media post.
"Therefore, if China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th. Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!" Trump wrote.
Trump previously imposed 20% tariffs on China over fentanyl, and then stacked a 34% tariff over trade issues, suggesting the total tariff on Chinese goods could now reach 104% or more.
Yes, but: He also opened the door to a possible off-ramp for some of the roughly 60 other nations hit with large reciprocal tariffs.
"Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately," Trump wrote.
Over the weekend, administration officials said more than 50 nations had requested a meeting.
Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout with additional information.
Why it matters: The lack of evidence of a criminal record is consistent with many other immigrant removals under the Trump administration so far and poses serious questions over the deportations to El Salvador, as a judge ordered at least one man returned.
The big picture: The migrants were removed after President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798last month to accelerate mass deportations of Venezuelan migrants suspected of being gang members.
Civil liberties groups have attacked the move since the deportations came with little to no due process, arguing that the United States is not at war and, therefore, unjustified in its use of the 18th-century wartime law.
By the numbers: The CBS News 60 Minutes report found that 75% of 238 migrants sent to the Salvadoran mega-prison known as the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) had no traces of a criminal record.
At least 22% of the men on the list have criminal records here in the United States or abroad, but the vast majority are for non-violent offenses like theft, shoplifting and trespassing, the 60 Minutes review found.
Only a dozen are accused of murder, rape, assault and kidnapping.
It is unclear whether a criminal record exists for about 3% of those deported.
CBS News obtained the names of the migrants through internal government documents and reviewed their pasts.
Zoom in: Andry Hernandez Romero, a gay makeup artist who came to the United States last year in search of asylum, was among those deported, 60 Minutes found.
Photos taken by Time magazine photographer Philip Holsinger show Hernandez Romero at CECOT.
Holsinger said he heard a young man say, "I'm not a gang member. I'm gay. I'm a stylist." The young man cried for his mother as he was slapped and had his head shaved, Holsing said.
Hernandez Romero's crown tattoos, which included the names of his parents, were also visible in the photos taken of him by Holsinger.
Those tattoos — crowns — were the only evidence U.S. immigration officials presented in court to accuse him of being part of Venezuela's Tren de Aragua gang.
A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman told 60 Minutes that many of those without criminal records "are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters, and more. They just don't have a rap sheet in the U.S."
Border Czar Tom Homan said immigration agents spent hours conducting rigorous checks on each of the men to confirm they are members of Tren de Aragua.
Yes, but: A Salvadorian national living in Maryland legally was wrongly deported to El Salvador, the Department of Justice admitted in court papers filed last week.
Juan Abrego Garcia was stopped on March 12 by immigration agents who wrongly told him that his status had changed.
He was questioned about gang affiliation and transferred to a Texas detention center before being taken to El Salvador.
The bottom line: The 60 Minutes report confirms what many families of deported migrants have claimed: that the U.S. wrongly deported their loved ones to CECOT and misinterpreted tattoos.
More court challenges are likely to come as the Trump administration sees an overall drop in immigrant removals despite high-profile deportations.
Wall Street titans, including some of President Trump's wealthy allies, are publicly urging caution as the president's historic tariffs tank stock markets globally.
The big picture: The administration is plowing forward with its sweeping tariffs despite warnings from economists and MAGA-friendly CEOs that the levies will fire inflation and hinder growth, setting the stage for a recession.
The levies even exposed a line that administration ally and Tesla CEO Elon Musk seemingly won't cross.
Zoom in: With global markets sinking even further Sunday night, Trump likened the tariff-induced pain to taking "medicine."
The administration's economic forces took to cable news Sunday to deliver an (at times) unified message that Americans are less concerned about market fluctuations than the media is.
But no spoonful of sugar from the White House seems to be helping CEOs, investors and politicians swallow "medicine" that hedge fund manager Bill Ackman says could trigger a global "economic nuclear winter."
Here is what some CEOs have said about the president's tariffs:
Elon Musk
DOGE conductor Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has taken a multi-billion-dollar blow to his Tesla stock.
At an Italian political event Saturday, Musk called for more free trade, envisioning "a zero-tariff situation" between the U.S. and Europe.
Zoom out: He also publicly sniped at Trump tariff advocate Peter Navarro, contending his "PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing."
Navarro struck back on Fox's "Sunday Morning Futures," saying Musk "doesn't understand" how other countries are "cheating."
Navarro added, "He's simply protecting his own interests, as any businessperson would do."
Bill Ackman
Ackman, a Trump backer,urged the president "to call a 90-day time out" on Wednesday's reciprocal tariffs to negotiate.
If he doesn't, the hedge fund manager wrote Sunday, "we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down."
Ackman warned that business is "a confidence game" and "we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital."
Jamie Dimon
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned in an annual letter Monday that tariffs will fuel inflation and slow growth in an already weakening U.S. economy, Axios' Ben Berkowitz reports.
The quicker the issue is resolved, the better, he wrote, warning of difficult-to-reverse negative impacts compounding with time.
"In the short run, I see this as one large additional straw on the camel's back," he added.
Flashback: While Dimon reportedly supported Vice President Kamala Harris, he echoed some Trump talking points in a January interview with CBS, Axios' Felix Salmon reported.
Stanley Druckenmiller
Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who very rarely tweets, posted Sunday that he does not support tariffs "exceeding 10%" in response to a clip of an interview he gave CNBC earlier this year.
In the interview, the Duquesne Family Office founder called tariffs "a consumption tax." He warned of retaliation but said, "as long as we stay in the 10% range ... I think the risks are overblown relative to the rewards."
Yes, but: Trump levied tariffs of at least 10% on virtually the entire world.
Howard Marks
Howard Marks, the co-founder of hedge fund Oaktree Capital, told Bloomberg Trump's tariffs brought on the "biggest change in the environment" he's observed in his career.
"We should not underestimate the benefits that we've gotten from globalization," he added.
"Tariffs are an increased cost," Marks said. "Somebody has to pay them."
Daniel Loeb
Hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb shared Marks' and Druckenmiller's comments on his own social media feed, where he also said there were potential conceptual and practical errors in the tariff policy.
"It will be a test of the administration's judgment versus ideology how they resolve this over the weekend or coming days," he wrote Saturday.
Markets around the world plunged for a third day on Monday, with no relief from President Trump's tariffs and no apparent end in sight, either.
Why it matters: Investors are losing trillions of dollars. Recession odds are rising — and unlike past market crises, a coordinated policy response has been withheld thus far.
The big picture: In Trump's first term, markets could comfortably rely on the "Trump put," the idea that if they reacted badly enough, he'd reverse whatever policy caused the sell-off.
The Trump put is now clearly all but dead.
"I don't want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something," the president said Sunday night.
By the numbers: U.S. stock indices opened 3% to 4% lower on Monday.
After the tech-heavy Nasdaq and small-cap benchmark Russell 2000 slipped into "bear market" territory last week, down 20% off their recent highs, the S&P 500 did the same at the open.
That follows a widespread 4% decline in European stocks in morning trading, which came after key Asian indices like the Nikkei fell 8% or more.
The dollar continued to weaken slightly, while traditional safe-haven gold swung between small gains and losses.
Nothing was immune; global crypto market capfell 10% in the last 24 hours, led by a sharp sell-off in bitcoin, per CoinGecko data.
What they're saying: "The market has now priced in quite a bit of pain. Directionally, we believe most of our portfolio companies face ~5%-15% (earnings) headwinds from tariffs in isolation, assuming some pain is shared with customers and suppliers," Gabelli Funds portfolio manager John Belton said in a morning note.
What to watch: Just how bad it gets.
Absent a rally, this could end up being the second-worst three-day decline in percentage terms in market history, behind only the 1987 Black Monday crash, per data from Bespoke Investment Group.
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, an outspoken Trump supporter, warned of "economic nuclear winter" if the tariffs were not paused immediately.
Editor's note: This story was updated with new developments.
When sky-high inflation pummeled Americans in 2022, the labor market was booming and wages were rising, softening the blow.
Now we're in a more vulnerable place.
Why it matters: With economists expecting tariffs to drive inflation, at least in the short-term, the concern is wages won't keep up, leading to lower incomes and real pain for many.
What they're saying: "The pinch from higher prices that we expect in coming months may hit harder than in the post-pandemic inflation spike," wrote J.P. Morgan chief economist Michael Feroli in a note Friday.
ING chief international economist James Knightley said "we are expecting to see negative real wage growth by the summer," in an email commentary after the jobs report last week.
By the numbers: Wage growth cooled to 3.8% in March from 4% the previous month. It's been declining since the fall.
Where it stands: Right now the labor market is in a solid place, but there are worrying signs.
Hiring is well off the heights of 2022, there is a white-collar hiring recession already in play — and now a glut of highly educated ex-federal employees set to hit that market.
Reality check: We're in totally uncharted waters.The average effective tariff rate would rise to 22.5% if all announced policy changes stick, per Yale Budget Lab's analysis. That's the highest since 1909.
Predicting the economic fallout is hardly exact science.
It's possible that higher prices and unemployment (or fear of it) will push spending down and keep inflation in check.
"Which system is gonna be hurt the most when you jab a fork into a light socket? I don't really know," says Michael Madowitz, principal economist at the Roosevelt Institute. "That's why we don't force forks into light sockets, traditionally."
Flashback: When worries about a recession reached fever pitch in 2022, the strong labor market and accumulated COVID savings carried many through.
The jobless rate stayed under 4% for 27 months, from February 2022 to April 2024, despite the Federal Reserve's attempt to cool down the economy with rate hikes.
"I think we had some padding in the labor market," is how former Fed economist Claudia Sahm put it to Axios in a 2023 interview.
Between the lines: Usually, unemployment and inflation move in opposite directions, as Axios' Neil Irwin explained recently.
A bad job market came with the silver lining of low inflation in 2009; high inflation arrived alongside a stellar job market in 2022.
This time we are facing a trade war that will likely raise prices and slow growth (aka stagflation).
Pope Francis surprised a St. Peter's Square, Vatican, congregation by appearing in a wheelchair toward the end of a mass for the sick and healthcare workers.
A "significant" extreme weather system that's lashed the U.S. South and Midwest for days was shifting through the Southeast on Sunday — with forecasters warning of more severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and flooding threats.
The big picture: The National Weather Service said severe weather concerns would persist into Monday across portions of the Southeast from the storm system that's killed at least 18 people since it ramped up Wednesday, with officials in Tennessee confirming 10 storm-related deaths as of Sunday.
An aerial view of damage left by a reported tornado in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, on Sunday. The NWS Weather Prediction Center said there was a moderate risk of excessive rainfall across areas of central and southern Alabama and a broader slight risk across adjacent areas of the interior of the Southeast and the central Gulf Coast region going into Sunday night. Photo: Leandro Lozada/AFP via Getty Images
John Clayton, 56, carries his cat in a kayak as the Kentucky River floods his house Sunday in Frankfort, Kentucky. The storms had killed at least two people in the state, said Gov. Andy Beshear in a video posted to his social media account. Photo: Michael Swensen/Getty Images
An aerial view of damage left by a reported tornado Sunday in Jeffersontown. Photo: Landro Lozada/AFP via Getty Images
Officials in Missouri announced the deaths of a Franklin County firefighter and the Whitewater Fire Protection District chief. Both were responding to storm emergency calls. Screenshot: Missouri Highway Patrol Group I/X
Crews in Little Rock, Arkansas, clear downed trees. A 5-year-old boy died in connection to severe weather, the Arkansas Department of Public Safety said Saturday in an online post. Photo: City of Little Rock/Facebook
Pendleton County Search and Rescue take electricians on a boat to turn off an electrical box in a flooded park Saturday in Falmouth, Kentucky, as the Licking River continues to rise. Record flooding of Kentucky rivers has prompted evacuations in several counties. Photo: Michael Swensen/Getty Images
Tornadoes downed trees and damaged structures Thursday as they moved through the Selmer, Tennessee, area. Photo: Jason Davis/Getty Images
Overnight, the NOAA and NWS changed their projected crest of the river to 49.5 feet. This projected level would be the...
Rainfall amounts during the past four days over the Mid-South and Ohio Valley. "The heaviest rain has exited these areas, but widespread and exceedingly rare major river flooding will continue through mid week," per the NWS Weather Prediction Center. Screenshot: WPC/X
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 SundayET,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.
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.
Driving the news: Both children in Gaines County who died of measles were not vaccinated, 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."
Of note: Kennedy wrote on X later Sunday he'd met with two doctors, whom he described as "extraordinary healers," and said they had treated children using the steroid aerosolized budesonide and the antibiotic clarithromycin —which STAT News notes are "unorthodox, unproven" treatments for measles.
Budesonide, which is used to help prevent asthma symptoms "may weaken your immune system," per the Mayo Clinic, which warns: "Avoid being around people who are sick or who have infections such as chickenpox or measles."
When Kennedy promoted unconventional therapies for measles last month, health experts moved to emphasize they were not medically accepted treatments for the disease.
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."
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."
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."
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.
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.
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.
