Trump's 'Liberation Day', Wisconsin Supreme Court Race, Mistaken Deportation
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President Trump calls this Liberation Day, as in Tariff Day. We are going to be very nice by comparison to what they were. Markets have been jittery in anticipation. Will tariffs help or hurt the economy? I'm Steve Inskeep with Leila Fadal, and this is Up First from NPR News. ♪

It was the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history, and despite Elon Musk putting his money and support behind a conservative candidate, liberals held on to their state Supreme Court majority in Wisconsin. I never could have imagined.

that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world. How did this race become a referendum on Musk? And the Trump administration has admitted to deporting a Maryland father by mistake. If they're allowed to get away with this, then it means that the immigration laws are meaningless, all of them. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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It's a big day on President Trump's calendar, something he's been calling Liberation Day. A day when he says he's going to make good on a promise to impose tariffs on many, many countries. I think people will be pleasantly surprised, but it's going to make our country very rich because we're the piggy bank that everybody steals from and they've been doing it for decades.

Many years, but decades, and we're not going to let it happen. The president says he's made up his mind on which tariffs to impose where, although we don't know the details yet. Markets have been nervous leading up to this day amid concerns that taxes on imports hurt rather than help the U.S. economy and also raise consumer prices. NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is here to tell us what to expect. Good morning, Danielle. Hey, good morning. What do we know about these tariffs?

Well, we know Trump's going to lay them out at a big Rose Garden event at 4 p.m. Eastern, but his team has given few details on this. He and his advisors, in fact, were still working on the tariffs yesterday, which is itself notable. I mean, this is a potentially sweeping trade policy that has not been clearly communicated yet.

But as for what he's announcing, these are what he's been calling reciprocal tariffs, which he has said could apply to many different items and all countries. And he's long described them as mirroring other countries' tariffs. So give us an example there. Sure. So this week, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt showed reporters a graphic of all kinds of tariffs on U.S. goods. And one example was Mexico's 150 percent tariff on American alcohol.

So a reciprocal tariff in this example could be the U.S. imposing a 150% tariff on Mexican alcohol. Now, again, I want to stress this is just a hypothetical I'm giving. But in this example, that would mean U.S. importers would pay a 150% tax to bring that alcohol into the country. And in most cases, we could expect American businesses to either eat that cost or pass it on to consumers. OK, so that sounds like it could get pretty expensive. Yeah.

Yeah, it could. And stock markets and consumers are taking Trump seriously on this. Consumer confidence and stock indexes have been plummeting as reciprocal tariff day has grown closer. And amid that, Trump seems to have softened on this idea of equal tariffs. Here he was talking to reporters this week. They took advantage of us and...

We are going to be very nice by comparison to what they were. The numbers will be lower than what they've been charging us. And yesterday, Levitt also said different countries have been lobbying the president's team. Trump has left the door open to exceptions, but he has also said he doesn't want many. OK, given that we don't know the details of these tariffs, do we know anything about how they'll affect people here in the U.S.?

Well, we have some broad ideas. One is that they'll lead to higher prices. The Yale Budget Lab did one hypothetical modeling of what these tariffs could look like.

finding that in the short run they'd cost the average household around $3,000 a year. And those costs, by the way, would hit lower-income households harder than higher-income. Okay, if this is so risky for the economy, what has the president said about why he's doing this? Well, the Trump administration says this is about fairness and also about creating manufacturing jobs.

That's what Trump ran on, and a lot of his base is in blue-collar jobs like manufacturing. And some manufacturers could be helped by the tariffs. I mean, if goods from other countries get more expensive, it would mean people in the U.S. would buy more goods made in the U.S. But some U.S. manufacturers will also pay more for materials, which could offset whatever benefits they might see from the tariffs.

And there's one more economic risk, and that's that other countries see this and then they retaliate with their own tariffs. And farmers would be a likely target there. So there's a real risk here for Trump. He has acknowledged that these tariffs could cause short-term pain. And that means voters could easily in the future pin any weakness from the economy on him. NPR's Danielle Kurzleben. Thank you, Danielle. Thank you.

President Trump was not on the ballot, but elections in two states are being viewed as an early indicator of how voters feel about him after his first few months in office. In Florida, Republicans hung on to two congressional seats in deeply red districts, cementing their slim majority in the U.S. House. Solid wins for Republicans, although the margins were a little bit less than they were just last year. In Wisconsin, in what became the most expensive

judicial race in American history, the liberal judge Susan Crawford was elected to the state Supreme Court. She beat conservative Brad Schimel, who ran with Trump's endorsement, and some $20 million from Elon Musk, along with groups affiliated with him. Here's Crawford last night. As a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world. CHEERING

for justice in Wisconsin. And we won! Chuck Kornbach of Member Station WUWM joins me now from Milwaukee. Good morning, Chuck. Good morning. Okay, so what happened in the race?

Well, in the end, the liberal judge from Madison Crawford won with a comfortable margin, about 235,000 votes, nine percentage points over Schimel, the conservative judge from suburban Milwaukee. Crawford even took some counties that have gone pretty often for Republicans in recent years, including Brown County, that's mainly Green Bay, where Elon Musk held a rally Sunday night.

One of the other big stories from last night was the surge in voter turnout on both sides. Early voting and in-person voting exceeded many clerks' expectations.

expectations. And of course, there was the spending. Both sides spent really big. Yeah, Musk and groups associated with him spent about $20 million. Crawford had a lot of money to spend, though, too, including from mega donors like George Soros and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Now, Elon Musk became a big part of this race, as you point out, and Trump's endorsement, too. Anything to take away from Schimel's loss in that regard?

Well, a few things. This race, even though the court is nonpartisan, it was definitely a win for Democrats, and they're claiming victory against the president, his administration, and Musk. And I heard that from voters, too. They say Musk's doge effort is going too fast, too broadly. From young voters, though, I also heard a lot about reproductive rights, which was the big issue in the last state Supreme Court election we had here two years ago.

For more conservative voters, I heard support for the president and for Musk and that Schimel could protect Trump's policies and agenda. The state GOP says they're disappointed about last night, but are looking forward to 2026 when they say they'll have the opportunity to defend President Trump's agenda in more elections. OK, so back to the court. Liberals have kept their majority. What cases are expected to go before the justices?

Well, abortion is already in front of the court. They're going to have to decide soon on whether an 1849 Wisconsin law that halted abortions here for 15 months right after the Dobbs decision is constitutional. Next, the matter of Act 10. That's the big fight from 15 years ago that curtailed union bargaining rights for most public sector workers. The court could decide if parts of that law are unconstitutional.

And one issue we heard a lot about from Musk and was congressional redistricting, his contention that Democrats would try to pick up a couple of U.S. House seats here. Democrats told me last night when I asked about this, hey, we want to enjoy Crawford's win and our lawyers will decide whether to pursue the redistricting issue before a court that will stay four to three liberal. Chuck Kornbach of member station WUWM. Thank you, Chuck. Thank you. Thank you.

On Friday, a lawyer plans to ask a court to order the return of his client to the United States. President Trump's administration admits sending the man to El Salvador despite knowing about a court order preventing them from doing that.

Responding to questions from reporters, Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt spoke of Kilmer Armando Abrego-Garcia. By calling it an administrative error, the government avoids saying they deliberately defied a court order.

The government goes on to assert that a judge should have no power to overrule the mistake and the administration does not want to bring the man back anyway. The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang.

His lawyers questioned the government's claim that he is a gang member at all, says he wasn't convicted of a crime, and that he was not supposed to be sent specifically to El Salvador. NPR's immigration policy reporter, Ximena Agustillo, has more. Hi, Ximena. Good morning. Okay, so tell us what we know about who Abrego Agustillo is and what happened to him. He was from El Salvador and living in Maryland with his child and his wife, who is a U.S. citizen. But Abrego Garcia already went through immigration courts.

In 2019, he was served with his notice to appear before a judge. The judge found that he could be deported, but Abrego Garcia was able to make the case against being deported back to El Salvador. The government appealed, but lost. And then last month, he was apprehended by immigration officials once more. And his wife only realized that he had been transferred to a mega prison in El Salvador because she recognized his tattoos on a photo from the El Salvador government.

Okay, so the administration admits in court they knew they couldn't deport him to El Salvador, but they deported him anyways? Yes. In court filings, immigration officials admitted that Abrego Garcia's deportation was an administrative error, but they are doubling down on his deportation. Vice President J.D. Vance alleged on social media that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia's lawyer, however, disputes the claims of criminal history, noting that he's never been convicted.

So what does his lawyer say about this insistence by the government that Garcia cannot be returned?

Simon Sandoval-Moschenberg, who is representing Abrego Garcia, raised concerns about the implications that this has on other immigration court cases. I mean, if they're allowed to get away with this, then it means that the immigration laws are meaningless, all of them. On Friday, he will ask a federal judge to order the U.S. to bring Abrego Garcia back. The government is poised to argue that it's too late because Abrego Garcia is in the custody of another government.

But his lawyer says that if courts cannot order him returned from a place he should legally not be, eventually the government could do the same to a U.S. citizen. Now, are these men that have been detained and accused of crimes, like being part of a criminal gang, supposed to get due process?

Depending on where you're detained and how long you've been in the country, you could have your day in court to convince a judge that you should stay. The government brings their own attorneys to argue that you should be removed, and then people get a chance to defend themselves. Sometimes that defense can be claiming asylum or asking to not be deported to a specific country. Then a judge decides whether they agree. And that didn't happen in these cases. NPR's Ximena Bastillo, thank you so much. Thank you.

And that's Up First for Wednesday, April 2nd. I'm Leila Faldin. And I'm Steve Inskeep. For your next listen, consider Consider This from NPR News. We hear it up first, give you the first three big stories of the day. And our Consider This colleagues take a different approach, diving into a single news story. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Roberta Rampton, Acacia Squires, Anna Yukonanov, Lisa Thompson, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Chris

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