This Weekend in Politics, Bulletin 106 Ron Filipkowski Apr 6 … Millions of people turned out in over 1,300 cities and towns across America to protest Trump and Musk dismantling the US govt and derailing the economy. Over 150 groups organized the ‘Hands Off!’ rallies, which were entirely peaceful. … I asked people on social media to send me photos of their favorite signs from the protests so I can choose my favorite Top 15 for Substack. I would’ve posted more but that was the limit on what is allowed for Substack emails. I got over 5,700 replies combined on X, Bluesky, and Threads. Here were my Top 15. … Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) at one protest: “This guy is a con. Trump Bibles - made in China. Trump sneakers - made in China. The Trump shitcoin - made on a computer made in China. To Trump I say: Get your ass off the golf course and face the people!” … After two dismal days on Wall Street to close out last week, the futures markets make it look like this is going to be a Black Monday tomorrow with a massive drop in the market that may make last week look like a small appetizer before a giant plate of misery for investors. The Dow Futures are down an astonishing 1500 points heading into tomorrow. … WH Trade Advisor Peter Navarro: "Right now the smart strategy is not to panic. We're gonna have the biggest boom in the stock market we've ever seen under the Trump policies. You can't lose money unless you sell. We will hit 50,000 on the Dow easily by the end of this term.” … NBC’s Kristen Welker to Treasury Sec Scott Bessent: Trump promised he was going to improve the economy starting on day one. What is your message to Americans who want to retire right now and have just seen their lifetime savings drop significantly? BESSENT: “Most Americans who have put away for years in their savings accounts don't look at the day to day fluctuations of what's happening.” … Welker: The markets lost more than $6 trillion in value. Was this disruption always part of the plan? BESSENT: “We had record volume on Friday and everything is working very smoothly. So the American people can take great comfort in that.” … Bessent is the wealthiest Treasury Secretary in US history with a net worth of $521 million. I think he will weather the storm just fine. … Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) on Fox: “We’re going to have some short-term pain with long-term gain. It's like playing football - you keep running the ball up the middle and you're not getting any traction, you've got to start throwing the ball. That's what Trump is doing. He's a businessman.” … Fox: But the market is concerned. Tuberville: “Wall Street is one of our biggest problems. They’re the ones standing up and pushing back against Trump.” … Tuberville was also ranting about trans people: “We have entire mens teams across the country that are turning trans. Becoming women’s teams - they are turning trans.” … While the stock market crashes, the NYT reported that Trump has been busy enriching himself this weekend in Miami. He hosted Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and their LIV golf league. Every room at the 643-room Trump Doral was sold out through the weekend. He also hosted another $1 million-a-head dinner at his private club in Palm Beach. Sponsors for his tournament this weekend included Saudi oil company Aramco, Saudi Riyadh Air, and TikTok. …. Meanwhile, Trump is allegedly winning the Senior Championship at his course again. The WH actually issued a statement about it: “The president won his second round matchup of the senior club championship today, and advanced to the championship round on Sunday.” However, all reporter requests to observe him play were refused and they were banned from being near the course. … Capitol Trades, which tracks stock trading from members of Congress, reported that Marge Greene made huge trades moving hundreds of thousands of dollars out of stocks into Treasury Bills just days before Trump announced his draconian tariffs. On March 16, March 19, and March 24, Greene moved $100,000 to $250,000 into T-Bills each day. … Greene also posted a solicitation to her millions of social media followers that it was her son’s 22nd birthday and asked people to send money to his Venmo account for a birthday present. After tremendous backlash, she later deleted it. TARIFFS ON PENGUINS! … CNN’s Jake Tapper to Ag Sec Brooke Rollins: You're imposing a 10% tariff on the Heard and McDonald islands. They have zero human inhabitants. Why are you putting tariffs on islands that are entirely populated by penguins? ROLLINS: “C'mon Jake. Whatever. Listen, the people that are leading this are serious, intentional, and patriotic. The smartest people I've ever worked with.” … Tapper: The EU doesn’t take as much as American pork because they have issues with hormones used in pork. It's not an issue about tariffs. ROLLINS: “No, no, no. This is really important. Here's the bottom line. They are using fake science and unsubstantiated claims to not take our products.” … Rep. Jared Moskowitz to MeidasTouch: “He wiped away trillions of dollars from the US economy—there’s no way we make that up in tariffs. He tariffed the penguins. He tariffed Vietnam. Madagascar. I don’t know what the plan is. Is the plan to get people who live in Vietnam to move to Greenland to make the shirts there?” … WH Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett was asked on ABC why Russia wasn’t included on the list of countries being tariffed: “There's obviously an ongoing negotiation with Russia and Ukraine and I think the president made the decision not to conflate the two issues.” … But Trump put a 10% tariff on all products from Ukraine. We make this entire Weekend Bulletin available to free subscribers, who are also able to post comments. The daily Bulletins the rest of the week are about 30% free with the remainder for paid subscribers. If you missed Friday’s Bulletin, you can read it here. … Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had this exchange with CBS’s Margaret Brennan: You realize trillions of dollars of factories are going to be built in America. That's huge for GDP. The factories being built in America are going to be huge. BRENNAN: That takes years, and you said that robots are going to fill those jobs so those aren't union worker jobs. LUTNICK: They’re automated factories. The key is who is going to build and operate the factories. BRENNAN: You said robots. … Lutnick: "The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little screws to make iPhones - that kind of thing is going to come to America." … Brennan: Why the McDonald islands, which don't export to the US and are inhabited by penguins? Did you use A.I. to generate these tariffs? LUTNICK: “No. If you leave anyone off the list, countries will try to move products through those countries to us.” … Fox host Stuart Varney to Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV): So we don't want cheap Chinese goods anymore? Consumers are not going to be happy about that. MOORE: “We have communities and families with children and dreams and aspirations for those children, and we're no longer going to barter their future for cheap goods made in China.” … Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) on Fox: “This isn't a trade war. This is balancing our economy with countries that have taken advantage of us. There's countries for decades that have got rich over the backs of the workers here in America. What's happened is we've lost manufacturing jobs because of our unfair trade deals that have left America, went to other countries, building their products and turning it back around and selling it to our economy.” … Sen. John Kennedy (R-AL) on Trump’s tariffs: “In the long run, he’s right. But also in the long run, we’re all dead - so the short run matters too.” … Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) on Fox: “He's slapping massive tariffs on almost every country in the world, and it's hard explain or justify some of the tariffs he' imposing. In the coming weeks and months, when millions of Americans see their 401ks dissolve, the stock market lost 10% just in the last 2 days of last week, and when hundreds of millions of Americans pay more for everything that they need for daily living, the groceries that they buy and the food that they put on the table and the cost of housing, I think they're going to be upset. And I think we're going to see long-term, broad economic damage, not for a few targeted industries or companies, but across the entire American landscape.” … Fashion industry writer Derek Guy has been trolling right-wingers on X who have been touting Trump’s tariffs as a way to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US making garments. He noted that none of them sell a single item of merch on their websites that is made in the US, and offered to help them be more patriotic: “Hey, Dinesh D’Souza, Tucker Carlson, Tim Pool, Scott Adams, I see you’re passionate about US manufacturing and don't like trade deficits. Would you like to move your supply chain to the US? I can help for a fee.” … Musk finally broke his silence about Trump’s global tariffs, and it doesn’t sound like he is thrilled about them: "I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the US should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and N. America. That's what I hope occurs, and also more freedom of people to move between Europe and N. America if they wish, if they wish to work in Europe or wish to work in America, they should be allowed to do so. So that has certainly been my advice to the president." …. Musk then went after Trump’s Trade Advisor Peter Navarro, who was the architect of the tariffs with Lutnick. Navarro said he knows what he is doing since he has a PhD in economics from Harvard. Musk posted on X that Navarro “ain’t built shit. A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing.” Musk then posted a quote from economist Thomas Sowell that read: “In every disaster throughout American history, there always seems to be a man from Harvard in the middle of it.” … Fox to Navarro: Musk took a shot on you on X and he's going against the administration with respect to tariffs. Is there a rift? NAVARRO: “Look, Elon when he's in his DOGE lane is great, but we understand what's going on here. Elon sells cars. He's simply protecting his own interests.” … Canada has issued a warning for travelers entering the US, saying they should “expect scrutiny” at the border and that their phones and other electronic devices may be searched. International flights to the US from all over the world are cratering as people cancel business trips and vacations to America. … Longtime employees as the Social Security Admin told the Guardian that personnel cuts have the agency is heading into “death spiral.” One employee: “They have these ‘concepts of plans’ that they’re hoping are sticking but in reality, are really hurting American people. No one knows what’s going on. They’re just coming up with ideas at the top of their head. It’s just been a lot of craziness, a lot of foolishness. Complete, utter chaos. They couldn’t understand the coding, so everything they said SSA was doing illegally, they weren’t. Common sense is something they lack. They don’t know what they’re doing.” … Sen. Chris Coons on Fox: “I have no objection to folks who are bringing their skills and talents to try and strengthen and modernize the fed govt. But it’s the way they're being untruthful, frankly lying, about the amount of waste, fraud, and abuse in Social Security. And Trump, when he spoke to Congress, went on at great length about how many people are on the Social security rolls who are 200 years old, 250 years old. Musk has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. and the truth is, nobody who is in the Social Security system of an age over 115 gets any payments.” … AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler to MeidasTouch: “Trump basically, with the stroke of a pen, took away the collective bargaining agreements of 700,000 union workers. To cancel someone’s rights like that is a slippery slope. And for those out there listening who say, ‘Oh wow, it sucks to be a fed worker’—they’re coming after you next. This is essentially a beta test for how far they can go. Next will be rippling out across the public sector at the state and local level, and then into the private sector.” … US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink was trolled by me and many others on X after she posted this statement while refusing to say that it was Putin and Russia who did it: “Horrified that tonight a ballistic missile struck near a playground and restaurant in Kryvyi Rih. More than 50 people injured and 16 killed, including 6 children. This is why the war must end.” … CNN reported that Doug Emhoff criticized the decision by his law firm to surrender to the Trump admin to avoid an executive order targeting the firm. Emhoff is a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. Emhoff said he wanted the firm to fight but he was overruled by the other partners. But he did not resign. … Trump targeted the firm because they represented Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in their $148 million defamation lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani. … WaPo reported that DOJ has suspended the lawyer who admitted in court that they mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego García to a prison in El Salvador and conceded that he did not know the legal basis for the expulsion. Erez Reuveni worked at DOJ for 15 years and specialized in Immigration cases. He has been placed on indefinite leave for committing the unpardonable sin of being honest when the judge asked him questions. … AG Pam Bondi issued this statement: “At my direction, every DOJ attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States. Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.” … Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): “Some people might say, ‘Oh, they disappeared that person, but they’re not an American citizen.’ Well, if there’s no due process, how do you even know they’re not an American citizen? If they have the power to take someone off our streets, throw them on a plane because they don’t like their tattoo, and dump them in one of the worst jails on the planet—without any due process—that’s not our country!” … HHS has confirmed that a second child with measles in Texas has died. Over 500 people in Texas have been infected and 56 have been hospitalized. One adult has also died. NBC reported that RFK Jr. was planning to attend the child’s funeral today. … Politico reported that Cameron Hamilton, the head of FEMA, was given a lie detector test by DHS to determine if he leaked information about a recent private meeting her had with Secretary Kristi Noem and her advisor and long-time rumored special extramarital friend Corey Lewandowski. He apparently passed because he still has his job. … DHS Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin: “Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS is unapologetic about its efforts to root out leakers that undermine national security. We are agnostic about your standing, tenure, political appointment or status as a career civil servant — we will track down leakers and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.” … Sarah Boardman, the artist who painted Trump’s portrait which was removed from the Capitol in CO after he complained that it wasn’t a flattering rendition: “President Trump is entitled to comment freely, but the allegations that I purposefully distorted the portrait, and that I 'must have lost my talent as I got older' are now directly and negatively impacting my business of over 41 years, which now is in danger of not recovering." Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.