Presented by Comcast. Good morning, everyone. I'm Stephen Overly. It's Monday, April 7th, and here's what's driving the day. The House is in session, and Speaker Mike Johnson is gearing up for a hard week ahead. GOP leaders told their members on Sunday that there will be a vote this week on a budget blueprint, a necessary step before they can pass President Donald Trump's, quote, one big, beautiful bill. But fiscal hawks are already threatening to hold the party hostage. And Johnson can only afford three Republican defectors. Of course, a budget fight may be a welcome distraction from a stock market in freefall. Trump's sweeping global tariffs continued to rankle Wall Street and U.S. trading partners through the weekend. And for business-friendly Republicans and their well-heeled donors, the nerves are really starting to show. But the stock market's slump is really just the beginning. Large trade partners like Canada and the European Union are weighing how to best hit back. Tariffs are expected to top the agenda when Trump meets this afternoon with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an agenda that, frankly, was already packed with the ongoing war in Gaza and Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters. For its part, China wasted no time reciprocating. Beijing has already slapped a 34% tariff on all U.S. goods, set to take effect this Thursday. And that's not all. Beijing also killed a deal that would have seen U.S. investors take a controlling stake in TikTok. all of the fallout, administration officials hit the airwaves, sending mixed messages about why all of this turmoil is actually in America's interest. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told CNN it's time to negotiate. come to the table over the last few days, over the last weeks, that are willing and desperate to talk to us. We are the economic engine of the world. And it's finally time that someone, President Trump, stood up for America. Even though Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick already told CNN, Trump's not backing down. I don't think there's any chance that President Trump's going to back off his tariffs. This is the reordering of global trade. And Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was over on Fox News, saying that all this is about raising revenues. President Trump is bringing back the historic platform of the Republican Party and the historic view of our founders that revenues to our treasury should be powered by taxing foreign imports, not taxing domestic industry. With the political fallout still snowballing into this week, White House reporter Megan Messerly is here to break down how all of this is likely to play out. Good morning, Megan. Good

morning, Stephen.

So I was watching Sunday shows over the weekend. Several cabinet members were sort of trotted out defending these tariffs. And I've got to say, the messages were not very consistent. I mean, how much division is there in Trump world over the tariffs and why they are necessary? There's

this camp of sort of true believers, the true protectionists in the administration. So that's Peter Navarro, the president's trade advisor. That's Jameson Greer, the U.S. trade representative. They are really sort of like philosophically believe in tariffs as like this protectionary measure to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., right? say, that, you know, is sort of still America first, you know, MAGA in sort of the sense that we're used to, but also very attuned to the market, to businesses. And then I would add as well, sort of the realities of what it will take to, you know, return manufacturing to the U.S., sort of this acknowledgement that it's not going to happen overnight, right? It's going to take, you know, 10, 20 years, something like that. And so I think that's what you're really seeing come through on a lot of these shows and in the administration's messaging, you know, as much as the White House really is trying to telegraph this idea of we're all on the same page, these tariffs are going to be great. I think where you see a big point of difference, I should also add, you know, Howard Lutnick has, Commerce Secretary, has sort of put himself in this, you know, sort of protectionist camp as well. And so I think you're hearing from Lutnick, you're hearing from Navarro, sort of this sense of, you know, these tariffs are going to be great. It's going to be great.