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Folks, America is in the middle of a great comeback. But the culture war is not over. Which is why tomorrow we're releasing episode two of our five part series, the Case for Derek Chauvin. The Incident. In episode one we analyzed the criminal background of George Floyd and the professional record of Derek Chauvin. But tomorrow we're going moment by moment through the infamous videos of that fateful day. If you want to be a part of the movement fighting for truth and reason, it's time to become a Daily Wire plus member. Stream my show ad free with exclusive content you won't see anywhere else. Get get unlimited access to premium entertainment. Connect with a community of thinkers, not followers. Watch anywhere, anytime on desktop and the Daily Wire plus app for mobile and TV. Join the fight@dailywire.com subscribe so a very cool piece of news yesterday, after nine months on the International Space Station, 286 days in space. According to the Washington Post, the NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Butch Wilmore splashed down in their SpaceX Dragon capsule off the coast of Florida just before 6pm on Tuesday. So originally that flight on the Boeing Starliner was supposed to last eight days and they ended up up there for 286 days, which has to suck, to be honest with you. Imagine that you're going to space and you'll tell your family that you're going to see them in a little over a week and almost a year later you're still up there. Now, depending on your family situation, maybe that's an unpaid vacation, but whatever it is, it's not great. And the failures of the Biden administration to work with Elon to actually get those people down is pretty astonishing. It really is, because we are now a couple months into the Trump administration and Musk is sending SpaceX, the much maligned Elon Musk is sending SpaceX to, you know, rescue astronauts where they are stranded in space, which also probably is the beginning of an amazing rom com that'll come out in a year or two. The astronauts have said that they were actually prepared to stay longer and they were eager to pitch in by conducting science experiments and maintenance aboard the orbiting laboratory. I'm sure they were. I mean, it probably gets pretty boring up there for a year. I hope that they at least liked each other. NASA officials said the decision about when and how to get them home was made based on safety and keeping the space the space station occupied, not politics. They were joined on their return trip by the NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russia's Alexander Gorbunov. So that is a very cool thing. Apparently the reentry process is pretty rough because if you spend a lot of time in space, then that creates changes in your body. So it's not gonna be there's a ticker tape parade tomorrow or anything. So whenever I don't know something about a topic, the first place I go is to my friends over at Perplexity. This search, by the way, is sponsored by Perplexity. I wanted to know what actual physical effects would a year long stint in space have on astronauts. And here is what my friend Perplexity told me. Quote, a year long stint in space would have significant physical effects on astronauts due to the microgravity environment and other factors associated with space travel. Those effects include musculoskeletal changes like bone density loss. You can lose 1 to 1.5% of bone mineral density per month in space. Wow, that is like a lot actually. Basically like you get osteoporosis, you have muscle atrophy because the muscles weaken and waste away because you're not using them all the time. It can cause fluids to shift upward, so you'll have a puffy face and some chicken legs. So you don't get amazingly great looking in space. Actually. Apparently you have significant arterial stiffness, like a 17 to 30% increase in arterial stiffness. You can also have eye structure changes, vision problems, you will get taller. So maybe I should try it. You know, I've been ripped a lot about my height, so I don't know. Worthwhile. I don't know. I'll have to talk to my wife and space anemia, decreased production of red blood cells occurs in space, so requires extensive rehabilitation. In other words, just for these astronauts to sort of reenter the earth's gravitational pull and then be made healthy once more. But good for Elon Musk, good for SpaceX, and it's good to have these astronauts home. Meanwhile, the other big news of the day is that President Trump had his long awaited two hour phone call with Vladimir Putin of Russia. And the account from President Trump and the account from Putin, they don't quite match up. There's some good things that happened on this call. We can be hopeful that this is the first step toward a longer lasting ceasefire. So let's just say that Putin is being extremely cagey about these negotiations and the United States really needs to take that under advisement. So President Trump put out the following statement after the two hour phone call. Quote, my phone conversation with President Putin of Russia was a very good and productive one. We agreed to an Immediate ceasefire on all energy and infrastructure with an understanding that we'll be working quickly to have a complete ceasefire and ultimately an end to this very horrible war between Russia and Ukraine. This war would never have started if I were president. Many elements of a contract for peace were discussed, including the fact that thousands of soldiers are being killed and, and both President Putin and President Zelensky would like to see it end. That process is now in full force and effect and we will hopefully, for the sake of humanity, get the job done. Now you will notice first of all that this is not a full ceasefire agreement by the Russians. So the Ukrainians have already said, President Zelensky has already said that they are willing to engage in a full 30 day complete ceasefire. Not on energy, not on infrastructure, completely remember energy and infrastructure. That's the sort of stuff that is generally civilian oriented in places like Ukraine. However, what Putin does not want to do apparently is stop attacking the actual military of Ukraine and he refuses to do so. Ukraine is saying, listen, we'll go weapons down right now, like we will stop this moment. And Putin is saying, no, I don't think so. We're just going to keep pushing. That shows that he believes that he has the military momentum. He wants to keep killing as many Ukrainian soldiers as humanly possible. Meanwhile, there is a story that emerged originally from Russian sources and now has been picked up by the US son that President Putin kept Trump waiting for today's phone call and did not leave until one hour after the chat was actually set to begin. And apparently he even laughed off a warning that he was getting late for his phone call with the American President. The host of the event, a guy named Alexander Shokin, was actually looking at his wash like openly on tape and Putin laughed it off. So that is in fact a sign of disrespect to the United States and should be taken as such. If Zelensky was disrespectful in the Oval Office, which he he was then. Vladimir Putin being an hour late to talk to the most powerful person on planet Earth is also a sign of disrespect. Putin has made this one of his tactics as sort of his negotiating tactic is to keep world leaders waiting. The conference took place right before the high stakes call was scheduled with Trump between 4 and 6pm Russian time. As the clock ticked past 4, Putin's pal and the host of the event, Shokin, looked at his watch saying the call was scheduled for before 6pm And Putin said, don't listen to him, that's his job. To which Shokin replied, now we need to see what Trump says about this. And then Putin said that he was referring to the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. Eventually he arrived about 5pm According to a variety of different reports, the Russian takeaway from the call was not the same as the American takeaway from the call. According to the White House readout, quote, the leaders agreed the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace. So there will be no full ceasefire until technical negotiations, which means that Putin can keep pushing. The negotiations will begin immediately in the Middle east, presumably Saudi Arabia. The two leaders agree that a future with an improved bilateral relationship between the United States and Russia has huge upside. This includes enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability when peace has actually been achieved. Now, again, I think that the, the takeaway from the Russian side is not quite the same as the takeaway from the American side. And the reason that you can tell this is because while President Trump mentioned Russian commitment to an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, Moscow did not quite say the same thing. Instead, Moscow apparently was taking the opinion that, that the ceasefire would begin with energy and transportation and infrastructure when it began, because minutes after the announcement of all of this, there was in fact a Russian guided bomb that took out the power in the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk. Fox News has added that Kyiv is already under drone attack. Is unclear if Russia violated the energy infrastructure ceasefire or the energy and infrastructure ceasefire. Right, because maybe they're just attacking infrastructure as opposed to energy infrastructure. Whatever the case, it is clear that at this point the Ukrainians are far more willing to come to the table than Vladimir Putin is. And the distinction between what the US said and what the Russians said is that the US said that the Russians had committed to an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, but the Kremlin talked of only energy infrastructure. In other words, they won't attack power stations, but they'll still attack roads, they will still attack freeways, they will still attack trains and all the rest of it. So Russia seems to be playing around. The one thing that they said they would not do was again agree to a full cease fire because they feel like they have momentum at this point. Apparently, Trump was in fact able to secure one element of the ceasefire proposal. The Kremlin announced that Russia and Ukraine would release 175 of each other's prisoners of war. And apparently Moscow would also free 23 seriously wounded Ukrainian servicemen to receive treatment in their Home country. The Kremlin specified again that energy infrastructure would, would not be attacked. But then apparently they hit infrastructure within an hour. Basically. The Ukrainian Member of Parliament in a Sovson post attacks Putin backed Trump's 30 day pause on energy strikes and then broke his word in less than an hour. So the President of the United States should hold Russia to its word. If they want to get to stage two of a ceasefire, then they need to stop attacking energy infrastructure. And we need to know what their conditions are for actually getting to a stage two, whatever the next step is. Because the conditions so far that Putin has actually articulated for a full scale ceasefire or an armistice agreement are totally unpalatable. That's just the reality. Vladimir Putin, for example, is demanding that literally all Western arms supplies to Ukraine be halted. For him to conclude a ceasefire agreement, that is not going to happen. That would be nuts. For Ukraine to simply agree that they will receive no more weaponry from the outside in exchange for what? A promise that maybe Russia will come to the table and do a ceasefire would be totally insane. According to Bloomberg, Russia wants to stop all arms supplies to Ukraine. Its minimum goal is to cut off American aid. So Putin is hoping that these sort of baby steps are going to lead the United States to cut off the Ukrainian aid again. Again, that would be a mistake. The United States needs to ratchet up the pressure to get Putin to the table because he clearly is not taking this seriously enough. Unnamed European officials say it's unlikely Europe would agree to Russia's demand that allies block arms supplies to Ukraine during any truce, because obviously Ukraine would then be left naked and Russia would just rearm with help from the Chinese. So that is the current status. Obviously, Vladimir Putin believes that he has the upper hand in negotiations. It is up to the allies to demonstrate to Vladimir Putin that he does not, in fact, have the upper hand in the negotiations and he needs to start making concessions. The Ukrainians are willing to come to the table. That's made very clear. Now it's time for Vladimir Putin to do the same. If in fact, he. He is telling President Trump the truth and would like to see an end to this war. Listen, there's a lot of uncertainty out there. Smart investors prepare ahead of time for that uncertainty, just like keeping a life jacket handy before you set sail. That's why a lot of people are adding gold to their portfolios, leading to record gold prices in early 2025. Now, there's still a great opportunity for you to diversify and strengthen your financial future amid the market volatility. When it comes to diversifying into physical gold, I personally trust Birch Gold. They're the people I turn to for my own gold investments. 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They're getting ready to ramp up their enforcement efforts in 2025. With April 15 approaching, time is now running out. If you're facing back taxes or unfiled returns, delaying action only compounds the problem. Every day you wait makes your tax situation more difficult to resolve. Do not let another tax deadline pass you by. While taking immediate action is crucial, attempting to deal with the IRS alone can be a costly mistake. This is where Tax Network USA's expertise becomes invaluable. What sets them apart? Well, unlike other tax resolution firms, Tax Network USA maintains privileged access to the IRS through their preferred direct channels. This means they know exactly which agents can help resolve your case effectively, whether you owe ten grand or ten million bucks. Their team of attorneys and negotiators brings proven strategies to settle your tax issues favorably. With over $1 billion in tax debt already resolved, they have the experience and expertise to handle your situation. Talk with one of their strategists today. It's free. Stop the threatening letters. Stop looking over your shoulder. Protect yourself from property seizures and bank levies. Do not let the IRS control your future. Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com shapiro April 15 is just around the corner. Act now before the IRS acts first. Okay? Meanwhile, the President of the United States is running into some headwinds with regard to the judiciary. An enormous amount of what's happening with the judiciary will in fact be solved by the Supreme Court. It will be taken up eventually. Chief Justice Roberts felt the necessity sort of wrap President Trump on the knuckles on Tuesday. The reason being President Trump demanded the impeachment of a federal judge who's been hearing a challenge to the removal of Trenda Aragua gang members under the Alien enemies Act of 1798. Now, I'm not sure why it's necessary for Chief Justice Roberts to sign into chat here and talk about this. President Trump says a lot of things, but he did put out a statement, quote, for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose. Well, it was never going to happen. So I'm not sure precisely what the point of that is. And why is Roberts doing that? Obviously, I don't think that President Trump should be calling for the impeachment of judges based on decisions not going his way. That's why the appellate procedure exists. With that said, why is Roberts signing in here? Presumably to earn some sort of public credibility with a left that has already learned to despise Chief Justice John Roberts. Tuesday's statement was not the first time that Roberts had scolded politicians for disparaging the judiciary. Roberts did this back in 2018 after Trump attacked an Obama judge for ruling against him in an immigration case. And Roberts said then, we do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal rights to those appearing before them, which, of course is very silly. Of course, you have Obama judges and Bush judges and Trump judges and Clinton judges. It's a fairly decent litmus test for precisely how they're going to view the Constitution of the United States. Trump was right at the time. He said, quote, sorry, Chief Justice Roberts, you do indeed have Obama judges. They have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. So, again, Roberts is an institutionalist. He believes that somehow he's shoring up the credibility of the institution by sort of wrapping Trump over the knuckles on this sort of stuff. Instead, all he's doing is annoying everybody on the right who understands that Trump says a lot of things and know that he is not going to attempt to impeach these judges. Meanwhile, the DOJ continues to be at war with this particular judge, Judge Boasberg, who is, in fact, an Obama appointee. The Trump administration on Tuesday decided defended its deportation of those Trendaragua members, saying that two of the three flights that supposedly had been held up by the judge had already left before the judge ordered them not to. U.S. district Judge James Boseberg initially ordered those flights to return to the United States. The administration argued that the planes were already in international waters and the ruling no longer applied. Robert Cerna, an acting field office director, according to Axios within ICE, said in a court filing two of those three planes carrying migrants had departed for El Salvador before 7:25pm Eastern time when the judge issued the order. A third plane departed after that, but its passengers were not removed solely based on Trump's executive order, Cerna said. A separate filing says the government maintains there is no justification to order the provision of additional information and that doing so would be inappropriate because even accepting plaintiffs accounts of the facts, there's no violation of the court's written order. So as of Tuesday, there are still 54 alleged trend Aragua gang members in detention. About 172 are on the non detained docket. So that is going to be battled out in the courts. Meanwhile, another district court judge has now decided to basically enjoin the enforcement of the Trump cuts to usaid. And this judge, Judge Theodore Chuang, has now ordered Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to immediately give USAID employees access to their email, payment, security notification and all other electronic systems. The basic notion here apparently is that they have a right to their jobs. Now presumably that right springs from the USAID enabling legislation. But USAID was originally set up by executive order, as in by the President. So in his ruling he goes out of his way to suggest that then it was sort of recodified in the late 1990s by Congress and that now USAID is almost untouchable by the President of the United States. Only Congress could change usaid. I think there's a very flawed interpretation of the history of usaid. It seems like not a particularly strong argument. This is another Obama judge who is again trying to intervene here. He also claims that Musk does not have the ability to fire people. But of course it's not Musk technically doing the firing. He's making recommendations via doge to actual government actors who are approved by Congress who are actually doing the firing. That's particularly true in usaid. It's the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's presiding over the dismantling of usaid, which by the way, under the original executive order that established usaid, it was placed under the auspices of the State Department. Judge Chuang again tried to bash Musk, saying that he quote USURPED the authority of the public's elected representatives in Congress to. To make decisions on whether, when or how to eliminate a federal government agency and of officers of the United States duly appointed under the Constitution to exercise the authority entrusted to them. And this is a very flawed reading of the balance of powers. Basically, the case seems to be that if Congress sets up an executive branch agency and then creates sort of general rules and allocations to that agency, that is now untouchable by the executive branch. And even the people inside the executive branch can't be fired by members of the executive branch, in which case you have now set up an unanswerable fourth branch of government. That branch of government. Firings and hirings can't be done by Congress. Cuts can be done by Congress. And meanwhile, the president apparently can't either cut or fire. This, of course, is to maintain the size and scope of the federal government. The entire Trump administration is oriented against it, of course. Meanwhile, President Trump is challenging the legal order by firing two Democratic commissioners at the U.S. federal Trade Commission. On Tuesday, a White House official confirmed that Democratic Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter had been fired. The firings drew criticism from Democratic senators. The FTC has a bipartisan structure. No more than three of the five commissioners can come from the same party. Both of these fired FTC members plan to sue. To reverse the filings, the Supreme Court did rule in 1935 upholding a law allowing FTC commissioners to be fired only for good cause, like neglecting their duties. So, presumably, there will be some sort of case made by the Trump administration that these particular FTC commissioners did, in fact, neglect their duties. And then he will find some titular Democrats to fill the seats. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Republican Commissioner Melissa Holyoke have said that they support the administration's legal position that the White House actually has the power to fire those agency officials. They say that, legally speaking, the White House does, in fact, control government agencies. And so it'll be interesting to see whether the Supreme Court takes that up and then overturns that 1935 decision, pointing out that the unitary executive is, in fact, a feature of the American government. Meanwhile, two economic news. So the greatest threat to the presidency is not, in fact, the judiciary. The Supreme Court, as I say, is gonna hash out a lot of these questions. And I have faith that the Trump administration is not simply going to ignore the Supreme Court. It's one thing to say a District Court judge does not have the power to enjoin action at the USAID or that a District Court judge can't magically turn airplanes around that are in international waters. It is another thing to ignore the Supreme Court of the United States wholesale. I do not think there's intent inside the Trump administration to do just that. The real threat to the Trump administration is not that. The real threat to the Trump administration in the end is the economy. If the economy should go south, the Trump administration will go south with it. This is true for literally every president. It is not unique to President Trump. The stock market's been bouncing around a lot lately. On Monday, the stock market jumped significantly. On Tuesday, the stock market dumped significantly. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped about 260 points. Right now, investors are not quite sure what to do and apparently neither is the Federal Reserve. There's been a lot of talk about the Federal Reserve lowering those interest rates. The problem is that the inflationary curve has not yet stopped. Stock prices still seem to be too high. The PE ratio at the Dow Jones Industrial Average remains significantly above historical averages. It remains at about 25. Normally you want the PE ratios, the price to earnings ratio, to be down in the 16 to 18 range. Now it's unclear what the Federal Reserve is going to do. According to the Wall Street Journal, not long ago it looked like Jerome Powell's final test as Federal Reserve chair would be to stick the soft landing. Now, with about a year left in his term, he faces a serious complication. Navigating a trade war that threatens to push prices up while simultaneously weakening the economy. During a seven year tenure that included President Trump's first trade war pandemic, historic inflation and and high profile bank failures, says the Wall Street Journal, Powell's final act also unfolds with an imperative to preserve the institution's apolitical DNA that protects its autonomy in setting interest rates. So President Trump is pushing him to lower those interest rates. But again, inflation continues to hover in the 2.8 to 3% range. Everybody is sort of holding their breath to see what the Fed does. I think it's very unlikely that the Federal Reserve is going to drop the interest rates. And if inflation were to accelerate, then officials would have to think about the idea of actually increasing those interest rates. Again, a lot of the sanguinity about the economy, sort of satisfaction with the economy would return if there weren't such high levels of dyspepsia over President Trump's tariff plans, because nobody actually knows what's going to happen on April 2nd. President Trump has said that April 2nd everything's gonna change. His Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, has said the same that a giant set of reciprocal tariffs are going to be put in place. Now some of the details are sort of being spelled out. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump administration officials are roiled in debate over how to implement the president's pledge to equalize U.S. tariffs with those charged by other nations. Officials have recently weighed whether to simplify the complex task of devising new tariff rates for hundreds of U.S. trading partners by instead sorting nations into one of three tariff tiers. That proposal apparently was later ruled out, adding that the Trump team is still trying to figure out how to implement an individualized rate for every separate nation. And Trump has repeatedly said that reciprocal tariffs would mean what they charge us, we charge them. But the problem is that it's not just like the country has one giant tariff rate on the United States. There are different tariff rates on different goods from every single country. So it's not as easy as, oh, Canada just charges a blanket 5% rate. We'll charge them a 5% rate. Let's say that they tariff, for example, American lumber, which they do well. How do we respond in kind? If we tariff their lumber, that makes no difference to them since again, they are importing our lumber and we're not importing their lumber. Presumably you have to find some sort of equivalent in the market and then tariff that. It's a very, very complicated procedure, treasury Secretary Scott Bessen said on fox business on April 2. Each country will receive a number that we believe represents their tariffs. So for some countries it'll be quite low. For some countries it will be quite high. And again, there's been talk about these sort of three tier tariff proposal, which is really a blunt instrument. 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He's been helming policy discussions, according to people familiar with the matter. There were several lengthy meetings in recent weeks among top Trump aides, including an hours long meeting at the Naval Observatory, which is of course where the vice president lives. The meetings have centered on how to create a comprehensive tariff policy that achieves Trump's goals but also has some more flexibility. The reciprocal tariff plan is expected to be introduced April 2, along with additional 25% duties on a handful of industries like autos, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. And again, one of the big questions here is what does the US Trade Representative's office do? They have like 200 people. How do they handle all of this? All this is a very complicating factor. The markets aren't quite sure whether this is going to be a rough Trump proposal where the edges get sanded down, or whether it's gonna be a blunderbuss that hits everybody. Vice President Vance did an event yesterday in which he spoke about tariff policy and economic policy more generally. The Vice President has sort of a foot in both camps. He obviously is a representative of the sort of MAGA protectionist position on some economic proposals at the same exact time. Vice President Vance has a long history of warmth towards Silicon Valley and Tech Bros. Do in fact rely on a wide variety of free trade and technological advancements. He's trying to square a circle that I'm not sure can be totally squared right here. Again, the Vice President's a super smart guy and this attempt is probably as good as an attempt can be. However, you're talking in some cases about mutually exclusive policies. If you're talking about radical increase in tariffs at the same time as you talk about the technological advancements to be made by the United States amid economic advancement, that is, that is a tough road to hoe. So here is Vice President Vance standing up for tariffs as a, quote, unquote, necessary tool.