Global Markets Plummet, Wrongful Deportation Deadline, Second Measles Death

Summary

Up First from NPR – April 7, 2025 Episode: Global Markets Plummet, Wrongful Deportation Deadline, Second Measles Death

---

Global Markets in Turmoil Amid Trade War Escalation

The episode opens with host Steve Inskeep addressing the concerning decline in global markets triggered by President Trump's intensified trade war. At [00:03], Inskeep notes, “President Trump's trade war prompted even more market declines, which he dismissed,” setting the stage for a deep dive into the economic repercussions of the administration's policies.

El Martinez further probes the situation at [00:07], stating, “I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something. What's making investors panic? And why have the odds of a recession gone up?” This statement encapsulates the tension between necessary economic interventions and their immediate negative impacts.

Market Downturn Details

Maria Aspen, NPR’s financial correspondent, provides a comprehensive analysis of the market plummet at [02:55]. She explains, “By the end of last week, the Dow had fallen almost 8% with the other major indices tumbling even further. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is now in a bear market, meaning it's fallen more than 20% from a recent high.” Aspen underscores the severity of the situation by highlighting the broader implications across various sectors, including oil and Bitcoin.

The discussion progresses to the psychological impact on investors. Aspen quotes billionaire fund manager Bill Ackman at [03:55], who cautions, “The US is destroying confidence in the US as a place to do business,” advocating for a “90-day pause on tariffs to avoid what he calls economic nuclear war.” This perspective is echoed by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, who describes Wall Street as “panicked” [04:27].

Trump Administration’s Response

Despite mounting concerns, the Trump administration remains steadfast in its approach. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick asserts at [05:24], “the tariffs are here to stay.” When pressed by reporters about the market downturn, President Trump responds dismissively at [05:37], saying, “I think your question is so stupid. I think it's, I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”

Aspen contrasts Trump's stance by emphasizing the widespread warnings about the tariffs' detrimental effects on the economy, consumers, and global trade [05:54]. The episode highlights that investment banks like JP Morgan are forecasting a potential recession if tariffs persist, underscoring the gravity of the situation [05:54].

---

Wrongful Deportation: A Fateful Deadline

Shifting focus, the podcast delves into a pressing legal and humanitarian issue: the wrongful deportation of Chilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. At [06:07], Inskeep introduces the topic, mentioning a midnight deadline imposed on the Trump administration to rectify the mistake.

Case Overview

Joel Rose, NPR correspondent, elaborates on the case at [07:25]. Abrego Garcia, who had been living in Maryland for over a decade under legal protection, was mistakenly deported to El Salvador amidst a crackdown on alleged gang members. Judge Paula Zinis criticized the administration's actions, terming the deportation as “wholly lawless” and expressing that Abrego Garcia’s “ongoing detention in Salvadoran prison shocks the conscience” [07:22].

Administration’s Stance and Legal Proceedings

Despite admitting the deportation was an error, the Trump administration remains unconvinced about reversing the decision. They allege that Abrego Garcia is affiliated with the MS-13 gang—a claim his lawyers dispute, citing a lack of evidence and absence of a criminal record [07:25]. Judge Zinis pointed out the insufficiency of the administration’s evidence, stating that without a criminal indictment, the gang allegations are merely “chatter” [08:11].

A critical development occurs when the Justice Department places attorney Erez Reveni, who argued the case, on administrative leave [08:19]. Reveni had candidly responded to Judge Zinis’s inquiries about the delay in correcting the mistake, expressing dissatisfaction with the administration’s lack of satisfactory answers [08:19]. Maria Aspen adds, “I issued a memo that you are to vigorously advocate on behalf of the United States. He shouldn't have taken the case” [08:56], highlighting internal conflicts within the Department of Justice.

Implications and Future Steps

Joel Rose outlines the next steps at [09:09]. The Justice Department is appealing the judge’s order, arguing a lack of jurisdiction since Abrego Garcia is in El Salvador custody. They seek an emergency stay from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but failure to secure one would force compliance with the midnight deadline [09:09]. The episode underscores the precariousness of bureaucratic processes and their profound human impact.

---

Second Measles Death in Texas Sparks Health Concerns

The final segment of the episode addresses a public health crisis: the second reported measles death in Texas within the year. At [09:44], Inskeep introduces the tragic news, noting that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the funeral of 8-year-old Daisy Hildebrand [09:48].

Details of the Tragedy

Maria Godoy provides in-depth coverage at [10:17], revealing that Daisy was unvaccinated and had no underlying health conditions. Her death resulted from “measles pulmonary failure,” a severe respiratory complication. Godoy explains that while measles is primarily a respiratory illness, it can lead to fatal lung complications like pneumonia [10:37].

Vaccination Rates and Public Health Response

Godoy highlights the broader implications of declining vaccination rates, particularly in Gaines County, Texas, where the outbreak has resulted in 481 confirmed cases [11:36]. Dr. Adam Ratner emphasizes the preventable nature of these deaths, stating, “These are deaths that vaccines could prevent” [11:21]. The resurgence of measles, declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, is alarming, with over 600 cases reported in five states this year alone [12:53].

Administrative and Political Reactions

The Trump administration’s response to the outbreak is multifaceted. Secretary Kennedy acknowledges the severity of the situation and the need for effective measures, stating, “the CDC is deploying teams to Texas to help with the outbreak” [11:59]. However, he also controversially supported the use of unproven treatments for measles [11:59]. Meanwhile, President Trump downplays the outbreak's scale but hints at stringent measures if it worsens, despite the administration's simultaneous move to cut over $11 billion in public health funding [11:59].

Looking Ahead

Maria Godoy concludes by emphasizing the critical need for vaccination to prevent further fatalities and control the outbreak. The episode serves as a stark reminder of the consequences of declining vaccination rates and underscores the importance of public health initiatives in safeguarding communities.

---

Conclusion

This episode of Up First meticulously covers three pivotal stories shaping national discourse: the destabilizing effects of the Trump administration’s trade policies on global markets, the harrowing case of wrongful deportation highlighting systemic flaws, and the alarming resurgence of measles underscoring public health vulnerabilities. Through insightful analysis and firsthand reporting, NPR delivers a comprehensive overview, ensuring listeners are well-informed about these critical issues.

---

For more in-depth exploration of these topics, consider tuning into NPR’s “Consider This” which delves deeper into individual stories and their broader implications.

Transcript

[Steve Inskeep]

President Trump's trade war prompted even more market declines, which he dismissed.

[El Martinez]

I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something. What's making investors panic? And why have the odds of a recession gone up?

[Steve Inskeep]

I'm Steve Inskeep with a Martinez, and this is up first from NPR News. The Trump administration has a midnight deadline to return a man deported to El Salvador in what a federal judge called a grievous error. So why is the Department of Justice has put its attorney on administrative leave on day one?

[Maria Aspen]

I issued a memo that you are to vigorously advocate on behalf of the United States.

[El Martinez]

And a second child in Texas has died of measles. It's not surprising that in an outbreak of this size that we are starting to see deaths. Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.

[NPR Ad Voice]

This message comes from Grammarly. It's harder than ever to meet the demands of today's job priorities, but 90% of professionals say that Grammarly has saved them time writing and editing their work. Their AI Communication assistant can help you communicate more confidently and effectively in just a few clicks. Let Grammarly take the busy work off your plate so you can focus on high impact work. Download Grammarly for [e-mail] podcast that's Grammarly.com podcast. This message comes from BetterHelp. Therapy can be expensive, but at BetterHelp they believe therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury, which is why they offer quality care at a price that makes sense and can help you with anything from anxiety to everyday stress. Your mental health is worth it and now it's within reach. Visit betterhelp.com NPR to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com NPR this message is from Synchrony bank who can help you get your do nothing savings to work hard with their high yield savings account. Put your lazy savings to [e-mail] NPR member FDIC.

[El Martinez]

We find out soon just how much lower the world financial system may go.

[Steve Inskeep]

Markets have fallen since last Wednesday, when President Trump launched a trade war against most of the world. Asian and European markets fell overnight and not by a little. Japan's Nikkei index dropped almost 8% of its value. Here in the United States, economists are increasing their odds of a recession. The investment bank Goldman Sachs says we're close to 5050 odds. And in making that estimate, Goldman assumes that Trump will not go through with a plan for the biggest tariffs to hit on Wednesday. If that should happen, Goldman simply forecasts recession.

[El Martinez]

NPR financial correspondent Maria Aspen joins us now with more. US markets erased $6 trillion in value late last week. Maria, what are we looking at this week?

[Maria Aspen]

Well, last week was pretty terrible, but it's looking like this week may be even worse. By the end of last week, the dow had fallen almost 8% with the other major indices tumbling even further. The tech heavy Nasdaq is now in a bear market, meaning it's fallen more than 20% from a recent high. And it's looking like the pain will continue today. We'll get a clear idea later this morning when US Markets open. But when the futures markets opened last night, meaning that traders could start putting in their orders to buy and sell, prices immediately turned red. By early this morning, Dow futures were down around 1300 points or more than 3%. And it's not just stocks. Oil futures are down and Bitcoin, which trades around the clock is down below $77,000. Remember, it hit $100,000 not that long ago, weeks after President Trump was elected, on the industry's hope, a more crypto friendly president.

[El Martinez]

Maria, I remember a lot of Wall street figures backed Trump last year and what are they saying now?

[Maria Aspen]

Well, Wall street has been slow to speak out. But today or last night, billionaire fund manager and Trump supporter Bill Ackman, who endorsed the president during last year's election, has warned on X that the US Is destroying confidence in the US As a place to do business. And he's called for a 90 day pause on tariffs to avoid what he calls economic nuclear war. And he is just one of many people sounding the alarm. NPR last night talked to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. He says Wall street is panicked.

[El Martinez]

Investors are very nervous about what's going on. I'm sure they're calling lawmakers and the White House to pressure them to come to some kind of terms with other countries over these tariffs, bring this global trade war to an end because if they don't soon, the economy is going to go into recession.

[Maria Aspen]

And he's hardly alone with that warning. The investment bank JP Morgan also warned last week that if Trump keeps the tariffs, they could push the US and the world into a recession. Even if things don't get that bad, this current market sell off could have real consequences and real pain for most consumers. About 60% of U.S. households own stocks and a lot of people have their retirement accounts and other long term savings invested in the market. And also, let's not forget these new new tariffs are widely expected to raise prices on almost everything that Americans import.

[El Martinez]

Okay, so a lot of warnings from Wall street for the president. What has he said about the market sell off?

[Maria Aspen]

Trump has mostly shrugged it off. Yesterday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS that the tariffs are here to stay. And then last night, Trump was asked by reporters about how much pain he'd be willing to tolerate. And this is what he said.

[El Martinez]

I think your question is so stupid. I think it's, I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have.

[Maria Aspen]

To take medicine to f. But while Trump is calling these sweeping tariffs medicine, almost everyone else is warning that they are bad for consumers, investors, businesses, and the global economy.

[El Martinez]

All right, that's NPR's Maria Aspen. Thanks a lot.

[Maria Aspen]

Thank you.

[El Martinez]

The Trump administration has until midnight to return a man who was deported to a mega prison in El Salvador by mistake.

[Steve Inskeep]

A federal judge ordered the administration to bring back Chilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was arrested and deported last month in what the judge described as an illegal act. The Justice Department is appealing that order and it placed the attorney who argued its case on administrative leave.

[El Martinez]

NPR correspondent Joel Rose joins us now with more. So, Joel, let's start with the judge's order.

[Steve Inskeep]

What?

[El Martinez]

Why did she direct the Trump administration to bring him back?

[Joel Rose]

Yeah. The Trump administration has admitted that he was deported by mistake because of what they describe as an administrative error. Abrego Garcia had been living in Maryland for over a decade. He has a form of legal protection known as withholding of removal. In spite of that, ICE officers arrested Abrego Garcia last month, and a few days later, he was deported to El Salvador along with hundreds of other men accused of being gang members. But the Justice Department argues there is nothing they can do now because Abrego Garcia is already out of the US Federal District Judge Paula Zinis rejected that argument. She found that his arrest was, quote, wholly lawless. His ongoing detention in Salvadoran prison, quote, shocks the conscience. She noted that the US Is paying El Salvador to hold these prisoners, and she ordered the Trump administration to bring him back to Maryland by midnight tonight.

[El Martinez]

All right, what has the Trump administration said?

[Joel Rose]

They are not backing down. The White House insists that Abrego Garcia is a member of the salvadoran gang called MS.13, though his lawyers deny that. They say that allegation dates back to the time he was arrested in 2019 in the parking lot of a Home Depot. His lawyers say the gang allegation is based largely on a confidential informant who accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the gang in New York, which is a state where he has never lived. Abrego Garcia's lawyers say he has no criminal record in any country. Nevertheless, the White House has doubled down, calling Abrego Garcia a leader in Ms. 13 and a convicted gang member. But if the Trump administration has evidence to support that, they have not put it on the record in this case. Judge Zini said during the hearing that without any evidence like a criminal indictment or complaint, these gang allegations are just quote, unquote chatter.

[El Martinez]

Joel, I saw over the weekend the Justice Department put the attorney who argued the case on Friday on administratively. Why did that happen?

[Joel Rose]

This is remarkable. The Justice Department lawyer Erez Reveni argued the case on Friday. Reveni has argued many cases on immigration for administrations of both parties and he had some very candid answers for Judge Zinis. The judge asked him why the administration did not try to return Abrego Garcia to the US when they first learned about this mistake. Reveni said he had asked his clients inside the Trump administration the very same thing and that, quote, I have not received to date an answer that I find satisfactory. The next day he was put on leave, administrative leave, by the Justice Department. Here, Attorney General Pam Bondi explaining why yesterday on Fox News Sunday, I firmly.

[Maria Aspen]

Said on day one I issued a memo that you are to vigorously advocate on behalf of the United States. He shouldn't have taken the case. He shouldn't have argued it if that's what he was going to do.

[El Martinez]

So, Joel, what happens now?

[Joel Rose]

The Justice Department is appealing. They argue that courts do not have jurisdiction over this case because Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador and essentially there is nothing that Judge Zinis can do. The Justice Department is asking the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for an emergency stay, but if they do not get one, that midnight deadline will still be in place and then the big question is whether they will comply with it.

[El Martinez]

All right. That's NPR's Joel Rose. Joel, thank you.

[Joel Rose]

You're welcome.

[El Martinez]

A second child in Texas has died of measles, according to state Health.

[Steve Inskeep]

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Attended the child's funeral on Sunday and identified the child as 8 year old Daisy Hildebrand. Until this year, the United States had not reported a measles death for nearly a decade. Now an outbreak set it in Texas has 481 confirmed cases.

[El Martinez]

NPR's Maria Godoy has been following all this for us. Maria, the second child to die of measles this year. We've learned that she died on Thursday. What else do we know about her?

[Maria Godoy]

Well, Texas health officials say the girl was not vaccinated and had no reported underlying health conditions. She was hospitalized after getting sick with measles, and she died from what doctors described as a measles pulmonary failure, which basically means the lungs can't really provide enough oxygen anymore.

[El Martinez]

And is this a common complication from the measles?

[Maria Godoy]

You know, measles is a respiratory illness, and it can often lead to serious lung complications, including pneumonia and super infections of the lung, as well as other complications like brain swelling. Vaccines work so well that many of us have forgotten just how devastating measles can be. This latest death serves as a terrible reminder.

[El Martinez]

I mean, so how worried should people be for the possibility of more deaths?

[Maria Godoy]

Well, before the first measles vaccines were developed in the early 1960s, measles used to kill four to 500 people in this country every year. Even now, about one or two out of every 1,000 measles cases are fatal. I spoke with Dr. Adam Ratner. He's a pediatric infectious disease specialist in New York, and he is unfortunately not surprised by these fatalities.

[El Martinez]

Every time a child gets the measles, you roll the dice and you have a one in a thousand or a two in a thousand chance of that child dying. And so it's not surprising that in an outbreak of this size that we are starting to see deaths.

[Maria Godoy]

Ratner says these are deaths that vaccines could prevent. And, you know, vaccination rates have been trending downwards nationwide for several years. He says, especially in areas like Gaines County, Texas, where the outbreak is centered and where vaccination rates are just above 80%. That just sets the for outbreaks because measles is extraordinarily contagious.

[Steve Inskeep]

Yeah.

[El Martinez]

How has the Trump administration responded to all this?

[Maria Godoy]

Well, Secretary Kennedy traveled to Texas on Sunday. In a post on X, he said he went to console the family of the child who died. He said the CDC is deploying teams to Texas to help with the outbreak. And he called the measles vaccine, quote, the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles. And that is notable because in prior statements, he's called vaccines a personal choice. But in another post Sunday, Kennedy praised doctors use of treatments that have no evidence to support them when it comes to measles. And, you know, meanwhile, President Trump was asked about the outbreak on Sunday night. He downplayed the size, but he said if it progresses, the US Will have to take what he called very strong action. And I should note that we are seeing these outbreaks at a time when the administration has moved to cut more than $11 billion in public health funding to states.

[El Martinez]

So, Maria, I mean, what's what now with measles in the U.S. well, so.

[Maria Godoy]

Measles was declared eliminated in this country in 2000, but this year we have five states where measles is currently spreading. In fact, the US has already seen more than 600 measles cases this year. That's more than double the number of cases it reported in all of last year. And it's only April.

[El Martinez]

SMPR's Maria Godoy. Thank you very much, Maria.

[Maria Godoy]

My pleasure.

[El Martinez]

That's up first for Monday, April 7th. I'm El Martinez.

[Steve Inskeep]

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Your next listen is Consider THIS from npr. We hear it up first, give you three big stories of the day and our colleagues at Consider this dive into a single news story and what it means to you. In less than 15 minutes, listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[El Martinez]

Today's episode of up first was edited by Cara Platoni, Russell Lewis, Mark Silver, Lisa Thompson, and Jenny Williams. It was produced by Ziad Buch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hynes, and our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow.

[NPR Ad Voice]

This message comes from Carvana. Sell your car right now to Carvana. Just enter your license plate or VIN and get a real offer that's good for seven days. Sell to Carvana today. This message comes from Bombas. Nearly 30% of marathoners end their race blistered. Bombas running socks are strategically cushioned to help. Say bye to blisters. Run to bombus.com NPR and use code NPR for 20% off your first purchase. This message comes from Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right. They offer premium wireless plans for less and all plans include high speed data, unlimited talk and text, and nationwide coverage. See for [e-mail] Switch.