Morning Brief: Market Unease, Defunding The Ivy League & New Title IX Task Force

Stocks slow their fall as President Donald Trump stands firm on his tariff and trade plan. The Trump administration pulls billions of dollars in federal funding from Ivy League colleges over their handling of anti-Semitism. And Female athletes across the country are opting to take a knee rather than compete against men allowed on the same playing field.

It’s Tuesday, April 8, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:

Market Unease As Tariff Talks Continue

(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Topline: President Trump is holding firm on his unprecedented tariff policy as markets swing and trade partners look to potentially make a deal.

The market rollercoaster continued Monday as uncertainty remains over how long Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs will stay in place and what they’ll mean for the cost of goods. Stocks in Hong Kong saw their worst day in nearly thirty years, plunging more than 13%. It was a similar story for markets across Europe and the rest of Asia. On Wall Street, we saw wild swings throughout the day, but ultimately, the DOW, S&P, and NASDAQ each ended up within one percent of where they began when markets opened.

President Trump continued urging Americans to trust his plan. “It would be nice to serve a nice easy term, but we have an opportunity to change the fabric of our country. We have an opportunity to reset the table on trade… I don’t mind going through it because I see a beautiful picture at the end.”

Fake News: Around 10:10 yesterday morning, a popular X account posted that President Trump was considering a 90-day pause on all tariffs — that post understandably went viral. By 10:15, a CNBC guest repeated the claim, and markets soared, gaining trillions of dollars in value in minutes. The S&P 500 spiked 7%, going from down 4% to up 3%. But moments later, the White House issued a statement calling the report “fake news,” and markets fell back down, erasing all of those gains.

“The market hates uncertainty,” Kenny Polcari, the senior market strategist for Slatestone Wealth, told Morning Wire when analyzing the aforementioned swing.  “It can take bad news. As long as there’s some certainty to it, the market can then adjust. But when the market remains so uncertain, the anxiety level rises, volatility rises, and it’s at that shoot first, ask questions later.”

China Doubles Down: Rather than expressing openness to a deal – as we’ve seen from dozens of other countries – China responded to Trump’s tariff with an additional 34% tariff of their own on American imports. Officials in Beijing accused President Trump of “bullying” their country, and in a remarkable twist, the Chinese Embassy in Washington posted old clips of then-President Ronald Reagan expressing his distaste for tariffs to contrast his position with the current administration’s. President Trump similarly expressed a willingness to go tit for tat, warning China on Monday: “If that tariff isn’t removed by tomorrow at 12 o’clock we’re putting a 50% tariff on above the tariffs that we put on.”

While Trump’s position has remained steady, there has been considerable backlash on Capitol Hill. A number of senators have crafted the Trade Review Act of 2025, a new bill that would require Congressional approval for future tariffs and give Congress the power to dissolve unilateral tariffs issued by the president. Seven Republicans have already joined a number of Democrats in endorsing the measure — including Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. They argue that Congress is the branch of government with power over foreign commerce and should be the leading voice on trade policy. The Trump administration said the bill “would severely constrain the president’s ability to use authorities long recognized by Congress and upheld by the courts to respond to national emergencies and foreign threats.” President Trump threatened to veto the legislation if it’s passed. 

Trump Administration Suspends University Grants

(Photo by janniswerner via Getty Images)

Topline: The Trump administration is suspending hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding for elite colleges and universities over their handling of anti-Semitism and DEI programs. 

The administration revoked grants to various American universities, mostly those issued under the Department of Health and Human Services umbrella for research projects. The White House says schools are not eligible for this taxpayer money if they fail to protect Jewish students and uphold new civil rights standards, which includes doing away with race-based admissions.

“The President has made it incredibly clear that he expects that students who are going to universities can go to a safe campus without discrimination,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Fox News last week. “What we saw across Columbia and other universities was that the universities were not living up to that. I mean, when you see students barricaded in the library, people pounding on the glass, saying, ‘Death to USA, Death to Israel’…a lot of the Jewish interaction on campus has been driven underground, and that’s just not the way our education should be.”

Columbia University was the first school to have its funding suspended in early March, to the tune of $400 million. The campus was an epicenter of unrest during anti-Israel protests last year. The University of Pennsylvania, Trump’s alma mater, is losing about $175 million in federal funding over a biological male swimmer who previously competed on the women’s team. The school still hasn’t changed its policy on transgender athletes. $210 million in research grants to Princeton University were halted last week over charges of anti-Semitism, and $510 million in funding to Brown University was cut for the same reason.

Harvard University currently has $9 billion in grants and contracts under review pending an investigation into its handling of anti-Semitism. Former Harvard President Larry Summers commented to the Wall Street Journal that if Harvard folds, every school will. But so far, Harvard has been threading the needle carefully. Harvard’s current president, Alan Garber, acknowledged the anti-Semitism problem on campus and warned that losing $9 billion would “halt life-saving research and imperil scientific innovation.” It’s still unclear if the school will comply with all of the new federal standards.

Christopher Eisgruber, president of Princeton, told Bloomberg News that this funding “has been fundamental to the excellence of American research universities, and it has contributed tremendously to the prosperity, health and security of our country.”  On Sunday, Eisgruber told NPR that the funding halt was “a threat to academic freedom” and the “greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare.”

New Title IX Task Force

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Topline: Despite Trump’s executive orders against biological males in women’s sports, many trans-identifying males are still being allowed to compete against women.

The Trump administration has announced a new “special investigations” team that will probe schools violating Title IX by permitting males to play on the girl’s team.  The Education and Justice Departments announced a joint task force to protect female athletes from “the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities.” The Education Department receives a “staggering volume” of Title IX complaints. The task force will have investigators and attorneys “thoroughly” review potential violations, including males in women’s sports and males in women’s spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms.

Simultaneously, there’s been a trend of female athletes taking a stand against competing against males, and several have made headlines in recent weeks. Professional disc golfer Abigail Wilson walked off the course at a tournament in Nashville on Friday to protest the participation of a male player in the women’s division, stating, “Females must be protected in our division. This is unfair, I refuse to play.”

Stephanie Turner was disqualified from a fencing tournament last weekend at the University of Maryland after forfeiting a match against Redmond Sullivan. Sullivan used to compete as a male, but after switching to the female division, he won first place at the Connecticut Division Junior Olympic Qualifiers. Turner told Fox and Friends: “Women’s sports are designed to demonstrate female athletic excellence and that gets lost when there are men in the tournament.”

A UN report found last year that “over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals [to men] in 29 different sports.”

Last week, the Department of Agriculture paused federal funding to Maine’s athletic programs following Democratic Governor Janet Mills’ refusal to comply with President Trump’s executive order on Title IX. On Monday, Maine’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the funding cut. It’s the first such suit over a Title IX dispute and will likely not be the last.