Signs of Weakness
The signals may be subtle, but resistance to lawlessness is rising and meeting with success.
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Bond Market 1, Trump 0
Even though major U.S. stock market indexes fell between 9-12% over two days last week, erasing “a combined $6.6 trillion in value,” [1] and representing “the largest two-day wipeout of shareholder value on record,” [2] President Trump kept his tariffs in place at the start of this week, doubling down, saying “markets are going to boom.” [3]
But, as CBS reported: [4]
…by Wednesday, a collective thumb’s down to the tariffs by bond investors had given Mr. Trump pause.
With U.S. and global financial market tumbling, he abruptly suspended his administration’s “reciprocal tariffs” on dozens of other countries for 90 days, acknowledging that the bond market was “getting a little queasy.”
When Trump announced a 90-day pause on applying his tariffs, the stock market rallied. From CNBC reporting: [5]
The S&P 500 skyrocketed 9.52% in a kneejerk reaction to Trump’s announcement to put a 90-day pause on some of the lofty ‘reciprocal’ tariffs. The one-day gain ranks as the third biggest since World War II for the main stock market benchmark...”
However, by the end of the week, bond markets maintained their overall losses. From NBC News reporting: [6]
The premier U.S. government bond, the 10-year Treasury note, saw its yield surge above 4.5% this week.
Bond prices and yields are inversely correlated, so rising yields signal lower appetite for the bonds. The 10-year Treasury yield ended the week more than 12% higher, while the S&P 500 closed out a week of volatile trading up 5.7%, rebounding late Friday after a series of brutal losses.
The bond market reaction reflects what investors perceive as trust or risk in the United States government and its ability to pay its debts. Investors are willing to purchase U.S. Treasury securities because investors have faith that the United States will reliably pay back the debt with interest. When that trust erodes, investors will demand higher interest to make the same investments.
When bond yields rose sharply this week, it meant that investors saw higher risk in existing U.S. Treasury securities unless they could get a greater return for their investment. If you want to go deeper on these connections between Trump’s tariffs, the bond market, and Trump’s recent pullback, there is a good explainer article from the Guardian here. [7]
Stephanie Ruhle, host of “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle,” highlighted what she saw as the danger from this global tariff strategy. Before joining Bloomberg Television and then MSNBC, Ruhle spent 14 years in finance, in hedge fund and credit derivatives sales and ended her financial career as a managing director in Global Markets Senior Relationship Management at Deutsche Bank.
“But what scares me is that every investor I speak with, even those who backed the president, gives me the same message: If the bond market continues to drop, that will effectively bankrupt the country. And bankruptcy is something Trump knows a lot about.” [8]
Supreme Rebuke
While the markets stood up to Trump’s actions on the tariff front, the nation’s highest court also pushed back on his deportations.
Supreme Court ruled unanimously, 9-0, rejecting the Trump Administration argument that they “could illegally deport innocent migrants in the Abrego Garcia case. That was the case of the Maryland dad who was wrongly deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. The court unanimously ruled that the Trump administration must ‘facilitate’ his return.” [9]
Here’s the official background on the case, quoting from the most recent 9-0 Supreme Court order: [10]
On March 15, 2025, the United States removed Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from the United States to El Salvador, where he is currently detained in the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT). The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal. The United States represents that the removal to El Salvador was the result of an “administrative error.” The United States alleges, however, that Abrego Garcia has been found to be a member of the gang MS–13, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and that his return to the United States would pose a threat to the public. Abrego Garcia responds that he is not a member of MS–13, and that he has lived safely in the United States with his family for a decade and has never been charged with a crime.
On Friday, April 4, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland entered an order directing the Government to “facilitate and effectuate the return of [Abrego Garcia] to the United States by no later than 11:59 PM on Monday, April 7.”
One important aside: The Supreme Court recognized that “[t]he United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal.” The reason the courts know this is because career Department of Justice prosecutor, Erez Reuveni, who had been with the department for almost 15 years and was recently promoted by the Trump administration as acting deputy director of the Office of Immigration Litigation, “and other department officials on the case had acknowledged Abrego Garcia was sent to the prison due to an ‘administrative error’.” [11]
However, acknowledging that error was enough for the Justice Department to suspend Reuveni, with Attorney General Pam Bondi saying he did not act zealously in fighting the suit. [12]
In the Supreme Court’s unanimous order, Justice Sonya Sotomayor added a statement of clarification, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, highlighting the potential perils of the Administration’s position on the rule of law: [13]
Instead of hastening to correct its egregious error, the Government dismissed it as an “oversight”... The Government now requests an order from this Court permitting it to leave Abrego Garcia, a husband and father without a criminal record, in a Salvadoran prison for no reason recognized by the law. The only argument the Government offers in support of its request, that United States courts cannot grant relief once a deportee crosses the border, is plainly wrong…The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene… [emphasis added] That view refutes itself.
Norm Eisen of The Contrarian, welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision, but noted that there are still “some SCOTUS compromising and baby-splitting involved. A lot, in fact.” [14]
The Supreme Court upheld the District Court’s order that the Trump Administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, but required the District Court to clarify what is meant by “effectuat[ing]” the return.
The day after the Supreme Court’s ruling, District Court Judge Paula Xinis held a hearing to determine the status of Abrego Garcia. She asked, for example:
“Where is Abrego Garcia right now?” and “What steps had Defendants taken to facilitate his return while the Court’s initial order on injunctive relief was in effect…?” [15]
Judge Xinis found that “[f]or the reasons discussed during today’s status conference, the Court finds that the [representatives of the Trump Administration] have failed to comply with this Court’s Order” and “Defendants made no meaningful effort to comply.” [16]
In fact, when questioned by the Court, “Defendants’ counsel responded that he could not answer these questions, and at times suggested that Defendants had withheld such information from him. As a result, counsel could not confirm, and thus did not advance any evidence, that Defendants had done anything to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.” [17]
Judge Xinis ordered daily filings of “a declaration made by an individual with personal knowledge as to any information regarding: (1) the current physical location and custodial status of Abrego Garcia; (2) what steps, if any, Defendants have taken to facilitate his immediate return to the United States; (3) what additional steps Defendants will take, and when, to facilitate his return.” [18]
From the latest declaration to the District Court from Michael G. Kozak, United States Department of State Senior Bureau Official in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, “based on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego Garcia is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.” [19]
The declaration did not, however, provide any information on “what steps… have [been] taken to facilitate his immediate return to the United States [or] what additional steps [] will [be] take[n], and when, to facilitate his return.” [20]
A Little History
Marking the Semiquincentennial of American Independence 250 years ago
April 18, 1775 – Paul Revere’s Ride
In April 1775, after discovering that the British planned to march inland to capture Patriot leaders, weapons, and supplies, Revere and his cohorts sprang into action to spread a warning. On the night of April 18, Robert Newman put lantern signals in Boston’s North Church, while Revere and William Dawes rode to Lexington and Concord. Though it soon become known as Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride, both men rode that night, covering different routes. The war for American Independence began the next morning. [21]
April 19, 1775 – The Battle of Lexington and Concord
In this first battle of the American Revolution, Massachusetts colonists defied British authority, outnumbered and outfought the Redcoats, and embarked on a lengthy war to earn their independence. [22]
Narratives
The book I’m reading or movie I’m watching
“Who’s Your Founding Father?” by David Fleming, senior writer at ESPN
This is an interesting book, and one that provides a historical view from the author’s specific quest. However, the authenticity of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, a document purported to have been published on May 20, 1775, and declared American independence over a full year before the official Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress, has been disputed by historians.
For example, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Allan Nevins wrote in 1938: “Legends often become a point of faith. At one time the State of North Carolina made it compulsory [emphasis included] for the public schools to teach that Mecklenburg County had adopted a Declaration of Independence on May 20, 1776 [sic] - to teach what had been clearly demonstrated an untruth.” [23]
As a contextual note, the author David Fleming lives in North Carolina, and the Mecklenburg Declaration continues to serve as a source of pride for North Carolinians; the state lists “First in Freedom” and the Mecklenburg Declaration date of May 20, 1775, on their license plates. [24]
From the book jacket: [25]
An epic dive into our country’s history to discover the first, true Declaration of Independence, a centuries-old secret document that might just unravel the origin story of America and reveal the intellectual crime of the millennia.
In 1819, John Adams came across a stunning story in his hometown Essex Register that he described to his political frenemy Thomas Jefferson as “one of the greatest curiosities and one of the deepest mysteries that ever occurred to me…entitled the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. The genuine sense of America at that moment was never so well expressed before, nor since.” The story claimed that a full 14 months before Jefferson crafted his own Declaration of Independence, a misfit band of zealous Scots-Irish patriots, whiskey-loving Princeton scholars and a fanatical frontier preacher in a remote corner of North Carolina had become the first Americans to formally declare themselves “free and independent” from England.
Composed during a clandestine all-night session inside the Charlotte courthouse, the Mecklenburg Declaration, aka the MecDec, was signed on May 20, 1775 - a date that’s still featured on the state flag of North Carolina. About a year later, in 1776, Jefferson is believed to have plagiarized the MecDec while composing his own, slightly more famous Declaration, and then covered the whole thing up. Which is why Adams always insisted the MecDec needed to be “thoroughly investigated” and “more universally made known to the present and future generation.”
With Who’s Your Founding Father?, David Fleming picks up where Adams left off, leaving no archive, no cemetery, no bizarre clue or wild character unexplored while traveling the globe to bring to life one of the most fantastic, important - and controversial - stories in American history.
GIF Game
Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games
Notes and Sources
[1] David Goldman and John Towfighi, “Dow plunges 2,200 points as tariff tumult rocks markets,” CNN, April 4, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/04/investing/stock-market-dow-tariffs/index.html
[2] Joseph Adinolfi, “U.S. stocks see biggest 2-day wipeout in history as market loses $11 trillion since Inauguration Day,” Morningstar, April 4, 2025, https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20250404446/us-stocks-see-biggest-2-day-wipeout-in-history-as-market-loses-11-trillion-since-inauguration-day
[3] Aimee Picchi, “Why did Trump pause the tariffs? The bond market rebelled — here's what that means,” CBS News, April 10, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-tariff-pause-bond-market-bond-yield-treasury-bill/
[4] Ibid.
[5] Yun Li, “Stock market posts third biggest gain in post-WWII history on Trump’s tariff about-face,” CNBC, April 9, 2025, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/09/stock-market-posts-third-biggest-gain-in-post-wwii-history-on-trumps-tariff-about-face.html
[6] J.J. McCorvey, Steve Kopack, and Charles Herman, “Bond market moves raise fears of growing bets against America,” NBC News, April 12, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/bond-market-moves-raise-fears-growing-bets-america-rcna200936
[7] Phillip Inman, “What are bonds and why have they spooked Donald Trump?,” The Guardian, April 11, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/11/what-are-bonds-and-why-have-they-spooked-donald-trump
[8] Stephanie Ruhle, “What scares me most about Trump’s tariff whiplash,” MSNBC, April 11, 2025, https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-tariffs-scares-crisis-in-confidence-rcna200847
[9] Norman Eisen, “The Beginning of the End of Trump,” The Contrarian, April 12, 2025, https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-trump
[10] Noem v. Abrego Garcia, 24A949, 604 U.S. _____ (2025), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf
[11] Rebecca Beitsch, “DOJ suspends lawyer for failing to ‘vigorously’ argue case of mistakenly deported man,” The Hill, April 7, 2025, https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5235778-doj-suspends-lawyer-deportation-case/
[12] Ibid.
[13] Noem v. Abrego Garcia, 24A949, 604 U.S. _____ (2025)
[14] Norman Eisen, “The Beginning of the End of Trump”
[15] Abrego Garcia v. Noem, 8:25-cv-00951, (D. Maryland Apr 11, 2025) ECF No. 61, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.61.0_1.pdf
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Abrego Garcia v. Noem, 8:25-cv-00951, (D. Maryland Apr 12, 2025) ECF No. 63, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.63.0_1.pdf
[20] Noem v. Abrego Garcia, 24A949, 604 U.S. _____ (2025)
[21] “Paul Revere,” American Battlefield Trust, retrieved April 12, 2025, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/paul-revere
[22] “Lexington and Concord,” American Battlefield Trust, retrieved April 12, 2025, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/lexington-and-concord
[23] Allan Nevins, Gateway to History, D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., New York, 1938, p 119. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.176338/page/n127/mode/2up
[24] “‘First in Freedom’ License Plate,” The Official North Carolina DMV Website, retrieved April 12, 2025, https://www.ncdot.gov/dmv/title-registration/license-plates/Pages/first-freedom-plate.aspx
[25] David Fleming, Who's Your Founding Father?: One Man’s Epic Quest to Uncover the First, True Declaration of Independence, Hachette Books, 2023, https://www.amazon.com/dp/0306828774
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