Monday morning news: April 7, 2025

Severe weather » Severe storms are battering parts of the South and Midwest pushing rivers over their banks and into roadways and neighborhoods.

SOUND: [River rushing]

Two normally calm creeks heard there, swelling and merging to form a rushing river in southern Missouri.

Torrential rains have lingered over many states, including Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama.

And Frank Pereira with the National Weather Service says:

PEREIRA:  Those impacts are actually, are unfortunately gonna continue here for the next several days. As you know, all that water that has fallen continues to fill or flow into the, into the rivers.

From Texas to Ohio on Sunday cities deployed sandbags to protect homes and businesses.

Storms and flooding have killed at least 18 people in recent days.

Trump-Netanyahu meeting » Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington this morning ahead of a meeting with President Trump.

And this time, tariffs may top the agenda when the two leaders sit down in the Oval Office.

The president imposed a 17% tariff on Israeli imports, even though Israel had already canceled all tariffs on U.S. products last week.

NETANYAHU: [Speaking Hebrew]

The prime minister said he’s the first leader to meet with Trump on this issue since the president’s announcement. He added, “I think it shows the personal connection between our countries that is so essential in this time.”

Trump and Netanyahu will also discuss Israel’s war against Hamas and efforts to free hostages in Gaza.

Tariffs » And the prime minister certainly is not the only world leader anxious to talk tariffs with President Trump. More than 50 countries have reached out to the White House to begin trade talks.

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville said Sunday:

TUBERVILLE:  He's a businessman. We've, he's the first president that's really stood up and say, enough, enough of other countries ripping us off.

And Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says the president is doing what needs to be done.

LUTNICK:  The president needs to reset global trade. Everybody has a trade surplus and we have a trade deficit. We are paying away our future and our lives.

The White House says that means striking fairer trade deals and rebuilding America’s manufacturing capacity.

But Republican Sen. James Lankford says the president has another purpose, even if he’s not saying so publicly. Lankford said of China:

LANKFORD:  When you look at the inside working of their economy, they're very, very dependent on exports. Uh, if they don't have large quantities of exports, their, their economy doesn't work at all. So this is a direct challenge to them to say, we're gonna try to push more manufacturing in the United States to bring jobs here.

Tariffs criticism » But Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell argues that the tariffs will effectively be a tax increase on American consumers.

CANTWELL:  We're hearing from a big segment of the economy. The consumer spending is a big part of GDP, and they're worried.

Some Republicans have also expressed reservations about the president’s heavy weiling trade tariffs.

GOP Congressman Don Bacon:

BACON:  It's time that Congress restores its authorities here and the Constitution is clear. The House and the Senate, Congress has the power of tariffs and taxes. Mm-hmm. And we gave some of that power to the executive branch. And I think in hindsight, that was a mistake.

He is joining a bipartisan group of lawmakers pushing legislation that would state that Congress must sign off on all new tariffs.

Bondi on wrongly deported migrant » Attorney General Pam Bondi is criticizing a judge’s order to bring a deportedl immigrant back to the United States.

That order came after the government said it mistakenly deported a migrant from El Salvado.

BONDI:  ICE has testified, members of ICE, that he is an MS13 gang member, and the defense, his lawyers have argued, well, he should be here because he was studying to be an electrician.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. illegally in 2011 and asked for asylum citing concerns of becoming a victim of gang violence in El Salvador. His request was denied. Nevertheless, an immigration judge granted him protection from deportation five years ago.

TikTok reprieve »  President Trump tossed another lifeline to TikTok over the weekend. He pushed the deadline back once more for its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the social app.

The company will get another 75 days to find a buyer outside of China to avoid a total ban in the United States.

That comes after President Trump told reporters last week:

TRUMP: We’re very close to a deal with a very good group of people.

That deal would have transferred TikTok’s US operations to American ownership. But the Chinese government slammed the brakes on that agreement after President Trump’s tariffs announcement.

If a deal does not come together, TikTok, under a law passed last year, would be banned over national security concerns.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Legal Docket, a case about Planned Parenthood funding. Plus, it was a rocky week on Wall Street… David Bahnsen is standing by to talk about it during the Monday Moneybeat.

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