STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Early this morning at 4:59 Eastern time, Elon Musk posted on X. The presidential adviser was up as early as us at MORNING EDITION. Good morning, Elon. And he shared a video of the free market economist Milton Friedman explaining how the parts of the pencil in his hand came from all over the world. That is Musk's latest statement in favor of free trade as his boss imposes tariffs and stock markets plunge. Last night, President Trump said he wouldn't lose $1 trillion for, quote, "pencils from China." Battle of the pencils. Musk and Trump were the targets of protest over the weekend.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Donald Trump has got to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho.
INSKEEP: The theme for protesters in all 50 states was hands off. And they focused on the firing of federal workers, immigration raids and the market drop - and more. NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro is covering all this. Domenico, good morning.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hey, good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What have you seen?
MONTANARO: Well, I was down at the National Mall this weekend here in Washington, and I have to say there were a lot of people. I mean, you had people with signs, thousands who flooded the area around the Washington Monument between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. There was clearly a lot of frustration, pent up energy against the administration, a lot of passion, a lot of resilience. And a lot of people told me it gave them a sense of feeling somewhat not alone.
INSKEEP: What did they say?
MONTANARO: All kinds of things. I mean, the government cuts they were protesting, lambasting of immigrants, gay and trans rights they were pushing for. There were warnings about fascism, there were plenty of those. One woman who was Black quietly held a sign that said you can't erase me. Overall, though, I'm not sure that this was a very representative cross section of the country. I mean, this particular crowd was overwhelmingly white. I did see some of the smartest protest signs I've ever seen, though we are in D.C., of course. One woman was holding a sign that said due process prevents administrative mistakes.
INSKEEP: Ooh.
MONTANARO: Hard to chant but clever. Another woman had a shirt on that said grab him by the midterms. And that very well may be the point here, Steve. You know, midterms are about activism and energy. And the sheer number of people who turned out to these, thousands upon thousands of people across the country, really reflects that the left may be starting to find its voice in this second Trump term after what's been, up to this point, a more muted response than eight years ago when Trump first took office.
INSKEEP: The midterms, of course, November 2026. What has the administration's response been to all this?
MONTANARO: Yeah, we're not hearing a ton of direct response about the protests. We did hear from President Trump last night on Air Force One after a weekend of playing golf in a seniors tournament, and the first thing he wanted to tell reporters was that he won. He did talk about those tariffs, which is a big reason that the protests have gained steam in the first place. He was asked about the market going down and if there's a threshold of pain that he's willing to tolerate from the markets, and here's part of what he said.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think your question is so stupid. I mean, I think it's just - well, I don't want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.
MONTANARO: You have to take medicine to fix something, he said. But for a lot of people who crossed over to vote for Trump, they were hoping that the medicine would be to bring prices down.
INSKEEP: Well, Domenico, you focus on politics. So what is the political opportunity, if any, for Democrats here?
MONTANARO: Well, you know, the first step to electoral success for any party is getting the people who should be behind you actually on your side. So that's Step 1, and the energy that we saw this weekend is a possible start for Democrats. But for it to be real, for there to be a real power shift in Washington where Democrats take control of one or both chambers next year, it's probably going to be largely because of the economy and prices. You've heard that before. That was the biggest issue in the 2024 presidential election.
And Trump was insisting Sunday night that this - these tariffs, this attempt to restructure the U.S. economy - is what he was elected for. But again, the top issue for people in this past campaign was prices. So this is a huge gamble that Trump is taking, and he has a lot that he wants to try and get through Congress - tax cuts, a whole lot of other things. And those will be real tests for whether Republicans stick together. And we're 19 months away from the midterm elections.
INSKEEP: NPR's Domenico Montanaro. Thanks.
MONTANARO: You got it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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