The Return of 'TACO': President Trump Is Giving Me Whiplash (Bloomberg Opinion - Jessica Karl)

As much as I’d love to tell you that I am “monitoring the situation,” I do not have the mental fortitude to keep up with a president who can embark on an impromptu tour of Elvis Presley’s mansion hours after saying “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out” if talks with Iran sour, Jessica Karl writes in a Bloomberg opinion piece. 

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I say talks “with Iran,” because it’s unclear who President Trump’s administration is actually talking to. Iran’s Foreign Ministry claims there’s no dialogue between Tehran and Washington, but the US asserts that negotiations took place with a “top person” in Iran.

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I’m sure you can imagine how difficult it is to write a newsletter when this much can happen in the span of 39 minutes, Jessica Karl writes:

Market Fallout from War

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Trump’s Wild, 5-Minute Rally Sends Clear Message to Wall Street (Bloomberg)

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Just moments after Donald Trump backed down from his threat to bomb Iran’s energy infrastructure in a Truth Social post at 7:05 a.m., oil prices plunged over 13%, Treasury yields tumbled and traders signaled that US stocks would surge at the opening bell.

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It almost didn’t matter that less than an hour later Iran contradicted Trump’s claim that negotiations were underway. On Wall Street, the message was clear: Trump, at least, is eager to end a war that has sent the global economy careening toward a crisis since he started it a little over three weeks ago.

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The president’s move set off a wild, five-minute rally that punctuated the most volatile trading day on Wall Street since the US-Israeli war on Iran began. It also echoed the sharp reversals that traders endured last April, when Trump first pushed worldwide financial markets to the brink with his punitive, America-versus-the-world trade war before backpedaling.

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After US markets opened on Monday, the S&P 500 jumped 2.2%, the biggest rally since May. Two-year Treasury yields at one point tumbled 0.22 percentage points from their highs to a low of 3.79%. Brent crude dropped below $100 a barrel, the dollar fell, and European stock and bond markets rebounded sharply from losses to end the day higher.

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Yet beneath it all lurked doubts that Trump will be able to end the war as easily as he began it. And as that sentiment took hold, the early gains faded across markets — underscoring the limits of his ability to jawbone investors who are bracing for the potential of prolonged instability in the Middle East.

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Eyebrows Raised: Volume in Stock and Oil Futures Surged Minutes Before Trump’s Market-Turning Post (CNBC)

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Economic Impact: Shockwave of War Is Rippling Through the Global Economy (Bloomberg)
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The global economy’s first collective health check since war broke out in the Middle East will arrive today in the form of business surveys from the US to the euro zone.
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Every purchasing managers' index for which Bloomberg collects estimates is anticipated to show a decline when initial numbers for March are released today, according to the median forecast of economists. 
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Their outlooks point to a synchronized weakening across both manufacturing and services. Such results will offer an initial glimpse of the cumulative economic damage already racked up, three weeks after the US and Israel attacked Iran.

The list of initial index readings scheduled for today ranges from Australia, Japan and India to the euro zone, the UK and the US.

US Public Health Alarm

Inside the Turmoil at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s C.D.C. (New York Times)

RFK Jr. entered the Department of Health and Human Services promising to “free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture” and to restore what he called the C.D.C.’s “core mission,” but a New York Times report based on interviews with 43 current and former C.D.C. employees portrays something far different: an agency being hollowed out by ideology and political control.

The employees told the Times that under Kennedy, scientists have been sidelined, political appointees have gained outsized influence, and a vital public-health institution has been remade in ways that have left Americans increasingly “more vulnerable.”

Former violence-prevention leader Tom Simon said the broader effect of Kennedy’s changes was not reform but reversal, with established prevention work losing ground almost immediately: “You start to see very quickly that — wow, we are not just losing momentum; we are going backward.”

Nowhere was that clearer than in Kennedy’s handling of vaccines, where the Times reports that he fired all 17 voting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them largely with people more aligned with his views, accelerating fears that immunization policy was being bent to fit his long-running anti-vaccine agenda.

Former immunization leader Demetre C. Daskalakis said those decisions were not driven by evidence or normal scientific procedure but by ideology, describing one vaccine rollback this way: “They didn’t look at the data. They just decided, based on vibes, that this vaccine shouldn’t be given to young children.”

Taken together, the accounts in the article depict a C.D.C. under Kennedy not as a stronger scientific agency, but as one in which expertise is being pushed aside in service of politics, misinformation, and a deeply dangerous anti-vaccine project.

What I'm Reading

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Investigation Findings: Audio Suggests Confusion Before Deadly LaGuardia Crash (New York Times)
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Air traffic controllers at New York’s LaGuardia Airport may have been distracted at the time of a runway collision that killed two people on Sunday night, according to a recording of audio from the air traffic tower that has been reviewed by The New York Times.
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Investigators were working on Monday to determine how the Air Canada jet and Port Authority fire truck collided. The jet was landing and the fire truck had been responding to a separate incident on another plane.

Miracle Survival: Flight Attendant Survives Being Ejected from Air Canada Plane in Fatal Crash (People)

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Price of Denial: Trump Administration to Pay $1 Billion to Energy Giant to Cancel Wind Farms (New York Times)

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The Trump administration will pay the French energy giant TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion to abandon its plans to build wind farms off the East Coast.

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Tragedy in London: Jewish Charity Ambulances Set on Fire and UK Police Probe It as an Antisemitic Attack (Washington Post)

Four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity were set on fire early Monday in London in what British police are investigating as an antisemitic hate crime. Detectives were working to determine whether a claim of responsibility from a group with alleged links to Iran was authentic.
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Though it has not been classified as a terrorist incident, counterterror officers have been put in charge of the investigation. No one was injured in the nighttime attack, which shattered windows in nearby homes and left the vehicles as charred shells.
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Religious and political leaders condemned what Prime Minister Keir Starmer called a “horrific” antisemitic attack.

The Future of France: Emmanuel Grégoire, a Socialist Long Involved in Local Politics, Becomes Paris’ New Mayor (Associated Press)

Emmanuel Grégoire, a Socialist little known to the French public, was elected mayor of Paris in a runoff vote Sunday, succeeding fellow party member Anne Hidalgo.

The race for Paris mayor was part of France’s second round of municipal elections. Sunday’s vote showed clear gains for the traditional left and right, and one major win for the far right in the French Riviera city of Nice.

Italy Votes No: Italians Reject Judicial Overhaul, Undermining Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (New York Times)

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Italians have rejected a government plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary, according to results published on Monday, dealing the first major jolt to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s authority since her election three years ago.
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Roughly 54% of voters, or more than 14 million people, opposed the government’s proposals in a tightly fought referendum held on Sunday and Monday — spurning plans to change how judges and prosecutors are supervised.

Un-Meeting the Press: Pentagon, After Court Loss, Will Bar Media Offices From Building (Bloomberg)

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Relief Falls Short: ICE Has Arrived at US Airports. Many Lines Are Still Long. (New York Times)

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Red vs. Blue Aid: It's Three Times Harder for Blue States to Get Disaster Funding Under Trump (Politico)
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President Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Politico reports. 
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He approved just 23% of disaster funding requests from states with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators since returning to office 14 months ago. For states with a Republican governor and two Republican senators, it’s the opposite — Trump has approved 89% of their requests.

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🔊 New Episode Alert: Today's Daily Read Podcast just dropped, featuring an AI-powered breakdown of today’s biggest headlines. We go beyond the scroll with key takeaways, smart context, and the “why it matters” behind each story—so you can stay ahead in less time. Listen now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Rivals Sync Up: Samsung Phones Can Now Share With iPhones Using Apple’s AirDrop Protocol (Bloomberg)

Samsung's latest smartphones can share photos, videos and other files with iPhone owners using Apple Inc.’s AirDrop, marking a new level of compatibility between the industry rivals that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

This will allow owners of the Galaxy S26, S26+ and S26 Ultra to send files to iPhones, iPads and Macs using the built-in Quick Share feature. Users can enable AirDrop sharing by toggling on a new “Share with Apple devices” option in the settings menu.

Not Your Average Ride: Luxury Ride-Hailing App Wheely Expands to NYC, Targeting Elites (Bloomberg)

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Today in Prediction Markets: Polymarket Implements New Insider Trading Rules After Scrutiny (Bloomberg)

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College Basketball Heats Up: Tournament Advances to Sweet 16 as Brackets For a Cause Raises the Stakes (Bloomberg)

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March Madness is hitting its stride, with both the men’s and women’s tournaments advancing this week into the Sweet 16 as the field narrows and the stakes rise.

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Off the court, Bloomberg’s Brackets for a Cause is bringing a different kind of competition into focus. Launched over a decade ago by Peter Grauer, Bloomberg's annual challenge brings together leaders from business and finance to make their picks while supporting charitable causes—raising more than $7 million to date.

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Readers can follow along with an interactive graphic tracking participants’ performance round-by-round as the tournaments push toward the Final Fours in Indianapolis and Phoenix. See who’s climbing the leaderboard: 

For the men’s bracket, Ryan Tolkin, CEO and CIO of Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, is at the top of the leaderboard, followed by Jamie Dinan, chairman and CEO of York Capital Management; John Hess, CEO of Hess; Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel; Jeff Smith, managing member, CEO and CIO of Starboard Value; George Walker, chairman and CEO of Neuberger Berman; Cliff Asness, founding principal and CIO of AQR Capital Management; Jeffrey Talpins, founder and CEO of Element Capital Management; Mike Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP; and Peter Zaffino, chairman and CEO of AIG.

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For the women’s bracket, Cliff Asness, founding principal and CIO of AQR Capital Management, and David Solomon, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, are tied atop the leaderboard, followed by Bill Ford, chairman and CEO of General Atlantic; Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel; Paul J. Taubman, chairman and CEO of PJT Partners; Debra Cafaro, chairman and CEO of Ventas; Peter Grauer, former chairman of Bloomberg; Jeff Perlman, CEO of Warburg Pincus; Dina Powell McCormick, Meta president and vice chairman; and David Cordani, chairman, president and CEO of Cigna Group.

Dining Today: The Best Restaurants to Book in Hong Kong Right Now (Bloomberg - Kate Krader)

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Highlights include a value restaurant specializing in premium Hanwoo beef and a new yakitori counter atop a skyscraper.

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Lately, a newfound energy has crept into the city’s food and drinks scene, buoyed by a surge in tourism, a rebound in economic growth and attention from international awards platforms. In October, the dynamic Italian drinking spot Bar Leone was named No. 1 on the World’s Best Bar list.

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Bloomberg's Kate Krader also spotlights a place that’s popular among the Bloomberg community on DINE on the terminal: Star Chef Simon Rogan's Roganic, which is now in its new home inside Lee Garden One with a fresh look and the same farm-to-table, zero-waste ethos.

Best of Late Night

On when the war with Iran might end — and reports that Trump said it would conclude when he “feels it in his bones”:

“That’s reassuring. Can’t wait until Trump goes on social media and posts, ‘feeling cute, might attack Sweden later.’”
-- Jimmy Fallon

“And the answer is he doesn’t know when this war is going to be over. The only war Trump had an  exit plan for was Vietnam.”
-- Jimmy Kimmel

"Oh, now you want NATO’s help? I can’t believe how quickly we went from ‘We have the greatest military in the history of the world’ to ‘Help us, Portugal. You’re our only hope!”
-- Seth Meyers 
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And another clip from Saturday Night Live UK: David Attenborough, played by George Fouracres, hosts a dinner party in “The Last Supper” fashion, featuring a handful of history's greatest Brits. Click the photo below to watch. 
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