“White House aides have drafted a proposal to impose tariffs of around 20 percent on most imports to the United States, as President Donald Trump pushes for the most aggressive overhaul of the global economic system in decades,” the Washington Post reports.

“If implemented, the plan is likely to send shock waves through the stock market and global economy. Assuming that permanent tariffs took effect in the current quarter and triggered robust retaliation by U.S. trading partners, the economy would almost immediately tumble into a recession that would last for more than a year, sending the jobless rate above 7 percent, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s, who described the results as a worst-case scenario.”

New York Times: “Federal workers have been returning to offices in stages since President Trump issued an order to do so right after being sworn in. He has described the requirement as a way to ensure that workers are actually doing their jobs while believing that it could have the added benefit of leading more government employees to quit.”

“For those who have gone back, the process has been marred by a lack of planning and coordination by the administration, leading to confusion, plummeting morale and more inefficiency.”

“They have described the logistical challenges, cramped conditions and shortages of basic supplies that come with such a blunt policy change for the nearly one million employees who had been working in a hybrid or entirely remote position when Mr. Trump returned to the Oval Office.”

“President Donald Trump is struggling to message a scattered economic agenda, but his Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, is taking the blame,” Politico reports.

“White House and administration officials, as well as Trump’s outside allies, are growing increasingly frustrated with Lutnick, privately complaining about the close proximity he has to the president and the counsel he is giving him on economic issues.”

“It’s an exasperation compounded by recent television appearances, they say, that suggest a lack of understanding of even the basics about how tariffs and the economy work. He has also at multiple points over the last week gotten out in front of the president on announcements and contradicted his messaging.”

“President Trump said that he had settled on a plan for his latest batch of tariffs expected this week but didn’t reveal what he had decided, after his economic team struggled to coalesce around a remade U.S. trade strategy,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The debate behind closed doors highlighted the conflicting priorities of the president. The biggest one: He wants to both raise revenue with tariffs and use them as leverage to get other nations to lower their own duties, or make other policy changes. But if tariffs are subject to negotiation, and could be lowered over time, that would raise doubts about how much revenue could ultimately be expected from their imposition.”

Jonathan Martin: “There’s little that congressional Republicans and their counterparts in state capitals can do about Trump and his insistence on pushing inflation-spiking tariffs. He grips his party like no modern president, and they must accommodate every impulse.”

“However, Musk has turbocharged the backlash to Trump and accelerated the revival of demoralized Democrats and independents appalled by the billionaire’s cavalier attempt to slash the federal government. If they don’t push the White House to cut Musk loose, Republicans are tempting a replay of 2017 and 2018, when Democrats scored gains in Trump’s first term, but with twin targets for the left this time.”

Playbook: “The world’s richest man polls appallingly, and his comments about benefits like Social Security have given Dems an easy message to sell.”