On August 1, 2025, President Trump was scheduled to reimpose so-called "reciprocal" tariffs on nearly every country in the world.

The tariffs were repeatedly unveiled, delayed, and updated by the administration over several months following their initial announcement on April 1, which the administration dubbed "Liberation Day." In fact, some of the scheduled tariffs were again delayed at the last minute by Trump, taking effect for certain countries and industrial sectors on August 7.

The United States Court of International Trade ruled on May 28 that Trump exceeded his authority by imposing his global tariff regime, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on August 29 that Trump lacked authority to impose the tariffs. The administration’s tariff regime remains an open legal question, with the case awaiting a ruling from the Supreme Court.

We examined the shows Bloomberg Surveillance, Squawk Box, and Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, looking at their coverage of the tariffs’ economic ramifications and their questionable legality from August 1 through 31.

Both in terms of the number of segments on the subject and total time spent in qualifying discussions, Bloomberg Surveillance accounted for more than half of the combined economic commentary from the three business networks' influential morning news programs during the time period.

Bloomberg Surveillance aired 229 qualifying segments, accounting for 7 hours and 14 minutes of total coverage. CNBC’s Squawk Box aired 91 qualifying segments, accounting for 4 hours and 5 minutes of coverage. And Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria aired 69 qualifying segments, accounting for 3 hours and 1 minute of coverage.

Bloomberg Surveillance focused in particular on the likely inflationary effects of tariff implementation as well as their dubious legality.

Surveillance offered more segments (48 segments, or 21% of the network’s qualifying segments) discussing how the tariffs could increase prices or create inflationary pressures in the overall economy than CNBC (23 segments, or 25%) and Fox Business (12 segments, or 17%) combined.

Surveillance was also overwhelmingly responsible for discussions of the dubious legality of the tariffs themselves, offering 21 segments on the topic (9% of the network’s qualifying segments) compared to just 2 segments (2%) from Squawk Box and a single segment (1%) from Mornings with Maria.

Squawk Box discussed stock market declines related to tariff policies in 8 segments (9% of coverage), versus 12 segments (5%) from Surveillance, and 3 segments (4%) from Mornings with Maria. While Surveillance had more segments on the topic overall, Squawk Box spent proportionally more of its coverage than the other networks discussing the effect of tariffs on financial markets. It also spent a slightly higher proportion of its coverage than Surveillance informing viewers that the policies constituted a form of taxation paid by American consumers and businesses. Both Squawk Box and Surveillance mentioned tariffs as a form of taxation in 5 qualifying segments, representing 5% and 2% of the networks’ coverage, respectively.

Mornings with Maria focused on the revenue generated by the new tariff regime more frequently than its competition did, with 18 such discussions, accounting for 26% of the show’s qualifying segments, compared to 17 discussions from Surveillance (7%) and 9 (10%) from Squawk Box.

Though the show frequently hyped the revenue generated by tariffs, our survey found no instances of Mornings with Maria directly informing viewers that tariffs are taxes and that this tariff revenue was therefore being generated by increased taxes on American consumers and businesses. Mornings with Maria was far more likely to cheer the president’s actions in its coverage of Trump's tariff policies than other networks, with 14 such segments (20% of qualifying coverage) compared to just 3 such segments (3%) from Squawk Box and 0 from Surveillance.

Media Matters searched transcripts in the Kinetiq video database for all original weekday episodes of Fox Business’ Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, CNBC’s Squawk Box, and Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Surveillance for either of the terms “External Revenue Service” or “ERS” or any variations of any of the terms “tariff,” “import,” or “export” from August 1, 2025, when the first of President Donald Trump’s previously paused “Liberation Day” tariffs took effect, through August 31, 2025.

We counted segments, which we defined as instances when Trump's tariffs were the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the tariffs. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the tariffs with one another.

We did not count mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the tariffs without another speaker engaging with the comment, or teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the tariffs scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We then reviewed the identified segments for whether any speaker mentioned that the tariffs would likely increase prices for consumer goods, would likely increase the rate of inflation, would likely contribute to declining stock market value, or are a tax paid by American importers and consumers; framed the tariffs positively, such as by declaring victory for Trump, suggesting the tariffs are proof of Trump's business acumen, or suggesting the tariffs will lead to increased American jobs, exports, economic growth, or investment; mentioned the alleged revenue generated from the tariffs; or mentioned the legality of Trump's unilateral imposition of the tariffs.