Voters from New York to California blasted Trump at the polls on the day before the Supreme Court took a doubtful view of his tariff plan.
Reaction is still coming in, but here is the view from the Associated Press on today’s hearing: “Conservative members of the Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared skeptical of President Donald Trump’s sweeping unilateral tariffs. ...”.
It will be interesting. The U.S. Supreme Court has been willing to bow down to Trump, giving him special powers to run the government in a manner contrary to the U.S. Constitution.
That will likely come to an end — or at least be greatly reduced — we saw the lay of the land on Wednesday.
The problem for Trump is that he claims to have the right to establish ever-changing and bizarre tariffs, and the U.S. Constitution plainly says that he does not.
Where is it written that a president cannot establish tariffs to get another would-be dictator out of prison? Well, the U.S. Constitution is one place it is not written.
As expected, Thomas and Alito chose to go down with Trump, no matter how bad it makes them look. They are old. They have been paid off. They are not looking at years of humiliation. Perhaps 9 million years in purgatory, but that is another kind of time.
On the opposite end of the scale, Barrett didn’t seem willing to throw away her career and hope of self-respect just yet. She was not ready to try to make up legal theories that make sense of Trump’s complete chaos.
Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were probably also concerned about how they will look in the near future and in history.
Though it shouldn’t matter, the drubbing that Trump took in the Tuesday elections will matter. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch seemed unwilling to lie down on the tracks to try to protect Trump. If the public is rising up against their master, there is little chance that their loyalty will be rewarded. Having spent some time in fairly pricey schools, they probably are able to determine that Trump never rewards anyone for loyalty.
That leaves Roberts. He desperately hopes that history looks well on his stint as chief justice. He can’t save Trump at this point. He didn’t appear willing to try.
The court did not rule from the bench on the tariffs, but we could see which way the wind is blowing. There is little reason to give Trump a long goodbye. After all, no one has ever faulted a Justice for upholding the Constitution.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed to President Donald Trump’s scuffle with Canada after the government of Ontario ran a broadcast featuring former president Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs. Trump called off trade negotiations with Canada after the ad ran.
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch noted that the “key part” of the case is the issue of Congress’s constitutional power to enact taxes.
“The power to reach into the pockets of the American people is just different,” Gorsuch said. “And it’s been different since the founding.”
“Is it your contention that every country needed to be tariffed because of threats to the defense and industrial base? I mean — Spain? France?” Barrett asked Solicitor General Sauer.
“I could see it with some countries,” Barrett added before asking Sauer to explain why so many countries were subjected to Trump’s reciprocal tariff policy.
Gorsuch asked Sauer if the tariff powers the executive branch is claiming could be used by a president to curb climate change. Sauer said it is “very likely” it could be used to address the impacts of climate change.
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan pushed back on Sauer’s interpretation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, noting it does not refer to “raising revenue.”
“So it has a lot of verbs, it has a lot of actions that can be taken under this statute. It just doesn’t have the one you want,” she said.
