Advisory Opinions - Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump Tariffs

Episode Date: February 21, 2026

In this emergency episode, Sarah Isgur and David French break down the Supreme Court’s historic 6-3 decision striking down President Donald Trump’s tariff authority under IEEPA. The Agenda:– The 6-3 decision–Chief Justice Roberts’ straightforward opinion–Major questions doctrine explained–The Festivus Concurrence begins–The refund mess–Why this is the most important case Show Notes:–Quick Thoughts on the Tariff Decision–Supreme Court strikes down tariffs Advisory Opinions is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of our articles, members-only newsletters, and bonus podcast episodes—click here. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member by clicking here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ready? I was born ready. Welcome to advisory opinions. Emergency podcast on emergency tariffs. I'm Sarah Isger. That's David French. I don't need to tell you what we're talking about today. You already know.

NBA trade deadline. I was kidding. All right, David. Let's start at the very beginning. This was a 6-3 decision with justices Kavanaugh, Alito, and Thomas in dissent. Kavanaugh writes the principal. dissent, Justice Thomas writes, a separate dissent. We had 170 pages, though, of opinions here. The Chief Justice wrote the majority, only 21 pages, quite workmanlike, I would say. One of the shortest

opinions I think we've seen in any major case from the Supreme Court. Yes, I was, as I was reading along, and we got, it was starting to wind down. I was thinking, is this winding down on part like one of seven? No, it was winding down for the whole thing. I was shocked when I got to the end. I was like, wait, what? We're done? Yeah. But 170 pages, right? So you have the Chief Justice's opinion. You have the Gorsuch Festivist concurrence. We'll be spending a lot of time on that, as well as a concurrence from Barrett, defending herself from the Festivist's complaints, and a concurrence from justices, Kagan Sotomayor, and Jackson. So all at all, just a gazillion opinions here in this

case. But David, let me start at the very top line here from the chief justices, majority opinion, striking down the president's authority to issue tariffs under AIPA. We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article 3 of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold that Aipa does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. Maybe it didn't even need to be 21 pages. I mean, that's it, right? Yeah, I mean, the thing about the chief's opinion, it was just so darn straightforward, you know, and it was straightforward exactly on the lines that we've talked about. And I actually appreciated the way he did it because the way he did it was he said, look, this is major questions doctrine.

And this is completely consistent with three big cases from the Biden administration, the EPA case, Biden versus Nebraska, the student loan case. and then also, of course, husband of the Pod's case, National Federation of Inevenom Businesses versus OSHA, the COVID vaccine mandate, the OSHA COVID vaccine mandate. And I thought that was very, not just jurisprudentially appropriate

to put them together because they do go together. They are a match set, so to speak. I think it was also institutionally important because what the chief is doing is saying, look, same rule, two different administrations. We have the Biden administration. He overreached. He tried to use sweeping vague and ambiguous language to enact extraordinary powers. We struck that down. Here we have a Republican president. He uses extraordinary overreach. Far more extraordinary in raw terms. He was one of the interesting parts of the opinion is Justice Roberts talks about that the total financial impact of Trump's tariffs could be up to $15 trillion, whereas the Biden student loan was a very considerable, $430 billion case. This one is potentially trillions, although of course, only hundreds of billions have been collected so far only. But I thought that was very smart. It absolutely put that straight

in line with the other precedent. It put it in terms that, you know, the smart average American, if they do choose to read a Supreme Court opinion, could understand. And I think it was, you know, I was actually refreshing to read something a little bit shorter, especially when you combine that with the Gorsuch opinion, which as far as I'm concerned, Sarah, like, we could spend all of our time on that because it's fascinating on 19 different axes. Yes. I'm trying to think if there's anything else important we need to get to before we get to Gorsuch, because as you say, when we talk about what this case is actually about, why it's an important case, It's important because of the amount of money at stake, because of the foreign policy implications, all of that.

But really, at least on advisory opinions, this case is important because it's the most important case on structural constitution, presidential power in decades. And it is more important than the Biden analogs that the chief mentions because of the makeup of the court. We needed to see them apply it to a president who had been elected as a president. Republican. And so now here we are. To quote a few more things on major questions doctrine, which, as you say, is the basis for the chief's decision here, although the three liberal justices do not join all of that portion of the opinion. He says, and if Congress were to relinquish that weapon, the power to tariff, to another branch, a reasonable interpreter would expect it to do so clearly. The president asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally,

imposed tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it. Major questions doctrine has been defined different ways, criticized different ways, it didn't exist until Justice Kavanaugh mentioned it a few years ago. This is just a get-out-of-text-free card, as Justice Kagan called it one time. this feels a little like the federalism thing that we talked about with nationalizing elections. Like suddenly people realize why we might want to reign in presidential power. It's not that we don't like President Biden's policies.

It's that we don't like a president, any president, having that much power because we don't know who the next president's going to be. And so here we are, and I do wonder if we're starting. to teach that lesson. I don't know why it's suddenly occurring to people now. God knows we have flipped back and forth between parties and the presidency. And it has always seemed that the party in power, you've pointed this out. The party in power always thinks they're staying in power. The party out of power always thinks they're going to be out of power forever. Surely now, states might have an important role to play in our constitutional system. Federalism might be a good thing and not having presidents have this much power,

maybe we're there now. Are we all seeing kumbaya? We're not yet, but we might be on the way. And I would say that, you know, it's just a reality that in a big democracy like ours, there's a lag time between emerging crises, understanding of crisis, and resolution of crisis. Now, sometimes you have an emerging crisis,

you have an understanding, and you actually then just don't have a resolution. The crisis works its way through the system and damages it however it's going to damage it. But I think we're in that point where we've had the emerging crisis on a bipartisan basis. Presidents, there's been this every time Congress recedes, presidents push forward, which then causes Congress to receive more and presidents push more. And this has been happening and happening until we got to this tipping point with Trump

where it's just all push, all receding, and we have, you know, really monumental presidential power grabs. But I think what's very important about this case, it's not just a decision. It's also a civics lesson, Sarah. And the civics lesson was delivered by Justice Gorsuch. And can I read part of this and just say, listeners, if I could inject this into your veins, I would do it. I would even allow for a vaccine mandate to do it. All right. We're entering the festivist portion of this podcast.

Now, well, well, let's, let's not really the Festivus. This is the civic education and then Festivus. It was all in the tone of Festivus, even the civic education, but sure. I know which part you're reading. Yes. So here it goes. This is Justice Gorsuch. For those who think it important for the nation to impose more tariffs, I understand that today's decision will be disappointing. All I can offer them is that most major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people, including the duty to pay taxes and tariffs, are. funneled through the legislative process for a reason. Thank you, friend of the pod, Justice Gorsuch. Yes, legislating can be hard and take time, and yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises, but the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people's

elected representatives, not just that of one faction or one man. Their deliberation tempers impulse and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions, and because laws must earn such broad support to survive the legislative process, they tend to endure allowing ordinary people to plan their lives in ways that they cannot when the rules shift from day to day. In all, the legislative process helps ensure each of us has a stake and the laws that govern us and in the nation's future. Thank you. Amen, brother.

Thank you. That was so good. Okay. So I got some text messages from friends. I want to read them to you about this decision. First one. Gorsuch trying to alienate as many possible en route to advocating the perfectly correct position. So yes, he is a libertarian.

I loved that one. If you weren't going to read it, I was going to read it. That was a girl one. Here's another one. he's going out of his way to get excluded from parties. I kind of like it. So we've been wondering why the tariff decision was taking so long, especially as these tariffs were being imposed in the meantime.

And we had said that, you know, we were really expecting this decision in January. And every week that went by post-January, it was a little bit better news for the Trump administration in terms of what they were potentially going to see. Well, now we know what was going to be. going on, there was a 21-page majority opinion. I bet that thing was done in two weeks or fewer. What happened here was that Justice Gorsuch wrote a concurrence calling out every one of his other

colleagues, except the chief, by name for everything that is annoying him about their jurisprudential lack of consistency and or just disagreement with him. He can't take yes for an answer. And I have to say, I hope he felt confident that they were not going to change their votes on this case because it was harsh. It was really harsh. And as I was reading through it, I just had this vision from Seinfeld. And George Costanza's dad introducing them to Festivus, you know, the Festivus aluminum pole, the feats of strength, and especially the airing of the grievances. and it begins with him pointing his finger and yelling in that just memorable voice. I got a lot of problems with you people.

And that's what Gorsuch is doing. And Sarah, it's something. I mean, so basically it begins by saying, whatever else might be said about Congress's work in Aipa, it did not clearly surrender to the president, the sweeping tariff power he seeks to wield. He could have stopped right there. But he says, not everyone sees it this way.

Past critics of the major questions doctrine did not object to its application in this case, and they even join much of today's principal opinion. But they insist they can reach the same result by employing only routine tools of statutory interpretation. And in case we don't know who he's talking about, Post-it-1, Kagan J, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson. Okay, leaving no ambiguity. Meanwhile, one colleague who joins the principal opinion in full suggests the major questions doctrine is nothing more than routine statutory interpretation. Who might that be?

Barrett J. concurring. Still others who have joined major questions decisions of the past, dissent from today's application of the doctrine. Who's that? Kavanaugh J. joined by Thomas and Alito. Finally, seeking to sidestep the major questions doctrine altogether, one colleague submits a Congress may hand over to the president most of its powers, including tariff power without limit.

Thomas J. And then he proceeds. Wait, you didn't finish it. it, the paragraph ends with, it is an interesting turn of events. Each camp warrants a visit. Wow. Okay, so there were seven opinions in this case, over 170 pages. Almost all of them are in response to Justice Gorsuch's concurrence. You have the concurrence from Justice's Cagan, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson, basically discussing that you don't need the major questions doctrine for this case. This is just statutory interpretation. So, you know, all those times we've been hating on

major questions doctrine is not at all a lack of consistency. You do have a separate Jackson concurrence, by the way, which I forgot to mention earlier. You have Justice Barrett, who basically is just defending herself against kind of this somewhat left field unnecessary disagreement over the, you know, people's Judean front versus the Judean people's front on exactly what major questions doctrine is. You know, she was trying to distinguish between her version and Justice Gorsuch's version in that student loan debt forgiveness case. We covered it at length. And I just thought it was a very interesting distinction. And we've talked about how rare it might be for that distinction to matter. We even walked through why it could potentially matter in this

tariffs case, but that for the most part, the Venn diagram is nearly two circles on top of each other. And here, they're both in the majority, both signing on to the full 21 pages of the chief's opinion. And yet, we're going to have dueling concurrences where they fight with each other. Gorsuch basically calling her an idiot and her responding that you're calling a straw man an idiot. You're the idiot. Can I read footnote one of Justice Gorsuch? Today, Justice Barrett protests that the foregoing discussion takes down a straw man. But it was Justice Barrett, who previously wrote that the major questions doctrine grows out of common sense principles of communication.

And it was Justice Barrett, who's the various illustrations recounted above to suggest that our major questions decisions can be explained by reference to the kind of common sense that goes without saying. If Justice Barrett now means to put all that to the flame, the major question. Doctrine is better for it. Just to be clear, they have never been on opposite sides of a case that is using major questions doctrine. Yes. So so far, their fight has been irrelevant. It's all about the language you're using to describe the major questions doctrine, which they both believe exists and applies to this case. And all the other cases where they've been on the same side.

Okay, so let's try. There's going to be a lot of nitpicking because, again, these differences are getting pretty small. but I want to give the big picture distinction between their two versions. Yes. And then we also need to chat about the Kagan. Absolutely. But this fight is too small not to be the most fun. That's true.

It's like a, you know what it's like? It's like a faculty dispute where the intensity is inversely related to the size of the stakes. Yeah. So true. Okay. So roughly speaking, Justice Barrett had previously made the point that major questions doctrine is really just a, a way to read the text, a way to think about the text. It's providing context to the text. She gave the example of the babysitter and the parents give her, you know, an extra $100 or whatever and say,

make sure the kids have fun this weekend. The babysitter is clearly not allowed to take them to the amusement park overnight, stay in hotel rooms, et cetera. But, you know, she is allowed to take them to the movie theater. That's the work major questions doctrine is doing that if the parents thought the babysitter could take them to an amusement park, they wouldn't have just said, have fun. They would have said, have fun, get out of town if you want. And so by not having the get out of town if you want, clearly the context is movie theater, not amusement park. And her description, again, back in that student loan concurrence of Justice Gorsuch's version was that it was a thumb on the scale that in fact all things being equal in the text, Justice Gorsuch was, you know,

say, nevertheless, major questions doctrine says, we want a clear statement from Congress because of separation of powers, et cetera. Now, again, if you're like, those sound like the same thing to me, then you're going to love how we're going to spend hundreds of pages still going through this. So here's Justice Gorsuch now taking on the babysitter example. If one parent leaves the child with the other parent, the trip to the amusement park might well be fine. No other contextual clues are needed. So if the answer to the babysitter hypothetical seems a matter of common sense to many Americans, that is only because the substantive norms associated with parental delegations to babysitter agents are so deeply rooted in society. At which point, I was kind of like, yeah,

but I'm not sure I know what we're arguing over anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But in short, Justice Gorsuch thinks that there are big differences between, Justice Barrett's major questions doctrine simply provides context for the text versus his version, which is a substantive canon of constitutional separation of power, structural constitutional interpretation, and they're real mad about it. And the end? If I'm Justice Barrett, I'm so deeply confused. You're thinking, I've been in green with you, my friend. And we use different language to describe the same phenomenon. That's the way I've always thought of Justice Barrett's approach to it. She's sort of saying, okay, yeah, there is the clear statement, you know, the sort of

clear statement principle that Gorsuch talks about. And also this is common sense. And also, there's an ordinary common sense way of understanding this. And I'm going to explain the ordinary common sense way. And Justice Gorsuch seems to be saying, no, no, do not use ordinary common sense language, let's stick with this particular formulation, is the way I'm interpreting it, because I got to admit, Sarah, I'm a little stumped, a little stumped at the distinction. I very much understand the distinction philosophically, theoretically. Yes. I guess I'm just waiting for the case where the distinction matters.

Yeah. And until then, I'm not quite sure why we're spending so much time outlining that distinction, because in the case where it does matter, it's going to become much more clear, I think. So I'm willing to wait and we'll move to bucket two. Gorsuch's second bucket is for those who are newly discovered fans of major questions doctrine but won't actually use the name. Say my name, major questions doctrine. Okay, so in this case he writes,

what the concurrence, referring here to Kagan's concurrence joined by Sotomayor and Jackson, calls context, looks remarkably like the major question doctrine's rule that when executive branch officials claim Congress has granted them an extraordinary power, they must identify clear statutory authority for it. So Kagan, Jackson, and Sotomayor are basically saying, you don't need a doctrine here. You just read the statute. It doesn't authorize tariffs. We're kind of done with this. And Gorsuch is like, yeah, but why didn't that same theory apply in the Biden cases, student loan debt forgiveness, OSHA vaccine mandate, and EPA v. West Virginia in all fours. three of those cases, these three justices thought the statute wasn't so clear and thought that in

emergency situations, like COVID, like climate change, that presidents needed broad, expansive authority, sometimes vague, coming from Congress. So what's the difference here? And I will say, I understand the frustration that when conservatives look inconsistent, it feels like they get called out more than when the liberals look inconsistent. And so he's trying to highlight the fact. that while they are on the team today, he doesn't really think they mean it. He thinks they're on the team for a different reason. And he mentions, I mean, we go pretty far afield here in some ways

in terms of his grievances against the three. And we head over to Chevron doctrine. And it's like, look, you guys were all about administrative agencies and experts. And, you know, Chevron, that case, established a presumpting presumption that was nearly the opposite of the major questions doctrine. When Congress failed to speak clearly, courts put a thumb on the scale in favor of delegated power. This court's application of the major questions doctrine is not invention so much as return to form. The point being,

you guys were so mad when we overturned Chevron and Loper Bright, but that was all about more delegation to the president. And so were your three decisions in those Biden cases. So how dare you agree with me now? I think that's a very fair assessment. And let me just read from assessment of Gorsuch's concurrence. It's absolutely fair assessment of Gorsuch's critique. Now, let me read the key two sentences in Justice Kagan's concurrence. She says, well, I'll read the paragraph.

The court holds today that the International Emergency Economics Powers Act, IEPA, does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. I agree with that conclusion, as I do with the bulk of the principal opinion's reasoning, but because I think ordinary tools of statutory interpretation amply support today's result, I do not join the part of that opinion invoking the so-called major questions doctrine,

which I don't know that she's wanting to acknowledge its existence, right? And her point is essentially, look, you just read the statute. The statute does not, by its express terms, provide a delegation of tariffing power. Boom, done. why are we talking about this for so long? And, you know, in interesting ways, I feel like they're amplifying disagreements that are actually, that as you said, I can understand in principle, but if you're boiling it down to it,

isn't it kind of all statutory construction? And that, you know, what Gorsuch is saying, there's a sort of a principle of, of statutory construction, that is, you cannot create extraordinary powers without explicit extraordinary delegations of power, which is a canon, you know, sort of a canon of construction. And Justice Kagan is just sort of saying, well, I'm going to read each statute, and the grant of power I'm going to, you know, I'm going to endorse is just going to depend on the specific language of each statute. And Barrett is sort of saying, I agree with that statement of principle that that Gorsuch, that Justice Gorsuch shared. However, let me just explain

it further that in reality, in brass tax, this is just a common sense statutory construction element. And so they're kind of all on the same spectrum, but at different points on it. And it feels as if the amplification of the disagreement was disproportionate to the extent of the disagreement. From Justice Gorsuch, the major questions doctrine is not anti- administrative state, it is pro-Congress. Article 1 vests all federal legislative power in Congress, but like any written instrument, federal legislation cannot anticipate every eventuality, a point my concurring colleagues have observed in the past. And highly resourceful members of the executive branch have strong incentives to exploit any doubt in Congress's past work to assume

new power for themselves. The major questions doctrine helps prevent that kind of exploitation. Our Founders understood that men are not angels, and we disregard that insight at our peril when we allow the few, or the one, to aggrandize their power based on loose or uncertain authority. We delude ourselves, too, if we think that power will accumulate safely and only in the hands of dispassionate, quote, people found in agencies, end quote, quoting them. Even if unelected agency officials were uniquely immune to the desire for more power, an unsurious assumption, they report to a election. elected presidents who can claim no such modesty.

I think that's the best response to the anti-major questions doctrine people in a nutshell. And while it is too long for a tattoo, I plan to email it to everyone who criticizes future major questions doctrine decisions. No, no, no, it's not too long. You just turn it into an acronym. So I just watched the movie The Rip on Netflix. Oh, yeah. I liked it. been a, oh, yeah, I've seen it twice now.

Okay, that's too much. No, it's exactly right. And so he has two tattoos, A-W-T-T-G on one side and W-A-A-W-B on the other one, which means, are we the good guys? And we are and always will be, which is key to the story. And it's, by the way, like, just watch it. It's very touching how all that played out. Like, it brought a tear to my eye. But anyway, twice.

twice it did. But yeah, I'm with you. Like tattoo that. Absolutely. Because this is the point, right? You don't know who the next president will be. Do not be so giddy in the use of executive power today, even if you like the results. And I guess, David, I want to pause here for a second and ask, do you think, because I'm going to ask this again about Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Alito. So I want to pause and ask it here. do you think Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson are being consistent? That is a very good question. I'm going to say... Let's stipulate.

If you put them in a polygraph with true serum and all of that, they would absolutely believe that they're being consistent. Yeah, yeah. You know, are they consistent is a very different question from, are they operating in bad faith? Those are two different. And I do not believe, I've said this a million times. I keep saying this.

I think all nine justices are people of integrity. So full stop. I do not believe they are being. consistent. And I do not believe that the dissenting three are being consistent either. I don't think that Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Alito are being quite consistent. And so, again, that is not the same thing of saying bad faith. But I do not believe that a majority of the court here was precisely consistent. Okay, well, let's move on to the principal dissent, written by Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Thomas and Alito. Coming out of oral argument, this is what gave us the hemi-jeebies. We were like,

whoa, whoa, Kavanaugh is the justice who is most likely to be in the majority, and yet he seemed like not a close call on this case. And so how do you get to five? And we were like, well, Gorsuch seemed the other way. And like, Baron the Chief seemed pretty against it, but it was a little harder to say for them. But having Kavanaugh so out in front made us nervous. And as it turns out, rightly so. He's in dissent. Now, he has sort of two main arguments here. The first one is that this does invoke the major questions doctrine. It just meets the standard for it. The text is clear.

Regulate importation. Congress gave this power to the president. You may not like it. It may have been too broad a power. It may have been unwise for Congress to do so. But nevertheless, as we walk through how one applies major questions doctrine, and as we did in the student loan debt forgiveness case, this meets all of those requirements.

And second, even if it doesn't meet all the requirements of major questions doctrine, major questions doctrine doesn't apply in the context of foreign affairs. And this is the president operating not in a domestic sphere. Therefore, he has some inherent Article 2 powers that are concurrent with Congress's powers. And so if we're doing some Youngstown, and by the way, Justice Kavanaugh cites a lot of Youngstown in this dissent, you know, he's not maybe at the zenith of his power, but he has some power here. Neither is he at the nadir of his power. So let's, though, skip right to Justice Gorsuch's take when we move on to bucket three. And remember, there's four buckets because Justice Thomas gets his own...

Justice Thomas gets his own bucket, yes. Basically, if I were to summarize the Justice Gorsuch's take, okay, I've got it. Bullsh, bullshit, bullshit, the end. I mean, I think you made... his argument more civil than it actually was? No, I'm kidding. I'm teasing. Yeah, so Justice Gorsuch basically just goes line by line and takes apart whether those justices are being consistent in the same way that he took apart the three liberals with those

previous applications of major questions doctrine in the Biden cases. I will admit, first of all, I thought his tone, Justice Gorses, His tone acted like it was a closer call for these justices for their reasoning than I think he did with the three liberals. Right. It was a little bit, you know. More solicitous. More solicitous. I wonder whether you were persuaded by that tone shift, because I have to admit, I was a little bit.

As in I agree 100% with Justice Gorsuch. Again, I would not have written this concurrence, but in my heart I did. In my heart, I agree with every single bit of the whole Justice Gorsuch festivus. But with this part in particular, you know, there is language here, but there was language in student loan debt forgiveness as well. It is foreign policy, but it's not actually foreign policy. It's tariffs, which taxes, which is what we were doing at the founding. That's all the taxes we had at the founding. And so I found Justice Gorsuch persuasive, but I also found his tone.

I found the arguments of the dissent more consistent than I found the arguments of the concurrence that they were being inconsistent, even though I don't think either was being consistent. Does that make sense? Yeah. I found them equally inconsistent in the following one. Totally fair. So I think each of them had a hook to hang their inconsistency on. So the hook that Justice Kagan and the more liberal, two other more liberal justices had is that what you're dealing with here is a explicit grant of constitutional authority over taxation to Congress. And so if you have an explicit grant of this particular authority to Congress and not to the president, they're consistent in saying there can be a delegation. That's the consistent thing. But the language here doesn't actually

touch the actual delegation that the Trump administration is claiming. It doesn't actually say tariffs. It doesn't say it. So this is different. Whereas with student loans, with EPA, you're not actually talking about something along the lines of messing with Congress's an exclusive grant of authority to Congress. What you're messing with is an unquestioned responsibility of Congress that, you know, there's no taking anything away from Congress. What they're saying is that Congress said in these catch-all provisions, that you can also do these other things.

That's a little bit different than here. And similarly, you would say, if you're going to be defending the consistency of a leader, Thomas and Kavanaugh, you would say, well, no, they're in agreement. There's nothing inconsistent here because there's the new twist of this involves foreign relations. So you have the new twist for Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson about this is intruding on an explicit grant. And then you have the, you have the twist in Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh, which is, but this also touches on foreign affairs. I think part of my, part of what I'm feeling, I will acknowledge, comes from the Jack Goldsmith defense that he was making about if this case were to come out differently or if the dissenters argued this is what it will look like.

And I was persuaded that it did make the case a little bit different. And that there were real serious people arguments that were not just look at this text, isn't it neat. Now I believe my tariff collection is complete. Well, that's off the top of your head. That's fantastic. But I would also say that Jack Goldsmith speaks fluent A-O. Like he's... Oh, yeah. So much so, David, that in fact, well, we'll get to Jack Goldsmith's take here in a little bit. Let's go to that Thomas bucket. I'm just going to read Justice Gorsuch's summary of Justice Thomas's dissent. So on his view, meaning Justice Thomas's view, the only powers Congress may not delegate. are those that involve rules setting the conditions for deprivations of life, liberty, or property. From this rule, it follows that Congress may give all of its tariff powers to the president because importing is a matter of privilege. And as a result, this case does not implicate

any separation of powers concerns at all. Suppose for argument's sake that Congress can delegate its tariff powers to the president, as completely as Justice Thomas suggests. Even then, the question remains whether Congress has given the president, the tariff authority he claims in this case, or whether the president is seeking to exploit questionable statutory language to aggrandize his own power. That to me was a killshot for Justice Thomas's dissent. I also thought that the idea that Congress can delegate anything but deprivations of life, liberty, or property was so atextual and a original that I was like, what happened to text history and tradition? Yeah. My dude?

Well, and one thing that was the least convincing element of his opinion was how he talked about tariff authority was a core royal prerogative. You know, this is like my real pet peeve on originalism, right? Which things did we fight a revolution to not import from King George? And which things were we like, yeah, actually, that was working just fine. Surely if there is one thing in the constellation of British powers that we did not want to import, it was the royal prerogative to issue taxes. I mean, what? What are we doing here? Yeah. Which is why, you know, I saw a lot of this stuff from sort of more Trumpy conservatives online saying, well, I see the Toledo and Thomas are in dissent.

And that's all I need to know. And part of me was like, please, you know, please stop doing that. But the other part is, well, you know, if Thomas is going to say this, then maybe Thomas's jurisprudence and thinking might be shifting a little bit. because this, as you said, Sarah, was really hard to square with originalism. Very hard for me to square with originalism. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup

that provides a clear picture of your health today, and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moment. to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan, live well for life. Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. Okay, now we've gone through the opinion. Let's do a little bit of a big picture consequence analysis. One, the word refund does not appear until you get to Kavanaugh's principal dissent. Nowhere in the majority or the concurrences happening to mention it.

Kavanaugh noting that the consequences of the majority's opinion will be, quote, a mess. Yeah, I don't think that's wrong, in part because not only will there be a gazillion lawsuits that have to be individually filed to get these refunds, but of course, we, the consumers, aren't getting refunds, and we had many of these costs passed on to us. So, yeah, very happy with today's decision. Don't want to change any of it. Am I annoyed that I paid two extra months of tariffs on a bunch of stuff? I'm not happy about it. And the refund process will now just be remanded to lower courts to work out. I do think Justice Kavanaugh is right that it will be a mess. But, you know, guys, I thought we weren't doing consequences. Right. And the actual blame for the mess rests with the the person who passed the unconstitutional policy, not the Supreme Court for adjudicating that the unconstitutional thing is unconstitutional.

And, you know, we've talked about the remedies problem before. And one of the person, and one of the person, if that might actually have some bearing on the ultimate outcome. It's very clear it did not. It did not have any bearing. And yeah, it's going to be a mess as it gets punted. And it may very well end up that you don't have any refunds at all. Because as you were saying, what about the refunds? Does this mean that like if Amazon gets a refund, you know,

just for the sake of argument for paying $800 million in tariffs, but then it passed on $650 million of that to us, we don't have a mechanism for that. It's possible the court just may say it's too difficult to sort out court, lower courts. You know, we're not ordering a refund. We're just blocking further collection. That's possible. But it's not a, the messiness of resolving the unconstitutional policy is not a reason for maintaining an unconstitutional policy. Well, I told you we were going to check in with Jack Goldsmith here, who is published over at executive functions. He says the doctrinal underpinnings and scope of the major questions doctrine in one sense emerged from this decision more confused than ever. Three conservative justices who have been drawn to the doctrine, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh, had sharp disagreements about how it should operate here. The deeper one gets into the weeds of the doctrine, the harder it gets to apply. But need one get into those weeds? Yeah. The chief justice, who has never concerned himself with a theoretical or academic account of the doctrine,

had no trouble applying it in a way to gather the support of Barrett and Gorsuch, even though they disagreed among themselves about the nature of the nature of the doctrine. The fact that the doctrine. So big picture, David, where does this leave major questions doctrine? I have to say stronger than ever. Absolutely. Because it's stronger than ever because we now have all nine justices having signed on to one or more opinions that is, yes, it's all nine. And now there are there are four big cases, West Virginia versus EPA, Biden versus Nebraska, independent federation businesses versus OSHA and now our friendly tariff case as well. And so you've got all nine on some version.

And I'm going to say that's going to make it really hard for future presidents. Okay. Next up from Professor Goldsmith. Feels like you're here, Professor. We miss you. A very significant aspect of the chief justices major questions doctrine and analysis is that three conservative justices embraced it to rule against President Trump's signature policy. It is hugely important compliment to the court's emerging broad view of the unitary executive. Put another way.

It is a vindication of Sarah Isgert. He doesn't say my student and I'm a little hurt. He isn't claiming me as his own. I feel like you should. If he really cared about me, you know? Put another way. It is a vindication of Sarah Isger's view that the tradeoff on the court for enhancing vertical unitary presidential control is for the court to reign in Congress's bad habit of delegating

vast and vague powers to the executive branch, including through major questions doctrine. It also puts in a better light the court's interim orders to date in Trump 2.0, a large number of which, due to application strategy of the solicitor general, involve issues of vertical control. The tariff opinion gives the lie to the notion that the court is in the bag for the president and also makes its approach to issues of presidential power in Trump 2.0, both clearer and more nuanced. So, David, I feel like we can definitively say, I mean, I wrote that piece in the New York Times about how unitary executive and major questions doctor needed to work together to be. to, you know, make, basically, you know, get these two branches on their own side of the boxing ring. And here we are. Like, I think this is it now. And I think you have to see the two doctrines working together. And I think the tariffs, this is what makes in part the tariff decision the most important presidential power decision of the last several decades. Because it is now clear, regardless of what party you're in, regardless of the policies of that party, we are reigning in presidential power.

is going to have to do its job one way or the other if presidents want to do anything fun. Yep. And yay, this is the project of the Roberts Court and they are not done. They are just getting started. It's so important. It's so important. You know, just as a preview of what an argument I'm going to be making writing about this, I think this is the most important Supreme Court case this century, of not in a century, but this century. That's a difference. And I think it's more important. of the Dobbs, ultimately, because this is really core structural stuff. This is sort of the core of the structure of the republic. But it's also that point that Jack just made about at a moment,

and this is a point that I made at the National Constitution Center that we're, event that we're at at right now together, that Americans are, we could be easily forgiven for believing that there are no more principles in politics yet. It's all just will to power. And nobody's for free speech except their own. Nobody's for limited government except when the other side is in power. Nobody's for less deficits except when the other side is in power. I mean, we could do this all freaking day. But here you actually have a major institution of the federal government,

one of the three branches of government saying same rules apply to both sides. And that there are still actual principles. And I think that really matters. Okay, David, and now looking forward, my take on the tariff's decision is that I'm now willing to predict a unanimous vote on the birthright citizenship case to strike down the president's executive order on birthright citizenship. I'm going to eight. The Thomas dissent was pretty jolting in some ways. Yeah.

Fair enough. Well, let's leave it there. By the way, thank you to the National Constitution Center for hosting us this weekend. And as it turns out, hosting a podcast, they didn't know they were doing that, but they are. So thanks to them. And David, this was a fun emergency pod. Yes, it was. So glad we were in the same place when this came down.

So yes. More to come. Later on advisory opinions.