America's Talking - U.S. Supreme Court frosty on Trump's tariff power as world watches

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump's tariff authority a chilly reception on Wednesday, with his economic agenda hanging in the balance and businesses and consumers watching for higher prices. After the president spent months talking about how much money his tariffs would generate, Trump's Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the nation's highest court Wednesday that the import duties are solely focused on regulation, not raising revenue. Even the conservative wing of the Supreme Court was skeptical.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxx Read more: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_5b088a76-ce8e-43eb-b998-40d387a67b97.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America's Talking. I'm Morgan Sweeney, one of the Center Squares, Washington, D.C. reporters. Wednesday, a very important court case for the American economy, even the global economy, and for certainly the economic policy of the Trump administration appeared before the Supreme Court. And joining me to tell us more about this topic is Brett Rowland, also one of our national team reporters. Brett is our resident tariff guru. He's been covering Trump tariffs for us throughout Trump's second term. Welcome, Brett. Can you give us some background on that case and why tariffs have been a controversial issue for this administration? For sure. But first, I got to mention a couple of things from yesterday. One was a surprise appearance by comedian John Mullaney, who I did not expect to be there. Now, I'm told that he was friends with the attorneys for some of the plaintiffs. And so he may have been there in a friendly capacity or not. I guess we don't know. but I'm waiting for more on that.

So, but here's how we got here. Trump started talking about tariffs on the campaign trail. Well, actually, he probably started talking about 20 years ago. He started talking about them as policy on the campaign trail in 2024. He frequently said tariff is the most beautiful word in the English language or variations on that theme. And then eventually, once he got into office, we had on April 2nd, we had Liberation Day where he put imposed tariffs on all U.S. trading partners, virtually every nation around the globe of at least 10 percent. Those rates have fluctuated. They've been paused. They've been suspended. They've been

altered. They've been adjusted. And businesses, from what I'm hearing, are getting frustrated with them. But the first group of business to challenge these tariffs was back in April. I'm sorry, might have been in May. But the first, the case went to a specialty court, then it's essentially gone up the ladder straight to the Supreme Court. Now, the hybrid case that was heard yesterday was sort of three different cases that are lumped together. So a group of states filed a challenge to Donald Trump's tariff authority. Then a group of small businesses also filed a challenge. And then two Illinois toy makers filed a challenge. a challenge in a different court. So all these have sort of come together now at the Supreme Court.

Yesterday was a pretty wild ride. I know you were there. So it, it, it, my first, my opinion of, of how the, the court reacted, was pretty frosty. The liberal justices for sure did not seem interested in, in, uh, the tariff arguments. I'm sorry, it's not that they didn't seem interested. It didn't seem interested. It didn't seem like they were buying what Solicitor General John Sauer was saying, that these are revenue neutral regulatory tariffs, not meant to raise taxes. Trump's been boasting, as we know, as he talks about this almost daily how much money is coming in from tariffs. So to hear the government argue out of sort of both sides of its mouth there was interesting. And that's been pointed out by a lot of people, including some of the folks I talk.

talked to yesterday. But so that's sort of how we got here. The reception was frosty. And there was even a question yesterday that I didn't even get a chance to write about that. Essentially, one of the justices asked, how on earth are we going to unwind this? And her own answer to the question, it was Justice Amy Coney-Barrant. And her own answer to the question was, it's going to be messy. And I think that that might be what's around the corner.

It's way too early to tell. but the Supreme Court's supposed to make a decision at some time before June. So we'll see. Yeah, I thought that they were just going to hammer the Solicitor General because they were asking him so many questions. And those questions were coming not only from the liberal justices, but also from the conservative ones. And it did not seem like, you know, his arguments were warmly received. then I was actually surprised to hear how many questions they asked of the plaintiffs. And that just went on for a super long time.

And so by the end of it, I was kind of like, well, I thought this was going to go one way. And then, you know, now I'm not really sure. So were you surprised by that at all? No, that's a really good point. And it's something that I didn't mention when I was talking about earlier. But you're right. the justices had tough questions for for both sides. Every lawyer they got up yesterday got got some heaters.

And they did not seem to be easily accepting either of the arguments from either side. They had questions certainly about the small businesses that have challenged the tariffs. They said essentially, so if this law, which their attorney had already said, would give Trump the power to block all foreign trade. They said, why not use a less, why does it not also allow a sort of lesser power of tariffing every import? So there was some interesting and some tricky questions on both sides, but to me, and to the number of the folks I talked to yesterday, it's hard to predict how this is going to go

down. Well, so now we're waiting on a decision. And I believe that, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson didn't give a clear answer yesterday as to how the administration is going to respond if the Supreme Court shuts this down. But I also think some things have already kind of been put out there. So do you know what has been said about that? Maybe some alternative ways, like if they can't enforce tariffs through this one law that they've tried in this particular case, maybe they'll, try some other parts of the U.S. code. That sounds like what's going to happen for right now, but you're right. Scott Besson was asked directly, and he said he's not ready to discuss plan B yet. Others have suggested that Trump is already working on a plan to essentially reconstitute the tariffs under the 1977.

AIPA law, which is the international emergency something law for 1977. But so if that's not possible to reconstitute, I think it. could get really messy. But I think that I don't think tariffs are going away. And that's not just because I've been writing about them for so long, although sometimes it does seem like that. I think that Trump will find a way to come back from this one way or the other. But I think that it could be tough. They haven't really said exactly what plan B is going to be. He has tariff authority under a bunch of other statutes, but he chose not to use those statutes for a reason. They have a lot of additional hoops regulations and limitations on them. Congress is much more involved. So I think that that could be a

real challenge. But Congress so far has really taken a backseat from what we've seen. We did see the Senate come and vote against the essentially would have nixed the underlying emergencies that Trump declared that allow, that he used to justify the broader tariffs under the 1977 law. But he's also used other sections of the, of the U.S. Code to impose tariffs. So there's a lot of different options here. And it's, it's still early to say what's going to happen. But I know from what, from what I heard yesterday, business owners all around

in the country are ready for some sort of definitive answer on. on what's coming next and what they're going to have to pay and what they won't have to pay. Well, I feel like we've done a pretty thorough job of talking through kind of the main arguments and where things are at with this case. I'm glad that you said that John Mullaney was there because I heard some other people say his name and I thought my ears were just must have been tricking me. And so I completely missed him even though he was there. And I'm definitely a fan of at least one of his specials.

I think he's hilarious. I think he's hilarious too. I can't believe you missed him. Me neither. Me neither. Anyway, this was America's talking, and we're signing off.