Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump FLIPS OUT After SCOTUS Loss in WILD Press Conference

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

Trump FLIPS OUT after a humiliating Supreme Court loss. Jon, Jon, and Tommy break down the fallout and what it means for Trump’s agenda moving forward. CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR: ZBIOTICS - http://zbiotics.com/CROOKEDNEWS CODE: CROOKEDNEWS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit Botox Chronic Migraine.com or call 1-800-44 Botox to learn more. All right, guys, earlier today, the Supreme Court bitch slapped President Trump across the base, legally speaking. And Trump just included a press conference where he whined and cried and raged about it and called everybody names. And then I think laid out how he was going to respond. So we're going to talk about all of it. Just to catch folks up on what happened. The Supreme Court struck down the majority of President Trump's tariffs.

It was a six-three decision in a massive rebuke of the Trump agenda. It has economic implications and its foreign policy implications. And, of course, political implications going up to the midterms. Let's first watch a sampling of President Trump's reaction to the news, and we'll talk about it. The Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I'm ashamed of certain members of the court. Absolutely ashamed. I'd like to thank and congratulate justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh for their strength and wisdom and love of our country. The Democrats on the court are thrilled.

they also are a, frankly, disgrace to our nation, those justices. They're an automatic no matter how good a case you have. It's a no. But you can't knock their loyalty. It's one thing you can do with some of our people. It's my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think. But these people are obnoxious, ignorant, and loud. They're very loud. And I think certain justices are afraid of that. So, guys, he's taken this well.

I am old enough to remember when President Obama was criticized for suggesting a Supreme Court decision was bad during the State of the Union with the justices in the audience. Do you think the D.C. civility police are preparing to ride again. Now that Trump is calling them corrupted by foreign interests, I guess. I mean, he basically called the Supreme Court a bunch of traitors. Yeah. disloyal and unpatriotic. Yeah, he had some other ones there too. He said their embarrassments to their families.

Yeah, I love that like, Amy Coney Barrett's failure. He's like, I'm humiliated. What a bitch. What a little bitch, Donald Trump. It was just like, it was wild watching him freak out over this and then be like, but it doesn't matter. I'm not mad because we're putting in place the same tariffs anyway. Yeah, he also said that he was asked that justices are uninvited from his speech.

He said no. and then honestly I couldn't care less if they come, which I'm going to go out on the limit and say is another lie because I bet you care a lot. It's I want them to go. I want them to be there. Nothing will be more exciting than watching him be unable to constrain himself from yelling.

Now, keep in mind, this was Obama fairly criticizing one Supreme Court ruling, not personally, just criticizing the ruling. Alito makes a scrunch with his face and says, not true. It becomes a whole controversy. Citizens United, by the way. Citizens United. Terrible decision.

Yeah. I mean, you know, not even the top five worst of the Supreme Court at this point, but yes, a very bad decision. And now we have this. I can't think of what would be the next most disparaging you've ever heard a president talk about the Supreme Court. I mean, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump. But he, I think what's different about this is he usually does it in a truth or in a post. I think this is the first time we've heard him just like, he was basically reading a truth when he did this. but like, you know, he called him disgraces, fools and lap dogs, disloyal, unpatriotic.

But hold into like foreign interests. It's a lot about the foreign interests. That was the... Yeah. By the way, we'll be covering President Trump's State of the Union speech next week. So please subscribe to Pote of America here on YouTube. We're trying to build a progressive independent media company. And when you subscribe, it helps us out a lot, helps us push back on all the right-wing crap on YouTube.

So please do it. Also, guys, Fox News was doing anything they could not to cover this when it broke. They literally did a story on Melania's inaugural gown being showcased in the Smithsonian and labeled it breaking news. I'm sure it is. Is that excite you? Does that make you want to tune in? I saw that they were talking about the Trump administration axing trans care for prisoners.

So they're playing the hits from 2024. Good stuff. That dress. I like the Melania dress really does look like redacted documents. Like that was just one of the great twists. I love that. I love that the dress just literally looks like an Epstein document. Anyway.

So what the court struck down was Trump's use of a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act or Aipa. The law lets the president declare a national emergency in respond to foreign threats, usually it's by imposing sanctions. Trump is the first president and I guess now the last president to use it to impose tariffs. But the ruling raises big policy questions going forward. For example, does Trump try to find another way to implement tariffs? What happens to the money that has already been collected?

What are the political implications? He came closest, I think, to answering the first question about whether he'll put in place new tariffs in this press conference. So let's watch him talking about that. To show you how ridiculous the opinion is, the court said that I'm not allowed to charge Even $1, I can't charge $1. Can't charge $1 to any country under AEPA. But I am allowed to cut off any and all trade or business with that same country.

In other words, I can destroy the trade. I can destroy the country. I'm even allowed to impose a foreign country destroying embargo. I can embargo. I can do anything I want, but I can't charge $1. Because that's not what it says. So I'm allowed to destroy the country, but I can't charge them a little fee. I could give them a little two-cent fee.

I'm allowed to tell them you can't do business in the United States anymore. We want you out of here. But if I want to charge them $10, I can't do that. It's incorrect. Their decision's incorrect. But it doesn't matter because we have very powerful alternatives that have been approved by this decision. The message is I'm really mad, but ultimately I'll get more money because I have powerful alternatives. You guys think he believed that, really? What the court is saying he can't do is the kind

of queen of hearts. There's an emergency, 10% tariffs today, 5% tomorrow, 25% the next day. They're not even really engaging with the ridiculous use of emergency powers. What is the emergency? Mark Carney gave a speech you didn't like. The Swiss did or did not give you. There's an ad during the World Series. There was an ad during the World Series. You don't like the voice of the Swiss leader. You didn't get a gold bar, you did get a gold bar. He's just stretching the meaning of the word emergency, but they're not even engaging with that. They're saying, you have to have a process. You can't just impose a tariff for a day and have sort of vast ramifications for the global economy. So what Trump is annoyed by is not that he can't do tariffs, it's that he can't do it in the sort of dictatorial

way. There's going to be a process. It's going to be slow. He can't abuse the power to get random concessions either for personal wealth or for some kind of a trade deal. Essentially, it's pretty simple in how they ruled on this because the law says that it gives the president the power to regulate imports. And what the court decided is that regulate imports means regulate and pass regulations, which is what the president can do, and not impose a tax because attacks is what Congress is supposed to do and only Congress according to the Constitution. So when he was going of like, why can I ban, why can I destroy the country and why can I ban trade and do it embargo, but I can't charge any money.

It's like, yeah, because that's what the fucking law says. The law says that you cannot tax unilaterally. So it's not even, you're right, like they didn't even care about the emergency thing. They just said that under Aipa, you cannot use tariffs. They just said read the Constitution. Yeah, there's just no tariffs law because that is a tax. And by the way, like, we're so far from like the first principles of the thing. To, for some sort of national interest, right?

Like, no, the president should not even be, no, we can't destroy the country, destroy another country, putting on an embargo, these supposed to be big deal things that are only done in the case of like a genuine national emergency or a genuine serious political concern, right? Like, yeah, that's what the law says. The law was about, the law was not about you applying, kind of doing trade policy writ large through this vehicle. Yeah, it was not meant to happen. The so-called powerful alternatives he's mentioning there just real quickly. It's other laws that give them tariff authority. So there's the Trade Act of 1974, which gives them the authority to a country. engaging in discriminatory trade practices or unbalanced trade.

Then there's section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which lets you do national security specific tariffs. Usually it's like steel or aluminum, though. The other day he did one on upholstered furniture. Remember that? It's a real threat. Yeah. And then there's the OG, the tariff act of 1930, often called Smooth Holly,

or second least favorite, Holly. But those authorities, they have different processes, like you were saying, love it. Like some have time limits. There's review periods. some limit the size of the tariff itself. And none of them let Trump just slap tariffs at any time for any reason like he did on the Brazilians because he didn't like that they were prosecuting their former president

for doing a January 6th. That made him feel sad. Yeah, it seems like what he's doing, what he did today is under one of the authorities, he can slap a 10% global tariff on everyone, but that only lasts for 150 days. And then Congress has to vote to renew that. And so he'll slap that tariff on now for the next 150 days. And in the meantime, he'll use the national security ones, which, like, some involve, like, you need to do an investigation, I believe. Commerce Secretary starts an investigation.

Right. That can take up the 270 days. And they hand the investigation over the president. He has 90 days to make a decision. Now, who knows if you could be like, you could be like Brazil bad on a piece of paper. That could be an investigation. Right. So I don't know.

Howard Lutnik can have a fucking magnifying glass in a Sherlock's home hat going around looking for crimes. Yeah. So I don't know how that all works. But like, nor does he. Nor does he, clearly. But he also didn't seem to know. that the one he imposed today has 150-day limit. Yeah, because he was specifically asked.

He was like, nope, unlimited, forever, infinity. The other big question, though, is what happens to the billions and billions of dollars that the Trump administration's already taken in from tariffs? We are talking about, I've seen estimates of $175 billion just from the IEPA tariffs. Corporations like Costco, they're already suing to get that money back. Trump asked what happens with that money. Here's his answer. So since Liberation Day, there's about $175 billion in tariffs.

of revenue that is now in limbo. Do you have to refund $175 billion? Think of it, Peter. Very fair question. They take months and months to write an opinion, and they don't even discuss that point. We've taken in hundreds of billions of dollars, not millions, hundreds of billions of dollars. And so I said, well, what happens to all the money that we took in? It wasn't discussed. Wouldn't you think they would have put one sentence in there saying that keep the money? don't keep the money, right? I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years.

I feel like that's kind of understandable. That's true. That was not not poorly sad. I mean, the Cavana on the ruling is like, we don't even know what we're going to do with all this money, as if that's an argument against enforcing the law. Right. The theft has taken place.

The money is in a pile. We don't know what to do with it. Yeah. Yeah, this was always one of the biggest sticking points for the decision, maybe one of the reasons why it took so long, because I think they had to figure that out. And I think the Supreme Court was just like, you know what that's not up to us that part it's illegal and we're going to rule that it's illegal

or unconstitutional and then we'll let the courts handle the rest of it because that's below our pay grade I guess yeah I paid $30 yesterday for a rug for I got and by the way you get an email from the fucking shipper that's like we're not giving you this rug unless you give us $30 today yeah and look there's a good chance that the importer that you purchase it from will get your money back and you will never see it but you're right unfortunately Tommy and I only have American made rugs out of Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've been weaving them myself. But Trump was very concerned about this.

He previously posted on truth social. In other words, if the Supreme Court rules against the United States of America on this national security bonanza, we're screwed. Are we screwed, sir? There was a Scott Besson was interviewed after this, and someone asked him about the revenue. And he said, I got a feeling the American people won't see it. What a dumb quote. How do you say that? Here's a challenge to any Democratic campaign.

I think you could run your entire midterm campaign with just Scott Besson quotes. I like that. Just that's it. Scott Besson clips. Yeah. It's a challenge. Just the stupidity of all of this. So everybody's paid higher prices for a year because of Trump doing this.

Now that money will or will not go back to the corporations. They're not going to bring prices down even in this interim where we don't know. Because first of all, Trump is putting tariffs right back on. It's still uncertain how he's going to apply. other kinds of tariffs. The world is already moving on, right? They're doing other deals without us. They're assuming these tariffs are permanent. So like the end result of the cost of the tariffs are still in place. They will continue to be in place. Like what's happened now is there's just a big news story about how the Supreme Court has decided that these tariffs were fucking illegal and everybody

paid $175 billion to the government illegally gained taxes that are going to go to the biggest corporations under. Yeah. And even if they get rid of the tariffs, like I don't have any faith these corporations will lower prices. They're just going to pocket the difference and move on. Well, the other issue is who's most likely to get the refunds, the biggest corporations that have lawyers to go get the refunds. And it's not just the biggest corporations that have been hit with the tariffs. It's a lot of, like individuals, like you and your rug, of course. But also like...

Not enough people are talking about. Like a lot of small businesses, importers and stuff like that are people who just like little businesses that count on that like they can't handle this kind of tariffs and that are hurting. probably can't hire a lawyer to get the refund back. Or how about the companies where, like Kentucky Bourbon not being available in Canada, right? Like where do they go for to be to be made whole because that Trump created this trade war? Like the costs are, I wonder too, though, if a company like Costco, like there are going to be companies that are smart about this and they're going to do their lawsuit and they're going to figure out some way to get a PR win by saying they're going to give the money back in some way to their

customers. Like some people will try to figure out how to do something. They'll do like a tar of deal, but they're not going to hire a forensic accounting firm to go through every purchase to see where we all overpaid. It's just like feasible. It's a mess. Speaking of a mess, so let's talk about the politics of all of this. I think there's kind of like two political angles. One is like the narrative. The narrative is Trump loses really big thing really badly and it doesn't make him look

strong. It doesn't make it look in control. And he rolls into the state of the union with this like overhanging the whole thing, right? Like what is he going to say to the justices? They'll be there. So it's messy. And then there's the economic impact of the terrorists themselves and how they might impact the midterms. I asked Dan about this earlier because there's a narrative out there that's like

the court to save Trump from himself because tariffs are bad. They hurt the economy. They're unpopular. What do you guys think, John? Imagine an alternative scenario here where the court rules as they did, but Donald Trump and the administration come out and say, look, we're disappointed by this decision, but we use tariffs and the threat of tariffs to make some really good trade deals that are going to help the American people and we feel good about some of these deals. And we're going to look for alternatives, but in the meantime, we think the economy is growing, and we're going to fight to bring down costs for people, and then we're just moving on, right? Now, he's still sort of politically damaged by this, because the damage has been done by a lot of

the tariffs and people in the tariffs. But he's basically just, like, hung a lantern on his problem in the worst possible way here by flipping the fuck out, vowing to say, like, oh, $175 billion, it's not going to be returned to people. We're going to try to keep it in the federal government. We're going to put more tariffs on. And even though the Supreme Court says they're illegal, I don't fucking care because I can do whatever the hell I want. And so now all everyone knows is, oh, all those high prices that I'm paying.

Yeah, that's right. It's Trump. And he wants to keep doing it even though the court told him not to. I think it's a fucking political disaster for him. Yeah. And I also think just it creates a big problem for congressional Republicans. Gorsuch, in his opinion, writes about the ways in which despite it being frustrating at times, despite the process being cumbersome, you want Congress to be determining policy. of this magnitude, that you do not want a situation in which the executive can willy-nilly make massive global economic policy without input from the legislature.

And it just highlights the ways in which Republicans in Congress have chosen their loyalty to Trump and the desire to avoid difficult votes over exerting their prerogatives. Why were these terrorists in place? Yes, because Trump is a buffoon, but also because congressional Republicans allowed it. And the same way they allowed him to undo agencies that were created by the federal government, created by Congress, just to be dissolved without their input, the same way they have allowed us to do military interventions in Venezuela without their input that we're marching to war with Iran right now without any kind of congressional authorization. They have completely seated the role of Congress to the president. And all this does is highlight that because now there's this 150-day period. There will have to be some kind of a vote.

None of these people want to go on record because they don't believe. leave in the tariffs. Speak too soon. Bernie Moreno is out there. Use car salesman from Ohio turned senator saying that he's going to try to collect some votes to get a reconciliation bill done this year where they codify the tariffs

into law. I am sure. Vote on that, boys. Moreno, yes, I obviously saw Moreno is going out there saying that they want the vote. The vast majority of the Republicans do not want this vote. Right. Well, I think the question is, are the biggest suckups

stupid enough to push for one? And then on the other side, I saw Don Bacon on CNN earlier, who's been an opponent of Trump's tariffs, saying, well, he said they're going to stay in place, so we're going to have to vote on these again and again again. Because remember, they've been voting piecemeal to rescind tariffs on places like Canada, which Trump did for no reason.

But just broadly speaking, I mean, 60% of Americans disapprove of Trump's tariffs in the last Pew poll earlier this month. That includes 39% who strongly disapproved. 28% of Republicans, Republican-leading independents, disapprove. All those people are now just reading more about Trump's tariffs.

It's pretty delicious for us. think. And today is not the end of it, right? Like there's Bernie Marino's thing, there's votes in Congress, it's going to go on. I think the city of the union, legal decisions. It's just going to go on and on and on. Lawsuits from lawsuits over the 200 billion, the administrative process to assert the new tariffs. Like this is this is going to be the defined issue. Foreign governments are going to have a say here. They're going to be announcing things. You know, like. He really did lose a huge foreign policy stick. Like every time he got pissed off, he threatened the tariff. He didn't always. put them in place. But now he's going to go to China, I think in late March or early April. Like, doesn't have that tool in his toolkit anymore. Honestly, I think that's the biggest reason that he flipped out today. It is because he thinks this is what makes him king of the world. It makes him look weak. It makes him look weak. And it like makes all the people that fought, makes the Mark Carney's look stronger and smarter. And but just the other side of it, too,

is this is a big blow to Trump. At the same time, it does nothing to change the current dynamic, which is Trump is pushing other countries. to figure out alliances and trade relationships without us. Like the damage that Trump is doing will not be abated by this ruling. He will, that will just continue. Yeah. Pod Save America breaking news is brought to you by Zbiotics pre-alcohol. Zbiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic.

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without a Zbiotics first because it's just not worth it. Same. Ready to try it. Go to Zbiotics.com slash crooked news now. You'll get 15% off your first order when you use crooked news at checkout. plus it's backed by 100% money back guarantee, so there's no risk. Subscriptions are also available for maximum consistency. Remember to head to Zbiotics.com slash crooked news and use the code Crooked News at checkout for 15% off. All right, finally, we have to talk about the bizarre new lighting in the White House briefing room earlier today. Those watching may have noticed already, but check out this clip of the press core reacting to the lighting change in real time.

Guys, thoughts on the new kind of divine supervillain aesthetic? Well, I saw someone ask Stephen Chung about it, who's the White House communication. director and he called the lighting choice dark maga adding quote president trump will not be stopped what does that even mean i think he will not he was stopped yeah it certainly was stopped i think what it means is president trump will not go into a room with overhead lighting that highlights some of his crags and crinkles and so he at some point they must have figured out a lighting that he finds more suitable for his current skin texture but i think that that's That's only true if they change the oval lights.

Nothing's brighter than that fucking oval. Well, it's not but bright, but he wants to be blown. He wants to, he does not want the, he wants to be blown out. There's a certain amount of lighting that he wants to that face. He does not want to have the kind of dark shadow, like the kind of normal office lighting. But it was like kind of like a heavenly authority. Like his head was glowing and then his back was like blue and glowing from the back. It was like a, I kind of believe Stephen Chung there that like they are going for this like he's a, he's a,

He's a dark look here. Carvaggio, turning bed kind of thing, Renaissance. Caroscarusqueau. It's very weird. I don't like it. I don't like it.

I don't think it looked good for him. I don't think it was, I think it was weird. They saw the, you know, the Biden backdrop that they all make fun of. Yeah, the blood red thing.

Yeah, and they're probably like, actually, that's pretty cool, we should do that. Yeah, that's sort of the, he likes that kind of traumatic lighting. Oh, that was dark Brandon. Dark Brandon.

But he liked, yeah, Trump likes that, like that severe light that he has. Like the apprentice. Yeah, it's the one that hung up the Department of Justice. And he also thinks it's flattering, kind of softer light on his face makes him look a little bit younger.

It's Dracula doing a quarterly or next call. Mog the press briefing. He's mocking the shit out of them. I think that's it for us on tariffs. Anything else you guys want to add? Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett? The family should be ashamed. Also Trump calling them disloyal,

I mean, just like a meal, a meal for Amy Coney Barrett. You can tell that's what really gets it. He's like, oh, the Democrats, they're bad they're evil but they're loyal not our side well and also because it's two of his right alito and thomas yeah that's why he had such great words for cavana because cavano is the only one that he appointed that that side with him on the yeah the other one just one last thing just that like the hypocrisy of the fucking alito thomas like just like originalists yeah just absolutely absurd

and like the fact that they like went after Biden when he used emergency powers because of covid on student loans but this of course they can approve like they're just such shills two of them. It is a good reminder, too, that since they're the two most likely is to leave the court, like those two retiring and Trump replacing them, honestly, like, you usually can't say this with anything else in the Trump White House, but it really can't get worse than those two. Right. They do not rule against.

He will replace them to be. Like, Alito is just the worst. Yeah. Gorsuch and Barrett, too, like, I do think it's just like, the effort to like to find them as like they were pure partisan hacks. It just wasn't true. It just wasn't true by name Konda Barrett. I never thought that.

Like, I think they've done terrible. terrible stupid rulings on immunity and a bunch of other things. But like, you know, this is, I do think it requires some nuance. They just ruled against the parent. It's top priority. Yeah, they both did a big ruling here. And Gorsuch has interesting kind of independence to Riques and like native rights in other areas.

So yeah, it's an interesting group of people. Mostly I hate them. Okay. That's it for us. Please subscribe to POTS of America here on YouTube. But thanks for watching. I sold my car in Carvana last night. Well, that's cool.

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