Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Attempts Sudden Reversal After His Own Court Blocks Him

Episode Date: May 31, 2025

While foreign governments have adopted a TACO strategy banking on Trump chickening out in their trade negotiations with him, Trump has now been forced to appeal his hand picked court, the US Court of International Trade, who just blocked his entire retaliatory tariff policy as unconstitutional. Michael Popok explains what specialty appeals court gets the case next, and why the Supreme Court may not bail him out this time. To get our $297 when you buy a PAIR offer, including a free charger, head to https://ShopMDHearing.com and use code LEGALAF. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Letitia James is a winner, Donald Trump a loser. The tariffs are blocked. And that from a court that Donald Trump handpicked to take the dispute to when states challenged and small businesses challenged his power, which he doesn't have, back on Liberation Day to set new tariffs against the world. Not so, says the Court of International Trade. Yes, that's a real court in New York, three-judge panel, which was evenly

divided between Obama, Reagan, and Trump appointees, all ruled unanimously that Trump does not have those powers. And now Donald Trump has taken an appeal. And where does that appeal go? You may ask it goes to the federal circuit, a little known appellate court that sits in Washington, DC, comprised of 11 judges. And then if he loses the appeal, he'll try to take it up to the United States Supreme court. And if he loses that, then he's going to have to start giving out orders to the customs, United States customs department to issue orders to take down those tariffs.

I'm going to go over it with you right now. Huge setback for Donald Trump, especially since he dragged the case into this particular court of Michael Popak. Let's put on my Wall Street hat, give you the breakdown here on the Midas Touch Network, including the new information that there's already been an appeal that's been filed, and we'll see what happens next. What happened?

Late last night, we got a ruling from this unique specialized court that sits in New York. It is a specialty court. It is an Article III court, meaning the judges there are lifetime appointees and confirmed by the Senate, and they are subject to and are creatures of Article III of the US Constitution. And they meet in panels, unlike a trial court,

a federal court, at the district court level, they meet in three judge panels, like appellate courts, but they're really a court of first original jurisdiction, meaning that they hear the case, they just hear it together as a trio. And they issued their decision yesterday. And what they ruled is that Donald Trump does not have the power under the Constitution to impose these types of tariffs. And he certainly doesn't have it

under a body of law from 1977, coming out of the stagflation Jimmy Carter era, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which we call IEPA. He doesn't have that either because we're not under that kind of emergency. It's usually a war-like event that allows a president to have been delegated the power that resides with Congress to impose tariffs.

See, every little school child knows that it's Congress, not the president, that has the sole power to impose tariffs. They can delegate that power with clear direction to other branches, including the presidency, and they've done that in various ways starting in 1917. But they can't give unfettered, unlimited power for Donald Trump to come in in the Rose Garden and announce with that big stupid sign of all the tariffs with a crazy tariff program that had made no economic sense whatsoever, and the world responded, they can't do that.

And I give it up to the Liberty Justice Center, a relatively new and small group. They brought this case on behalf of small businesses that were being hit by these tariffs. I mean, there's a lot of reporting going on right now about how companies are out there basically saying, we can avoid the tariffs for you. We'll ship things through Vietnam. You won't have to pay the 30% China tariff. You'll pay the 10% Vietnam tariff. It's a whole shell game going on right now

in order to avoid the tariffs. That many of the tariffs have been suspended while Donald Trump tries to figure out how not to wreck the world economy and the US economy to boot. Every time Donald Trump has a phone conversation or a meeting with Walmart or Home Depot or Jamie Dimon at the JP Morgan Chase or he watches cable news, he changes his mind as bad as economic policy. That's how irrational and erratic he is. Is he a good steward for our economy?

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And now we've got judges at the U.S. Court of International Trade. Why there? Because they have exclusive jurisdiction over all things related to tariffs, period. When the case was originally filed, it was filed before a regular federal judge. Donald Trump wanted to get to the Court of International Trade. Why? Because he knew the odds were a little bit better there. Maybe if he got a couple of Trumpers, maybe if he got a couple of Republicans, then he might be able to win. He liked his odds better, right? He's a deal-maker. He's a gambler. And he thought, oh, it's better there. Now, technically, it belongs there. So I agreed. I kind of agreed with the move. Now I worried a little bit about three weeks ago when that same court refused to temporarily block the tariff program and deny the temporary

restraining order. I said, uh-oh, that usually means they don't think that there's a winning case by the plaintiff. Now that they've seen the full filings, and this was on a motion for summary judgment, which is a judgment by a court, by the bench, without the need for a trial. Usually it means there are undisputed facts that no facts have to be developed by way of testimony or evidence. It's all been submitted.

There's a stipulated set of facts, or an agreed set of facts, or the facts that are not in dispute are sufficient to support a judgment in somebody's favor. If you have undisputed facts that as a matter of law somebody is entitled to a judgment in their favor and that's called a summary judgment. They issued a summary judgment and they entered a permanent injunction that's the block that's in all the headlines against the tariffs. Fundamentally, they reminded the world and Donald Trump that the president doesn't have

that power, that the power to impose excise taxes and other taxes lies with the Congress. And again, there can be delegation, but it can't be unfettered. It can't be unlimited because that would be unconstitutional. And the law that Donald Trump relied on, that IEPA law, doesn't help him because we're not under that type of economic emergency and or war or warlike footing to allow the president to take over and impose tariffs. So there's now an appeal. That's the focus here now. You file an appeal with a notice of appeal. It's a one page document. They filed it. The notice of appeal says we're appealing the decision in its entirety. Then there will be a three judge panel assigned at what we call the Federal Circuit in Washington, not to be confused with the DC Court of Appeals. That's different. That's a different appellate court that deals with things coming up from the regular federal trial court level. This is the Federal Circuit, which is a

specialty appeals court that deals with things like patents, technology, commerce, tariffs. And there's 11 judges, they sit three at a time, they'll issue their ruling, they'll set a briefing schedule. I don't think it'll be an emergency application. And Donald Trump did not skip that court and try to go to the Supreme Court directly. Maybe because he's already kind of lowered the barriers and he sort of suspended a lot of these tariffs, although the world economy responded with a global yippee and you've got

stocks trading higher now because people think that the tariffs are in jeopardy or Donald Trump's going to have to be forced to get rid of them. Of course, the rest of the world has already adopted a taco strategy, which has pissed off Donald Trump. Tacos, the rest of the world has already adopted a taco strategy, which has pissed off Donald Trump. Tacos, which has been coined by the Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong back in a May 2nd column, but just got to Donald Trump, which stands for Trump always chickens out. Look, there's plenty of reporting that nations in negotiating with Donald Trump know he's going to fold. And they incorporate that into their calculus in their negotiation strategy. That's been well known. That's why Mexico has been successful. That's why Canada has been successful. That's why China's

been successful and why they're all eating our lunch. But now you have this court, which is also ruled that not only is there taco, Trump always chickens out, but Trump is always generally wrong in court. And we'll continue to follow it right here on the Midas Touch Network and on LegalAF. Take a moment, come over to LegalAF, the YouTube channel, hit the subscribe button there. We're doing about a dozen videos per day at the intersection of law and politics, along with our Legal AF sub stack, where we're putting it all together, one stop shopping, law and politics. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the

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