Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump Tariffs Showdown Meets Full Court Press

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

In a fast moving breaking story, we have 2 major developments about Trump’s unconstitutional tariff policies: (1) All the judges of the  Federal Circuit Court of Appeals have issued an Administrative Stay of last night’s Court of International Trade ruling blocking Trump’s global retaliatory tariff policies, until it has time to hear the appeal; while (2) a different federal judge in DC has also ruled that Trump violated statutes and the constitution in imposing certain targeted tariffs on China. Michael Popok pulls it all together. Check out The Popok Firm: https://thepopokfirm.com Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! 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

Got some breaking news about tariffs. The T word as Donald Trump would like to say. He's got a loss by Judge Contreras in the District of Columbia about some individual tariffs on Chinese opioids and things like that. Fresh on the heels of last night's decision by the Court of International Trade, but we have an administrative stay by the Federal Circuit,

that specialty appellate court that sits in the District of Columbia, giving them time to read all the papers about whether Donald Trump will be successful in overturning the complete block of his retaliatory tariffs by that court of international trade. What is an administrative stay? Does it mean they've made a ruling

on the substance of the issue? Why did so many judges join together in issuing the administrative stay? And does it mean anything about the ultimate decision that they're gonna make? I'm gonna answer all those questions and more right here on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. How'd we get here? Donald Trump dragged a case from a federal judge that he didn't

like over to the Court of International Trade in New York, three-judge panel, that's how they do things there, made a ruling late last night against him and ruled that he unconstitutionally imposed retaliatory tariffs. He doesn't have that power. Only Congress have that power. Only Congress has that power. And Congress, while it can delegate, the court said, it has to delegate with clear limits and guidelines. It can't be limitless.

And Donald Trump doesn't have the power under that or under a International Economic Emergencies Procedures Act. We call it IEPA line of cases and statute. That's where we were last night. Donald Trump immediately appealed by filing a notice of appeal with a specialty appellate court, also Article 3, under the Constitution that sits in DC called the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal. It only handles things like patents and trademarks and things related to the economy and tariffs and technology. All in one court.

It's got about 11 members. Hold that number in your head. So he files the notice, right? He doesn't skip the step and go to the Supreme Court like his usual behavior. While we're waiting to see if the court, who's been asked by Trump to issue a stay, whether they're going to enter a stay, at least temporarily, in other words, block the decision by the Court of International Trade to tear down the tariffs, right? While we were waiting for that, which has now happened, Judge Rudy Contreras, a judge that sits in DC, had a whole another tariff case in front of him about Chinese opioids and all sorts of things related to China that were imposed by Donald Trump, pursuant to some other law. And similarly, Contreras said,

no, you don't have the right to issue those tariffs. And so we had another loss for Donald Trump related to that before we even got to the federal circuit. For instance, in particular, this is what the judge said in that case. It's a relatively short order. Here it is now. And there's a separate order that was granted. But this is the gist. The tariffs deriving from an executive order imposing duties to address the synthetic opioid supply chain, the People's Republic of China, and other reciprocal tariffs, all really related to China, they would be under the Under the International Economic Emergency Economic Powers Act, IEPA, the judge found that IEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs pursuant to those orders. He's therefore preliminarily enjoined from collecting any tariffs. And that shall be, now he's allowing them,

he's staying it to allow the parties to seek review in another court of appeals, in this case, the DC Court of Appeals, not the Federal Circuit, where we are related to the decision by the Court of International Trade. Now, on the heels of that, hours later, we just got the ruling from the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in almost all the judges, 10 out of the 11 judges. So they got together en banc and they made a decision. And the decision is they're gonna grant an administrative stay.

An administrative stay is the lowest level of injunction that a court can grant. It's usually done without even reviewing any of the documents or the record, but the state does hold the ring and block the order of the court, the international court, the court of international trade, until they at the higher level, their bosses have an opportunity to look at all the papers. So they set a briefing schedule. They want to look at the briefing schedule. They're going to consolidate to appeal.

So it's all about one set of briefs. They'll set an oral argument at some point. In the meantime, they don't want to be pressured by the court of international trades order. So they put it on ice. It doesn't mean that Trump's ultimately gonna win. It's a relatively neutral, agnostic, if you will, decision by a court.

Happens all the time. They're not looking under the hood. They're not looking at the substance, or the merits, what we say, the merits of the appeal. They will. At that point, they may convert the administrative stay into a temporary restraining order or a stay that will last throughout the appeal, or they might say, no, we don't think you have the grounds for a stay. It's an extraordinary set of relief to ask for from an appellate court. We'll do your appeal, but we're going to let the tariffs come down. My gut is they're gonna block the order, tearing down the tariffs until they've had a chance to fully understand it on appeal.

Because they're gonna argue, this is just their argument, I'm sure. The court's gonna argue, well, we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube if all the tariffs are torn down and then we rule that was wrong. It's very hard to impose them again. It's diplomatic and economic chaos, which we don't need. We'll just stay the order for a month

or two until we have a fast-paced emergency or a fast-paced briefing on this particular issue. That's what I think is going to happen. So the takeaway is Donald Trump did get the administrative stay to block the international, the court of international trades decision while they get their, their minds around the appeal. I think they'll keep that stay in place until the appeal is concluded while they may put it on a fast track. And as a side note to that, a side branch to this discussion, Judge Contreras also determined on, on similar grounds, Judge Contreras also determined on similar grounds that the

Donald Trump's use of AIIPA, a body of law, does not empower him to issue tailored sanctions by way of tariff imposition on China. So that's where we are in the tariff wars. Join us here on Midas Touch and on Legal AF for regular updates. You see how fast moving this story is. We've got a couple of stories that are really moving fast. Everything related to Harvard really moving fast. Everything related to tariffs really moving fast. So come to Midas Touch and then slide over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel, where every hour we're doing a new video related to the law related to the intersection of law and politics.

We want to be one stop shopping for you in that area. And if you really want to nerd out, come over to our sub stack where we're posting decisions like the one you just found and we know that I just discussed up under filings AF. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popock for Midas Touch and Legal AF. Hey everybody, Ben Mycelis here from the Midas Touch Network. I wanted to let you know about my podcast partner, Michael Popock's new law firm. It's called the Popock Firm. Michael Popock's pursuing his dream of starting his own law firm, really based on the popular demand by all the Midas,

Midian, Legal AF'ers who were approaching Michael Popak with their cases and saying, can you help us? And at that time, Popak was not able to. So he went out on his own. He started the Popak firm where he is now handling catastrophic injury cases like car accident cases, trucking cases, malpractice cases, big negligence cases, wrongful death cases. So if you or someone you know have a case like this, the consultation with Popak's firm is free. Give them a call. See if you have a case.

It's thepopakfirm.com, thepopacfirm.com, or you can call 877-POPOCAF, P-O-P-O-K-A-F. So 1-877-P-O-P-O-K-A-F. Give Michael Popoc a call, and I'm really proud of you, Popoc. Thanks for all the hard work you're putting in.