Morning Wire - SCOTUS Weighs Tariff Authority & ICE Checks Mamdani | 11.6.25

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

The Supreme Court considers President Trump’s authority to impose reciprocal tariffs worth billions, a standoff is brewing in New York City between Zohran Mamdani and ICE, and the battle to shift the balance of power in Congress through redistricting ratchets up. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Today's Sponsor: NetSuite - Get the free business guide, Demystifying AI, https://NetSuite.com/MORNINGWIRE - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy morning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Supreme Court takes up the question of President Trump's authority to impose reciprocal tariffs as billions in revenue hangs in the balance. The exercise of the power is to impose tariffs, right? And the statute doesn't use the word tariffs. I'm Georgia Howe. John's off this morning. It's Thursday, November 6th, and this is Morning Wire. He would not allow the New York Police Department to engage or to cooperate with ICE or DHS. Not in civil immigration enforcement. A standoff between Zoron Mamdani and immigration officials is brewing in New York City, but ice isn't blinking. You feel like I'm at, because we're going to be in New York City, and President Trump said it's a two weeks ago.

We're going double down, triple down, a sanctuary city. And with Californians passing Prop 50, the battle to shift the balance of power in Congress ratchets up. It overturns our constitutional ban on gerrymandering and instead institutes one of the most gerrymandered maps in modern history. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. Every business is asking the same question. How do we make AI work for us?

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The guide is free to you at net suite.com slash morning wire. NetSuite.com slash morning wire. The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a case challenging Trump's authority to level broad tariffs. The ruling will have a significant impact on Trump's signature trade policy. Here with the details is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta Giacomo. So, Amanda, let's start with some background on this. what exactly is being challenged here? The case the court heard is called Learning Resources Inc. Fee Trump, which was consolidated with

another similar case. There are also about a dozen or so Democrat-led states that are suing the Trump administration for this, too. In total, seven businesses argue that Trump doesn't have the legal authority to impose sweeping tariffs like he's done, and they say that those tariffs have caused them significant financial harm. The tariffs at issue cover a wide range of imported goods, with many set around 10 percent on nearly every year. U.S. trading partner. Those were enacted because of the trade deficit and the declining American industrial base, according to the Trump administration, which they said is an emergency. The other set of tariffs are more targeted. They relate to an emergency of border protection and the illegal

flow of drugs into the U.S. China, Canada, and Mexico were hit with varying rates of tariffs there. Now, in terms of the constitutional authority for the president to do this, what were the arguments from each side? Well, the plaintiffs argued that tariffs are taxes. And, the power of the purse belongs to Congress and not the president. They claim that the statute that Trump is citing to enact these tariffs, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or AEPA, they say that doesn't explicitly allow the president to impose tariffs, though it does give him a lot of other power when it comes to foreign trade during a declared emergency.

It's typically been used for sanctions. The Trump administration, however, argues that AEPA does allow the president to enact tariffs, even if it's never been used for that before. They argue that the issues at the border clearly constant. an emergency, thereby allowing these tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico. And similarly, the trade deficit along with other reasoning, that's an emergency, they said, which justifies those other more broad tariffs. Now, how did the court seem to respond to those arguments? Were there any signals about how they are leaning? In general, the justices did seem more

skeptical towards the Trump administration, but, you know, the skepticism did cut both ways. Here's Kavanaugh pressing against the plaintiff's arguments. Your interpretation of the statute, as she pointed out, would allow the president to shut down all trade with every other country in the world or to impose some significant quota on imports from every other country in the world, but would not allow a 1% tariff. and that leaves, in the government's words, and it's brief, an odd donut hole in the statute. That doesn't seem to have a lot of common sense behind it. Another key moment focused in on what exactly constitutes an emergency and if there are limits there. Justice Gorsuch suggested that if the court does broadly side with the Trump administration,

this would unleash a lot of power for future administrations. Could the president impose a 50% terror? on gas-powered cars and auto parts to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat from abroad of climate change. It's very likely that that can be done. I think that has to be the logic of your view. Now, this is obviously a major pillar for the Trump administration. What are they saying about this case? Yeah, well, Trump very much believes in tariffs.

He's been talking about tariffs and trade policy for decades now. And he believes that Americans have been taken advantage of for too long and tariffs can help level the playing field. He framed this case as literally life or death for our country. In a truth social post on Tuesday, he said that victory at the court would mean financial and national security for America, but a loss would mean the U.S. again being taken advantage of. In a Supreme Court brief, the administration put it this way. With tariffs, we are a rich nation. Without tariffs, we are a poor nation. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt echoed that same sentiment on Tuesday during a press briefing. This year alone, we are going to cut this.

deficit by $600 billion, namely because of the president's effective use of tariffs. And the president strongly believes that economic security is a matter of national security. And tariffs have a lot to do with that. A decision in this case is expected by the summer, but, you know, things have been moving very quickly here, so it could be much sooner. Well, ultimately, it does come down to the Constitution. Amanda, thanks for reporting. You're welcome.

New York's new mayor, Zoran Mamdani, has vowed to not cooperate with ICE, raising the question, how will immigration raids look now in New York City? Daily Wire immigration reporter Jenny Tehr is here now with more. So, Jenny, what have you been hearing about the Trump administration's plans to address the new situation on the ground in New York with regards to ICE? Well, this morning, I actually happened to be texting with Borders R Tom Holman. So I got a pretty direct answer on what's going to be happening. and it's that ICE operations will continue and that they're not going to stop, despite the rhetoric of Zoran Mamdani,

who has made these very big promises about continuing to keep ice out of New York, keeping that sanctuary status, which really what it does is it prevents those local authorities from releasing illegal immigrant criminals to ICE directly. It just allows them to continue to release them onto the streets. And we know New York has a, revolving door of justice. So they just continue to perpetuate crime in the city. And that's what it does.

Homan has been very much against that. But he's also been pro going out and flooding cities that are sanctuaries with ICE agents, which seems to be what's going to happen here. Okay. So more of the status quo, it sounds like. Yes, absolutely. Now, jumping to another surprising development on illegal immigration in a red state. You've recently uncovered that the state of Texas is allowing illegal immigrants to obtain vehicle registrations. What do we know about that? So while voters in Texas approved a proposition that would require that non-citizens stay out of voting, there's been an issue that's been under the radar for a while now, which is that illegal immigrants can obtain vehicle registration to drive on the roads in Texas, even if they don't have a driver's license. So this is a big issue that's coming

up. Obviously, illegal immigrants on the roads has been an issue that continues to make headlines, especially with truck driving. But in the non-commercial area, with the day-to-day that we all experience on the roads, this is something that's pretty shocking that's happening in a red state. It also comes as ICE took to the streets recently. And in a single day, they arrested about 120 illegal immigrants that were driving on the roads in Texas. So this is a huge issue. And, you know, here and it's just now coming to the surface. So just to clarify, they can register their car without being a legal driver? Right. So they don't have to have a license from the state. And that's something that's just now coming to light. The state authorities are now being questioned about it

even. So that would seem to be a pretty major oversight from the state. Is it being addressed now that it's come to light? Yes. So the state representative, Brian Harrison, actually sent a to the Texas DMV board requesting more information about this and saying that he had received alarming reports that this was happening. If they don't act, if they fail to do anything to address this or ensure that it doesn't continue to happen, then he's threatening legislative action. So not only did we have a porous border for years, apparently we also have very porous legislation. Jenny, thanks for reporting. Thank you. Proposition 50 passed by an overwhelming margin in California on Tuesday. It's just the latest in what's likely to become a messy nationwide redistricting battle. Daily Wire political reporter Cameron Arkand joins us now. So Cameron, good to have you on the show for the first time. As we've reported before, this was not really a surprise, correct? Yes, thank you for having me. This was not a surprise at all. The reason this passed by such an overwhelming margin had to do with the

fact that it was significantly bankrolled by Democrats who led this effort. They led the charge. The spending on the opposition side was minimal compared to what we saw on the pro side of this. So this was not a surprise at all, at least on a fundraising front. Now, what does this ballot measure actually do? And what kind of challenges could it face going forward? The biggest thing that it does is it gives permission for the state to basically redraw up to five congressional districts to make them so they favor Democrats. Now, this was made. meant to be a counteraction to the state of Texas's effort to basically create a map the same way, but it would favor Republicans for five seats. Now, when you look at the larger picture here,

this could trigger redistricting efforts all around the country. We've already seen this in Missouri, in North Carolina, and in other states as well. This is one piece of the puzzle, one large piece of the puzzle, mind you, to making sure we get a better idea of what the maps could look like come 2026. Now, could this just kind of end up evening out at the end of the day where it looks similar to what we have now? Sure. But we have a lot of court cases, a lot of potential legal battles and different actions at the state level across the country that could influence that.

The California Republican Party just announced a federal level lawsuit against Prop 50 today and calling it unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. And that could also heavily create sweeping implications if it goes up through the federal court system. Now, there's also a pending court case that could be a major factor in the 2026 map. Tell us about that. Yeah, so perhaps the biggest one, and this would be a legal earthquake if this does happen. Louisiana is dealing with a major Supreme Court case right now where they are essentially

arguing to get rid of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That essentially does take away to an extent the race factor in terms of how congressional maps are redrawn. Now, if that does happen, if the Supreme Court does say make major reforms to, the way the Voting Rights Act is as it stands right now. That could end up being extremely beneficial to Republicans in the South, and that could lead to a redrawing of congressional districts that favor Republicans in that region the country. Now, that would probably trigger some gerrymandering in certain Democratic states, but by and large, that would end up being

strong news for Republicans. Now, who has more to gain from this effort? Are Democratic states currently more gerrymandered or a Republican states currently more gerrymandered? At the end of the day, we're seeing states where, you know, California, they want to get rid of a good chunk of their Republican seats. You look at places like Massachusetts where, you know, you had a good percentage of people in states in New England where very little Republican congressional representation, yet you had a good number of people in those states voting for Republicans. They voted for Donald Trump in 2024, at least a good chunk of voters there, did, and they do not have representation in those states right now. This is something that

Republicans and anti-jerrymandering advocates have long said for now. Now, Democrats really want to show that they can stand up to Trump, especially in the later half of his term. And the reason why we saw this ballot measure in California was a direct response to Trump calling for mid-decade redistricting in the state of Texas. At least that's the way that they have framed this in this instance. And so Democrats really want to show, especially in California, that they are going to counter Trump's agenda, especially in the latter half of his term. All right. Well, Cameron, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Thanks for waking up with us.

And if you're listening, you can now watch us for free on Daily Wire Plus. We'll be back later this evening with more news you need to know.