What A Day - Is Trump About To Lose His Trade War?

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

It was a big day for President Donald Trump as the Supreme Court heard arguments on his power to impose tariffs unilaterally. And the justices seemed… skeptical. Even Trump-friendly Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned Trump Administration lawyers on their claim that tariffs are foreign policy, so the President can do what he wants. Oregon is one of the states suing the Trump administration over tariffs. To find out more about what they argued at SCOTUS and what might happen if the justices give Trump a very rare loss, we talked to Dan Rayfield, the Attorney General of Oregon.And in headlines, the government shutdown is officially the longest in American history, California Republicans sue the state over Prop 50 just hours after it passes, and Israel and Hamas continue the grim exchange of remains under last month’s U.S.-brokered ceasefire.Show Notes:Check out AG Rayfield's work – https://tinyurl.com/2ds3y767Call Congress – 202-224-3121Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's Thursday, November 6th. I'm Todd's Willick in for Jane Koston, and this is what a day. The show watching House Speaker Mike Johnson process his party's brutal election losses, one stage of grief at a time. First, of course, there's denial. I don't think the loss last night was any reflection about Republicans at all. Then there's anger. I think people are frustrated and angry as we are. Then you move on to bargaining. We look forward.

We're looking forward to a great election running on our record. And we're going to get all of our incumbents reelected. And depression. We woke up very early. And we talked about the outcome. Still waiting on that final stage, Mike. What does it take to reach acceptance when you're Mike Johnson? In today's show, President Donald Trump notches another record into his belt, the longest government

shutdown in American history. And in California, Republicans sue the state over Prop 50, just hours after it passes. But let's start with the Supreme Court. The two things Donald Trump loves most. Okay, two things besides money and revenge, tariffs, and going to court. That means it was a big, big day for Trump at SCOTUS, says, just heard arguments on his administration's unilateral power grab, claiming the power to declare an emergency where none exists, and then using that emergency to inflict economic chaos on friends,

adversaries, American consumers, and, well, just about everyone. Justices seemed skeptical. Even Trump-friendly ones like Neil Gorsuch, who questioned Trump administration lawyers on their claim that, hey, tariffs are foreign policy, and the president can do whatever. he wants. I want to explain to me how you draw the line because you say we shouldn't be concerned because this is foreign affairs and the president has inherent authority, and so delegation off the books, more or less.

And if that's true, what would prohibit Congress from just abdicating all responsibility to regulate foreign commerce, for that matter, declare war to the president? Then there was the question, what is a tariff? because if a tariff is a tax, only Congress can tax. It's right there in Article 1 of an admittedly obscure document, called the Constitution. Here's Justice Sonia Sotomayor. I just don't understand this argument. It's not an article.

It's a congressional power, not a presidential power, to tax. And you want to say tariffs are not taxes, but that's exactly what they are. Of course, even if you're not a lawyer, maybe especially if you're not a lawyer, not a lawyer, the main effect of Trump's tariffs is confusion. Liberation days followed by deadlines that never materialize in global economic policy by Truth Social Post. And Nebraska Republican Don Bacon, who's not running for re-election in the House, knows that that spells chaos. And markets, they hate chaos. The tariff strategy has been a lot of terrorists on and off again, and it's been very unpredictable.

And I think our economy has instability because of this. And the average person, when they go to the supermarket, as you say, they've not seen an improvement. Oregon is one of the states suing the Trump administration over tariffs. To find out more about what they argued at SCOTUS and what might happen if skeptical justices give Trump a very rare L. I talked to Dan Rayfield. He's the Attorney General of Oregon. Attorney General Dan Rayfield, welcome to what a day. Hey, thanks for having me.

Great to have you. Well, the lawsuit that your state is leading argues that President Trump is misusing what's called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, otherwise known as AEPA, to impose his expansive tariffs. First of all, did Neil Gorsuch say AEPA today? And second of all, can you break down the argument at the heart of your case? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think that's the one thing Americans didn't think they would have to learn this year is what Aiepa stands for. But the case is pretty darn simple, right? In the history of AEPA, right, this emergency power, no president has ever used it to set tariffs. And there's a reason for that is because Congress, when they contemplated how much power they should give to the president, and that's one thing Americans got to remember, is that the Constitution gives that sole power to Congress. Congress has given some of that power to the president. And they created

these specific statutes to do that. And they created safeguards, right? They wanted safeguards for our consumers, so our prices don't go up. They want a predictability for small businesses. So you had length, duration, amounts, all these type of safeguards for American people, frankly, as Congress and their, but I would say, there's sole discretion to really engage in this area. This is the first person that used this emergency power to set tariffs. So incredibly unusual in the way that they went about it. And that's why the lower courts, three judges, ruled that he'd abused an emergency power, he being Trump. And then now you had the federal circuit say, yep, you abused a power, and now we're at the Supreme Court. And today you really started to hear the justices

grapple with the gravity and the immensity of the power that Trump is trying to claim. Were there any specific moments at the oral arguments? I know you attended here in Washington. Any comments from particular justices stand out to you that give you an indication? of how uncomfortable they are here? For me personally, one was Justice Gorsuch, which was really questioning, can Congress give all of the power that they have been granted under the Constitution

to the President? If you think about that, if you gave all the powers that Congress was given in the Constitution to the President, you've effectively gotten rid of one of those three co-eagle branches of government. And to prevent that, that's why we have this non-delegal.

allegation doctrine, right? This major questions doctrine is another version or a different type flavor of that. And so it was a very heavy moment where we're talking about the framers of our Constitution, really looking at the checks and balances, the stuff we learned in grade school. And Gorsuch really stress testing that with Trump's attorneys. And I think the, you know, Trump's attorneys did the best they could to answer that. But I think their answers were wholly inadequate. We're effectively saying, yeah, they can give us all this power. What are you going to do about it. What did you see from Amy Coney Barrett? I ask about her because she's one of the members of the court who calls herself a textualist. She's not alone, but that's a big thing with her.

You know, that sort of says, read the statute. Read the words. If the statute doesn't say tax, we don't have to talk anymore. It's not in there. This statute, Aipa, doesn't say tax. Is it more complicated than that? It depends on what avenue you're going for. Obviously, you know, and when we look at this, we don't think it's more. complicated than that. You're really looking at the definition of this term regulate, and a lot of time is spent on that. But the simple answer truly is, no Congress has ever used this term regulate to ever mean tariffs in the way that the president is currently using them. Because remember, these lawyers are coming into the courtroom, looking at these justices in the eye and say,

you know what, we can put tariffs at 200% on anything for any amount of time, on any good, for any reason, and it's okay. We get to do that in the way that. In the way that, that this was written, you absolutely know that no Congress ever intended to do that. Effectively, when they come and look at those same justice in the eyes and say, hey, you know what, our best calculation is that only 30% of those tariffs are paid by Americans, but it's as high as 80%, which is consistent with what Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley say, they'll say about 60 to 80% of those tariffs, those are paid by us, not anyone else. And that's a hidden tax. Well, financial analysis and legal analysis are great. What about Oregonians back home? The New York Times reported earlier this week that

nearly half of all goods coming into the United States right now had been subject to tariffs over Donald Trump's program here. So how are people in Oregon coping feeling about how these tariffs are affecting them at the store? Well, again, I think people should start with not taking my word for anything, but take Trump's lawyer's word. They came in and their filing show that they believe they're going to rake in $4 trillion. That's with a T, trillion dollars in tariff revenue. Their own estimates, right, 30 to 80 percent. Let's just give them 25 percent. That's one trillion dollars of American taxpayer dollars that is being raised, taken out of our pockets, being put in the Treasury without a vote of Congress. That's wild that what's going on right now.

In fact, I ran into dissent earlier in the courtroom, and he was bragging. literally bragging that these tariffs are bringing money into the Treasury. And I looked at him and says, that's my money. Now, just to be clear, Mr. Attorney General, Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary bragged to you about the trillions of dollars. Did you say that to him? That it's your money? What did he say? Yeah, I think I was in the defendant's side of where these folks were sitting. And myself and A.G. Mays had a quick exchange with him. And he basically tried to tell us that we just don't get it. This is great for the Treasury. And that was roughly what his quote was.

And I was frustrated. And my response back to him was like, that's our money. That's Americans' money that's coming into your treasury without a vote of Congress. So that was the frustration that you're seeing right here, the disconnect from just common economic policy, the disconnect from the arguments that his own lawyers were making in the courtroom. Pretty absurd and silly. You know, it's also a weird world where you have Republicans bragging about how much money that they're steep. from Americans right now.

I was about to say the same thing. I feel like I'm in a little bit of a fun house. Republican is bragging about how much money a tax is bringing into the Treasury, and a Democrat is saying, hey, buddy, hands off. That's my money. What? So the administration says that they have a plan. They have a plan B here that if the court strikes down emergency powers under IEPA in

the way that you want them to, they have a whole bunch of other laws and statutes they can use justify tariffs and to make them work legally. You expect that to happen? Of course. I mean, this is a president who loves his tariffs. This is also a party that pretends that they're not raising taxes on Americans, but, you know, by God, they're going to find a way to do it. And in this space, you know what? I'm okay if you use the statutes that Congress allocated for tariffs. That's the policy that Congress intended for presidents to use. But it has those safeguards, right? You can't increase your tariffs to 150% because you don't like the way someone looked at you in the hallway, right? You can't do them forever. So if he wants to use him as Congress intended, go

forth. He just isn't going to be able to have his feelings hurt and, you know, jack up the tariffs, you know, on a whims notice or via a tweet. Well, just yesterday, I mean, Democrats won a mini blue wave across America. I mean, you're a lawyer, not an economist or a political analyst, I guess, But do you have a sense in what role, if any, tariffs in price uncertainty played in what we saw on Tuesday night? What I really believe right now is that the economic messaging that is resonating with America is this stuff is too darn expensive. We're trying to get day-to-day on the bare essentials. Like you have utility costs, right, health care costs, food costs, clothing. All of this is increasing.

And this just didn't, you know, crop up overnight. This has been a nine-month, 10-month trajectory that the president has put us on. And he has been unresponsive on these issues and has only made things worse. And the people that were successful, you know, frankly, I don't know if it was necessarily party, but the people that were successful, the ones that were talking about, an economic message that is helping struggling Americans. And that's why those candidates won, in personal opinion, why I believe that they won last night. And I think we, as elected officials, have to do better to help the people that are struggling and not do these have-have-have-not policies that you're seeing coming out of the Trump administration.

I don't know any American that is pleased with the president because he's holding back food benefits, cutting food assistance, cutting health care. And then at the same time, doing these regressive tariff policies that is increasing the cost of all the goods for all of us that we're paying. This is about as backwards as it could get. And this is entirely the opposite of what the president was. was claiming he was going to do a year ago. It is a betrayal of his campaign promises and where they're going. And I think you're going to continue to see this go on to the next year. And I think hopefully, next election cycle, we'll have another positive election cycle.

We can start turning this country around. Dan Rayfield, Attorney General of Oregon. Thanks for joining us. Thanks. That was my conversation with Dan Rayfield, Attorney General of Oregon. We'll get to more of the news in just a moment. But if you like to love, like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. like. I take tons of photos, and I want to share them, especially with my dad and my friends.

ORA makes that easy. You just download the ORA app and connect to Wi-Fi, no fees, no anything. You can preload photos before it ships, and keep adding from anywhere anytime. You can even add a message before it arrives, and you can share photos and videos effortlessly, straight from your phone all year long. A gift box is included. Every frame comes packaged in a premium gift box with no price tag. Named number one by wirecutter, you can save on the perfect gift by visiting oraframs.com. For a limited time, listeners can get $20 off their best-selling Carvermat frame with code Aura20. That's A-U-R-A-Frams.com promo code ora-20. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

Here's what else we're following today. Head of lines. So as you know, we are in the midst of a disastrous Democrat-created government shutdown, and it is Democrat-creating. but I don't think they're getting really the blame that they should. That's now officially the longest shut down in American history. President Trump addressed a room full of Republican senators at a White House breakfast on Wednesday and again called on lawmakers to end the Senate filibuster. The filibuster requires a 60-vote threshold for advancing most legislation, and ending it would let Republicans steamroll the Democratic minority and end the shutdown,

among many other things. Multiple people who attended the breakfast told Axios that the room was, quote, eerily silent and also, quote, uncomfortable. One reason for that might be that Senate Republicans have no interest in nuking the filibuster, no matter how mad Trump gets. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Wednesday that ending the filibuster is, quote, just not happening. Trump also used the time to blame the shutdown for the widespread Republican defeat in Tuesday night's elections, maybe he's on to something. I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans.

And that was a big factor. And they say that I wasn't on the ballot was the biggest factor. But I don't know about that. But I was honored that they said that. Maybe the fact that you were honored is why they said it. Anyway, Democrats have been fighting to extend the enhanced subsidies that have made Affordable Care Act premiums more affordable. since 2021. Trump has refused to negotiate the issue until the government is reopened. And look where

that's gotten him so far. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday that he warned President Trump that ignoring Democrats would come back to haunt him. Republicans shouldn't ignore us anymore for their own good and the country's good. So this morning, leader Jeffries and I once again demanded a meeting with the president. It's time to sit down and negotiate with Democrats to bring this Republican shutdown to an end. Republicans said Wednesday they're working on a new proposal for a deal, but Dem said they haven't even received it yet. So don't bet on things opening up anytime this week. We have filed this lawsuit because the map enacted in Proposition 50 for California's congressional districts is unconsored.

constitutional. The map is designed to favor one race of California voters over others. Lawyer Mike Colombo spoke on behalf of the California Republican Party Wednesday, which wasted zero time trying to undo Democrats' massive election day win. The California GOP filed a federal lawsuit claiming the districts created by Prop 50 are unconstitutional after voters overwhelmingly approved it. The suit argues the plan gives Hispanic voters a disproportionate voice in House elections, violating the 14th and 15th amendments. In other words, a racial gerrymander that Republicans don't like. It's the exact argument Democrats made against Texas Republicans earlier this year when the GOP redrew maps seemingly to dilute black voting power

through its own brand of creative cartography. Republicans have been redrawing maps to to maximize white voting power for decades. Just look at Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina. The list goes on. But California's Prop 50 was a direct response to the new map in Texas this year. California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom's office responded to the lawsuit in a tweet that ended, simply, quote, good luck, losers. A fragile truce between Israel and Hamas is holding Barely, as both sides continue a grim exchange of remains under last month's U.S. brokered ceasefire. On Wednesday, Gaza's Nassar Hospital received 15 more Palestinian bodies returned from Israel.

Since the deal began, the Red Cross has transferred 285 remains in total, though health officials in Gaza say they've struggled to identify them without DNA kits. Israel has returned 15 bodies for each Israeli hostage, returned by Hamas. This week's exchange came after Hamas handed over the body of Itai Chen, an Israeli soldier killed in the October 7th attack that ignited the war. Both sides accused the other of violating the deal's terms, but the ceasefire can't move on to the next phase until all hostage remains are returned. Only then will diplomats begin negotiating the next step and international security force for Gaza. I got indicted. I made a phone call.

Congratulations on your victory. He made a phone call. Let's indict him. These people are the worst. Then they say, he's going to have to call me. They indicted me. They impeached me. They did everything.

Who the hell else could have taken that? Do you guys know anybody else I could have taken it? I don't think so. President Trump seemingly went off script again at the America Business Forum. in Miami on Wednesday, ranting about being indicted as his case against former FBI director, James Comey, hit a snag in the courts. The Department of Justice indicted Comey on two charges in late September, lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation. Both charges stemmed

from a Senate judiciary hearing in 2020 when Comey told Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz that he had not authorized anyone at the FBI to anonymously share information with the press. Comey's lawyers have already filed multiple motions to dismiss the charges, one of which says the case is an act of vindictive prosecution, a result of Comey's frequent criticisms of the president. Comey's lawyers also recently argued there at a disadvantage because they haven't been able to review information that was collected years ago during an investigation into FBI media leaks. On Wednesday, the judge agreed ordering federal prosecutors to turn over grand jury materials and other evidence to Comey's lawyers by the end of Thursday. He also said he was concerned that the

Justice Department's position had been to, quote, indict first and investigate later. How about that? And that's the news. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, turn on parental controls for recent clemency recipient and disgraced ex-congersman George Santos, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how George Santos processed the outcome of New York's mayoral election by tweeting, quote, fuck you, Curtis Lewa, I hate you, your dumb wife, that stupid beret of yours, and all your fucking cats. Like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Todd's Willick. Curtis Lewa has seven

17 cats. George Santos has 17 aliases. Call it a draw. What a day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Four and Chris Alport. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Joanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Caitlin Plummer, and Ethan Oberman. Our senior news producer is Erica Morrison. And our senior vice. Vice President of News and Politics is Adrian Hill. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka, and our production staff is proudly unionized with Writers Guild of America, East.