WSJ What’s News - Trump Admin Pushes for Quick Supreme Court Tariff Decision

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

A.M. Edition for Sept. 4. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says delaying a ruling until June 2026 - the end of the court’s next term - could result in up to $1 trillion in tariff impacts. WSJ’s Quentin Webb says the legal back and forth is being closely watched by investors. Plus, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces fresh senate scrutiny as he attempts to radically remake the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And a federal judge rules that the administration’s $2.2 billion in funding cuts to Harvard University are unconstitutional. Azhar Sukri hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, cultural enrichment, and all-inclusive fares. Discover more at viking.com. The Trump administration calls for a quick Supreme Court decision on tariffs saying trade talks are already being impacted. Plus, RFK Jr. faces fresh Senate scrutiny as he push to radically remake the CDC.

And relief for Harvard, as a judge, rules the Trump administration's funding cuts are unconstitutional. A lot of that money is being used for life-saving research to advance research in Alzheimer's cancer. It's being put to good causes, and it's not like the advances that are being made from Harvard are insular. They're to help the general public. It's Thursday, September 4th. I'm Azhar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal. Here is the AM edition of What's News. top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

With up to $1 trillion in potential tariff revenues at stake, the Trump administration is trying to speed through its Supreme Court appeal of an earlier legal ruling that rejected the president's global trade levies. US Solicitor General John Sauer urged the justices yesterday to grant review and expedite the case. He cited the, quote, enormous importance of quickly confirming the full legal standing of the president's tariffs. A federal appeals court ruled last week that Trump had exceeded his authority by claiming emergency authority to rewrite U.S. trade policy. Deputy finance editor Quentin Webb joins me now. Quentin, explain to us why the administration is in such a hurry.

So the administration argues that the legal limbo it is in at the moment over tariffs is already. adversely affecting negotiations with other countries because effectively other countries are holding off on striking deals because they're not yet sure about the status of these tariffs. And the filing from the US government cites Treasury Secretary Scott Bethent is saying if a ruling is delayed until June 26, which is the end of the court's next term, that could result in up to $1 trillion in tariffs, which have already been collected, potentially being unwound. On the other side of the case, the small businesses that brought this to the trade court in the first place are also keen to see this resolved quickly. They say that these tariffs are causing

serious harm to small businesses and in some cases putting their very survival at risk. And so they would like to see this adjudicated on quickly. Just taking a step back here, Quentin, what exactly is the Supreme Court looking at? Two courts now have found that President Trump's use of a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to impose tariffs, is unjustified. Effectively, the courts have found that the tariffs and taxes, and that is not something that is covered by the remit of that act, which instead is centered more on the ability to regulate trade rather than to impose taxes. That's the core question that is at stake and will be considered by the Supreme Court. Now with so much money at stake, of course, this is going to be keenly watched

by the markets. How have investors responded? That's right. So there's a lot of concern in the markets in general about budget deficits and the health of the US government finances. And so tariff revenue is seen as one important way of plugging some of those holes. And in fact, at the beginning of the week, when we had this court ruling upholding the earlier judgment that the tariffs weren't on strong legal grounds. We did see a bit of a sell-off in the bond markets, which some participants attributed partly to this, emphasising how much this plays into wider discussions about government fiscal sustainability. Deputy Finance Editor Quentin Webb, thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks a lot.

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration improperly cut off. off $2.2 billion in research funding from Harvard University and must restore the funds. Yesterday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs of Massachusetts concluded that the Federal Administration's actions violated Harvard's constitutional rights and that the government used anti-Semitism as a smokescreen for, quote, a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country's premier universities. Harvard cheered its victory, however, the cuts to funding have already had an impact on important research. One of those affected is a Harvard Medical School student, C.R. Patel.

So I've been wanting to create custom stem cell therapies for heart disease, and obviously that needs funding, that needs support. So specifically for me, this funding not being cut is funding that can come towards my project, come towards my goals. And hopefully in the future, like, this is a goal that can become realized and enter the market. The judge ordered the federal government not to cut off any additional funds to Harvard. However, the university's ability to get money from the administration in the future remains a question mark. The Trump administration vowed to appeal the court ruling. President Trump's bid to bring the Federal Reserve under closer White House control faces a major test today.

The Senate will discuss confirming senior White House economic advisor Stephen Myron to the Central Bank's Board of Governors, The President has attempted to fire one Fed governor and publicly berated the central bank for not lowering rates. The Senate Banking Committee hearing will for the first time forced GOP Senators to balance their past support for Fed independence against their reluctance to cross Trump. At a cabinet meeting last week, the President highlighted his desire to more directly influence interest rate policy,

including with Myron's confirmation. And Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is moving to radically remake the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, despite more than 1,000 current and former Health and Human Services employees calling on him to resign. In op-eds and interviews this week, Kennedy said the CDC had squandered public trust and suggested further changes to its workforce were necessary, including shifting the agency to focus on infectious diseases, moving chronicer. disease work to his administration for a healthy America. In response, CDC employees anticipate more resignations, while others say they are determined to stay out of concern that a mass exodus would further strip the country's leading health agency of its institutional expertise. Three top CDC officials, including the agency's chief medical officer, Dr. Deborah Howry, resigned last week saying that Kennedy is putting America's health at risk. The reorganization plan

would remove the chronic disease center, the injury center, some of our environmental health work, birth defects, our occupational health work, and the HIV program. Not having those at CDC means that when we have an overdose in communities, we're not going to be able to respond to them. If there's a suicide cluster, we're not going to be able to detect it. We're not going to be able to test for new fentanyl analogs, and we're not going to be able to prevent HIV and do some of that cutting-edge testing we have been doing. To me, that's concerning.

Lawmakers have raised. concerns about the turmoil at the CDC, with Kennedy expected to face scrutiny from the Senate Finance Committee during a hearing later this morning. Coming up, how corporate climate action is being hampered by Republican lawyers across the U.S. We look at the impact of these efforts after the break. This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service. destination-focused dining and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. And every Viking voyage is all-inclusive with no children and no casinos.

Discover more at viking.com. The Republicans push back against climate regulations is entering a new front. GOP attorneys general across the U.S. are looking to stymie corporate climate action, setting up investigations into a number of key reporting and target-setting groups. Earlier this month, 23 AGs, led by Iowa's Brenner Bird, wrote a letter to a British charity, the Science-Based Target's Initiative, that validates climate goals for companies the world over.

In it, she argues that the SBTI is engaging in anti-competitive behaviour that's hurting American businesses and consumers in their states. In an email to WSJ Pro, the Iowa AG's office said that, quote, we are keeping our eyes open to ensure no organisation imposes net zero standards that I used to raise costs for Iowans and hurt agriculture. The SBTI declined to comment. Journal's sustainability reporter Yusuf Khan has been following the Republican's efforts. Yusuf firstly explained the role that the science-based targets initiative and other

similar organisations play in trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? So the SBTI and CDP and organisations like that, they're some of those important organisations within the world of sustainability. In terms of the SBTI, they basically help companies to report on their climate emissions, validate their transition plans to try and get to net zero, and also sort of structure how you can sort of go about doing that. You know, that might be getting more green electricity for your factories or things like that. CDP is more of a reporting initiative and it's more about climate disclosure and sort of figuring out, you know, where your emissions come from and how you could get those down in theory.

So what strategies are Republicans using to unwind climate initiatives? So in the past, especially in the past year, what we saw a lot of was a lot of more movements in the House and House Republicans, you know, bringing motions against climate organisations. Now what we're seeing more is this movement within Attorney General, so within the state courthouses. We saw it in the winter with Texas and their movements against BlackRock. The lawsuit basically said that asset managers like BlackRock were trying to stymie coal investment, something that is a big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, but they said, you know, that's uncompetitive and that you are limiting investors' diversity of energy supply.

And now we're seeing that again here, but with reporting initiatives. something that thousands of U.S. companies are part of. Do they have a point that a lot of this red tape has really curtailed industry and growth? In terms of growth, most of the non-profits that support groups like the SBTI, they say that investors want more disclosure. The more information investors have, the more they can make decisions based on where they actually want to put their money. You see that a lot more with pension funds and insurance companies because of the long-term investment horizons.

So that's what its proponents say. In terms of red tape or in terms of bureaucracy, they do add to costs for companies. But many of you've seen and thought accounting costs and then how strategy changes. And that could be within a wider strategy as any company takes. General Sustainability Reporter Yusuf Kahn, thank you so much. Thank you. And that's it for what's news for this Thursday morning. Today's show was produced by Kate Bullivant and Daniel Bark.

Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. I'm Azhar Sukri for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.