One day after a Democratic Party romp in off-cycle elections across the country, President Donald Trump’s bad week got even worse when the Supreme Court heard arguments in a challenge to his sweeping use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on nearly every country in the world. It didn’t go well for the president.
During oral arguments Wednesday, the justices expressed extreme skepticism toward Solicitor General D. John Sauer’s argument that the court could not question whether Congress delegated its tariffing power to the president in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because it touched on his inherent foreign affairs powers.
This skepticism didn’t just come from the liberals — who more or less argued that the administration’s arguments made no sense — but also from conservatives like Chief Justice John Roberts and Trump-appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
“The vehicle [of tariffs] is the imposition of taxes on Americans, and that has always been the core power of Congress,” Roberts said. Allowing the president’s foreign affairs power to “neutralize” that would destroy the separation of powers between the branches, he added.
It looks more than likely that the court will take away one of Trump’s favorite toys, a move he claims will “destroy” the country.
