October 30, 2025 • 8 mins
Senior Editor at The Dispatch, Sarah Isgur, discusses the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling on President Trump's tariffs.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go to the hotline and bring in. Senior editor at
The Dispatch and host of the Advisory Opinions podcast, Sarah Isker,
is with us. You can find all of our work
in a whole lot more at The Dispatch dot com
and you can follow her on x at Wig Newton's. So, Sarah,
let's talk about this upcoming Supreme Court ruling, which might
be their biggest to date during this second Trump term.
(00:23):
Big political and economic stakes here, the issue of Trump's tariffs.
What's this case all about?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
We think this could be the biggest case of the
Supreme Court's term, which runs from October until around June.
It will decide whether Donald Trump can impose these worldwide
tariffs without specific authorization from Congress. He's relying in said
on a nineteen seventy seven law called AEPA, which was
(00:52):
trying to limit actually president's powers, but said, you know,
there's an emergency of president can sanction foreign countries, and
that Trump is arguing that the trade imbalance is an
emergency and that those sanctions come in the form of
revenue generating tariff.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Now, as we recently saw when you have President Trump
change his tariff policy with Canada over a television ad.
How much does that potentially undermine his case?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It undercuts it in a couple ways. One, of course,
it undercuts whether this is an emergency. Although one of
the things the Supreme Court, I'm sure will be poking
and prodding at is who gets to decide whether and
it's emergency. Is that solely in the discretion of the president,
or can courts look into it and say, now that
no reasonable person could say that's an emergency. But the
second way that it undercuts it is because if the
(01:49):
president has the power to do this, it's sort of,
you know, as Justice Scalia used to say, an elephant
in a mousehole, meaning, you know, wow, in this one
little vague vision that Congress passed fifty years ago, suddenly
a president can basically do anything on the foreign stage,
including things that the Constitution said, or specifically within Congress's
(02:11):
powers to lay and collect duties or tariffs.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
We're joined now by senior editor at The Dispatch and
host of the Advisory Opinions podcast, Sarah Isker, talking about
this upcoming Supreme Court ruling which comes down this Wednesday.
It has to do with Trump's tariffs. Sarah, this has
been a court that has done a lot of Yeah,
that's not an executive branch thing. Congress, you need to
(02:35):
do your job. There's been a lot of that in
recent years. If they were to rule in favor of
the president here, do you see that as a big
departure from how they've generally been ruling when it comes
to executive branch powers.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Depends, so you asked Brian. So on the one hand,
when you look back at some of the precedents from
the Biden administration, the student loan debt forgiveness case, similar situation,
the President relying on in that case a twenty five
year old law that Congress passed Posts.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Nine to eleven and saying that that gave him.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
The authority to forgive four hundred billion dollars in student
loan debt. The Supreme Court saying, no, you know what,
Congress needs to speak specifically and clearly if that's the
kind of thing they want the president to be able
to do.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
So.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Very similar to the situation, except Jack Goldsmith from Harvard
Law School has made the case that that sort of
major questions doctrine the idea that Congress needs to speak
clearly if it's trying to give the president so much
broad power maybe doesn't apply in the foreign policy context.
Maybe Congress would want to give something broader, vaguer when
(03:47):
you're dealing with foreign adversaries potentially, and that that sort
of major questions doctrine doesn't work here in the tariff's case.
That being said, the majority of legal scholars at this
point think the tariffs are going down.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
And isn't that something that Justice Kevinaugh alluded to, that
the doctrine that you were just talking about, that it
might not apply in national security or foreign policy cases.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Not only that, there's also a question of whether it
even applies to the president himself. It's one thing to
apply this doctrine when Congress delegates power, for instance, to
an independent agency or an executive branch agency, you know,
unelected bureaucrats who aren't removable at will most of the time.
And another one we're talking about the president acting himself,
(04:33):
and again in that foreign policy context, where the Constitution
does say the president obviously has a role as commander
in chief, for example. So there are bigger questions because
it is a foreign policy question and not a domestic
policy question like it was in the Biden administration. But
We've also seen the court repeatedly, as you said, try
(04:55):
to get Congress to do its job.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
And in this.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Case, you know, President Biden Democrats controlled both houses of
Congress during his first two years in office. President Trump's
party controls Congress now when he's in office. So the
idea that presidents can skip Congress because it's inefficient or
annoying not really the way this whole thing was set
up to work in our government.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We're joined now by senior editor at The Dispatch and
host of the Advisory Opinions podcast, Sarah Isker. The act
that's at the center of this case, AYEPA. It doesn't
mention tariffs in it. Will that matter here absolutely?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
And by the way, it's really fun to say.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
AYEPA thing like Wally. It doesn't say tariff. It has
a whole lot of words, you know, separated by commas,
but general justice sanctions. President Trump has argued in court
that this is a sanction against those countries for trade
and balances, but of course publicly he's touted the revenue.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Generation and how much money.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
He's bringing into the United States. Now, usually the court
will ignore or the sort of political bluster on social media.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
And focus on the claims in legal documents, but you know,
they're not living in caves. They know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So if the Supreme Court were to rule against the
President and find that even on the power to enact
all of these different tariffs, do we have any idea
of what would come next?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Such a good question, and some of the answers, no,
we're not quite sure. So, first of all, there's a
question of refunds. Does every company in the United States
that's paid these tariffs get their money back? The law
would seem.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
To suggest yes, that there would be thousands.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Of lawsuits filed for individual refunds. Now, some have speculated
that maybe the court will say, you know, look, the
tariffs don't work moving forward, but for some reason, we're
not doing refunds. Hard but not impossible for them to say.
The other question is what other tariff authorities does the
president have to do some of these tariffs.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I e.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Will the tariffs even go away just because he can't
do them under this one congressional statute AIPA. And I
think that that's pretty clear that the administration thinks that
they have other ways to do these tariffs, which of
course also undermines.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Their case to the Supreme Court that this is, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
An emergency, it must happen this way. If they're also saying.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
On the other hand, we can do it anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And last question for you. If the Court signs with Trump,
what message does that send about presidential authority in things
like trade and foreign policy?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
It will make Trump an incredibly powerful president also because
we expect them to really change the role of those
quote independent agencies where Trump will have hiring and firing power.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So on the one hand, you have the Court saying,
if Congress has you.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Know, given even the vaguess nod in that direction, the
president can exercise these huge economic powers on his own
without Congress, and he has complete control over these so
called independent agencies. It would really change, I think, the
balance of power in our government and make Congress kind
of a appendix like vestigial organ all right.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Senior editor at The Dispatch and host of the Advisory
Opinions podcast, Sarah Isker. You can find all of her
work and a whole lot more at The Dispatch dot com,
and you can follow her on social media too at
whig Newton's Sarah. Always great to talk to you. Thanks
so much for the insight.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Thanks Ryan.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
He's a Ryan Gorman Show five to nine every weekday
morning on news radio twout you fla
Go to the hotline and bring in. Senior editor at
The Dispatch and host of the Advisory Opinions podcast, Sarah Isker,
is with us. You can find all of our work
in a whole lot more at The Dispatch dot com
and you can follow her on x at Wig Newton's. So, Sarah,
let's talk about this upcoming Supreme Court ruling, which might
be their biggest to date during this second Trump term.
(00:23):
Big political and economic stakes here, the issue of Trump's tariffs.
What's this case all about?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
We think this could be the biggest case of the
Supreme Court's term, which runs from October until around June.
It will decide whether Donald Trump can impose these worldwide
tariffs without specific authorization from Congress. He's relying in said
on a nineteen seventy seven law called AEPA, which was
(00:52):
trying to limit actually president's powers, but said, you know,
there's an emergency of president can sanction foreign countries, and
that Trump is arguing that the trade imbalance is an
emergency and that those sanctions come in the form of
revenue generating tariff.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Now, as we recently saw when you have President Trump
change his tariff policy with Canada over a television ad.
How much does that potentially undermine his case?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It undercuts it in a couple ways. One, of course,
it undercuts whether this is an emergency. Although one of
the things the Supreme Court, I'm sure will be poking
and prodding at is who gets to decide whether and
it's emergency. Is that solely in the discretion of the president,
or can courts look into it and say, now that
no reasonable person could say that's an emergency. But the
second way that it undercuts it is because if the
(01:49):
president has the power to do this, it's sort of,
you know, as Justice Scalia used to say, an elephant
in a mousehole, meaning, you know, wow, in this one
little vague vision that Congress passed fifty years ago, suddenly
a president can basically do anything on the foreign stage,
including things that the Constitution said, or specifically within Congress's
(02:11):
powers to lay and collect duties or tariffs.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
We're joined now by senior editor at The Dispatch and
host of the Advisory Opinions podcast, Sarah Isker, talking about
this upcoming Supreme Court ruling which comes down this Wednesday.
It has to do with Trump's tariffs. Sarah, this has
been a court that has done a lot of Yeah,
that's not an executive branch thing. Congress, you need to
(02:35):
do your job. There's been a lot of that in
recent years. If they were to rule in favor of
the president here, do you see that as a big
departure from how they've generally been ruling when it comes
to executive branch powers.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Depends, so you asked Brian. So on the one hand,
when you look back at some of the precedents from
the Biden administration, the student loan debt forgiveness case, similar situation,
the President relying on in that case a twenty five
year old law that Congress passed Posts.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Nine to eleven and saying that that gave him.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
The authority to forgive four hundred billion dollars in student
loan debt. The Supreme Court saying, no, you know what,
Congress needs to speak specifically and clearly if that's the
kind of thing they want the president to be able
to do.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
So.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Very similar to the situation, except Jack Goldsmith from Harvard
Law School has made the case that that sort of
major questions doctrine the idea that Congress needs to speak
clearly if it's trying to give the president so much
broad power maybe doesn't apply in the foreign policy context.
Maybe Congress would want to give something broader, vaguer when
(03:47):
you're dealing with foreign adversaries potentially, and that that sort
of major questions doctrine doesn't work here in the tariff's case.
That being said, the majority of legal scholars at this
point think the tariffs are going down.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
And isn't that something that Justice Kevinaugh alluded to, that
the doctrine that you were just talking about, that it
might not apply in national security or foreign policy cases.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Not only that, there's also a question of whether it
even applies to the president himself. It's one thing to
apply this doctrine when Congress delegates power, for instance, to
an independent agency or an executive branch agency, you know,
unelected bureaucrats who aren't removable at will most of the time.
And another one we're talking about the president acting himself,
(04:33):
and again in that foreign policy context, where the Constitution
does say the president obviously has a role as commander
in chief, for example. So there are bigger questions because
it is a foreign policy question and not a domestic
policy question like it was in the Biden administration. But
We've also seen the court repeatedly, as you said, try
(04:55):
to get Congress to do its job.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
And in this.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Case, you know, President Biden Democrats controlled both houses of
Congress during his first two years in office. President Trump's
party controls Congress now when he's in office. So the
idea that presidents can skip Congress because it's inefficient or
annoying not really the way this whole thing was set
up to work in our government.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
We're joined now by senior editor at The Dispatch and
host of the Advisory Opinions podcast, Sarah Isker. The act
that's at the center of this case, AYEPA. It doesn't
mention tariffs in it. Will that matter here absolutely?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
And by the way, it's really fun to say.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
AYEPA thing like Wally. It doesn't say tariff. It has
a whole lot of words, you know, separated by commas,
but general justice sanctions. President Trump has argued in court
that this is a sanction against those countries for trade
and balances, but of course publicly he's touted the revenue.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Generation and how much money.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
He's bringing into the United States. Now, usually the court
will ignore or the sort of political bluster on social media.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
And focus on the claims in legal documents, but you know,
they're not living in caves. They know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So if the Supreme Court were to rule against the
President and find that even on the power to enact
all of these different tariffs, do we have any idea
of what would come next?
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Such a good question, and some of the answers, no,
we're not quite sure. So, first of all, there's a
question of refunds. Does every company in the United States
that's paid these tariffs get their money back? The law
would seem.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
To suggest yes, that there would be thousands.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Of lawsuits filed for individual refunds. Now, some have speculated
that maybe the court will say, you know, look, the
tariffs don't work moving forward, but for some reason, we're
not doing refunds. Hard but not impossible for them to say.
The other question is what other tariff authorities does the
president have to do some of these tariffs.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I e.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Will the tariffs even go away just because he can't
do them under this one congressional statute AIPA. And I
think that that's pretty clear that the administration thinks that
they have other ways to do these tariffs, which of
course also undermines.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Their case to the Supreme Court that this is, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
An emergency, it must happen this way. If they're also saying.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
On the other hand, we can do it anyway.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
And last question for you. If the Court signs with Trump,
what message does that send about presidential authority in things
like trade and foreign policy?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
It will make Trump an incredibly powerful president also because
we expect them to really change the role of those
quote independent agencies where Trump will have hiring and firing power.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So on the one hand, you have the Court saying,
if Congress has you.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Know, given even the vaguess nod in that direction, the
president can exercise these huge economic powers on his own
without Congress, and he has complete control over these so
called independent agencies. It would really change, I think, the
balance of power in our government and make Congress kind
of a appendix like vestigial organ all right.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Senior editor at The Dispatch and host of the Advisory
Opinions podcast, Sarah Isker. You can find all of her
work and a whole lot more at The Dispatch dot com,
and you can follow her on social media too at
whig Newton's Sarah. Always great to talk to you. Thanks
so much for the insight.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Thanks Ryan.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
He's a Ryan Gorman Show five to nine every weekday
morning on news radio twout you fla
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