President Donald Trump’s angry, unhinged rant on Truth Social over this week’s judicial ruling against his tariffs is getting attention for its fury at Leonard Leo, the mastermind of the conservative takeover of the courts. Trump blamed the Federalist Society—which Leo championed—for the ruling, in which two judges appointed by GOP presidents, including Trump himself, found that Trump’s tariffs dramatically overstepped his presidential authority.
[...]
The judge that Trump appointed to the three-judge U.S. Court of International Trade—which issued the ruling—has protectionist sympathies, yet even he saw the tariffs as illegal. [...]
The horrific decision stated that I would have to get the approval of Congress for these Tariffs. In other words, hundreds of politicians would sit around D.C. for weeks, and even months, trying to come to a conclusion as to what to charge other Countries that are treating us unfairly. If allowed to stand, this would completely destroy Presidential Power—The Presidency would never be the same!
“Under this decision, Trillions of Dollars would be lost by our Country,” Trump fumed. “The President of the United States must be allowed to protect America against those that are doing it Economic and Financial harm.”
[...]
Trump derides the very idea that Congress should have a good deal of authority over the levying of tariffs. Trump claims this can’t apply in the case of his new tariffs because it prevents him from acting to protect the country in an emergency. In this case, that emergency is the one Trump has invoked—our trade deficits—to appropriate for himself virtually unlimited power to levy sweeping taxes on products imported from all over the world.
This is what the court ruled illegal (though the tariffs can proceed for now).
[...]
Trump is openly declaring that he should have the power to circumvent Congress in levying these tariffs to address emergencies. Yet as Trump himself demonstrates here, in claiming this authority, he’s invoking an emergency
that is not real. Trillions of dollars are
not being “lost” by our country due to trade deficits, as his rant proclaims. That is not how trade deficits work, and they certainly do not constitute “emergencies.” As Trump’s tirade plainly shows, he made up the “emergency” to grant himself extraordinarily sweeping authorities.
[...]
What’s really at issue here is whether Trump can simply pull “emergencies” out of his rear to assume dictatorial powers for himself. The court is saying,
No, you can’t. Trump’s rant basically says:
Yes, I can.
The real reason Trump and his minions are raging at the courts is that they want that latter proposition to be the controlling one—which, not incidentally, would make great strides toward making his power to tyrannize over us quasi-absolute. That is their project, and they’re not even hiding it anymore. The only question at this point is whether they succeed—or whether we stop them.
New Republic
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