B (5:20)

Thanks Isaac and welcome everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, a bit of breaking news. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat from California, announced she will not seek reelection, bringing her nearly four decade career in Congress to a close at the end of her current term. Number two, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that it is reducing air traffic by 10% at 40 major airports in response to air traffic control staffing limitations during the ongoing government shutdown. The reduction will go into effect on Friday. Number three, the National Transportation Safety Board said that shortly after takeoff an engine fell off the cargo jet that crashed outside Louisville International Airport on Tuesday. The death toll from that accident is now at 12. Number four, representative Jared golden, the Democrat from Maine, announced he will not seek re election in 2026, citing his concern about rising extremism in politics. Golden seat is expected to be a target for a Republican flip in the midterms. Number five, the Department of Homeland Security is reportedly planning to end temporary protected status for nationals of South Sudan after the designation lapsed on November 3rd. And number six, President Donald Trump nominated entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. Trump had named Isaacman as his pick for the position early in his term, but pulled his nomination in May. We move down to the Supreme Court and a very important case heard today on President Trump's tariffs.

C (6:58)

The majority of justices appeared skeptical during.

B (7:01)

Oral arguments that the president can use a federal emergency power law passed back in the 1970s to unilaterally impose tariffs. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the consolidated cases of Resources Learning Inc. V. Trump and Trump Vos Selections Inc. Both of which challenged some of the President's authority to unilaterally issue foreign duties. Trump has justified his broad reciprocal tariffs on US Trading partners by declaring a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers act, or ieepa, which is which prompted the legal challenges. The Court's decision could set the precedent for presidential authority over trade and the use of emergency powers. For context, In April, President Trump invoked IEEPA when issuing his Liberation Day tariffs against most US Trading partners, claiming that their trading practices posed an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States. The 1977 law allows presidents to regulate international commerce during declared national emergencies to address unusual and extraordinary threats related to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States. Learning Resources, a small business that makes educational toys and depends on outsourced Manufacturing and VOS Selections. A wine importer sued separately to challenge Trump's authority to impose the tariffs. In May, the US Court of International Trade ruled that IEEPA did not grant Trump this authority, and the administration appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which upheld the lower court's ruling. The Trump administration then appealed the decision to the Supreme Court after a coin toss to determine the main challenger. In the consolidated suit, Learning Resources attorney Neil Katyal was appointed to represent the litigants. If IEEPA were to permit Trump's use of tariffs, Katyal argued, there would be no meaningful boundary left between emergency powers and ordinary trade regulation. Representing the Trump administration, U.S. solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that IEEPA confers major powers to address major problems on the president, who is perhaps the most major actor in the realm of foreign affairs. On Wednesday, a majority of justices appeared skeptical of the government's argument that the tariffs were a measured response to an economic threat that fell within statutory limits. In addition to the court's three liberal justices, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett was notably skeptical that the IEEPA justified the president's ability to use broad and sweeping tariffs. While Justice Alito appeared sympathetic to some of the government's arguments, the other conservative justices all asked probing questions that left Trump's tariff agenda in doubt. Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch pressed Sauer on the implication of his argument. What would prohibit Congress from just abdicating all responsibility to regulate foreign commerce for that matter, or declare war to the president? Gorsuch asked, adding that the argument supported a one way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch. In another notable exchange, Gorsuch asked Sauer whether a president could claim climate change constituted a national emergency to impose tariffs on gas powered vehicles. It's very likely that that could be done, sauer replied. The court would ordinarily issue its decision by summer of 2026, but it is indicated that it will expedite its review of the case, which could produce a ruling by the end of the year. Today we'll get into what the left and the right are saying about the oral arguments and then Isaac's Foreign we'll.

D (10:34)

Be right back after this quick break.

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B (11:56)

All right, first up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left expects the court to rule against Trump, suggesting the government's arguments revealed the weakness of its position. Some say the court's conservatives will draw the line at imposing taxes without congressional approval. Others argue the court needs to rule against Trump to maintain legitimacy. In Vox, Ian Millhiser wrote the Supreme Court might actually stand up to Trump on tariffs. The strongest argument against the tariffs involves the Supreme Court's major questions doctrine, a limit on presidential power that was recently invented by the court's Republicans. And that is so new that it has only ever been used against one precedent. Joe Biden. Vos Selections and its companion case potentially give the Republican justices a chance to legitimize this doctrine by applying it to one of their fellow Republicans, potentially. In an opinion joined by all three of the court's Democrats, Millhiser said, based on the questions that justices asked on Wednesday, it at least seems more likely than not that Trump's tariffs will fall. Gorsuch has historically been one of the court's most vocal skeptics of laws giving expansive policymaking authority to the executive branch. He appeared deeply troubled by the scope of the power Trump is claiming in this case, millhiser wrote. Roberts appeared to share those concerns. At one point, he told Sauer that the major questions doctrine appears to be directly applicable to this case, pointing out that the IEEPA has never been used before to justify tariffs. If any two among Roberts, Gorsuch and Barrett Hew to these views, it is almost certain that the tariffs will fall. In Slate, Mark Joseph Stern called the arguments a bloodbath for Trump. We have spent 10 months waiting to see if and when this court would set a limit on Trump's power. Perhaps we should have guessed that its extraordinary deference to the president could be outweighed only by its hatred of taxes, stern said. Gorsuch had a straightforward could the president impose a 50% tariff on gas powered cars and auto parts to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat from abroad of climate change? Sauer admitted that he probably could, though he added that Trump would not because he rejects the hoax of climate change. I think that has to be the logic of your view, gorsuch said sharply. Just as Brett Kavanaugh emerged as at a minimum tariffs curious early on and grew increasingly active in his defense of Trump's plan, he kept citing Nixon's tariffs, a precedent that Barrett so deftly deconstructed, as evidence that Congress did intend to let the president tax imports all on his own, stern wrote. Still, it's hard to see how this case comes out anything less than a 63 loss for the administration. It sounded as if Roberts, Gorsuch and Barrett were trying to figure out how they'll rule against Trump. Must they invoke the major questions doctrine, as Gorsuch suggested to Katjal, or can they rest a decision on the plaintext alone? In the Atlantic, Adris Kalun said the court must decide if the Constitution means what it says. The Trump administration argues that it can set tariffs however it likes by relying on a maximalist reading of the International Emergency Economic powers Act. That 1977 law has been the underlying justification for many American sanctions, Calhoun wrote. But no president has ever used IEEPA to impose tariffs before. The only precedent is Richard Nixon's imposition of a 10% import surcharge for less than five months after America went off the gold standard and the first Bretton woods exchange rate system collapsed. Trump imposed his tariffs by simply declaring America's trade deficit to be a national emergency. Many other laws explicitly authorize the president to impose tariffs based on national security concerns generally after the fuss of a formal investigation. One of them, Section 338 of the Smoot Hawley Tariff act, would allow Trump to slap retaliatory tariffs of 50% against countries with unfair trade practices, Calhoun said. Even so, it matters that the president pursues his agenda through legal and constitutional means. Roberts is a conservative jurist, yes, but he is also an institutionalist who wants to preserve the court's independence and legitimacy. Alright, that is it for what the left is saying. Which brings us to what the right is saying. Many on the right say the arguments did not go well for Trump and that his case appears to be on shaky legal footing. Some argue stopping Trump from exercising a power delegated by Congress would be judicial overreach. Others argue Trump can still levy tariffs through different justifications if and when he loses this case. In national review, Dan McLaughlin said Trump's tariffs are in serious legal trouble. The argument did not go well for Solicitor General John Sauer. That's not Sauer's fault. He is a talented oral advocate, and the government's brief did the best it could to focus the case away from the congressional taxing power and the thin read of vague statutory language that connects the IEEPA's authority to to regulate the importation or exportation of goods to the tariffs. McLaughlin wrote his problem was twofold. First, he was claiming extremely broad and unprecedented presidential authority, to the point where he acknowledged that Trump's position could be used by a Democratic president to declare a global climate change emergency. Second, his argument depends upon the justices not asking too many close questions about whether the power to tax is really part of the traditional foreign policy powers of the commander in chief. After Justice Neil Gorsuch fretted that it's inherent authority all the way down, you say Sauer was compelled to concede that presidents have no inherent tariff powers, McLaughlin said. Chief Justice John Roberts, while naturally sympathetic to executive power and to arguments for judicial deference, was nonetheless and perhaps predictably concerned that Sauer was overreading past precedents. In the New York Post, Daniel McCarthy wrote that the case tests the limits of presidential power. Critics argue the legislation doesn't authorize tariffs. Tariffs are taxes, they say, and the Constitution gives only Congress the power to tax. Yet obviously it's the president who collects taxes. And by giving the president emergency economic powers to deal with international problems, Congress may logically have given the president power to collect tariffs at whatever rate he deems necessary. McCarthy said the law allows the president to go so far as to suspend trade with a foreign country and impose crippling economic sanctions at his discretionary. If a president can do that much under the ieepa, he must be able to take the less drastic step of regulating trade through penalties. Tariffs on foreign producers. The IEEEPA lets the President, not the courts, make the call about emergencies emanating from abroad. To rule IEEPA itself is unconstitutional would be breaking intervention by the Supreme Court. Seizing power not only from the president but from Congress itself, McCarthy wrote. If voters don't like how presidents use emergency powers under the ieepa, they can elect a Congress that will change the law. Two branches have to cooperate to give the president this power, and the people have to stand behind them. To countermand the president, the legislature and voters themselves would damage the court's own legitimacy. In the Washington Examiner, James Rogan argued that the ruling will matter for the Constitution, not tariffs. If Congress intended to give presidents the kind of sweeping authority Trump claims, it would have said so explicitly. The non delegation doctrine, a bedrock principle of constitutional law, forbids Congress from transferring its core powers, such as taxation, to the president. Rogin said. The authorities of the Constitution gave Congress control of the purse for a reason to prevent any one person from wielding too much power. A Supreme Court ruling in Trump's favor would effectively gut this constitutional safeguard. Trump will very likely lose this fight. Still, that does not mean he is out of options. Congress has already provided the executive branch with other legal tools to impose tariffs on under specific conditions. Under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion act of 1962, Trump can impose tariffs to protect strategic industries, rogan wrote. The real significance of this case lies not in its short term economic impact, but in its constitutional implications. Upholding Trump's claim would hand future presidents near total discretion to impose taxes under the guise of emergency powers. Alright, let's head over to Isaac for his take.

D (20:14)

All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying. Which brings us to my take. Yesterday's oral arguments went about as I expected. If you take a step back and you look at how each justice approached Trump's argument, you can see broad skepticism. That skepticism reveals just how hard it would be for the Supreme Court to thread the needle on this issue. Even if the court were in the tank for Trump, which it isn't, it would be really difficult. During Biden's term, the Court struck down his student debt cancellation program and his Covid era moratorium because of the Major Questions doctrine, a relatively new legal principle. According to this doctrine, the executive branch cannot enact programs that have vast economic and political significance without explicit authorization from Congress. Trump's tariffs have not been approved by Congress, and they inarguably have a larger economic and political consequence than either Biden era programs that the court struck down. Under the doctrine, it would be totally, utterly, completely incompatible with the precedent to let Trump's unilateral tariffs pass that test. To illustrate the implications of the power Trump is seeking to use, Neil Gorsuch asked whether a future president could impose a 50% tariff on gas powered cars and auto parts to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat from abroad of climate change. Solicitor General Sauer then argued that, yes, a future administration could probably impose tariffs under such an emergency. It was a remarkable argument to hear a Republican administration put forward before the Supreme Court all to preserve these tariffs. Here's what I wrote a couple months ago when we covered the legal battle over the tariff fight for the second time. There is no national emergency on trade. To me, this story is as simple as that. Our trade policy is the product of decades of congressionally approved decisions made by a succession of past presidents, including Trump, from both sides of the aisle. While it's fair to question these policies, while it's fair to question if these policies have hollowed out American manufacturing, made us more reliant on foreign countries for essential goods or. Or offshore jobs, saying the current state of affairs, the strongest economy in the world, constitutes a national emergency is absurd. Full stop. I stand by my prediction from a few months ago that if this ends up before the Supreme Court, Trump will lose. I do not see how the court could possibly decide a president has the unilateral power to tear off hundreds of nations without Congress, after the same court has ruled that presidents cannot unilaterally cancel student loans or regulate greenhouse gas emissions as it did under Biden. And for what it's worth, I think it's a good thing for the courts to reject all of these executive power grabs. All right, so that's what I wrote a couple months ago. Yesterday's arguments affirmed that read, there is no trade emergency. Trump's reciprocal tariffs are unconstitutional, I think, and hope the court will stop him. Just consider the events of the last few weeks alone. If you're not convinced Trump slapped a 10% border tax hike on Canada in retaliation for the government of Ontario running a television ad quoting Ronald Reagan's criticism of tariffs. What emergency was Trump addressing here? A snarky political ad. The most frustrating aspect of this entire tariff debacle is just how slowly the court moves and how much leeway that pace gives the administration. It's good that the court is patient and deliberate, but it can also be problematic because much of what it rules the government can't do has already happened. And given how the court tends to deliberate, this policy could remain in place for months. But if the court does strike down the tariffs, what happens then? Will the federal government have to pay this tariff revenue back to the parties suing? What about all the lawsuits this will invite? Could Congress be invited to retroactively ratify the already enacted tariffs before the court stops them from continuing? Several justices wondered about these possibilities aloud, and none seemed to have a great answer. Of course, this is not the court's mess to clean up. It's Trump's. Yet the potential complications of decisive ruling against him may lead the court to issue a more limited, narrow ruling. These are the knots that form when the president tries to unilaterally impose an economic policy onto every nation in the world without congressional approval. This is the blowback. It has the potential to be an albatross around the neck of everyone who forged and pushed for and enacted these tariffs, which is why you don't rest your whole economic policy on a faulty foundation. But remember that this challenge doesn't consider all of Trump's tariffs, and the president will still have other options to pursue his tariff agenda. For instance, he can impose levies on specific industries based on a national security authority, and I'm sure the administration will find new justifications to expand these kinds of levies. That's all well and good, because that would be legal. And even though they may face some court challenges, industry specific tariffs would obviously be more targeted and less broad. In some ways, the court's slowness has been fortunate because the tariff program has yielded some interesting results. So far, they've been both less harmful and less fruitful than critics, including me or supporters of the policies predicted. The U.S. treasury was on pace to collect $34 billion in October, which would equal about $400 billion over a full year. The administration predicted $750 billion to $1 trillion in new revenue by next June. At the same time, the domestic manufacturing boom that tariffs were supposed to catalyze hasn't come to pass and isn't likely to either. Instead, companies are just moving manufacturing from countries like China to those with lower tariff rates like Vietnam, Mexico or Turkey. On the other side, domestic inflation has been real but not catastrophic. US companies paying full tariffs are passing on an estimated 50 to 70% of those costs on TikTok consumers, since corporate profit margins are already so high they aren't hitting consumers with the full burden. The result, according to Goldman Sachs, is that consumer spending has remained robust, while tariffs have raised the closely watched core personal consumption expenditure by an estimated 0.44% this year. By December, the inflation reading is expected to tick up to 3%. This is not good, but it's not catastrophic either. All this is to say I'm curious how tariffs actually play out with a little more time. The policy's implications and the upside have been a lot more complicated than the doomsday scenarios many economists predicted at least so far. Maybe that economic crash is coming and the courts are saving Trump from himself, but the tariffs are at least raising significant revenues without destroying the economy. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll get to see the long term impacts of this policy, not because the court is overstepping, but because Trump chose an illegal path to pursue it. It's the Supreme Court's job to stop that, and in doing so, it would provide another example of the president's executive overreach producing a poor policy outcome. We'll be right back after this. Quick.

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D (28:34)

All right, that is it for my take. Which brings us to your questions answered this is a staff reminder we wrote to ourselves in November 2024. The question that we asked ourselves that we wanted to check back in on a year later was how have things in California fared since the state passed Prop 36, also known as the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act? Okay, so in last year's election Preview, we covered California's Proposition 36, a tough on crime statewide ballot initiative that proposed increased penalties for some thefts and certain drug crimes. Among other provisions, Prop 36 automatically classified a crime involving $950 or less of stolen goods by an offender with two or more prior theft related convictions as a felony, increase the maximum prison or jail sentence for these crimes from six months to three years, and mandated drug and mental health treatment for people convicted of certain crimes. Californians voted yes on Prop 36, reversing aspects of 2014's Proposition 47 that reclassified some crimes, including some drug possession, from felonies to misdemeanors. This criminal justice reform was enacted six months ago, so now we have preliminary data on how the changes are impacted the Golden State, but not a whole lot. So far, roughly 9,000 people have been charged with a treatment mandated felony, according to California's judicial Council. Nearly 15% of them are 1,290 people elected treatment 711 have begun that treatment and 25 have completed it. These numbers indicate that many people are still in treatment, but also that many have dropped out. More than anything, the incredibly small sample indicates that it would be premature to evaluate the program conclusively. Furthermore, California is still developing its policy for how to execute the new laws, and different countries are adopting very different approaches. Southern California's Orange and Kern counties have prosecuted larger numbers of drug cases as felonies, while Alameda and Sacramento counties are prosecuting felony theft. Others like San Francisco and Fresno counties aren't prosecuting many felonies at all. We were eagerly awaiting this early data to see how California's new approach to drugs and theft would fare, but what we're seeing so far is incomplete. We really want to see how recidivism rates, reports of crime, and treatment completion percentages change in the coming years to get a better picture of the new policy's impact. All right, that is it for your questions answered. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod. And like I said, I'll see you guys tomorrow. And don't forget, if you haven't yet, Please go to retangle.com and consider becoming a member to support our work. We could use it now, this week more than ever and we'd really appreciate it. All right, I'll see you soon. Peace.

B (31:17)

Thanks, Isaac. Here's your under the Radar story for today, folks. In the coming days, the Trump administration is expected to announce a deal with drug manufacturers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to lower the price of their GLP1 weight loss medications in exchange for Medicare coverage for the drugs. For some beneficiaries. Under the reported terms of the deal, the price of the medications will drop to as low as $1.49 a month. The current list price is over $1,000 a month, although it is not known whether this price would apply across insurance types. If finalized, the deal would be one of the most significant agreements reached through President Trump's effort to lower prescription drug prices to comparable rates with other developed nations. NBC News has this story and there's a link in today's episode description alright, next up is our numbers section. The approximate amount that the Trump administration has collected from its tariffs through August is $90 billion. The overall average effective tariff rate as of October is 17.9%. The average effective tariff rate if the Supreme Court invalidates tariffs levied under the International Emergency Economic powers Act is 9.1%. The percentage change in the amount of tariff revenue collected in fiscal year 2024 versus fiscal year 2025 is plus 150%. Custom duties collected in January 2025 totaled $7 billion. Custom duties collected in September 2025 totaled $30 billion. According to the Yale Budget Lab, the estimated percent that US real GDP growth would slow in 2025 and 2026 with the current tariffs in place is 0.5%. And the estimated percent that US real GDP Growth would slow in 2025 and 2026 if the tariffs levied under the IEEPA are invalidated is 0.1%. And last but not least, our have a nice day story for over 30 years, the island nation of Sri Lanka was embroiled in civil war. When the war ended in 2009, hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans remained dispute placed from their homes, partly due to the dangers of unexploded bombs and landmines. But this year, the Halo Trust, a British nonprofit that works to clear landmines, announced that it had reached a 300,000 landmines removed and 120 square kilometers of land cleared. Thanks to their efforts, 280,000 displaced people were finally able to return to their lands and homes. Good News Network has this story and there's a link in today's episode description alright everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, Please go to retangle.com, where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. As Isaac mentioned at the top, this week's Friday piece focuses on far right commentator Nick Fuentes. After his interview with Tucker Carlson, it brought up questions about who should be platformed. After listening to the interview, Isaac decided that it was would be interesting to cover something that nobody had really been talking about, the origin story of Nick Fuentes, one of the country's most notorious bigots. That piece will be available in full to members for both the newsletter and the podcast. If you are not yet signed up for a membership, now is a great time to do so. Issac, Ari and Camille will be here with the suspension of the Rules podcast and I will return on Monday. For the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a relief, relaxing, fun and absolutely amazing weekend y'. All. Peace.

D (34:50)

Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate Editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saul, Lindsay Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@readtangle.com.

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