← The Beat with Ari Melber
The Beat with Ari Melber
SCOTUS Rejects Trump Tariffs
00:41:45
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that President Trump cannot unilaterally impose tariffs. MS NOW's Ari Melber reports and is joined by former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal.
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Justin Wolfers
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Ari Melber
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Ari Melber
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Neal Katyal
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Ari Melber
Welcome to the Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We're reporting on this Trump defeat at the Supreme Court today. Six justices striking down these tariffs. It's a clear blow to what we know is a clear and major economic priority for President Trump. The high court nixing Trump's tariffs. All of this is important and lands as a path to potentially a wider check on the president's efforts to seize emergency powers that ranges from trade, the subject of this case to potentially military policing and a lot more in this MAGA era. This ruling is obviously a setback for Trump. It is the most sweeping rejection of Trump's attempted power grabs from the Supreme Court that we've seen his entire second term. It's driving headlines tonight about both the obvious economic importance and trimming billions in international tariffs and the wider pushback to Trump's efforts at a more unilateral, or some say king like presidency. Now, later tonight, I'm gonna give you a detailed breakdown on what the court's rebuke means, especially going forward right now. We begin with the seismic news landing across the nation
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Alicia Menendez
an increasingly rare directive
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Ari Melber
from the Supreme Court. It told Donald Trump no.
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Neal Katyal
A major slap at the president of the United States.
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Alicia Menendez
It is Trump fundamentally a reversal of the president's position.
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Ari Melber
It's a conservative court and Trump doesn't often lose, does he? The court said, look, you can't make a sow's ear into a silk purse. Would you say he lost this one? He did. He did lose.
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Melissa Ford
He did.
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Ari Melber
This decision is a loss for the administration.
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Alicia Menendez
This is an enormous decision and a
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Ari Melber
rare loss for President Trump, reinforcing the separation of powers enshrined in the U.S. constitution. The ruling is about power more than economics. It reinforces the limits on any president's power, including this president, the chief justice dealing Trump a clear defeat under law. The power to authorize tariffs in peacetime is constitutionally vested in Congress alone, we saw today. Now, Trump could have avoided today's laws had he simply worked with Congress on the raft of tariffs he famously announced. Of course, Congress is run by his Republican Party. And while he relished the spotlight in rolling those tariffs out, plus the uncertainty, he sometimes stoked announcing those tariffs, standing alone on the world stage, threatening other countries, even if often later backing down, today he stood alone in a very different way. In defeat, he came out to face reporters and cameras as he railed against a clear loss. He acknowledged the limit on his powers by discussing what could be other paths to to temporary tariffs he might push, but not for long without Congress under this ruling. All of this comes after Trump has faced several losses on the issue in the lower courts. And this big news also vindicates the Americans who sued to stop Trump from what they said exceeded his power, as well as the legal strategy of their well known advocate, Obama's former top Supreme Court litigator and a frequent voice on our air. Neal Katyal joins us now. I want to play what he told the court in the arguments, some of which are now reflected in the new ruling today.
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Neal Katyal
This president has torn up the entire tariff architecture. That is just not something that any president has ever had the power to do in our history. And the idea that Congress by implication did this in 1977 and handed him all this power, I think is really difficult.
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Ari Melber
Neil, your view of today's ruling?
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Neal Katyal
Well, thank you, Ari, for having me on. And yes, I mean, I think I asked the supreme court for about six things in my oral argument on November 5, and the Supreme Court gave us each one and gave it to us resoundingly, both in clear language written by the chief justice in the majority opinion and also in separate opinions. And notably, Ari, this was a decision joined by two appointees of Donald Trump himself, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, joining the chief justice, who's itself a Republican appointee, and others on the court to say, not under our Constitution, you don't get to do this. And we had thought going into today we felt very good about our arguments, but nonetheless we expected the president to somehow spin it as a win because he does that in other realms, but he couldn't spin this one. I mean, the Supreme Court was unequivocal and clear. He went way beyond the constitutional parameters, and the Supreme Court reined him in appropriately.
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Ari Melber
In the ruling, we have a description of what was Trump's position as argued by doj, that if he had his way, he'd have the power to unilaterally impose unbounded tariffs. Change them at will. They note in the law's half century, no president has invoked the statute to impose any tariffs, let alone tariffs of this magnitude. How did you view what the court today says was extremism? Not some debatable thing as we sometimes have in court, but what they viewed as the president, and by extension the DOJ's defense as a kind of extremism that could not stand.
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Neal Katyal
Yeah, that's exactly why we were confident, Ari, in our position, it wasn't about President Trump. It was about the positions that the president had taken on tariffs, which were just so radical. I mean, if you go back over American history, I think you can count on one hand the number of times a president loses a major case. You know, normally courts defer to. The president may not even have many fingers on that hand, quite honestly. It's incredibly rare. And we knew that going in. We knew that in order to win this challenge, we had to persuade the court not just that it was, like minorly unconstitutional, but a major betrayal of our constitutional conscience. We thought that's what it was. I think the questions at oral argument, which were super hard. It was a really intense oral argument. November, they gave me a very hard time, to be sure. But I think the questions really pointed to the court thinking, yeah, this is well beyond anything any other president has done, and we can't tolerate it here.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. And in our system of government, the president has big powers. People know that some of the members of this court have been associated with the view that that's a good thing, that you need a kind of clear, active, almost sometimes brash executive. It can't be second guessing everything or worried about everything being litigated. And so I'm curious about that arc of jurisprudence against what Chief Justice Roberts wrote today, which, you know, and I'll read to viewers, the president's assertion of a broad statutory power over the national economy. Basically, the way he wanted to conduct the trade war without Congress was, quote, extravagant by any measure. Can you talk to us about that line, how you argued it, but also the majority you found for that line that, sure, he's got big powers, but not this big Alone.
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Neal Katyal
Exactly. I mean, one of the hard things when you're a Supreme Court advocate fighting against a presidential claim of power is the president is saying, look, I really need this court. And, like, who are you as some private person here? I had the privilege of representing five small businesses, but who are they to second guess a president's determination? Well, I really need this. And that's what makes a challenge like this very hard. At the same time, we do live under a Constitution, and the most important thing our founders did was say the power to tax is the power to destroy, and therefore, it's gotta be lodged in the Congress of the United States. And Indeed, in Article 1 of our Constitution, the power to impose tariffs is given to Congress, and it's the first power Congress has given. And so they really made that clear. And so our whole litigation strategy was to really emphasize that and to say, look, separation of powers and waiting for legislation might be cumbersome, it might take time, but that is the American way. And I closed both my brief to the Supreme Court and my oral argument on November 5 with the same quote from Justice Jackson back in the steel seizure case in 1952 in which he made that point. And today, I was really glad to see Justice Gorsuch again, one of Donald Trump's own appointees, picking that up. And the last paragraphs of his opinion are written as beautifully as anything I've seen in the United States reports. And it's all about that kind of need for legislation, for Congress to do its job and for the president to have the inability to cut them out of the equation.
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Ari Melber
Yeah, and you're nodding towards history, where real problems, including real global challenges and threats under Truman, did not mean a limitless blank check that happened to be a Democratic president. Here we happen to be talking about a Republican president. But you're pointing to a strong limit that courts have said throughout history, even war, even foreign threats, doesn't mean that we have a king. We don't become a monarchy just because there are international emergencies. I'm going to do a breakdown on why this was such a big loss for Trump. Coming up. We've been talking about the meat of it. I do have one sort of nerdy, jurisprudential, detailed question for you, since I have you, which is, you won big. You won six, three. But there were a lot of subparts to the ruling today. It seems that this court does that more often than in some past periods of history. There's a whole debate about that. As someone who was intimately involved, did you notice that how do you view that? Why were there so many subparts about other doctrines? And sort of. Is that because they're staking out fights for the future? How did you view that?
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Neal Katyal
Yeah. So I do think this court is very methodologically divided as to how to interpret the Constitution, the original understanding and a lot of modern doctrines. There's a lot of disagreement on the court. And in litigating this, in crafting a strategy that was always challenge, because you've got to count to five, that's the most important thing at the Supreme Court. You got to get five justices to agree on a core proposition. And so what we tried to do was strip down each argument to its essence and then appeal to different wings of the court. And that's what happened today. Yes, there were six justices in a bunch of different opinions, but they all agreed Ari six of them on the core constitutional idea, which is tariffs or taxes. Taxes can only be done by Congress, and Congress has to be explicit if they're giving the president. And I just want to pick up on something you said in the last hour. You talked about how this Supreme Court has been giving a lot of deference to the president on the emergency docket, the shadow docket, and case after case, you said, in which they're rushed up to the Supreme Court on emergency motions, the rule for the administration. We knew that. And because of that, we did something pretty unusual here. We decided, even though I argued the case in the Court of appeals and won 7 to 4, that Trump's tariffs were illegal. We didn't seek to immediately reinforce it. We didn't want to have some emergency rush to the Supreme Court. Instead, we just let it play out because we knew if the court took its time with this case and took the time, instead of an emergency posture, to understand the nuances and the implications of the extraordinary claim that President Trump was making. We felt very confident. And so that's why the president has been able to collect these units on illegal tariffs for the last year, even though a court has struck them down, you know, many months ago.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. And that's you're referring to again, the discussion we're having with Nicole. And a lot of folks have looked at the challenges in this environment. You're discussing sort of your legal strategy, which was vindicated today. So that's also super interesting. Neil, congratulations. Thank you very much. Coming up in 90 seconds, we turn to my special report. What more we can glean from this rebuke of Trump. That's next. We've been the trusted experts since 1960 because nobody knows tires better than we do.
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Norm Eisen
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Ari Melber
have an abundance of options in stock for your vehicle. Buy and Drive today@discounttire.com Let's get you taken care of. Big news to end the week. A major loss for Trump at the Supreme Court. Striking down his tariffs as illegal, the court found Trump did not have the power to do what he wanted alone. Now, over a year into Trump's second term, he's back at square one on his trade war. How did Trump try to claim these powers in the first place? The answer matters for the rest of his second term because he argued the US Faced big emergencies so he had to claim emergency powers. It's the same kind of fact. Free, often extreme power grabs he has deployed used to put soldiers and agents around the U.S. some of those folks have been out doing things, some have been kicked out under court orders. But these can be autocratic king like claims where rulers make emergency claims so they can try to see if they can have more power. And if they get away with it, you'll see that kind of claim more often. If they don't, if they lose, it can stem this type of power grab. Well, Trump did not get away with this one. He lost this case by a wide margin with his own appointees that you see there, Gorsuch and Barrett, those are Trump appointed justices also ruling he exceeded his power. So my first point to you on this, if you remember just one thing about this big Trump loss, it's this. You're looking at the coalition that may stop President Trump from abusing other emergency powers. Because while of course the US can face real emergencies or wars and they can empower a president to take certain actions, obviously presidents can't just declare a permanent global emergency across their entire term. And on this issue, if you're interested in the facts, there's a 77 law that enables some extra powers in unusual and extraordinary threat situations. But that law doesn't even mention tariffs. And surely it doesn't apply to the 100 plus countries that Trump tried to tariff, claiming it was all under this one law. And if you're worried about government overreach, it doesn't really matter whether you agree with a given president or their party or even the goal. That's what government overreach looks like. That's why the court ruled against Trump today. And this point was on display with the initial skepticism we saw against the Trump DOJ when this case was first argued in the court. I just don't understand this argument it's not an article.
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Neal Katyal
It's a congressional power, not a presidential power to tax.
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Ari Melber
He didn't have that power to tax and tariff on his own. That's the law you heard there. Justice Sotomayor being nice about it. She said she didn't understand the Trump defense's argument because it made no sense. And now, from that set of questioning to today's loss for Trump, the chief justice rules that Trump asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time. In other words, that type of claim is an absurdly impossible kind of king like power, if you had it. And Roberts went on to explain ruling against Trump today, no president has ever read that law. I just showed you to confer such power. The other presidents who didn't see it that way were right because no president has that kind of power. So this Supreme Court, which has clearly helped Trump in other ways, noted this is ultimately about those limits on power against any leader who would want to act like a king in this country. More about that than, say, economics data. The judges concluding that they ruled against Trump while noting they have no special competence in economics or foreign affairs. We claim ownership only the limited role by the Constitution. They explained, quote, we hold that the law does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. The law does not authorize those powers, so Trump doesn't have them. This matters, especially at a time when we have a president who lies about elections he lost and is sending the FBI in to seize ballots and is trying to indict his political opponents, journalists and others. There are some people who like Trump so much they want to look the other way on that stuff. I'm not here to talk to you about whether people like or dislike Trump. We still have a First Amendment in this country. You're free to make up your mind and express yourself, but that First Amendment that protects you is in a Constitution that also protects you by limiting him and anyone else who comes into power and tries to abuse government powers like a king. And that's why this one is a lot more intense than just a tariff debate. Trump tried an emergency excuse and it bought him some time. But the court has now ruled it was false because there wasn't the kind of emergency that justified these powers, and it failed. Chief Justice Roberts holding the line here as a longtime conservative appointed by Bush, joined by other Trump appointees, Barrett and Gorsuch, appointed by Trump. And that reinforces, even at a time where people are skeptical and there's so much partisanship that on this issue, the court had independence. It wasn't just a vote based on the party of the appointee or whether they had a history with Trump. Quite the contrary. Gorsuch may appreciate that Trump appointed him. They may like each other to some degree, but the law is the law, and this wasn't a close call. By the time it reached the High Court, they'd lost in the lower courts. Trump did acknowledge the loss today. He complained, he lashed out. He showed a kind of anger, maybe because he knew he lost in public at one point complaining that he has other powers, like embargoes or war powers. So he thinks it's unfair that if he has those other big powers, why should this whole tariff power be limited? Well, let me tell you something, and this is an easy thing to understand. That complaint is not a legal or even a logical argument. The whole point of limited and separate powers in our system, the reason why we're not like Putin's Russia or Stalin's Russia or many other countries you could think of, is that we separate the powers. We have different powers in the government, spread out. They're not all held by one person, let alone the king. And yet I'm going to let you hear, alongside the ruling, our president marveling at this system of checks and balances, almost as if he just learned about it today.
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Justin Wolfers
I cannot charge them anything. Think of that.
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Ari Melber
How ridiculous is that? I'm allowed to embargo them.
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Neal Katyal
I'm allowed to tell them, you can't
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Ari Melber
do business in the United States anymore. We want you out of here. But if I want to charge him $10, I can't do that.
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Neal Katyal
It's incorrect.
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Justin Wolfers
Their decision's incorrect.
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Ari Melber
He's upset, he disagrees with it, he thinks it's incorrect. And yet Trump's presentation references the limits on his power. As he conceded the limits, he said he'd look for other ways to pursue tariffs, meaning other ways not barred by a limit on his power under this court and long standing law.
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Neal Katyal
They merely overruled a particular use of IPA tariffs. And essentially it's to use to get a fee. It's ridiculous, but it's okay because we have other ways, numerous other ways.
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Ari Melber
We have a totally firm decision now,
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Neal Katyal
and I don't think the court meant
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Ari Melber
it because the court doesn't show great spirit toward our country. In my opinion, he's entitled to his opinion, but the President was speaking as a man shown up here by a code he does not control. That's how power works. You can have some and still face Other forces with their own power. That's true. From the halls of government, power in Washington out to the streets. Or as a classic, simple moment captured it in the hit show the Wire, which explores power and its limits, law and its inconsistencies. You'll see how, when one man experiences the limits on his supposed authority, he wants it to be one way, but it's the other. You want it to be one way.
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Justin Wolfers
What? You want it to be one way, man.
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Ari Melber
I don't want it to be one way. Messed up. Stop saying that. But it's the other way. Trump wanted it to be one way, but sometimes it's the other way. Today, it was the other way the Supreme Court was able to say, and this is a crucial setback for any parts of Trump's second term that involve him wanting to be a king or seize unitary autocratic powers, or claim that emergencies mean he gets to do what no one else is allowed to do. The learning curve may be tough, but it's the other way. We're gonna get into that next. You want it to be one way.
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Justin Wolfers
What? You want it to be one way, man.
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Ari Melber
I don't want it to be one way. Messed up. Stop saying that.
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Justin Wolfers
But it's the other way.
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Ari Melber
We're joined by former ambassador and Obama lawyer Norm Eisen. Norm, for Donald Trump today, it was the other way.
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Norm Eisen
That's right, Ari. Another great line from the Wire. A man has got to have a code. He discovered that he's got a code, as Omar Little said, and that code is the Constitution. And over and over again, whatever you may think of the Supreme Court in the Alien Enemies act case, in the City of Chicago National Guard case, and now in the tariffs case, the Supreme Court has said to him, you stick with your powers under Article 2. Do not encroach beyond the authority we've given you. Very, very important for maintaining democracy and combating Donald Trump's authoritarian bent.
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Ari Melber
Yeah. And when you look at sort of Donald Trump's claims today, I want to play another one of these contrasts of he clearly knew he lost. It was a different type of Trump. And maybe because the ruling came out and he insisted on live reacting within, you know, two hours or so, you could see that he just sort of didn't have a big lie yet to shroud it. I mean, I remember when we covered the 2020 loss, and it was. They. They measured the longest time he'd gone without coming out to take questions as president. He went a couple weeks today. He came. Came right out and. And had anger Take a look.
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Melissa Ford
President, are you going to ask Congress to take additional action on tariffs now?
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Neal Katyal
I don't need to.
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Ari Melber
It's already been approved. I mean, I would ask Congress and probably get it. And we showed earlier him sort of saying, oh, I have these other powers. Why don't I have this one? He could have asked Congress on day one, there was a lot more political capital. How do you view this? As someone who's worked in the White House understands Washington, that the Supreme Court didn't say, you can't do this, it just said you can't do this without Congress? A more cooperative or collaborative leader might try.
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Norm Eisen
Well, Ari, the problem is that Donald Trump doesn't actually want to do it the right way. He has other authorities that he could have used to do this, but they would require things like an investigation. He would have to substantiate it with data. He couldn't target countries with random tariff rates to scratch his foreign policy issues. He'd have to have a genuine basis for doing it. You know, I'm not so sure that he could get this kind of tariff authority. I represented in this case more than two dozen prominent conservatives. We filed briefs at every level of the case, including at the Supreme Court, at our public interest law firm, the Democracy Defenders Fund. Every. They represented every administration from Nixon to Trump. Won. Ari. And they told the Supreme Court that this kind of irrigation of power is something more befitting King George III, who we threw off 250 years ago, than an American president.
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Ari Melber
And so let me, let me ask you that. Because of the role you have, does this coalition, this majority today, give you a strategy for dealing with Trump's other power grabs, including on elections and other meddling going forward? Is this something you think you can build on?
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Norm Eisen
I think it is. We've had success in the lower courts. In his elections power grab, for example, he tried to do something similar to foreign countries. What he tried to do with tariffs. Sorry. He tried to do to American states with his elections. Executive order, take over parts of election administration. We went to court, shut that down with the redistricting, trying to grab extra congressional seats. Again, he attempted to go outside the bounds of law. We litigated Prop 50 in California. We won that. The Supreme Court affirmed. California counteracting Donald Trump's effort to steal legislative seats. California bounce it out with new seats without denoted dissent. Ari. So, yes, clearly there is support on the court. But as you noted earlier, there's also been issues with this court, including their use of the shadow docket on these extreme Flexes of emergency power, the Alien Enemies act, the National Guard, now tariffs. There does seem to be a 6, 3 majority. And I even think Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, you know, some of these cases, you may pick up Kavanaugh as well.
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Ari Melber
Well, that's really striking because while there's a lot of concern in the country about what the president has gotten away with, this was a major rebuke today on a core priority for the president. And as you say, it shows where some of that work is. Of course, you gotta bring the cases and have the action out there to ever get to this point. Ambassador Eisen, a litigator and someone we've relied on over the years on these stories, thank you so much.
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Norm Eisen
Thanks, Hari.
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Ari Melber
Appreciate it. By the end of the hour, we will change it up and hear from Melissa Ford, whose work with Alicia Keys and Usher have been a big part of the culture. That's by the end of the hour, Trump is planning to find ways to still issue some tariffs, although he's lost a lot of power. Today we have a special guest on what's next. So you understand where we're headed and whether Illinois and these other Democratic states are going to get there refund. They started demanding Trump pay up for his illegal tariffs tonight.
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Justin Wolfers
Okay, does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy QPC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of
- [28:49]
Ari Melber
your Sprite because you can still hear
- [28:51]
Justin Wolfers
your mama saying, don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now, so you do what you want.
- [28:57]
Alicia Menendez
Share and share alike with the 20 piece McNuggets from McDonald's for just $6 limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer.
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Ari Melber
We're back with Professor Justin Wolfers, economist, host of Think like an Economist podcast. What happens now?
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Justin Wolfers
Well, you know, I don't know if you remember Sex and the City. Carrie got together with Big, they broke up. And you might have thought to yourself, well, that's the end of the relationship. But of course, what happens in the next season? They just go right back to the whole thing. So the story here is the writers room hasn't changed. It's gonna be the same old guys with the same old plot points with a few different constraints. It's hard to bring back either characters that have died or legal powers that have died. But I'm expecting season two to be no less chaotic than season one.
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Ari Melber
More, okay, more chaos. But even the president Acknowledged today. All right. There's a lot he can't do alone. And he said he's not gonna work with Congress, which I was discussing earlier in the program. So these other tariffs announced today, 10%. I mean, those expire in a few months. What else can he really do? I mean, it would seem that the whole thing is narrowing.
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Justin Wolfers
Absolutely. It's narrowing in every sense except the president's rhetoric. So actually, the tariff he put on today is really worth thinking about because I think it shows the economic bankruptcy of this response. This is a Section 122 tariff, which, as you know, he's only allowed to put on for 150 days. So the question is, what problem is this the solution for? The president says he's all about getting bargaining power. Well, imagine calling the Chinese and saying, I demand concessions or else I'm Gonna put this 10% tariff on you. And I'm pretty sure the Chinese know how to wait 150 days and then say, you know what, mate? There's nothing left. Or it could be, the president says he's going to onshore manufacturing. But I tell you what, I've talked to some factory owners. No one's going to break ground on a new factory when the tariffs are off before the concrete's even set. What you're left with here, actually, is a 10% tariff that performs no role except being a tax. So what we have is a pro tax president.
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Ari Melber
Yeah, and a tax that, again, our very founders fought kings to not be taxed without representation. Here we are all these years later, so much has changed. Not that, apparently. And Bloomberg is already reporting the tariff ruling will kick off a fight for what is a serious chunk of change, because as Neal Kochaw was explaining, they let this play out for strategic reasons. And the high court has been very friendly to Trump in letting him kind of break laws on the short run. I mean, this is now, as of today, illegal. But yesterday they were taking this money. So 170 billion with a B is out there. Companies filing suits, companies want their money back. Of course, they were able to sue precisely because they were paying and harmed by this. How will that process play out? How much that money is actually going to come back into those pockets?
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Justin Wolfers
I know you care deeply about the numbers here. I think the number's going to end up being closer to 130 billion, but, you know, it doesn't really matter. I actually think this is an interesting rhetorical point, but not that interesting for the economics. Why? Well, first of all, it's all about what happened in the past. And the question is, does the money end up in the government's coffers or in our pockets? If it's not in our pockets and the government needs money, it's gonna reach back into our pocket and take it back out. The bad news for people at home is you and I aren't gonna see any of this. Why is that? Well, I buy my olive oil from Costco. It's imported. Costco imported the olive oil. Therefore, Costco in the first instant, paid the tariff. That's who has a claim here. Now, Costco jacked up the price, and I had to pay more for my O oil, which is deeply disappointing. But Costco's not going to call me and say, justin, we noticed that you might have paid a little extra, but that was just the price we wanted to charge you. So this whole fight is basically about whether Costco or other American importers get the money or the government pockets, the
- [33:05]
Ari Melber
market has seen any of it. If that's the case, you have a Trump government that jacks up those prices. Some of it paid, as you say, on the way. And if they passed off some of it to consumers, then we don't get any of that money back. They're not gonna track us down and give us that. They're gonna pay it off to the companies. How was any of this good for the American consumer, mate?
- [33:28]
Justin Wolfers
It's not. So, look, here's. I know you're the lawyer here, but here's a very simple rule of thumb. If you're gonna institute a policy that's gonna upend your own economy, the global economy, foreign relations, and change our position in the world, probably best to check that it's constitutional first. Just hint for beginners. So they created the mess, sort of strategically, on purpose, making it harder to undo all of this. So the trade war was bad, but having a trade war that you were never allowed to actually run is even worse. This is literally for or against tariffs. This is the dumbest thing you could possibly do. It means we get all the costs and none of the benefits.
- [34:12]
Ari Melber
It's really extraordinary, and it's a massive scale. And you think about people worried about inflation and high prices and jobs. This is another form of a price gouge. If in the end, it was all for naught and this was a president who ran on what he ran on fixing the high prices, getting to the bottom of the Epstein thing, and a couple other things, he's putting up zero after zero. I'm out of time. But what do you use your olive oil for Justin.
- [34:39]
Justin Wolfers
Oh, mate. I shave with it. No, I'm kidding. I don't do that. I grill vegetables. I like to grill my vegetables with a good olive oil and my son likes to dip his bread in it, add a little salt.
- [34:49]
Ari Melber
Recommended 21 yeah, I do it with the bread. I sometimes use avocado oil for the vegetables. Wow.
- [34:55]
Justin Wolfers
Is that healthier?
- [34:56]
Ari Melber
I don't know. I feel like as a news person if I say I think it is, but I feel like anything beyond that and Kid Rock and RFK Jr are going to be out here fact checking us. So we'll look into it. I'll get back to you in a minute. Answered on what the healthiest oil is. Have a good weekend, Justin.
- [35:13]
Justin Wolfers
You too, brother.
- [35:15]
Ari Melber
We're going to finish a break. I have Elisa Menendez coming up as we turn to a related issue. You talk about prices. What about food prices and food assistance and a lot more in that Maga Maha agenda next. There is a lot going on, but we always make time to fall back. We have two special guests tonight. Returning for her fifth fallback, our colleague Alicia Menendez, who of course also hosts Latina Latina, a great podcast, the author of the Likability Trap, and joining for her fallback debut, Melissa Ford, who got her start in some of the most iconic music videos dating back to the 2000s. I got this ready.
- [36:04]
Justin Wolfers
You know why.
- [36:16]
Ari Melber
And she has not only, of course, that set of throwbacks, but a thriving media career, including her podcast Hot and Bothered. She's interviewed Congresswoman Presley Jadakiss, Charlamagne and many more. She's also, we should know, nominated for an NAACP Image Award, which is awesome. Welcome to both of you. Hi. Hi.
- [36:35]
Alicia Menendez
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
- [36:37]
Ari Melber
It's great to have you both here. You have a pro with you, Home court advantage. What's on your fallback list? Alicia?
- [36:44]
Alicia Menendez
My fallback list.
- [36:44]
Melissa Ford
There are new set of standards for SNAP for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. And they're pretty confusing is what I'd say, in part because they're different by state and in part because even within states the standards are in clear. Iowa is particularly restrictive. You can use SNAP benefits only to purchase food and beverages not subject to the state's sales tax. So imagine that you're someone who relies on snap, who goes into your local grocery store in order to buy things and you're supposed to figure out what that means. There's sort of the fundamental question of why are they doing this? It's all under the banner of Make America Healthy again, supposedly. But fundamentally, this is about food stability.
- [37:28]
Ari Melber
I don't know if enough people are asking this question, Melissa, but where does this leave Lloyd Banks? You think about a song like cake,
- [37:35]
Neal Katyal
and now I guess you can't get
- [37:36]
Ari Melber
your benefits through that way.
- [37:38]
Alicia Menendez
I think he's ish out of luck. Yeah, it's not looking.
- [37:41]
Ari Melber
Someone had to go there.
- [37:43]
Melissa Ford
And it was you.
- [37:44]
Ari Melber
And that was me. That someone was me. Melissa, what's on your fallback list?
- [37:49]
Alicia Menendez
Oh, but I got so many things that I want to fall back on. So let's start with the AI actress, Tilly Norwood. She's caused quite a stor.
- [37:58]
Ari Melber
Wild.
- [37:59]
Alicia Menendez
Yeah. And this. First of all, this is not an actress. This is a computer generated character. And the reason why the studio or the reason why actors are up in arms is basically because for several reasons. Acting is born from a lived experience. And computers and simulation can only mimic it. But they can never understand what it's like to have a childhood experience trauma. The depth and the breadth that people bring to. To their acting experience is their lived experience. It's their biographical experience. And also what really irritates me is when innovation is a poor disguise for labor issues. And the reality is that we watched people really suffer during the first writers strike back in 2008. People lost their homes, they struggled to eat. And then we just saw the same thing happen with the SAG strike and also the writers strike. That was a couple of years ago. To this is a slap in the face to everybody who was on those front lines and not crossing the picket lines and standing up for what they believed in. So this really. Innovation disguised as what. As just the labor issue is also what's frustrating. And we're already, listen, living in an. Sorry. In an authenticity crisis, everything is. Everything is deep fake. Everything is algorithmic, everything is synthesized, everything is filter. And it's getting really difficult to determine what is real and what's not. I don't understand. What is our obsession with racing towards the destruction of humanity? Like, what is it? I don't get it. So that's my fallback.
- [39:50]
Ari Melber
Well, and as moneybag yo said, the love is so fake, but the hate be so real.
- [39:58]
Melissa Ford
It's art. Art is supposed to be fundamentally human.
- [40:02]
Ari Melber
Melissa. Unflappable.
- [40:03]
Melissa Ford
Unflappable.
- [40:04]
Ari Melber
Well, because we share. We've been so long. She's unfazed. He did say that. Do you think we are in an authenticity crisis?
- [40:11]
Melissa Ford
Yeah, absolutely. And I think part of the reason that it hits hard with actors is that's supposed to be as you said a profoundly human experience, right? Like it is not going to AI to ask a question that is supposed to be born of emotion, is supposed to be born of experience. It's lazy and it's cheap and it actually takes away from the experience.
- [40:35]
Ari Melber
So let me tell you about a meme I saw, ok? Because this is real news, hard hitting news. So I'll bring up a meme I saw. I saw a meme that said, isn't this backwards? We are doing all the work and the robots get to make art. It's like if someone came in and said we can try to help organize your life and you still could have dignity in a job, that'd be one thing. But instead people are toiling away at all kinds of jobs and you've got, as you say, these, these robot AIs interfering or taking away the time that we have for the few people who are commercial artists.
- [41:11]
Alicia Menendez
I don't want the holograms of Tupac in a concert. I'm not going, you know, and when actors and just everybody who's just a part of the studio machine, gaffers, lighting, technicians, just everybody, when they hear AI, what they hear is that they are disposable. That's what they hear when the studios are excited about AI and the innovation and the technology and where it's going to take us all human beings here is that I am disposable and I'm going to be replaced. And that is terrifying because the vast majority of these people are living paycheck to paycheck.
- [41:46]
Ari Melber
Really wonderful to have both of you here. And Melissa's debut. We hope you'll come back.
- [41:50]
Alicia Menendez
Absolutely. If you'll have me.
- [41:58]
Ari Melber
What a week, huh? Just doesn't stop. I want to share with you a little bit from our Maverick series, which you can always find online. I'll tell you how in a moment, but take a look. I'll tell you everything. I'm an open faced sandwich.
- [42:15]
Alicia Menendez
It's important to be an artist and to, to speak truth.
- [42:19]
Justin Wolfers
Unless you're true to who you are, it's not going to resonate. Music really, really. Is you kind of defining who you are?
- [42:26]
Ari Melber
The Blue Note Jazz Festival and you just came off headlining.
- [42:30]
Justin Wolfers
You have to remind yourself of the kid on the bedroom floor with the Beatles record.
- [42:33]
Neal Katyal
This is fire.
- [42:35]
Ari Melber
This man.
- [42:36]
Norm Eisen
Let me explain.
- [42:38]
Ari Melber
Drake was in Anchorman 2.
- [42:40]
Justin Wolfers
Drake's got some chops. All of a sudden.
- [42:42]
Norm Eisen
My queerness is my superpower.
- [42:44]
Ari Melber
Do you see yourself as a motivational speaker?
- [42:46]
Justin Wolfers
No, I just speak and I'm motivational.
- [42:51]
Ari Melber
When it comes to making beats, you already know this. It's about the four count.
- [42:54]
Neal Katyal
Win.
- [42:55]
Ari Melber
1, 2, 3, 4.
- [42:56]
Alicia Menendez
Reinvention is the key to survival in this business.
- [43:00]
Ari Melber
Favorite lyric I wrote I like if I could give you the moon, I would give you the moon. I knew I'd made it when. When my accountant said I had a million dollars. Success means if your problems are different than they used to be, you obviously have to find people who would believe in you, who are crazy enough.
- [43:20]
Justin Wolfers
The allergies on msnbc.
- [43:23]
Neal Katyal
This is how we do it.
- [43:24]
Justin Wolfers
Gotta kick it with the free.
- [43:27]
Ari Melber
That's the note we end on.
- [43:28]
Justin Wolfers
Okay? Does this happen to anybody else? You sit down with a juicy QPC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of
- [43:38]
Ari Melber
your Sprite because you can still hear
- [43:40]
Justin Wolfers
your mama saying, don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now, so you do what you want.
- [43:46]
Alicia Menendez
Share and share alike with the 20 piece McNuggets from McDonald's for just $6 limited time only. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer.