Wednesday, November 5 was an important day for the U.S. Supreme Court, whose justices listened to oral arguments in Learning Resources v. Trump. The nine justices are examining President Donald Trump's ability to unilaterally impose, by executive order, steep new tariffs invoking a Jimmy Carter-era law: the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA).
The following day on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," legal analyst Lisa Rubin weighed in on the hearing — and she thought that conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett was especially tough when questioning Trump's allies.
Conservative host Joe Scarborough noted that when Solicitor General John Sauer gave evasive answers to Barrett's questions, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor jumped in and chastised him for it.
Scarborough told Rubin and "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski, "I got to say, Lisa, that the most remarkable part of that hearing was when Amy Coney Barrett had the solicitor general on the line, and he kept trying to pull away — and she kept reeling him in, and he kept trying to pull away. He kept pulling away. She just — she was tenacious. And finally, Justice Sotomayor, I think, in an act of mercy, said: Just answer her question. You're not answering her question. We all know you can't answer her question. Just admit it, basically, is what Justice Sotomayor was saying."
Rubin agreed with Scarborough's analysis, emphasizing that Barrett was tenacious in her questioning of Sauer.
"Pity the person who comes on the other side of Amy Coney Barrett, who is precise, pragmatic and the mother of seven children," Rubin told Scarborough and Brzezinski. "So, if anybody is well prepared for that kind of questioning, I would venture a guess, it's Amy Coney Barrett. And you're right to say that she was completely fixated on the plain text of the statute. The argument that the (Trump) administration is relying upon is that the words 'regulate importation' somehow include the power to impose tariffs."
Rubin continued, "But of course, not only is the word tariff not present ... there is nothing in the string of verbs there, as Justice (Elena) Kagan mentioned, that gets to where John Sauer, the solicitor general, wants to see the argument go. There's nothing in all of the things that the president can do under this Emergency Powers Act that has anything to do with raising revenue, much less imposing taxes or duties. And that's where you get to the question of the larger constitutional issues about whose responsibilities really are these?"
Watch the segment below: