Donald Trump
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to respond to President Donald Trump's claim that a national emergency justified his drastic tariff moves. However, the Constitution allocates tariff-regulation power to Congress, not the presidency.
The New Republic's Greg Sargent spoke with MS NOW's Steve Benen on Monday morning, noting that Trump’s own words may be the strongest case against his tariff powers. The two analysts argued that Trump has repeatedly blown up the legal and political rationale for his trade war in public statements.
During a morning podcast "The Daily Blast," Sargent and Benen dissected Trump’s recent threats to increase tariffs on parts of Europe not because of some economic reason but because the countries sent military to aid in the defense of Greenland from the U.S.
Trump keeps publicly admitting that his “emergencies” are more whims and leverage plays. Trump threatened tariffs on Brazil for multiple reasons and also claimed that France rejected his Gaza 'Board of Peace.'
Trump boasted that he raised tariffs from 30 to 39 percent after a call with Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter “rubbed [him] the wrong way,” then lowered them after being courted by industry executives who brought him a Rolex and a personalized gold bar.
The two incidents make it clear that there isn't an "emergency" necessitating a tariff, but that Trump is using them for his own personal gain, the men agreed.
Benen argued that these anecdotes from the president undermine the administration’s legal claim that Trump is using emergency powers under the 1977 law to address a genuine economic emergency, namely trade deficits.
He continued, saying that Trump is "so far gone, is so wrapped up in his own delusion that he forgets he’s supposed to maintain the emergency pretense." Trump then ends up “confessing in public that the entire rationale for his policy is a sham.”
The trade deficits that Trump claimed are an emergency, Benen said, are not inherently harmful.
He explained, “You and I have trade deficits with our grocery store,” and they have been shrinking, not exploding into crisis. The Constitution vests tariff power in Congress, through Article I, not to the presidency. It's the main reason most legalscholars and experts think Trump is likely to lose at the Supreme Court if the justices follow the statute and the Constitution. In fact, one of Trump's own officials thinks the policy might fall at the high court.
The two men go on to skewer House Speaker Mike Johnson, who praised Trump’s supposed “Article II” tariff power, which simply doesn’t exist. Tariff authority sits in Article I, Benen told Sargent, making Johnson’s hands-off posture “completely antithetical” to the system he claims to revere.
Meanwhile, Republicans who privately dislike tariffs are allowing Trump to proceed unilaterally, even though it is "pushing prices up and that it’s becoming a drag on the economy."
Sargent agreed, saying, "It’s very, very clear that affordability is an enormous issue in these elections." Those high costs are hammering voters and it could cost the GOP the House, and possibly the Senate, in 2026.
If the Supreme Court upholds Trump’s approach despite his public admissions, Benen said, it would mark “a breakdown of American governance at crisis levels,” normalizing an enormous abuse of power with no institutional check.