Trump: SCOTUS Ruling 'Deeply Disappointing', Will Impose 10% Global Tariff | NTD News Today Feb. 20

Welcome back. I'm Paul Graney. Major blow this morning to President Trump's economic policy, the Supreme Court ruling against most of Trump's tariffs today. The president had been using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to implement tariffs. It allows presidents to regulate imports during times of emergency. Trump had argued that the influx of illegal drugs from China, Canada and Mexico and huge But the justices ruled 6-3 today that the law doesn't authorize the president to impose those types of tariffs. Justices ruling against the tariffs include John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. The ruling affects the president's country-by-country reciprocal tariffs and the 25 percent tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico over illegal drugs. Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum, which he imposed using different laws, are not affected. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant has said that the administration could invoke other authorities to implement tariffs, although he said they're not as efficient, not as powerful. In the major Supreme Court ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the government's interpretation of the law would give the president unbounded authority to impose and change tariffs. He said that would represent a major expansion of presidential power over tariff policy. Roberts said in the 50 years since the law was enacted, no president had used it to impose tariffs of that scale. He said the lack of precedent suggests the tariffs go beyond the president's authority. In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that neither the statute nor the Constitution justifies ruling against the president. He wrote that the court has long recognized Congress can give the president broad discretion over trade and commerce with other nations. But in the majority opinion, the six justices said that the Trump administration may be required to refund billions of dollars to the importers who have paid the International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others. The Supreme Court also acknowledged that the refund process is likely to be a mess. The White House officials have said they could deploy other measures to implement the president's tariff agenda. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC back in January that there are other legal authorities to reach the same place instead of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Hassett was also on Fox News before the Supreme Court ruling this morning. Here's what he said. I think that what we're going to do should the Supreme Court make the wrong move is we're going to adjust and use other authorities that we have because we've now seen the proof is in the pudding that these tariffs work. They do exactly what President Trump said. And so we've got lots of other options. I think the IEPA is the cleanest. But if the Supreme Court doesn't like that one, then Jameson Greer has a backup plan that's just as good. U.S. stocks initially popped following the High Court's ruling, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising more than 200 points. But the leading benchmark averages later parred their gains. Members of Congress have reacted to the Supreme Court ruling, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reacting to the tariffs. In a post on X, he called it, quote, a victory for the wallets of every American consumer. A Main Street Alliance, a group that represents 30,000 small business owners, has now called for refunds to businesses affected by the tariffs, the European Union saying it's carefully analyzing the ruling, with the European Commission's trade spokesman saying the EU is in close contact with the U.S. administration for clarity on next steps. The British government says it will contact the Trump administration to assess the impact of the ruling, the spokesperson adding that Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government will work with the U.S. to understand how the ruling affects tariffs for the U.K. and other countries. House Speaker Mike Johnson has responded to the Supreme Court ruling. In an X post, Johnson said, quote, no one can deny that President Trump's use of tariffs has brought in billions of dollars and created immense leverage for America's trade strategy of securing strong reciprocal America first trade agreements with countries that have been taking advantage of American workers for decades. Congress and the administration will determine the best path forward in the coming weeks. And Representative French Hill, Chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, responded to the Supreme Court ruling. Writing on social media platform X, he said, quote, I share in President Trump's goal of securing fair and reciprocal trade agreements and holding bad actors accountable for their unfair trade policies. He adds that while tariffs can be a useful tool when applied in a targeted way, today's Supreme Court decision underscores the need for Congress to play a role in trade policy. My focus remains on advancing a trade strategy that supports Arkansas jobs, businesses and consumers and strengthening U.S. competitiveness. Now prominent law professor Jonathan Turley posted his reaction on the highest court's decision. He says the ruling is not welcomed but is anticipated. He says the 6-3 decision was already clear when the court heard the argument. He also believes that the administration was at a disadvantage from the very start as the court weighs a statute that lacked clear authority for tariffs. Turley also says what's unclear now is how the administration will proceed in foreign relations and trade negotiations. It is worth noting, though, the administration has repeatedly said they have other authorities should the court strike down those specific tariffs. In response to today's Supreme Court decision, the House Select Committee and the Chinese Communist Party is stressing that China is not an equal trading partner. The committee warns that China continues to engage with predatory trade practices that's harming American workers, gutting a manufacturing base and endangering national security. It argues that tariffs on China help laying the playing field for American workers. President Trump has proven tariffs are one of the few effective tools to confront Beijing. Chairman John Mueller is urging Congress to pass a bipartisan bill revoking China's privileged trade status, putting American workers first, rebuilding our manufacturing strength and creating a consistent, tough trade policy toward China. With us now to talk about the Supreme Court's ruling against President Trump's tariff is geopolitical strategist and national security analyst, Colonel Darren Gobb. Darren, great to see you. Colonel, what an amazing and incredible ruling. The implications, not just for us here in America, but globally. Your reaction? Yeah. Hey, good afternoon, Paul. Frankly, I'm not surprised. I kind of saw how this was going in some of the discussions that we've seen over the past months and the powers that were being challenged. And I'm not so I'm not surprised at all that this is how the ruling went. What I'm curious about will be how the Treasury Secretary and the team there have built that backup plan, as you highlighted earlier in that Fox News recording. And we'll see what that says. So I think in some ways, this will hurt temporarily in the long run. The Supreme Court check and executive powers using what Congress has mandated and what the executive powers are mandated and what the difference is, that can be healthy for a nation like ours, because what can be used for good now could be used for not so good later by a different administration. So by the letter of law, I think this is probably close to right. But the question will be, what's plan B? Colonel, you made an interesting point since this ruling came down. The president has used the tariffs as you could say his main point of leverage in negotiations, geopolitical tactic, strategy. Now, if the president does not have such power over tariffs or that if that has been limited, perhaps America's main leverage may now revert to its military strength. It might. And that's frankly what the president has used mostly throughout history, because that's the one they have the greatest control over, is the one they can give an order to immediately and have it responded to virtually immediately as well. And so when you're thinking about the elements of national power that could be exercised, you got diplomacy, information, military and economic. If you take out part of the economic or maybe in total the economic, then you're left really with diplomacy and military. Information kind of wraps it all together. But when you deal with diplomacy, there's no or very few carrot and sticks there. It's not a point where there's a lot of leverage you can gain. It's a game of niceties and it may or may not work. And what does that leave as far as potentially having to push through a major point of leverage? It comes down to the military. And that's unfortunate because it shouldn't be the leading edge of our foreign policy, frankly. The economics should be. And that's where Congress has given up its power in the first place. I would think most Americans would agree with you in that, Darren, to not have to use the military as a piece of leverage is obviously the ideal situation. An interesting point is the tariffs may need to go through Congress. Can you imagine the difficulty and the speed or lack thereof of trying to get something like the president's broad and sweeping tariff policy and agenda through Congress? Getting anything through Congress can be difficult, it seems. And of course, that's partly by design. But when it comes to Congress working and using one of their few powers when it comes to foreign policy, which is tariffs, they have given up that responsibility entirely and never even exercised, much like they've given up their responsibility towards declaring war in accordance with our Constitution. When they give up those powers, they actually give up some of the greatest powers they have towards influencing things like our foreign policy in one of the few ways that they can. So I don't expect Congress to take any action to actually do anything to use tariffs and other similar items to help enhance America's national security interests. In fact, I think they're just going to continue down the same road they always have been and you're not going to see much change. And they're going to push the president back into using primarily the military once again. Such a fascinating point. Colonel, the president said to visit China next month. What do you think this ruling is going to mean for negotiations? Well, no doubt that our foreign adversaries have seen this and said, yeah, they like our Supreme Court all of a sudden. And Trump has, you know, whether you can argue whether it's been successful or not and who's paid the price on various things. But our foreign adversaries who have been dealing with us on an economic front for a long time now are looking at this going, great. They have taken away, actually, one of the powers the president has been using against us quite successfully. China has paid a big price under the tariff wars, as I call them. And to have that removed from the table, that takes a big leverage point for the president off that table when he meets with them in person. China knows it. There's no doubt whatsoever that they will use it to their advantage. And look, we have the whole economics of it. Darren, right? This is trade. This is economics. The president also, though, using these tariffs to dissuade China from allowing fentanyl precursors to reach Mexico and other places and then make it to America. I think another interesting point, the president, you know, he takes a lot of pride in ending conflicts and preventing conflicts. A big use of his tariffs was, you know, anybody who does business with Iran, anybody who does business with Russia, you're going to get a tariff. We saw India kind of bending to this recently. How do you see this ruling impacting the president's ability to actually achieve peace where he wants to? Well, it will depend on what their plan B is within the Treasury, and I think they knew all along that this tariff fight in the Supreme Court was going to ultimately be a loss. It's not as clear cut as you can't use tariffs in general at all. There are some nuances to it when it comes to emergency powers versus the things he can push through Article 2 presidential powers and regulation. But ultimately, this is not going to help our national security in relationships with some of these nations because, you know, now how do you how do you talk to them? How do you potentially try to influence some of the things that other nations are doing that could be negative, that are negative, but without now that you have to skip past the economics and go via other means that some of these nations may not care about because in the end, what's what's one of the truisms of politics, power and influence is always follow the money. And if you can't influence that, well, it's going to be a lot harder to influence other nations. It's just incredible to think of everything, of notes here, Darren, about, you know, you brought up the fiscal situation, people perhaps looking forward to tariff rebate checks, talking about refunding the businesses who've already paid these tariffs. We had the UK and the EU saying, oh, we're going to contact the America, contact the Trump administration, see how this impacts us. It's just a sweeping. It's just a sweeping change. That's Colonel Darren Gobb, a colonel, as always. Great to speak with you. Take care. You too, Paul. Thank you. And with us now is Ty Lasseter to discuss the latest ruling from the Supreme Court. Hi, great to see you. Thanks so much for coming on. Absolutely. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me on this morning. Absolutely. Your reaction to this sweeping ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court? Yeah, well, it's a huge deal. It has major implications for everyone involved, especially businesses right now and as we stand today. And, you know, I think at the end of the day, it's not a final ruling on tariffs as a whole, but it's just a ruling that, you know, as tariffs are a taxing mechanism, they cannot be solely implemented by the POTUS himself. And it does take congressional ruling there. And so, you know, it's going to have some back and forth. It's going to cause some delay. And I think we will maybe see some easing in consumer pricing. But really, the markets right now are less focused on one quick or short change to tariffs and more focused on consistency. And what are we going to see consistently moving forward? And I think there is so much uncertainty right now that we're going to continue to see uncertainty in the markets. But that's right, Ty, because obviously this ruling has come down, but the administration has stressed they have Plan B alternative solutions, etc. So really, you say that the uncertainty from a business perspective, the uncertainty around tariffs is set to continue. Yeah, it's definitely going to continue. And I mean, you know, at best, we're going to have a delay before we see what ultimately happens with these tariffs. Definitely going to be arguments back and forth. And it's going to slow some things down. You know, consumer goods, specifically retail type goods, are going to see a quick boost in pricing. We're going to see some, you know, imports that may happen quickly, things that can move quickly. But that's going to be on small retail goods. It's not necessarily going to be striking across all business in America that has imports or business to do where these tariffs have been implemented. And so there's still going to be remaining uncertainty in the marketplace. And we're going to still have issues with inflation as we move forward. And I think inflation really ultimately is around a good place here in America. I don't think we're going to see 2 percent what the Fed is expecting to see before they move interest rates or anything like that. I think we're going to stay in the 3 percent range. These tariffs have a slight short term impact on that. But long term, what we'll see is, you know, how people are successful is how willing they are to change. And so businesses are at the behest of that. And so businesses will change and adapt to what those tariffs are and the impact of those. And it will stabilize inflation. We haven't had the time to see that yet because of the uncertainty that that has been in the market right now. Has the president gleaned and squeezed much of the benefits of tariffs out already when you think about all of the pledged investments, all of the new trade deals? Have they already had, even with this striking down today, have they already had a positive impact? Well, I think certainly, especially for those countries who are front runners for American business and international business as it pertains to America and the countries that we do most of our business in and specifically China and many of the Asian markets, you know, those markets were quicker to striking a deal that was implemented here. And then there's countries that were left behind or slow to move. And so I think we've seen the major impact of those tariffs already. And I think ultimately now it's finding stability moving forward and consistency moving forward as to what we can expect for the rest of this administration's term. And so now this all this all striking down these tariffs does is delay that certainty and it creates a little bit more uncertainty out there in the marketplace for a longer period of time. And so it just slows everything that this administration is trying to accomplish. I see exactly. If this had gone the other way, Ty, we may have had more of an idea of what exactly the president is able to do when it comes to tariffs. Now, as you said, this this could be extended. How about the dynamic, potential dynamic change between the United States and one of its biggest trading partners, China? Trump is due to go to China over the next few weeks looking to get a trade deal finalized. How do you see that playing out after today's ruling? Well, I think Trump and China have a longstanding business relationship dating back to Trump's real estate activities and all of his business activities. And at the end of the day, yes, he is a very polarizing individual and arguably the most polarizing president that we've ever had with the following that he's had from his business endeavors that have moved into his presidency. And he utilizes that. And I think we all know that. But one thing that that nobody is telling you right now is that I'm going to have to interrupt you. Ty Lasseter, President Trump is just coming out to speak on the tariffs. Thank you so much, sir. Talk soon. Well, thank you very much for being here. The Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I'm ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country. I'd like to thank and congratulate Justices Thomas, Alito and Kavanaugh for their strength and wisdom and love of our country, which is right now very proud of those justices. When you read the dissenting opinions, there is no way that anyone can argue against them. There's no way. Foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years are ecstatic. They're so happy. And they're dancing in the streets, but they won't be dancing for long. That I can assure you. The Democrats on the court are thrilled, but they will automatically vote no. They're an automatic no, just like in Congress, they're an automatic no. They're against anything that makes America strong, healthy and great again. They also are a, frankly, disgrace to our nation, those justices. They're an automatic no, no matter how good a case you have. It's a no. But you can't knock their loyalty. It's one thing you can do with some of our people. Others think they're being politically correct, which has happened before far too often with certain members of this court. And it's happened so often with this court. What a shame having to do with voting in particular, when, in fact, they're just being fools and lapdogs for the rhinos and the radical left Democrats and not that they should have anything at all to do with it. They're very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution. It's my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think. It's a small movement. I won by millions of votes. We won in a landslide with all the cheating that went on. There was a lot of it. We still won in a landslide too big to rig. But these people are obnoxious, ignorant and loud. They're very loud. And I think certain justices are afraid of that. They don't want to do the right thing. They're afraid of it. This was an important case to me, more as a symbol of economic national security. And also, I would say, just for our country itself, so important, because we're doing so well as a country. We've never done so well. The good news is that there are methods, practices, statutes and authorities, as recognized by the entire court in this terrible decision, and also as recognized by Congress, which they refer to, that are even stronger than the AIPA tariffs available to me as president of the United States. And in actuality, I was very modest in my ask of other countries and businesses because I wanted to do, and it's very important, I want to be very well behaved because I wanted to do anything. I didn't want to do anything that would affect the decision of the court, because I understand the court. I understand how they are very easily swayed. I want to be a good boy. I have very effectively utilized tariffs over the past year to make America great again. Our stock market has just recently broken 50,000 on the Dow, and simultaneously, and even more amazingly, broken 70,000, broken 7,000 on the S&P, two numbers that everybody thought upon our landslide election victory could not be attained. Think of that. Nobody thought it was possible to do it within four years, and we did it in one year. They said, you'll never be able. You'll go back and you read the geniuses, read their statements. All of the Nobel Prize winners in economics, they said, no, you couldn't do it in four years. Well, we didn't do it in four years. We did it in one year. We broke every record in the book, and we're continuing to do so. Tariffs have likewise been used to end five of the eight wars that I settled. Well, I settled eight wars, whether you like it or not, including India, Pakistan, big ones, nuclear, could have been nuclear. Prime Minister Pakistan said yesterday at the great meeting that we had, the Peace Board, he said yesterday that President Trump could have saved 35 million lives by getting us to stop fighting. They were getting ready to do some bad things, but they've given us great national security these tariffs have, and together with our strong borders, reduced fentanyl coming into our country by 30 percent, when I use them as a penalty against countries illegally sending this poison into our country to poison our youth, all of those tariffs remain. They all remain. I don't know if you know that or not. They all remain. We're still getting them, and we will after the decision. But again, those three people, such respect. I've had a lot of respect for them anyway, but such great respect. But other alternatives will now be used to replace the ones that the court incorrectly rejected. We have alternatives, great alternatives. Could be more money. We'll take in more money, and we'll be a lot stronger for it. We're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars. We'll continue to do so. To show you how ridiculous the opinion is, however, the court said that I'm not allowed to charge even one dollar. I can't charge one dollar. Can't charge a dollar. I would have used one penny, but we don't make the pennies anymore. We save money. Can't charge one dollar to any country under IEPA. Not one dollar, I assume, to protect other countries. This must have been done to protect those other countries, certainly not the United States of America, which they should be interested in protecting. That's what they're supposed to be protecting. But I am allowed to cut off any and all trade or business with that same country. In other words, I can destroy the trade. I can destroy the country. I'm even allowed to impose a foreign country destroying embargo. I can embargo. I can do anything I want, but I can't charge one dollar. Because that's not what it says, and that's not the way it even reads. I can do anything I want to do to them, but I can't charge any money. So I'm allowed to destroy the country, but I can't charge them a little fee. I could give them a little two-cent fee, but I cannot charge under any circumstances. I cannot charge them anything. Think of that. How ridiculous is that? I'm allowed to embargo them. I'm allowed to tell them you can't do business in the United States anymore. We want you out of here. But if I want to charge them $10, I can't do that. It's incorrect. Their decision's incorrect. But it doesn't matter, because we have very powerful alternatives that have been approved by this decision. You know, they've been approved by the decision, for those that thought they had us. And they're saying that I have the absolute right to license, but not the right to charge a license fee. So think of that. I have the right to license. It's a very powerful word. In many ways, license is more powerful than tariffs. In fact, I was thinking about using it. But they came up with the idea that I can license, just like the people that were opposing me told them to do, but not the right to charge a license fee. Think of that. Who ever heard of such a thing? What license has ever been issued without the right to charge a fee? You get a license, you charge a fee. It's automatic, but not with this court. But now the court has given me the unquestioned right to ban all sorts of things from coming into our country, to destroy foreign countries. But a much more powerful right than many people ever thought we even had, but not the right to charge a fee. How crazy is that? Our country is the hottest country anywhere in the world right now. And it was a dead country one and a half years ago under an incompetent president. But now I'm going to go in a different direction. Probably the direction that I should have gone the first time, but I read the language. I'm very good at reading language and it read our way 100%. But now I'll go the way I could have gone originally, which is even stronger than our original choice. As Justice Kavanaugh, whose stock has gone so up, you'd have to see. I'm so proud of him, wrote in his dissent, although I firmly disagree with the court's holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a president's ability to order tariffs going forward. So think of that. The decision might not substantially constrain. And it doesn't. He's right. In fact, I can judge much more than I was judging. So I'm going to just start. Although I firmly disagree with the court's holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a president's ability to order tariffs going forward. That's because numerous other federal statutes, which is so true, authorized the president to impose tariffs and might justify most, if not all of the tariffs issued in this case. Even more tariffs, actually. Those statutes include. Think of that. Those statutes include, for example, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Section 232. All of these things I know so well. The Trade Act of 1974, Sections 122, 201, 301. And the Tariff Act of 1930, Section 338, all clear. But it's a little bit longer process. I thought I'd make things simple. But they didn't let us do that. I would like to thank Justice Kavanaugh for his, frankly, his genius and his great ability. Very proud of that appointment. In actuality, while I am sure that they did not mean to do so, the Supreme Court's decision today made a president's ability to both regulate trade and impose tariffs more powerful and more crystal clear rather than less. I don't think they meant that. I'm sure they didn't. It's terrible. And to think that the Democrats who oppose this only because they want to go the opposite way, they'd like to pack the court. They want to put on 21 people. They want to pack the court, pack the Supreme Court. Maybe they should do it. Maybe they would be better off if they did it. They want to pack the court. They want to do anything to hurt our country. There will no longer be any doubt. And the income coming in and the protection of our companies and country will actually increase because of this decision. I don't think the court meant that, but the way it is based on a longstanding law and hundreds of victories. And even as I was pointed out before, even thousands of victories over the years. To the contrary, the Supreme Court did not overrule tariffs. They merely overruled a particular use of IEPA tariffs and essentially it's used to get a fee. I can do anything I want with IEPA. Anything. I just can't charge anybody for it. I can license. I just can't charge them. It's ridiculous, but it's okay because we have other ways, numerous other ways. The ability to block, embargo, restrict, license, or impose any other condition on a foreign country's ability to conduct trade with the United States under IEPA has been fully confirmed by this decision. So now there's no doubt because, you know, there were a lot of questions about tariffs because no president was smart enough to use them to protect our country from those countries and businesses that were ripping us off. You took a look at the deficits that we had with some of these countries. It was disgraceful what they got away with for many, many decades. But now we know because this decision affirms all those things that some people weren't sure about. In order to protect, and it says so, in order to protect our country, a president can actually charge more tariffs than I was charging in the past period of a year under the various tariff authorities. So we can use other of the statutes, other of the tariff authorities, which have also been confirmed and are fully allowed. Therefore, effective immediately, all national security tariffs under Section 232 and existing Section 301 tariffs — they're existing, they're there — remain in place, fully in place, and in full force and effect. Today I will sign an order to impose a 10 percent global tariff under Section 122. Over and above our normal tariffs already being charged. And we're also initiating several Section 301 and other investigations to protect our country from unfair trading practices of other countries and companies. Thank you for your attention to this matter. And I say quite simply, which I've said for a long time, make America great again. And interestingly, we've already made it great, so I don't have to use that. But I don't think we'll ever give up on MAGA. MAGA is always going to be with us. If you have a few questions, you can let us know. But just to end, so, we're going forward. We will be able to take in more money, and there'll no longer be doubt, because there was always doubt. I know the people that brought the lawsuit, and they're sleazebags, major sleazebags, but I know them. And they're a foreign country centric. They were sending things into our country, and the people representing them knew full well. But they were sending things into our country, and they were beneficial to other countries, but very, very bad for us. And I stopped it, and we'll just keep it going. So we have more of a, we have a totally firm decision now. And I don't think the court meant it, because the court doesn't show great spirit toward our country, in my opinion, a lot of bad decisions. But there are usually ways around it. This is something we could have done, as Justice Kavanaugh said, we could have done this originally, but we're doing it now. And the numbers could be far greater than the hundreds of billions we've already taken in yet. Yeah, please. Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I'm very curious. Thank you so much, Mr. President. Justice Thomas and Alito, as you know, are the most conservative constitutional justices. Do you think that you'll get to appoint two more justices later this term with similar ideologies? And what type of vetting process will they go through to ensure the uphold of the Constitution? I don't know, but they're great justices. That's all I can say. And I hope they're going to be around a long time. I hope they're going to stay healthy. They're great people. They're great. And Justice Alito, too, to add to the group. These are great. These are great men. They're with a great love of our country and a great understanding of the law. Mr. President, are you going to ask Congress to take additional action on tariffs now? I don't need to. It's already been approved. I mean, I would ask Congress and probably get it. When people look at the real numbers and you look at hundreds of billions of dollars that have come into our country — yesterday, I was at a steel plant, as you know, and went to a great, great place, great plant, great, wonderful people. And they were telling me — I said to them — you were there, a lot of the press in this room. Of course, I don't think this plane's big enough to take the press in this room. But a lot of the press right here, we're in Georgia. And I said to the owner — I made a speech at a factory. They make steel products. And I said, how are you? Nice to meet you. How's business? And he says, President, I'd love to kiss you. This is a very powerful man. I don't want to be kissed by that man. But a very powerful, strong man. He's been in the steel business for many years, his father started it. And he said, Sir, I want to kiss you. I said, Why? He said, because we were down to working one hour a week, and then you came in and imposed tariffs. And all of that foreign junk that they were dropping into our country stopped. And we're now going to double shifts, seven days a week, and we may be very soon going to 24 hours around the clock, almost seven days a week. He said, Sir, I want to kiss you so badly. And I said, No, thank you. But you know what? He just — and just to finalize it, he said, Oh, this is a great place in Georgia. In Georgia, he said, All up and down the highway. Same exact answer, Sir. We're all going out of business. We're going to go bankrupt. We're all going out of business. And now every one of us is thriving, and we're hiring people like we haven't. He said, Like I've never — and he's been in business for, I think, 45 years, like we've never hired before. That's because of tariffs. And we're going to keep it going the same way. And it's — you're going to start to see the results in a year from now when all those factories start that are under construction right now. You see all the construction numbers are so good. Those construction workers are building factories that are going to be open, including not only A.I., which is big, but car plants coming in from Canada, who ripped us off at 30 percent of our market. Mexico ripped us off for a big portion. Over the years, they've taken our market. They've taken our cars. They manufacture them in Japan, Germany, and all over the place, because nobody standing in this position — the position I have as president of the United States — had the insight, the courage — I don't know what it is — to charge tariffs. You can make your product outside. You can put our people out of business. You can put everybody on the unemployment rolls. But if you're going to make a car in some other country, you're going to pay a 15, 20, 30 percent tariff. And those things would have never happened. We wouldn't have lost our business. Same thing with, as an example, Taiwan. Taiwan came in. They stole our chip business. They make chips. For 30 years longer, they made chip, chip, chip, and they put our companies — Intel would be now the largest company. I saved Intel. I literally saved it at the beginning of this administration. And now all those companies in Taiwan are building factories in Arizona, Texas, and various other places, because they don't want to pay tariffs. They're all pouring into the United States. But just like that great patriot said yesterday, sir, what you've done, nobody thought was possible. And Steve Moore, a highly respected economist, came into my office yesterday. He said, you've done something nobody's ever done. Twenty-two Nobel Prize winners in economics said we would right now be in a recession. And you said, no, we're going to have a booming country. We're going to have a booming country. You were right. All 22 were wrong, and you were right. This country is booming, and it's booming because of the election on November 5th. And it's booming for another reason. It's booming because of tariffs. Yeah, please. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. President. What will you say to foreign nations who seek to renegotiate their deals? And what did you mean a moment ago when you said that the Supreme Court has been swayed by foreign interests? Well, I think that foreign interests are represented by people that I believe have undue influence. They have a lot of influence over the Supreme Court, whether it's through fear or respect or friendships. I don't know. But I know some of the people that were involved on the other side, and I don't like them. I think they're real slimeballs. And got to do what's right for the country. You got to do what's right for the Constitution. That's why I respect so much Justice Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, because they not only dissented, their dissent is so strong. When you read their dissent, you know, a lot of times you read a dissent and it's like, well, you don't know. It could go either way. There's no other way. The good news is, it's like Justice Kavanaugh said, very strongly said, you have other ways you can go. You don't have to go that way. You can go other way. There are numerous other ways you can go. And frankly, this should have been done by presidents many years ago. They allowed our country to be eaten alive. We lost 50 percent of our car business. We used to make cars. We made all the cars. And then Mexico came, Canada came, Japan and Germany. But they're all coming back now. They're all coming back at record level. Please, please. I'm not. I'm not talking. I'm talking. I don't talk. I don't talk to CNN. It's fake news. Go ahead. Mr. President, yesterday you made the case that the economy is the hottest it's been in a long time. January jobs report beat expectations. CPI report beat expectation. Real wages are up. What would you tell Americans who are worried that this decision will kind of throw the Well, thank you for the question. And I will say this. We really are at a very important point. I've been waiting for this decision so long. They could have made this decision a long time ago. Not complex. They're wrong on it. It's a ridiculous decision. But we should have released this a long time ago. We waited months. And that gave uncertainty. Now we have certainty. And I think you're going to see the country get much stronger because of it. Look, we were ripped off by almost every country in the world. If you look at the surpluses, almost every country in the world that did business with us, our people were stupid. And I blame presidents for it because they're ultimately the leader. We were being ripped off by almost every single country in the world had massive, some massive surpluses. China had hundreds of billions of dollars in surpluses with the United States. They rebuilt China. They rebuilt the army. We built China's army by allowing that to happen. I have a great relationship with President Xi, but he respects our country now. Know what we've done? I charged China a 20 percent tariff as a penalty for sending fentanyl in. And that was 20 times more than they could make by selling fentanyl. And I said, you know, at some point you're going to say like and they have reduced it. You know, fentanyl is down by more than 30 percent coming into our country. Part of that is a strong border. We have a strong border. But thank you. Thank you. Mr. President. Sir, you warned once in a social media post that if the Supreme Court did this, shut down your tariffs, the U.S. would be, quote, financially defenseless. Are we financially defenseless? No, because we're doing something in a different way. We're doing something in a very powerful way. And we're using things that some people thought we should have used in the first place. But it's more complicated. It's a little more complicated. The process takes a little more time. But the end result is going to get us more money. And I think it's going to be great. Yeah, please. Peter, go ahead. Thank you, President Trump. So since Liberation Day, there's about 175 billion dollars in tariff revenue that is now in limbo. Do you have to refund 175 billion dollars? Thank you, Peter. Very fair question. They take months and months to write an opinion, and they don't even discuss that point. We've taken in hundreds of billions of dollars, not millions, hundreds of billions of dollars. And so I said, well, what happens to all the money that we took in? It wasn't discussed. Wouldn't you think they would have put one sentence in there saying that keep the money or don't keep the money, right? I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years. So they write this terrible, defective decision, totally defective. It's almost like not written by smart people. And what they do? They don't even talk about that. Your question is very basic. That was the first question I asked also to make you feel good. I said, what about all the money that we've taken in? Sir, they don't discuss that. How crazy is that? What you're saying is, are you saying that you don't plan to honor refunds for companies that file for them? I just told you the answer, right? I told you the answer. It's not discussed. We'll end up being in court for the next five years. Go ahead. Green. Thank you, Mr. President. When you are talking about the relationship with countries that you have sought trade deals with, do you anticipate that they will seek to renegotiate those? What do you say to them? And do you view this as a potential undermining power for negotiation? We're straight ahead with 10 percent straight across the board, which is the absolute right to do. And that's taking place. That's a lot of money coming into our country. And then during that period of about five months, we are doing the various investigations necessary to put fair tariffs or tariffs, period, on other countries. So we're doing that period. But we're immediately instituting the 10 percent provision, which we're allowed to do. And in the end, I think we'll take in more money than we've taken in before. Mr. President, you've used the tariff revenue to pay for a host of federal policies. You claim that they will pay for them. What happens to those things? Well, like the farmers. We took care of farmers. You know, the farmers were mistreated by foreign countries very badly, very, very badly. And last week, I gave them $12 billion out of tariff money. We intend to out of tariff money, because just so you understand, we have tariffs. We just have them in a different way. And now they've been confirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States. So there's no longer that question out there about tariffs. And we'll be taking in hundreds of billions of dollars. And countries that have treated us badly will have to pay a price for treating us badly. And countries that have been good to us will be treated very well. We just left the top person in a place called Vietnam, just left my office, great gentleman, strong and smart. He said, you know, I think this means you're allowed to charge us more tariffs than before. And Canada said to Jameson, I might want to say it, Jameson, but Canada said, I hope you win this decision, because if you don't win, you'll actually be allowed to charge us with a little additional work, higher tariffs. Jameson, you want to comment on that? Yes, sir. So to the President's point, we have a lot of tools out there. We have Section 122, which will be implemented today. It will be signed today and implemented very shortly. We have Section 301 investigations, which are incredibly legally durable, where we can address, investigate, and address unfair trading practices that have led to our huge trade deficit. So you can look forward in the coming days and weeks to seeing all of that come out. And we're going to keep continuity in the program. We're going to keep addressing this so that the deficit can keep going down. That's the trend it has. And we can make America great again. Several of Republicans in Congress have supported this decision by the Supreme Court. And Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader, has called you a wannabe king. Why wouldn't he? But why wouldn't he? He doesn't even know. And I watched him the other day interview. The guy doesn't even know what a tariff is. No, not bipartisan. Excuse me. A few people. Yeah, a few people. I don't have to. I have the right to do tariffs. And I've always had the right to do tariffs. And it's all been approved by Congress, so there's no reason to do it. All we're doing is we're going through a little bit more complicated process. Not complicated very much, but a little more complicated than what we had. We'll be able to take in tariffs, more tariffs. The House just voted down the Canadian tariffs last week. There's been votes in the Senate against it. Yeah, because we lost two Republicans or three Republicans because they're not good Republicans. What you don't say, see, you don't say that we got 215 votes. You need 215 for something to pass. No, sure we do. We might have lost three votes. And what was the score on the Republican side? 215 to three, right? But you don't say that. We have great unity. There's great unity in the Republican Party. And I hope everyone's going to vote Republican because otherwise you won't have a country left. Because these people have been destroying, they are destroying our country. Please. Mr. President, the 122 tariffs, that 10%, is that going to be for 150 days? Or do you want to charge that indefinitely? We have a right to do pretty much what we want to do, but we're going to charge it starting effectively. I think it's three days from now. Yeah, please. Mr. President, you speak to a lot of factory workers, a lot of manufacturing workers. What does the Supreme Court ruling say? What's that message to those factory workers? Well, I think the factory workers are happy because we're now telling them that they're going to... Look, the man I met with yesterday, who owned a factory, was out of business. He was out of business. And now he's employing five times. In fact, I walked in, he's got a brand new crane. I said, how old is that crane? We got it in December. He's allowed to write it off in one minute. The great, big, beautiful act gave no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime. He said, this great, big, beautiful bill, frankly, has been the best thing that's ever happened for the workers. Much more so than for rich people. The only thing it does for rich people, it allows them to hire a lot more people. But when I saw him, and then he said, it's all up and down the line. This is a place in Georgia. All up and down. Other factories doing different. Not only steel products, different. He said, every one of us was out of business. We could barely make it. Some of them were down to less than an hour a week. Think of it. One hour a week to make just a few little trinkets or whatever they make. Now they're going round the clock. I had it a month ago. I went to Michigan, went to Ford. And I met with Bill Ford, the head of Ford. And we were in one of the biggest plants. An original plant from the early 1900s. Where, by the way, just, I might add this. It's not really relevant, but it's all relevant. Murders are down the lowest since 1900. Around the time that he had this plant. That's 125 years we have the lowest murder rate. Okay. And our crime is way down in the country. The factories that we're talking about. The people that we're talking about. They are so thrilled with Trump. So whether we charge AIPA tariffs. Or whether we charge tariffs under a different section. That's what we're going to be doing. There's no way we can. This is what happened to our country. This is why we owe $38 trillion. Which we'll get rid of in pretty good course. We have a very incompetent Fed chairman. Who likes high interest rates. For political reasons he likes them. But we're going to have somebody very good. Interest rates should come down very substantially. We should pay the lowest interest rates on the planet. There should be no country. And we don't do that. We're number 38. This is just bad policy for a long period of time. But what's happened is we've made America strong again. We've made America great again. We should pay. As an example, the country of Switzerland. We were getting almost no tariffs from them. We had a $40 billion deficit. And the prime minister called me up. She said, but we are a small country. Because I said we're going to raise it to 39% from nothing. That would have rendered them not very successful. As opposed to right now they're considered elite. But if we put a tariff. And I realized then, she said, but sir, we are small country. I said, you're a small country with a big deficit for us. You're making a lot of money off the United States. If we do that, a lot of these elite countries, they're elite because we let them make so much money. And I want them to do well. But I don't want them to do well on the backs of the American taxpayers. So I appreciate your question. I think it's reasonable. President Trump, you said that you were disappointed with that. But were you surprised with his decision? I was surprised because I thought that what we did was number one according to, I mean, I read the paragraphs. I read very well. Great comprehension. I read everything there is to read. And I said, we can't lose this case. But we can when judges are political. When they want to be politically correct. When they're catering to a group of people in D.C. Maybe, I don't know what it is. Because when you read it, there's no other interpretation. There is no other interpretation. But it's okay. Because what has come out, I'll say it for the third time and maybe the last time in a while. Is that we've taken the uncertainty of tariffs out. Because we had uncertainty. We got sued by sleazebags. I know them well. That are very outside country. China centric. But outside country centric. And they're going to end up not doing as well as they did before. America is becoming really, really... We're strong again. Hey, we have the strongest military. I rebuilt the military in the first term. We have the most powerful military. We make the best equipment. And even them, you know, we have to... We could do much better. We have people that get paid a lot of money to manufacture Patriot missiles and Javelins and all the different things. But when you want them, they're too slow. And we put them on notice. Our country is building a lot of things right now. And our country is doing really well. And we're going to keep it that way. The bottom line is that the word certainty is now in the equation. Every single thing I said today is guaranteed certainty. It's been tested, as Jameson said a thousand times. Literally. I said hundreds of times. He said, sir, actually thousands of times. And won in all of the courts. And we're just going back to that. And the problem is that we had other presidents that weren't into trade. Maybe they weren't business-oriented. Maybe they weren't smart. We had some dummies, too, you know? Respectfully say, we had some real dummies. So we are going to keep it going just as before. Probably more so. But you're no longer going to be asked... Every time I got up, you'd ask, well, what happens if you can't charge that? Now we can. And by the way, in their decision, they specifically said, we can do these. We have alternatives. Now, if you have any feedback on this show, maybe you'd like to see us cover something in particular, send us an email. news.today at ntd.com. We'd love to hear from you. For around-the-clock original news coverage, watch us live at ntd.com slash live, or download our NTD app. I'm Paul Grady. Thanks for watching.