Former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin threw Anderson Cooper for a loop on Wednesday by telling the host that if the Supreme Court strikes down President Donald Trump’s tariff regime, the administration will have to give back the money it has taken in.
Hours earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of the tariffs, which Trump unilaterally imposed in April by invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president vast powers during a national emergency. Trump insists that the U.S. trade deficits with dozens of countries constitute just such an emergency.
So far, the U.S. has collected about $200 billion in tariffs since Trump rolled out sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries in April.
Several businesses and states have sued the Trump administration and argue that tariffs are effectively a tax, which only Congress has the power to levy under the Constitution. The president has long claimed that other countries pay tariffs when their goods are imported into the U.S. However, the tariff is actually paid to the U.S. Treasury by the importing entity, which typically compensates for the extra cost by raising the price of the tariffed goods.
During arguments, most of the justices expressed varying degrees of skepticism toward the arguments made in favor of the tariffs by Solicitor General John Sauer.
“So, what surprised you today?” Cooper asked Toobin on Wednesday’s AC360.
“How hostile the conservatives were to Trump,” he replied. “It’s been 10 months that he’s been president, and the Supreme Court, in mostly these short orders, has given him basically everything he wanted. But the conservatives were really loaded for bear today. They were not impressed with the tariffs. Now, how they will rule, ultimately, I don’t know. You can be deceived by oral arguments, but this was a very rough day at the office for the solicitor general.”
Cooper then asked Toobin to explain the issue at play. During their exchange, Toobin told Cooper that if the court strikes down the tariffs, the Trump administration will have to give back the money it has collected via the tariffs unless the court rules otherwise:
COOPER: What’s the core dispute?
TOOBIN: It’s actually very simple. What the challengers to the tariffs say is that these are taxes. These are ways the government is raising money. Under Article I of the Constitution, it is only the Congress that can pass taxes. The president cannot impose taxes in this form. And that argument made a lot of headway.
COOPER: Does it matter that the president has been out there saying how much money’s been raised?
TOOBIN: You know, technically, probably not. But the justices live in the real world, and they know that too. The solicitor general tried to make the argument not just that the tariffs were part of national security, international relations, which is something that the president is responsible for, but the money is the money. And every time they kept coming back to the fact that look, this operates like a tax, and that is not something the president can do unilaterally.
COOPER: This was done on an emergency basis. How quickly might there be an actual ruling?
TOOBIN: Well, usually with big cases it’s not ’til June, but because this is such a moving target and the tariffs are in effect now, I would expect a ruling probably before the end of the year
And the real complexity is, if they rule against the tariffs, they have to give all the money back.
COOPER: Really?!
TOOBIN: Yeah, and that becomes a tremendous logistical problem and a fiscal problem for the United States because, as the president has said, this has generated a tremendous amount of money. That’s a problem that came up in the oral argument. But if they actually rule against the president, it will be a huge issue.
COOPER: Is it possible that they could, you know, rule, you can’t do this, but you don’t have to give the money back?
TOOBIN: Yes, they could, because they’re the Supreme Court. They get to do stuff that they want. And I think, even though legally that might be difficult to justify, logistically it would be tremendously simpler.
COOPER: And is there likely to be a swing vote?
TOOBIN: You know, the only justice who seemed completely sympathetic to President Trump was Brett Kavanaugh. John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch seemed particularly– Amy [Coney] Barrett. You know, again, they might vote with Trump, but they certainly didn’t sound like it today.
Watch above via CNN.
The post ‘Really?!’ Anderson Cooper Stunned After Being Told Trump Will ‘Have To Give All the Money Back’ if SCOTUS Strikes Down Tariffs first appeared on Mediaite.
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