New in City Journal: "Trump's Tariff Loss Is the Worst Judicial Defeat in Presidential History"

Has any President ever lost such a significant case before the Supreme Court? I don’t think so. That is the theme of my latest piece in City Journal, titled “Trump’s Tariff Loss Is the Worst Judicial Defeat in Presidential History.”

Here is the introduction:

How bad was President Trump’s loss last week at the Supreme Court in the tariffs case? Really bad.

How does this defeat compare with other losses suffered by presidents at the Court? There is no sugarcoating it: the Roberts Court handed Trump the worst judicial defeat in presidential history.

There isn’t even a close second. Not Richard Nixon’s Watergate case. Not Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal setback. Not Harry S. Truman’s attempt to seize steel mills. Not George W. Bush’s War on Terror losses. None were in the same ballpark as the ruling in Learning Resources v. Trump. Even when those presidents lost, their own appointees generally ruled in their favor—in contrast to Trump, who saw two of his own nominees rule against him.

The results suggest that Trump will suffer many more defeats in the remainder of his second term—often through the votes of justices he selected.

And the conclusion:

All these defeats pale in comparison with the tariffs case. While Justice Kavanaugh argued that the president could use other powers to accomplish the same ends, time will tell whether a majority of the Court would reject these grounds, as well. In any case, the Learning Resources ruling has greatly diminished tariffs’ utility as a bargaining chip, since negotiators on the other side of the table now have ample reason to believe that the courts will bail them out.

It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will continue to hobble President Trump for the remainder of his second term, but the tariff ruling suggests a rocky road ahead.

I think we are already seeing that Trump’s efforts to use alternative statutory authorities will not work.

I am dreading what might come at the State of the Union tonight.

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