62: Supreme Court Arguments on Presidential Tariff Authority and NYC Mayor-Elect. Professor Richard Epstein analyzes Supreme Court arguments regarding the President's expansive use of a 1977 law to impose tariffs, predicting a likely 7-2 ruling against the aE

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 8 November 2025

⏱️ 5 minutes

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Summary

Supreme Court Arguments on Presidential Tariff Authority and NYC Mayor-Elect. Professor Richard Epstein analyzes Supreme Court arguments regarding the President's expansive use of a 1977 law to impose tariffs, predicting a likely 7-2 ruling against the administration. Epstein argues that viewing successful worldwide trade as an "emergency" is intellectually flawed and an abuse of executive discretion. Separately, he expresses concern that New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a self-proclaimed socialist lacking administrative experience, risks impoverishing the city by ignoring competitive federalism.

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0:00.0	I'm John Batchel with my good colleague Professor Richard Epstein, a New Yorker.
0:06.9	I was in New York for 50 years. I'm no longer there, and therefore I defer to the professor's
0:12.5	opinion of Zoran Mamdani, who is the mayor of New York elect. He takes over at the first of the year.
0:24.1	Mr. Mamdani has made remarks over the years that are inconsistent with tolerance and fair play, certainly inconsistent with my
0:30.1	understanding of how New York works. However, I'm no longer there and it might have changed in
0:35.7	the last couple of years. Professor, Mr. Mamdani says he's
0:39.5	a socialist and he interprets that meaning free, free health care, free child care, free buses.
0:49.0	I'm not sure how far it goes, something like rent frees. I'm not aware that Mr. Mamdani understands the word free means somebody else pays.
0:59.3	How is it as a New Yorker you expect Mr. Mamdani to change the life of the city?
1:05.8	Well, actually, I do look part of the time in New York, but I also have an official residence in Connecticut.
1:10.7	I did the same thing that you did because you could see the writing on the wall.
1:16.2	Look, it turns out if it's free to somebody and there's a positive cost, then it has to be
1:21.5	paid for by somebody else.
1:23.2	So what the socialists say is, I want somebody else to pay for me, but the capitalist so-called says everybody has to pay for himself.
1:32.1	And so the line that is always going to be used against Vindam is he drives the city into financial ruin is the famous line of Margaret Thatcher, who said, everybody's a social spending until they run out of spending other people's money.
1:45.3	And I think there's a real danger that he will impoverish the city.
1:48.5	So the real question is it just exactly how far he will take his mandate.
1:54.1	If you look at the boats against them, they were 50% of the total.
1:57.5	You look at the votes for them, it's 50% of the total.
2:00.7	If you figure out the amount of money in the negative votes for them, it's 50% of the total. If you figure out the amount
2:02.2	of money in the negative votes, as opposed to the amount of money in the positive votes,
2:06.2	most of the Andes were people of wealth and substance, most of the polls were people on the
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