Amicus | When Tariffs Crashed Into SCOTUS

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News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have been treating the Trump administration with such extreme deference that we were honestly a little flummoxed listening to this week’s arguments over his “Liberation Day” tariffs. Shockingly, during Wednesday’s arguments in Learning Resources v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, it seemed like the justices were in fact, concerned with presidential overreach. But was this a true bridge-too-far-moment, or were they more concerned about their own pocketbooks? This week, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed the arguments with Marc Busch, the Karl F. Landegger Professor of International Business Diplomacy at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Busch is an expert on international trade policy and law, and signed onto an amicus brief on behalf of trade scholars explaining the history and context of IEEPA. Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Here's the truth about AI.
0:02.0	AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into.
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0:19.0	All built into a single platform you can
0:21.9	use right now. That's why the world works with ServiceNow. Visit ServiceNow.com
0:27.8	slash UK slash AI for people. I'm Dahlia Lithwick, and this is Amicus, Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the U.S. Supreme Court.
0:54.9	This past Wednesday, the court heard what might well become one of the signature cases of the 2025 term.
1:01.8	The challenge to Donald J. Trump's so-called Liberation Day tariffs put in place to punish foreign countries running a trade deficit against the U.S.
1:11.4	Or against Canada just because, well, Canada.
1:17.4	The consolidated cases learning resources versus Trump and Trump versus VOS selections come to the court as challenges to his very, very broadly stated authority to impose tariffs as he sees fit in order to regulate an economic crisis that he has announced is currently happening.
1:38.1	Trump asserts that he can do this under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, AIPA, which permits the president to,
1:47.6	quote, regulate transactions involving any property in which any foreign country or national
1:52.7	thereof has any interest, end quote, this power can only be exercised to, quote, deal with an
1:58.7	unusual and extraordinary threat. Mark Joseph Stern is here to
2:04.4	join me for this interview. Hi, Mark. Hi, Dahlia. On this week's show, we want to recap the oral
2:10.0	arguments with Mark Bush. He's the Carl F. Landecker Professor of International Business
2:14.6	diplomacy at the Edmonday Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
2:18.9	He's an expert on international trade policy and law, and also signed on to an amicus brief on behalf
2:25.2	of trade scholars explaining the history and context of Aipa. Mark, welcome to the show.
	...

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