Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs Lose 6-3 at the Supreme Court
WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch
The Wall Street Journal
4.2 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I think the potential of Agenic is to rethink how work gets done overall. It challenges all sorts of traditional orthodoxies around how organizations execute the work at hand. That's Jason Gersatus, CEO of Deloitte U.S., talking about the transformational potential of A.Gentic AI. Join him later to learn why agents are a game changer for businesses across industries. |
| 0:25.6 | From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. The Supreme Court |
| 0:32.7 | strikes down Donald Trump's emergency tariffs in a six to three ruling that enforces the separation of powers |
| 0:39.5 | and says the president does not have unbounded authority to tax imports on a whim. |
| 0:45.2 | Will the White House try to reimpose Trump's tariffs using other laws? |
| 0:49.5 | And it would be wiser to hold off as new figures Friday show economic growth going down and inflation going up. |
| 0:57.6 | Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal. We're joined today by my colleagues, |
| 1:02.6 | columnist Alicia Finley, and Joe Sternberg. For months, the president has been collecting |
| 1:07.4 | billions of dollars of tariffs on a dizzying range of products and countries |
| 1:12.1 | whenever the spirit moves him to announce new rates. The law that the White House has often resorted to |
| 1:18.1 | is the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEPA, which lets a president in a national |
| 1:26.5 | emergency investigate, block, regulate, direct, |
| 1:30.3 | compel, nullify, void, prevent, prohibit, and so on and so forth. |
| 1:35.1 | Acquisitions, holdings, withholdings, transfers. |
| 1:38.8 | It has often, in the past, been used as a sanctions law. |
| 1:42.3 | And now a 6.3 majority of the Supreme Court and opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts |
| 1:47.6 | says that it does not include the power to tax imports in the broad sort of fashion |
| 1:53.7 | that President Trump has been trying to do. |
| 1:55.9 | Here is a piece of the opinion. |
| 1:58.3 | The facial breadth of regulate places in stark relief what the term is not |
| 2:03.1 | usually thought to include taxation. The U.S. Code is replete with statutes granting the |
| 2:09.1 | executive authority to regulate someone or something, yet the government cannot identify any |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Wall Street Journal, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Wall Street Journal and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

