Trump’s Legal Setbacks: Immigration, Troops in LA, and Tariff Power

The Politics Guys

Michael Baranowski

Politics, News

4.4 • 783 Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike and Tim open with the Fifth Circuit’s rejection of President Trump’s attempt to use the Alien Enemies Act against Venezuelan migrants tied to Tren de Aragua. Tim argues the ruling shows the importance of clear legal definitions but believes Trump is still winning the broader political fight on immigration, while Mike warns about sweeping due process problems in deporting whole populations without individual review. Next, they turn to a federal judge striking down Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles under Posse Comitatus. Mike emphasizes the danger of stretching unitary executive power to make the law meaningless, stressing the risks of militarized law enforcement. Tim concedes the legal limits but insists Democrats’ failures on crime and homelessness fuel political support for Trump’s actions, framing the issue as one of disorder and broken local governance. After that, the guys dig into the appellate court’s ruling against Trump’s tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Tim defends tariffs as a fair, flat consumption tax and credits Trump for forcing a rethink of free trade politics, while Mike points out their regressive economic effects and chaotic rollout. The discussion broadens into jobs data, deficits, non-tariff barriers, and whether the Supreme Court will ultimately defer to Trump’s emergency claims. The guys close with predictions on the Court’s likely stance, a spirited back-and-forth on whether the justices will side with Trump, and a reminder that much of the fight is as much about words and perceptions as it is about law or economics. The Politics Guys on Facebook | X Mike is a big fan of Tim’s Substack. Check out the excellent Sustainable Planet podcast. Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys. The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Atheists, agnostics, long-haired widows, short-haired widows, vandal,
0:04.9	hooligans.
0:05.1	I love the government, hug the government, hug the government, hug the government, love, the government, hug the government.
0:12.0	Welcome to the politics, guys, a place for bipartisan, rational, and civil debate on American politics and policy.
0:18.7	I'm Northern Kentucky University political scientist Michael
0:21.4	Barronowski. I'm joined today by my conservative counterpart, University of Austin
0:25.9	economist and former congressional staffer Tim Kaine. Hey Tim. Mike, great to be with you, man.
0:31.3	Yeah, I am looking forward to doing this. This is the first time we've had an opportunity to do
0:35.0	the show, just the two of us. And we have a lot
0:38.7	to talk about. I thought, well, this week we're going to be talking a lot about legal cases
0:44.5	because it's not a secret to anyone that in his second term, President Trump has been
0:50.0	testing legal, testing constitutional boundaries. Really, what U.S. President has done in,
0:56.0	certainly in my lifetime. Of course, the courts aren't designed to move at warp speed. And so it's
1:02.3	really taken a while for us to start to get some sort of clarity on just how many of these
1:07.5	boundaries judges are going to okay the president to cross. And in this last week,
1:13.4	we have seen a number of legal defeats for the Trump administration, though I guess maybe I should
1:18.6	call them setbacks because the Supreme Court hasn't spoken on any of the cases they're going to
1:23.0	be talking about today. And the first of these cases is the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of
1:27.8	Appeals finding that President Trump cannot use the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan
1:33.6	migrants alleged to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang. And this all started back in
1:39.2	March when President Trump issued the proclamation, invocation of the Alien Enemies Act regarding
1:44.8	the invasion of the United States by Tren D'Aaragua. So pretty clear what he was doing in that
	...

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