For the last 10 years, people have been “translating” Trump’s insane takes for him, extracting coherent meaning where there was none to began with. But let’s look at what he actually said:
He starts by absolute excoriating the justices who sided against the tariffs…
They also are a, frankly, disgrace to our nation, those justices… they’re just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats. And not that this should have anything at all to do with it, they’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution. It’s my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think.
You can write this off as rhetoric, or Trump being Trump, but to do so is to ignore the plain words he spoke and the message it sends – that this court is not legitimate. Coming from the president, this is not nothing.
After rambling about how awesome his tariffs (and himself) are, he makes it clear that nothing is going to change because of this ruling:
All of those tariffs remain. They all remain. I don’t know if you know that or not. They all remain. We’re still getting them and we will after the decision. I guess there’s nobody left to appeal to, but again, those three people, such respect.
He acknowledges that there’s no more legal authority to appeal to, but he plainly states that the ruling will have no actual effect.
But other alternatives will now be used to replace the ones that the court incorrectly rejected. We have alternatives, great alternatives. Could be more money. We’ll take in more money and we’ll be a lot stronger for it. We’re taking in hundreds of billions of dollars. We’ll continue to do so.
Not, “We’re going to have to go back and re-assess all tariffs to see which ones comply with the ruling and which ones don’t, which ones we can categorize under other laws”, etc. Which is what you’re implying and what other pundits have said. But again, a plain reading here is that the SCOTUS decision is a mere technicality – nothing at all will change, and the mechanism is irrelevant. Regardless of how legal those other mechanisms are, they’re going to be used as justification. This is what he said in plain language.
He then rants about the specifics of the ruling before making it clear that the ruling is actually a victory for him and his tariffs:
As Justice Kavanaugh, whose stock has gone so up. You have to see. I’m so proud of him. Wrote in his dissent, “Although I firmly disagree with the court’s holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a president’s ability to order tariffs going forward.” So I – think that the decision might not substantially constrain, and it doesn’t. He’s right. In fact I can judge much more than I was charging. So I’m going to just start. “Although I firmly disagree with the court’s holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a president’s ability to order tariffs going forward.” That’s because numerous other federal statutes, which is so true, authorized the president to impose tariffs and might justify most, if not all, of the tariffs issued in this case. Even more tariffs, actually. Those statues include – think of that. Those statutes include, for example, the Trade Expansion Act Of 1962 Section 232. All of these things I know so well. The Trade Act of 1974 Sections 122, 201, 301, and the Tariff Act of 1930 Section 338. All clear. But it’s a little bit longer process. I thought I’d make things simple, but they didn’t let us do that. I would like to thank Justice Kavanaugh for his, frankly, his genius and his – his great ability. Very proud of that appointment. In actuality, why – while I am sure that they did not mean to do so, the Supreme Court’s decision today made a president’s ability to both regulate trade and impose tariffs more powerful and more crystal clear rather than less.
There’s more rambling, but the Q and A that follows just affirms his points – the ruling actually enforces his authoritarian power, the tariffs are all going to remain in place and the details of how don’t actually matter, and refunds are not going to happen because the ruling is ridiculous.
You can look at all of this and say, “Yes, Trump has acknowledged the authority of SCOTUS and is abiding by their ruling,” but I think that’s naive. What he’s clearly saying is “I am king, I can do what I want, this changes nothing.”