Democrats were quick to take a victory lap Friday after the Supreme Court delivered a stringing rebuke to President Donald Trump’s economic agenda by ruling his administration’s sweeping global tariffs were unconstitutional without approval from Congress.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called it a “big victory for the American people” and “another crushing defeat for the wannabe King.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) echoed the sentiment, saying that the court had delivered a “win for the wallets of every American consumer.”
“Trump’s chaotic and illegal tariff tax made life more expensive and our economy more unstable,” said Schumer. “Families paid more. Small businesses and farmers got squeezed. Markets swung wildly.”
Potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates were also quick to seize on the Supreme Court ruling.
“Time to pay the piper, Donald,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA). “These tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices and hurt working families, so you could wreck longstanding alliances and extort them. Every dollar unlawfully taken must be refunded immediately — with interest. Cough up!”
Despite its conservative bend, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the administration lacked the legal justification under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on countries across the globe without the approval of lawmakers.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion and was joined by fellow conservatives Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, and liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Based on two words separated by 16 others in Section 1702(a)(1)(B) of IEEPA — ’regulate’ and ‘importation’ — the President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time,” Roberts wrote. “Those words cannot bear such weight.”
“When Congress grants the power to impose tariffs, it does so clearly and with careful constraints,” Roberts continued. “It did neither here.”
The three dissenting justices were conservatives Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh.
The House and Senate Democratic campaign arms predicted Republican candidates will face blowback at the ballot box in November for the GOP-controlled Congress not overturning Trump’s tariffs.
“For months, every Republican Senate candidate repeatedly voted for and supported these chaotic price-spiking tariffs and drove up costs for working families, small businesses, farmers, manufacturers, and countless others,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairwoman Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). “Americans are paying the price for Republicans’ toxic agenda, and in November, voters will go to the ballot box and hold Republicans accountable for the damage they are causing.”
Even some Republicans, many of whom privately loathed Trump’s tariffs but were unwilling or cautious to broadcast their opposition publicly, lauded the high court’s ruling.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), an outspoken critic of the tariffs who is retiring from Congress next year, told the Washington Examiner he felt “vindicated.”
“I’ve been saying this for 12 months. Article One gives Congress the authority for tariffs,” Bacon said in a text message. “Our constitutional checks and balances still works.”
SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN TRUMP’S SWEEPING ‘LIBERATION DAY’ TARIFFS
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), another tariff critic, celebrated the ruling by noting it could prevent future Democratic presidents, including potential White House hopeful Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), “from using emergency powers to enact socialism.”
And 92-year-old Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who noted he was “one of the only sitting members of Congress who was in office” when the IEEPA became law in 1977, suggested Trump indeed overstepped his powers and that Congress must “reassert its constitutional role over commerce.”
David Sivak and Lauren Green contributed to this report