Court Declares Trump's Tariffs Illegal!!!!!!!! Spanberger's New Ad, Kennedy The Charlatan, Notes From Little Rock

Paid Subscribers Gather Tonight at 7pm ET, Founding Members Friday at 1pm

Good morning everyone! Those terrible Trump tariffs were struck down by a three judge panel yesterday. Here’s the NYT this am:

A panel of federal judges on Wednesday blocked President Trump from imposing some of his steepest tariffs on China and other U.S. trading partners, finding that federal law did not grant him “unbounded authority” to tax imports from nearly every country around the world.

The ruling, by the U.S. Court of International Trade, delivered an early yet significant setback to Mr. Trump, undercutting his primary leverage as he looks to pressure other nations into striking trade deals more beneficial to the United States.

Before Mr. Trump took office, no president had sought to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law, to impose tariffs on other nations. The law, which primarily concerns trade embargoes and sanctions, does not even mention tariffs.

But Mr. Trump adopted a novel interpretation of its powers as he announced, and then suspended, high levies on scores of countries in April. He also used the law to impose tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico in return for what he said was their role in sending fentanyl to the United States.

On Wednesday, the Court of International Trade, the primary federal legal body overseeing such matters, found that Mr. Trump’s tariffs “exceed any authority granted” to the president by the emergency powers law. Ruling in separate cases brought by states and businesses, a bipartisan panel of three judges essentially declared many, but not all, of Mr. Trump’s tariffs to have been issued illegally.

It was not clear precisely when and how the tariff collections would grind to a halt. The ruling gave the executive branch up to 10 days to complete the bureaucratic process of ending them. The Trump administration immediately filed its plans to appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

For now, the decision threatens to undercut the administration’s efforts to reach trade agreements globally since the president is using the prospect of boundless tariffs — enacted on his own, without congressional approval — as a bargaining chip in negotiations with roughly 18 countries. Those deals are still under negotiation, and some of Mr. Trump’s top aides had told the court in recent days that an adverse ruling could imperil the talks.

The ruling does not affect tariffs issued by the Trump administration under separate legal authorities, including levies on steel, aluminum and cars, and others that Mr. Trump has threatened on pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and other critical products.

………

Lawyers for the Justice Department had staunchly defended the legality of Mr. Trump’s strategy, telling the Court of International Trade repeatedly that it had no right to review the president’s actions.

That stance discomfited the judges multiple times over weeks of arguments. The tension arose repeatedly last Wednesday, when a coalition of 12 states, led by Oregon, asked the court to issue a permanent injunction that would halt Mr. Trump’s tariffs.

“The president identified the emergency, and he decided the means to address that emergency,” Brett Shumate, a Justice Department lawyer, told the court. He added that the goal had been to “bring our trading partners to the table” and create political leverage for possible deal-making.

“It may be a very dandy plan, but it has to meet the statute,” replied Senior Judge Jane A. Restani, who was nominated to the trade court by President Ronald Reagan.

We take and celebrate the wins when they come here at Hopium, and this, my friends, is a big, big win. I want to thank all of you who have worked so hard to undermine and defeat these terrible tariffs. As we’ve often discussed here, after our Founders’ experience with Mad King George, of all the powers that they would have given to our restrained Chief Executive unilateral tariff authority would never have been one of them. For they are literally “taxation without representation,” taxes imposed without the consent of Congress and an almost unimaginable betrayal of what became our Constitutional order and the American creed.

A reminder of those four “grievances” from our Declaration of Independence that speak so powerfully to this moment:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offence

While the Administration will appeal, and the fate of this legal challenge by the states (one we’ve discussed with the three Dem AGs we’ve interviewed) is uncertain, the court’s courageous ruling does three other things: 1) further weakens Trump’s global standing, particularly with our democratic allies. That he would have done all this without clear legal authority makes him look like an even more reckless buffoon 2) further weakens the case for the reconciliation bill, for Trump and the Rs are counting on tariff revenues to help offset the huge deficits the current budget will bring. Without these revenues derived from these regressive taxes on the American people the reconciliation bill becomes even more threatening to the fiscal integrity of the United States and a far harder sell to global markets and the American people 3) further reinforces the lawless nature of this regime to the American people, and widens the circle of defiance so necessary to mitigating the damage they are doing to the country.

So, my friends, a good day. I strongly encourage all of you to contact your Senate and House offices today and tell them that you applaud this ruling, and that you want Congress to continue to work to roll back these terrible and illegal tariffs and abandon the reckless reconciliation bill. Trump’s economic strategy has failed the country; the American people have rejected it; and we need to work together to find a better way.

We will be going in depth to what this all means in our paid subscriber gathering tonight. For those who haven’t signed up yet you can do so here and for those who are not yet a paid subscriber and want to join us tonight you can subscribe below. Also note that Ron Brownstein joins us tomorrow live at 12:15pm to reflect on and discuss his landmark essay, The Gray and the Brown. Will be a good one! Join us!

Spanberger Releases Her First TV Ad - This morning Hopium-backed Abigail Spanberger released her first TV ad of the campaign. Like most first ads of a campaign, it is a “bio” ad, one that introduces her to the people of Virginia. Here it is:

To learn more this critical race watch our recent conversation with Abigail or head to her campaign website today. We’ve raised $113,000 towards our June 30th fundraising goal of $200,000 - thank you everyone. Please consider donating to our great candidate for Virginia governor today!

Charlatan Kennedy Gets Caught Inventing Reports and Science - The anti-science fanatics of the Trump regime just caught making shit up (again):

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says his “Make America Healthy Again” Commission report harnesses “gold-standard” science, citing more than 500 studies and other sources to back up its claims. Those citations, though, are rife with errors, from broken links to misstated conclusions.

Seven of the cited sources don’t appear to exist at all.

Epidemiologist Katherine Keyes is listed in the MAHA report as the first author of a study on anxiety in adolescents. When NOTUS reached out to her this week, she was surprised to hear of the citation. She does study mental health and substance use, she said. But she didn’t write the paper listed.

“The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” Keyes told NOTUS via email. “We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.”

It’s not clear that anyone wrote the study cited in the MAHA report. The citation refers to a study titled, “Changes in mental health and substance abuse among US adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic,” along with a nonfunctional link to the study’s digital object identifier. While the citation claims that the study appeared in the 12th issue of the 176th edition of the journal JAMA Pediatrics, that issue didn’t include a study with that title.

As the Trump administration cuts research funding for federal health agencies and academic institutions and rejects the scientific consensus on issues like vaccines and gender-affirming care, the issues with its much-heralded MAHA report could indicate lessening concern for scientific accuracy at the highest levels of the federal government.

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment on the report’s citation inconsistencies.

The anxiety study wasn’t the only one the report cites that appears to be mysteriously absent from the scientific literature. A section describing the “corporate capture of media” highlights two studies that it says are “broadly illustrative” of how a rise in direct-to-consumer drug advertisements has led to more prescriptions being written for ADHD medications and antidepressants for kids.

The catch? Neither of those studies is anywhere to be found……

Yesterday Senator Adam Schiff posted this “Message to Scientists” -

Yes, we have to keep fighting Trump’s ongoing attack on science, knowledge and academia with everything we got.

Heading Back To DC - At the Little Rock Airport right now heading back to DC after a great day with the Democratic State Party Chairs and top staff. It was our friend Jane Kleeb’s first meeting as President of the Democratic State Committees (she’s doing a great job!) and I got to spend time with Chairs from across the country, including Kendall Scudder of Texas, Roberto Alves of Connecticut, Robert Branscomb of Arizona, Nikki Fried of Florida, Charlie Bailey of Georgia, Russ Carnahan of Missouri and of course our friend Anderson Clayton of North Carolina among others……

In the coming days I’ll be sharing elements of the presentation Tom Bonier and I made to the Chairs yesterday, some takeways from the conversations I had and reflections on returning to Little Rock where I lived for six months back as a member of the historic Clinton campaign.

I start with a slide from my presentation deck, one that reviews the performance of the Democratic Party in national elections since FDR’s historic Presidency. You will note that 1) Republicans won more votes in 7 of the 11 elections in the Cold War era, and we’ve won more votes in 7 of the 9 since 1992 2) In those 11 elections of the Cold War era we only broke 50% twice, both in extraordinary circumstances. We’ve done it in 3 of the past 5 elections.

Yes, I believe we are stronger than we look (or feel) right now.

Now, Let’s Get To Work - In my post on Saturday I offered up some initial ideas of what our summer was going to look like. Please check it out if you didn’t get to it this weekend.

Job One for us this summer is fighting Trump’s ruinous economic agenda. We need to keep calling every day and demand our leaders vote down the reconciliation bill and roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is the big, definitional battle of the summer and we need keep working it every day.

I know many of you are involved in the June 14th No Kings events, town halls, Telsa take downs and all the other in person activities that have taken off of late. Thank you, and do keep working it everyone. I still encourage our community to keep exploring ideas for how we can Own The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly day for our mad wannabe king. Merch is coming soon, and be sure to check our robust Events schedule as new events are being added daily.

We have three additional efforts we are working on now:

1 - Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Simply, the Virginia elections are the most important elections we have this year, and we must win them. We have narrow majorities in both legislative chambers and while our candidate Abigail Spanberger has a modest lead in current polling, this is going to be a close election where our money and volunteer time can make a real difference. If you are to give to only one candidate or election this year it should be this one. Here’s a link to do so today……

To learn more about Abigail check out my new discussion with her, released yesterday. We have now raised over $113,000 towards our June 30th goal of $200,000 - thank you all. If you want to volunteer for her race head over to her campaign website today. We can do this people!

2 - Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Reps Derek Tran, Janelle Bynum, Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen and give to all 7 through a single donation on our ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.

We’ve already raised over $108,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - great work everyone!

3- Growing Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 150,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day too!

Keep working hard all. We had a big win yesterday, and here we take and celebrate the wins when they come - Simon