Dennis Kneale Weighs In on Supreme Court Tariff Ruling

So how does the Supreme Court's ruling ultimately affect President Trump's foreign policy goals? And what does it mean for his efforts to protect the United States economy from America's adversaries? Joining me now to assess is journalist and author, Dennis Neal. Dennis, great to have you on the program. President Trump today saying that the Supreme, the president saying the Supreme Court is acting in the interest of perhaps other nations rather than the United States. Here's a look. 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. Well, I think that foreign interests are represented by people that I believe have undue influence. They have a lot of influence over the Supreme Court, whether it's through fear or respect or friendship. Dennis, what do you think the president means by this? That is extraordinary. And I'm sure the New York Times is just going to have a total fit about this tomorrow in legal scholars. My goodness. And it's just I don't think even though we often see President Trump shoot from the hip, when he says something like that, I think that sometimes it presages that there's going to be some news coming out, there's going to be some scoop or some story or some investigation. And and it's going to shed more light on something that he's talking about. And you know, it doesn't have to be Russian spies, Chinese spies in there kind of manipulating it can be cocktail parties, it could be wanting acceptance, it could be the World Economic Forum circles there. You know, I mean, I remember during the 2020 election controversy, a prominent lawyer in Texas came out on the X platform, Twitter, then I think it might have been known as, and said that Chief Roberts is somehow compromised. And some people have had suspicions ever since. And this ruling by Chief Roberts is just unbelievable, because this is the same chief justice who saved Obamacare. Now, he said that the Obamacare penalty, if you didn't enroll insurance, oh, that's not a penalty. It's a tax. He called it a tax, though the word tax never existed in Obamacare. And only the House can propose a tax. Obamacare was drafted by the Senate. So that would render Obamacare unconstitutional. But he made up a thing and he made it survive. In this case, in Trump's case, this very same chief justice has decided that the lack of the word tariff in this international act, this IEEE, whatever, that alone makes it unconstitutional. He's got to roll back the tariffs. I'm so sad to see it, that he could kind of bend and stretch on Obama. But here it's binary. And let's smack down Trump. I really feel like sometimes these things are more political than truly based on only the law. In terms of impact going forward, though, Steve, why were stocks up one or two percentage points in the indexes today? Wall Street liked this. They liked the gridlock, the certainty that nothing's going to go forward for a while. But as for more than 100 countries that were brought to the table to negotiate these tariffs because they know they have been ripping us off for years and charging us more to get into their markets than we charge them to get into ours when they need us more than we need them, I think that those countries will want to sign those deals and re-embrace all terms as fast as possible. They want certainty. But boy, Trump does lose a big cudgel. He loses this ability to create tariffs out of thin air and raise them or lower them in response to whether you've been good or bad. You know, in his first term, though, he used Section 232 for steel tariffs and stuff like that a lot. He's going to go back to 232. Dennis, you raise a lot of very good points. You touched on how influence operations work through cocktail parties. And you also mentioned Wall Street being happy today. They're no stranger to being infiltrated, being headfirst into China's economy for the past two decades. We know that there's a huge China lobby here. I mean, look, China, I had my hopes were so high for China. I visited China a few times. You know, I adopted my daughter there a long, long time ago, and I saw what capitalism was doing to that country. I went to Shanghai and saw the traders and these little guys like driving a harder bargain than I can drive because they wanted to make money. And a cab driver who bumped a guy with his fender out of the way because he was in a hurry. He wants to flip this ride and make more money. I wasn't in the hurry. And I loved that. And I thought that capitalism was going to reform China, but it hasn't. The government hasn't reformed. They just want to outgrow it and take the very best parts of it, but then continue to do some of the bad things they're doing. Those tariffs drove China to the table for the first time in history in Trump's first term, and they have been good in forcing China to kind of deal with the U.S. And so I kind of worry what's going to happen now. But I love a reframe. I love how Trump just took this big setback, right, and just jujitsu'd it right around into no problem. It's going to be even better than ever. I just love the the relentlessness of this man. Nothing defeats him. You know, the CCP ultimately takes advantage of our free and open society. They're able to infiltrate in ways that we can't do to China. So to your point, from a national security standpoint, using economic measures like tariffs is one of the major tools we have to combat China's aggression toward the United States. To your other point, the president did take a very confident tone today, despite this being a major blow to his administration, saying that now the uncertainty is over and that he's going to take other means. Here's a look at what he said. There will no longer be any doubt. And the income coming in and the protection of our companies and country will actually increase because of this decision. What do you think the president is looking at? Go ahead. Let's remember that in April this past year, when Trump announced a bunch of those tariffs for the first time and stocks plummeted and big experts came out and said, this is the start of a world trade war and a recession and it's going to fuel inflation. And oh, my gosh, it was just the worst thing ever. And Jeremy Siegel at Wharton said this is the worst policy mistake by any president since in 95 years. And they were all wrong. Stocks went up 50 or 60 percent from those lows. And so Trump has been out in front of all of these pixel pundits. He's been right and they've been wrong. And I think he's going to be right this time. And, you know, China, the China government, because I love the Chinese people, the China government respects brutal force and strength. The China government respects someone who will stand up to them because almost no one does. And President Trump is the first American president in decades to do this. And I'm glad he does it. And China needs us and needs our markets a lot more than we need them. China still isn't leading the world in intellectual property and innovation. We are. China is a good copycat. They've made some advances on their own. That's good. But mostly they surf on our wave. To your point, at least for now, they need us more than we need them. Hopefully it stays that way. Dennis Neil, greatly appreciate you joining us. Thank you.