Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick predicted the Supreme Court will rule President Trump’s tariffs are legal.
Lutnick, during an appearance on Sean Hannity’s program on Fox News on Wednesday night, cut right to the chase.
“The justices were on the president’s side,” Lutnick said, while wagging his finger. “You are hearing it here from me — President Trump is gonna win this case!”
His appearance on Hannity came a few hours after the Supreme Court debated the merits of President Trump’s authority to impose global tariffs. The president has said it is a legal and necessary tool for him, not only to prevent the U.S. from getting “ripped off” by other countries, but also as a national security measure.
Watch:
“Other countries use tariffs against us, and we weren’t able to openly and freely use tariffs against them,” Trump told reporters on Sunday. “I’ll give you an example — China. That was going to be a disaster for the world, and I was able to settle it very quickly, very easily, because I was able to use tariffs. It’s total national security, and economic health is also a part of national security, by the way.”
The Supreme Court case is focused on a 1977 law that the president has used that says he has the ability to “regulate” imports. The law does not mention “tariffs.”
Many outlets on Wednesday reported the case was not going well for Trump. Some headlines included: CNN said Trump’s lawyers made a “rocky” argument, the Wall Street Journal said the justices appeared “skeptical” of the tariffs, and Slate said it was a “bloodbath” for Trump.
Lutnick told Hannity that slant was bogus, though, because many of those articles were written during the “first half” of the day. He added that it became “crystal clear” during the second half that the justices were buying Trump’s argument he “can’t make the United States a safer place if they take away this power.”
