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Legal breakdown: Trump's tariffs temporarily restored | LBC
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May 30, 2025
Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs have been temporarily restored after a US federal court judge ruled that he “exceeded his authority”. A temporary pause has been put on a lower-court ruling that blocked most of Trump's tariffs last night. A ruling by the US Court of International Trade found that the President did not have the unilateral authority to issue tariffs for nearly every country. On Wednesday night, three federal court judges blocked his global tariffs as result. But the Trump administration told the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit it would seek “emergency relief” from the Supreme Court as early as Friday if the ruling was not quickly paused. As the world awaits further news, Iain Dale speaks to Adam Klasfeld, editor-in-chief of All Rise News - which focuses on the law and citizens' rights. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #iaindale #donaldtrump #trumptariffs #politics #uspolitics #breakingnews #news #usnews #supremecourt #federalcourts #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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sweetener there. You've now got the main course with Adam Klasfeld, who's editor-in-chief of the
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American news site All Rise News, which focuses on the law and citizens' rights and powers to
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effect change in the Trump era. Adam, very good evening to you. What do you make of all of these
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court cases that seem to be finding against Donald Trump? Although, of course, we should
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emphasize the second one has been reversed by the Federal Appeals Court this evening
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Right. Well, just to put the Federal Appeals Court ruling into perspective
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It's an administrative state, which is basically saying we'll do the status quo while we hear the case
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This is not going to be a great victory for Donald Trump
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As a matter of fact, as your last guest really pinned down, this is an uphill climb for him because with tariffs, as your last guest said, that is the right of Congress
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The Constitution explicitly grants Congress the power of the purse and not the president of the United States
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As a matter of fact, that law that your last guest had mentioned, the 1977 International Economic Emergency Powers Act, doesn't contain the word tariffs in it
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As a matter of fact, there's only one president in U.S. history that ever claimed the power under any law to unilaterally impose tariffs, and his name is Donald Trump
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One of the judges who ruled against Trump on the merits was a three-judge panel yesterday was appointed by Trump
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Another was appointed by Ronald Reagan. And so despite the White House's messaging here that this is left-wing judges trying to get in the way of the president's agenda
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What's happened here is that a panel weighted toward conservative presidential appointees found conclusively that what he was doing was in in contravention to the Constitution and that the law that he was citing did not apply
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And a big picture point here, you mentioned there are a lot of rulings against Donald Trump, but let's put that into perspective
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The New York Times' count says that more than 170 judicial rulings in the United States so far have at least temporarily blocked part of the administration's agenda
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Now, those cases are ongoing. But what we find over and over again including cases this week blocking retribution against Harvard or retribution against law firms that employ attorneys that the president doesn like
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The message we're getting over and over is that Trump cannot pursue his individual agendas or ambitions or vendettas in contravention to the Constitution
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But whether it's a free speech rights of students or the free association rights of lawyers
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But the problem here is, isn't it, that he was elected with a mandate on all sorts of things
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It doesn't come as any surprise, the whole tariff agenda. And surely a president that has been very explicit about what he would do if he got a second term, that cannot be �
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I mean, if people want to fight against it, surely they have to do it through the political system
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And it's actually rather damaging to make it all about the law
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And in a sense, it's all playing into his hands doing this. Well, while it is true that he is a duly elected president with a plurality of 49 percent of the vote, if his agenda was so popular, why can't he bring it to Congress, as your last guest pointed out
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As your last guest pointed out. Because he's a man in a hurry. Because he's a man in a hurry and he's a man, I would submit, who realizes that a Republican Senate and even the Republican controlled House isn't too enthusiastic about setting the tariffs at whatever whim he wakes up in the morning to set it
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I don't think that the mandate, that 49% mandate necessarily means that he can do what is known as a bill of attainder, telling a law firm, I don't like the look on your face and therefore I'm going to withhold your entrance into federal buildings. These are things that Trump has done
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We have a government in this country that was elected on 33% of the vote, but has a majority of 170 seats in Parliament. And yet, I'm struggling to think in the 10 months that they've been in power, whether there's been a single court case that's gone through the British judicial system to try and prevent them from doing anything that they outlined in their manifesto
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it just seems a bit odd to us I suppose that the
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automatic thing to do is to go to the courts if the Democratic Party had any influence at all they ought to be manning the ramparts on this but you don hear a peep from them Well in terms of what the legislative
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branch is doing, the Democrats are not in control of any part of the legislature. But as for the
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judicial branch, I suppose that part of the reason for this kind of lopsided results that we're
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seeing is the actions that are being attempted here. What is being attempted here is the
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president of the United States saying, I'm going to ban lawyers from entering federal buildings and
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kneecap them so that people who want to have the counsel of their choice, which is a part of the
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U.S. Constitution, are not allowed to do so. Let's talk about the kind of the principles that are
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stated in these rulings. There have been multiple rulings, scores, if not dozens
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finding violations of the right to free speech, the right to freely associate
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the right to have a counsel of your choice, the right to due process. I suppose there might be a
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different result, even in the UK, if the writ of habeas corpus were not respected, as it is not
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being respected in the United States if the Prime Minister declared one day that a person who is
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living in the United Kingdom would be sent to a war-torn human rights abusing country that they
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had never known. These are all the legal issues that are live right now in the United States
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Are you not concerned, though, that these constant court battles are playing into Donald
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Trump's hands. And it's in his interest to foment this battle between the political system and the
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judicial system. Because in the end, I mean, he would argue, well, there's only going to be one
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winner there, and that's going to be me. And if the endgame is to create such a row between the
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courts and his presidency, and he will say, well, I need to have a third term to do this, and I'm
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I'm going to run for a third term. I mean, that would be catastrophic, wouldn't it
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to have that battle playing out in the courts? Right. Well, I agree that Donald Trump's ambition here
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is a full frontal attack on the judicial system. He acknowledged it He criticized the judicial system many times And the judges are agreeing that Trump actions are in the words of four federal judges are already lawless But what is the solution to that
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Right now, does the judicial branch preemptively stop functioning and allow violations of the law and constitution
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What we're seeing now from the judicial branch is judges who were appointed by Donald Trump, as with the tariffs ruling, judges who were appointed by George W. Bush, appointed by Ronald Reagan, all ruling against him because of actions that in the view, more than 170 times finding likely violations of the law and Constitution
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So if it plays into any person's strategy, I don't believe that's the fault of the U.S. judiciary
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But if this does carry on, certainly the tariff court decisions, if that carries on, it goes to the Supreme Court
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What's your prediction of what would happen there? Because Donald Trump would be confident of victory there, wouldn't he, given the balance of the judges in the Supreme Court
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I wouldn't be so confident. of that result. Let's talk about some of the Supreme Court decisions so far. There was a 9-0
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decision on the writ of habeas corpus, saying that, yes, immigrants do have right to notice
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and a hearing before being removed to a country. This was a 9-0 court with a supermajority
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a conservative supermajority, and three Trump appointees that reached that decision. There was
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a follow-up decision blocking the removal of other immigrants in Texas under the Alien
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Enemies Act while the case proceeds. There's no doubt he has a favorable panel there at the Supreme Court, and he might be
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banking on that. But he might be surprised just how far any of the justices might transgress from basic
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constitutional principles here when we're talking about does the President of the United States
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only one President of the United States, has ever claimed the power to impose tariffs
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Is the Supreme Court going to give him a mulligan and locate something in the Constitution
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that does not appear to be there to allow him to do that
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It's happened before, hasn't it? Adam, thank you very much indeed. That's Adam Klassfeld from the All Rise News
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