Early Monday, the hosts of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” slammed President Trump’s response to the Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn the tariffs he’d imposed using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
“Everything he is saying is wrong. Everything is the opposite. It’s the most Orwellian thing,” host Joe Scarborough said, following a clip in which Trump implied that the justices that did not rule in his favor had been guided by “foreign interests.” In response, Scarborough asked, “Foreign influences? Please. Is this projection? Is this confession coming from the president?”
“Is the Constitution foreign?” co-host Mika Brzezinski remarked. Scarborough, meanwhile, continued to push back on Trump’s narrative, telling MS NOW viewers, “I may be a poor, dumb country lawyer, But even I understand there was no room for dissent in this case. It should have been a 9-0 decision. He clearly, clearly was abusing this process.”
The Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer joined in the “Morning Joe” discussion and similarly condemned Trump’s response to the Supreme Court’s decision. “He was extolling a conspiracy theory about the Supreme Court in order to undermine its legitimacy, which is taking his battering ram to American institutions to this next level,” he explained.
“The Supreme Court to date had given Trump license to essentially pursue his executive authority in a maximalist sort of way,” Foer additionally noted. “Here they finally started to impose limits.”
Foer then further questioned Trump’s remarks about the justices who ruled against his tariff policies. “The reason Trump needed to respond in the way that he responded is because the unmitigated exercise of executive authority is so essential to his self-conception and his conception of the presidency,” the writer said. “This cuts to the very core of the Trump presidency, which is why he has to respond in the way that he does, because it’s an attack on his monomaniacal interpretation of the presidency.”
Scarborough echoed Foer’s sentiments and criticized Trump for his narrow view of legislation. “[Trump] was asked, ‘Are you going to go to Congress?’ He said, ‘I don’t need Congress.’ He said, ‘I don’t need anybody,’” Scarborough added. “He really needs somebody to read the Constitution to him. It’s pretty simple.”
“If [the White House wants] any legacy whatsoever, they need to pass legislation, because what happens with executive orders? They’re overturned on Day One when the next president gets in office,” the host concluded. “Legislate. Do it the way of the Constitution. You have no other choice.”
