Emily Bazelon

Sure thing.

Yeah, I mean this is an important decision.

First of all, it's an important decision because President Trump made it a really big deal.

He cares enormously about tariffs.

We all have gotten that message.

And so for the court to say no to him and to turn him back is a serious exercise of its power.

And I think there's another couple reasons why this decision matters a lot.

One is just the sort of basics of what the court is doing here.

Just as a matter of like basic statutory interpretation, which is a lot of what courts do, I think the majority's rejection of the Trump administration's reading of the statute is pretty clearly the better reading.

At the same time, there is an argument on the other side.

I mean, Justice Kavanaugh's dissent scores some points.

And so because there is some law on both sides, the fact that

This six to three majority, which includes three conservatives, is rejecting President Trump's reading becomes sort of even more important, like they could have gone in a different direction and they didn't.

And then I think the third thing that's important here is that this ruling is consistent with the court's approach to some emergency powers that President Biden tried to use.

So the court rejected Biden's efforts to use broad emergency statutes for certain COVID restrictions and also to forgive student loans.

And so to see the court here resolve a case similarly against a different president is

matters in terms of, I think, the country's perception of whether the court is being fair.

If you're just looking at the words of the statutes, you could decide to come out differently.

But the overarching message here, I think, is really important for the accusation that the Supreme Court has just like turned into a bunch of hacks who do whatever Trump wants.

This seems like a pretty clear response to that, not a direct response, but the court making clear that it does not necessarily just knuckle under when Trump expects it to.