Neal Kumar Katyal

And I had a secret.

April 2nd, 2025, the president dusts off a 1977 law and imposes tariffs on virtually every country on earth.

No congressional vote, nothing like that whatsoever, just his word.

And here's what's at stake.

If the president can command the global economy by yelling emergency, what can't he do?

Checks and balances don't just bend, they break.

I was hired to kill it.

Legal scholars, commentators, my own colleagues said it was impossible.

They said the president has nominated three of the justices on the court and three others were appointed by Republican presidents.

They're not going to go against their president, they said.

I thought that was wrong.

But the real problem was that the Supreme Court never in its history, in 237 years, has declared a signature initiative of the president unconstitutional.

I was hired to do what no lawyer had done in 237 years.

My first thought?

Hell yes!

My second thought, what in the world is wrong with me?

People have died at that podium, and I'm about to tell the world's most powerful man he can't do what he just did?

I had the self-preservation instincts of a moth near a bug zapper.

So for months, I prepared for the argument of my life.

Three weeks before that argument, one of my own teammates decided to try and take me down so that he could argue the case.