Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that he is sure the Supreme Court will support President Trump’s tariff policies. But what happened during the court hearing earlier that day tells a different story, with several judges asking tough questions about whether the president actually has this kind of power.
According to The Hill, the legal fight is about whether Trump can put tariffs on imported goods the way he has been doing. Officials from 12 states run by Democrats and five small businesses say only Congress can do this, not the president.
Trump’s team says he can use a law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because he declared a national emergency in April. He said the emergency was about America’s trade problems with other countries and fentanyl coming in from Canada, China, and Mexico.
The justices seemed less convinced than Lutnick claims
When Lutnick appeared on Sean Hannity’s show, he said “the justices were on the president’s side” and told people watching that they were “hearing it here from me, President Trump is going to win this case.” He sounded very sure of himself even though the judges had spent nearly three hours asking difficult questions earlier that same day.
What the judges actually said during the hearing makes it look like this case might not go the way Lutnick thinks.
Chief Justice John Roberts said the government’s argument “is being used for the power to impose tariffs on any product, from any country, for any amount, for any length of time.” He said this looked like giving the president a huge amount of power, though he did not say the president definitely does not have it.
Even two judges that Trump himself picked for the Supreme Court asked hard questions. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wanted to know if there was any past example of a president using power this way. Justice Neil Gorsuch worried about what might happen in the future if presidents got this much control over tariffs.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Chief Justice Roberts both talked about something called the major questions doctrine. This is a rule that says Congress cannot give away huge powers to the president unless it clearly says that is what it wants to do.
The Supreme Court has been hearing several big cases this year about how much power the president should have.
Trump has already lost this fight in two other courts. In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade said the emergency powers law does not let the president control tariffs. Then in August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with that decision.
The Supreme Court judges will now talk about the case in private and write their decision. Lutnick might be confident, but the questions asked by judges from different political backgrounds show that Trump’s team will have a hard time winning this case.
Published: Nov 6, 2025 04:45 pm