Neal Katyal on Kavanaugh’s Dissent Amid Tariff Ruling: Blockade Stops Some Goods from Coming in, They Don’t Impose Taxes

RUSH EXCERPT:
KATYAL: "Yeah. So the dissent written by Justice Kavanaugh says that presidents have flexibility. And if the president is able to, for example, blockade goods, then he should be able to impose taxes on goods. And the fundamental problem with that is the chief justice said, echoing what I said at the argument is tariffs are fundamentally different than blockades. Blockade stops some goods from coming in, but they don’t impose taxes on the American people. They don’t take money out of your wallet in order for you to get something. So that’s very different than a blockade. And that’s why, you know, going all the way back to the Boston tea party. And this is something that the chief justice again, recognized in his opinion for the court. We’ve always understood the taxation power to be special and different. And so I think the court today sends a clear message to the president, to future presidents. Hey, you got to color within the lines. And, Nicole, you know, I’ve had the privilege of being the government’s top lawyer, the federal government’s top lawyer in the Supreme Court. It’s frankly, you know, a big deal. Whenever any federal policy is challenged. But it’s incredibly rare to have one of the president’s signature initiatives challenged and go to the Supreme Court. And rarer still, to have the Supreme Court say no. You know, normally presidents get all sorts of deference. And I think here the president got deference, but the policy that he chose was so blatantly unconstitutional and illegal that the Supreme Court said no."