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Trump: "Absolutely Ashamed" of Justices Who Struck Down Tariffs; Trump Says He's Imposing 10 Percent Global Tariff After Supreme Court Loss; Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump Tariffs; Bessent Insists Supreme Court Did Not Rule Against Trump's Tariffs. Aired 3- 3:30p ET

Aired February 20, 2026 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[15:01:15]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We start this hour with the President of the United States lambasting members of the Supreme Court personally and professionally after they rejected his sweeping tariffs that he imposed under an Emergency Powers Act. Two Trump-appointed justices, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, sided with the Chief Justice and the liberal justices to rule that the use of the law was wrong and that his tariffs are illegal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing. And I'm ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country.

When you read the dissenting opinions, there's no way that anyone can argue against them. There's no way. Foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years are ecstatic. They're so happy. And they're dancing in the streets, but they won't be dancing for long. That I can assure you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The decision deals a severe blow to the President's economic agenda and is arguably the worst legal defeat in his second administration. The President says he'll rely on alternative methods to apply levies and declared he will be imposing a new 10 percent global tariff. CNN's Kristen Holmes is joining us now from the White House.

Kristen, a lot of vitriol from the President toward the conservative justices who struck down his tariffs. And perhaps that is because even though he's talking about using these alternative authorities, they are limited.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: They are limited. And the one that he's relying on now for that 10 percent global tariff that you just mentioned, Section 122, has a 150-day cap. It would have to be extended in Congress. And we already know that that would be a tough sell. There are Republicans who do not support these tariffs.

And you can see just how angry President Trump was. Of course, he was spinning this as some kind of win at the same time, but also attacking, as you said, these conservative justices. At one point, I tried to ask if he regretted appointing Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. He wouldn't answer my question, but later said that he believes that they were an embarrassment to their families.

Then, he was asked if these justices would all still be invited to the State of the Union address, which, of course, is customary. He said, yes, barely, but I don't care if they come or not. He clearly is taking this incredibly personally. We know that this is something that he has done in the past when these justices, particularly conservative justices and the ones that he appointed, have ruled against him or his agenda. He has taken it and become incredibly angry, which is what you saw there today lashing out on them.

Now, one of the things that was interesting, he also addressed this idea of refunds, saying that this ruling was going to tie up any kind of refunds in the courts. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: When you think they would have put one sentence in there saying that keep the money or don't keep the money, right? I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years. So, they write this terrible, defective decision, totally defective. It's almost like not written by smart people and what they do, they don't even talk about that. Your question is very basic. That was the first question I asked also to make you feel good.

I said, what about all the money that we've taken in? Sir, they don't discuss that. How crazy is that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Of course, what he's referring to there is the money that's already been collected by tariffs. There was no ruling on what that money or what should happen to that money. So, now he's saying he's going to tie it up in litigation.

[15:05:01]

KEILAR: All right, Kristen Holmes, thank you so much.

We have our CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst Joan Biskupic back now with us.

And Joan, President Trump in his disappointment, in his anger, criticized the loyalty of the justices who voted against him. His words, quote, "They're very unpatriotic. They're disloyal to our Constitution." I wonder how the court sees that. Well, look, they -- this was a 6-3 decision. It wasn't as close as

some of us even thought it was going to be. It was a strong margin. They stood by what they said about the separation of powers and who has the responsibility to impose tariffs, which are exactly like taxes under the Constitution and that is Congress. It was a clear-cut ruling by a decent margin. So, I think that as a group, they are -- they are feeling very comfortable about this decision, even though it was taken in this great public spotlight even before today.

And I have to say, being in the courtroom this morning and the kind of amount of reserve and solemn nature that comes with a -- hand down of a decision was so different from what we just saw with President Trump. They have got to be concerned with some of his threats and the way he invoked their families when he said their families should be embarrassed for them. He was specifically at that point talking about two of his appointees, his first, Neil Gorsuch, and then Amy Coney Barrett. He has criticized Justice Barrett before when she is edged toward the center.

But one thing I want to make clear is in this particular case, Donald Trump so exceeded executive powers that this was not a surprising decision in the whole scheme of what the Constitution allows. You know, he's won so much before them that, you know, his arguments do usually carry the day and he's probably used to winning as much as he does. But in this one, he didn't. And he has other means.

But I think for him to react as strongly as he did, when I think that administration knew that this -- this was coming, they're -- they're prepared in different ways. And then to be so personal toward the justices, that cannot sit well with them. And it reminds me of how much lower court judges have endured since he took office. You know, he's -- he's attacked so many of them by name. Those lower court judges have had to face increased security. And now the Supreme Court is getting some of it because he felt like the Supreme Court, as he would say, just wait until I get to the Supreme Court. Well, they couldn't say that about this case.

SANCHEZ: Well, Joan Biskupic, thank you so much for that perspective.

Let's talk about more -- let's talk more about all of this with Aaron Klein. He served as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department under President Obama. He's now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.

Aaron, thanks so much for being with us.

So, Vice President Vance just reacted to this, and he says of the decision, quote, "Its only effect will be to make it harder for the President to protect American industries and supply chain resiliency." How accurate is that?

AARON KLEIN, FORMER TREASURY DEPARTMENT DEPUTY SECRETARY: Well, tariffs are one tool that promote American businesses domestically because they hurt foreign businesses internationally, which means that American consumers have fewer choices and pay higher prices. Donald Trump and the President have a lot of tools to protect American

supply chains. The Defense Production Act is one. There are others in the CHIPS Act that President Biden signed that try to support American industrialism by making them more globally competitive, as opposed to taxing global competitors to try and make American products the only option on the board.

KEILAR: The -- the President says he is immediately reinstating a 10 percent global tariff. He's doing so, though, under Section 122. He can only do that for 150 days without Congress approving an extension. Are there other limitations on Section 122?

KLEIN: So, there are different authorities that he can have, and he can play whack-a-mole with this. There's Section 310 authorities. There are other areas where he can go bilaterally at countries, which President Trump has been very clear that he picks this country and that country, and he said it's because they're being mean to him. I don't know what that means. The law requires more proof of actual unfair competitive advantages and currency manipulation in other areas, domestic subsidization. So, Trump can play whack-a-mole for a little while on all these tariffs.

SANCHEZ: When it comes to how this impacts the broader economy, I wonder what you think it might do to the federal deficit, because these tariffs, the President installed, were weighed as Congress was trying to pass massive tax cuts in the one big beautiful bill. What does that do to the math now?

KLEIN: So, Trumponomics is based on slashing taxes for businesses and wealthy people.

[15:10:00]

I think it's a very ugly way to run this country, but Trump thinks it's beautiful to give rich people tax cuts and load up the deficit on children.

And to be fair, he was balancing it by a large tax on U.S. consumers and businesses through tariffs. So, the Supreme Court has invalidated the tax element, the raising of revenue, but Congress has already gone ahead and spent the tax cut. Trump is spending aggressively in defense. He's flying all these assets we have to strike Venezuela to build up around Iran. He's spending a lot of money. He's raising a lot less.

And now the Supreme Court has cut quite a bit of money. Look, the Congressional Budget Office said that these tariffs could raise up to $2.5 trillion, which would actually reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years, with lower interest adding the rest.

So, this does blow a hole, more of a deficit. I wouldn't say it blows a hole, it piles on. The deficit was this big, now it's this big.

KEILAR: So, there are some products, Aaron, you're well aware it's practically impossible to buy American, right? Or -- or a lot of them are made with components that are foreign that have been subjected to tariffs. I mean, I just think about my own personal shopping list of what I purchased during the tariffs. I -- I bought one of my kids a bike. I bought a soccer ball before tariffs and after tariffs and saw that there was a price increase. So, am I going to get that money back, the price increase?

KLEIN: No, I don't think anybody's going to get anything back. As Trump points out, the -- the case makes it very unclear. It's going to be litigated. Trump had promised that he was going to send rebate checks. He promised to spend the tariff revenue about 12 different ways. But as you point out, Brianna, the tariffs were a tax. We paid it when we bought things. Now, it's unclear whether that money is going to be refunded or not because it was collected illegally. And going forward, businesses aren't sure what the tariff rate is going to be.

If I wanted to start a bike company to -- to -- to build bikes in America for -- for our kids to sell it cheaper -- or soccer ball company, what are my projections? What are my foreign competition going to look like over the next five, 10 years? I have no idea. Trump's on again, off again, maybe so, maybe not tariff structure has been a disaster for businesses to plan and this court ruling only throws more uncertainty in the mix.

SANCHEZ: Keep the receipts. You never know, right?

KEILAR: I think I know, Boris.

SANCHEZ: I'll hold on to my receipts. All right.

KEILAR: Aaron, thank you so much. Really appreciate your expertise.

And ahead, we'll have more on the landmark Supreme Court ruling that struck down President Trump's emergency tariffs. Stay with us for that.

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[15:17:11]

KEILAR: And we're back with our breaking news. President Trump lashing out at Supreme Court justices today after their landmark 6-3 decision striking down his sweeping tariffs on countries around the world. In response, the President says he'll use other federal laws to circumvent the court's ruling and implement an additional 10 percent tariff on U.S. imports.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaking about the ruling just moments ago. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: Let's be clear about what today's ruling was and what it wasn't. Despite the misplaced gloating from Democrats, ill-informed media outlets and the very people who gutted our industrial base, the court did not rule against President Trump's tariffs. Six justices simply ruled that IEEPA authorities cannot be used to raise even $1 of revenue. This administration will invoke alternative legal authorities to replace the IEEPA tariffs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: All right, let's discuss with Elie Honig, a former state and federal prosecutor. He's also CNN's Senior Legal Analyst.

Okay, what -- what do you make of Bessent's reasoning there?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it is correct, Brianna, to say that the Supreme Court today simply said -- and it's a big deal, but they said Donald Trump's IEEPA tariffs under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, those are unconstitutional. Those are out. It also is correct to say that Donald Trump can try again. He's already said he will try. We just heard Secretary Bessent say he will try again.

However, the tariffs that Trump tried to put in place were so broad, were so sweeping, they would have applied to virtually every other country in the world. They range from 10 percent up to 50 percent. He would change them. He would increase them at will. All of that is now gone. And the remaining sort of Plan B statutes that Trump has alluded to are much more limited.

So, you've heard about this Section 122. That's very limited. That can only go in place for 150 days, and then you need a congressional approval. And you have to show that there's some sort of unfair trade practice. You also heard reference to a Section 301, but that requires an investigation in advance. And again, it's limited as to scope and function.

So, what Trump tried to do is use this emergency law to give himself almost limitless tariff powers. The Supreme Court today struck that down. He does have other options that he can try, but they're far more limited.

KEILAR: Yes, because let's put this into perspective, right? If he had actually been acting under one of these other authorities, or let's say this one he's now going to act under, Section 122, those tariffs that he put in place in the spring would have expired by early fall without an extension from Congress, which it seems difficult to see them having actually done that.

[15:20:02]

I mean, there's a reason why he used that particular authority.

So, when you're talking about 301 and these investigations and kind of the limits that that might place on the situation, how do you see that changing what has really been kind of an arbitrary nature of how he implements his tariffs if he just seems to, you know, like this day or that day, be upset with a certain country?

HONIG: Right. So, there are an array of existing laws that do allow presidents to impose tariffs, including the ones we've been talking about. But all of them are limited either in scope, in how broadly they can go, in duration, in whether you need an investigation, in what showings you need and whether you need Congress to approve.

Section 301, for example, has been challenged in courts and struck down as recently as 2020 when Trump tried to use that in another context. So, there are other laws out there. But what Trump tried to do, what the court blocked him from doing is taking this international law and basically turning it into a blank check. And we remember him standing out there in front of the White House with those charts, those tablets listing the dozens and dozens of countries where he would impose these tariffs ranging from 10 percent to 50 percent.

And then, he would just sort of randomly tweak them and announce that he had doubled them or increased them by a hundred percent. All of that was stuff he was trying to do under the emergency law. That's off now.

And I do want to make one other important point. You heard Donald Trump in his press conference say, well, the Supreme Court gave me the green light. They said, you're okay to go ahead and try these other avenues. That's not what the Supreme Court actually said. What they said is, yes, you can try, but we're not saying you're going to win. We're saying there's other things that you can try to use these other statutes, 122 and 301. But then they're going to come back to court and they're going to be challenged and we'll decide then based on those decisions.

KEILAR: Yes, they're -- they're not sort of dealing with other hypotheticals, right? That was clear in the majority opinion.

Okay, let's talk about the money that has been collected by the federal government. I think the estimates are probably like 130 to 140 billion. The White House will say it is more than that. It's -- it's a lot of money, maybe not for a country, you know, but that's still a lot of money and that's a lot of money to companies. The President predicts the administration is going to be in court for years over this issue of refunding the money collected by these tariffs. Does that make sense to you? Like, what would the process normally be if the Supreme Court had said that money you collected under this authority -- no, that -- that's illegal to use it?

HONIG: Right. So, we heard the President during his press conference last hour basically say the court couldn't have just given us one sentence with all the time they took to write this 120-page opinion. They couldn't have just taken a minute to tell us, does the money get refunded or not? And he's right that what will result now from this is litigation that will last years. Justice Kavanaugh said it will be a mess, and he's right.

The way I think this is going to play out now, Brianna, is individual retailers, individual importers here in the United States who've been paying these tariffs are going to have to go into courts. The group that brought this lawsuit is a small private company that imports products, toys and learning devices and that type of thing. Companies like that are now going to have to either individually or bind together, go into court. And these cases are going to take years to wind the ways through the court, maybe even back up to the U.S. Supreme Court. They could have answered this for us. They chose not to. And as a result, it leaves a degree of uncertainty as to what happens with those hundred plus billion dollars out there.

KEILAR: Really quickly, Elie, because there was question about this authority from the jump when the President was using it. Is it a reasonable expectation of his that if he's doing something that is potentially questionable that could have these ramifications, that he just thinks the Supreme Court would issue some kind of prescription for how he should clean up the mess he created?

HONIG: Well, clearly, the notion that whatever justices Donald Trump put on the bench will always rule for him and owe him some duty of loyalty, that is completely false. And that was rejected today. The other thing is today's ruling really should not have come as much of a surprise because both of the lower courts, the federal district court level court and the mid-level court of appeals that heard this case ruled that these tariffs under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act were unconstitutional.

So, Trump had already lost both times in the lower courts. And if you listen to oral argument, as we covered back a few months ago, it was pretty clear that he was going to lose. We didn't know what the margin would be or what the split would be. So, none of today's outcomes should have come as a massive surprise. It's a huge deal, but it shouldn't come as really a shock to anyone.

KEILAR: Maybe not a surprise. Definitely a huge upset. That was very clear.

Elie, thank you so much. And ahead, more in our breaking news coverage of the Supreme Court ruling that President Trump's sweeping tariffs are illegal.

[15:24:48]

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[15:29:26]

SANCHEZ: Turning back to our top story, todays Supreme Court ruling declaring president Trump's sweeping emergency tariffs illegal. In a 6-3 decision. the justices ruled the President lacks the authority to impose tariffs via emergency powers. In response, the President says he'll be imposing a new 10 percent global tariff under a separate authority.

Let's get some perspective now from former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang. He's the co-founder of the Forward Party, also the author of the new book, "Hey Yang, Where's My Thousand Bucks?: And Other True Stories of Staggering Depth."

Thank you so much for joining us, Andrew, and in-person, too.

[15:30:00]

I -- I wonder what your reaction is first to the Supreme Court ruling?

ANDREW YANG, FORMER DEMOCRATIC 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I hated these tariffs from the get go as terrible policy.