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Democrats Rejoice After Wins in First Major Tests of Second Trump Term; Trump Downplays Republican Losses, Blames Government Shutdown; Now, Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments on Trump Tariffs. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 05, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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


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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: News happening now. Breaking news, we are following three big stories right now. Dems dominate sweeping key races as voters send President Trump a message. New reaction this morning from the White House.

And at any moment, the Supreme Court will hear arguments over President Trump's emergency tariffs. The key question, is the president overstepping his authority?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, breaking details in that fiery UPS plane crash that killed at least nine people. We're live in Louisville as the governor will soon speak.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown and you're in The Situation Room.

And we begin with the breaking political news this morning. Democrats are rejoicing big time, the party's sweeping key elections across the country, marking the first major electoral rebukes of President Trump's second term.

BROWN: New York City is getting its first Muslim and South Asian mayor in Zohran Mamdani. The 34-year-old Democratic socialist delivered a resounding defeat of former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

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MAYOR-ELECT ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D-NEW YORK CITY, NY): I am Muslim. I am a Democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.

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BROWN: Mamdani's ascent represents a significant win for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

BLITZER: And in nearby New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill declares victory over Republican Jack Ciattarelli. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV.-ELECT MIKIE SHERRILL (D-NJ): Liberty alone is not enough if the government makes it impossible for you to feed your family, to get a good education or to get a good job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Her win marks the first time a party has held the New Jersey governor's office for more than two full consecutive terms over the last 50 years.

BROWN: And in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger also makes history as the commonwealth's first woman governor, beating sitting Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears.

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GOV.-ELECT ABIGAIL SPANBERGER (D-VA): We sent a message to the whole world that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our commonwealth over chaos.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Spanberger's victory flips the governor's mansion from red to blue and was large enough for the Democratic attorney general candidate, Jay Jones, to ride her coattails despite a texting scandal.

BLITZER: Over on the West Coast, California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom celebrates after voters approved Proposition 50, his initiative to combat Republican gerrymandering in Texas. And it could change the makeup of the U.S. Congress and have very sweeping effects for the entire country.

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GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): So, tonight, I'm proud, but I'm very mindful and sober of the moment we are living in. Donald Trump does not believe in fair and free elections, period and full stop.

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BLITZER: Newsom, a possible 2028 presidential candidate, is now calling on other blue states that would be Democratic states to take action.

BROWN: And we have an All-star group here to discuss, CNN National Politics Correspondent Eva McKend, CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel, CNN Anchor and Chief Legal Analyst Laura Coates and CNN White House Reporter Alayna Treene.

All right, Jamie, let's start with you here on just the big picture of this, because, clearly, last night's election appears in part, at least to be a referendum on the president's second term. Will it be enough for Democrats to continue its messaging against him to keep this momentum going into next year's midterms? JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So, look, I think each of these races was different. I mean, New Jersey and Virginia were similar. But I think what's most interesting about this is Trump is trying to distance himself from these losses. He said he wasn't on the ballot.

[10:05:00]

But the reality is CNN exit polls showed, excuse me, that in -- that more than half of voters in New Jersey, in Virginia, in California, said that they were sending a message to Donald Trump.

So, I think one of the things we have to look at, Republicans. How many members of Congress who are going to be up in two years in the midterm elections, woke up this morning, looked at those results, New Jersey was big, and said to themselves, how much more water am I going to carry for Donald Trump?

BLITZER: That's a good point. You know, Eva, what are your sources telling you? And you're speaking to a lot of good sources. What are they saying about Democrats showing across the country last night? It was very impressive.

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: It was, although they are disappointed, they are not all that surprised, especially in Virginia. They were going into last night recognizing that it was a very difficult environment for Republicans.

So, as they try to figure out how to reboot here, one of the takes that I'm seeing is that Winsome Earle-Sears, for instance, wasn't sufficiently MAGA enough. And I just don't think that's the case from being on the ground because it seems as though a Trump endorsement, which he did not get, might have been a further liability.

Democrats are very, very angry in the state. You have a state with a significant federal workforce. And then you also have voters who are really attracted to the pragmatic message that you heard from Abigail Spanberger, voters I met who supported Glenn Youngkin in 2021 and then turned around and voted for Abigail Spanberger this year.

What I will say, though, for Democrats, their takeaway, though, is that they have to run different candidates for different regions, and that whether it's Spanberger or Mamdani, they're all part of a winning Democratic coalition.

BROWN: Alayna, I want to bring you in from the White House. Jamie Gangel had mentioned what Trump has said. He posted this on Truth Social last night. Trump wasn't on the ballot and the shutdown were the two reasons that Republicans lost elections, and he's saying more this morning. Tell us about that.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. I mean, so the president welcomed Senate Republicans, Wolf and Pamela, to the White House. They were having breakfast in the state dining room. And it was incredibly awkward. I feel like you could cut the tension in there with a knife. I mean, look, the president got up to the podium and essentially castigated his party for their handling of the government shutdown, and argued that that played a role in last night's election losses for Republicans. He essentially said that last night was not good for the party. He said it wasn't good for anybody. And he said that once the press were ushered out of the room, they were going to have a talk about how to move forward. Listen.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: But I thought we'd have a discussion after the press leaves about what last night represented and what we should do about it, and also about the shutdown and how that relates to last night. I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans.

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TREENE: That was a big moment actually, because that was the first time you've heard the president explicitly say that he believes the shutdown is hurting Republicans. And his answer for it, Wolf and Pamela, was that, essentially, he believes and he directed his party to do this. They need to eradicate the filibuster, he said, and he wants them to do that today.

Now, of course, a lot of people in that room do not agree with him. I know John Thune, the Senate majority leader, was sitting just feet away from him, someone who was very publicly said he does not agree that eradicating and eliminating the filibuster is the way forward, especially noting that if Democrats continue to be successful, particularly next year, that that could just mean they have the power to do a lot without Republicans.

But all to say, the president was very clearly frustrated. There is this acknowledgement that, you know, this was not a good night for them. And even though he mentioned, you mentioned that post that Jamie also referenced about him saying, you know, he wasn't on the ballot, he's not going to be on the ballot again. But very much so, I think there are people and people in this administration and in that building behind me here at the White House who recognize that some of the president's policies, he's not been polling as well recently, particularly when you look at issues like the economy, immigration, all of that, playing a role in a lot of these different races, despite it, of course, not being a federal election last night.

BROWN: All right. I want to go to Laura Coates now, as we are tracking the results of last night. There's also quite a bit of activity outside of the Supreme Court. You can see the demonstrators are dressed up as Handmaid's Tale, right? There's a big case today having to do with tariffs and the president's executive authority and whether he's overstepping that authority when it comes to tariffs. What do you make of this?

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Obviously, the idea of referencing Handmaid's Tale to totalitarianism as a main theme of Margaret Atwood's novel, talking about a centralized control by one leader.

[10:10:02]

That is the essence of the case in terms of the tariffs.

Normally, we have this, obviously, coequal branches of government, the three branches. While this case is about whether President Trump and the executive branch is sidestepping that authority and saying, look, Congress, you have the power to levy taxes and tariffs, but I'm going to take that over without your consent or without your input in any meaningful way.

The court, though, is going to have a very interesting challenge today, because just last year, they talked about their caution with respect to President Biden and saying if there is a major question, having economic or political or otherwise huge consequences, listen, you've got to get the input and the buy-in from Congress. We've got this three-party system, branch, the government.

So, today, the question will be whether this court stays committed to that proposition or whether they will say, listen, Mr. President, you have the authority.

Now, I think many people predict in this instance that the idea of the president of the United States being successful today might be a long shot. Here's why, specifically. Well, there are other means from which the president of the United States can actually impose tariffs that do not involve a total end run around Congress. They've done so in the past. They could do it again. The court may say, listen, we want to hold true to that theory, that premise that we've got coequal branches of government. You have to give deference to the president for national security and economic security, but that also requires deference to Congress.

Now, the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, will be there today. The president has thought that he might show up. He won't be there. But Bessent is saying, listen, national security is economic security. They're one and the same. Therefore, I need to be here to show this court just how significant this moment is.

The court does not see what's happening outside right now, but they've read the briefing, they know the political climate that we're in. They know full well about this constant refrain that suggests that the president of the United States is an autocrat, is an authoritarian, is somebody who is relinquishing nothing and reclaiming everything. And they're aware of this split screen happening right now. But they also know that, last year, they've got their own precedent to contend with. So, we'll see where it all ends up.

BROWN: Yes. And it was interesting, Jamie, because it ties in with what the point you made earlier about their election results and will Republicans continue to carry water for Donald Trump, Republicans and Congress.

And this is really a monumental case. You've heard the administration talk about it in really dire terms, saying this is life or death, this could be catastrophic if we lose this. And you're seeing these protestors right outside as well making their voices heard.

GANGEL: So, you know, just talking to political sources, they also say it's a referendum on presidential power, but they also see it as a referendum on Donald Trump and his hold over this court. We have seen in many other cases, this court defers to Donald Trump. And so what one might expect in another era, we may not see when we see the decision come out today.

But that's really what they're there. They're watching for, you know, the decision but they're also watching what these justices do.

COATES: And, by the way, it's not just here. Internationally, people are watching this Supreme Court right now. The Chinese president is watching this right now. There were huge consequences in terms of the negotiating power of the president of the United States politically. If the Supreme Court, he believes, derails his ability to have leverage by having the imposition of these tariffs, it could have a ripple effect all across the globe.

It does not mean that the president could not have a hand in negotiations and about tariffs, but the mechanism in which he's doing it is really the issue here. This court is focused on whether or not this precise blueprint the president is using by an end run around Congress using an emergency powers sort of declaration that says this is an important moment, I've got to do this, if that's the right mechanism here. But other countries are going to say, hold on. If he has to use the other means of using Congress, you're talking months down the road of investigations and other things that will derail policy.

BROWN: All right. The arguments have started. The solicitor general, John Sauer, is supposed to be up first. Let's listen in.

JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR, U.S. SUPREME COURT: I don't understand this argument that it's equivalent or that foreign powers or even an emergency can do away with the major questions doctrine. Didn't we in the Biden case recently say an emergency can't make clear what's ambiguous?

D. JOHN SAUER, U.S. SOLICITOR GENERAL: As to that point, I believe the court has never applied the major questions doctrine into foreign policy context, or emergency context, not foreign policy context.

SOTOMAYOR: Counsel, we have never applied it to foreign affairs, but this is a tariff. This is a tax.

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SAUER: It is a -- if I may, it's a foreign-facing regulation of foreign commerce. That's a regulatory term.

SOTOMAYOR: So, Biden could have declared a national emergency in global warming and then gotten his student forgiveness to not be a major questions doctrine?

SAUER: I don't think he could have gotten student loan forgiveness. SOTOMAYOR: Why? It's foreign-facing. We need all of these things to face -- to tax fossil fuel or to do something else, that's all Biden would've had to do with any of his programs.

SAUER: Let me put it this way, if I may?

SOTOMAYOR: It's just declare some foreign-facing purpose?

SAUER: If I may, look, maybe I can articulate this way. The power to impose tariffs is a core application of the power to regulate foreign commerce, which is what the phrase regulate importation and IEA naturally evokes.

SOTOMAYOR: Why is it -- what's -- could you tell me why it is that when Congress intended to permit a president to regulate by imposing tariffs, it's always used tariff and regularly? I have about 16 laws in the past that when Congress intended regulate to mean taxing, that it used taxes simultaneously, but it didn't here.

SAUER: Respectfully, this court came to the opposite conclusion, if I may, in Algonquin, where the phrase would not include --

SOTOMAYOR: Well -- but that was -- we did something in Algonquin. It was in the duties section, unlike here. It was paired with questions about decreasing tariffs and increasing tariffs. So, it's a very different statute than the one at issue here.

SAUER: But the governing language, admittedly, the references to duties in section 232A, 232C does not refer to them, and the court didn't refer to 232A at all or the rate raises, duties, or tariffs analysis. What it held was the phrase adjust imports, which includes a verb that's narrower --

SOTOMAYOR: But it was in the context -- it was in context of activities that had to do with raising and lowering duties. Here, the noun -- the verbs that accompany regulate have nothing to do with raising revenues in the form of Texas.

JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, U.S. SUPREME COURT: And, Counsel, Algonquin wasn't a textualist opinion. Do you agree with that? In other words, the analysis that the court was using there was really keyed to the legislative history of that statute, and it wasn't as though we were doing an interpretation of the word adjust.

SAUER: I disagree with that. I think if you read the opinion first, it talks about plain meaning, then it talks about statutory context, and then it goes on to legislative history. So, it was all three of those. And the conclusion it came to, it directly addressed and rejected the argument that the D.C. Circuit had accepted in that case, which is that when Congress wants to delegate the authority to tariff, it uses a consistently explicit and well-defined approach, which is to use these magic words, tariff, tax imposed and so forth.

JACKSON: Well, let me --

SAUER: The Congress is not bound to use that particular formulation once it confers power.

JACKSON: Let me ask you about the premise of your argument, which you sort of started at the beginning saying that one would expect for Congress to give the president a broadly way in this kind of foreign affairs context. And I guess I'm wondering whether you also don't have to contend with the actual purpose of IEEPA in making this argument. Because, as I understand it that IEEPA was designed and intended to limit presidential authority, that Congress was concerned about how presidents had been using the authority under the predecessors statute, TWEA, and it's pretty clear that Congress was trying to constrain the emergency powers of the president in IEEPA.

So, it seems a little inconsistent to say that we have to interpret a statute that was designed to constrain presidential authority consistent with an understanding that Congress wanted the president to have essentially unlimited authority.

SAUER: I disagree with that because of what Congress actually did --

JACKSON: What part do you disagree with? I'm sorry.

SAUER: Well, I disagree with the notion that they were trying to constrain the breadth of the actions the president may take when it comes to this particularly narrow domain, which is, you know, various regulations of transactions.

JACKSON: But how can you disagree with that? I mean, the history is what it is. And --

SAUER: Because they made a series of changes to IEEPA --

JACKSON: Yes.

SAUER: -- that relate to the triggering conditions, so to speak, and the procedures that apply, but they did not change the language in that --

JACKSON: Right. But what was the intent of Congress in changing the language? Wasn't it to constrain presidential authority in this area?

SAUER: To constrain it in the triggering conditions and the procedures that apply in this --

JACKSON: So, those -- the triggering conditions and procedures that apply are a means to constrain.

[10:20:05]

That is how they went around about constraining. But my point is that Congress enacted this legislation with the intent of preventing the president from having unlimited powers in this area, and you're asking us to now interpret that statute consistent with an understanding that Congress wanted to allow the president to do pretty much whatever he wanted in this area,

SAUER: Congress took the language from TWEA and enacted the very same language, and most importantly here, the very same phrase, regulated importation in IEEPA. And, therefore the natural inferences, Congress did not intend to change the scope of authority, the powers, the tools the president can exercise --

JACKSON: Did any president under TWEA -- did any president under TWEA use that language to impose tariffs?

SAUER: Well, yes. President Nixon's 1971 tariff --

JACKSON: Not a tariff. That wasn't a tariff. It was a licensing agreement during wartime. It was a specific thing. The tariff I'm talking about.

SAUER: I'm referring to President Nixon's 1971 tariff.

JACKSON: Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me, yes, I thought you meant Lincoln.

SAUER: Not only that, but then it was upheld by the Court of Appeals of exclusive jurisdiction under this very phrase.

JACKSON: Well, can I back you up just a second? I'm sorry. You're talking so quickly.

SAUER: Sorry.

JACKSON: President Nixon did not rely on TWEA initially to impose the tariffs. Is that correct? I understood that was just a litigating position that he took once. It was challenged. That was not his initial.

SAUER: I wouldn't put it that way because he has a broad invocation. You know, I'm invoking all range of statutes, something like that in Proclamation 4074. And I think the understanding is he didn't want to kind of spook our allies by invoking the trading with the Enemies Act by specifically invoking it. But in litigation, it was defended on that ground. So, the Department of Justice defended it as an exercise of TWEA and did so successfully.

JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH, U.S. SUPREME COURT: What's the significance of the Nixon example and precedent here? Because I think figuring that out is real important to deciding this case correctly. So --

SAUER: Well, there's one obvious, very powerful takeaway from it, which is that this very two word phrase, regulate importation that we say, it carries with it the authority to tariff, impose regulatory tariffs at the border, forward-facing tariffs at the border. And we say that's a core application of the phrase, importation. Had been interpreted two years before Congress reenacted that language, in IEEPA, had been interpreted to carry with it the authority to impose tariffs.

So, this court said in Algonquin, for example, with respect to President Nixon's --

GORSUCH: Well, what -- just back on the Nixon, what was the scope of the Nixon tariffs? SAUER: He imposed a 10 percent tariff kind of across the board to all our major trading partners to address a balance of payments deficit, where he was trying to bring all the major industrial nations to the negotiating table, which he successfully did, but from the imposition of the tariffs. And they negotiated the Smithsonian agreement in about five months after which he lifted the tariff.

So, the tariff there was used as here in part as leverage to get our trading partners to the negotiating table. And it was subsequently upheld by the federal circuit, the CCPA, its federal circuit's predecessor, that had exclusive jurisdiction over that question to include the power to tariff.

And then two years later, Congress took that same phrase and reenacted it in IEEPA after carefully studying the problem of presidential emergency powers and being deeply concerned about, you know, excessive or abusive exercise of that power.

So, that whole sort of process gives sort of strong sort of confirmation to this phrase, regulated importation, carries with it the power to tariff. Now, of course, that's not our leading argument. Our lead argument on interpretation is there's a pedigree, a historical pedigree of regulating imports specifically where the power to tariff is just the sort of a core application of that, a quintessential exercise of that power that goes back to Gibbons against Ogden and justice stories treatise and runs all the way through cases like McGoldrick and Board of Trustees.

JUSTICE AMY CONEY BARRETT, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Can I just ask you a question? Can you point to any other place in the code or any other time in history where that phrase together, regulate importation, has been used to confer tariff-imposing authority?

SAUER: Well, as to regulate importation, that was held in TWEA. So, obviously, that's --

BARRETT: Okay. Okay. So, an intermediate appellate court held it in TWEA, but you just told Justice Kavanaugh that wasn't your lead argument, that your lead argument was this long history of the phrase, regulate importation, being understood to include tariff authority. So, my question is, has there ever been another instance in which a statute has conferred, used that language to confer the power, putting aside Yoshida (ph).

SAUER: I mean, obviously, the other statutory example is just imports, the cases we rely on our cases where, for example, in Gibbons against Ogden and justice stories treaties.

BARRETT: But that just shows the word can be used that way. None of those cases talked about it as conferring tariff authority. I understood you to be citing McGoldrick and Gibbons in those cases, just to show that it's possible to say that regulating commerce includes the power to tariff.

SAUER: I think our argument goes a bit further than that is interpretive matter, because if you look at that history, the history of --

SOTOMAYOR: Can you just answer the justice's question.

[10:25:00]

BARRETT: Can you identify any statute that use that phrase to confer to?

SAUER: Yes. The only two statutes I can identify now are TWEA, as interpreted in Yoshida, and then closely related, not regulated importation but adjust imports in Section 1232?

BARRETT: Well, I think adjust imports is differently. So, the answer is the contested application in TWEA and then now in IEEPA.

SAUER: And then, of course, I mean, there's a sort of direct line there.

BARRETT: Yes I understand that. But okay.

SAUER: But more fundamentally, we rely on the historical associates to show there's this long historical pedigree of broad delegations of the foreign commerce power, not the power to tax that we're not asserting here, delegations of the foreign commerce power to the president going back to Gibbons against Ogden all the way through McGoldrick and Board of Trustees where that this court and founding a sources say the power to -- in other words, the power to tariff is kind of this natural, you know, as everyone knows, that includes --

BARRETT: Just to ask you one other question about the plain text, General Sauer. So, you've referred to the other verbs in IEEPA as capacious. Would you really describe them as capacious? Because to me, things like nullify and void have definite meanings. I agree with you that regulate is a broader term, but those words, I think, are powerful. They give -- they pack a punch, but I wouldn't describe them as capacious in the sense that they have a wide range of meaning. So, can you describe what you mean by capacious?

SAUER: Let me put it this way. You look at all nine verbs together and you're looking at a spectrum of powers from the most sort of negative, nullify, block, prohibit, void, to the most affirmative, direct, compel, and then also powers in between that are more intermediate, regulate, investigate, and so forth. So, the natural common sense inference from that grammatical structure is the intention of Congress to sort of cover the waterfront.

SOTOMAYOR: Well, General, possible, except Congress did take out a whole bunch of verbs. It took out confiscate, vest, hold, use, administer, liquidate, sell, which were in the prior statute. And, crucially, what it doesn't have here is anything that refers to raising revenue. So, it has a lot of verbs. It has a lot of actions that can be taken under this statute. It just doesn't have the one you want.

SAUER : Well, I would say the notion that all these other verbs are sort of not revenue raising, like block and prohibit. I think that that argument is unconvincing for two reasons. One, of course, is that we don't -- we're not saying it confers a revenue raising power. We're saying it confers a regulatory power, and that's a crucial distinction. But also --

SOTOMAYOR: Yes, but if I can just stop you there, regulatory power -- I mean, yes, it says regulate, but I'll broaden out Justice Barrett's question, is there any place that you can find in the entire code where regulate used just as regulate includes taxing power?

SAUER: We don't assert that. We say, it includes tariffing power when it's combined with importation. And that's just the most naturally --

SOTOMAYOR: Right. Because the natural understanding of regulate, even though, in fact, we can regulate through taxes, but when the code uses regulate, we don't typically understand it to refer to duties or taxes or tariffs or anything of the kind. And then if you look at the flipside of this and you look at all the tariff statutes that Congress has passed, I mean, they use language about revenue raising tariffs and duties and taxes, all the language that does not appear in the statute you rely on.

SAUER: I'll start with sort of grammatical structure of the statute, then I'll refer to the other statutes. Regulate importation, you put those two words in combination. That's -- the inference from that is, you know, the founders discussed with this sort of like, you know, as everyone knows attitude, regulate importation, almost is one of the most natural applications of that is the power to tariff. So, when Congress confers the power to regulate imports, it is naturally conferring the power to tariff, which has delegated to the executive branch, you know, again and again and again going back --

SOTOMAYOR: I'm sorry. So, it doesn't say, regulate tariffs. It says regulate importations and exportations. You agree that they can't put tariffs, taxes on exportations constitutionally.

SAUER: I agree with that, yes.

SOTOMAYOR: All right. So, why should we think that it's natural then to think that regulate importation includes taxing importations?

SAUER: Because that is how --

SOTOMAYOR: It is in the conjunctive, importations and exportations. If they can't do it with respect to exportations, why are we permitting them to do it with respect to importations?

SAUER: Because as this court has recognized going back to Gibbons against Ogden and going through McGoldrick and Board of Trustees --

SOTOMAYOR: We're going --

SAUER: (INAUDIBLE) imports, tariffing is a core application of that. So, in other words, if you're saying, go regulate trading insecurities --

SOTOMAYOR: So, why is it that Congress -- why is it that Congress has always used, regulate and tax, together in the code? Are you telling us that, with respect to its use of regulate in other statutes, the taxing reference is superfluous, they didn't need to do that?

[10:30:00]

SAUER: I'm not sure what other statutes use regulate and tax together. But this statute has a specific historical pedigree going back to its enactment during World War I.