JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Next year, the Supreme Court will decide whether the president can use a five-decade-old emergency powers act to shape the U.S. economy. Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act - or IEEPA - last spring when he imposed sweeping tariffs of at least 10% across all countries. Today, the nine justices heard oral arguments in the case, and however they decide it, this ruling could affect economic policy and presidential power for years to come. At the court today watching all of this play out was California Attorney General Rob Bonta. He's a Democrat. And Attorney General Bonta joins me here in studio. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
ROB BONTA: Thanks for having me. Honored to be here.
SUMMERS: Thanks for being here. So I just want to start with this. Obviously, we'll turn to tariffs in just a moment. But it was a big day for your party, a big day for Democrats up and down the ballot. Yesterday, Democrats achieved two governorships in New Jersey and Virginia. There was a big vote in your state supporting redistricting. What message do you take away from what we saw from voters last evening?
BONTA: A couple. One, that the status quo is not working for voters. It was very much a referendum on Trump. He wasn't on the ballot, but he was essentially on the ballot. Folks were pushing back against his policies. And it turns out that people like the rule of law, they like democracy, they like the Constitution. They want hungry people to be fed. They want Americans to have affordable health care. They don't want our cities to be militarized, and they don't want tariffs that raise costs, and they don't want ICE as masked agents all over our cities either. So that was, I think, declared loud and clear by the voters who came out.
SUMMERS: Let's turn now to those tariffs and to the Supreme Court. In your role as attorney general of the state of California, you filed a friend-of-the-court brief in this case. And as I understand it, at the core of your argument, one that is supported by California's governor, Gavin Newsom, is that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act - or IEEPA - it does not cover the use of tariffs. Am I understanding that correctly?
BONTA: A hundred percent correct. Tariffs are taxes. Congress has the power to tax. It's in Article I of the United States Constitution. The statute upon which the president relies to impose tariffs of 10% to 145% across nearly all of our trading partners, it doesn't mention the word tariffs once. And in other statutes where the federal government wants to give authority to the president, they mention the word tariffs. They delegate that authority clearly. Also, IEEPA has never been used in nearly 50 years of its existence to impose a tariff by any prior president. So he doesn't have the authority. We think it's very clear. And the U.S. Supreme Court argument today, I think, surfaced those key issues very clearly.
SUMMERS: There have, though, been other rulings under a previous statute that said that tariffs are indeed within the president's power to regulate trade. How would you respond to that?
BONTA: When a statute gives the power to impose tariffs by the president, they say it. And they use the word tariff or other clear language. There's no such clear expression of delegation of tariff authority to the president in IEEPA. So IEEPA has never been used for imposing tariffs by any president. And that's the statue that...
SUMMERS: But I think, though, about the precursor to IEEPA, which was the Trading with the Enemy Act, which was enacted then during World War I. And that has been brought up in this case.
BONTA: It has been brought up. And that was not a U.S. Supreme Court case.
SUMMERS: Right.
BONTA: IEEPA was a statute that was passed by Congress after the Trading with the Enemy Act, and it was meant to create constraints and restrictions. And every other statute that confers tariff-making authority on the president says it. IEEPA did not. And so the prior case on the Trading with the Enemy Act does not get the government where they hope to go here with the broad-ranging, unlimited authority to impose tariffs against any country for any amount for any amount of time.
SUMMERS: This tariff case is one of a number in which you're fighting the Trump administration. If I'm correct, there are 46 lawsuits to be exact, some of these aimed at accessing federal funds that have been withheld by the Trump administration. There was another suit over the use of the National Guard in the state of California. Some observers might take a look at the number of lawsuits out there and say that you are using the courts as a way to thwart policies that you simply do not agree with politically. What would you say to that?
BONTA: I think it's interesting that they would draw that conclusion as opposed to saying, wow, the president is really violating the law a lot, because that's what's happening. And that's all that we look at. It's not partisan. It's a legal question. Is he breaking the law? Do the facts justify our case? Is he hurting our states? And so we only have one position. If he breaks the law, we sue him. If he doesn't break the law, we don't. I think the proof is in the pudding.
We've brought 46 cases in 41 weeks, more than one a week. We're winning over 80% of the time, securing temporary restraining orders, preliminary injunctions, permanent final injunctions and judgments in cases. So that means he's breaking the law and that we're right. And we only, you know, look at these cases from a sterile, dispassionate perspective. Is he breaking the law? If the answer is yes, we sue him. And the courts' decisions have shown that we're right and that he's breaking the law.
SUMMERS: Now, as I take stock of all of these suits, they're really all about the use and limits of presidential power. And the Trump administration is really continuing a trend that we've seen politically for decades of the executive branch claiming these broad powers. Explain to me why this case is different.
BONTA: This is part of the sort of fringe theory of a unitary executive, that the executive branch has expansive power that is not conferred upon it by the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution very clearly has three coequal branches of government. The president has been acting as if he's a king, a monarch, a tyrant. And the Constitution rejects that fact. And so this tariffs case is an example of the president overreaching, again, trying to seize authority that is not his, trying to take from Congress their authority, trying to trespass on Congress' constitutionally given authority. And so it requires the court to interpret the law and render an order that says get back in your lane, Mr. President. You do not have the authority here. You're exercising authority that does not belong to you. It belongs to Congress. And you cannot impose tariffs.
SUMMERS: This is a court that we've seen in the past, though - the makeup of this particular court - that has seemed inclined to preserve a rather muscular identity of the executive power, a muscular understanding of what that looks like. Do you expect this case to be any different?
BONTA: I do, based on what I heard in the courtroom today. There's definitely some on the court, not all, but some who believe in a more muscular executive branch. But they also read the Constitution, are going to interpret the Constitution as it should be interpreted. And they can clearly read like anyone else can that the Constitution says that Congress has the power to tax, and that tariffs are taxes, and that unless clearly delegated to the president, the president cannot exercise that congressional authority. And they had a lot of discussion today about the plain and unambiguous text, the legislative history, the historical precedent and context. And I think a lot of signs for hope that there's no indication that the president has the authority that he thinks he has.
SUMMERS: Before I let you go, I do just want to bring this back to the stakes for American households, for American consumers. If the Supreme Court does indeed uphold President Trump's use of emergency powers to impose these tariffs, what does that mean for everyday people, including in your state?
BONTA: Devastating. And it's already been devastating to workers, to families, to small businesses, to moms-and-pops just trying to survive. Costs have gone up. California is projected to have an economic hit of $25 billion, lose 64,000 jobs. California is the biggest state in the nation, fourth largest economy in the world. We are the largest importer of any state, the second largest exporter, the largest agriculture exporter, the largest manufacturer. We are an outsized economy, and so these tariffs have an outsized impact on California.
And it's about everyday people, who deserve better than to have a president who is breaking the law, making their cost of living higher and hurting them. And businesses don't have predictability or certainty. This has been a war on Christmas. The shelves will be empty and/or the cost will be much higher. And Americans deserve better than a lawless president making their costs higher in a time when they need their costs, and they deserve their costs, to be lowered.
SUMMERS: California Attorney General Rob Bonta, thank you so much for being here.
BONTA: Thanks for having me, Juana.
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SUMMERS: To see the full interview on camera, check out the video on npr.org or YouTube.
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