Tariffs, Emergency Powers, and the Limits of the Presidency (with Ilya Somin)

It started with a blog post. When the Trump administration invoked emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs, law professor Ilya Somin suggested in passing that someone ought to challenge it in court — and then found himself co-counsel in the case that reached the Supreme Court.

In this episode, Aaron Ross Powell talks with Somin, professor of law at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School and the Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, about how V.O.S. Selections v. Trump came together, why the Court held that the IEEPA doesn't authorize tariffs at all, and what the major questions and nondelegation doctrines mean for presidential power. They also explore what should count as a genuine "emergency," why the courts alone can't restrain executive overreach, and how litigation and ordinary politics have to work together to keep power in check.

Further Reading

• Liberty Justice Center and I File Lawsuit Challenging Trump's "Liberation Day" Tariffs — Ilya Somin, The Volokh Conspiracy

• Ilya Somin Wins Major Victory Over Unconstitutional Tariffs — Institute for Humane Studies

• Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter — Ilya Somin, Stanford University Press

More from Liberalism.org

• Liberalism's Uneasy Relationship with Democracy — Ilya Somin

• Federal Courts, Local Wrongs: Growing Federal Power Means Less Accountability — Radley Balko