Sipa USA/AP
President Trump’s favorite Supreme Court justice right now is the appointee who refused to restrict the president’s tariff agenda.
After the high court ruled against him in his tariff case on Friday, Trump has repeatedly singled out Justice Brett Kavanaugh in praise—the only one of Trump’s three appointments to dissent against the majority opinion that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, does not give Trump authority to impose tariffs.
Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, who Trump appointed in 2017 and 2020 respectively, sided with Chief Justice John Roberts and the liberal justices in the majority opinion.
“I would like to thank Justice Kavanaugh for his, frankly, his genius and his great ability. Very proud of that appointment,” Trump said during the press conference following the Friday ruling. During that address, Trump claimed, without providing details, that the loss in the Supreme Court “made a president’s ability to both regulate trade and impose tariffs more powerful and more crystal clear rather than less.”
Trump initially announced that he would impose a global tariff of 10 percent, invoking a law never before utilized by a president which allows the executive to “impose an across-the-board tariff for 150 days unless Congress agrees to extend it,” according to the New York Times. On Saturday, per a Truth Social post, Trump raised the amount to 15 percent—the cap for this kind of tariff imposition.
It’s unclear how this global tariff will impact trade negotiations with world leaders. It’s also unclear, and not covered in the ruling, if the executive office will be refunding any retailers impacted by the previous tariffs. Estimates place the total amount that Trump has collected under IEEPA between $133 billion and $175 billion.
Amid Trump’s strong rebukes of the justices who opted to deny the overarching presidential authority, he continued to lavish praise on Kavanaugh, who, according to a recent Marquette Law School poll, has the lowest net favorability among all of his peers.
“I’m so proud of him,” Trump said of Kavanaugh on Friday, repeatedly citing his dissent.
“My new hero is United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday morning, before mentioning the other two men who sided with him: “and, of course, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.” Despite dissenting from his liberal colleagues in the recent tariff case, Kavanaugh is the conservative justice most likely to side with liberals in outcomes, according to an analysis by SCOTUSblog.
Trump has long championed Kavanaugh, providing strong support for the appointee during his controversial approval process in 2018. When Christine Blasey Ford had accused then-nominee Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school, Trump called for his followers to pray for him and his family. After Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the alleged assault, which she reportedly detailed to her husband and therapist several years prior, Trump wrote that Kavanaugh “is a fine man and great intellect.”
Around a year later, in 2019, the Times published another sexual misconduct allegation against him, spurring calls for his impeachment. Kavanaugh denied both of the women’s accounts.
Trump again came to the rescue: “Can’t let Brett Kavanaugh give Radical Left Democrat (Liberal Plus) Opinions based on threats of Impeaching him over made up stories (sound familiar?), false allegations, and lies. This is the game they play. Fake and Corrupt News is working overtime!,” Trump wrote at the time, adding the hashtag “#ProtectKavanaugh.”
