We got breaking news. Supreme Court overturns the emergency tariffs. Uh Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. We want to hear from you.
Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now, your host, Logan Secula. Welcome to Secula. We made it to another Friday. Here we are.
Thought today maybe we'd be talking about Iran, but no, the Supreme Court has ruled on President Trump's tariff policy. We'll get into that. What it looks like, definitely not a win for President Trump, though it is a little unclear all of the little nuances that come out of the Supreme Court.
So, we're going to break a lot of that down coming up. Also, phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. I'm sure if you lie to you, you have a lot to say about this tariff situation.
So, make sure to join us for the next hour. We're going to be here again at 1-800. 684-3110 to have your voice heard on the air today. Later on in the show, we're actually going a little different here. We're going to join a segment I did for CCM Magazine by John Michael Finley, who is the star of I Can Only Imagine 2, which comes out in theaters today.
So that's going to be to wrap up the show.
So, something a little bit different. to wrap up your week, but that's going to be a lot later.
So let's cover the breaking news story right now out of the Supreme Court of the United States. Will, what's up? That's right.
So, we got the opinion this morning from the court, and the short version of what they found is this: this comes from the opinion from Chief Justice Roberts. Fulfilling our role, we hold that the IEEPA, which is International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Does not authorize the President to impose tariffs, therefore, overturning and upholding an appeals court judgment which blocked the use of tariffs under this statute. But it's a lot more complicated than that.
So, top line is that they overturned the use of the tariffs under this Emergency Economic Powers Act. But what does it mean in reality?
Well, there's a lot of that that we'll get ahead to. But once again, this is one of those opinions that we've spent all morning kind of looking at, consulting with the attorneys at the ACLJ, getting a readout on. But just listen to this. Because this is how convoluted sometimes these opinions come down. Yeah.
Chief Justice Roberts announced the judgment of the court and delivered the opinion of the court with respect to parts one, two, two. 2A1 and 2B, in which soda myore, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson joined. And an opinion with respect to parts 2, A2, and 3, in which Gorsuch, Barrett joined. Gorsuch and Barrett filed concurring opinions. Kagan filed an opinion concurring in part.
In concurring with the judgment, Sodomayor and Jackson joined. Jackson filed an opinion concurring in part concurring with judgment. Justice Thomas filed dissenting opinion, Kavanaugh filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas and Alito joined.
So a lot of opinions out there, a lot of dissents out there. We'll break it all down for you. But once again, sometimes these very nuanced questions of law come down in a very convoluted way when it comes to the Supreme Court based off of ideologies, the way that the law is read. And we'll get into all that to explain it.
So hopefully you can understand better what this actually means. And what this does mean, at least it gives you, if you want to look for a positive spin, it gives you a talking point to maybe some of your more liberal friends and neighbors when they go, Supreme Court is overrun by Trump supporters who only will do what President Trump has to say.
Well, clearly not. Because they ruled how they felt. The law should be The standard as the law should be. They did not vote on it. on political lines.
Now, again, you can agree and disagree, and I certainly see the comments. A lot of you clearly disagree with the Supreme Court of the United States in this moment. We are going to take your calls and comments at 1-800-684-3110. This is a great time to get on hold. We're going to take a lot of calls today.
Just me and Will today. Then later on, we have John Michael Finley joining us from I Can Only Imagine 2. But a packed show. Be a part of it. And I want you to support the work of the ACLJ at aclj.org if you can.
You can sign those petitions that we have, you can get involved, you can check out the app, all those things are great, but they're all available because people like you support financially. You're gonna ask you to do today. It's the end of the week. Become an ACLJ champion if you can. That's someone that gives on a monthly basis, like a membership.
It can be at any level. $5 and up, really. I'd just love to see the amount of champions go up this year. We've kinda been the same, I'll be honest, ever since we launched. Let's get that number up higher.
Become a new ACLJ champion today if you are, or up your donation if you can. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone calls are coming in right now. We're certainly going to take some.
We need to reset a little bit because a lot of you are just joining us right now. Maybe you haven't seen the news this morning. The Supreme Court, as the title suggests, dealt a pretty massive blow to President Trump and the Trump administration, saying that their rules on tariffs overall will be considered a loss.
Now, there are some nuances to it. We do have to break it down. And we're going to discuss other topics as well, including a potential preemptive strike, smaller strikes that could come from Iran. We got a little alien talk because we know that President Trump last night put out a statement saying we're going to start declassifying a lot of the conversations surrounding UFOs, UAPs, all of those things. We'll discuss that a little bit, why this is happening right now, why President Obama may be to blame, but we'll discuss that.
And then later on the show, as I said, we're going to have John Michael Finley star of I Can Only Imagine Two.
So, Will, let's break this down again. That's right.
So, I'm going to start with the opinion because, really, there's a tale of two opinions here, the way I see it. And one is the opinion of the court-that is, the chief justice that authored that. And has the majority in parts and on the judgment.
So at the end of the day, sometimes you get a concurring opinion on some of it, but not all of it.
So the real opinion of the court is only part of what the author wrote. This, they also concur in the judgment.
So at the end of the day, Even the Liberal members said, hey, we agree, let's overturn the tariffs, even if we don't agree with all of your rationale for why. Um What this all stems from is the President used the Emergency Powers Act, the international International Emergency Economic Powers Act, IEPA, is what it's called for short. And he declared early in his term a national emergency both on drug trafficking, and that's how he handled a lot of the tariffs with the southern border and other countries that may enable trafficking in some ways, as well as the trade deficit emergency. And that is where the vast majority of the global tariffs landed. And this suit that was brought against the administration was from a company that was saying that they were being harmed by it.
It's Learning Resources Incorporated et al. There were other members that joined on with that, but they were the head of the plaintiffs here. And they were bringing it against the United States to try and overturn these, saying it's harming their business and that it was beyond the President's scope of power. And the court agreed with them to a degree, saying that the fact that this law. Aippa.
has the words regulate and importation. Does not give the authority to levy tariffs or duties. And I'll read from page five. It says: based on the two words separated by 16 others in section 1702A, one, whatever, of IEPA, regulate any importation, the President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country of any product at any rate for any amount of time. Those words cannot bear such weight.
So they are saying that this broad interpretation of IEPA does not grant the authority for the President to use what they describe as and is correct a tax. That the power to impose tariffs, this is also from the opinion, is very clearly a branch of the taxing power. They cite Gibbons v. Ogden, and they say a tariff, after all, is a tax levied on imported goods and services. And they continue to go on until they give their final.
Judgment: That we claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold IEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.
So, all that to say, the opinion. says that Tariffs are a tax, and that the Congress, in giving this law, IEPA. Did not specifically grant the power to the President to use the taxing power through tariffs. And because of that, it is Congress's role only to levy taxes. Therefore, Because it doesn't explicitly say it, this broad interpretation will not stand and we overturn the tariffs.
We got a lot of calls coming in. A lot of them are very similar, I'll be honest.
So we're going to kind of try to sort through these.
Now, Cliff's an ACLJ champion, so Cliff gets to go first. Cliff's calling from Illinois. Cliff, go ahead. Yeah, so hello. What I would said to this screener is, listen, if you take a tool out of the President, the executive branch, if he doesn't have emergency powers, deal with unreasonable nations, whoever they may be, But thou brutus What would be his only decision to go after ones that are being unreasonable with us?
Either you go to my wins. Or I'm going to bind you to oblivion.
Well, I mean, Cliff, that is part of the the problem that Justice Kavanaugh saw with this ruling. And I want to bring that up as well, because the court, once again, is also only talking about peacetime. This emergency, International Emergency Economic Powers Act. is dealing with emergencies that the President declared, but not necessarily wartime tariffs, which there are other laws that deal with that, because this isn't we are not at war with every country in the world, and these were global tariffs. But here is the concern, Cliff, that Justice Kavanaugh brought.
One is that he says in his dissent: the sole legal question here is whether under IEPA tariffs are means to, quote, regulate importation. The statutory text, history, and precedent demonstrate the answer is clearly yes. Like quotas and embargoes, tariffs are a traditional and common tool to regulate importation. And he goes on to even draw the analogy of which the chief pushed back and did not agree with, but that The predecessor to this law was Trading with the Enemy Act. And in 1971, President Nixon imposed a 10% tariff on almost all foreign imports.
So the President using the predecessor to this law, Richard Nixon. did a basically a blanket tariff of 10%. That was upheld. By the Supreme Court in the seventies.
Now, this is a new law that kind of replaced that Trading with the Enemy Act, which had different language, but kind of kept the same core language when it came to this. That's where Justice Kavanaugh is saying: look, Congress didn't specifically then ban The tariff portion. Of which was upheld by this court. And then he also goes on to say: this is going to create a mess, by the way, because there's a bunch of other statutes that allow the President to impose tariffs.
So he goes on to say, and I think this is a fascinating statement, is that he says, Basically, in essence, the court today concludes that the President checked the wrong statutory box by relying on IEPA rather than another statute to impose tariffs.
So the court didn't even say the President can never impose tariffs. They just said maybe he filed it incorrectly. Exactly. That maybe using IEPA, which was a quicker way to do it than some of these other statutes, that they're just saying under IEPA, no tariffs. Justice Kavanaugh had a big problem with that.
He brought the wrong document to the DMV, tried to get that real ID, and that's what happens, okay? You know, it sometimes takes you a few times to go back.
Well, don't say that. That may make people think, oh, maybe the SAVE Act's not a good idea. Yeah, I don't know. Go back a few times. That's true.
There are a lot of comments coming in asking specifically about, okay, what does it mean for the tariffs right now? Like as of today. Are they done? Do they not exist? Where are we now with those tariffs?
Including, by the way, some of you who are in small business who have maybe had some concerns with the tariffs. That's right.
And I think we're looking at a little relief here. When it does come to it, and maybe we should wait for the next segment and we can take that call. But as of this, that the tariffs that were imposed under IEPA. Are the the lower court is upheld that that blocked them.
So therefore, they are going to no longer be in effect. Yeah, and in theory, that would be But here's another problem here's another problem.
So the government's no longer going to be collecting the tariffs. But they've collected billions of dollars of tariffs. One thing the court didn't address, and it is remanded back to a lower court.
So maybe we will see something out of a lower court of how to address this. But the Supreme Court didn't address how to handle the money That they're now saying was collected improperly, which are billions of dollars. And even Kavanaugh points with that, saying that this is going to be a situation because we don't even say. How it says the refund process is likely to be a mess. And how is that going to Play out at this point?
We don't know at this stage of the game. President Trump will be holding a press conference a little bit later, so we'll be covering that if there is anything that comes on. We're also going to be discussing the potential for a limited strike. To Iran, that may or may not be coming sooner than later. We'll discuss that.
Come up. Got a question or comment about that. Give me a call at 1-800-684-3. 3110. Of course, the ACLJ always in big legal fights when you hear the Supreme Court.
I hope you think of us first. We got two cases. Headed to the Supreme Court of the United States, potentially, and this critical period, we're going to need your support financially or even just your prayers. We appreciate that as well. But if you can give and become a champion today, it's a recurring monthly donor, mascotingaclj.org.
Those cases, you know, the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Calvary Chapel, defending it against Governor Newsom's attempt to crush it. Under $1.2 million in fines that were enacted during the pandemic. still trying to cash in on those $1.2 million in fines. And In this week, the Supreme Court just ordered CNN to respond to our petition.
So, you know, that's going to be a fun one as well. These are two that I know you are on our side, and I want you to be a part of it. It's the important work of the ACLJ. Go to aclj.org today, become a champion if you can, read more, watch more, get engaged. We'll be right back on Sekulow.
Welcome back to Sekulow. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-30110. I want to take a call, actually, right off the bat that we were discussing in the previous segment. Let's go to Trevor, who's calling on line one. Trevor, go ahead.
Yes, I want to know, first of all, this Supreme Court really seems very off to me. And number two, with the way our economy is going, As a mom and pop business owner, and I'm calling from Texas, by the way, how would this affect us immediately, especially? getting goods from other countries.
Well, here's also part of the problem that Justice Kavanaugh brought up, is that based off of the ruling, the President has the power to regulate the trade. He could shut off The entirety of foreign imports. Just say we're no longer importing anything.
Now, obviously, that would destroy our economy. Here's the direct quote. As they interpret the statute, meaning the majority, the President could, for example, block all imports from China. but cannot order even a $1 tariff on goods imported. From China.
So that that goes back to them. Point of it. If you then put the President in a corner and say, hey, you can't do the tariffs, then this President is going to find ways to push back on the things that he sees are harming the economy, such as the trade deficit.
So, could he start blocking trade with countries? Yes, he could. And I think, even under the way the Supreme Court ruled on this, they would say, Yeah, you're allowed to do that under this law. You just aren't allowed to use a tariff.
Now, here is the question to the mom and pop shops as well. One, in the short term, it may not harm the businesses as much as it's going to be a big mess for our government because of the refunds that the government may have to pay back to those that were the importers that paid the tax. Because once the goods come in, The person that brought them in pays the tax to the government on it. And then that tax, that tariff, is normally baked into the price that then goes to the businesses.
So a lot of mom and pop shops, unless they are directly importing and not getting from an American supplier, They're already baked in at that price. It shouldn't affect. What you could see, though, is that prices on goods in the United States that are imported will go down, which in turn, once again, could also bring demand back to mom and pop shops for certain items that maybe weren't selling as good. Yeah, I mean, look, let's just be honest. There has been economic issues that have come with the tariffs.
A lot of people like you who have called in or people that are supportive of President Trump have said, I'm willing to take on those, but it doesn't mean the cost of goods haven't gone up. It doesn't mean importing things haven't gone up. And we know this. Look, I'll be honest, we're currently in the process of redoing a studio space and just camera gear, those kind of things have gone up.
sometimes by thousands of dollars. Multiples out so your budgets have just doubled and tripled. Sure. That may be a bit of a relief as we start rebuilding here, but that doesn't necessarily mean we agree or disagree with the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States. Right.
And that's why it is a complex question as well. And when you talk about tariffs, you talk about what. The government originally was funded in this country through tariffs. One of the very first taxes that Congress, as is their authority under the Constitution, one of the first tax bills they wrote was a tariff bill. And that is how they raised revenue for the government.
That is not to say that. Where this lands, that doesn't mean that that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's just it was how it was done. Then you had people like Woodrow Wilson, and you had the income tax law that was then not supposed to be for the entire country, only the top 1% of earners, and it was a very small percentage. And then now we have a very progressive income tax system.
What the President was doing here was using tools of the past, one, to keep people in check, but also to his own admission, was raising revenue for the government, which may have been some of the downfall in this case because the justices did see that. And they relied so heavily on the revenue portion, even if, as Justice Kavanaugh points out, that. Listen, there's precedent here that we could have allowed this. The President was very proud of the fact that he was raising revenue for the country through this means, and that is traditionally the congressional role. And what do we know about Chief Justice Roberts?
If he can find a way to make it a tax, he's going to make it a tax and find a way out of it. He loves a tax. Right. Let's take another call about this. Look, I want to know from you.
We have a second half hour of this show coming up. We have a lot of you watching right now. We have some other topics we wanted to hit today. What's going on in Iran? Of course, there's some talk of alien talk and what that looks like with the UFOs and President Trump making a big statement last night.
What does that look like? Is that a distraction? Is it real? We can break all that down. Or do you want us to stick on this topic?
Let me know in the comments. What you'd like us to do. I do want to say one thing. We had someone that said, buy Americans, stop lying about your camera equipment. A lot of equipment is made In China, in Japan.
If you want to see us on a broadcast, Uh which we do every day. Those items are made not in America. Yes, I agree that the goal and what the President wants is more things to be manufactured here, but you cannot buy the types of cameras to produce this type of show. Can we use the Japanese? Right.
Sony. I mean, anything you're looking at is made not in America.
Now, there may be American companies, but they're also not making them here.
So, yes, and if you are expanding, if you're doing a studio, everything is going to go up and down. It's going to go up because those countries that manufacture them, even if you're buying it through an American company. That's getting hit with a tariff.
So, that is just a little bit of the way that to correct everyone. Look at the computer you're watching us on, or the phone you're watching us on. If you're on YouTube right now, you likely are watching or interacting with us by a non-American-made piece of technology. Yes, you have an Apple iPhone, which, of course, is Apple is an American company and it says designed in California. Designed in California, but where is it manufactured?
You know, this is why you have to kind of look at a broader scope on this. And that's why I said, look, there may be some economic relief on certain things. But that doesn't necessarily mean you agree with what the Supreme Court's ruling. Phone lines are completely jammed. We are going to take your calls coming up at 1-800-684-30-1-TIM.
I want to take this last minute of this half hour. One, if you don't, Get the full hour of the show.
Some of you on local terrestrial radio, you only get a half hour. You can find us live every day. Record pre-record post later on whenever you ever get your podcast. You can find us on aclj.org, however, get your podcast, YouTube, all that. We are live every day, 12 to 1 p.m.
Eastern Time. That's available on ACLJ.org, on YouTube, on Rumble, on the Salem News Channel, a lot of different sources, SiriusXM, that carry us for the full live hour. We want you to be a part of that conversation. What's great if you interact on YouTube or Rumble or Facebook is you can be a part of a chat, a group of people who are like-minded or sometimes not, and have great conversations. I feel like the side conversations sometimes get more interesting than the show itself.
Be a part of that community. You can find all of it at aclj.org because we do have a full second half hour coming up. Like I said, at the end of the show, we're going to be joined. It's a special I did for CCM Magazine with John Michael Finley from the new movie, I Can Only Imagine 2. It'll be a nice way.
To wrap up your week here with us.
So you want to stay tuned for that. But again, we only got 45 seconds in this second half hour. Find us later on or find us archived at aclj.org. But we're live right now for another half hour. But if we do lose you here, you got other things you got to do.
Become an ACLJ champion while you're at it. That is someone that supports the work of the ACLJ Monthly. You sign up like a membership. And again. You can do that at any level.
We consider all of you monthly supporters ACLJ champions, whether you're given $5 a month or $500 a month.
So, do it today if you can. Create that great baseline for us. We really could really appreciate it. Gives us a great way to budget, plan out our year.
So, if you're watching right now, you can scan the QR code or easily just go to aclj.org/slash champions. We'll be right back. Keeping you informed and engaged now more than ever. This is Sekulow. And now, your host, Logan Sekulow.
Second of our Sekulow, here we are. We're doing it, it's a Friday. And of course, the Supreme Court decided this morning: let's make a ruling, let's make a lot of you angry, let's make some of you happy. And that is, the Supreme Court said those Trump tariffs. Probably not going to pass the mustard.
Is that what they say? Is that a thing? Cut the mustard. Past the mustard. Mustard?
I don't know. Is that something? Yes, you're close, but you've fried my brain so much. When you just said that, I can't even think of it right now. You know what I'm saying?
Pass the baton. No, I don't know what we're doing here. Second half hour of the show. Let's restart. Will I think we should restart?
Oh, we're live. Oh, no, we can't do that. Second half hour of the show right now, we're talking about tariffs. And that's right, President Trump says, there's nothing to laugh about. No, I knew what your reference there was.
That was really funny. Tariffs. Have been ruling. We've already lost a bunch of things. That's right.
Here's what's going on. The Supreme Court this morning released an opinion. That's what I said, mustard. Yeah, it doesn't pass muster. Yeah.
Yeah. Colonel mustard. There you go. That's mustard. The Supreme Court held in a 6-3 decision that the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
AIPA, as they say, does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.
So, what that practically means is all of the tariffs that the President put forward under the This rationale under these emergency powers are no longer valid. That is what the Supreme Court held this morning in a 6-3 decision. We have actually some fascinating stuff to break down in the next segment about that. Let's take a call. Let's go to a call.
What's a hard reset? Ernest in Kentucky, line two, watch it on the sale news channel where we're live each and every day. Go ahead. Yes, it just drives me crazy that Congress wants us to go to Congress. I live in Kentucky, and Rand Paul is mad because he says Donald Trump should come to Congress, but nobody in America believes Congress can get anything done.
Why should we depend on Congress? How can we depend on Congress to do this when they won't do anything? Congress. Go ahead. Well, Ernest, the reason we should is the Constitution.
We are a constitutional organization. Even at frustrating times, the Constitution is still what guides our government. And we don't want to move away from that because as soon as you say we can't rely on Congress, let's do whatever we want, then when you lose the next election, the people you don't want to be making those same decisions will be doing it and they will go even further.
So, yes, we do need to rely on the Constitution. We do need to lean into this.
Now, Justice Cavanagh thinks that the interpretation here was the incorrect one of the statutes that Congress has passed. The majority of the court did not agree with that for a variety of reasons. The liberal members of the court did not necessarily agree on the same reasons. Can we break down the votes? Who voted for what?
So, once again, that's what I did that was very convoluted at the beginning. But we had that effectively the Chief Justice, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Barrett, and Justice Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson were the six that made up the majority on the judgment. Their rationales were a little different for certain things, but and I think we can explain a little bit of that in the next segment. But what you see is a very strange time. Where some of the more textualist, those that interpret the law based off of what the words say, which is the more conservative.
Uh ideology.
Somehow we're in the same camp because of the people that didn't like the policy. What the Supreme Court ruled here wasn't basically we think it's a bad policy. They just ruled that we don't think the statute allows for this. Hey, a bunch of lines just opened up. Maybe we just turned off a lot of people.
That's why we're talking about it.
Well, we laughed. Ernest called in. My favorite film, Ernest Goes to Congress. Different one. Phone line.
I'm talking about Ernest Goes to Kentucky.
Well, Ernest from Kentucky Goes to Congress. Ernest was a good call. I liked him. I want to count how many times we said Congress in the last segment. It was a lot.
That was like a 200 Congress count. 1-800-684-3110. Get on the air today. We've got one more segment. We're going to take calls.
In the last segment, we're going to be joined by John Michael Finley, star of I Can Only Imagine 2, which is in theaters today. Again? It's Friday, everybody. Give us a call. Even if it's a little off topic, that's okay.
1-800-684-30-110. Last chance to get on the air for the week. If you want to call in at 1-800-684-3110, again, we are talking about tariffs. The Supreme Court ruled. You may have saw on the break there was a little alien talk.
If you have a question about that, that's fine. President Trump did last night. Untruth Social said he has directed Secretary of War. Pete Hagseth and any other relevant agencies to start the process of identifying, declassifying, releasing the files related to extraterrestrial life. UAPs, UFOs, what that looks like.
That was after President Obama made a statement essentially kind of confirming that he believes there are aliens, but he didn't see any and they weren't being kept in Area 51, unless it's an extra, you know, that's a whole other conversation. Is this just a moment of President Trump kind of pouncing on a social media moment? Maybe so. It's also one of the things that kind of has come with the President Trump presidency, which is giving more transparency to a lot of the conversations that have been rather on the Kennedy files or anything like that. Things that people have been curious about as Americans for decades.
And even if it doesn't give you what you want, maybe it will give you some answers. With that, though. We really still have to continue on talking about the breaking news of the day, of course, the Supreme Court ruling. And the Supreme Court got a little nuanced, as we said. It's not necessarily as cut and dry as it maybe appeared.
And they certainly wanted to make it feel. That it was maybe a bit more bipartisan. And with that, there were some references within the opinion that Will pointed out. That we'll think you we think you're going to find pretty interesting.
Well, and once again, this is from the opinion written by the chief. And when they he lays out very much a textualist argument about the power to tax, the power to impose, which once again, I know a lot of you are having deja vu from Obamacare, but even though he created a tax in that instance and upheld it, this was saying it's a tax, and so therefore I am overturning it. And goes through the, you know, the back through the founders and the federalists and all of the different writings about why the unique power should lie within the Congress and originate in the House of Representatives. And then, as he goes through this rationale, this is on page seven. Talking about Not reading too much into vague language to grant another branch of government's.
power to the other branch unless it's explicitly said. And this is very interesting. And I think this is why, even if you disagree with the ruling. You need to think that the judicial philosophy of some of the justices that ruled in this way. You can't just write off because a lot of times If they're using this same philosophy, they're going to rule with you.
And so I want to read this: it says, We have long expressed reluctance. To reading into ambiguous statutory text, extraordinary delegations of Congress's powers. And he cites West Virginia versus the EPA. In Biden versus Nebraska. For example, this was from 2023.
We decline to read authorization to waive or modify statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs as a delegation of power to cancel $430 billion in student loan debt. In West Virginia via the EPA, we declined to read authorization to determine the best system for emissions reduction as a delegation of power to force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal.
So the chief here is showing that We're not making any claim about the policy. me here, me writing as the opinion of the court, is saying this is a textualist argument. Where, and I have done the same, this court has done the same when it came to Biden canceling $430 billion in student loan debt. And The way that the EPA was trying to use a vague. Wording in a law to force America away from coal.
Those are two things that are initiatives. And rulings that conservatives were very happy with because they the court saw that the executive branch was overstepping and relying on vague language.
Now, I tend to agree more with the history and the way that Justice Kavanaugh laid it out. But I think that you can't take this as an unserious anti-Trump move the way that the ideological reasoning came forward. And so I I know that it's it Whenever you don't agree with the Supreme Court, it's always easy to go after the court, the members of the court. The left is the one that's like, pack the court. We don't need to be that on the right.
Also You can't just write off individuals. Typically, if you have a more conservative judicial philosophy, you're going to see more rulings you don't agree with. If your more liberal living document philosophy, They find ways to always make the ruling fit the ideology. And in conservative judicial philosophy, a lot of times you end up seeing things you don't agree with. Things that you may have filed in opposition to.
Because that's a more true conservative mindset of being able to look at the Constitution and read it. Once again, I really like the way in the dissent that Justice Kavanaugh laid this out. I wish that was the opinion of the court, and it certainly was written in a way that it could have been. When you read the way he lays out how President Nixon used very similar statutory language to impose a global 10% tariff. I think that he's nailing it there, but that's not the way that it came out this time.
All right, I want to jump in because it'll be our last chance for calls to get some. Let's go to Patrick in Texas, ACLJ champion. You're up first. Patrick, go ahead. Patrick, you there?
Good morning. Go ahead. Can you hear me?
Okay. Good morning, Jordan and Will. I am a a customs broker representative. I do tariff codes. Um I've been doing this job for fourteen years.
And I saw all the imports that came in with zero. Uh duty. For all these years, and it made me sick because everybody's going offshore. and bringing stuff back in At at free free.
Okay, while they're while these other countries are charging us absorbent Amounts of tariffs. Right. And that, Patrick, was the conversation the whole time. President Trump said, Look, it's not fair. It's not balanced at all.
We are getting tariffed going in, but of course, bringing stuff to America, they're coming in with no issues, and our companies are able to do this. That's right.
And to that point, Patrick, that was part of the trade deficit issue that President Trump issued an emergency over.
Now, as Justice Kavanaugh points out, there's other ways to impose these tariffs. It may take a little bit longer. I don't think he's done with this as an issue. Yep. All right.
Thank you, Patrick, for calling in. Let's move on. Let's take another call. Let's go to Kay, who's calling in Indiana online three. Kay, go ahead.
Yes, I just listened to uh the previous caller from Kentucky And so I think the question that I asked Congress had already in the bylaws given the President, or Congress had given a President. power for tariffs. That's what they the Supreme Court was arguing on. Is that ruling? Is that what this is about?
Yeah, essentially, yes. I mean, he worked its way up. Here's what Justice Kavanaugh even said: He said: Since early in U.S. history, Congress has regularly authorized the President to impose tariffs on imports of foreign goods. That's the truth.
What this was about wasn't whether a President, under some laws, could impose tariffs. It was under the specific law that he used. And what the court decided here was that using this International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Was an improper way to impose these tariffs.
So it doesn't mean the President can never again impose tariffs or that some that were imposed in a different way won't stand, but is specifically ones that use that emergency power to be imposed. We'll see what the fallout is over it, probably over the next couple of days.
So stay tuned to this show. We'll make sure we'll keep it covered on it. Charles and Nancy, unfortunately, we're not able to get to your calls today. Appreciate you calling in. Thankfully, you didn't have to hold too long, but we'll get to you next week if you want to call back in.
I want to take a minute here as this is kind of the last pitch for us because in the next segment, we're going to be joined by John Michael Finley from I Can Only Imagine Two. Last pitch to say become an ACLJ champion today. If you're thinking about ways to support our work, it's a great way to do it. You choose the level of what you'd like to do, whether it's $5 and you can go higher than that. You can go up to as much as you want.
Each month, you'll be charged as a member. And what that does create an amazing budget for us, baseline for us. We're able to say, here's what the ACLJ could do. We know we've got about 20,000 of you that have joined to become ACLJ champions. I'll be honest, that number has stayed pretty consistent and pretty stable.
Stagnant for a long time. I appreciate the 20,000 people who do that, but let's get that number higher. You know, you can do it. Become a supporter if you can. Again, you can start as little as $5 a month at ACLJ.
And become a champion. Help us out. as much as you can, but that's a great way to start. With that, in the next segment.
Some of you don't know, another thing I do. My family, we do CCM Magazine, which has been around since the 70s, and we do great Christian media coverage that is on our website on ccmmagazine.com. I had an opportunity to sit down with John Michael Finley, star of I Can Only Imagine Two. Which comes out in theaters today. This is a shorter version of it.
This is like an eight-minute version of it. We went on for about 20. You can find the full thing on our website. But with that, we always want to show you some great entertainment options out there for your family, great faith-based entertainment options. This is a really good one.
Go check it out. It's a great little conversation. But more importantly, I want you to go check out I Can Only Imagine 2 this weekend in theaters. We'll be right back with John, Michael Finley. Today is release day for I Can Only Imagine 2.
I had the pleasure of talking in studio with the star of the film, John Michael Findlay, who plays Bart Millard. Again, I Can Only Imagine 2. Out today, take a look. A lot of attention, a lot of buzzes right now on I Can Only Imagine 2, which comes out. This Friday, February 20th.
We are excited in studio with us today, John Michael Finley. You know him as. As Bart Millard, once again. And it's exciting. I saw this movie a number of, probably about two months ago now.
I went to an early, before it was even finished. Cut of the film. We've changed everything. Oh, no.
Well, then I'm going to be completely, it's a totally different story. It's not what you're expecting. And it's great. I think for a lot of us though, Because it's been several years since the first, I can only imagine. I almost said I can imagine.
I tried to avoid saying I can only imagine, but. It's got to be interesting for you to... I've never thought of a rock biopic really getting a sequel. Was this ever in the cards? Did you think this was in the cards that you'd be coming back to this character?
Absolutely not. No, we wrapped up the last one like.
So nicely, such a nice little bow we put on it, and it's a true story. And so, along with that, we're like, you know, is there more story here? And I'm kind of the last one on the list that was notified that a sequel is happening. You know, you're not going to inform the cast until you have to. Why?
Why? And. Of course, a few reservations about what would the script be like, what would the story be like. But man, as soon as I read the script, I was like, holy cow. They put together another incredible project.
You know what I mean? And it really, I mean, the first film obviously was a lot about the father-son dynamic and this very unique situation that Bart was under.
Now the roles are kind of reversed, and we're now dealing with another father-son situation with you and your child. At this stage of your life, personally, I'm just curious, and where you are in your career, and now that we're in multiple years since the original. Does that version of the story connect with more with you now? Spooky, man. It's spooky.
Um You know, the first film, I was not married. No kids. Young man in my mid-twenties. Never done a movie before, and I'm just hanging on to the roller coaster. And it was amazing, and it was life-changing, but you know, only in hindsight do I really have, you know, much clarity.
And this time around, uh, I'm a father, I'm a husband, I've had some life experience. It's been about 10 years, you know, it'll be 10 years this fall when we started filming the first one. And For me, it may as well have been 30 years. Man, all of us came out of the pandemic. I lost my mom pre-pandemic, and so a lot of big life changes for me, but also as an artist, more experience.
Imagine was my first film, and thankfully, after that, I was able to do some other projects, more Broadway shows. And coming back for this one now as the father and the husband. And the middle-aged guy dealing with w w it was uh It was breathtaking but therapeutic at the same time. Yeah, because in this chapter of the story, Bart's obviously, now mercy me, is successful. Everything is great, huge tours.
But you are right that it deals with, as a dad, A lot, though, maybe it's to the extreme in some instances because of the medical situations that him and his son were dealing with. A lot of it is the normal dad stuff, which is you're now dealing with the fact that you have to remind your kids to brush their teeth, tie their shoes, and take their medicine. Which is its own struggle. Which its own struggle. And I'm watching it going, oh man.
And in some ways. Uh Bart's kind of the antagonist in this movie. I mean, that's where the sort of the story has flipped, which is you definitely come out of this one with a different side of him, and throughout the movie, you f I related to him, but I also could see The negative in it.
Well, I'll tell you what. No, not the bad guy. No, you feel it in the movie in some way. I'm just going to say the same thing. And if I have to be the bad cop, so be it.
Like, yeah, I'm sure we we're gonna talk about it eventually, but bringing Milo Ventimilia in to let Tim Timmons be the light in the darkness of this story, let me play the bad cop. And as an actor with a ferocious appetite, Bring it on. You know what I mean? So it was such a fun challenge to really step now into this much heavier. Much darker world.
And there were a few edits of the film, from my understanding, that were too heavy. I've heard that. And they even had to trim it back a little bit. And that's not me patting myself on the back. That's me saying, let's make something real.
Let's tell a true story. And it's so real and vulnerable and raw that people are like, I don't know how, just what you said. I don't know how I feel about that. I connected with it. But I don't know if I connected with it in a positive way.
I think in the screening went to Bart came out in the end. He was like, Yeah, I'm sorry. It was such a jerk.
Sorry about that because you are kind of a very beloved character. You're playing a beloved character and a beloved man. Maybe one of the. Silliest, sweetest guys you meet in Christian music is someone who is willing to be the butt of the joke, is willing to be a prankster. And then to watch this story unfold after we met you 10 years ago as this character, and then to see where he's ended up.
I mean, I guess there are moments in cinema where this has happened, where, you know, where we ended with Luke Skywalker and the Return of Jedi, where we picked up with him 30 years later, it can be jarring. And you're like, oh, this isn't necessarily the hero to the story. Obviously, We get to the good parts. It's not like this movie is just filled with sadness. But that was such a unique turn for, especially for a movie that's in the faith category to be like, here's your hero.
Let's turn it all upside down. But that's how I felt from day one. I mean, I remember having a Zoom call with the two co-directors, and I said, Our audience will follow us. You know what I mean? Like, I think we have a long leash, not just because the first film was successful, but like people are going to be rearing for this sequel.
You know what I mean? And, but that's, that's because I had already read the script and I knew that it was a quality story. But, you know, I think we can take some risks and I think we can be vulnerable and be raw and be real. And I think it might be jarring at times, but I think people will so appreciate it and connect with it because it feels real. It does feel real.
And like I said, the tension that's there between the father and son relationship and even the band and Bart, the whole thing, again, very where's Fun Bart? Yeah. What happened to Fun Bart? What happened to him? But that's true for a lot of us.
How many dads, I mean, how many of us wear a mask? It's not that Bart's not actually a fun guy. That is real Bart. They're both real Bart. But don't we all have this Jekyll and Hyde, this yin and yang that.
And I think part of Art would be Tim Timmons if he hadn't suffered through some of the trauma that he's suffered through. Maybe Bart would be the light in the darkness, but he's just carrying all this emotional weight that he can't always be that for everyone. And a lot of us, like I said, go through A lot of unseen, like I said, trauma that can change the way you parent everything. How do you feel that other dads, or what do you want other dads to kind of walk away from this movie feeling? Like, I did feel like, okay, I got to get some of my priorities in order.
Like, there were definitely moments of like clarity coming from it, but also, again, it's not like all doom and gloom. There is, there is hope for the dads in the room. Yeah. I think this is a big one for the dads. I mean, how you know how many bikers and truckers and gang members after the first film came out and said, I got so emotional during that film because my relationship with my father.
I called my dad. I before I even left the theater, I called my dad, or my dad's no longer with us. And this movie affected me. Guys that were probably dragged to the cinema by their wives or their children. And we've had similar responses testing this film.
There was a situation where someone stood up and kind of said I don't know why Bart's acting like this and this and this and this. It's too... And then another guy stood up and said, I don't want to argue and disagree. But I feel exactly that way. And another gentleman stood up and said, I feel exactly.
And 10 gentlemen stood up and said, We're not arguing with you, but like, I felt exactly that way. I think that's you can't really argue with it. Yeah. And I felt that way when we were in the screening. It was a really interesting group of people.
But all of us, there's a lot of tears flow, and there's a lot of people getting very emotional over Over this movie, how many movies are encouraging middle-aged men? Right, right. Not a whole lot. But I'm so proud that we're covering so much ground that in many ways I'm a preacher's kid from the Bible Belt that is sometimes taboo that we don't feel comfortable talking about. And I'm so glad that we at least attempted to have the courage to be raw and vulnerable and tell those stories.
Yeah, and I hope everyone goes see. I can only imagine too. It's this weekend in theaters. And John, it's been a pleasure to just chat with you. And I look forward to what's next.
All right, that's going to do it for today's show. I appreciate everybody tuning in. Go to aclj.org for more information. Again, thanks to John Michael Philly, all our guests, all our callers. We'll talk to you on Monday.
Uh
