Right-wing media splits over Trump tariff loss

Late Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial with a headline that read like a prescient sigh of relief: “The Embarrassing Truth About Tariffs.” By Friday morning, the Supreme Court had done something far more consequential than scolding Donald Trump’s trade fantasies — it kneecapped them. In a 6–3 ruling, including two of Trump’s own appointees, the Court declared that most of his sweeping tariff regime was illegal. And by Friday evening, in a display of wounded bravado that has become his signature move, Trump took to Truth Social to announce a new global 10% tariff on all nations, as if the Constitution were a suggestion and not the supreme law of the land. Overnight, he upped the ante on his “retribution” for countries “ripping the U.S. off,” raising the tariff to 15%. The Journal’s op-ed following the ruling ripped Trump’s rant, calling it “arguably the worst moment of his Presidency.”

When tariffs hurt corporations, the establishment recoils.

But the more surprising result of the Supreme Court’s ruling has been the reaction of right-wing media beyond the Wall Street Journal. Fracture lines in the MAGA coalition that first emerged during the summer of 2025 are now gapping ruptures. The response to the decision from conservative media revealed a movement unsure whether to defend the institutions it once claimed to revere, or to demand open defiance of them.

For years Trump has insisted “I alone can fix it.” Now the Supreme Court has delivered a blunt reminder that he alone cannot set trade policy. That power, it said, belongs to Congress. 

Trump had attempted to impose his sweeping tariff regime in April 2025 by executive fiat through a 1977 emergency statute that never once uses the word “tariff.” His authority, he claimed,rested on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a statute meant to give presidents limited authority during genuine national emergencies. Instead Trump treated the IEEPA like a blank check, slapping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike under the pretense of emergency authority. According to estimates, the Treasury Department has collected roughly $175 billion in tariffs under his supposed IEEPA authority. That money came out of the pockets of American importers, and because importers pass costs downstream, it ultimately came out of the pockets of U.S. consumers. According to the Tax Foundation, the IEEPA tariffs cost American households roughly $1,000 each. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has already demanded a $1,700 refund for each Illinois family. 

Only Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented in the Court’s ruling. The rest of the conservative majority, which includes Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored the decision, joined liberals Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. 

The president could have taken the Court’s ruling as an off-ramp. He could have declared victory and admitted that perhaps trade policy is best crafted through the democratic process. Instead, he doubled down in remarks to reporters, impugning the justices in the majority as “fools and lapdogs for the RINOS and the radical left Democrats.” Trump accused them of lacking “the courage to do what’s right for the country” because they have “been swayed by foreign interests” and are “unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.” He also insisted that he still didn’t need Congress, directly contradicting the Court’s ruling.

Asked by a reporter at the White House if he regrets nominating Gorsuch and Barrett, Trump came undone. “I think it’s an embarrassment to their families — you wanna know the truth — the two of them.” But the president heaped praise on the dissenters, writing in a Truth Social post Saturday morning, “My new hero is United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and, of course, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.”

JD Vance took to X to call the ruling, which upheld the law, “lawlessness from the Court, plain and simple.” In the same breath, the vice president lamented that the president’s power has been limited. Echoing Vance, the official X account of the Notre Dame College Republicans urged “Trump to defy the Supreme Court’s lawless, disgusting ruling today.” Speaking with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, top White House aide Stephen Miller called the court’s ruling “cowardly” and “horrendous.”

But Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice president, celebrated the decision with special cause; his organization, American Freedom, had filed an amicus brief in the case. “I’m proud of the work our organization has done…to advance economic freedom and defend the Constitution,” he wrote. Marc Short, the former vice president’s lieutenant, was less restrained in rubbing the decision in Trump’s face. 

There is something almost Shakespearean about it: the vice president who once refused to help Trump overturn an election now cheering as the court dismantles another of Trump’s power grabs. Revenge may be a strong word, but accountability certainly isn’t.

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On Fox News, the reaction to the Court’s decision oscillated between delusion and rage. Jesse Watters claimed Trump had “gotten the Panama Canal back,” brought Greenland “into our orbit,” boosted NATO funding and even settled wars — all through his use of tariffs. It was a fever dream of geopolitical conquest. His co-host Greg Gutfeld, less inclined toward magical thinking but no less aggrieved, told the “people that are gloating” that they can “Shut the f**k up.”

Others on the right sought scapegoats. White nationalist provocateur Nick Fuentes posted a bitter “Golden Age Update” on X, listing everything gone wrong with Trump’s agenda from rescinded tariffs to a “Midterm defeat guaranteed.” 

Some of the loudest anger was directed toward Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was the architect of Trump’s tariff strategy. At the same time he was pushing the president to weaponize IEEPA, Lutnick’s sons — whom he installed to run his financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald — were reportedly considering buying up the rights to potential tariff refunds at 20 to 30 cents on the dollar. The company, now under their control, positioned itself to profit handsomely if the tariffs were struck down and refunds issued at full value, a charge the firm denies. Still, the conspiratorial corners of the right smelled something rotten. Infowars’ Alex Jones called it “next-level insider trading.” Comedian and podcaster Andrew Schulz, who endorsed Trump in 2024, described it as “the Epstein Class playbook 101,” concluding that ordinary Americans are merely “a vessel for them to exploit for their own enrichment.” When your own influencers start using the language of oligarchy, you have a problem.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried to contain the damage. Speaking at the Economic Club of Dallas, Bessent rebuked “gloating Democrats” and the “ill-informed media” as he vowed the administration would press ahead with the tariffs using alternative powers, although he later conceded on Fox News that “the Supreme Court has taken away the president’s leverage.” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, for good measure, insisted on Fox News that the administration has no regrets over its tariffs policy. 

All of this sets a remarkable stage for Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. When asked on Friday if the justices are still invited, the president replied that he “couldn’t care less” if they attended. Only a year ago, he warmly shook Roberts’ hand, thanking him for the immunity ruling that shielded Trump from criminal prosecution. 

At the core of Trumpism is the image of a strongman unconstrained by norms or institutions. For now, much of the right-wing media is urging Trump to go on the offense. MAGA pundits on X are calling for the president to use his address to attack the Court directly. They are spoiling for a fight — because even a Supreme Court with a pronounced pro-wealthy tilt can recognize a naked power grab when it sees one.

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