News

(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Thursday lashed out at federal judges who have blocked President Donald Trump from being able to impose global tariffs — a key part of his second-term agenda.

Trump, who has a long history of going after judges whose rulings he disagrees with, as of Thursday afternoon had yet to weigh in on two courts deeming some of his tariffs as “unlawful.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, though, opened her briefing with a lengthy attack on the legal setbacks. She called it “judicial overreach” and called on the nation’s highest court to step in.

“These judges are threatening to undermine the credibility of the United States on the world stage,” Leavitt said. “The administration has already filed an emergency motion for a stay pending appeal and an immediate administrative stay to strike down this egregious decision. But ultimately, the Supreme Court must put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution and our country.”

The Court of International Trade on Wednesday struck down Trump’s global tariffs as “contrary to law.” A federal appeals court is temporarily delaying the ruling while the administration challenges the ruling, reinstating the policy for now.

The three-judge panel had found the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump leaned on to enact his tariffs, does not give him the “unlimited” power to impose the levies he has in recent months. They said it the authority for most tariffs rests with Congress, and Trump’s tariffs don’t constitute “unusual and extraordinary threat” that would allow him to act unilaterally.

Leavitt criticized the panel as “activist judges” despite its three members being appointed to the bench by three different presidents: Trump, Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan.

“The president’s rationale for imposing these powerful tariffs was legally sound and grounded in common sense,” she said. “President Trump correctly believes that America cannot function safely longterm if we are unable to scale advanced domestic manufacturing capacity, have our own secure, critical supply chains, and our defense industrial base is dependent on foreign adversaries.”

“Three judges of the U.S. Court of International Trade disagreed and brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump, to stop him from carrying out the mandate that the American people gave him,” she added.

Leavitt also touted the Republican-controlled Senate declining a bipartisan measure put forward to block Trump’s tariffs. That measure failed by the slimmest of margins in a 49-49 vote.

“Following Liberation Day, Congress firmly rejected an effort led by Senator Rand Paul and Democrats to terminate the president’s reciprocal tariffs. The courts should have no role here,” she argued.

When Trump announced his long-anticipated “Liberation Day” tariffs against nearly all U.S. trading partners in early April, he deemed chronic trade deficits a national emergency that “threatens our security and our very way of life.”

Since then, he’s often changed or delayed the tariff rates originally set out, often resulting in market turmoil. A 90-day pause on the higher, so-called “reciprocal” levies instituted so Trump could work on trade deals is set to expire in early July.

ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott asked the White House if its actively reviewing other methods to implement Trump’s tariff agenda in light of the court orders.

“The president’s trade policy will continue. We will comply with the court orders. But yes, the president has other legal authorities where he can implement tariffs,” Leavitt said.

“We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” Leavitt said.

ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh and Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — A federal appeals court is temporarily delaying Wednesday’s court order blocking President Donald Trump’s tariffs, reinstating them at least for the time being.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an administrative stay of the decision while it considers Trump’s appeal.

The administration earlier Thursday urged the New York-based Court of International Trade to delay its order, warning that enforcement of the ruling will cause a “foreign policy disaster scenario.”

In an opinion on Wednesday, the three-judge panel struck down Trump’s global tariffs as “contrary to law.”

The judges found that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — which Trump used to enact his tariffs — does not give him the “unlimited” power to levy tariffs like the president has in recent months.

“The President’s assertion of tariff-making authority in the instant case, unbounded as it is by any limitation in duration or scope, exceeds any tariff authority delegated to the President under IEEPA. The Worldwide and Retaliatory tariffs are thus ultra vires and contrary to law,” the judges wrote.

According to the judges, Congress, not the president, has the authority to impose tariffs under most circumstances, and Trump’s tariffs do not meet the limited condition of an “unusual and extraordinary threat” that would allow him to act alone.

On Thursday, a second federal court determined that Trump’s global were “unlawful.”

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras said in an order the International Economic Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give the president the power to impose most of his recent tariffs.

Notably, the decision from Contreras – an Obama appointee – only restricts the Trump administration’s ability to collect tariffs from the two companies that filed the lawsuit, Learning Resources, Inc., and hand2mind, Inc.

The Department of Justice on Thursday requested a stay to Wednesday’s ruling, saying it’s needed “to avoid immediate irreparable harm to United States foreign policy and national security.”

“It is critical, for the country’s national security and the President’s conduct of ongoing, delicate diplomatic efforts, that the Court stay its judgment. The harm to the conduct of foreign affairs from the relief ordered by the Court could not be greater,” lawyers with the Department of Justice argued.

According to the administration, the court order would strip the president of leverage in trade negotiations, imperil the trade deals already reached, and make the country vulnerable to countries that “feel a renewed boldness to take advantage of” the current situation.

Responding to the ruling, White House spokesman Kush Desai evoked the trade deficit and said, “It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” adding that that the administration is committed to using “every lever of executive power to address this crisis.”

The Trump administration had quickly filed a notice of appeal to challenge Wednesday’s decision.

The case now heads to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit where they could ask for a stay of the order.

The Court of International Trade issued the decision across two cases — one filed by a group of small businesses and another filed by 12 Democratic attorneys general.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford called the ruling “a win for the rule of law and for Nevadans’ pocketbooks.”

“I am extremely pleased with the court’s decision to strike down these tariffs; they were both unlawful and economically destructive,” he said. “The president had no legal authority to impose these tariffs, and his unlawful actions would have caused billions of dollars of damage to the American economy.”

Since Trump announced sweeping tariffs on more than 50 countries in April, his administration has faced half a dozen lawsuits challenging the president’s ability to impose tariffs without the approval of Congress.

New York Attorney General Letitia James called the decision a “major victory for our efforts to uphold the law and protect New Yorkers from illegal policies that threaten American jobs and economy.”

“The law is clear: no president has the power to single-handedly raise taxes whenever they like. These tariffs are a massive tax hike on working families and American businesses that would have led to more inflation, economic damage to businesses of all sizes, and job losses across the country if allowed to continue,” James’ statement continued.

Lawyers for the small businesses alleged that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — which Trump invoked to impose the tariffs — does not give the president the right to issue “across-the-board worldwide tariffs,” and that Trump’s justification for the tariffs was invalid.

“His claimed emergency is a figment of his own imagination,” the lawsuit said. “Trade deficits, which have persisted for decades without causing economic harm, are not an emergency.”

During a hearing earlier this month, a group of three judges — who were appointed by presidents Obama, Trump and Reagan — pushed a lawyer for the small businesses to provide a legal basis to override the tariffs. While a different court in the 1970s determined that the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 — the law that preceded the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — gave the president the right to impose tariffs, no court has weighed whether the president can impose tariffs unilaterally under the IEEPA.

During a May 13 hearing, Jeffrey Schwab, a lawyer from the conservative Liberty Justice Center representing the plaintiffs, argued that Trump’s purported emergency to justify the tariffs is far short of what is required under the law.

“I’m asking this court to be an umpire and call a strike; you’re asking me, well, where’s the strike zone? Is it at the knees or slightly below the knees?” Schwab argued. “I’m saying it’s a wild pitch and it’s on the other side of the batter and hits the backstop, so we don’t need to debate that.”

The ruling marks the first time a federal court has issued a ruling on the legality of Trump’s tariffs. In May, a federal judge in Florida nominated by Trump suggested the president has the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs, but opted to transfer the case to the Court of International Trade.

-ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration is urging the New York-based Court of International Trade to delay its order blocking President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, warning that enforcement of the ruling will cause a “foreign policy disaster scenario.”

In an opinion on Wednesday, the three-judge panel struck down Trump’s global tariffs as “contrary to law.”

The judges found that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — which Trump used to enact his tariffs — does not give him the “unlimited” power to levy tariffs like the president has in recent months.

“The President’s assertion of tariff-making authority in the instant case, unbounded as it is by any limitation in duration or scope, exceeds any tariff authority delegated to the President under IEEPA. The Worldwide and Retaliatory tariffs are thus ultra vires and contrary to law,” the judges wrote.

According to the judges, Congress, not the president, has the authority to impose tariffs under most circumstances, and Trump’s tariffs do not meet the limited condition of an “unusual and extraordinary threat” that would allow him to act alone.

On Thursday, a second federal court determined that Trump’s global were “unlawful.”

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras said in an order the International Economic Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give the president the power to impose most of his recent tariffs.

Notably, the decision from Contreras – an Obama appointee – only restricts the Trump administration’s ability to collect tariffs from the two companies that filed the lawsuit, Learning Resources, Inc., and hand2mind, Inc.

The Department of Justice on Thursday requested a stay to Wednesday’s ruling, saying it’s needed “to avoid immediate irreparable harm to United States foreign policy and national security.”

“It is critical, for the country’s national security and the President’s conduct of ongoing, delicate diplomatic efforts, that the Court stay its judgment. The harm to the conduct of foreign affairs from the relief ordered by the Court could not be greater,” lawyers with the Department of Justice argued.

According to the administration, the court order would strip the president of leverage in trade negotiations, imperil the trade deals already reached, and make the country vulnerable to countries that “feel a renewed boldness to take advantage of” the current situation.

Responding to the ruling, White House spokesman Kush Desai evoked the trade deficit and said, “It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” adding that that the administration is committed to using “every lever of executive power to address this crisis.”

The Trump administration had quickly filed a notice of appeal to challenge Wednesday’s decision.

The case now heads to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit where they could ask for a stay of the order.

The Court of International Trade issued the decision across two cases — one filed by a group of small businesses and another filed by 12 Democratic attorneys general.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford called the ruling “a win for the rule of law and for Nevadans’ pocketbooks.”

“I am extremely pleased with the court’s decision to strike down these tariffs; they were both unlawful and economically destructive,” he said. “The president had no legal authority to impose these tariffs, and his unlawful actions would have caused billions of dollars of damage to the American economy.”

Since Trump announced sweeping tariffs on more than 50 countries in April, his administration has faced half a dozen lawsuits challenging the president’s ability to impose tariffs without the approval of Congress.

New York Attorney General Letitia James called the decision a “major victory for our efforts to uphold the law and protect New Yorkers from illegal policies that threaten American jobs and economy.”

“The law is clear: no president has the power to single-handedly raise taxes whenever they like. These tariffs are a massive tax hike on working families and American businesses that would have led to more inflation, economic damage to businesses of all sizes, and job losses across the country if allowed to continue,” James’ statement continued.

Lawyers for the small businesses alleged that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — which Trump invoked to impose the tariffs — does not give the president the right to issue “across-the-board worldwide tariffs,” and that Trump’s justification for the tariffs was invalid.

“His claimed emergency is a figment of his own imagination,” the lawsuit said. “Trade deficits, which have persisted for decades without causing economic harm, are not an emergency.”

During a hearing earlier this month, a group of three judges — who were appointed by presidents Obama, Trump and Reagan — pushed a lawyer for the small businesses to provide a legal basis to override the tariffs. While a different court in the 1970s determined that the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 — the law that preceded the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — gave the president the right to impose tariffs, no court has weighed whether the president can impose tariffs unilaterally under the IEEPA.

During a May 13 hearing, Jeffrey Schwab, a lawyer from the conservative Liberty Justice Center representing the plaintiffs, argued that Trump’s purported emergency to justify the tariffs is far short of what is required under the law.

“I’m asking this court to be an umpire and call a strike; you’re asking me, well, where’s the strike zone? Is it at the knees or slightly below the knees?” Schwab argued. “I’m saying it’s a wild pitch and it’s on the other side of the batter and hits the backstop, so we don’t need to debate that.”

The ruling marks the first time a federal court has issued a ruling on the legality of Trump’s tariffs. In May, a federal judge in Florida nominated by Trump suggested the president has the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs, but opted to transfer the case to the Court of International Trade.

-ABC News’ Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Thursday put new limits on the scope of federally mandated environmental impact statements for major transportation and energy projects, clearing the way for a proposed rail line linking Utah and Colorado and for more expeditious approvals of similar construction programs nationwide.

The decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County was 8-0. (Justice Neil Gorsuch recused from the case but did not explain his decision.)

The dispute, the first of its kind in 20 years to reach the court, focused on the purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which requires federal agencies to study the significant environmental effects of a project and identify alternatives to mitigate any harms.

The law, known as NEPA, has been the basis of major litigation by groups opposed to particular projects, which frequently sue to block construction by alleging that the impact study was incomplete or inaccurate.

Industry groups have long complained about years, even decades, of costly delays to get projects completed.

Acknowledging those concerns, Justice Brett Kavanaugh writing for the majority said use of NEPA to stymie energy and infrastructure programs has gotten out of hand and needs to be curtailed.

“A 1970 legislative acorn has grown over the years into a judicial oak that has hindered infrastructure development under the guise of just a little more process,” Kavanaugh wrote. “A course correction of sorts is appropriate to bring judicial review under NEPA back in line with the statutory text and common sense. “

Kavanaugh said the law imposed merely a “modest procedural requirement,” related only to the project at hand, not a mandatory study of possible upstream or downstream impacts far afield from actual construction.

The proposed 88-mile railway at the heart of the case, linking the oil-rich Uinta Basin of Utah with the national rail network in Colorado, has undergone years of environmental study. Its impact statement exceeds 3,600 pages of analysis.

Environmental groups challenged the study, however, saying it failed to consider secondary impacts of exporting millions of gallons of oil to refineries along the Gulf, such as the risk of oil spills in the Colorado River, pollution in the Gulf and greenhouse gas contributions to climate change. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed.

The groups told the Supreme Court that approving the railway could also mean heightened risk of oil spills, train spark-induced wildfires and enhanced greenhouse gas emissions nationwide.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who opposes the railway project, lamented the high court decision in a statement, saying the court had approved a “risky scheme to transport waxy crude oil along the Colorado River, right alongside our most critical water resource and posing major risks to Colorado’s Western Slope communities.”

The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, which supports the railway, said those downstream risks are too far afield and beyond the scope of the law and that the project has fallen victim of bureaucratic red tape.

“The effects from a separate project may be factually foreseeable, but that does not mean that those effects are relevant to the agency’s decision making process or that it is reasonable to hold the agency responsible for those effects,” Kavanaugh wrote. “In those circumstances, the causal chain is too attenuated.”

The opinion said judges should show “deference” to the agency officials preparing the environmental impact statement.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred with the judgment but wrote separately to explain their reasoning.

Proponents of the rail line, who have pitched it as an economic boon for the country, say it will help extract hundreds of thousands of gallons of waxy crude oil and drive down energy prices for consumers.

“The Supreme Court has issued an important corrective to the current judicial approach to the National Environmental Policy Act,” said University of Minnesota Law School professor James Coleman, who specializes in energy and transportation law, “demanding more deference from courts for the agencies performing judicial review and explaining why it is inappropriate to demand agencies to consider the upstream and downstream effects of energy transport projects.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Despite previous claims from the Department of Defense that the United States has officially accepted the luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar, the United States and Qatar have not yet finalized the details of the agreement, which are still being reviewed by the prospective legal teams, according to a White House official and sources familiar with the discussions.

A White House official stated that the White House’s legal team is currently finalizing the details of the gift, working on a memorandum of understanding — or MOU — between the United States and Qatar. The Washington Post first reported the news.

The plane from Qatar is currently in the United States, according to sources familiar with the matter as well as President Donald Trump, who confirmed the plane was here. However, Qatar wants to clarify the details surrounding the transfer, specifically emphasizing that the Trump administration was responsible for initiating the discussions about the donation of the luxury jet to the U.S. government, sources familiar with the negotiations said.

“As the President has said, this will be a sovereign-to-sovereign gift to the US Air Force,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.

As ABC News first reported earlier this month, the aircraft is expected to be available for use by Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time the ownership of the plane is expected to be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Last week, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that the Pentagon had officially accepted the luxury jet from Qatar.

“The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations,” said Parnell, adding that the Department of Defense would “work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the president of the United States.”

The Trump administration’s plan to accept the luxury jet donated by the Qatari government to use as Air Force One has raised significant security concerns, according to intelligence experts and government officials.

Democratic lawmakers have expressed concerns that the plane could pose significant security risks and potentially grant a foreign nation access to sensitive systems and communications, raising counterintelligence issues. Conversely, Republican lawmakers have questioned the president’s decision to accept a gift from a foreign nation, also raising intelligence concerns.

“Any building or vehicle or airplane that the president is located is a high-value target for foreign intelligence services who want to gather as much information about the president,” said John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and former acting Homeland Security official.

For his part, Trump said “it would be stupid” not to accept the free plane and has called the gift from Qatar a “very nice gesture.”

“I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer,” Trump said earlier this month. “I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’ But it was, I thought it was a great gesture.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.