Dear Weekend Jolter,
President Trump’s trade-policy misadventure on Friday reached its inevitable destination: a Supreme Court rebuke to his use of emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote,
The President asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and scope. In light of the breadth, history, and constitutional context of that asserted authority, he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it.
IEEPA’s grant of authority to “regulate . . . importation” falls short.
IEEPA is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump relied on to wage a global trade war. The opinion notes that those two quoted words, as contained in the statute, “cannot bear such weight” as to allow the unilateral imposition of essentially unlimited tariffs, anywhere.
The decision was 6–3, and, as Dan McLaughlin writes, “Frankly, Trump was lucky to get three votes for his position.” As for what comes next, he notes that Trump “will need to go back to the drawing board to find a different legal basis for presidential tariff power.” Congress has granted some such powers, “but none as extensive and unconstrained as the emergency presidential powers Trump claimed to locate” in IEEPA.
Indeed, Trump vowed in a post-ruling press conference to press ahead with a 10 percent global tariff using different authority, while blasting the Court and calling the outcome “disappointing.” One significant unresolved matter, which Trump mentioned, is the possibility of refunds for the tariffs, as sought by a number of businesses. That’s not to mention the status of the trade deals struck under the tariff gun or the impact on U.S. budget projections.
You can read more from our editorial here. And from a well-timed editorial earlier Friday morning explaining why Trump’s obsession with and views on trade deficits are misguided. And from Dan’s analysis posts.
Jim Geraghty gets the last word(s) on this subject:
The president’s power is not checked merely by his own morality and his own mind. His power is held in check by the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of that Constitution. It is worth remembering that the president begins his term by taking the oath of office, swearing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” If you walk around insisting that the only limit on your power is your own mind, you are not preserving, protecting, or defending the Constitution and its limits on the power of the presidency.
Today’s newsletter will be a two-parter, as the tariff news required some last-minute reworking. Now on to part 2.
Unpacking the Baggage of the 2028 Democratic ‘Front-Runners’
On his podcast this week, Senator Ted Cruz described Gavin Newsom and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the front-runners for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.
That’s a reasonably safe prediction two years out, presuming Stephen A. Smith doesn’t become the next political star and Kamala Harris’s RCP polling lead is illusory. While the list of potential Democratic candidates is ever-expanding, the two who most clearly possess the political version of what Gen Zers regrettably call “rizz” would be that bicoastal pairing.
They also carry unique vulnerabilities, which are starting to attract more attention. Jim Geraghty, writing in the daily Jolt, unpacked one of the big ones that could hamper a Newsom 2028 campaign: the staggering un-affordability of the state he governs:
Each year, U.S. News and World Report ranks each state on a wide variety of categories. In the most recent assessment, California remained dead last in affordability, remained at 45th for growth, and remained at 47th in energy infrastructure.
There were a few areas of minor comparable improvement; California moved from 47th to 46th in employment and from 46th to 45th in air and water quality. But more categories got a little worse: California dropped from 42nd to 43rd in public safety, dropped from 37th to 38th in K–12 education, and most glaringly, dropped from 42nd to 48th in short-term fiscal stability.
In 2025, the Tax Foundation ranked California 48th in its most recent State Tax Competitiveness Index. It remains ranked 48th in the 2026 rankings. . . . In 2024, BankRate found California was the 47th-best state for retirement. In 2025, that had improved to 43rd; the state still ranks 48th for local taxes and 46th for affordability, 43rd for safety, but ranked first for weather. At least the state government can’t screw that up.
At a time when affordability is a party shibboleth — short for “the thing we suddenly stand for, as long as you have absolutely no follow-up questions” — the cost-of-living reality in California is a conspicuous problem that Newsom can expect to confront in his all-but-certain campaign.
AOC is fortunate in that regard. As one of 28 members of the New York congressional delegation, she need not be accountable for the cost of living in her state or city (that’s the mayor’s burden). But she is, or will be, accountable for her understanding of and coherence on foreign policy, and her international-stage foray at the Munich Security Conference did not evince much of either.
No doubt by now you’ve encountered her stumbles from the forum. To sum up, the congresswoman: scoffed at Western culture, botched South American geography, inaccurately fact-checked Marco Rubio on cowboy culture, and gave a garbled and halting answer on whether the U.S. should commit troops to defend Taiwan. As Charles C. W. Cooke puts it, “One could dissect her words for the next ten years straight, with the best of intentions, and still one would not glean anything coherent or useful from them.”
Jeff Blehar, channeling Brian Cox, writes:
If Munich was meant as a test run for AOC ’28, then Ocasio-Cortez can thank her lucky stars that it was just that — a test run, an audition. With her charisma and power among her base, she will get more. We will see if she can raise her game, but needless to say, I am doubtful.
One of Kamala Harris’s biggest image problems was that she regularly served up word salads so bountiful as to send Amy Klobuchar in search of a comb. AOC is a better public speaker than Harris and not nearly so prone to cringe. With a modest amount of study, she could avoid the pitfalls and parodies that also hurt, say, Sarah Palin, while counting on encouraging treatment from the press when she flubs. But even if she tightens up her responses on geopolitics, what she stands for — “warmed-over democratic socialism” — won’t change. For all the hype surrounding Zohran Mamdani in New York, their shared belief system remains a handicap for any candidate running nationally, at least in a general election. Capitalism, while taking a reputational beating, is still substantially more popular than its alternative. This is America, after all.
Perhaps that is why Cruz gives Newsom the edge — and AOC the slighting title of “the id of the Democrat Party.”
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
Economists vindicated: Trump Was Always Wrong About the Trade Deficit
The filibuster is too high a cost: The SAVE Act’s Virtuous Goals Are Not Worth the Cost
Mamdani meets math: Mamdani’s Utopian Vision Faces Reality
On Munich: Rubio’s Impressive Tightrope Walk
ARTICLES
John O’Sullivan: Following Munich, the U.S.–European Relationship Faces a Key Moment
Päivi Räsänen: I’ve Faced Years of Criminal Prosecution — for Exercising Free Speech Rights in Europe
Dan McLaughlin: Trump Crypto Corruption and the Failure of Lawfare
Rich Lowry: The Greatest Sports Story Ever Told
Charles C. W. Cooke: The Interest Rate Panic Is Historically Illiterate
Christian Schneider: In Politics, Social Media Has Supplanted Experience
Audrey Fahlberg: Exclusive: RNC, NRCC Sue Virginia Election Officials over Dem Redistricting Gambit
Jim Geraghty: Stephen Colbert and James Talarico Are Lying to You
John Puri: Abolish the FCC’s Equal-Time Rule
Noah Rothman: Two More Trans Killers Carry Out Atrocities
Jennifer Tiedemann: Why Dale Earnhardt’s Legacy Still Matters
Richard Brookhiser: Remembering Jesse Jackson
Kamden Mulder: Major Manhattan Hospital, Massachusetts Health Care System End ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors
Mike Pence: Religious Freedom Is Syria’s First Test
Daniel J. Flynn: What Would George Washington Do?
CAPITAL MATTERS
Patrick M. Brenner writes on the pernicious effect of litigation on retirement savings: Sue-Pervised Retirement
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Brian Allen heads to Hartford to view a collection of daguerreotypes that are as exquisite as he expected. Check out the vivid St. Anthony Falls; it might have you wishing for a revival of the obsolete photo form: America’s Earliest Outdoor Photographs Shown at Hartford’s Wadsworth Atheneum
Giancarlo Sopo pens a tribute: Robert Duvall Left No Seams
Armond White, on the cheap political messaging of an Oscar nominee: The Bogus Americana of Train Dreams
FROM THE NEW, APRIL 2026 ISSUE OF NR
Tal Fortgang: Radicals Are at the Door
Noah Rothman: The Clock Ticks in Iran
Audrey Fahlberg: Dr. Oz Brings Sanity to Gender Policy
Amity Shlaes: How to Teach Young People to Argue Well
John Puri: Waymo Fun: The Self-Driving Car Revolution
Jack Crowe: The Revolutionary Figure Chiseled from Vermont Granite
Ross Douthat: Wuthering Heights Is Gothic Barbie Smut
Rob Long: Three’s Company: President Newsom, VP AOC, and First Lady Newsom Tell All
EXCERPTS IN ABUNDANCE
The new issue of NR is out, and the cover is on “The Radical Factory” (the art is just superb). Highlights are above, the whole issue is here — and Tal Fortgang kicks things off with his essay on the rise of the DSA:
The Democratic Socialists of America are ascendant, poised to remake the Democratic Party in their image. To hear Democratic politicians and major media outlets like the New York Times tell it, all the DSA wants is for America to be more like Norway: safe, egalitarian, and governed by an overweening yet benevolent state. America under the DSA would certainly resemble Norway — if Norway’s leaders loathed their own country, were committed to undermining its interests, and actively supported a global anti-Norwegian movement.
The slightest bit of digging into the DSA’s leadership, communications, publications, and activities reveals that the DSA is nothing less than an anti-American subversion campaign, rooted in Marxist ideas and maintaining terrorist sympathies. The DSA doesn’t even try to hide it — and why should they? Like all good Marxists, they believe that their revolution is imminent and inevitable.
Zohran Mamdani’s rise from no-name activist to gadfly New York State assemblyman to New York City mayor is emblematic of the DSA’s trajectory. The DSA vows that Mamdani’s victory is just the beginning of “a political movement of and for the working class that can defeat the oligarchy and win the political revolution.” Mamdani appeared to moderate his views slightly to ensure that he would cross the finish line, but he is already staffing his administration with classic DSA personnel — criminals, grifters, and America-hating radicals. New Yorkers and other Americans are about to see what that “revolution” entails.
Most Americans understandably see the DSA as essentially the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Left-wing commentators and politicians reinforce that view by discussing democratic socialism as a set of abstractions and principles. Senator Bernie Sanders, for instance, defines a democratic socialist government as one that “works for all the people and not just the billionaire class.”
After the DSA had conquered the New York Democratic Party, Governor Kathy Hochul decided to endorse Mamdani for mayor. His commitment to socialism, she wrote in the New York Times, only means building “a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighborhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family.” Barack Obama called Mamdani to lend his support, too. The New York Times ran interference for the candidate’s animating ideology by publishing an article titled “Zohran Mamdani Says He’s a Democratic Socialist. What Does That Mean?” According to the paper of record, “the simplest way to understand democratic socialism is as an ideology rooted in its opposition to capitalism and wanting to shift power to workers from corporations.” But the Times reassured readers that “the policies that self-described democratic socialists advocate for generally do not involve the complete abolition of capitalism.” Democratic socialists are “closer to social democrats — a common ideology in Europe that emphasizes strong social safety nets and government involvement in areas like health care.”
Rank-and-file democratic socialists may simply claim to oppose greedy corporations and fascism. But the reality is that the DSA is an organization, albeit an amorphous one that retains a decentralized structure as a matter of strategy. It has organizing principles, leadership, and a political program. And that program is radical.
The New York Times might insist that the DSA is not interested in replacing capitalism entirely, but the DSA’s 2021 convention platform says otherwise. “In overcoming the old, barbaric order of capitalism, the working class will not only liberate itself from its own shackles, but all of humanity from the parasitic death-drive of capitalism,” it states. “As capitalism’s climate crisis ravages the whole Earth, the well-being of the working class is ultimately aligned with the survival of the whole planet.” How very Nordic.
ICYMI, Finnish MP Päivi Räsänen had a piece from the free speech front lines in Europe:
Recently, I appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to testify about something I never imagined would define much of my public life: sharing my Christian beliefs. In 2019, I tweeted my views on marriage and sexuality, and since then, I’ve been accused of hate speech and faced criminal prosecution — just for exercising my freedom of speech.
I did not come to Washington as an activist, but as a sitting parliamentarian from the democratic nation of Finland. Though my home country claims to pride itself on free speech, my experience shows firsthand the reality of censorship. I felt it imperative to warn the United States about the growth of censorship in Europe — and the global implication of allowing violations of free speech rights to go unchecked.
I am often told that my story sounds implausible to those who assume such things cannot happen in a free society. I understand their reaction. I too asked myself often: How could a single online post of a Bible verse trigger a 13-hour police investigation and over six years of criminal prosecution? I never incited violence or targeted any individuals with my post. I simply shared my deeply held Christian beliefs on Twitter in a question directed at my church leadership, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, when they decided to participate in a Helsinki Pride event. In response, I was criminally charged under Finnish law for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Now, after two previous acquittals, I await a decision from the Supreme Court of Finland on these charges.
As I told Congress last week, my case concerns whether citizens may speak openly about faith without fear of prosecution. And it doesn’t have to be the same faith as mine: Criminalizing peaceful speech threatens all of us. When the state controls what we’re able to express in public, democracy becomes weaker.
The reason my story matters, and why I brought it before Congress, is that, as unbelievable as it may sound to some, there is a legitimate and rising threat that my experience will become an everyday reality in Europe. And the fall of free speech in Europe is sure to have global consequences as well.
We’ll close today with Giancarlo Sopo, and the legacy of Robert Duvall:
Robert Duvall didn’t belong to any era of Hollywood. He preceded New Hollywood, thrived in it, and outlasted it. He was a Mafia lawyer, a surfing colonel, a ruthless network executive, a country drunk, a Pentecostal preacher, a Texas Ranger. In none of them could you find the seams. He never gave you a “Duvall performance.” He delivered a character, and then he disappeared.
Duvall died Sunday at his home in rural Virginia, with his wife Luciana at his side. He was 95. . . .
His first film role had no dialogue. As Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, Duvall appeared in only a handful of scenes, but the moment his hollow features softened into kindness was enough to launch a career. Harper Lee sent him a telegram when he landed the part. It read: “Hey, Boo.” It was, he said, his only contact with her.
Everything changed a decade later when Francis Ford Coppola cast him as Tom Hagen, the Corleone family’s consigliere, a man of terrifying calmness amid operatic fury, in two Godfather films. Then as Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now, onscreen for only minutes yet responsible for a line that embedded itself permanently in the culture. He was the bullying Marine pilot Bull Meechum in The Great Santini. Seven Oscar nominations across six decades — a number matched by very few. His seventh and final nomination came at age 84, opposite Robert Downey Jr. in The Judge.
Those are the roles that will play in highlight reels this week. The performances that meant the most to him lived elsewhere. If you want to understand Robert Duvall, watch Tender Mercies, the 1983 film that won him his only Oscar. He played Mac Sledge, a washed-up country singer who finds God through a small Baptist church in rural Texas. He did his own singing. Near the end of the film, Sledge tells his wife: “I don’t trust happiness. I never did, I never will.” That was Duvall’s gift. He could hold grace and grief in the same hand.
CODA
Who doesn’t love a B-side?
“Blue Rondo à la Turk” can get overlooked, sharing an album (and the flip side of the single) with what is generally considered the most popular jazz song of all time, “Take Five.” It shouldn’t. As the title references, composer Dave Brubeck borrowed a Turkish rhythm, whose odd time signatures fit the record’s theme, while blending it with more traditional jazz in midstream. The result is an American delight.
Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by.