Arguing the Legality of Trump’s Tariffs: Starting Line

What Emergency?

President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports from numerous countries are supposed to kick in tomorrow, so today could bring announcements of more bilateral deals. But first, it’ll be worth paying attention to arguments scheduled today at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which will decide whether the bulk of Trump’s tariffs are legal.

At issue is Trump’s interpretation of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

That law says the president can “regulate” certain foreign transactions during times of crisis. The president claims that persistent US trade deficits amount to a national emergency. In the court challenge, affected companies contend that Trump’s interpretation is too much of a stretch.

The law is “not a blank check for the president to rewrite tariff schedules,” the companies wrote in a court brief. The US Court of International Trade ruled on May 28 that Trump exceeded his authority by imposing broad tariffs.

Here Are Trump’s Options If the Courts Rule His Tariffs Are Unlawful

As for the tariffs scheduled to take effect tomorrow, some talks are still in progress. Yesterday, Trump on announced tariffs of 15% on imports from South Korea, and a painful 25% levy on imports from India that was accompanied by criticism of its purchases of Russian energy and weapons.

As for the countries without a deal, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said negotiations can continue past the deadline. “I would expect that it’s going to be a busy August,” Bessent said at an event hosted by Breitbart News.

Some of the fallout:

See Also:

Day Two of Air Crash Hearing

As part of their probe into the midair collision between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter, safety investigators flew three other Black Hawks over the tidal portion of the Potomac River where the crash occurred.

They discovered that the aircrafts’ barometric altimeters showed them being 80 to 130 feet lower than their actual altitude above sea level.

“It’s possible there was zero pilot error here,” National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters on the first day of the public hearing into the crash that killed 67 people. The hearing continues today and tomorrow. Read More

5,027 Earmarks

Yes, we counted.The House-written fiscal 2026 spending bills contain 5,027 earmarks totaling nearly $8 billion earmarks.

Jack Fitzpatrick reports that a record-setting 174 House Republicans stand to bring home more than $4.8 billion for local projects. Democrats would receive nearly $3 billion. There are four projects by bipartisan groups of members totaling $191.3 million.

The top recipients are on the Appropriations Committee. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee, stands to bring home the most. He obtained 15 projects totaling $251.4 million, largely connected to a single $213 million earmark for work on the Chickamauga Lock on the Tennessee River.

House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.), Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), and Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) — all senior appropriators — secured earmarks of more than $100 million each. Read the BGOV Exclusive

Minibus Still a Maybe

Senate appropriators plan to mark up their two biggest bills today: Defense and Labor-HHS-Education. Those typically combine to make up roughly two-thirds of all discretionary spending.

“The Labor-H bill is one of the toughest for Congress to advance given the size and scope of the funding. But it’s even tougher this year, especially after NIH grant decisions by the White House that runs counter to congressional intent,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Duane Wright told Jeannie Baumann.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) have long backed federal investment in medical research. More than a dozen Senate Republicans have co-signed a letter by Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) asking the White House to release unspent NIH funds.

“To see a larger number of Republicans saying, ‘We do not want to see a pocket rescission on NIH,’ is very meaningful,” Research!America’s Ellie Dehoney said.

Meanwhile, a Senate vote’s possible this week on the Military Construction-VA, Agriculture-FDA, and Commerce-Justice-Science spending bills. Murray said late yesterday that members were still “working through negotiations” on a possible three-bill package.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) argued on the floor that Democrats shouldn’t take part in any bipartisan negotiations until they secure a guarantee from Republicans they won’t seek to cancel future funding through a one-party rescissions package. “Do we really look that gullible? Why should Democrats come to the table and negotiate in good faith and throw our support behind a quote unquote bipartisan bill only for Republicans to turn around after the deal is done and somewhere down the line, delete any parts of the deal that Trump doesn’t like?” she said.

Read more about the fiscal 2026 landscape in this morning’s BGOV Budget.

Redistricting Targets

Texas Republicans raised the curtain on their plan for erasing congressional lines that produced too many Democratic Party winners to suit the GOP-run legislature and their party’s president.

Greg Giroux explains that under the current configuration, Trump won 27 of the districts. Under the proposed map’s altered lines, he would have carried 30 of Texas’s 38 districts in the 2024 election.

Among the proposed changes: pairing Reps. Lloyd Doggett and Greg Casar in one heavily Democratic district in the Austin area and consolidating parts of the districts of Democratic Reps. Marc Veasey and Julie Johnson in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.

The minority party says it will respond with grassroots campaigning on the air, in court, and in blue-state legislatures.

“Donald Trump and House Republicans believe the only way they can win the midterm elections is to cheat,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who’s in Texas today, said in a statement.

Before You Go

Taxing Times at IRS: The IRS has more holes in its senior leadership team and questions around morale of the remaining compliance workforce as two officials were put on administrative leave, Erin Schilling reports. Two longtime IRS staffers are being investigated for alleged conduct against Republicans, a person familiar with the situation said. The tax agency is already roiled by deep staff cuts and buyouts that tax professionals worry could hinder the functions of the compliance divisions. Read More

Hack Attack: The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, one of the Department of Energy’s 17 national labs, was attacked by hackers as part of a recent campaign seeking to exploit flaws in Microsoft Corp.’s SharePoint software. “Attackers did attempt to access Fermilab’s SharePoint servers,” according to a Department of Energy spokesperson. “Thanks to DOE Office of Science’s cybersecurity investments, the attackers were quickly identified, and impact was minimal, with no sensitive or classified data accessed.” Read More

Third Rail: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is coming under fire for remarks about the tax law’s “Trump accounts” being a “backdoor for privatizing Social Security,” with Democrats characterizing his comments as representing a secret plan to gut the program. Read More

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— With assistance from Jack Fitzpatrick, Greg Giroux, Jeannie Baumann, and Erin Schilling.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katherine Rizzo in Washington at krizzo@bgov.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rachel Leven at rleven@bloombergindustry.com; Herb Jackson at hjackson@bloombergindustry.com

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