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Inside Politics

Supreme Court Takes Up Fast-moving Appeal Over Trump's Tariffs; Justice Sotomayor on Increase of Emergency Docket Decisions, Success Breeds New Attempts; Texas Democrat James Talarico Launches Bid for U.S. Senate; GOP Sen. John Cornyn Faces Primary Challenge From Ken Paxton; CNN Projects Democrat James Walkinshaw Will Win U.S. House Seat in Virginia Special Election. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 10, 2025 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[12:34:04]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': It's Trump Playbook 2.0. Here's how it goes. Push the limits of executive power, face a reprimand by a federal district judge. Call it an emergency to the Supreme Court and get them to do a quick overriding decision. Well, today, the administration hopes that sweeping global tariffs will be the latest example of that strategy working for them. A lower court ruled that the president's use of a national emergency was illegal when it comes to tariffs and set many tariffs to roll back in October.

Now, Chief Justice John Roberts said the justices will hear it on appeal very quickly. Our smart reporters are back. Phil Mattingly, it's really remarkable how well their strategy is working for them in the Trump White House.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: My sense is even some of their lawyers are surprised by how well it has all gone.

[12:35:00]

They went into this administration, as we've talked about for the last eight or nine months, maybe even a couple of years, fully planning to pursue proposals or pursue statutes or pursue ambiguity in statutes in the most aggressive way possible, to implement their agenda entirely through executive authority if they could. They knew or expected to lose some of them, but they wanted to test the boundaries with the assumption that with a six/three Supreme Court and with 90-plus circuit court judges that they got in the first term, they were on kind of more friendly ground once they got through District courts.

The degree to which -- I think there's something like 90-plus percent --

BASH: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: -- of the emergency proposals that had -- that the administration has brought to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had sided with the administration, and they're doing so in a way that has no explanation. There's no fulsome opinion, there's no real read, there's no setting of precedent. They're just winning. And I think, if you are a Trump administration lawyer, there's nothing you've seen. And tariffs may be a little bit different in terms of how that's actually structured. But there's nothing you've seen that would dissuade you from continuing this posture going forward.

BASH: Because you mentioned the percentage, let's actually show the numbers. So the question is, how often has the Supreme Court granted substantive emergency applications? Meaning they're taking up cases very quickly and usually it takes years and years and years for them to even say yes, if they do. Look at that, 96 percent for Donald Trump, that is just so far. 2025 isn't even done -- so far in 2025. If you look at the Biden administration, 31 percent that is through his entire term. The Trump 1.0, 46 percent. That is through his entire term.

And what are we talking about? Again, this is -- these are not just process questions. These are substantive, really important issues that affect Americans, where the president is really trying to have a heavy hand with his executive power. Keep the FTC Commissioner off payroll, pause billions of dollars in foreign aid, continue roving ICE patrols in California, block $783 million in NIH grants, proceed with Education Department mass firings, and force ban on transgender service members, temporarily use Alien Enemies Act for rapid deportations. And this is the big one that just happened this week.

DAVID WEIGEL, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: And it's all the result of two big long-term overlapping plans. And one is the conservative legal movement, especially the legal movement that wants to re-litigate the way Water Gate was handled, that Congress is taking power away from the president. They have been trying to build toward this since then, since 1974. The second is the new appointees of the Supreme Court plusing up, Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito and the justices who already were inclined to think that way about the executive power.

And so what exists now that didn't in the first term are those justices and they have been willing to take power away from these federal courts. One, you're not seeing nationwide injunctions anymore. That's something Neil Gorsuch wanted to get rid of. It's basically gone. You're seeing a legal strategy that worked last time, which is we're going to sue in the D.C. circuit. We're going to sue in Maryland; we're going to sue in the 9th Circuit, the Supreme Court, as you discussed, the shadow jacket (ph) will say, all right, well, we're putting a pause on this favorable ruling for the plaintiff usually and we're going to deal with this later.

So in the meantime, the president can operate, use these powers, and that is exactly what the administration wants. Maybe, I think Phil and I both heard Russ Vought vote talk to conservatives last week and said, yes, this is about proving the president has these powers. And he didn't say and now we have a court that's signing off on it. But that's the context. And there are a lot of, I think, Democrats and progressives who looked at the first term and said, we can run that play again. You can't. There's a different team on the field and Trump chose a third of them. BASH: So Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote in the most recent, the question effectively is whether law enforcement can racially profile in order to get people and deport them. The answer was yes. Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissent. She was on Colbert last night and was asked about how quickly these emergency actions are being taken by the Supreme Court. Listen.

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STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST OF "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT," CBS: Why do you think they're accelerating?

SONIA SOTOMAYOR, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, success breeds new attempts. Some people believe on my court that executive -- that anytime you stop a law that has been duly passed by Congress or you stop an executive like the president from doing some policy that they think is important, that those factors outweigh some of the normal considerations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Listen, the president basically believes that he can do anything he wants to do. And the Supreme Court seems to agree with that. This expansive power of the executive. You talked about this being something that many conservatives have believed for a long time. You have a Congress that essentially believes the same thing that is rolled over for this president.

[12:40:00]

And so, listen, I think we'll see what happens with tariffs. We'll see what happens with Lisa Cook. We'll see what happens when Donald Trump perhaps tries to run for a third term. That in some ways, maybe I sound like a conspiracy theorist, but that could also be where it's building. And if you look at what the Supreme Court has done, this 96 percent sort of approval rating in allowing him to do what he wants to do, it could be that they also say that he could run for a third term.

BASH: Yeah. And as we go to break, I just want to note that the NBC News did interviews with 12 federal judges who said that they're not happy with the Supreme Court's terse decisions on their rulings, because they don't give any guidance on how to proceed and that they believe that it sends a bad signal when it comes to the way the court system and checks and balances work. Don't go anywhere, coming up, a dynamic young Democrat seeks to turn Texas blue. Does that sound familiar? But we're going to tell you about the new candidate entering that race. Stay with us.

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[12:45:40]

BASH: Could a 36-year-old pastor who represents an Austin suburb be the Democrat who finally turns Texas blue? That's what Democrats are certainly hoping as James Talarico launches his bid for the United States Senate. He's a former teacher and he won over a very influential podcast host when they sat down over the summer.

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JAMES TALARICO, (D) TEXAS STATE HOUSE: My students are the ones I think about when I'm at the capitol. They are the criteria that I use to evaluate public policy. Not if it's a Democratic bill or Republican bill. Not if it's going to get me X lobbyists support. It is will this help my students or will it hurt my students? Period. And it makes things a lot easier.

JOE ROGAN, HOST OF "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE": It's beautiful that you made that decision, and I think that's what we need. We need people that have legitimate personal, real-life experience with other people that are benefiting from certain social programs and certain things that should not be cut.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: But look at the screen. Democrats have really thought they had the candidate to turn Texas Blue over the past several years. 2018, they thought it was Beto O'Rourke. He came closer than people had in the past, but you see he lost. And then fast forward to last year, 2024, Colin Allred, didn't really come that close to Ted Cruz when he tried to do it. My panel is back here. Of course, Colin Allred is running as well for the Democratic nomination in Texas now against James Talarico. We'll see if Beto O'Rourke jumps in.

You spoke with him. I just want to, as you come in, put up one of the quotes from your interview. Here's what he said. We've had 10 years of Trumpian politics, politics as blood sport, politics as professional wrestling. Now, it feels like there's a hunger for the opposite of that, like civility and honesty and compassion and sincerity.

WEIGEL: Yes, it is a very different approach than the last ones we talked about and with a candidate who -- Texas has this part-time legislature. He's got all really all next year to run around the state and campaign. That was also implicit what he was telling me, that Colin Allred was limited a bit by being in D.C. He was a big surrogate for him. He was having rallies everywhere. He's going to use the Beto strategy of just being very present.

So he told me he wants to have town halls with Republicans and with tea party groups and people who he thinks will not like him and will not agree with him because that has been his skill. And he gets to Austin in 2019. He's already a pretty big deal because in Austin, there are a lot of Democrats in safe seats who don't know how to reach a national audience or a skeptical audience. He flips a suburban seat and he's out there battling Republicans on gender issues and on abortion and saying, I frankly not saying this, this is me. He's a little more humble. I know more about the Bible than you. I can out debate you on this and make a moral argument for my policies.

You saw at the Rogan clip, that's compelling not to every Republican, but to a lot of people who say, yes, this -- the party Ken Paxton might not have every moral decision figured out. EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: And you showed the results from the Senate races. There's also, think about just the results from the presidential race last year.

BASH: Yeah.

DOVERE: And 2012, after Barack Obama won re-election, there were a group of Obama campaign folks who started something called Battleground Texas. Turn Texas blue by 2028. Well, in last year's election, Kamala Harris did worse than every Democratic candidate had done since Barack Obama in 2008. They have a problem here of politics that is run up against them, right? The demographics have not moved in their favor the way that they thought they would. The Latino population has not moved as Democratic as they thought. Will that change now? It is a big question including around this, the way they've now re-gerrymandered those districts because the Republicans in the state put it so that all these Latino heavy districts they think are going to vote Republican again, they voted for Trump.

It's possible that things move. There's been a lot of problems in the state, the things that happen with the flooding last year. That might be the perfect storm. And also, just one more point of the Republicans in their Senate --

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BASH: Yeah. Well, let's look at that because there is an incumbent Republican. This is not an empty seat. And that is Senator John Cornyn, who was for a long time a member of the Republican leadership here in Washington. And Ken Paxton, the Attorney General is challenging him. So they're -- they've got a pretty, bloody political battle there. And whether or not Democrats can win will really, in large part, depend on what happens in that race.

HENDERSON: Yeah. Listen, I think Democrats are hoping that Ken Paxton emerges from that.

[12:50:00]

They think he's an easier person to beat because of his baggage. But I think in some ways, his baggage might help him. I mean I think he is fashioning himself as a sort of mini-Trump figure, where he has obviously sinned and had a kind of complicated personal life, but he's able to say all of these forces are arrayed (ph) against me. And I should be the standard bearer in the way that Donald Trump has been. So we'll see what happens. I think, John Cornyn is going to have a bit of a tough time. We'll see who gets, the endorsement from there. But I think Ken Paxton, I think he'd be hard for this young man, this young pastor to be.

BASH: Real quick.

MATTINGLY: Certainly, a contrast that Democrats would love to have. I think to your point, the most fascinating element of this right now is watching kind of national Republicans try and get ahead of this. Do whatever they can to undercut him. Try and make very clear to their donors in terms of from a money perspective --

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MATTINGLY: You spend now, knock off Paxton, so we don't have to spend later no matter who the Democrats are running. And I think that's -- it's a very clear risk that they see. And I think Cornyn has made up some ground in the last couple weeks, but like, it's tough.

BASH: This race is so fascinating.

MATTINGLY: Yeah.

BASH: We're going to keep coming back to it. Thank you all. Up next, Uncle Sam is about to auction off a mega yacht. We have the (inaudible) details after a quick break.

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[12:55:45]

BASH: Topping our political radar, blue gain and red pain. CNN projects Democrat James Walkinshaw will win a special election in Virginia's deep blue 11th congressional district. Now because it's deep blue, it's not a surprise that he won. But what it does is complicate math for House Speaker Mike Johnson by making his majority even narrower. He can now only afford to lose two Republicans on party line votes. Walkinshaw is the former Chief of Staff to the late Democratic congressman Gerry Connolly, who held that seat for 16 years before passing away from cancer in May.

Plus, a power play from Chuck Schumer. The Senate Minority Leader just voted -- just moved to force a vote on releasing the so-called Epstein files. Now, normally, only the majority party takes a procedural step to bring something to the floor by filing himself and attaching it to a must pass annual defense package. He's trying to ensure that Republican Senators will have to vote on one of the most politically charged topics in Washington right now.

And are you looking to set sale in luxury? If so, check that out. The U.S. government has a 348-foot mega yacht with your name on it. Now, why does the government have this mega yacht? Well, this floating palace, infinity pool, eight state rooms, sauna and helipad, was seized from a Russian billionaire three years ago as part of a Justice Department operation targeting those on the U.S. sanction list. The auction price is $100 million for this yacht. That's technically a bargain because it was once valued at $350 billion.

Thank you so much for joining "Inside Politics" Today. CNN News Central starts after the break.

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