Bloomberg reporter and former Donald Trump biographer Tim O'Brien thinks the one takeaway from the Supreme Court's argument over tariffs is that Chief Justice John Roberts may be trying to claw back the power the court handed to the executive branch.
Speaking to "The Weeknight," O'Brien said that he was keeping a keen eye on Roberts.
"It's interesting where Roberts sits because at different moments since Trump 1.0 and this term, he has weighed in in different ways around what a president can do unilaterally and what a president can do. And on some ofthe tax return rulings in thefirst term, he kept invoking, 'No one in America is above the rule of law, including thepresident. He has to releasehis tax returns.'"
But O'Brien said things changed in Trump 2.0, and Roberts wrote a "very thinly argued anddamaging executive powersruling and basically saying thepresident is above the law."
It appears now as if Roberts is trying to return to the matter and "say, well, maybe he'snot that far above both the Constitution and the separationof powers and the law," O'Brien said.
"I thinksome of what you're seeing hereis John Roberts working throughhis own view of some of this,trying to correct for pastmistakes. I don't know that hecan."