The U.S. Supreme Court may have just handed President Donald Trump a political gift – one that’s deeply humiliating, according to The Atlantic’s David Frum.
In a ruling that struck down Trump’s sweeping tariff regime, the MAGAfied high court delivered a decisive check on presidential power, making clear that the Constitution assigns taxing authority to Congress, not the White House. His tariffs, which began in April, were projected to raise as much as $2.3 trillion over 10 years, Frum wrote Friday.
That’s where Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, says the real political fallout begins.
“The ironic political question for 2026 is whether the U.S. Supreme Court acted in time to save Trump from himself,” Frum told readers. “Whether or not it was the justices’ intention to help Trump, a generally Trump-friendly Supreme Court has offered the president an exit from one of his most unpopular domestic policies.”
The question, according to the Atlantic writer, is whether Trump will take it.
“Will he accept the handout? Acceptance would be smart, but humiliating,” Frum added. The president advertised his tariffs “as a revenue source liberated from the restraints imposed by Article I of the Constitution.” But the court's rejection of that theory shut down what Frum warned would have amounted to “a constitutional revolution.”
He ended his Friday column by expressing optimism, telling readers that U.S. stocks surged after Trump’s devastating Supreme Court defeat.
And, he concluded, “American consumers may soon feel the benefit,” while allies may also see trade relations stabilize now that they are “liberated from this approach to economic warfare.”
