More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
MTM : Interview with Joe Wolverton - Trump's Tariffs
Constitutional boundaries and presidential power collide in this thought-provoking examination of Trump's tariff policies with constitutional lawyer Joe Wolverton. Going beyond partisan politics, this conversation delves into fundamental questions about executive authority and the sacred boundaries established by our founding document.
Wolverton brings extraordinary clarity to a complex issue, explaining why even economically beneficial and politically popular policies must remain within constitutional parameters. "The president of the United States does not possess the constitutional authority to impose tariffs," he explains, highlighting how this power is explicitly granted to Congress alone in our Constitution.
The discussion reveals how the Trump administration has leveraged the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977—legislation intended for narrowly defined national security threats—to implement broad economic policies. This raises profound questions about precedent: if one president can declare economic emergencies to bypass Congress, what stops future presidents from declaring climate emergencies to shut down energy production or gun violence emergencies to restrict firearm access?
Most powerfully, Wolverton challenges listeners to examine their own constitutional priorities: "We cannot allow someone to claim to be making America great again by making the Constitution of America irrelevant." The conversation forces us to confront whether we value specific policies or politicians more than the constitutional framework that has preserved American liberty for generations.
Even as the US Court of International Trade has ruled against many of these tariffs, media silence and congressional inaction reveal the political calculations preventing meaningful constitutional accountability. This episode serves as a wake-up call about the dangers of constitutional ignorance and the vital importance of upholding our founding principles regardless of partisan advantage.
Join Dr. Jackson and Joe Wolverton for this essential conversation about the true meaning of constitutional fidelity in an age of executive expansion. Subscribe now to continue receiving these vital conversations about the intersection of constitutional principles and contemporary challenges.
https://www.jacksonfamilyministry.com
https://bobslone.com/home/podcast-production/
Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, dr Robert Jackson, and his wife Carlotta and daughter Hannah Miller. So listen up, because the doctor is in.
Dr.Robert Jackson:Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the doctor's rusty, dusty scrapbook. Well, today I have a very special guest online. His name is Joe Wolverton, and Joe is a constitutional lawyer. And, Joe, if you don't mind, I'm going to ask you to identify yourself and just tell my listeners a little bit about yourself. I know you've been on the program with me before, but I want you to re-identify yourself for my folks that may not have tuned into more than medicine previously.
Joe Wolverton:Sure, yeah, joe Wolverton, I was a constitutional lawyer for many years. I am from Memphis, tennessee, where I say a constitutional lawyer. I specialized in Fourth Amendment work, that is to say, defending citizens against the illegal search and seizure by government. I started writing for the New American in 2004,. Just by, pretty much by accident, I knew somebody who knew somebody asked me to write for them and before you know it, I was writing for them all the time and kept doing that for about 20 years. And then, about a year and a half ago, I was asked to join the staff of the John Birch Society full time and they created a position for me, the inaugural constitutional law scholar for the John Birch Society, and so anything that the society puts out regarding the Constitution, it goes through me first, so I can make sure that we say the right thing, and say it in the right way and make it to where people can understand, and so I was very honored by that. And make it to where people can understand, and so I was very honored by that.
Joe Wolverton:And so today my time is spent writing books. I've had three of them published in the last year or so the last two years, I guess, I should say, and then writing articles for the New American on the topic of constitution, at least the constitutionality of things that are happening in the news and in history. You know the way we can. I guess my specialty is looking at history and applying it to the present and see how, if we read what the founders read, we might have the knowledge and the courage to do what the founders did and throw off the chains of tyranny and protect our liberty. I hear you, and so that's what I do now, full time, and I am so grateful to our God for allowing me to do that as a job.
Dr.Robert Jackson:I hear you. I hear you Well. I'm fascinated by the things that you do and I'm fascinated by the things that are written in the New American. I think I told you this previously, but I've been reading the New American and its forebearer, the review of the news, for since 1981 and it's been part of my instruction and what makes me who I am as a conservative Christian political activist.
Joe Wolverton:It's certainly a good resource for anyone and we we try to make those resources available, if not free as as inexpensively. That's one of the things they brought me on as the head of publishing as well, and my first job was, you know. My argument was uh, weapons don't do any good if they're just sitting around the arsenal collecting dust. We've got to get them into the hands of the of the soldiers on the front line. And so I went through the, the jbs bookstore, and slashed prices down to the bare bones so that people could afford the, the wonderful resources that we, that we have available instead of, you know, logging on and seeing a book was 30. I said, let's said let's make that book $10. And so we did that and we've had a lot of good reports back that people are pleased that they're able to afford all of the resources of economics and history and the Constitution that we offer at Shop JBS. So I'm happy about that.
Dr.Robert Jackson:All right, well, look, I invited you to be on today because of an article that you wrote for the New American about President Trump's tariffs, and you know everybody knows about the tariff that they've got their head out of the sand at all. They know that President Trump applied tariffs to just about every nation in the world because of the unfair trade arrangement between the United States and just about every nation in the world, declaring that other nations have been taking advantage of the United States for decades and that he wanted to level the playing field economically. So he levied various tariffs against both friend and foe across the globe and declared that he was going to bring in revenue to the United States and that he was going to make the trade between the United States and other nations more equitable. And if people have been paying attention, it's brought the heads of nations all around the world to the negotiating table and many of them, almost immediately, were willing to make trade deals with President Trump, which he has trumpeted, and it's made him look like the victor. And so he has looked like he is coming out on top with a cherry on top because of these tariffs and in fact, it looks like China, who has said they would not negotiate at all their economy.
Dr.Robert Jackson:You know what little information you can get out of China. It sounds like they have factories that are standing still, and there's some word of rioting by workers in China, and some factories have even been burned to the ground. So it's an amazing turn of events in China, and even the leader in China has made noise that he's willing to talk to President Trump about some kind of trade deal. But here's the thing Is all of this proper? Is all of this the thing that should be going on in view of our Constitution? And that's what I invited you in, because you're a constitutional expert, and I want to hear from you, and I want my listeners to hear from you, and let us have a dialogue about the constitutionality of tariffs. And is this the purview of the president? So, joe, I'm going to turn it over to you.
Joe Wolverton:Thank you, and you know everything you just said is true and good, and you know that's what I want to make clear right from the beginning is this is not anti-Trump or anti-MAGA or pro-democratic or anything like that. It's not about party at all. It's about principle. And the principle here is that the president of the United States does not possess the constitutional authority to impose tariffs. That power is granted in the Constitution exclusively to the Congress. And that's the first big problem. The first big problem is the president is doing this. He claims that he has the authority, but he does not have the authority. Congress has the authority. So the president is perfectly within his purview and within his prerogative to say hey. However, when he says that the Constitution anticipates that, those will merely be suggestions and those suggestions will be made to Congress, and then Congress, who are the representatives of the people, is the body that will decide yes or no on imposing these tariffs. And the problem is that you know the president. In doing this, we put ourselves in a position that you know. The power that the president invokes to do this was this International Emergency Economic Powers Act from 1977, international Emergency Economic Powers Act from 1977, which was never intended to become a blank check for the president to use as economic warfare. It was designed to give the president narrowly defined authority to respond to specific, very demonstrable, clear and present threats to national security. It was not a permission slip for the president to impose tariffs on anything and anyone.
Joe Wolverton:We cannot, as a country, allow our president no matter how popular, no matter how proper his ideas, no matter how wise his economic ideas we cannot allow him to take those and, by the stroke of a pen, turn that into law. That is what we call a king and we do not have a king. Constitutionally, the president cannot do this. And, doctor, here's where we get into trouble. The trouble is many of us and even one of the judges on the court, the US Court of International Trade, that ruled against most of the president's tariff. One of the judges says you know, these are actually, as did she say, dandy ideas. These are dandy ideas. And then she said but it is a dandy plan, but it has to meet the statute. And that's where the she's, a Republican nominated by President Reagan, arguing that his tariffs were pro-American or that he's protecting American industry. And that very well might be true in sentiment, but we are not a nation of sentiment or intention. We are a nation of laws. That's the definition of a republic. We cannot allow. We all know what the road to hell is paved with.
Joe Wolverton:So good intentions, good ideas, patriotic sentiment, all of that means nothing when it comes to deciding if a person holding an office under the Constitution exercises unconstitutional authority, because we have to. Even good and this is the thing that I try to tell people Even good, honest, patriotic intentions must be bound by constitutional constraints, otherwise we might as well not have a constitution at all. That's right. I agree with that. That, and this is what it comes down to. The constitution, doctor, is not a buffet. You don't get to pick and choose which parts of the constitution you're going to apply and to whom you're going to apply them. We must apply them, as the good book says, without being a respecter of persons. We must apply those laws equally, equitably and evenly to all people of all parties. Yes, because the Constitution is our supreme law. It's what represents consent of the governed. And if you act outside the boundaries placed by the people on your authority, as expressed in the constitution, then you become, whether we like it or not, you are making yourself into a tyrant. That's right, that's right and that's the problem. That's where we are.
Joe Wolverton:He, president trump, and you know this is that President Trump, like many before him, many presidents before him, like, I would argue, almost every president before him, found that the Constitution was too slow, to obstructed, to cumbersome, and so he decided to take this emergency powers act and bypass Congress and then use that end, run around Congress as a pretended authority that the Constitution never granted to the president, and we have a problem. The problem we have is number one you have a president who's very popular and so many people are willing to give him a pass when it comes to, you know, making violating the Constitution, particularly when he dresses up that violation, when he wraps it in the flag and when he explains that it's good for the economy, and we're just, you know, we're leveling the playing field and all of that. And then the second problem we have is ignorance, on behalf of the people, as to the authority that the president actually has. You know, article two of the constitution is a very short article and in that article the president is given very few and well-defined powers, and the reason that it's so short and that is so well defined is because there in philadelphia in 17, those delegates, they themselves had just come through an eight-year war fighting against a king who exceeded his own authority, and they knew that it takes much bloodshed to bring down a king who is exercising tyrannical authority. And so, when it came time to create a president, the founding fathers knew we are going to narrowly define the powers of the president so that he essentially, his unilateral actions are almost non-existent. For example, he's the commander-in-chief of the military, but only if Congress declares war. He can appoint judges and ambassadors, but only if the Senate approves them. That sort of thing they did not want to give the president and sort of independent authority like President Trump is using. And to make up to take this blank of well, if there's emergencies, we have to do some things differently, which, okay, I don't think that whole law is constitutional to begin with, but it is in effect. But it does not grant him the right to create emergencies so that he can use that as a justification for violating the limits of his constitutional authority and, ultimately, doctor.
Joe Wolverton:What it comes down to beyond all this is that you know some people and most people I know, and I'm sure most people with whom you associate as well. They will say well, trump, as I said, trump has our best interest at heart. He's trying to restore domestic industry. He's trying to level the playing field. It's patriotic, it's good. We're trying to get back in China, we're trying to restore, make America great again. All of this and most people I know they think that's a good thing and that's fine and we're kind of going to just turn a blind eye to it because of the good intentions.
Joe Wolverton:But here's the problem Donald Trump is not going to be president forever. That's right. And the problem is, if we allow a president to unilaterally rewrite trade policy, what's to stop the next president from declaring a climate emergency and shutting down all oil and coal production? That's right. That's right. And shutting down all oil and coal production? That's right. What's to stop the next president from declaring a gun violence emergency and banning the purchase of firearms by civilians? Or what's to stop him from declaring a disinformation emergency and shutting down all social media communication that doesn't agree with the regime, media communication that doesn't agree with the regime?
Joe Wolverton:This is the problem that if President Trump can do it, even for good intentions, someday we're going to have one of these woke presidents who are going to use that power that President Trump used.
Joe Wolverton:They're going to use that same power to do things with which we will disagree and which will take our liberty, and the only thing, the only thing that's stopping that, is the Constitution.
Joe Wolverton:But, as James Madison said, the Constitution is simply a piece of parchment that, without the people of the United States honoring it and enforcing it, it is simply a parchment barrier between the people and tyrants.
Joe Wolverton:So we have to be aware of it and, even though it may hurt a little, you know, to enforce it against presidents that we like and policies that we like, even policies that are ostensibly and arguably good and sound policies.
Joe Wolverton:We cannot let President Trump exercise that authority because, a it's unconstitutional and, B he's using this Emergency Powers Act to do it for a purpose for which it was not intended. And we stand at the precipice of history where we don't know who the next president will be and we know for a fact that we could have someone in the White House declare any sort of emergency, just like President Trump did, and then say under my authority, as exercised by Donald Trump in the last administration, I am hereby halting all sales of firearms and ammunition to all but law enforcement and the military, because we have an epidemic of gun violence and it's an emergency and we need so you can see where I'm going. So, yeah, we have to, we have to be, we have to be the people that stand there and we have to know the constitution, honor the and enforce the Constitution. Or let's be honest with each other and just do away with it and see where that takes us.
Dr.Robert Jackson:And you see, the people who value and honor and love Donald Trump so much have to make a decision, and that decision is do we love Donald Trump more than we love our Constitution?
Joe Wolverton:That's exactly right. Do we love his?
Dr.Robert Jackson:tactics more than we love our Constitution. That's exactly right. Do we love his?
Speaker 1:tactics more than we love the.
Dr.Robert Jackson:Constitution. And that's when psychology, what we call an approach approach conflict. That's a conflict when you have where you have two equally valuable and enjoyable choices and you can't decide between two choices that are equally valuable, equally attractive to you and you know Donald Trump is very attractive to the America. First, make America great contingent in our country and the whole notion of loving and valuing the Constitution is also very attractive and valuable to us. And people are going to have to make a decision, a hard decision Do we love our Constitution or do we love Donald Trump and his policies more and go?
Joe Wolverton:ahead. I'm sorry, Go ahead. I was just going to say that we just can't place faith like again, I sound like a preacher when I come on your show but we cannot place our trust in the arm of flesh, even if that arm of flesh is someone that we look up to and admire and someone with whom we agree with his policy. We cannot do that, and we especially cannot allow someone to claim to be making America great again by making the Constitution of America irrelevant. That's exactly right. We cannot do that. We cannot allow ourselves to be put in that position, Even when it hurts. We must do the right thing, and the right thing is honoring and enforcing the supreme law of the land as handed down to us by our wise and virtuous ancestors.
Dr.Robert Jackson:Well, now tell me again, what court was it that declared his tariffs to be unconstitutional?
Joe Wolverton:It was the US Court of International Trade.
Dr.Robert Jackson:Well now, how come we haven't heard any noise about that? I mean, I read about that in your article, but I haven't really heard anything about it in the media.
Joe Wolverton:Well, yeah, now a lot of people have asked me that same question and the answer is a little tricky but obvious. It's kind of like I tell people it's like those Where's Waldo puzzles. You know, you look for hours you can't find Waldo. Well, the minute someone points him out to you, you're like, well, how did I miss that? And that's what this? The US International Trade.
Joe Wolverton:The reason you've not heard much about this decision is from the liberal media is because liberals are in favor of taxes and tariffs are a form of taxation right, and so if they come out and they praise the US Court of International Trade for slapping down these unlawful, these unconstitutional tariffs, they come out as admitting that taxes damage the economy and they don't want to do that because they are pro-taxation. They are the party of big taxes and big government. So they're left in this bizarre situation that they don't find themselves in often, but they're in the position of, if they praise someone slapping President Trump on the wrist, they're exposing the weaknesses of their own philosophy about taxation being the answer to every problem, and so they can't do that. You can't have MSNBC doing a big if it was some other sort of decision, like every time he was falsely accused of falsifying business records, why you'd have four hours of coverage on every, yeah, constantly, guarantee you haven't heard five minutes about it.
Joe Wolverton:because the, the gatekeepers of the media, are letting the people know. Shut up about this, because if you mention this, it might cause some people to realize that being pro-taxation isn't being anti-economy and anti-American, and we don't want this. So, even though it forces them to not, you know, take advantage of a seeming defeat by you know, by President Trump, they have to be quiet about it so as not to reveal the weaknesses of their own philosophy. I got you Well now the Congress loves to tax.
Dr.Robert Jackson:I mean they've taxed us to death?
Speaker 1:Do you think there's?
Dr.Robert Jackson:any prayer that they would take up his tariffs. And they're the ones who, constitutionally, have the right to levy tariffs.
Joe Wolverton:Put his people to work trying to find some end around. Let's find some law that I can use. And so they found that Emergency Economic Powers Act from 1977 and pretended that all of that the deficit was a national emergency and a clear and present danger to the safety of the people of the United States.
Dr.Robert Jackson:It's been wildly popular. You'd think Congress would take the hint and they would say let's enact these tariffs.
Joe Wolverton:Right. Well, the problem is Congress, by doing that, would actually be forced to go on record as being for or against something, and they hate that, particularly in the House of Representatives, because every two years, they have to go to the people and justify the votes that they've made. Vote for Donald Trump? You can imagine that. Here's this law before them, raising taxes, and everything within them wants to vote in favor of more taxes, but also everything in them wants them to never, ever, ever agree with Donald Trump. So what do they do? If they end up voting yes in favor of the tariffs? Why then? They go home to campaign and their Republican opponents will Look he voted with President Trump or their Democratic primary opponent says my opponent votes with Donald Trump.
Joe Wolverton:You don't want to send Donald Trump's lackey back to the House. We're a Democratic district and we thought we elected a Democrat, but we just elected a.
Joe Wolverton:Republican in Democratic clothes. They need Republican and Democratic clothes, and so they can't afford to be on record in this unique case, because it puts the Democrats in the place they don't want to be. It puts Republicans. They have to. Most of them feel a responsibility to support Trump. They also realize the damage economically to Main Street that's done by tariffs, so they don't want to be held accountable for that because of these tariffs, where they would import certain items that they make their stuff in the states, but they import components from other countries, but now these tariffs make it impossible for them to afford it. So they go out of business and so their thing is hey, president Trump doesn't even have the authority to do this, so let's challenge that authority in court so that we don't go bankrupt.
Dr.Robert Jackson:You know, trying to to somehow survive the economic impact of these tariffs but the tariffs are going to continue because nobody's going to raise a stink about it. Even though the court says it's unconstitutional, he's going to continue on without any. It is anybody saying a word?
Joe Wolverton:it's the pro, it's the prototypical catch-22. It's literally just like that. But at the end of the day, the real emergency isn't the trade deficit, it's the deficit of constitutional understanding in our people and in our political representatives. You're right, you understand.
Joe Wolverton:You know, something that I tell people. I, you know, give these presentations at churches a lot and I say look, I hold the Constitution as a sacred document. I think that it is the supreme law. I think our Heavenly Father inspired it. I think the men who drafted it were inspired by him. I think they all, to a man, recognized the hand of providence in putting this together.
Joe Wolverton:I said, but there's something even beyond that. So when a president or a court or a congress acts outside their constitutional authority, that bothers me and that than tyrannical and that's being a blasphemer to me as a Christian. Because every one of these men, all 535 members of Congress, all nine Supreme Court justices and the president of the United States, place their hand on a Bible and swear to God to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Well, if you're reading the Bible, swear not, it says right by heaven, for it is God's home, nor by earth, for it is His footstool. And here you've got all these political representatives, in my opinion, mocking God by putting their hand on the Bible and swearing to be faithful to a document, and then, as soon as they raise their hand off that Bible and swearing to be faithful to a document, and then, as soon as they raise their hand off that Bible, they go and cast a vote contrary to the Constitution, thus making themselves not only tyrants but blasphemers as well.
Dr.Robert Jackson:I understand that, but then the rest of us in this country are ignorant of the Constitution and you know, the Bible tells us that the people perish because of a lack of knowledge and when the wicked rule I mean when the wicked rule the people shall mourn.
Joe Wolverton:Yes, and we were living in those days, unfortunately. However, we always have that opportunity to you know, study the Constitution, to really make a concerted effort if we're claiming to revere a document, to honor a document, to consider a document inspired, to really say it's a small document, it's really not that large To study it and then to hold our political representatives, our political servants hold them accountable to that oath that they swear to God, hold them accountable to it and that's our job, because if we don't do it, we know they're not going to do it themselves. Oh no, they won't.
Dr.Robert Jackson:All right. Well, joe, our time is out. We've got to go. I appreciate your willingness to be on More Than Medicine with me. I appreciate your expertise and I'm just honored to have you as my guest. I hope you'll come back and be on More Than Medicine again another time.
Joe Wolverton:All you need to do is ask doctor, and I will be there. I appreciate you so much. I appreciate your faith, I appreciate your efforts on behalf of patriotism and on behalf of spreading the kingdom of God, and I appreciate all you do Well.
Dr.Robert Jackson:Thank you kindly, and the Lord bless you and your family. You're listening to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson. My guest today is Joe Wolverton, constitutional lawyer. We'll be back again next week. Until then, may the Lord bless you real good.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry, dr Jackson's books, or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, instagram or their webpage at jacksonfamilyministrycom. This podcast is produced by Bob Slone Audio Production at bobslone. com.
