# Post ts_116117631579794905

- Post ID: `ts_116117631579794905`
- Platform: Truth Social
- Posted: 2026-02-23T02:40:46.782Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_116117631579794905
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_116117631579794905/analysis

## Post text

_No text of its own. The post is its media, below._

## What the media says

**Video transcript** (12:52), transcribed automatically, so names and numbers may be wrong. Speakers aren't identified, so a voice in it may not be his:

> some people like to give you a quick opinion about something like this. This is the Supreme Court decision opinion on tariffs. Here's the problem. There's opinions within opinions. It's a mess. First, there was no need for the court to rule as it did, period. The majority is not even a majority, except in agreeing to hold that the tariffs were not authorized by Congress in a 1977 law. Second, the majority is split into two camps. You've got Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett, and then that camp is split somewhat between Gorsuch and Barrett. Third, the three other justices in the second camp of the majority, the usual leftists, well, they mostly agreed with each other, but went further in attacking the President's tariff authority. I can assure you they wouldn't have done it with a Biden or Obama. Number four, this explains why it took so long for the court to issue a ruling, because the ruling appears to be a variety of arguments intended to reach a result. That is, in my view, it was result-oriented, a result looking for a constitutional and/or legal justification. Now fifth, if the court, as here, is going to issue a ruling that is so destructive of, or contrary to, the executives' international economic, national security, and foreign policy objectives, and the President's strategies, the President and we, the people, deserve a lot better than the massive mess that these nine lawyers created. This ruling is more like some committee of lawyers, or some law review group of legal students in the law library, each vying to impose his or her own policy preferences on the President, while searching for some constitutional legal justifications to do so. In fact, this case was not complicated at all, although the decision, which is actually an accumulation of arguments within the court, is complicated because of its incoherence. Sixth, the court majority wants you to believe that this was a matter of statutory interpretation only, involving one statute passed in 1977, and Congress's power over the purse. Article I, Section 8. That's it. Well, then why did it take 177 pages? But there's more. But Congress's have passed multiple statutes, and even more historically, Presidents have used all kinds of trade tools to influence and affect international commerce, foreign policy, and national security. It simply does not just come down to the powers of the purse. Article II, Section 1, gives the President great power over conducting foreign policy. What are tariffs? Tariffs are effectively taxes imposed on foreign governments. Well, isn't that foreign policy? Yes. And when the President uses tariffs to influence foreign governments, whether it's over war and peace, whether it's over economic policy, whatever it's over, is that not the conduct of foreign policy? Of course it is. Seventh, the court bobbed and weaved, touching on congressional delegation or non-delegation, cherry-picking the historical record where Presidents have imposed tariffs and other international trade tools to influence and affect foreign policy with the majority, we think, essentially ignoring or rejecting all contrary precedent in history. All precedent in history that came before is essentially written off. Number 8, the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, bluntly states that when he reads the text of the 1977 statute at issue, even those words specifically authorizing the President to quote, "regulate importation." It's in the statute. They're in the law, and in fact, are in several other laws, by the way, authorizing the President to impose tariffs. In this case, he says, "There are just too many words between the words 'regulate' and 'importation.'" Got that? Too many words between the words "regulate importation" for him to draw the conclusion that this particular statute authorized the President to regulate importation. Ninth, Justice Thomas went through the history of presidential power and tariffs, meticulously, as he always does, and that makes clear that President Trump has, in fact, been acting within the powers traditionally exercised by past presidents. Now, I know people who are opposed to tariffs, so that's not true, but it is true. So, what we're discussing here is the Constitution of the law, not policy preferences, and who makes those decisions? Six justices on the Supreme Court who can barely write a single majority opinion? In fact, they don't. Tenth, Justice Kavanaugh was brilliant in his dissent, and he went through the statutory history of delegations to presidents, of tariff powers, as well as other points, making clear that the President was, in fact, delegated authority under that 1977 statute to, quote, "regulate importations." Shame on Chief Justice Roberts, shame on Justices Barrett and Gorsuch, your word games and semantical ruminations had no place here. I was left thinking how lawyers can become so typically absurd when trying to prove how brilliant they are, or when, in fact, their egos get in the way of well-reasoned outcomes. And you can see that in some of the back and forth. It's really kind of appalling. Twelve, the Chief Justice appears to have come up with a so-called majority opinion that is as narrow as possible in order to attract enough votes to overturn the tariffs, at least under this one statute. But in doing so, he did not show leadership. He created a big mess. This so-called majority opinion provides no precedential value. It provides no constitutional or legal guidance. It says the court does not have the authority or the ability to get involved in policy, yet I found this ruling to be more about policy than the Constitution or law. The majority had a problem, which I knew they would. On the several occasions I've discussed this case with you right on this show. Where exactly is the separation of powers? Where is that line drawn when it comes to tariffs? Yes, Congress has the power of the purse. The president has broad power over foreign policy and national security and diplomacy. Obviously, trade and its relationship to the president's broad powers cannot be ignored. Yet the ruling essentially does that, but then the court says they're not doing that. It's just ruling on a single statute. In other words, the court's ruling was, as I said, result-oriented, policy-driven, despite the majority's disclaimers. When the Supreme Court cannot come up with a coherent, understandable decision based on the Constitution and the law, you know then it is conducting itself as politicians, it is activists, and it has no business doing what this court did. It interfered in a matter that should be left to the legislative and executive branches because the constitutional question on who gets to lay tariffs is in fact an absurd question. What do you mean, Mark? Because both Congress and the president have a role. And if Congress thought the president went too far, it could use the power of the purse, the appropriations process, under Article I, to stop him. As I've said here repeatedly, Congress didn't even try. And so this is the mix in the battle between the elected branches and to have basically six lawyers, a majority, who can't really come up with a single theory. Get involved and decide one way or another is appalling, it's absurd. So where are we now? It's a foolish overreach by the Supreme Court. There was a piece written by Stan Valger and Clark Packard a few months back, the American Enterprise Institute, and boy did they hate tariffs. That's fine, that's their view. They hate tariffs, they hate all these manipulations or involvement in trade and so forth and so on. And yet in their peace, while they're haranguing against the president's tariffs, they also provide the following, which is actually quite interesting. And they point out the first Trump administration of post-tariffs, usually at 25% on some two-thirds of imports from China under Section 301 of the Trade Act, in 1974, they're telling us actually the president has many alternatives to that one statute that the court, we think, ruled on. The Biden administration kept these measures largely intact, used the existing authority to layer on other tariffs, including 100% duties on Chinese electric vehicles. Most of these tariffs continue to this day. Because of the Section 301 measures, the effective tariff on imports from China remains particularly high, around 50%. Section 232 tariffs would also survive in administration loss in learnings, resources versus Trump. Under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the president may restrict imports determined to pose a threat to national security, following an investigation by the Commerce Department. They go on. Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, the provision empowers the president to address large insurance balance of payments deficits. Through import surcharges of up to 15% import quotas, or some combination of the two. Wow! Section 301, the basis for existing China tariffs, offers another avenue for reconstructing the tariffs that the court struck down, one where the president enjoys wide unilateral authority. It grants the US Trade Representative broad authority to investigate and remedy unfair foreign trade practices. That's not all. The old 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act, I know we don't like it. I'm just saying what's available. Now, it lets the president oppose tariffs of up to 50% on imports from countries that discriminate against US commerce as compared to other nations. So what exactly did the Supreme Court accomplish? Nothing. It created a mess in terms of tariffs that had been paid. The president can follow other avenues if he wishes. I would argue that constitutionally he is the authority to do what he's doing, whether people like it or not. And Congress has the constitutional power to try and check that, and those lawyers on the Supreme Court had no business getting involved. They should have done what I said, not because I said it, because it would have been right, which was reverse the lower court that found those tariffs illegal, tell the judiciary below, stay out of this. The court should say, "We're going to stay out of it," because this really isn't justiciable in any rational or logical way. It hasn't really played out. It may never play out. It hasn't played out in 200 years and more of American constitutional history. But the court jumped in and they created a big splash, a big mess, and achieved nothing but chaos.

## Media

- video: https://static-assets-1.truthsocial.com/tmtg:prime-ts-assets/media_attachments/files/116/117/627/012/088/115/original/67510d351455be9b.mp4

## Engagement

- Likes: 12,658
- Reposts: 3,765
- Replies: 1,290
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-02-23T21:15:39.313Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-09-09T10:06:10.824Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._

## Summary

This media-only post carries no caption; Trump amplifies a video delivering a lengthy, numbered legalistic rebuttal to the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling striking down his IEEPA tariff authority (decided three days earlier). Absent from the post itself is any written text, so authorship/stylometric analysis rests solely on posting time (~9:40 PM ET, weakly consistent with personal use) with confidence capped at low.

The clip's content, whether spoken by Trump or not, is analyzed as a selection act reflecting continued preoccupation with a significant legal defeat despite an intervening day of celebratory Olympics posts — indicating persistence of narcissistic injury beneath surface positivity. The video devalues the Court ('nine lawyers,' a 'law review group of legal students'), invokes unfalsifiable persecution ('they wouldn't have done it with a Biden or Obama'), and constructs extensive post-hoc rationalization for a preferred policy outcome, while accusing the Court itself of being 'result-oriented' — a plausible instance of projection. The nine-point structure functions rhetorically as an appeal to authority and complexity rather than a focused rebuttal.

No dehumanizing language, threats, or mobilization calls are present; danger level is none. The case-structure claims in the clip are substantially accurate per case records, though characterizations of the liberal justices as having 'gone further' are interpretive spin rather than verifiable fact. This post illustrates an oscillation pattern between grandiose triumph (prior day's Olympics posts) and grievance/injury response common in this subject's longitudinal record.

## Post Overview

This is a media-only Truth Social post: no caption, no written text from Trump — only a video whose transcript is a numbered, point-by-point legal critique of the Supreme Court's 6–3 IEEPA tariff ruling (*Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump*, decided 2026-02-20). Because there is no text authored by Trump on the post itself, stylometric and typographic authorship markers (typos, ALL CAPS, punctuation, syntactic drift) are unavailable and are not scored. The analyzable act is his choice to select and amplify this clip to his large following three days after a major legal defeat.

**Note on the transcript's speaker:** the content is delivered in a first-person, direct-address register ("I can assure you they wouldn't have done it with a Biden or Obama") interleaved with third-person self-reference ("the President," "the President's strategies") — a switching pattern consistent with Trump's own recorded direct-to-camera statements, a format he has used before. Per instructions, wording/style is not confidently attributed to him as author without clearer confirmation; the post is analyzed chiefly as a selection/amplification act, with the possibility (not certainty) that the voice is his own.

## Levels 1-3: Traits, Motives, Narrative
If the speaker is Trump, the content displays high assertiveness and low agreeableness (blunt devaluation of the Court — "nine lawyers," a "law review group of legal students in the law library"), and rigid conviction (low openness) that his Article II reading is self-evidently correct despite a 6-3 loss. Agency/power motive dominates (control over trade and foreign policy); no communion content is present. Narratively, Trump casts himself as the wronged executive whose legitimate constitutional authority was seized by an incoherent, politically motivated judiciary — a contamination sequence (functioning tariff regime → judicially dismantled) rather than redemption, with the Court positioned as contrasting other ("the usual leftists," a "committee of lawyers").

## Level 4: Clinical Indicators

**Narcissistic features:** Grandiosity is evident in the implicit claim that his own constitutional analysis is superior to that of the Chief Justice and eight other justices, and in devaluing a unanimous-on-the-core-holding 6-3 ruling as an incompetent "mess" produced by amateurs. Entitlement appears in the framing that "the President and we, the people, deserve a lot better" — positioning judicial review of his own power as an affront.

**Paranoid features:** "I can assure you they wouldn't have done it with a Biden or Obama" asserts a persecutory belief that the Court's ruling reflects personal targeting rather than legal reasoning, without evidentiary basis — a hallmark suspicion-without-sufficient-basis pattern.

**Antisocial/contempt-for-institutions features:** Sustained delegitimization of a co-equal branch's authority ("some committee of lawyers," law students "vying to impose his or her own policy preferences"), consistent with a longstanding pattern of attacking judicial rulings that go against him.

**Trigger:** Narcissistic injury — a significant, high-profile legal defeat (loss of tariff authority, $175B+ in collections invalidated) three days prior, following a stretch of celebratory Olympics posts. The shift from "LOTS OF WINNING!!!" (2/22) to a lengthy legalistic grievance video (2/23) is a marked valence swing.

**Narcissistic state:** Predominantly grandiose-defensive rather than vulnerable — the response is not "I am persecuted and helpless" but "I am right and they are incompetent/biased," an externalizing, dominance-preserving posture.

**Defense mechanisms:** Rationalization is the primary mechanism — an extensive, quasi-legal argument (numbered points invoking Article I/II, historical precedent) constructed post hoc to justify a policy preference. Devaluation is prominent (the Court's reasoning repeatedly diminished as amateurish, "result-oriented," incoherent). Splitting appears in framing three justices as "the usual leftists" versus implying the Roberts/Gorsuch/Barrett bloc as the legitimate reasoners. Projection is arguable: he accuses the Court of being "result-oriented, a result looking for a... justification" while himself offering after-the-fact justification for a policy he already wanted.

## Rhetorical Techniques
The clip deploys ad hominem against the institution ("nine lawyers," "committee of lawyers," "law review group of legal students"), false-dichotomy framing (legitimate reasoners vs. "usual leftists"), appeal to unfalsifiable persecution ("they wouldn't have done it with a Biden or Obama"), and volume/complexity as a rhetorical strategy itself (nine enumerated objections spanning technical statutory and constitutional argument) — consistent with a "flood the zone" approach to contesting an adverse ruling rather than a single sharp rebuttal.

## Danger Assessment
No eliminationist language, dehumanization, or calls to mobilization are present. This is institutional/legal grievance directed at the judiciary, not a targeted-individual or stochastic-terrorism pattern. Danger level: none.

## Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "The Supreme Court's tariff ruling reflected a majority (Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett, Jackson) on the core IEEPA holding, with only Gorsuch and Barrett joining Roberts on the major-questions-doctrine portion, making that a narrower three-justice plurality within the six-justice majority." | **Mostly True** | Case records confirm Chief Justice Roberts delivered the Court's opinion for Parts I, II-A-1, and II-B (joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson — six justices), while Parts II-A-2 and III were joined only by Gorsuch and Barrett, forming a three-justice plurality on that narrower legal theory. The clip's description of a split majority is structurally accurate; its characterization of the other three justices as having 'gone further' in attacking tariff authority is a more contestable interpretive gloss rather than a checkable fact. |

Overall Veracity: 80%

## Longitudinal Note
This post follows a run of high-affect, brief victory posts (Olympics gold medal celebrations, 2/22) and precedes it with markedly different register — long-form legalistic grievance — illustrating the oscillation between grandiose triumph and grievance/injury response that recurs in this subject's posting pattern. Confidence in this trajectory read is medium; a larger window of posts would strengthen it.

## Authorship Attribution
No stylometric text exists on this post. Timing: converting 2026-02-23T02:40:46Z to Eastern Time (UTC-5 in February) yields approximately 9:40 PM ET, a plausible evening/night posting window consistent with, though not strongly diagnostic of, personal authorship of the *posting decision*. No information establishes Trump's specific location this date; Eastern Time is assumed as the default absent contrary evidence. Because there is no written caption, this analysis can only speak to who likely selected/posted the clip, not who wrote or spoke its content — confidence is capped at low accordingly.

## Authorship Analysis

**Uncertain** (score: 55%)

### Indicators

- No written caption exists to apply stylometric analysis to
- Posting time (~9:40 PM ET) falls in a plausible personal-use evening window but is not strongly diagnostic
- Content-selection (a lengthy legalistic grievance video following a Supreme Court loss) is consistent with personal engagement with the tariff ruling based on prior posting patterns around perceived institutional slights
- No third-person 'President Trump' announcement framing or press-release polish is present in the clip itself, which would typically signal staff origination

## Psychological Profile

### Traits

**Big Five:**
- Extraversion: 60%
- Agreeableness: 15%
- Conscientiousness: 35%
- Neuroticism: 50%
- Openness: 20%

Strongest facet: low agreeableness / assertive hostility toward institutional authority

**Motives:**
- Agency: 85%
- Communion: 5%

Primary drive: power

### Narrative

- **Role:** wronged executive / lone clear-eyed reasoner against an incompetent institution
- **Arc:** contamination
- **Contrasting:** the Supreme Court majority, especially the three liberal-leaning justices ('the usual leftists')

**Identity Claims:**
- Sole legitimate interpreter of his own constitutional authority
- Defender of 'we, the people' against an out-of-touch judicial elite

### State

**Grandiose State**

**Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Defeat (Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling striking down IEEPA tariff authority, decided 2026-02-20)

**Rage:** Intensity 45% targeting The Supreme Court / the majority justices (excluding Thomas, favorably referenced)
- Proportionality: 50%

Sentiment: -0.50

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 55%
- Antisocial: 20%
- Paranoid: 45%
- Sadism: 5%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- rationalization (neurotic)
- devaluation (immature)
- splitting (immature)
- projection (immature)

**Cognitive Complexity:**
- Complexity: 60%

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Numbered, seemingly rigorous point-by-point structure lending an appearance of authoritative legal expertise
- Framing personal grievance as defense of 'we, the people'

## Fact Checks (1)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-09-09._

> The Supreme Court's tariff ruling reflected a majority (Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett, Jackson) on the core IEEPA holding, with only Gorsuch and Barrett joining Roberts on the major-questions-doctrine portion, making that a narrower three-justice plurality within the six-justice majority.

**MOSTLY TRUE**

Case records confirm Chief Justice Roberts delivered the Court's opinion for Parts I, II-A-1, and II-B (joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson — six justices), while Parts II-A-2 and III were joined only by Gorsuch and Barrett, forming a three-justice plurality on that narrower legal theory. The clip's description of a split majority is structurally accurate; its characterization of the other three justices as having 'gone further' in attacking tariff authority is a more contestable interpretive gloss rather than a checkable fact.

Sources: https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/02/a-breakdown-of-the-courts-tariff-decision/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_Resources,_Inc._v._Trump

Overall Veracity: 80%

## Tags

- judicial-grievance (90%)
- narcissistic-injury-response (70%)
- media-only-post (100%)
- institutional-delegitimization (60%)
- tariff-ruling (90%)

## That day

_From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._

**He demoted the "supreme court" to lowercase, then threatened higher tariffs than the ones it had just struck down**

Trump spent the day still chewing on the Supreme Court ruling that struck down his tariffs three days earlier, and by early morning he was announcing he would write "supreme court" in lowercase until further notice. He insisted the loss had actually handed him more power, then threatened any country that tries to "play games" with the decision with even steeper tariffs — while his administration quietly signed a proclamation routing around the ruling under a different law. The middle of the day was a burst of borrowed praise: Border Patrol union endorsements, Fox segments, a Florida campaign announcement. He resurfaced after a six-hour afternoon silence to publicly correct reports that his top general opposes war with Iran, then closed on a friendly note about saving Utah's Great Salt Lake. A poll putting his approval at a record low, a blizzard shutting down New York, and a canal-ports win in Panama all went unmentioned.

Full digest for 2026-02-23: https://trump.fm/date/2026-02-23/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2026, February 23).  [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_116117631579794905
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "" Truth Social, 23 Feb. 2026. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_116117631579794905. Accessed 9 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "," Truth Social, February 23, 2026, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_116117631579794905.

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