President Donald Trump held a press conference on February 20, 2026, responding to a Supreme Court ruling that struck down his sweeping tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Trump called the decision “deeply disappointing,” expressed shame toward justices who ruled against him, and praised the three dissenters — Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh — while calling rulings by Justices Gorsuch and Barrett “an embarrassment to their families.” Despite the loss, Trump framed the ruling as ultimately empowering his trade agenda, announcing he would immediately sign an order imposing a 10 percent global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act and initiate new Section 301 investigations into unfair foreign trading practices. He left unresolved the fate of an estimated $175 billion in tariff revenue already collected, saying the court failed to address refunds and predicting years of additional litigation. Assistance from Claude AI.
Participants
- Donald Trump — President of the United States
- Jamieson Greer — United States Trade Representative (USTR)
- Members of the White House press corps (unidentified)
Detailed Breakdown by Topic
The Supreme Court Ruling: Trump’s Reaction
Trump opened with a sharp rebuke of the court, calling the decision “deeply disappointing” and saying he was “ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed, for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”
Background for general readers: The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is a Cold War-era law that gives presidents broad authority to regulate commerce in a national emergency. Trump had used it as the legal basis for wide-ranging tariffs on imports from numerous countries — a use of IEEPA that courts had now ruled went too far.
Trump praised the three dissenting justices — Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh — calling their dissenting opinions so persuasive that “there is no way that anyone can argue against them.”
He accused the majority justices of being “automatic no” votes, comparing them to Democrats in Congress. “They’re against anything that makes America strong, healthy, and great again,” he said. He called them “a disgrace to our nation” and accused them of being “fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats.”
Trump also alleged — without presenting specific evidence — that “the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think.”
The Ruling’s Specific Limits — and Trump’s Interpretation
Trump spent considerable time parsing what he said was a logical absurdity at the heart of the ruling: that under IEEPA, he could embargo a country or ban all trade, but could not charge a tariff — even one dollar.
“I’m allowed to destroy the country, but I can’t charge them a little fee,” Trump said. “I can license. It’s a very powerful word. In many ways, license is more powerful than tariffs. But not the right to charge a license fee.”
Trump argued the ruling actually strengthened his overall trade authority by confirming the legality of other tariff tools. He quoted Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent approvingly: “Although I firmly disagree with the court’s holding today, the decision might not substantially constrain a president’s ability to order tariffs going forward.”
Trump read from Kavanaugh’s dissent at length, citing specific statutes Kavanaugh identified as alternative legal authorities:
- Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Section 232 (national security tariffs)
- Trade Act of 1974, Sections 122, 201, and 301
- Tariff Act of 1930, Section 338
“The Supreme Court did not overrule tariffs,” Trump said. “They merely overruled a particular use of IEEPA tariffs.”
Immediate Policy Actions Announced
Trump announced two concrete steps effective almost immediately:
- A new 10 percent global tariff to be signed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, described as effective approximately three days from the press conference date.
- New Section 301 investigations into unfair trading practices by foreign countries and companies.
Background for general readers: Section 122 allows a president to impose a temporary surcharge of up to 15 percent on imports for up to 150 days to address balance-of-payments problems. Section 301 investigations are a slower but legally durable process that allows the U.S. to respond to specific unfair trade practices — the mechanism used for many of the original China tariffs during Trump’s first term.
Trump also confirmed that existing Section 232 national security tariffs (such as steel and aluminum tariffs) and existing Section 301 tariffs remain fully in place and unaffected by the ruling.
Jamieson Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative, elaborated: “We have section 122, which will be implemented today — it will be signed today and implemented very shortly. We have section 301 investigations which are incredibly legally durable where we can address — investigate and address unfair trading practices that have led to our huge trade deficit. You can look forward in the coming days and weeks to seeing all of that come out.”
The $175 Billion Question: Will Companies Get Refunds?
One of the sharpest exchanges came when a reporter — identified as “Peter” — asked about the fate of roughly $175 billion in tariff revenue collected since “Liberation Day” (Trump’s April 2025 announcement of sweeping global tariffs).
Reporter: “Do you have to refund $175 billion?”
Trump: “Think of it, Peter. Very fair question. They take months and months to write an opinion and they don’t even discuss that point… Wouldn’t you think they would have put one sentence in there saying keep the money or don’t keep the money? I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years.”
When a reporter followed up asking whether Trump planned to honor refund requests from companies, Trump said: “I just told you the answer. It’s not discussed. We’ll end up being in court for the next five years.”
In other words, Trump declined to commit to issuing refunds, effectively signaling a legal battle over the money already collected.
Trade Deals Already Negotiated: Do They Stand?
A reporter asked whether trade deals negotiated using IEEPA tariffs as leverage would need to be renegotiated. Trump gave a mixed answer: “Some of them stand. Many of them stand, some of them won’t and they’ll be replaced with the other tariffs.”
On the India deal specifically — described as a framework agreement under negotiation — Trump said: “Nothing changes. They’ll be paying tariffs and we will not be paying tariffs.” He praised Prime Minister Modi as a “great gentleman” while noting India had previously benefited from asymmetric trade arrangements.
Trump also mentioned a Vietnamese trade representative had recently visited the White House, and that Canada had told negotiators that if Trump won the IEEPA case, they expected even higher tariffs under other authorities.
Tariff Revenue and Economic Claims
Trump made several sweeping economic claims:
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average had broken 50,000 and the S&P 500 had broken 7,000, which he called records “everyone thought could not be attained” within four years.
- Tariffs helped reduce fentanyl imports by 30 percent.
- He credited tariffs with helping resolve conflicts involving India and Pakistan, and claimed Pakistan’s Prime Minister credited him with saving 35 million lives by halting their conflict.
- He cited a Georgia steel plant owner who said his business went from “working one hour a week” to running double shifts, seven days a week.
- Economist Steve Moore reportedly told Trump that 22 Nobel Prize-winning economists had predicted a recession, but “you were right” that the economy would boom.
Note: Some of these claims — including specific figures about stock indices, fentanyl reductions, and Nobel Prize economists — would benefit from independent verification.
Congressional Action: Is It Needed?
When asked whether he would seek additional congressional authorization for tariffs, Trump said no: “I don’t need to, it’s already been approved.”
A reporter pushed back, noting that the House had recently voted down Canadian tariffs and there had been Senate votes against tariff policies. Trump disputed the framing:
Reporter: “The House just voted down the Canadian tariffs last week. There’s been votes in the Senate against it.”
Trump: “Yeah, you know why? We lost two Republicans or three Republicans because they’re not good Republicans… We got 215 votes. 215 to 3 on the Republican side. But you don’t say that.”
The reporter noted 218 votes are required to pass legislation; Trump acknowledged the loss but emphasized overall Republican unity.
Justices Gorsuch and Barrett: Trump’s Sharpest Criticism
When a reporter asked specifically about Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — both Trump appointees who ruled against him — Trump was notably harsh:
Reporter: “Do you regret nominating them?”
Trump: “I don’t want to say whether or not I regret. I think their decision was terrible. I think it’s an embarrassment to their families, you want to know the truth, the two of them.”
He had earlier declined to take a question he identified as coming from CNN, saying: “I don’t talk to CNN. It’s fake news.”
When asked if the justices who ruled against him were still invited to his upcoming State of the Union address, Trump said: “They are invited, barely, barely… Honestly, I couldn’t care less if they come.”
Allegations of Foreign Influence on the Court
Trump repeated allegations that the Supreme Court had been influenced by foreign interests, saying he believed unnamed people have “undue influence” over the court “whether it’s through fear or respect or friendships.” When a reporter pressed him for evidence and asked if he would investigate, Trump replied only: “You’re going to find out.”
Iran: Negotiations and a Claimed Threat
On Iran, Trump said nuclear negotiations were ongoing and gave an account of threatening Iranian leadership over planned executions:
“They were going to hang 837 people… I gave them the word: if you hang one person, even one person, you’re going to be hit right then and there. I wasn’t waiting two weeks of negotiating — and they gave up the hanging.”
Trump expressed sympathy for ordinary Iranians: “The people of Iran are a lot different than the leaders of Iran… I feel very badly for the people of Iran. They’ve lived in hell.”
Syria and the Kurds
Briefly addressing Syria, Trump said: “The president of Syria, who I essentially put there, is doing a phenomenal job. He’s a rough guy. He’s not a choir boy. A choir boy couldn’t do it, but Syria is coming together, really coming together well.” He noted the Syrian leader “has been very good to the Kurds.”
Europe: “Gone Woke”
Trump offered an extended critique of Europe, saying: “Europe has gone woke. Europe is not recognizable when you go into so many places.” He singled out energy and immigration as the continent’s two critical failures: “Europe’s getting killed in two things, energy and immigration. And if they don’t solve both of them fast, Europe is not the same place.”
Federal Reserve and Interest Rates
Trump renewed his criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, calling him “very incompetent” and saying he “likes high interest rates for political reasons.” Trump said interest rates “should come down very substantially” and claimed the U.S. should pay “the lowest interest rates on the planet.”
Closing Remarks
Trump closed by framing the ruling as ultimately delivering certainty — a word he returned to repeatedly. “The word certainty is now in the equation,” he said. “Every single thing I said today is guaranteed certainty… you’re no longer going to be asking — every time I got up, you’d ask, well, what happens if you can’t charge tariffs? Now we can.”
Citation
“Press Conference: Donald Trump Addresses the Supreme Court Tariff Decision — February 20, 2026.” Factbase, FiscalNote / Roll Call, 20 Feb. 2026, factba.se.
Here is a comprehensive fact-check of Trump’s key claims from the February 20, 2026 press conference.
Fact-Check: Trump Press Conference on Supreme Court Tariff Decision — February 20, 2026
The Supreme Court Ruling Itself
Trump’s claim: He praised Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh as the dissenters, and attacked Justices Gorsuch and Barrett by name as having made an embarrassing decision.
✅ ACCURATE. The 6-3 decision included three liberals and three conservatives in the majority: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented. Trump’s identification of the dissenters is correct.
The $175 Billion Refund Question
Trump’s claim: The court took “months and months” to write an opinion and didn’t address what happens to the money already collected. He predicted years of litigation.
✅ SUBSTANTIALLY ACCURATE — with important nuance. The U.S. Supreme Court provided no roadmap on refunds. The dissent warned that the United States “may be required to refund billions of dollars,” that the process is likely to be a “mess,” and that the majority opinion “says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers.”
On the dollar amount: The reporter cited $175 billion. As of December 14, 2025, the latest data available, the government had collected $133.5 billion of IEEPA tariff payments from U.S. importers. The Tax Foundation estimates through February 20, 2026 they have generated at least $160 billion. Penn-Wharton’s model, extrapolating forward, put the figure at approximately $175–$179 billion — so the reporter’s number was a reasonable estimate from an authoritative source, though the exact figure remains contested.
Stock Market Claims
Trump’s claim: “Our stock market has just recently broken 50,000 on the Dow and simultaneously broken 7,000 on the S&P — two numbers that everybody thought upon our landslide election victory could not be attained. Nobody thought it was possible to do it within four years and we did it in one year.”
✅ MIXED — The milestone numbers are real; the framing is misleading.
The Dow 50,000 milestone is confirmed. On February 6, 2026, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 50,120.45, shattering its previous record. The S&P 7,000 milestone is also real. The S&P 500 hit an intraday touch of 7,002.28 on January 28, 2026. However, the milestone was “driven largely by the unrelenting demand for artificial intelligence and a resilient ‘soft landing’ for the broader macroeconomy” — not tariffs alone, as Trump implies. Analysts, market reports, and financial institutions uniformly attribute the gains to AI investment cycles, Fed rate cuts, and broad earnings strength, not to tariff policy. Trump’s causal claim — that tariffs drove the markets — is not supported by market analysis.
Additionally, Trump’s claim that “nobody thought” these levels were possible within four years is rhetorical overstatement. Many analysts had forecast both milestones within the decade.
Tariff Revenue Collected
Trump’s claim: “We’re taking in hundreds of billions of dollars.”
✅ ACCURATE AS A GENERAL STATEMENT. Total tariff revenue (including pre-IEEPA tariffs, Section 232, Section 301, and IEEPA-based duties) reached approximately $264 billion in calendar year 2025, compared to $79 billion in calendar year 2024. However, the IEEPA portion specifically — now ruled illegal — accounts for roughly $133–160+ billion of that. The broader “hundreds of billions” claim is defensible across all tariff authorities combined.
Fentanyl Reduction Claims
Trump’s claim: Tariffs “reduced fentanyl coming into our country by 30 percent.”
⚠️ MISLEADING — the decline is real but the cause is disputed, and the figure may be understated.
Fentanyl seizures at the border have significantly declined. Between January and September 2025, authorities seized approximately 7,517 pounds of fentanyl at U.S. borders — 55% less than had been seized by the same point in 2024. That’s a much steeper drop than the 30% Trump cited. However, the cause of the decline is contested. Experts say the decline is in large part due to concerted efforts by the Biden administration to curb trafficking in cooperation with other countries, namely China and Mexico. Importantly, lower seizure numbers don’t necessarily mean less fentanyl is entering the country — they could also reflect changes in trafficking routes or enforcement patterns. Trump attributes the reduction entirely to tariffs; the data and expert consensus do not support that singular attribution.
India-Pakistan “War” and the “35 Million Lives” Claim
Trump’s claim: He settled a war between India and Pakistan that “could have been nuclear” and the Pakistani Prime Minister credited him with saving 35 million lives by threatening 200% tariffs on both countries. He also said “10 planes were shot down.”
⚠️ PARTIALLY CONFIRMED — but significantly disputed by India.
Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif did make those remarks. During the inaugural Board of Peace meeting, Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif called Trump a “man of peace” and “saviour of people of South Asia,” saying his intervention “potentially averted the loss of millions of people’s lives.”
However, India has consistently refuted Trump’s claims, stating that the ceasefire was achieved bilaterally through the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs), without third-party involvement.
On the planes: Trump said “10 planes were shot down” in this press conference. Notably, Trump backtracked from his previous claim of 11 jets — he had said “11 planes” the day before. The inconsistency in the number over consecutive days is worth flagging.
The “35 million lives saved” figure is an unverifiable hypothetical — not an actual casualty count.
Trump’s Claim That the Court’s Ruling “Made Tariff Authority More Powerful”
Trump’s claim: “The Supreme Court’s decision today made a president’s ability to both regulate trade and impose tariffs more powerful and more crystal clear rather than less.”
⚠️ SPIN — legally contested framing. It is true that the ruling confirmed the legality of other tariff statutes (Section 232, 301, 122, 338) — and Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent did note those alternatives. However, the ruling “erases nearly three-fourths of the new tax revenue the Trump administration hoped to raise from tariffs” and invalidated the broadest tariffs in the regime. Most legal and economic analysts characterized it as a significant restriction, not an expansion, of executive trade power. Trump is cherry-picking Kavanaugh’s dissent to reframe a legal defeat.
Farmers: “$12 Billion Out of Tariff Money”
Trump’s claim: “Last week I gave [farmers] $12 billion out of tariff money.”
🔍 UNVERIFIED IN THIS SEARCH — this is a specific recent claim that would benefit from independent confirmation against USDA payment records. This is flagged for further verification.
“22 Nobel Prize Winners Said We’d Be in a Recession”
Trump’s claim: Economist Steve Moore told Trump that “22 Nobel Prize winners in economics said we would right now be in a recession” and they were all wrong.
⚠️ UNVERIFIED / MISLEADING FRAMING. This appears to reference a 2024 open letter signed by economists (including some Nobel laureates) warning that Trump’s economic proposals could reignite inflation — not a specific prediction of imminent recession. Trump’s characterization conflates general economic warnings with a specific recession forecast. The exact claim about “22 Nobel Prize winners” and the precise prediction attributed to them could not be confirmed in current sources and should be treated skeptically.
Summary Table
| Claim | Rating | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Dissenters were Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh | ✅ Accurate | Confirmed by all major sources |
| Court left refund question unresolved | ✅ Accurate | Confirmed; case remanded to lower court |
| $175B in tariff revenue collected | ✅ Mostly accurate | Penn-Wharton estimates $175–179B; official CBP data shows $133.5B through Dec. 14, 2025 |
| Dow broke 50,000 / S&P broke 7,000 | ✅ Accurate (milestones); ⚠️ Misleading (causation) | Milestones real; attributing them to tariffs is not supported |
| Fentanyl down 30% | ⚠️ Misleading | Actual seizure data shows a larger drop (~55%); causation disputed |
| Pakistan PM credited Trump with saving 35 million lives | ✅ Accurate (the quote); ⚠️ Context needed | Sharif did say this; India disputes Trump’s role entirely |
| Planes shot down: Trump said “10” | ⚠️ Inconsistent | Said “11” the day before; no independent verification |
| Court ruling “made tariff power stronger” | ⚠️ Spin | Ruling invalidated the largest tariffs; alternatives confirmed but are narrower |
| $12 billion to farmers from tariff revenue | 🔍 Unverified | Requires independent confirmation |
| 22 Nobel winners predicted recession | ⚠️ Misleading framing | Likely mischaracterizes a 2024 warning letter; not independently confirmed |
Sources: NPR, NBC News, CBS News, CNBC, Tax Foundation, Penn-Wharton Budget Model, Yale Budget Lab, Congressional Research Service, USAFacts, Council on Foreign Relations, Rising Kashmir/ANI, S&P Dow Jones Indices.