It was just last week when Donald Trump used his social media platform to boast“The United States is taking in RECORD NUMBERS in Tariffs.” It was not an isolated claim: The president has repeatedly asserted of late that, thanks to his highly controversial tariffs policy, American coffers are filling at a rate of roughly $2 billion per day.

CNBC reported that data from Customs and Border Protection appear to contradict the Republican’s claims, and a new analysis from The Associated Press advanced the reporting, documenting the extent to which Trump has wildly inflated the facts. Indeed, the AP concluded that the president’s preferred statistic is simply “false.”

Complicating matters, the president didn’t stick to his false claim about $2 billion a day in tax revenue: At a White House event last week, Trump decided that his boasts were understating matters. “Now we’re making $3 billion a day,” he claimed on April 14.

The Washington Post published a fact-check report noting data from the Treasury Department and Customs and Border Protection that showed that Trump was “way off the mark.” Indeed, the Post’s analysis concluded that the president peddled “nonsense numbers.”

And while I’ll concede the point that Trump getting caught saying something that isn’t true hardly constitutes a stop-the-presses development, I continue to believe there’s a broader significance to all of this.

For one thing, the White House is doing real and consequential harm — to the U.S. economy, to the country’s international credibility and reputation, and even to our global partnerships and alliances — based on Trump’s assumptions about the value of his trade tariffs. If he’s wrong about the most basic elements of the policy, it’s a painful and timely reminder that the American president is harming his own country as a direct result of his incompetence.

But let’s also not forget that the Republican continues to suggest — out loud, on the record, in apparent seriousness — that tariffs will generate so much revenue that income taxes might soon be unnecessary.

This idea, which he’s peddled beforehas always been bananas. In fact, “It is literally impossible for tariffs to fully replace income taxes,” as Kimberly Clausing and Maurice Obstfeld, two senior fellows at nonpartisan think tank the Peterson Institute for International Economics, wrote last year.

Trump keeps talking about the idea anyway. Three months ago, shortly before his second inaugural, the Republican announced plans to create an “External Revenue Service,” so that the U.S. would no longer have to rely on the IRS. He repeated this in his inaugural addressboasting that this External Revenue Service would collect “massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury.”

The president’s allies quickly chimed in. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick boasted last month, “We’re gonna make the External Revenue Service replace the Internal Revenue Service.” Around the same time, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri added“I love Trump’s idea to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service. Let’s make it the External Revenue Service.”

But the latest data reinforces the inconvenient fact that this entire approach is folly. The White House is clearly destabilizing the existing tax agencybut if the president and his cohorts believe the IRS can simply be mothballed while the U.S. government relies on tariff revenue, the evidence proves otherwise.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

Steve legs

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The first time Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take a sledgehammer to the Affordable Care Act, they failed. The second time didn’t turn out well for the health care law’s GOP opponents, and the ACA survived the third efforttoo.

Will the fourth time be the charm? It’s possible, though an Associated Press report suggested that the odds appear to be on health care advocates’ side.

For those who might benefit from a refresher about this case, let’s revisit our earlier coverage and review how we arrived at this point.

The ACA was written to include a great many benefits for consumers, including requirements that Americans receive no-cost preventive care, covering everything from cancer screenings to vaccinations, prenatal services to HIV prevention, pap smears to heart disease screenings. A federal panel — the Preventive Services Task Force — was tasked with determining which health care measures would be included.

When the panel approved no-cost coverage for the HIV prevention medication known as PrEP, however, a group of conservatives filed suitarguing that the panel violated their religious rights by “making them complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior, drug use, and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman.”

Just as notably, the plaintiffs said that the task force’s policies are invalid because its members are appointed by the executive branch and not confirmed by the Senate.

A couple of years ago, Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas — a judge who has earned a reputation as one of the judiciary’s most far-right reactionaries — ruled with conservatives and blocked enforcement of the ACA’s preventative health care requirements. Last year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, generally seen as the nation’s most conservative appellate bench, predictably agreed with O’Connor and rejected the ACA’s health task force.

Now it’s the Supreme Court’s turn, and during oral arguments, much of the discussion focused on the Constitution’s appointment clausewhich requires Senate confirmation for a variety of powerful offices, though as The Washington Post notedit also allows Congress to vest authority in department heads and other officials to appoint “inferior officers.”

It’s a point the ACA’s opponents struggled to explain away.

To be sure, the first three ACA cases to reach the high court created existential threats to the law known as Obamacare: The plaintiffs were trying to tear down the entire system, root and branch. That’s not the case in this dispute: Even if the ACA were to lose, it would still exist.

That said, as a recent New York Times’ report explained, the impact of a potential defeat would be dramatic for millions of Americans. It would mean, among other things, the elimination of “screenings to detect cancer and diabetes; statin medications to reduce the risk of heart disease and strokes; physical therapy for older adults to prevent falls; and eye ointment for newborns to prevent infections causing blindness.”

Lung cancer screenings alone save thousands of American lives every year, and if ACA opponents win this Supreme Court case, the screenings would no longer be free.

For now, however, there’s cautious optimism that the justices will do what they’ve done before and side with the Affordable Care Act. A ruling is expected over the summer. Watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

Steve legs

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

In general, when the public hears about the government directing resources to a school, people might think of the funding as charitable in nature. Perhaps, the thinking goes, public officials want to help students, so they appropriated some money accordingly.

But when Harvard University received federal funds, it wasn’t charity, and it wasn’t because the government wanted to support quality higher education or assist students. Rather, Harvard received scholarly research grants that were awarded after a competitive process. In other words, the university earned the money.

Donald Trump and his team nevertheless decided to cut off the grants — in legally dubious ways — as part of a multifaceted retaliation campaign. The question wasn’t whether Harvard would file suit, but when. As NBC News reportedthat question now has an answer.

“The Government has not — and cannot — identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, scientific, technological, and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives, foster American success, preserve American security, and maintain America’s position as a global leader in innovation,” the lawsuit said.

“Nor has the Government acknowledged the significant consequences that the indefinite freeze of billions of dollars in federal research funding will have on Harvard’s research programs, the beneficiaries of that research, and the national interest in furthering American innovation and progress.”

A White House spokesperson told The New York Timesin response to the litigation, “The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end.”

But again, whether Team Trump understands the relevant details or not, we’re not talking about a “gravy train.” The federal government invited bids and awarded research grants after a competitive process. It’s not as if Harvard approached Cabinet agencies, hat in hand, looking for a handout, to which the administration agreed out of a sense of magnanimity.

Also of interest is the university’s choice in legal representation: As the Times’ report noted, Harvard has “turned to two lawyers with ties to Mr. Trump and the administration.” William A. Burck, for example, served as an outside ethics adviser to the Trump Organization. Robert Hur, meanwhile, worked in the Justice Department during Trump’s first term and is perhaps best known for serving as the special counsel who investigated Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.

As for how we arrived at this point, if you’re new to the story, the simmering dispute between the school and the administration reached a boiling point on April 11, when Harvard received a series of outlandish written demands from the Trump administrationincluding a “request” to install outside auditors who would monitor the school’s academic departments.

The university realized that failure to comply with the ridiculous demands would result in governmental punishment. But left with little choice, Harvard balked anyway.

The retaliation was swift: Immediately after Harvard said it would not comply with the apparent extortion attempt, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to Harvard. (There are federal requirements in place when imposing financial penalties like these, and the Republican White House appears to have ignored those requirements.) The Department of Homeland Security secretary also canceled nearly $3 million in agency grants to Harvard, and at Trump’s behest the IRS reportedly began scrutinizing the university’s tax-exempt status.

The New York Times, citing multiple sources, reported that the original letter to Harvard “should not have been sent” and was “unauthorized.” White House officials didn’t deny that the letter was sent in error, but they refused to retract it, and remarkably, they blamed Harvard for not realizing that their over-the-top letter should not have been taken at face value.

Harvard’s case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Allison Burroughs, an Obama appointee. Watch this space.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

Steve legs

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”