Lower courts have ruled that the so-called reciprocal tariffs invoked under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act are illegal, though the Supreme Court will have a final say.

In an interview on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday, Hassett predicted that the justices will rule in the White House’s favor.

“And I also think that if they didn’t find with us, that it’s going to be pretty unlikely that they’re going to call for widespread refunds, because it would be an administrative problem to get those refunds out to there,” he added, explaining that whoever made the actual tariff payment would be in line to get a refund.

That’s as Trump has vowed that foreign countries would pay the tariffs, though importers in the U.S. have been footing the bill with many companies passing along at least a portion of the costs to consumers.

Hassett said the eventual payer of a tariff “depends on elasticities of supply and demand,” while noting Chinese companies have slashed their prices to offset tariff costs.

“But the people who pay the tariff, if there is a refund, the people who actually paid for the good, the importer, in most cases, they’re the ones who would be the first line of defense for refunding the tariff,” he said. “But I really, really don’t think that’s going to happen, it’d be very complicated. And then that person would be responsible for allocating the tariff refund to the appropriate folks.”

Hassett added, “Yes, it is a mess, and that’s why I think the Supreme Court wouldn’t do it.”

Trade experts have pointed out that the federal government already issues millions of refunds every year for income taxes, suggesting tariff refunds wouldn’t be so daunting.

Through late September, about $90 billion of the $174 billion in tariff revenue generated up to then came from the IEEPA duties.

Meanwhile, companies are already positioning themselves to get their money back in the event the Supreme Court strikes down the tariffs.

Late last month, Costco filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade, joining dozens of other companies suing over the IEEPA duties.

The warehouse club chain said it needed to go to court due to the uncertainty that refunds will be guaranteed if the Supreme Court rules the tariffs are illegal.

Wall Street expects that to happen as justices largely seemed skeptical of the Trump administration when they heard arguments for the case.

But other tariffs invoked under separate laws would be unaffected by a Supreme Court decision, and fresh tariffs could be imposed to replace the IEEPA levies.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Trump warned that if the Supreme Court strikes down his global tariffs, his alternatives are not as “nimble, not as quick.”

 “I can do other things, but it’s not as fast. It’s not as good for national security,” he added. 

After traffic lights went dark at major intersections Saturday, social media videos showed multiple cars stopped in the middle of the street with their hazard lights flashing.

The power failures, which at one point affected 130,000 customers, closed stores and disrupted transit during the busy holiday shopping period — including many Waymo cars, Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving taxi service. 

Michele Riva, 30, was going home Saturday evening in a Waymo car when the outage happened. His car had kept moving when they were in a less transited area of the city, even with passengers crossing on the street, he said. He was only a minute away from his destination when the car stopped in front of a “very dense intersection” and non-working traffic lights, he said, without giving him any notice.

“I stayed in the Waymo for a couple of minutes, just to see,” said Riva, who is an engineer working in artificial intelligence. “The problem was that, at the beginning, there were a lot of people crossing the streets because there were no traffic lights. So I believe the Waymo just didn’t know what to do.”

PG&E Corp., which blamed the outage on a fire in a substation, began restoring most of the service Saturday evening. By Sunday morning, PG&E said it has restored service for 110,000 customers, but 21,000 remain without electricity. 

Riva tried contacting customer support for about three minutes while he was stuck in the immobile car, but gave up after the wait time became too long as the service was overwhelmed with other passengers’ calls. He decided to get out of the Waymo and walk the couple of blocks left to his home.

On Sunday, the Waymo app showed a notification to some customers saying the service for the Bay Area is paused, affecting at least seven cities.

“Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon,” a Waymo spokesperson said in a statement Sunday.

Riva tried ordering another Waymo ride on Sunday before he saw the message.

“At the end of the day, I know it was an unpleasant situation for the other drivers, but I believe it really was all about safety — I believe it’s better safe than sorry,” Riva said. “I hope they will account for that in the future, because it’s truly a good service.”

Tesla Inc.’s CEO Elon Musk posted on X that his companies’ robotaxis — a direct competitor of Waymo — were “unaffected” by the power outage.

OpenAI has squeezed better margins out of its paid products this year, as it races to maintain its pole position in artificial intelligence, according to a report in The Information.