By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday said he came away from a Supreme Court hearing on the legality of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs feeling “very, very optimistic.”

Bessent told Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow” program he thought plaintiffs challenging Trump’s use of a 1977 law to justify tariffs had “almost embarrassed themselves,” and he was confident the Supreme Court would reverse a lower court ruling that the tariffs were illegal.

Asked how the administration would return the large amounts of funds already collected if the Supreme Court upheld the ruling, Bessent, who attended the arguments on Wednesday, said: “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it, but I’m confident we won’t have to.”

U.S. Supreme Court justices

See Full Page