WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Representative Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) joined CNN’s Jake Tapper on The Lead tonight to call out Trump’s self-defeating tariff policy on aluminum and steel on small American manufacturers.
Stanton was joined by his guest for President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech tomorrow night, Greg Fraley. Fraley, a lifelong republican and three-time Trump voter, is the COO of FALCO, a small aluminum manufacturing company in Chandler, Arizona, that has been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs. FALCO specializes in aluminum products for the aviation and aerospace industries, supplying companies such as Boeing, Cessna, and Lockheed Martin. Stanton toured FALCO’s manufacturing facility in November 2025 with the Chandler Chamber of Commerce.
Stanton has helped to introduce the RELIEF ACT to return money back to the pockets of small business owners who were affected by the tariffs overturned by the Supreme Court; however, the tariffs on aluminium affecting Fraley’s business are imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Stanton has backed legislation, the Congressional Trade Authority Act, to require the president to submit to Congress any proposal to adjust imports in the interest of national security under Section 232.
Watch the full interview HERE and read excerpts from the conversation below:
Tapper: Congressman, the president spoke Friday about the U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling against his sweeping tariff regime. And he's been furiously firing off truth social posts all week. And he wrote this morning, quote, as president, I do not have to go back to Congress to get approval of tariffs. It has already been gotten in many forms a long time ago. They were also just reaffirmed by the ridiculous and poorly crafted Supreme Court decision. What do you make of the way he's responded to the Supreme Court's ruling?
Stanton: He's 100% wrong. His tariffs were illegal from day one. We all knew that from day one. A tariff is a tax, and a tax can only be put in place by the United States Congress. The Supreme Court, by a 6 to 3 ruling made that absolutely clear. And the president, instead of doing what a president should do, which is listen to the Supreme Court and follow the order, did exactly the opposite. He thinks that he can issue these tariffs unilaterally without regard to Congress. And so what he's trying to do is issue these tariffs illegally through a, another, legal justification. He's wrong on that as well.
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Tapper: Greg, your company, FALCO, gets aluminum from suppliers and Los Angeles, which are primarily imported from Canada, as I understand it. What has been the impact of the tariffs for your business?
Fraley: Well, the impact is my cost for the raw material. Aluminum that I use has jumped 72% in the last 12 months. That's all really driven by the tariff costs. . . I just haven't been rehiring when I've lost employees through attrition, and that has prevented me from being able to expand the business as the aircraft manufacturers that I supply have been requesting us to hire up, but we haven't been able to just because I don't have the cash flow that allows me to be able to do that.
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Tapper: Congressman, the court did not come up with any sort of conclusion as to what will happen to the billions of dollars that the federal government collected from the tariffs. Speaker Johnson just told CNN he does not think that the government should pay back those costs. How do you think it should be decided?
Stanton: I can't believe the speaker takes that position. If you have illegally put tariffs in place, that means the resources from those tariffs have been illegally received by the government. They belong to the people of the United States of America. And we need to push forward right now to making sure that those dollars get back to our fellow Americans as soon as possible, and that the biggest businesses in America with the highest price lawyers don't get to the front of the line. We have to make sure that the American people and small and locally owned businesses have the fair opportunity to get their resources without having to hire a bunch of lawyers. That's the right approach. Now it's going to be a mess, but it's not a mess of our making. It's a mess of Donald Trump's making because he put into place these illegal tariffs.
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Tapper: Greg, how much approximately is it in the hundreds of thousands in the millions of dollars that you think you've paid in tariffs.
Fraley: Well, the tariff cost is reflected in general metal pricing. I would say we took a seven figure hit last year to our bottom line because of the impact the tariffs had. So in the millions.