These Republicans are all just shameless liars, and Meet the Press host Kristen Welker was about as useful as a potted plant while interviewing GOP Sen. James Lankford.

As we already discussed here, Trump threw a tantrum after an appeals court ruled that his tariffs are illegal because the emergencies he's tried to declare are bogus.

Lankford was asked about the ruling this Sunday, and proceeded to lie and ignore the fact that Trump is abusing the statutes that are available to a president on trade:

WELKER: Let's start with that decision over tariffs on Friday. The court saying, quote, "Tariffs are a tax, and only Congress has the power to impose taxes." Do you agree with the court's ruling, that ultimately the ability to impose tariffs lies with Congress?

LANKFORD: Well, this is actually going to go to the Supreme Court next, because the way the law is actually written is the law gives the authority to the president to be able to make decisions regulating imports and exports. And what the president is saying is tariffs is a way to be able to regulate imports and exports. To be very clear, what he is trying to do is to try to get more manufacturing into the United States, to get other countries to be able to open up their markets to American products, and to be able to cut our deficit.

So those are the three targets he's trying to accomplish, and he is accomplishing all three of those. We have ten trade deals that have now been done in seven very short months with major countries like the EU, with the U.K., with the Philippines, with Indonesia, South Korea, Japan. These are enormous trade agreements that have happened. And so for the court to step in and say he doesn't have the ability to be able to regulate trade, that is within the statute and is now going to go to the Supreme Court to be able to determine that.

There are no "trade deals" because those cannot be done unilaterally by the president either, but Welker didn't bother to point that out to Lankford. After playing a clip of Mike Pence talking about the fact that tariffs are a tax on consumers, Lankford proceeded to lie about that as well, and to blame the courts, and not TACO-boy for the chaos and uncertainty his illegal tariffs are creating:

WELKER: Senator, do you acknowledge that Americans ultimately pay the price of tariffs, as we just heard the vice president argue?

LANKFORD: Yeah, no question that tariffs are a tax. The question is who actually pays that. Part of it is going to be paid by the importer. Part of it is going to be paid by the exporter on that. It just breaks down product to product. Some products are more the actual consumer is going to pay, some products are more the actual exporter is going to pay.

But what we're seeing right now is inflation is still stable at this point. We've not seen a rise in inflation during this time period. As the White House has said over and over again, they – they're watching that. They're attentive to that to be able to make sure we don't see that.

Now, I'm – I’m a free trader. I want to see us trade with every single country. But that also means we've got to have a stable program that they've got to be able to receive our products, which they haven't in the past. Now many of these countries are opening up their markets to American sales.

The ultimate thing that I'm hearing, Kristen, more than anything else from all the companies that I've talked to, is they just want it to be set. They just want to know what the rules of the road are. Every time there's a new court hearing, every time there's a new change, it's destabilizing for every one of our businesses. So let's get all these things resolved as quickly as we possibly can.

And with that, Welker just moved onto the next topic.

These Republicans can continue to lie about the impact of these tariffs, but they're not going to be able to fool consumers when they see the cost of products rising. And the tariffs aren't the only thing about to hit everyone in the pocket book. Produce prices could be doubling in the next six months due to Trump's inhumane and illegal mass deportations.

I'm waiting to see how they try to explain all of this away once prices start soaring. I guess with the help of people like Kristen Welker, they'll just keep lying about it and insulting everyone's intelligence when they do talk to the media.