On Thursday, the Trump administration’s effort to limit birthright citizenship ended up in front of the Supreme Court.Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times, discusses the White House’s unusual legal strategy for defending its plan, and what it might mean for the future of presidential power.Guest: Adam Liptak, covers the Supreme Court. A graduate of Yale Law School, he practiced law for 14 years before joining The Times in 2002.Background reading: Adam Liptak wrote about the unusual features of the birthright citizenship case.Adam also wrote about the Supreme Court justices across the ideological spectrum who have been critical of nationwide injunctions, which apply to everyone affected by a challenged law, regulation or executive action.Charlie Savage and Alan Feuer shared four takeaways from the birthright citizenship case.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Drew Angerer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
What is the Supreme Court case about birthright citizenship?
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On Thursday, the Trump administration's effort to abolish birthright citizenship finally ended up in front of the Supreme Court. Today. My colleague, Adam Liptak, on the White House's unusual legal strategy for defending its plan and what it may mean for the future of presidential power. It's Friday, May 16th.
Adam, always a distinct pleasure to have you on the show.
It's always good to be with you, Michael.
Let's talk about this case that was argued on Thursday before the Supreme Court. It's genuinely intriguing because it's not directly about President Trump's history-making decision to try to outlaw birthright citizenship, but it's not not about his effort to ban birthright citizenship. So just explain that.
It's really about a threshold question. Three different federal district court judges have taken a look at the order that President Trump signed the day he took office, purporting to do away with birthright citizenship. That is the constitutional concept that if you're born in the United States, you're automatically a citizen. And they found that that executive order was unconstitutional.
They issued an injunction saying so. And all three of the injunctions did not only say to the parties in the case that they win and they get the benefit of the court's ruling. These judges did more. They issued nationwide injunctions. They said the birthright citizenship order is unconstitutional everywhere in the country.
They immediately shut it down.
Right. And the administration had a choice. It could have gone to the Supreme Court on the merits, on the constitutionality of the birthright citizenship order, the attempt to ban it. But they did something different. They went to the court and said, we're ready to concede that the plaintiffs in the case, including 22 states—
win and the birthright citizenship order doesn't apply to them and people in their states. But we think nationwide injunctions are bad, a pernicious problem. We've been facing a barrage of them, they say, and it's true. And the Trump administration is asking the court to lay down a rule that says you can't bind everyone in the country. You can only bind the parties before you.
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