Legal analyst and attorney Elie Honig said that if President Donald Trump chooses to attend Wednesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on birthright citizenship, he will leave “in a bad mood.”
The potential appearance for arguments in Trump v. Barbara, a challenge to the president’s executive order seeking to restrict birthright citizenship, would place the White House directly in the spotlight of a landmark constitutional dispute and revive scrutiny of Trump’s rhetoric toward the judiciary.
Newsweek reached out to the High Court via email on Tuesday night for comment.
Why It Matters
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he “thinks” he may attend the oral arguments. If he does, he will make history as the first president on record to do so. Trump attended the investiture ceremonies for both Justices Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Trump also attended a 2020 ceremony for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—but never a live oral argument.
In 2025, Trump also floated the possibility of attending Supreme Court arguments over tariffs but did not appear.
What To Know
Federal judges have repeatedly blocked the Trump administration’s effort to curtail birthright citizenship, and the Supreme Court’s ruling could reshape immigration and constitutional law while influencing executive-judicial relations.
While speaking with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Honig was asked what the environment would be like if Trump is present. “If Donald Trump wants to go attend oral argument at the Supreme Court, he has every right to do so. Godspeed. He’s a member of the public. He’s a party to this case. But let me tell you, he’s not going to like what he sees playing out,” Honig said.
“His administration lawyers are making arguments that are vast stretches of law, a raid against his legal position is the plain text of the Constitution, the 14th Amendment on birthright citizenship, 157 years of traditions and norms and congressional action, and the decisions of every lower court federal judge to hear this exact case. Four federal district court judges, three federal circuits have all ruled against the Trump administration,” Honig said.
“If he does in fact choose to attend Kaitlan, it will indeed be unprecedented. I think it’s going be hard to ignore the fact that he’s in the room. I do not think it will have any influence on the judges, and I think when he leaves that courthouse tomorrow, if he does go, he’s going to be in a bad mood,” Honig added.
In the clip, Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton added in part that “while I trust Elie’s expertise and analysis that the jurists at the Supreme Court may likely rule in a way that’s not favorable to the president, I do think that there is a valid and logical argument one could potentially make on, if the 1898 decision, United States v. Wong Kim, was the right one as it pertains to interpreting the original intent of the 14th Amendment, which I would argue was for slaves, free slaves and their descendants to have full citizenship in this country.”
“Should it have been extended to everyone else beyond them specifically? I don’t think so,” Singleton added in part.
What People Are Saying
Trump, on Truth Social Tuesday: “Birthright Citizenship has to do with the babies of slaves, not Chinese Billionaires who have 56 kids, all of whom ‘become’ American Citizens. One of the many Great Scams of our time! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, on X in January: “If your argument against birthright citizenship is that a foreign government might send a pregnant mother to the US, have the child born there, then bring them back and indoctrinate the baby into being a spy decades later, you’ve lost the plot.”
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, on X in March 2025: “Today, I joined Iowa and @RepublicanAGs in a brief filed with the Supreme Court in support of President Trump’s Executive Order that ends birthright citizenship for illegal aliens and non-permanent residents. Birth tourism and the human trafficking and significant costs that it brings to our borders must end.”
Read the full article here
