Birthright citizenship reaction: hysterical, borderline insane

0:00Left and right in this country don't want those checks and balances anymore. They literally want the three branches of government to be basically doing exactly what the president says they should do. Katie, that's not the United States. That's the USSR.

0:15Welcome to The State of It USA, the Times and Sunday Times podcast that makes sense of Trump's America, or at least tries to. I'm Katie Balls, Washington editor and columnist for The Times and Sunday Times. And I'm Gerry Baker, editor at large of The Wall Street Journal and columnist for The Times. So today we'll talk about what the Supreme Court decision this week tells us about Trump and his plans for America and what kind of America is celebrating its 250th this weekend as we hit the 4th of July. The Supreme Court has ruled against Donald Trump's attempts to ditch birthright citizenship. Gerry, this has been a result has been much awaited in D.C.

0:52and beyond, and it did not go the president's way. Cue various responses from all sides. How significant a blow do you think this is to the president? So I think, I mean, obviously, in terms of signature policy initiatives that the president has been promoting, it's an enormous blow. And in fact, if you look at the term of the Supreme Court, which just ended this week, as you say, they came they come out with their final decisions, end of June, beginning of July. And that's it until the autumn. If you look at the broader sweep of the decisions, they've now struck down several of Trump's major initiatives.

1:30This birthright citizenship, this is, you know, for those who haven't been following closely, this is the constitutional amendment that says that anybody born in the United States becomes an American citizen with a few very, very small exceptions. The right hates this. They think that it's an open invitation to what is called kind of anchor babies. That is that people come to the United States. Birth tourism, it's called in various ways. illegal immigrant children of illegal immigrants people who don't who have no legal entitlement to be here can have a child here and that child becomes american and there's no challenge to that they hate it i mean it's understandable i mean it's understandable by the way the u.s is quite unusual these days in that respect other countries including britain used to have that law but they changed it but but in the united states that has been the interpretation of the constitutional amendment that was passed 130 years ago.

2:24Now, the court has upheld that. And again, it's a huge blow to Donald Trump and what Donald Trump is trying to do on immigration, his very aggressive immigration crackdown. But the court also earlier this term, of course, struck down his tariffs, said he didn't have the constitutional authority to impose most of the tariffs that he tried to impose. They have done various other very important decisions which have gone against Trump. And I think the significance, Katie, is not just about the policy itself and not just about a blow to Trump's attempts to change immigration. But the much larger significance is that this shows the Constitution of the United States working.

3:03There's been a lot of talk, understandable, some of it massively hyperventilating, that Trump is an authoritarian, that the United States is turning into the Weimar Republic. that Trump is ignoring the constitutional constraints or the constitutional constraints aren't working, that we're getting government by executive fiat, that Trump is an autocrat. And the Supreme Court, you know, the courts generally, but the Supreme Court, which obviously has the ultimate say, keeps proving that proposition wrong. Now, they have supported some of the things that they have endorsed, if you like, or approved of some of the things President Trump has done.

3:44Most notably, I think, and perhaps most strikingly, they said the president has immunity from prosecution, which is a really significant thing. Even in this latest term, they just approved his attempt, his authority to fire members of the executive without getting approval from Congress. The majority of the court has agreed with some of the things he's tried to do. But on some of these key issues, they've struck them down. And again, I just think, look, that this really should reassure people who think that the US is halfway to sort of dictatorship. And I think what's really interesting, Katie, is that, you know, for all Trump's rhetoric, and he undoubtedly, you know, indulges in autocratic rhetoric, and he undoubtedly tries to do things, most notably, you know, January the 6th, 2021, that are clearly unlawful.

4:30He has yet to explicitly defy the Supreme Court when it's ruled against him. It's done it now on several things. And he hasn't defied them. By the way, other presidents have defied the Supreme Court on some cases. But Trump, interestingly, has got in line. So I think, look, this is this is this was just a hugely important decision, a hugely important term. It tells us that for all its faults, and I know we're going to talk about the U.S. at 250, for all its faults, the U.S. is still working as a constitutional republic. And, you know, the rumors of its death have been somewhat exaggerated. Yeah, and perhaps one of those figures that's going to reassure us our king, King Charles, because of course, and I think we can hear it now, when he addressed the two houses and he made that speech in Congress, the line that got the most animated applause, largely from Democrats, but I know some Republicans were cheering on, at least quietly, was that point about executive power, talking about the Magna Carta and how that you need to have checks and controls.

5:32Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances. And lots of people thought, to your point, it was a poignant point alluding to the fact that there haven't been enough checks and balances on Trump. And also he doesn't really want them. He acts more like a monarch. And I remember interviewing Ken Burns, the documentary maker, and he was saying, you know, King Charles got it right. He showed them. I suppose one group that's not happy about all this is the MAGA base. And even last night, I was out at the Fourth of July party in the UK, but hosted by the U.S.

6:21ambassador, Warren Stevens. And I was speaking to a few figures back in America while I was there. And I mentioned I was there and they said, wow, celebrating on the day our country declared we are not allowed to have a homeland. And that's just one of the responses to that ruling. But I'm not sure, you know, in terms of how much does this hurt Trump standing with the base? Of course, what we've seen, I think, also in British politics when it comes to efforts on Brexit, where the courts were, you know, you had vote leave figures saying the courts were frustrating delivering Brexit. Parliament was frustrating it.

6:54If you can say it's down to these outsized forces, and we know this Trump administration, as you say, has not gone against the Supreme Court. But there was a whole period where they were pretty harsh rhetoric against judges. do you think we're going to see some of that which is you know don't blame us blame these figures and could that be quite effective for Trump or does he just look ineffective because he can't deliver a flagship policy? I think you're right I think to some extent look to some extent Trump likes just being able to blame people right and not actually have to do anything I think there's a certain part of his appeal to be honest with you is this sort of rhetorical resentment and anger that he's been able to build up without necessarily actually addressing many of the underlying reasons for the anger look the reaction on the right to this decision particularly the decision yesterday uh katie you know has to be seen to be believed it is i mean it's it's it's it's hysterical um borderline insane one sort of supposedly serious right-wing person sean davis who edits this thing called the federalist which is very much a sort of a maga publication said very much as you said your you know your interlocutors said about the america's lost its homeland here because It has no control over people who live here or are born here, their citizenship.

8:08So he said, now what we have to do is we have to pass laws and we could do one of the following things. And among his list of things to do would be sterilize all foreigners coming to the United States or anybody coming to anybody. I'll let my husband know. Any visitors to the United States have to be sterilized. You know, somebody said you can imagine what this would do for the U.S. tourism industry. You know, welcome to Disney World. Do consult the detailed visa requirements before you come here. You may need to be sterilized. I mean, this, you know, we're going to search your social media before you enter the country and then we may sterilize you.

8:39Exactly. Yeah. No, this sort of insanity. What's interesting about it, I think, Katie, is that is the this meltdown on the right as a result of this and particular anger directed against two people, two generally very conservative Supreme Court justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. But Roberts was appointed by George W. Bush. Amy Coney Barrett appointed by Trump himself. they upheld the constitutional interpretation of the birthright citizenship. It's been, by the way, I mean, one of the remarkable things about this reaction is this sort of shock. I mean, this has literally been the constitution, the interpretation that courts have put upon that constitutional amendment for 130 years.

9:17So this idea that we're suddenly losing our country by this terrible decision, a decision which is literally in line with every single ruling on this for the last 130 years is also mad. What's really fascinating, Katie, is that, you know, notwithstanding what I said about how this shows the U.S. is working, is there is still tremendous pressure on both the left and the right, and we should be clear about this, to basically neuter the U.S. Constitution, to neuter the elements that are supposed to protect the checks and balances, as you call them, that are supposed to protect individual rights, that are supposed to protect essentially against the tyranny of the majority.

9:53This was the whole idea of the founders, right? We're going to, again, we're going to talk about the 250th anniversary, that they didn't want an overly powerful executive that could basically just do whatever it wanted, especially if it had majority approval. If it had won a majority in an election, it would just have that exercise, that tyranny. So they set up all these checks and balances. Left and right in this country don't want those checks and balances anymore. They literally want the branches of government, the three branches of government, to be basically doing exactly what the president says they should do.

10:22They want a unitary executive run by the president where everybody does exactly what the president says. They want a Congress that does exactly what the president wants, is outrageous if it ever attempts to do its own thing. And they want a judiciary that endorses everything the president does. Katie, that's not the United States. That's the USSR. You know, people committed to the party will where all the institutions of government are designed to execute the party will. That is not a liberal constitutional republic. That is an authoritarian dictatorship. And so you see it on left and right. The left want to they don't like the Supreme Court's decisions either.

11:02They want to pack the Supreme Court. They want to change the rules of the way the Congress works so that basically it all comes down to what the president wants. That just isn't how this country was designed to be. The biggest criticism I hear when it comes to Republicans, mega figures of how Trump is acting and often these unprecedented ways, upturning convention, behaving more like a king than a president and relishing those parts is just the sense that they're worried some of these norms. So even, for example, you take what the administration has done on the AI company, Anthropik, you know, banning it from certain areas in the Department of War and then showing things down.

11:40They're worried, which is what precedent are you setting when someone you don't like is the one in the White House? And therefore, you do end up in a situation whereby, you know, it is a Democrat and perhaps it's a Democratic socialist come 2028. J.D. Barnes this week in an interview suggested that he thinks AOC is going to be the candidate. it, she replied saying, well, I hope he is. He wishes. He wishes. Quite. But if you have someone like that and you've just had four years of Trump showing it can be done, what's going to stop it when the shoe is on the other foot? Exactly. And that is precisely why, not precisely why, but it's one of the reasons why the constitution was designed for, you know, to the way it is, which is that, yeah, OK, you can do what you want for four years and then the other side gets in and they can do exactly what they want for you.

12:28This is not supposed to be like that, especially, by the way, in a country in which elections are decided 51-49, right? It's not like Trump came in, you know, in 2024 with a 65%, you know, of the vote. He got 49 % of the vote. This is a narrowly divided country. It's incredibly important that the institutions of the country work to protect the interests of those who didn't vote for the president or for the majority in Congress or whatever. And it's just, again, it's, look, I think we're going through a kind of a period of madness in this country, to be honest with you. It's an absolute insanity.

13:01People have been driven insane. I'm relatively optimistic. I don't know. Maybe I've gone insane to be optimistic. I mean, fairly optimistic that this is going to pass, that we're going to get through this frenzy and that people are going to see, actually, that, you know what? This country does work quite well, work quite well, according to how it was supposed to. But, yeah, both sides have sort of lost their minds right now. Now, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're talking about what kind of America is celebrating its 250th birthday this weekend.

13:32Now is America's 250th birthday. I've been to a couple of events in London celebrating and I'll be back in D.C. in a day, whereby the 250th will be taking over the power capital. There are various events, balls, ways to celebrate the 4th of July. The Saturday event, I'm not sure how American. The Qataris are throwing a 4th of July party, so you can take it in from there. I think some U.S. lawmakers will think twice about going because last year, Laura Loomer, who is a Trump whisperer and a far-right figure, ultimately took to social media and had video footage of various Republicans going and said they shouldn't have gone and taken Qatar's money.

14:13Though, of course, that didn't stop Trump from taking a jet from Qatar. Then we have various freedom balls and all wrapping up as it goes. Jerry, for the 250th, the US ambassador this week had a big event where the fireworks, blue, red, white in the sky, Tim McGraw playing. It has become quite political, hasn't it, just in terms of how this has been celebrated? Yeah, this is an unusual – I mean, it should be a big 250 years. Not many republics last 250 years. It's an occasion for a lot of celebrating. America does celebrate itself better probably than any other country in the world. Americans do like to congratulate themselves repeatedly on what an amazing country they've been.

14:58But this is a very mixed celebration, shall we say. I'm old enough to remember 1776. I'm old enough, however, to remember 1976, the 200th anniversary. And I wasn't here then, but I do remember it. It was a very unifying national occasion. The country came together again. It was a time of great political tension. It was just after Watergate. And, you know, Gerald Ford was president. It was very unpopular. But the country celebrated and, you know, sort of saw its glory for all its flaws, has managed to see through those to the glory. This country is now so divided that it's impossible for anybody to agree about anything.

15:36So, you know, and of course, Donald Trump has turned this into a much more political event. He's turned all the celebrations in Washington into what look to me, you know better that you're closer to it than I am, but looks increasingly to me like a massive MAGA rally, which of course is designed, almost designed to alienate at least half of the country. It's celebrating him, a lot of it. It's celebrating him and his family. This is just a reflection, though, I think, of the partisanship, the polarization the country has descended into. And here in New York, we've talked about this before. We had those amazing victories for the socialists last week.

16:13We've got more socialists being elected in other places as well across the country there. It just is, you know, both parties are moving further and further away from each other. And it makes it extremely hard for anybody to come together and sort of acknowledge the country's greatness. Look, I do, however, think, again, as I said before, in the context of this hysteria about the Supreme Court, I'm an optimist. I think this is a phase. America has been through these incredibly partisan, polarized phases before. You know, we had a civil war, for God's sake. I hope we're not going to go there again.

16:44But, you know, in the 1860s, the country literally nearly completely fell apart. The 1960s were a pretty brutal period for national unity. We're going through that again. I think America's underlying strengths are still very clear. Remarkable economy still has, you know, far and away the most important sort of strategic power in the world. And ultimately, yeah, I think people will get through this sort of phase of ultra partisanship and celebrate. But it won't be particularly on the 250th. No, and not to sound completely obsessed with Ken Burns on this episode, but I think back to the interview, because the reason I did it was because he has obviously this big documentary about the American Revolution, which initially wasn't even meant to come out in the year of the 250th.

17:31He started it when it was Barack Obama. But one of the things he said was, you know, to your point, Jerry, which is people often think their moment of time is the most extreme or the most important. So, but actually you think historically, he said the US is not a particular crisis at the moment by relative standards. And he was recording how after the financial crisis, one of his friends who worked in finance said, you know, this is a depression. He said, well, the last time there was a depression and people ate the animals at the zoo because that's how bad it was. So once that starts to happen, then come back to me.

18:03My sense is a lot of people will be celebrating, but perhaps one place where they won't be celebrating is the American State Fair. and this is the big presentation of all the states in Washington DC that Donald Trump has announced great fanfare but there hasn't seemed to be too much of an audience there because every time you have a White House figure putting up pictures and everyone is very quick to point out there's a lot of open space. I think there's also been various incidents of things going wrong. I'm guessing Jerry you haven't made the trip from New York to DC to visit it. I haven't. I haven't.

18:39But to Ken Burns' point about, you know, the animals from the zoo during the Depression, America today elects animals from the zoo to public office. Maybe that's I'm not sure what's worse. But no, I haven't. I've seen some of the coverage. And as ever, just with everything in this country, there is no sort of agreed upon objective reality. You can watch certain television networks and get them and given the camera angles and everything else, get the impression that this is a massive jamboree of happy Americans jauntily celebrating 250 years of American greatness under the benevolent leadership of Donald Trump.

19:17Or you could look at another television network at vast, open, empty spaces where nobody showed up and everybody hates the president and all this sort of polarised, mutually polarised resentment. Look, I think part of the problem, and again, it's ironic that the founding fathers who were so conscious of the dangers of partisanship, of what they called factionalism, that the people would very quickly sort of fall into tribes who hate each other. They knew that would happen. They tried to limit the effects of it. And here we are 250 years later and getting deeper and deeper into the sort of partisan kind of mire that they were trying to avoid.

19:54But look, people just put politics aside for a moment, you know, enjoy the country, enjoy their family, you know, enjoy the greatness of this country. And it is worth saying, you know, there's a lot of cynicism about, especially in Britain, and I understand it. I used to share some of it myself, but it's a remarkable country. Its virtue has been stained by slavery and some of the other terrible things that have happened in this country. But it's come through it and it's, you know, it continues to strive to be a better country and it still stands at the pinnacle of a system of capitalism and freedom that has done more, lifted more people out of poverty and more people out of oppression in the history of the world than any other system and any other country in the history of the planet.

20:36So look, if they can just focus on some of the good things, put aside their hatred of the other side and enjoy July the 4th, I think America will be a lot better off. Now, just finally, when it comes to where America could be going next, we've had one more result when it comes to these Democratic primaries, which is giving us a flavour of how the Democratic Party is going to be looking when it comes to Congress after the midterms. And we have Milak Kiras, a 29-year-old who has won the Democratic primary in Colorado. Now, here's some of the things she said in the past. Is it a suggestion that Israel had it coming?

21:15No, not at all. It's about understanding the conditions in which violence and war happens, right? Israel is a country that has been accused of apartheid and occupation for decades now. Ultimately, a lot of anti-Israel sentiment. And we talked about the rise of Mandani-backed candidates on last week's episode, the fact that his free candidates in New York had a clean sweep. And another common theme there was heavy criticism of Israel. I think these comments go even further. Jerry, you also have on the right, amongst MAGA, an increasing anti-Israel sentiment. Is it worse on the left or are we now being to see it all round?

21:55And where do you think this is taking us? Oh, it's way worse on the left. I mean, there's no question that the left, the Democratic Party, and this is a remarkable transformation, political transformation, the Democratic Party has become fundamentally an anti, and I'd be careful to say, I wouldn't say anti-Israel party. I think, you know, a lot of people would say it is anti-Israel. They're certainly ferociously, fiercely against Benjamin Netanyahu, against this government, against what Israel has done in the last five years, both in regard to Gaza and more recently in Lebanon. There's a strong opposition to Zionism.

22:30I think most Democrats would still say they support a Jewish state. But there's fierce opposition now that they've never seen before to things like settlements, to the way Israel is behaving in the region. So on the left, and by the way, this is partly driven by – this is very much a kind of a youth movement, I think, that we saw this erupt on campuses here in the United States during Israel's war in Gaza. This is a very much a youth-driven, highly energetic, very, very ideological movement that's really – I wouldn't say taking over the Democratic Party, but certainly is where all the energy is in the Democratic Party.

23:09And as you say, on the right, I mean, MAGA is still firmly pro-Israel. You still have Christian Zionism, which is a strong strain of the Republican base. They're still very, very strongly pro-Israel. But as we've seen, Katie, in the last month, the tensions between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu over the Iran war. Donald Trump is an extremely pro-Israel Republican, extremely pro-Israel president. He's fallen out with Netanyahu. So J.D. Vance, vice president, you know, still the leading candidate to lead the Republican Party after Donald Trump, has said some very, very, very harsh and disobliging things about Israel.

23:49You've got this whole phenomenon of the kind of post-Republican MAGA right, the Tucker Carlson's of the world, who's no longer a Republican, who are absolutely ferocious opponents of Israel. So it's definitely there, too, on the right. It's not as dominant in the Republican Party as it is in the Democratic Party. But it is it is it is there on the right. And we know what Israel's standing is in Europe and, of course, in the wider Middle East. So Israel is increasingly isolated here and its traditional ally, which has basically backed Israel on a bipartisan basis for decades. That's no longer true.

24:21If a Democrat would win next time, you'll have a pretty hostile administration with regard to Israel on so many things. And this election of this young woman in Colorado is another example of that. Yeah, and I would contend if you have J.D. Vance as a candidate and he becomes president, then you're also going to have a more anti-Israel strain. And again, not as far as if you're going to have one of these democratic socialists. But certainly Israel is becoming the bogeyman when it comes to, I think, the base, both on the left particularly, but also on the right. And that does mean, you know, I think Trump is one of the most pro-Israel figures in his cabinet.

24:55it. But the base is blaming Trump when it comes to what's going on with Iran, how it's dragging out. There's such a tendency now to say that Israel is a problem. I think that's all we have time for this week. So do join us again next week. And do join us again this weekend, where we're going to be bringing out a special bonus episode about an exclusive interview I've done for the Sunday Times.