How far will the U.S. Supreme Court allow Trump to go?

13:10Paul Hunter:The executive order is supposed to take effect about in late February, about 30 days after Trump originally signed it in late January. And so the question is, you know, Lily's baby, Lily's son, that is, does it retroactively apply? the actual families that could have children who are stateless if the Trump administration is successful in this, and then take a step back. This again is if the Trump administration is successful. And that's a big if, because I know we're going to talk about this in a minute, but I know a lot of the legal scholars are expecting the Trump administration to lose this case.

13:45Paul Hunter:But if the Trump administration wins this case, and the court decides that this very simple 28-word amendment, which is in very plain, clean language, easy to understand. It really is. If the courts decide that that is not the interpretation, what else can the Trump administration challenge? One example that I heard a legal analyst put forward is, well, can Trump challenge the amendment that says he can only run twice to be president? Does he challenge other amendments? What about the 19th amendment? Women have the right to vote. Pick an amendment.

14:20Willy Lowry:That gets back to testing executive power, doesn't it? How far can he go?

14:23Katie Simpson:Before we move on, I just want to bring up, you know, pregnancy is by itself a pretty stressful experience. I have friends who are from not here. They're pregnant. And they're incredibly anxious about what this will mean for their child. And it's just, you know, that's something that is being copy and pasted across this country right now, where you have these people who are in limbo, already anxious about the giving birth, you know, to be fair, away probably from their extended family in this foreign land. But under the at least formally certainty that this child, their child will become an American, will have a state.

15:07Katie Simpson:And now all of a sudden that's kind of in jeopardy.

15:11Paul Hunter:Yeah, I know Canadians who are in the United States on work visas, living their lives here, working their jobs, and they're concerned, OK, like if we have more children, what does this mean for them? Are they going to have one child that's an American citizen and then one that, you know, what what happens to the fate of the other and the citizenship there? In the United States, there are a lot of undocumented people as well. People who are in the United States right now who are undocumented as they work their way through the legal system trying to seek asylum or whatever the situation may be. What happens to those kids?

15:56Katie Simpson:A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a brand new podcast from 99 % Invisible and BBC Studios. Each week, we're looking at a different object from across American history with a unique story to tell about who we've been, what we've built, and what we've allowed ourselves to forget. Some of these objects are well known. Many are not. But all of them carry the story of how we got to this moment. Find a history of the United States and 100 objects on the 99 % Invisible feed wherever you get your podcasts.

16:27Willy Lowry:So where are we at, Willie? I mean, it's a mugs game in any level of the court system to listen to the justices in this case and guess where their minds are at. And also, you know, colloquially, it's, you know, people say it's Trump's court, right? It is majority conservative. Three appointed three justices appointed by Trump. But what do you what's your take on where the justices seem to be in terms of responding to Trump's argument here?

17:00Katie Simpson:So the general, as Katie alluded to, legal consensus is that this probably will not pass, that the justices will reject it. The kind of betting odds is it's probably going to be 7-2 against 6-3 maybe. But the questions were pretty probing and pretty hard. They really challenged the government on a lot of the kind of legality and reasoning behind this EO. But I think the mere fact that they're hearing it shows you where this country is, shows you the influence that Trump has. And as we saw earlier this year with the rejection of the tariff case, it kind of sent Trump down a whole other rabbit hole where he found his loopholes to continue to apply tariffs.

17:55Katie Simpson:So one has to wonder what's in his back pocket. What's he going to go to if this Supreme Court ruling comes down against his birthright citizenship?

18:05Willy Lowry:I do like my favorite quote from the arguments was, I think, when Trump's lawyer was trying to make the case that or make the point, rather, that the world has changed a lot over the course of time. And right now, there are billions of people around the planet who are just a short air flight away from landing in the States and thus claiming birthright citizenship. And I think it was John Roberts who said, yeah, the world may have changed, but it's the same constitution.

18:31Paul Hunter:We're in a new world now, as Justice Alito pointed out to, where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child as a U.S.

18:38Willy Lowry:citizen.

18:38Katie Simpson:Well, it's a new world. It's the same constitution.

18:41Willy Lowry:It is. Words in these arguments, constitutional arguments, words matter. Yeah. So Trump's lawyers now are arguing that parents need to be, air quotes here again, domiciled in the United States. the other side, meaning that they live here and that they're legally here, as opposed to illegal migrants. That's, I think, one of the cornerstones of their argument. The other side, the people challenging Trump's executive order say Trump's lawyers are cherry picking. The 14th Amendment says flat out, if you are born, it doesn't say anything about parents. Or domicile. Exactly. Look at the words of the 14th Amendment.

19:25Willy Lowry:It doesn't say anything about that. It says, if you are born in the United States, you are an American citizen. That said, except for diplomats and their families, except for, as they point out, enemies of the United States who are occupying land in the United States. So there are some exceptions, but by and large, what the Constitution, what the 14th Amendment of the Constitution says is if you are born on the soil, under the flag, as they say in the jurisdiction of, you are an American citizen.

19:55Katie Simpson:And as we alluded to off the top, Katie, the U.S. is not alone in this, right? How do their rules around citizenship compare to other countries and perhaps our own?

20:05Paul Hunter:Yeah. So when Donald Trump said that when he was signing the executive order complaining that America is the only place that sort of does this, that's not true. It is not necessarily the norm. So Canada, yes, Canada has birthright citizenship. And there are roughly just over 30 countries that have it as well. It's mostly countries in the Western Hemisphere, mostly North and South America. And then there are another 40 or so countries that have conditional birthright citizenship. A lot of places in Europe, in Southeast Asia, Australia, where if you meet certain conditions, you can qualify for citizenship.

20:40Paul Hunter:But it's not the same as what goes on in Canada, in the United States.

20:45Willy Lowry:Two countries built on immigration, by the way. Exactly. And that's the difference here. These ex-colonial lands that said, hey, we want people from around the world to come here and we're going to design our countries in order to accommodate that.

20:57Katie Simpson:Founded on those. And we were talking before the podcast. I mean, if you look at it certainly over the last 100, 150 years, the flow of migration, it has been to the West. So it makes sense that countries with birthright citizenship are in fact in the Western Hemisphere.

21:13Willy Lowry:Just back to Trump's intent on this, though. And I think, you know, we have to say that, you know, Donald Trump and those who support this pushback would say, yeah, come to America, but do it the legal way. And that's part of the essence, I think, of what in fairness to Donald Trump is what he's saying here. Immigrants come, right? But do it the legal way. Um, even other, um, past immigrants that I've spoken with down doing stories on the, on the border wall and such say, who oppose undocumented workers say, yeah, because it gives us all a bad name, right? Say, say these other former, you know, one time, um, immigrants to America do it the legal way.

21:56Willy Lowry:And that's a part of what all of this is about.

21:58Paul Hunter:They cite their, I've, I've done interviews with people, um, who cite their experience of their family. And you know, Their argument is, my family had to wait, my family went through the process, and why is it everyone else is getting the same opportunity?

22:11Willy Lowry:And then we're here legally, and our children, born here, of parents who are here legally, are bona fide American citizens. Flip side to the opponents to this.

22:23Paul Hunter:As you mentioned, Willie, many legal analysts anticipate that the Supreme Court justices will rule against the Trump administration in this case. But the court had a mixed response to Donald Trump pushing boundaries of his executive power. And that's something that you touched on, Paul. You know, in this moment, what do we think about how this court is responding to this very volatile, very intense moment in American politics where norms and boundaries continue to be tested in an aggressive pace?

22:58Katie Simpson:This is a conservative Supreme Court that, generally speaking, aligns to a certain degree with the precedent and with this administration. Of course, there are caveats. We saw, again, the ruling against Trump's tariff policies. That was a really important moment. And I think we're coming to the point where we're going to see whether that was the kind of precedent, whether that was the dam bursting and the air being sucked out of Trump's sails or whether that was kind of an anomaly.

23:33Willy Lowry:It is a mixed bag. Look, I mean, I think it's important to note that in most Supreme Court cases, there's broad agreement among the justices. most Supreme Court cases don't make headlines. The ones that do is where we do see the ideological divide probably more often than not. I think this is, as we were saying earlier, this is viewed as Trump's court. But I also think that the court probably gets more criticism on that than is warranted. And to the point you are making, I mean, I think this court pushed back on the National Guard. It pushed back on tariffs that I think we talked about on this podcast.

24:15Willy Lowry:We've seen Trump himself lash out is maybe not the right way to put it, but lash out against Gorsuch. Personally. Directly and personally, and Coney Barrett, two of his appointees. And I think that is an indicator that things don't always go his way. So how has the court dealt with this? It has sided with him at times and has not. And I think that's what you would expect of a Supreme Court. That's what courts do. That's what courts do. Yeah. They look at the letter of the law. They decide. And you can say, yeah, you shouldn't have or you should have. But, you know, like I say, it's been a mixed bag.

24:48Willy Lowry:And that's what it should be, perhaps.

24:50Paul Hunter:I think that in this moment, the court system generally, not necessarily the Supreme Court, but in some instances, but the courts generally are the only thing stopping Donald Trump's agenda. People taking challenging, you know, the Trump administration, suing the Trump administration. and that is part of the American experience. That's the way it should be. Yeah, that is part of the American experience.

25:11Willy Lowry:That's back to, sorry to jump in, Katie, but that is him testing executive power and the test, the decider of the test, I guess in this case, and others is the Supreme Court and sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

25:22Paul Hunter:And it's very much that people who, people that support Trump and there are a lot of people that support Trump. I don't ever always just want to talk about the critics of the Trump administration. There is a lot of support out there for Donald Trump. even if those national polling numbers are low and I acknowledge that they are low but there is always a softer, quieter bounce of support. That's why Donald Trump does better in elections than he does in polls. And so even though the numbers right now, they are down. People do not like the war in Iran. They do not like some of his policies. At the same time, when you go out and talk to people in these conservative places, you do find that support and it exists and they still plan to vote for Republicans in November in the midterms.

26:03Paul Hunter:We'll see how that turns out. But for the people that do not like Donald Trump, the last sort of resort is the legal system to challenge those things. Even though the Trump administration has lost a number of cases or decisions did not go their way, people that are critical of Trump do not look at the Supreme Court in this moment and have a lot of faith because it is his court. And look at past decisions. Look at the overturning of Roe v. Wade and how that has changed life in America and women having access to abortion, those kinds of things. So even if the courts, it is a mixed bag with the courts in terms of what they're doing and what they're not doing, and that's kind of the way it is.

26:42Paul Hunter:There's a lot of people in America who are critical of the Trump administration, look at the court and don't have a lot of hope in this moment.

26:47Katie Simpson:Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think also this conversation has made me realize, you know, this is a very binary conversation, the executive versus the judicial branch. It shows me kind of how irrelevant Congress has become. Oh, absolutely.

27:03Paul Hunter:We're in a weird spot right now. It really is. It's super weird.

27:07Willy Lowry:The maker of laws in theory.

27:10Paul Hunter:All right. Ending on a point where we say super weird. That seems appropriate for today's conversation. We do have a question from the audience. Sean Clement, who is wondering about the journalists and the sources we would recommend beyond, of course, the CBC. So he asks, who are the reporters you admire and believe are worth following?

27:33Willy Lowry:You know, my answer, I hate to say it, is everything. And it's not just who, but the what. I mean, one day I'll start reading fiction again. But for now, it's just everything, man. New York Times, Axios, The Atlantic. I read The New York Post. If you want to know what's going on, read The New York Post, right? I watch ABC News every day, NBC Nightly News. I listen to The Daily. I watch Fox News, to your point earlier. You have to. Exactly. I read Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, SCOTUS blog. SCOTUS blog per today's episode. Big shout out. If you want to know about the Supreme Court of the United States, read SCOTUS blog.

28:07Willy Lowry:It's so good. David Frum, I like a lot. I like his stuff. Canadian? Yeah, exactly. It just never ends. And one of the great pleasures of being down here in this job is to engage with and just be allowed, in a sense, the time to read some of the amazing journalism that goes on down here. But I've got a long list, but that's some of them.

28:31Katie Simpson:Yeah, I mean, I think our jobs is to consume as much American media as possible. So absolutely, I wake up in the morning, for me, the New York Times, the gold standard. But of course, I watch CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox News. Vox explainers are great.

29:17Katie Simpson:country full of very talented journalists. Katie, someone we haven't said.

29:21Paul Hunter:Yeah, no, here's, I'm going to present a platform. So in Canada, because of the online news challenges or bans or protests of the legislation, a lot of Canadians are not getting news on social media. And I would argue that in this modern day and age, yes, I do all the things that we're all supposed to do. I read the New York Times every day. I do all these things every single day before my workday starts. But a place that I do rely on where I often see things before they hit the mainstream media is through Instagram and TikTok, but always with a critical eye. You see something and then you go and try and verify it.

30:04Paul Hunter:I do, I often get wind of things before they're picked up by whatever news outlet it is. And I'll say, this looks like something. And then before, You sort of present it to your assignment editor to say, this is something that I think maybe we should pursue, or have you seen this? Now, that said, there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation. Do not believe everything you see on the internet. I trust mainstream news outlets. I know a lot of people in this moment don't do that. And that is the challenge for us as journalists is to try and find a way to build that trust back because it's been attacked from all kinds of sides.

30:42Paul Hunter:But I really keep my eye on what's going on in social media and look for trends, look for new things and try and find the things that, hey, that might be something. Sometimes it's not, but that's really how I sort of go about that.

30:56Willy Lowry:One non-political one, Dan Rather's The Big Interview. find that find find he sat down with getty lee it's worth it i'm telling you it's fantastic it's like dan rather sitting across from getty lee and talking about what if i tell you i don't like rush

31:10Paul Hunter:is that like am i gonna am i gonna lose my canadian citizenship um okay sean thank you for that

31:16Willy Lowry:question fly by night please continue paul uh if you have uh something you'd like to ask uh or feedback about what you're hearing uh send an email to washington pod all one word at cbc.ca That's WashingtonPod at CBC.ca or leave a comment for us on Spotify.

31:34Katie Simpson:And if you like what you're hearing, spread the word, tell a friend about this podcast, and please follow us on your favorite podcasting app.

31:41Paul Hunter:One more thing before we go today. Someone left a comment for us on Spotify asking about the team behind the show. And we don't normally do credits, but we're making an exception this week because someone who played a critical role in getting this podcast into the world is leaving us.

31:56Willy Lowry:Our Washington Bureau's senior producer, the unsurpassed and amazing Jen Barr, is heading home to a new assignment in Canada. We wanted to thank her for all the incredible work she's done leading our crew here and for doing many things behind the scenes that no one gets to see or hear, but that are so vital into making this podcast a success. Thank you, Jen.

32:19Katie Simpson:Absolutely. Thank you, Jen. And while we're at it, we wanted to name just a few other folks who make this happen every week. Patrick Ferguson, who we're all looking at behind the window, I guess, really presses the buttons and makes this all work. He helped build this incredible space that we are sitting in.

32:41Paul Hunter:Literally built it from the ground up.

32:43Katie Simpson:With his bare hands. With his bare hands. A true Renaissance man, along with colleagues Ian McDonald. big shout out to Ian also want to say thank you to Jason Lothars and Jason Burles who kind of act as Patrick when on the rare occasion Patrick can't be here.

33:00Paul Hunter:And on the production side, Shannon Higgins, Kristen Nelson, Carla Hilton and our sound designer Dave Modi. Thanks to Louis Bluet and Caitlin Crockard for pinch hitting when others are away and to Matthew Lazen-Rider who helped pilot the show.

33:14Willy Lowry:And while we're doing credits, thanks as well to our video digital team including Sinesha Jolich, Emma Smith, and Philip Drost. And of course, thanks to all the assignment producers, managers, and folks who make this podcast happen week after week, especially Karen Burgess.

33:29Paul Hunter:Yes. Okay. Well, that is all for today. And it's going to be a while, I think, before we're all three in the same room over the course of the summer.

33:37Katie Simpson:The show will go on. The show is going to continue on.

33:39Paul Hunter:Thanks, everyone. Bye. Thanks, Katie.

33:41Katie Simpson:Bye. Thanks, Katie.

33:51Katie Simpson:For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.