Monday: SCOTUS Is About to Decide Who Gets to Be American

Rush LindellSo here's what's going on right now, and I want you to feel the weight of this. The Supreme Court is in the final stretch of its term, 22 cases pending, clock ticking, and the question sitting right at the top of the pile is who gets to be an American.

ReaganWow.

Rush LindellThat's not a metaphor. That is literally what's on the docket.

Speaker 3And U.S. news laid it out this week: birthright citizenship, mail-in ballots, independent agency firings, all of it dropping before July. The court already handed the administration a loss on the tariffs. What's coming next is a different animal entirely.

Rush LindellDifferent animal is right. Trump v. Barbara, that's the birthright citizenship case, is the one I want people locked in on. Day one of the President's second term, the President signed an executive order, lower courts blocked it, now nine justices are going to decide whether a hundred fifty eight years of constitutional practice survives.

Speaker 3And the legal theory the Administration is running is genuinely contested. SCOTUSblog has been tracking the argument around what domicile means under the Fourteenth Amendment. It's not as settled as the headlines suggest.

Rush LindellNothing is ever as settled as the headlines suggest—that's why we're here.

Speaker 3Fair.

Rush LindellAnd then—wait for it!—there's the denaturalization drive running parallel to all this—we're talkin' quota systems, field offices. It's numbers that make your head spin when you put 'em next to the historical average.

Speaker 3That's the part that deserves real scrutiny. Quotas and individualized legal process are not the same thing.

Rush LindellNot even close. So SCOTUS preview, birthright citizenship, denaturalization and what it all means. I've got the legal precision and the outrage. Let's see which one wins today.

Speaker 3I'll take that bet. First up, the Court's packed June finish.

Rush LindellBefore we get started, a quick reminder. We love hearing from you. If you have questions or topics you'd like us to cover, head to the link in the description and submit your question. We read every single one. Twenty-two cases, that's what's left on the docket right now, and the Court is aiming to wrap by early July,

Speaker 3Wow.

Rush LindellTwenty-two, and they didn't save the easy ones for last.

Speaker 3No, they definitely did not. NPR had a good rundown on this. The cases still pending include birthright citizenship, presidential firing power, transgender athlete bans, mail ballot deadlines, the heavyweights.

Rush LindellAnd keep in mind, this term already delivered a blockbuster. SCOTUSblog reported the court struck down Trump's tariffs back in February, so these remaining opinions land on a court that has already handed the president one major loss.

Speaker 3Which is exactly why the political temperature going into these rulings is as high as it's going to get. The administration knows what's at stake.

Rush LindellThey do. Trump literally showed up to oral arguments himself, first sitting president to do that. He sat there and watched his solicitor general argue the

Speaker 4president's case.

Rush Lindellargue the birthright citizenship case. That's not a normal thing.

Speaker 3Look, I get why people read that as a show of force, but attending doesn't change the legal math, and right now the legal math is not great for the administration on that one.

Rush LindellYou know what nobody wants to say? Five justices, maybe seven, looked skeptical of the executive order at oral argument. That's a significant number.

Speaker 3That's what SCOTUSblog reported, yeah. At least five, possibly more. And every lower court that examined this order found it likely violates the Fourteenth Amendment, every single one.

Rush LindellSo we've got birthright citizenship, we've got presidential firing power in Trump versus Slaughter, we've got the transgender athlete cases, Little versus Hecox and West Virginia versus BPJ, and we've got mail ballot deadlines in Watson versus the RNC. Four cases, four very different fights. But they're all

Speaker 3Uh

Rush Lindellasking

Speaker 3-huh.

Rush Lindellthe same basic question underneath:

Speaker 3Which is, how far does executive authority reach, and who does the Constitution actually protect?

Rush LindellOr who counts as American? That's the one that sits at the bottom of all of it. And birthright citizenship is where that question lives.

Speaker 3So what does the administration's actual legal argument look like? Because it's not nothing.

Rush LindellSo, Trump's day one executive order, the one that says if your parents are here illegally or on a temporary visa, you don't get birthright citizenship, every single lower court that looked at it said the same thing: almost certainly unconstitutional.

Speaker 3And now the Supreme Court has to actually answer the question the 14th Amendment poses. The Citizenship Clause is 28 words, all persons born or naturalized in the United States. It's and subject to the jurisdiction thereof; that's the ball game.

Rush LindellAnd the Administration's whole theory hangs on one word that isn't even in those twenty-eight words—domicile.

Speaker 3Right. Solicitor General Sauer argued at the April first oral argument that the citizenship clause presupposes lawful domicile, not just physical birth on U.S. soil. The word jurisdiction implies domicile; that's the move.

Rush LindellA word that isn't in the amendment implying a concept that rewrites one hundred twenty-eight years of settled law—bold.

Speaker 3The battlefield is Wong Kim Ark, the eighteen ninety eight

Speaker 4U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Speaker 3In the Eighth case, both sides claim it. The Library of Congress Research Service laid this out clearly: the Administration says domicile was central to that ruling because the Court mentioned it twenty times; challengers say it was just a background fact nobody contested; Wong's parents had lived in San Francisco for twenty years; it wasn't the holding.

Rush LindellAnd Justice Barrett basically asked, How do you even adjudicate domicile at the moment of birth? You'd have

Speaker 3Yeah.

Rush Lindellnewborns in legal limbo while courts figure out whether Mom

Speaker 4and Dad were married or not.

Rush LindellTheir mom intended to stay permanently.

Speaker 3SCOTUSblog covered the April arguments closely, and their read was an icy reception for the domicile theory, several justices skeptical, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts all pushing back.

Rush LindellNow, uphill climb for the administration, I'll grant that. But here's what nobody's saying out loud: a narrow ruling could move the goalposts without being a headline win for Trump. The Court could define domicile in a way that Either doesn't hand him this case and still plant the seed.

Speaker 3An estimated one hundred fifty thousand children a year are affected by that executive order. That's not abstract, that's real administrative machinery waiting on nine

Speaker 4people.

Rush LindellInvokes

ReaganAnd if SCOTUS decides who gets born American, the next question is who gets to stay American after earning it the legal way, which, Reagan, is exactly where we're going. Now flip that on its head. Who gets to stay American? You know what nobody wants to say out loud? The administration quietly ordered USCIS field offices to supply DOJ with 100 to 200 denaturalization cases per month.

Speaker 3Per month!

ReaganThe New York Times first reported the internal guidance, and for context, from 1990 to 2017... The historical average was roughly eleven cases per year-eleven a year!

Speaker 5So the quota alone, if met, would exceed the entire historical annual average by more than a hundredfold.

ReaganRight; and NPR reported that on May eighth DOJ filed civil denaturalization complaints on twelve individuals in a single day. Historically, that's a full year's work.

Speaker 5Wow.

Speaker 6Wow.

ReaganIn one day!

Speaker 5Look, the steel man here is real. Fraud happens. People do lie on naturalization applications. Denaturalization is a legitimate legal tool. It requires a federal judge and clear, convincing, unequivocal evidence. The law hasn't changed.

ReaganSure, but a former USCIS official named Sarah Pierce told the Times requiring monthly quotas ten times higher than the Then the total annual number turns a serious tool into a blunt instrument.

Speaker 5And that's where I push back on the mechanism. When you set a numerical quota, you're no longer asking, did this person commit fraud? You're asking, do we have enough cases this month? Those are structurally different questions.

ReaganThat's the tale. NPR reviewed thirty four publicly announced cases through late May. A Boston College law professor said they're within normal legal parameters. legal parameters so far, but so far is doing a lot in that sentence.

Speaker 5The pressure to hit a number is the problem; it creates incentives to lower the threshold, assign cases to generalist prosecutors instead of specialists, and push borderline situations through.

ReaganTwenty-six million naturalized citizens in this country. The quota math says the Administration is prepared to process a chunk of them like a production line. That's the story, and it connects directly to where we're headed next because SCOTUS is drawing the left edge of citizenship while D.O.J. pushes on the right edge. Same frame, two hands. So now you have both tracks in front of you, SCOTUS rewriting who gets citizenship at birth, DOJ revoking it after the fact, same administration, same direction, nobody in the press is connecting the dots.

Speaker 5I'll give you the frame, but I want to add some precision because the legal machinery is genuinely different.

ReaganGo ahead.

Speaker 5The Birthright case lives in the 14th Amendment, constitutional territory.

Speaker 4three

Speaker 5Denaturalization runs through federal statute and DOJ enforcement discretion. Different constitutional anchors,

ReaganMm-hmm.

Speaker 5different burdens of proof. To win denaturalization, the government has to prove fraud by clear and convincing evidence; to reshape birthright citizenship, they just need five votes.

ReaganRight—one costs them nothing but a brief; the other costs somebody their passport.

Speaker 5Exactly. So rhetorically, yes, same frame. Legally two very different fights.

ReaganAnd that's where SCOTUSblog flags something worth sitting with: both tracks are the Administration asserting expanded power to define who is and isn't American. The delivery mechanism differs; the direction

Speaker 5Right.

Reagandoesn't.

Speaker 5That's a fair

Speaker 7Wow!

Speaker 5read.

Speaker 7:

ReaganThe press covers this as two separate beats; the immigration reporter and the courts reporter never talk to each other. other, but you're watching one coherent story of the second Trump term, and it's hiding in plain sight.

Speaker 5Hiding because nobody filed a joint brief connecting them.

ReaganThat's the work somebody should have done. Now, there's more on the SCOTUS docket independent agencies, mail ballots, transgender athletes, the rest of the card is still on the table. All right, let's run the rest of the scorecard fast-three cases, big stakes, small window before the rulings drop.

Speaker 5Starting with Trump versus Slaughter, the President's power to fire heads of independent agencies.

ReaganSix conservative justices already let Trump boot the FTC Commissioners while the case was still live. Chief Justice Roberts called Humphrey's Executor-that's the ninety year old precedent protecting agency independence-a dry husk.

Speaker 5Wrap.

Speaker 8Well!

ReaganThat's not a man who's about to uphold it.

Speaker 5The court seems likely to side with Trump broadly: the one carve out analysts are watching: the Federal Reserve. Kavanaugh's been signaling the Fed is different and the court has already said as much in interim rulings.

ReaganRight, because if the president can fire the Fed chair on a Tuesday, the markets notice by Wednesday, so they'll probably save one hostage.

Speaker 5One very important hostage.

ReaganMoving on. West Virginia versus BPJ. A. Transgender Athlete Bans Oral arguments in January and SCOTUSblog reported the court appeared likely to uphold the bans. Twenty-seven states have these laws already on the books.

Speaker 5The legal stakes go beyond the scoreboard. The challengers are arguing Title IX and the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The open question after arguments was whether the court writes a narrow ruling or something that touches the broader Bostock framework on gender identity.

ReaganHow we got to a constitutional showdown over girls' middle school cross country is a story I will tell my grandchildren.

Speaker 5The legal path here matters; a broad ruling could reach well past sports.

ReaganNOTED. Last one, Watson versus RNC, mail ballots. Fifteen states, including DC, let ballots arrive after election day if postmarked in time. The conservative majority looked skeptical at argument. Justice Alito basically said, quote, we don't have election day anymore.

Speaker 5A ruling against those grace periods hits before November's midterms, states would have to rewrite election law on a short clock.

ReaganThree cases, one term, and that's before we talk about what happens when all these land in the same week, because they might, and that scenario, that's where things get genuinely wild. All right, so let's play it out. Two scenarios. Picture this, same

Rush LindellIn week, birthright citizenship, independent agencies, and mail ballots, all three go the administration's way.

ReaganWow.

Rush LindellWhat does cable news look like that night?

ReaganOh, I can script it already.

Rush LindellOf course you can! Every panel show dusts off the same chyron. I'll give it a nickname: call it Democracy Mourning Week. Six guests, all speechless, all somehow talking at once.

ReaganAccurate. Though I will say, a full sweep actually gives the left a clean villain. Every loss is one story.

Rush LindellNow the split-that's where it gets different-the court hands Trump a loss on birthright citizenship, but delivers on agencies and trans athletes-you know what that means?

ReaganThe court looks balanced, and that legitimizes everything else they ruled.

Rush LindellDeb Pam, exactly-the media runs 'Court Checks Trump' as the headline and, buried in paragraph nine-oh, by the way, the president can now fire

Speaker 4Mueller.

Rush LindellNow fire any commissioner once, nobody reads paragraph nine.

ReaganThat's the structural danger; a split outcome lets the rulings that expand executive power land quietly, which from a legal standpoint may matter more long term than birthright citizenship.

Rush LindellThe Hill reported just this week: "Conservative justices have already signaled they want to overturn Humphreys Executor."

ReaganRight.

Rush LindellThey telegraphed that months ago. If that falls the same week birthright gets blocked... The press will only cover the loss.

ReaganAnd the denaturalization machinery is already running regardless. NPR reported it's proving harder than the rhetoric suggests, but the Quota structure is already in motion. The Court doesn't flip that off.

Rush LindellRight—which is why the scenario that should worry people most isn't a sweep; it's a split that lets two or three landmark shifts walk out the door while everyone's watching the one that That didn't.

ReaganAs SCOTUSblog will have same day plain language reads when these drop, that's your move, not waiting for cable news to frame it for you.

Rush LindellDon't outsource your understanding to people whose job is to perform outrage. Read the actual ruling. So what do you do with all of this? Here's my answer, and I'm going to give it to you straight.

ReaganGo ahead.

Rush LindellBookmark SCOTUSblog right now, today. The Court drops rulings with zero advanced warning. U.S. News confirmed that, and SCOTUSblog is the only place where you'll get plain English analysis the same morning the opinion lands. Cable news frames it for you. SCOTUSblog gives you the actual ruling.

ReaganThat distinction matters because how a ruling gets framed in the. in the first hour is how most people carry it forever.

Speaker 3Exactly right. And the second thing, and this one's more uncomfortable, the denaturalization push is not a future concern. NPR reported it. Newsweek confirmed it. The drive is already underway.

ReaganYeah,

Speaker 3Cases are being filed right now. You don't get to wait for the SCOTUS decision to decide how you feel about this.

ReaganAnd the legal guardrails are the actual story. Whether due process holds on individual denaturalization cases. In cases, that's what tells you if the system is working or not, not the political noise around it.

Speaker 3You know what nobody wants to say? The question of who gets to be American, who counts, who can be uncounted, that is the foundational question of this political moment, full stop.

ReaganAnd listeners who actually understand these cases-the legal tracks, the Different burdens of proof, what the Court can and can't do-they're in a position to judge that for themselves. That's the point of all this.

Speaker 3The people Rewriting the answer to that question are counting on you to not connect the dots. They're counting on the headlines to drown out the actual mechanism. So don't let them.

ReaganKnow the cases. Watch the rulings when they drop.

Speaker 3And don't wait for a Cable anchor to tell you what to think about it. About three days later.

ReaganYeah, that ship sails without you.

Speaker 3We've laid out the whole architecture today. The cases are live, the Quota is running, and the rulings are coming. You've got everything you need to follow this in real time. All right, here's where we land: The Supreme Court's got Twenty-two cases to close, a July deadline and not one of them is easy.

ReaganAnd the Birthright Citizenship Fight, the Domicile Theory, the Wong Kim Ark battlefield-that's the one that defines everything downstream.

Speaker 3A word not in the Amendment, rewriting one hundred twenty eight years of settled law. Bold is one word.

ReaganThat's one word.

Speaker 3And the denaturalization quota running in parallel-that's the squeeze; two arms, same

Speaker 5Right.

Speaker 3policy.

ReaganLegally distinct, but the direction is clear.

Speaker 3Bottom line: Who counts as American is the defining question of this political moment. Bookmark SCOTUSblog. Pay attention.

ReaganThe guardrails are the story. An informed listener can judge them.

Speaker 3That's why you're here. Subscribe, leave us a five-star review, tell someone who needs to hear this. New episodes every weekday.

ReaganThanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.