President Donald Trump came to the Oval Office on Wednesday to talk about EPA regulations, but he ended up delivering a rambling, angry screed about birthright citizenship that revealed exactly how he views the 14th Amendment and who he thinks it was never meant to protect.
What started as a routine press availability quickly went sideways when a reporter asked Trump about the Supreme Court’s pending ruling about the president’s executive order revoking birthright citizenship rights.
The president didn’t just answer the question, instead, he unraveled.
Trump opened by relitigating a recent tariff ruling before pivoting hard to birthright citizenship, immediately reaching for a framing that stopped the room cold.
“This was meant for the babies of slaves. This was signed right after the Civil War. You look at the dates — the dates alone. Immediately after. This was having to do with the babies of slaves.”
He repeated the line multiple times throughout his remarks, using it as the foundation of his argument that the 14th Amendment was never intended to apply to immigrants — wealthy or otherwise.
“This was not meant for Chinese billionaires to have their children become citizens of our country.”
Trump then escalated, painting an apocalyptic picture of what happens if the Supreme Court rules against him. Warning that birthright citizenship would effectively open the floodgates to people he described as enemies of the state.
“You’ll have 25% of the people coming into our country coming in through birthright citizenship. It’s usually people that hate our country, if you want to know the truth.”
He saved his sharpest words for the court itself, threatening that a ruling against him would be a national embarrassment.
“It would be a disgrace. It would be a disgrace if the Supreme Court of the United States allows that to happen.”
Trump closed with a thinly veiled warning directed at the justices ahead of their ruling.
“It’s all up to a couple of people, and I hope they do what’s right.”
