President Donald Trump an justices of the Supreme Court, Image via Screengrab / NBC.
President Donald Trump is facing off against the U.S. Supreme Court as part of his ongoing effort to bully his way into remaking the country in his image. It could also be only the first example.
Speaking about his trip to the Court this week, Emily Bazelon, a staff writer for The Times Magazine, chatted with opinion columnist David French about the proceedings that legal analysts agree did not go well, with Trump looming in the audience.
Bazelon called Trump's flex a provocative political stunt, doubting its legal merit against the 14th Amendment, the Wong Kim Ark case (1898) and longstanding statutes.
"To me, this is the headline: Trump Trolls America. Because I don’t think the administration is making a serious legal argument," she said.
Criticizing Solicitor General D. John Sauer's "revisionist" history, Bazelon pointed to a moment in which the Trump lawyer outright misrepresented a 1921 law review article. Normally, lawyers trying to make a case before the Supreme Court cite the law itself, or conversations around making the law.
"Evan Bernick, a law professor, posted excerpts from that article to show that the solicitor general got it wrong," said Bazelon. While Sauer cited part of the review to justify those who thought the 14th Amendment to have a "domicile requirement." Meaning, if a family has a child in the U.S. they have to be established in the U.S. They can't simply come to the U.S. as part of "birth tourism," he called it.
"Too easy," Evan Bernick said, chipping away at Sauer's argument. "He literally goes on to say that WKA follows the common law and the common law has no domicile requirement."
"Here’s the transcript. Sauer is just… lying," he added.
At one point, responding to Sauer's claim that it was a "new world," Chief Justice Roberts retorted, "It's a new world, but it's the same Constitution." It indicated skepticism on his part, but it was only the beginning of a very "bad" legal argument, CNN analysts agreed.
French focused on MAGA's outcome-driven approach with the textualists crowd, who believe the law applies to exactly what the text says and means at the time it was written.
Both note Trump's courtroom attendance was outright bullying, akin to his attacks on "rogue judges."
French added that Trump has started to treat the Supreme Court the same way he does with Republicans in Congress.
"He’s trying to insult, mock and bully them into compliance, but it’s not going to work. With precious few exceptions, the judiciary from top to bottom is unmoved. Judges are not so easily intimidated," said French.
Bazelon has another concern, however.
Another piece of "law as politics maneuvering that is eating at me," she said," is Stephen Miller. He "has been suggesting that Texas end public school funding for undocumented kids. A 1982 Supreme Court decision, Plyler v. Doe, requires states to pay for the education of all students, no matter their immigration status. But Miller and his allies would like nothing better than to set up a court challenge that could lead to the reversal of Plyler. It’s all in the service of immiserating immigrants to induce them to leave. I hope this is obvious, but taking away school from children — that is a real betrayal."
It's only one of the many cases that Republicans have their eyes on.
French said that it's time that Congress take the next steps to clarify the vague laws.