Morning Wire - The Major Ruling SCOTUS Handed Down and What Comes Next

Episode Date: April 4, 2026

The Supreme Court just handed down a major free speech ruling and hears arguments on one of the biggest constitutional questions in decades: birthright citizenship. In this Legal Wire edition of Morning Wire, ADF Chief Legal Counsel Jim Campbell breaks down the Court’s decision in Chiles v. Salazar, what it means for counselors and free speech, and what’s at stake as the Court takes up President Trump’s executive order on citizenship. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.- - -Ep. 2717- - -Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3- - -Today's Sponsors:Balance of Nature - Join hundreds of thousands of customers in one simple routine that’s changing the world. Go to https://BalanceofNature.com to subscribe and save over 30% today. Fast Growing Trees - Visit https://fastgrowingtrees.com to get 20% off your first purchase when using the code WIRE at checkout.- - -Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacymorning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Supreme Court addressed monumental cases this week, poised to reshape laws across the land on core constitutional issues, including free speech and citizenship laws. In Childs v. Salazar, the court tackled a case dealing with Colorado's law banning counseling to help minors struggling with gender identity and sexuality. In Trump v. Barbara, the ACLU is challenging President Trump's executive order seeking to limit birthright citizenship. In this episode, we speak to Alliance Defending Freedom,

Chief Legal Counsel Jim Campbell to discuss these pivotal Supreme Court cases. I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley, with Georgia Howl. This is a Legal Wire edition of Morning Wire. This episode is sponsored by Balance of Nature. Does anyone else feel like nutrition is getting way too complicated? We used to just eat food. Now you need a PhD to read the back of a cereal box. Here's the reality.

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who actually argued before the court on the first case we'll talk about. Jim, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, John. So first things, first, congratulations on this big win at the Supreme Court. This is Childs v. Salazar, the so-called conversion therapy case versus Colorado. And as Georgia said, it's a significant ruling. Can you catch our listeners up on this case? Yeah, our client in the case is Kaylee Childs.

She's a licensed counselor in the state of Colorado. And she wants to help kids that are struggling with gender confusion and gender dysphoria. But unfortunately, Colorado passed a law that says that if you're helping a client like that, that you can only encourage them to gender transition. You can't help them grow comfortable with their body and realign their identity with their sex. And so as a result of that, because that's blatant viewpoint discrimination, we filed a lawsuit against that California or that Colorado law. So you guys sued and now we have this major ruling that came down yesterday.

So what are the biggest takeaways from the majority opinion that was pinned by Gorsuch? So the Supreme Court recognized that these laws and there's roughly 23 of them around the country that they discriminate based on viewpoint. And if there's one thing we know about the First Amendment, it's that the government can't pick and choose views that it likes while silencing views that it doesn't like. So the Supreme Court recognized that. They also rejected Colorado's argument that this was just some kind of conduct that Kaylee Childes is engaged in. There is no conduct.

Kaylee only engages in conversations with young people struggling with these issues. And the court recognized that you can't relabel speech conduct just to avoid the requirements of the First Amendment. And one of the big things that we reported at the Daily Wire is, look, this is almost a near unanimous decision. How significant was that? That this was an eight to one decision. Yeah, it's an eight to one decision because the Supreme Court is so strong on issues of free speech. Almost all of the court recognized that this law is so problematic under well-established First Amendment principles. Only Justice Jackson dissented, and her dissent simply gets the first. Amendment wrong. She ignores the fact that this law discriminates based on viewpoints and picks

winners and losers in the public square. What was her argument? Her argument was essentially that this was akin to conduct, that because when Kaylee Childs has these conversations with clients, that she is trying to help them work through issues, she labeled it treatment and said that treatment is conduct and that it's not speech. But the rest of the court saw right through that and recognize that when you're sitting down having a conversation across the table from someone, that that's obviously speech and it must be protected by the First Amendment. It seems hard to make the case on the opposite there. What is the fallout here? What does this decision mean going forward? There are over 20 states that have laws just like Colorado's, and there are over a hundred

localities that have similar laws as well. The Supreme Court's decision makes very clear that those laws face a very significant burden if they're ever going to be applied to simple conversations between counselors and clients. And so we're very optimistic that this is the end of those laws to the extent governments try to apply them to shut down voluntary conversations between counselors and their clients. We have another major case being heard. This is the big birthright citizenship case. What do we need to know going into this? Well, I would start with the language of the 14th Amendment, because the 14th Amendment speaks directly to the issue of citizenship. And it says that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction

thereof are citizens of the United States. Now, that was originally approved by the people in order to grant citizenship to freed slaves. But over time, some have come to understand that as allowing birthright citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants. But President Trump, on his first day back in office, he signed an order saying that babies born in the U.S. will no longer automatically get citizenship if their parents are here illegally or only temporarily. And then very, very soon after that, the ACLU filed a lawsuit, and so that order has never been able to go into effect. But the Trump administration, has maintained that those rulings are all based on an incorrect understanding of the Constitution.

And what arguments do the two sides in this race? Yeah, the case really hinges on a phrase that I recited before. So in that 14th Amendment language, it says subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. And so both sides dispute what that means. On the one hand, the challengers to those laws say that being subject to the jurisdiction just means that you're subject to the laws. And so anyone that's present in the U.S. is subject to U.S. laws. And if that's the proper understanding, then birthright citizenship should belong to anyone born in the U.S. But on the other side, the administration argues that it's not enough to just be born on U.S. soil, that someone born here must also owe full allegiance to the

United States. And because that's not true of people who are here either illegally or temporarily, then birthright citizenship should not apply under those circumstances. What about the precedent involved here? What are the two sides citing? Interestingly, and this isn't often the case, but both sides are citing the same precedent. There's an 1898 decision called United States v. Wong Kim Ark. And that case involved a question of whether a child born to Chinese immigrants was entitled to birthright citizenship. and the court there said that they were.

Now, the challengers read that case very broadly, and they say, well, because that case involved Chinese immigrants that were residing in the U.S., that that stands for the principle that all children born in the United States are entitled to citizenship. But the presidential administration reads that case very differently. It points out that those immigrants in that case were permanently residing in the U.S. And so the principles established there don't apply to people who are either here illegally or here temporarily. So the parties are really just arguing over the same case and they have a different reading of it. I guess the big question here, what's at stake in this case?

How broad could this go? How narrow could this ruling go? Yeah, so the president raises a lot of concerns that he has with birthright citizenship. He says that allowing it would encourage illegal immigration because people coming to the U.S. would know that all future born children will automatically be U.S. citizens. The administration also concerns about what's known as birth tourism, which is when pregnant women come to the U.S. immediately before giving birth so that that child will be a U.S. citizen. But on the flip side, the challengers have some concerns of their own that they raise. They have a future-looking concern where they say that the president's order would result in more non-citizens living in the U.S. because a lot of the U.S.

lot of people that would automatically be citizens without the president's order would no longer be citizens. And so they try to turn that issue around on the administration. But in the end, no matter what the court decides, this is going to be a critical decision that determines something that should be of importance to all of us, which is what does it take to be a citizen in this country? Is there anything that might keep the court from deciding the more wide-reaching constitutional questions here and keep this more limited? There is. So the challengers to the president's order say that it violates not only the Constitution, but it also violates a 1940 law enacted by Congress. And they say that because it violates that law, these are two independent ways that you can rule against the order. Now, if the Supreme Court agrees with that, then it would leave to the side these important constitutional issues. But notably, that would allow Congress to go back and to legislate on this issue directly. And so if the court were to take that route and to rule only on that statutory 1940s law ground,

then it would leave the door open for Congress to address this issue another day. Versus if the Supreme Court were to decide these constitutional issues, then it might settle the issue once and for all and take the issue away from Congress. Once again, as we have tracked with you guys over the last few months, the court is taking on major cases, another one here with this birthright citizenship case. Thank you so much, Jim, for joining us. Always happy to chat. That was Alliance Defending Freedom's chief legal counsel, Jim Campbell.

And this has been a Legal Wire edition of Morning Wire.