The MeidasTouch Podcast - Supreme Court Torches Trump in Major Oral Argument

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on the Supreme Court oral argument today on Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship. Wild Alaskan: Go to https://WildAlaskan.com/meidas for $35 OFF your first box of premium, wild-caught seafood. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It certainly did not seem like a majority of the United States Supreme Court was buying what Donald Trump and the regime were selling on the issue of birthright citizenship. A major oral argument was held today before the United States Supreme Court, where the Trump regime was challenging the right of federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions, and specifically in the context of nationwide injunctions, blocking the regime via executive order to eliminate the constitutional right to birthright citizenship. Donald Trump believes that he could execute an executive order overruling the Constitution and that federal

courts can't issue nationwide injunctions to block him. So this case before the Supreme Court was more surgically dealing with the issue of nationwide injunctions, but some of the issues between injunctions, meaning like a single court being able to block an administration or regime's ability to institute something on a nationwide basis, that was what was mostly addressed. But because it does relate to the merits as well in birthright citizenship, you heard a little bit of the merits argument made there. The case was consolidated of multiple cases, Trump versus New Jersey, Trump versus Washington, and Trump versus Casa Inc., the solicitor general for New Jersey. The top law enforcement attorney general, rather, in New Jersey was the person who argued this case for all of the states. And for Trump, you had his solicitor general of the United States,

John Sauer, who was previously Donald Trump's personal attorney. So let me go through some of the highlights of what went down, then let's talk more comprehensively about what took place today. Here is Justice Kagan, a liberal justice. Here's what she had to say. Play this clip. It sort of depends on the government's own actions in a case like this one, where one can expect that there is not going to be a great deal of disagreement among the lower courts. I mean, let's assume that you lose in the lower courts pretty uniformly, as you have been losing on this issue, and that you never take this question to us. I mean, I noticed that you didn't take the substantive question to us. You only took the nationwide injunction question to us. I mean,

why would you take the substantive question to us? You're losing a bunch of cases, this guy over here, this woman over here, you know, they'll have to be treated as citizens, but nobody else will. Why would you ever take this case to us? Well, in this particular case, we have deliberately not presented the merits to this court on the question of the scope of remedies, because of course, that makes it a clean vehicle where the court doesn't have to look at the past. You're ignoring the import of my question. I'm suggesting that in a case in which the government is losing constantly, there's nobody else who's going to appeal. They're winning.

It's up to you to decide whether to take this case to us. If I were in your shoes, there is no way I'd approach the Supreme Court with this case. So you just keep on losing in the lower courts. And what's supposed to happen to prevent that? Again, I respectfully disagree with that forecast of the merits. But in response to the question, what I would say is we have an adversarial system. And if the government is not, for example, not respecting circuit precedent on the courts hypothetical in the second circuit, someone injured in the second circuit could take the case up and they could say, look, the government is violating circuit precedent on the hypothetical multiple circuits. That's the case we're going to take? Somebody who says, you know, after we've said that this all has to be done one by one by one,

then we're going to take a case from somebody who objects to proceeding one by one by one. Now, I think this is notable here. You had Justice Barrett, Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee seeming to side with Justice Kagan here and really asking the Trump regime, so you think you're not bound to follow circuit court decisions? You're not going to follow it? You just think generally? Wow, that surprises me. Play this clip. Opinions and judgments here. Did I understand you correctly to tell Justice Kagan that the government wanted to reserve its right to maybe not follow a Second Circuit precedent, say, in New York, because you might disagree with the opinion? Our general practice is to respect those precedents,

but there are circumstances when it is not a categorical practice, and that is not just a new policy. This administration's practice or the longstanding practice of the federal government. And I'm not talking about in the Fourth Circuit. Are you going to respect a second circuit? I'm talking about within the Second Circuit. And can you say is that this administration's practice or a longstanding one? As I understand it, longstanding policy of the Department of Justice.

Yes, that we generally, as it was phrased to me, generally respect circuit president, but not necessarily in every case. And certain examples, some examples might be a situation where we're litigating to try and get that circuit president overruled and so forth. Well, okay, so I'm not talking about a situation in which, you know, the Second Circuit has a case from 1955, and you think it's time for it to be challenged. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about in this kind of situation. I'm talking about this week, the Second Circuit holds that the executive order is unconstitutional. And then what do you do the next day or the next week? Generally, we follow. So you're still saying

generally? Yes. And you still think that it's generally the policy, longstanding policy of the federal government to take that approach? That is my understanding. Okay. So but it sounds to me like you accept a Cooper versus Aaron kind of situation for the Supreme Court, but not for, say, the Second Circuit, where you would respect the opinions and the judgments of the Supreme Court, and you're saying you would respect the judgment, but not respect the opinion as well in the circuits as well. But my understanding is that has not been a categorical practice in the way respect for the precedents and the judgments of the Supreme Court has been. So you're not hedging at all with respect to the precedent of this court? That is correct. I believe the quotation from our application directly addresses that, and we stand by that completely. And here is a moment at the Supreme Court where Trump solicitor General John Sauer admits to Justice Kavanaugh, another Trump appointee, that Trump has no idea how to actually enforce his birthright citizenship.

Author Max Burns was there reporting. Play this clip. On the day after it goes into effect, it's just a very practical question how it's going to work. What do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with a newborn? I don't think they do anything different. What the executive order says in section two is that federal officials do not accept documents that have the wrong designation of citizenship from people who are subject to the executive order. How are they going to know that? The states can continue to, the federal officials will have to figure that out. How?

So you can imagine a number of ways that the federal officials could. Such as? Such as they could require a showing of, you know, documentation showing legal presence in the country for a temporary visitor. For example, they could see whether they're on a B-1 visa, which would exclude kind of the birthright citizenship and that kind of thing. For all the newborns? Is that how that's going to work? Again, we don't know.

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wild caught seafood. That's wildalaskan.com slash Midas for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. Now let's take a look at what went down inside this hearing as well. We'll give you some of the details directly from Midas Plus right here. Supreme Court torches Trump administration during birthright citizenship argument. In a pivotal moment of Trump's second term, the United States Supreme Court has turned skeptical and at times a blistering eye towards the regime's stance on nationwide injunctions. While the central question of the case doesn't address the constitutionality of modifying the 14th Amendment, a long shot goal of Trump, the real issue at stake is just as critical. Can federal judges block executive actions on a national scale? This

seemingly procedural question could have massive consequences. If the Trump administration gets its way, lower federal courts would no longer be able to issue rulings that halt policies nationwide. Instead, any injunction would only apply to plaintiffs directly involved in a given case. Now, as you heard from some of the portions of the oral argument that I played, as Justice Kagan says, y'all keep on losing over and over again. So what the Trump regime wants to do is because it knows its cases are losers, if you can't enforce a nationwide injunction and it only applies to the plaintiffs, they can push forward their

authoritarian policies until the case goes to the United States Supreme Court. During oral arguments, the justices across ideological lines showed deep reservations about such sweeping restrictions on judicial power. Justice Sonia Sotomayor cut to the heart of the issue with a dramatic hypothetical. If the government were to suddenly order the confiscation of all civilian firearms in direct violation of the Second Amendment under the Trump view, courts couldn't stop it with a nationwide injunction. We couldn't stop that, she asked. Justice Kagan was even more blunt. The government keeps on losing.

This is happening right now. Every court has ruled against you. That's the clip I played. That comment wasn't just rhetorical flourish. It pointed to a pattern of losses the regime has racked up in the lower courts, particularly when rolling out controversial immigration policy. If courts are stripped of the ability to issue broad injunctions, critics argue, the executive branch could continue implementing unlawful policies unchecked, avoiding scrutiny of the Supreme Court altogether until the case goes before the Supreme Court. And is that just going to result in more shadow docket decisions

of people trying to rush to the Supreme Court or the Trump regime trying to game the system? Justice Katonji Brown Jackson was especially pointed. She compared the administration's proposal to a catch-me-if-you-can approach to governance, one that would allow illegal policies to remain in effect until a perfect plaintiff in a perfect jurisdiction brings a challenge that finally makes its way to the top. Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Neil Gorsuch also appeared critical of the regime's arguments. Barrett echoed Alito's earlier skepticism. What's the point of this? And Gorsuch notably praised Kagan's line of questioning, often a signal of alignment during oral arguments. Meanwhile, New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum argued for

a middle ground. Yes, judges should be able to issue nationwide injunctions, but only under narrow and specific conditions. That prompted a key question from Chief Justice John Roberts, who seemed to be probing whether a narrow principle limitation could guide the court's ruling without fully endorsing the regime's extreme position. The significance of this case cannot be overstated, though framed as a procedural matter, the ability of courts to issue nationwide injunctions has become one of the most potent checks on presidential power in the modern era. Strip it away and you open the door to a more aggressive, less accountable executive. As of now, it appears likely that there were at least five votes against the Trump regime

position. Gorsuch, Jackson, Barrett, Sotomayor, and Kagan. More may join. Chief Justice Robert remains a wild card, but his pointed questioning suggests he is weighing a compromise approach rather than a full endorsement of the regime's request. Now, anything is possible is here, so we have to wait until the Supreme Court decides. So when will we know the outcome? The court typically hands down decisions in argued cases by the end of June, and there's no reason to believe this case will be an exception. Depending on how sharply the court wants to signal its stance, we may even see a decision sooner. What's clear, however, is this. The Trump regime walked into the Supreme Court hoping to disarm one of the judiciary's most powerful tools. Instead, it may walk out

with a historic rebuke and a precedent that affirms the court's ability to check presidential overreach for years to come. Stay tuned, folks. This one matters. I'm Ben Micellis. This is the Midas Touch Network. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million subscribers. Can't get enough Midas? Check out the Midas Plus sub stack for ad-free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now at MidasPlus.com.