At the bar of history

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Thursday the 2nd of April. You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today! 

Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

First up, the President visits the Supreme Court.

Yesterday, the Court heard the case of Trump v Barbara. The case deals with an Executive Order signed by President Trump his first day back in office last year. It deals with birthright citizenship: deterring illegal immigrants or so-called "birth tourists" from having children on American soil. Doing so means those children become American citizens, something the President wants to stop.

The case hinges on whether that violates the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.

REICHARD: In a moment, we’ll look briefly at the arguments. But first, some scene setting as the Court took up this significant case.

The issue is a controversial one. Before the arguments, protesters from both sides showed up outside the Court.

AUDIO: Uphold the 14th Amendment! We say no! (duelling voices)

BROWN: Frank Lukacs was holding signs quoting the text of the 14th Amendment. He says his parents immigrated here legally.

LUKACS: We waited in our own country for a decade. And once we came out here, we had to wait another decade to get citizenship. Versus illegal immigrants, they come in, birthright citizenship, done. And that I see as kind of unfair. That's not a constitutional issue, that's a practical, procedural issue. Like, which would they pick? Of course they're just going to come in illegally.

But Homa Zarrinnahad said he thinks the issue is cut-and-dry:

ZARRINNAHAD: I think they're not going to ban the 14th Amendment. Their interpretation should be what it is.

REICHARD: Inside the court, a first: a sitting President came to watch the proceedings. President Trump broke with tradition to come hear the arguments surrounding one of his biggest domestic policies, immigration. 

Here he is on Tuesday, talking about why:

TRUMP: If you look at the original birthright citizenship papers, they all happened right after the Civil War. The reason was it had to do with the babies of slaves. And hopefully it's going to say, because our country is being scammed. We're getting all of these people, they're selling the rights to them. People are making a living, a big living, getting hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars from bringing people in and saying, "Congratulations, your whole family is going to be a citizen of the United States of America." That's not what it was for.

BROWN: Our Legal Correspondent Jenny Rough was in the courtroom yesterday. She talked to us from outside the courtroom just after the arguments. 

Hi Jenny!

JENNY ROUGH: Hi there! Yes, I am outside the Supreme Court on the corner of Maryland Avenue and First.

BROWN: Well you’ve been in the court for a number of cases before, Jenny. How did this one compare in terms of activity outside, number of people inside, you know, things like that?

ROUGH: Well yeah, well let me just back up a little bit, I'll just start with this morning. We were all told to get here really early, earlier than normal, 8:45 instead of 9:30. So I hopped in a ride-share and my driver was foreign, he had a pregnant wife who's about to give birth, so he was really interested in hearing about what was going to happen at the courtroom today.

And then I got here, again early, so there were some protesters, there was a bull horn alarm going off, but not a ton of protesters. I think they came later, when I was already inside the court. And then, you know, the press room was absolutely packed. You know, I come for a lot of cases, and even yesterday in a case that touched on the death penalty, you know, there were, I don't know, maybe a dozen reporters—don't hold me to that—but just today it was just completely packed. I couldn't even guesstimate, but all of the, there's sort of three areas of press seating inside the courtroom. There's sort of the hard pass reporters where you're going to have NPR and CNN, and then you have the day pass reporters, and there's a handful of alcoves, and then there's even like a backup space in the hallway. 

I was in one of the alcoves, so I had a great view of the justices, but I could not see the president, who was sitting in the middle of the courtroom, like in the public gallery. I was looking for just like a wisp of his hair, but I couldn't even see that.

BROWN: Right. President Trump was the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court proceedings–what did you notice was different with him being there?

ROUGH: I mean, I kind there was maybe slightly increased security, but the Supreme Court has pretty tight security to begin with, so the only thing I really noticed was that we had to walk through a metal detector again before we walked into the courtroom, you know, despite the two that we'd already been through beforehand. 

I will say, the oral arguments, I think, were a little more subdued than usual, and I have no idea if that's because the President was there, or if it was just the nature of the arguments.

BROWN: Mmhm. You aren’t at every case at the court, Jenny, but you already had plans to be there yesterday before the President put it on his schedule. Tell us why?

ROUGH: Yeah, it's funny, I mean I feel like I keep saying this, but the Court is hearing so many big cases, I keep thinking I have to go, because I feel like I'm seeing history in the making! And I keep saying that over and over again. 

But with this case, I definitely felt that. And, um, just being there in person, it's really interesting to watch the advocates before the justices. I mean, just to see Solicitor General Sauer, he turns directly to the justice who asked him a question, he kind of had his hand up on his chin as he's sort of thinking and contemplating and engaging with the justices, and then Cecillia Wang, for the respondents, did a great job too.

BROWN: You mentioned before we started recording that there were reporters predicting what the decision might be. Any thoughts on that? 

ROUGH: Oh, yeah. Well, this is, this is just an introverted, deep thinker person thing, but I do see reporters all the time kind of pop out of the courtroom after oral argument, and they love to give predictions; it's going to be seven to two, it's going to be six to three, it's going to be five to four. And I'm just, I always, always think of those verses in Proverbs that warn about predicting the future, and I never quite know. You know, you just don't know what they're thinking. I mean, you can get a clue from the questions that they ask, and so I would want to give the oral arguments a lot more deep thought, read all the briefs, read the amicus briefs, before I would ever even come close to giving a prediction. 

BROWN: Well, Jenny Rough outside the Supreme Court. 

Jenny, thank you so much!

ROUGH: Thanks so much.

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