Trump Shows Up at Supreme Court Hearing Who He Brought with Him STUNS Courtroom
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President Donald Trump took the unprecedented step of attending oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as his administration fights to uphold his early executive order banning birthright citizenship.
Trump reportedly arrived about 10 minutes before the session began, marking the first time in history that a president has attended a Supreme Court session.] “I’m going,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “Because I have listened to this argument for so long.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi traveled in the motorcade with Trump and will sit with him on Wednesday to listen to oral arguments in the birthright citizenship case.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to NBC News that Trump planned to attend Supreme Court oral arguments on Wednesday concerning the constitutionality of a January 2025 executive order that seeks to limit birthright citizenship to individuals with at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.
According to the court and the Supreme Court Historical Society, there is no official record of a sitting president attending oral arguments at the Supreme Court.
Trump has previously attended ceremonial events at the court, including those confirming his appointees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, but has not attended arguments before.
The Supreme Court announced in December it would hear arguments in a case challenging birthright citizenship, the constitutional principle that grants U.S. citizenship to nearly all children born on American soil as laid out in the Fourteenth Amendment.
The case centers on a statutory and constitutional question over whether the amendment’s Citizenship Clause applies to children born in the United States to parents who are not legal permanent residents. The plaintiffs argue that the original meaning of the clause does not extend automatic citizenship to children of parents in the country illegally.
The justices agreed to take up the appeal after lower courts rejected constitutional challenges brought by a group of petitioners who had sought to limit birthright citizenship. Oral arguments are expected to focus on historical evidence and interpretations of the 14th Amendment’s text and intent of Congress at the time the post-Civil War measure was ratified.
Richard Pildes, a professor of constitutional law at New York University, told NBC News that Trump’s presence during oral arguments “certainly raises the temperature of the argument, which might be the President’s intent.”
“The case is about the powers of the presidency as an institution,” Pildes said in an email. “By showing up in person, the President would instead be personalizing the case, as if it’s a personal confrontation between him and the justices.”
Presidents have typically avoided attending oral arguments, as there is a consensus that the court’s decisions pertain to the presidency as an institution rather than to any individual president’s term in office.
“They have understood it’s not good for the country to up the level of confrontation by representing the dispute as a more personalized one through showing up in person,” Pildes said.
The case, Trump v. Barbara, challenges the legality of an executive order issued by Trump his first day back in office, January 20, 2025. The order terminates automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to parents who are in the country without lawful status or who are only temporarily present.
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case comes amid ongoing national debate over immigration policy and border security, with supporters of ending birthright citizenship saying it will reduce incentives for illegal immigration and critics warning that any change could leave thousands of U.S.-born citizens in legal limbo.
Observers say Wednesday’s session will be one of the most closely-watched cases of the term, with potential implications for millions of people and longstanding U.S. immigration law.
A ruling in the case could reshape federal immigration policy and raise questions about citizenship status for children born in the country to parents without lawful status. The Supreme Court is not expected to issue a decision before late June.
Nearly 150,000 California Mail Ballots Rejected In Primary
California election officials are examining why nearly 150,000 mail-in ballots were rejected during the state’s June primary, with late-arriving ballots accounting for most of the increase.
The higher rejection rate comes despite years of election law changes designed to make voting more accessible and ensure more ballots are ultimately counted.
According to data compiled by the California Secretary of State’s office, 148,241 mail-in ballots were rejected during the June primary, representing 1.73% of all mail ballots returned.
That marks an increase from the 2024 primary, when 108,982 ballots were rejected, or 1.56% of all mail ballots cast.
The largest reason for rejection was ballots arriving too late to qualify under California law.
State data shows that 93,479 ballots were rejected because they failed to meet the state’s deadline requirements.
California allows mail ballots to arrive up to seven days after Election Day, provided they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
Voting experts believe many of the rejected ballots received postmarks dated after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted even if they arrived within the seven-day grace period.
Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said the timing of postal processing appears to be a significant concern.
“Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,” Alexander said.
Election experts have questioned whether recent operational changes within the U.S. Postal Service may be contributing to delayed postmarks.
Earlier this year, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators wrote to the Postal Service expressing concern that mail-processing changes could affect ballot handling during federal elections.
Updated Postal Service procedures mean postmarks may reflect when mail is processed at regional facilities rather than when it first enters the mail system.
Because processing centers have been consolidated in some areas, election officials have warned that postmark timing could be affected.
Before the June primary, California election officials encouraged voters to mail ballots as early as possible because of potential postal delays.
The June election also featured a highly competitive race for governor, which some experts believe encouraged many voters to wait until the final days before casting ballots.
In addition to late-arriving ballots, approximately 44,000 ballots were rejected because election officials determined the voter’s signature did not match the signature on file.
Another 8,300 ballots were rejected because the return envelope did not contain a signature.
State records also show that 743 ballots were rejected because those voters had already cast another ballot.
Other rejected ballots involved missing ballots inside return envelopes or multiple ballots submitted in a single envelope.
The highest rejection rate in the state occurred in Tulare County, where 3.52% of returned mail ballots were rejected.
Alpine County and Merced County followed closely, each recording rejection rates of 3.36%.
California has frequently faced criticism for taking weeks to complete vote counting after major elections, largely because state law permits ballots meeting certain requirements to continue arriving after Election Day.
Following the June primary, President Donald Trump again criticized California’s election system, while the Department of Justice opened an investigation into election administration in Los Angeles County.
Election experts emphasize that the increase in rejected ballots should not be interpreted as evidence of widespread voter fraud.
A 2025 report by the Brookings Institution found documented cases of mail ballot fraud remained extremely rare, estimating roughly four cases for every 10 million mail ballots cast, The Associated Press reported.
State officials have not identified evidence of widespread fraud connected to the June primary, but the increase in rejected ballots is expected to receive additional scrutiny as election administrators evaluate whether changes in postal operations, voter behavior or election procedures contributed to the higher rejection rate.
