On the eve of Wednesday’s session, President Trump said he would be in the courtroom, which would make him the first sitting president to attend an oral argument at the Supreme Court.
When asked Tuesday night about the arguments on Wednesday, Trump responded: “I’m going.”
A White House official subsequently confirmed the plans.
The president previously mused about attending the Supreme Court’s arguments over his sweeping tariffs, but ultimately did not make an appearance.
His presence for the birthright citizenship arguments would raise the stakes of an already closely watched case and create something of an awkward atmosphere for the justices. But the president’s relationship with the justices is already strained after the court’s decision in February to invalidate the administration’s tariffs plan.
Earlier this week, Mr. Trump continued to express his displeasure with the Supreme Court — insisting the justices must prove their intelligence by siding with him on the birthright citizenship issue, which he sees as key to his administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.
The president and his top advisers have long claimed so-called birth tourism is a national security threat and incentivizes foreigners to travel to the U.S. to have babies.
“Birthright Citizenship is not about rich people from China, and the rest of the World, who want their children, and hundreds of thousands more, FOR PAY, to ridiculously become citizens of the United States of America. It is about the BABIES OF SLAVES!” he posted on social media earlier this week.
The president appeared to be referring to his argument that the 14th Amendment was intended only to grant citizenship to freed slaves after the Civil War and not to broadly guarantee it to everyone born in the United States, a claim that even many conservative scholars disagree with.
Mr. Trump also continued to vent his anger with the Supreme Court justices, including two of his nominees who rejected his tariffs.
“The World is getting rich selling citizenships to our Country, while at the same time laughing at how STUPID our U.S. Court System has become (TARIFFS!). ‘Dumb Judges and Justices will not a great Country make!’”
At a news conference the day the Supreme Court released its 6-3 opinion in the tariffs case, Mr. Trump called the majority a “disgrace to our nation” and suggested that Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, whom he nominated during his first term, were “an embarrassment to their families” because of their votes.
A few weeks later, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. seemed to address those critiques when he generally denounced harsh personal attacks aimed at judges and justices as “dangerous.” “It’s got to stop,” Chief Justice Roberts said during an appearance at Rice University.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.
Ann E. Marimow covers the Supreme Court for The Times from Washington.
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