The Supreme Court’s Check on Trump’s Power Was Too Close for Comfort

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“The Supreme Court narrowly ruled against President Trump’s attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship, with four conservative Justices supporting the extreme position. While the Court has occasionally resisted Trump’s actions, these decisions are the minimum expected from a Court dealing with an overreaching President.

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Despite some rulings that limited the President’s authority, the Court made clear its commitment to a conservative agenda.

By Ruth MarcusJune 30, 2026

Breathe a sigh of relief, sure. But do not cheer—and do not be cheered by—the Supreme Court’s refusal to let President Trump eliminate the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship. That outcome would have been cataclysmic—impossible to administer and likely to create a permanent underclass of millions of American-born children lacking legal status. As the majority opinion, by Chief Justice John Roberts, outlined, it would have flown in the face of English common law, the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, the long-settled precedents interpreting it, and the actions of Congress endorsing that view. But the vote was unnervingly close—closer than the 6–3 bottom line suggested. Four conservative Justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh—signed on to the extreme position that the Constitution does not mean what it has long been understood to say: that, with minor exceptions, children born in the United States are automatically citizens. The only thing that saved this case from being a slim 5–4 ruling, vulnerable to the shift of a single Justice, was Kavanaugh’s determination that a separate federal law protects birthright citizenship.

The best way to understand this Court’s relationship with the President is that some of the conservative Justices are willing, some of the time, to resist him. Last December, on its emergency docket, the Court blocked Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago. In March, the Court rejected his assertion of emergency power to impose tariffs, as Roberts put it, on “any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time.” On Monday, the Justices prevented Trump from firing the Federal Reserve Board governor Lisa Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud. (Cook has said the allegations are baseless.) Again, these moves are not ground for celebration—they are the least that should be expected from a Court dealing with an out-of-control President“