MaddowBlog-Trump's attendance at the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship arguments won't help his case

[LetMyPeopleVote]

If his radical gambit is likely to lose, why bother with an unprecedented presidential appearance at the high court? There are two prevailing explanations.

Link to tweet

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/why-trump-attending-supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-arguments

Not surprisingly, Trump’s radical gambit has struggled in the courts, which relied on generations’ worth of legal precedent, but the Supreme Court nevertheless agreed to hear the case. Ahead of Wednesday’s oral arguments, the president decided to do something his predecessors never did. MS NOW reported:

President Donald Trump will be watching oral arguments today as the Supreme Court weighs whether the president holds the power to end birthright citizenship. […]

Trump’s presence at the court is significant. He will be the first known sitting U.S. president to attend oral arguments before the high court, according to the Supreme Court Historical Society.

By way of explanation, the president told reporters on Tuesday that he intended to sit in on oral arguments “because I have listened to this argument for so long.” (A day later, I’m not entirely sure what that was supposed to mean.)....

So why bother with an unprecedented presidential appearance at the high court? There are two prevailing explanations — though they’re not mutually exclusive, and both could be true.

The first is that this is part of a ham-fisted intimidation campaign: By literally showing up in person, it’s possible that Trump, who appointed a third of the court’s justices, thinks he can apply extra pressure to those who will decide the case’s fate.

If this is the goal, the president is likely to be disappointed. Unlike congressional Republicans, justices don’t want to be seen as obedient White House loyalists, and it’s easy to imagine Trump’s stunt backfiring.

The other theory is that Trump recognizes the fact that the Supreme Court won’t let him rewrite constitutional law through an executive order, so he went to oral arguments as a political tactic intended to deliver an anti-immigrant message — which the White House sees as more politically salient than other issues that are dominating the public conversation, such as the war with Iran and high gas prices.

“The big thing for Trump is to be seen putting up a fight,” Politico noted. “This policy — always a Hail Mary from a legal perspective — is as much about signaling to the president’s base as it is a serious attempt to change the law.”

Whatever the explanation, if the president expects his order to be upheld, he probably ought to start lowering his expectations. Watch this space.

[Turbineguy]

1. Impressing the 33 percenters.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. trump just left the Supreme Court

trump only listened the Sauer's agreement and left when the ACLU attorney started her presentation. This is not normal for court cases.

Link to tweet

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. 'Fidgeting' Trump had to be moved during Supreme Court hearing: ACLU attorney

trump is too stupid to understand the concepts being discussed. trump could understand that his attorney was NOT doing a good job and that the Justices were not buying what his attorney was trying to sell

Donald Trump's unprecedented appearance at the Supreme Court encompassed both a request that his seat be moved and the reported inability of the president to hold still while lawyers made their case before the nation's highest court.

— Raw Story (@rawstory.com) 2026-04-02T20:55:24Z

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-fidget-supreme-court/

Appearing on MS NOW with host Jonathan Lemire, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero stated the president sat right in front of him, so he had a ringside seat to watch the president react to arguments over his attempt to override the 14th Amendment on birthright citizenship.....

“Could you see him from your vantage point? If so, what was he like?” MS NOW’s Lemire asked.

“He was six feet in front of me... he was literally right in front of me,” he recalled. “I was one row behind him, the Secret Service and then the president, so I could watch him entirely throughout the argument. Some of the press reports also got it wrong. Some of the press reports said that he left after the government had its case; the president sat through at least 10 to 15 minutes of our argument.”

“I could see him fidgeting in the chair. I literally could see him, he was literally in my line of vision,” he added. “And when our legal director, Cecillia Wang, made her opening statements, and then when she began to answer questions from the justices, you could see he started getting restless. His shoulders slumped a little bit.”

“I think he was there, clearly to intimidate the justices,” he added. “When they first had him, they sat him on the very end of the front row. And then the Commerce Secretary, Mr. [Howard] Lutnick got up and told the security guards that Mr. Trump would like to be seated more centrally in the courtroom. So they moved him literally right in front of us.”

“And then it was clear that he was endeavoring to put his thumb on the scale. He was endeavoring to glower at the justices to kind of intimidate them, almost defy them to rule against him,” he continued. “And what was remarkable, and this really is a testament that our system of checks and balances is working, that it's a coequal branch of government. Donald Trump is a guest in the Supreme Court. This is Chief Justice Roberts’ house. And there was not a mention, they did not miss a beat when he walked in, the courtroom got quiet. When he walked out, no one missed a beat.”