Yesterday Trump became the first sitting President to ever attend a SCOTUS oral argument, sitting through Solicitor General Sauer’s defense of the birthright citizenship executive order in Trump v. Barbara. The general consensus is that the arguments went better than expected for the administration, but not well enough to lead to a win. It is possible that SG Sauer created enough doubt on the constitutional issues that the Court will decide it doesn’t need to reach those issues and instead resolve the case against on statutory grounds; that would leave the door open for potential future legislative and/or executive action to modify the long-standing conception of when and how citizenship attaches.

One interesting thing about this case is that it has inverted the usual political views on textualism versus living constitutionalism. Concepts like illegal immigration and birth tourism were unthinkable in the 1860s, so there is something to be said for the notion that the 14th Amendment should be interpreted in a manner that produces reasonable results applied to more modern fact patterns, rather than slavishly focusing on the original meaning of the words used at the time. But it’s pretty funny to see Justice Alito pounding the drum the loudest in favor of a living constitution argument, and the ACLU leading the argument in favor of a purely textualist analysis. But, as Chief Justice Roberts said, to laughter: “Well, it’s a new world, [but] it’s the same Constitution.”

Trump’s address to the nation last night, his first live address on the Iran war (he had released a taped video message on the first day of the war), lasted 19 minutes but covered no meaningful ground. Representative headlines this morning included The Atlantic’s “Maybe Trump Should Not Have Given This Speech,” Politico’s “‘What The Hell Did He Just Say?’ GOP Iran Worries Build After Trump Speech”, and the L.A. Times’ “Trump Speech on Iran War and Recent Remarks on Oil, NATO, Daycare Costs Land With a Thud.” The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, which was at $67 when the war started, went from $98 before the speech to $112 as I write this, 24 hours later.

In Nate Silver’s approval rating poll average, Trump has just fallen below 40% for the first time in his second term.

Speaker Johnson now seems willing to entertain the Senate-passed compromise to fund the less controversial parts of DHS, although Republicans are now talking about a two-track approach in which the Senate would start working on trying to use budget reconciliation to fund ICE and CBP rather than engage meaningfully with Democratic demands for ICE reforms.

Finally, the big news of the day is that Trump has fired Attorney General Bondi, after trial balloons to that effect were widely floated yesterday. The left loathed her for treating the DOJ like Trump’s personal law firm, while the right ripped into her over how she has managed the Epstein files. While Todd Blanche has been named interim AG, the rumor is that Trump is considering nominating his EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, as Bondi’s permanent replacement.