Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is an ABC News special report. I'm with Johnson
and New York. We're coming on the air because President
Trump is speaking from the White House brief lument right now.
In the way of some consequential Supreme Court decisions help
listening the.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Rule of law.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
In striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions to
interfere with the normal functioning of the executive branch, the
Supreme Court has stopped the presidency itself.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's what they've done.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And really it's been an amazing.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Period of time.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
This last hour. There are people elated all over the country.
I've seen such happiness and spirit. Sometimes you don't see that,
but this case is very important. I was elected on
a historic mandate. But in recent months we've seen a
handful of radical left judges effectively try to overrule the
rightful powers of the president to stop the American people
(00:57):
from getting the policies.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
That they voted for in record numbers.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
It was a grave threat to democracy, frankly, and instead
of merely ruling on the immediate cases before them, these
judges have attempted to.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Dictate the law for the entire nation.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
In practice, this meant that if any one of the
nearly seven hundred federal judges disagreed with the policy of
a duly elected president of the United States, he or
she could block that policy from going into effect or
at least delay it for many years tied up in
the court system.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
This was a colossal abuse.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Of power which never occurred in American history prior to
recent decades. And we've been hit with more nationwide injunctions
than were issued in the entire twentieth century together. Think
of it more than the entire twentieth century. Me I'm
grateful to the Supreme Court for stepping in and solving
(01:54):
this very, very big and complex problem, and they've made
it very simple.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I want to thank Justice Barrett, who.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Wrote the opinion brilliantly, as well as Chief Justice Roberts
and Justice is Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas great people.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Thanks for this decision.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file
to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined
on a nationwide basis. And some of the cases we're
talking about would be ending birthright citizenship, which now comes
to the fore that was meant for the babies of slaves.
It wasn't meant for people trying to scam the system
(02:36):
and come into the country on a vacation.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
This was, in fact, it.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Was the same date, the exact same date, the end
of the Civil War was meant for the babies of slaves.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
And it is so clean and so obvious.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
But this lets us go there and finally win that
case because hundreds of thousands of people are pouring into
our country under birthright citizenship, and it wasn't meant for
that reason.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It was meant for the babies of slaves.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
So thanks to this decision, we can now properly file
to proceed with these numerous policies and those that have
been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis, including birthright citizenship,
ending sanctuary city funding, suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding,
stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries, and numerous
(03:26):
other priorities of the American people. We have so many
of them. I have a whole list. I'm not going
to bore you, and I'm going to have Pam get
up and say a few words, but there's really as
you can talk as long as she wants, because it's
a very important decision. This is a decision that covers
a tremendous amount of territory. But I want to just
thank again the Supreme Court for this ruling.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It's a giant.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
It's a giant, and they should be very proud and
our country should be very proud of the Supreme Court today.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
And with that, i'd like you to.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Listen to the words of Pam Bondish's an incredible attorney general.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
We're very proud of her.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And as you know, Todd Blanche is with us, and
we have so many others that worked on this case
and other cases, and I think they're doing a great job.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Pam, please say a few words.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for fighting for all Americans.
Americans are finally getting what they voted for. No longer
will we have rogue judges striking down President Trump's policies
across the entire nation. No longer today. In the six
to three opinion, Justice Barrett correctly holds that the District
(04:41):
Court lacks authority to enter nationwide or universal injunctions. These
lawless injunctions gave relief to everyone in the world instead
of the parties before the court, as the Supreme Court
held today, they turned district courts into the imperial judiciary.
(05:01):
Active liberal justices. Judges have used these injunctions to block
virtually all of President Trump's policies. To put this in perspective,
there are ninety four federal judicial districts. Five of those
districts throughout this country held thirty five of the nationwide injunctions.
(05:25):
Think about that, ninety four districts.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And we're listening to this press conference right now in
the White House briefing room. There is Pambondi, the Attorney General,
talking about this latest round of Supreme Court decisions, and
President Trump himself also speaking specifically about the ruling regarding
birthright citizenship. Now, it didn't the Supreme Court didn't address
the merits of the Fourteenth Amendment itself and whether or
(05:49):
not the birthright citizenship is constitutional, how it's laid out there. Instead,
it addressed the issue of injunctions by lower courts that
the President accused of of radical judges of seeking to
overrule the powers of the president. He called it a
great threat to democracy. What President Trump said about birthright
citizenship him itself, he said that it was meant for
(06:12):
babies of slaves, not meant for people who want to
come into this country. Trump also went on to say
that he can now promptly proceed with other policies that
may have been limited by some of those lower court injunctions.
Let's go ahead and talk to our team here. ABC
Senior White House correspondent Selena Wang is at the White House.
As Selena, I know you've been listening along. Clearly the
(06:34):
White House, President Trump himself, they see this as a
green light to move forward on a number of issues,
even beyond birthright citizenship.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
That's exactly right. Wait, you see President Trump there as
well as the Attorney General really taking a victory lap here.
They're considering this as a major win. They have long
argued that these federal judges have far too much power,
the President saying that it was stopping the presidency itself.
So he sees this as a major win for the
American people and now increasing his ability to enact those
(07:02):
policies that he believes the American people voted for him
to do. So this decision, to your point, this is
not about the merits of birthright citizenship, but it limits
the ability of these federal judges to stop policy nationwide,
known as those injunctions, and that has really been at
the heart of the battle between the Trump administration and
the judaiciary over the last several months. So this could
(07:25):
have sweeping implications far beyond just birthright citizenship, but also
the president's immigration deportation policies, also his efforts to slash
federal funding. But look, I just spoke to one of
the lawyers who actually represents some of those pregnant women
in this case, those undocumented pregnant women, and she said
that while this looks like a loss on its face,
(07:46):
it is not. She believes that ultimately birthright citizenship will
be upheld, and she is relieved that at least this
is providing protection for the undocumented pregnant women who brought
this case forward with.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Selena Wang, thank you, and just a reminder to our
viewers over what's just happened in the last couple of
hours here there was that six to three decision by
the Supreme Court along ideological lines, the liberal justices in
descent saying the three district court judges in these cases,
these are the cases that were brought forward and this
is a quote here by Justice Amy Cony Barrett. They
(08:20):
exceeded their equitable authority by granting injunctions nationwide, but again
not addressing the merits of the birthright order itself. Let's
get to ABC senior Washington reporter Devin Dwyer, who is
at the Supreme Court and covers the court for US.
Devin break this down for us because it is really
complicated and there are a lot of questions about how
(08:41):
things move forward.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Absolutely wit in.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
The bottom line here is this is not the end
of the battle over birthright citizenship. But the Supreme Court
today did significantly limit the ability of those individual judges
from blocking a president's policy, not just this one, but
any policy on a nationwide basis. You know, when you
think back to your Civics class, you remember that courts
are there to adjudicate disputes right between two different people.
(09:05):
You're injured, you come in, you sue your partner. What
the Court said today is that if you're not injured,
if you're not a party to a case, you can't
get relief, you can't be protected. And so they significantly
narrowed the scope of this ruling and a lot of
the other rulings that judges have issued against Donald Trump's
policies only to the people that brought those cases. So
the individual pregnant women that brought this case challenging the
(09:27):
future of their children to get US citizenship, they're protected.
In fact, one of those plaintiffs just told us she'll
give birth in twenty five days, her child will be
a US citizen, even though she is a non citizen.
That is still in place. But the further application of
this remains to be seen, and the legal battle will continue,
quite possibly denying President Trump his ability to see this
(09:50):
long awaited goal.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Take fruition.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Devin Dwyer Force, thank you. Let's bring in ABC's Maria
Via Reale in Dallas and MARAA. I know that you've
been speaking with migrant activists and attorneys who've been representing
some of these families, and when you think about this,
we're talking about some mothers who are literally pregnant right
now asking questions about what this means for their child
in just a matter.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
Of months, you know, you know, we just heard this
from Devin and Selena as well. I mean, obviously this
will not impact the people that are already involved in
this case, but what immigration attorneys and advocates are saying
is they are very concerned with how this will flood
the court system moving forward, because it will force people
to obviously, you know, gain attorneys, make sure they have
(10:34):
representation when it comes to these very hot topic items.
One thing they also mentioned was this was a very
calculated move by the administration. They watched during the first
administration a lot of their policies, specifically with immigration.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Gets shot down.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
And then during the Biden administration, we saw Title forty
two and the remain in Mexico policy, you know, be
affected by these nationwide injunctions.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So when the.
Speaker 7 (10:56):
Administration brought birthright policies and forward, and they wanted to
make sure that they were focused and not just you know,
you know, going after the merits of the case initially,
but this nationwide injunction first, because then moving forward, that
allows them to have a broader impact on these immigration
policies that they are probably already constructing right now.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Maria Vireal, Devin Dwyer, and Selina Wang for US our
entire team. We appreciate it again, President Trump, calling the
Supreme Court ruling a giant win. Our coverage continues on
ABC news Live and abcnews dot Com. Then I'll be
right back here later this evening for a complete wrap
up on world news. Tonight, we want to return you
now to regularly scheduled programming. I'm with Johnson and New York.
(11:39):
Have a great day. This has been a special report
from ABC News.
This is an ABC News special report. I'm with Johnson
and New York. We're coming on the air because President
Trump is speaking from the White House brief lument right now.
In the way of some consequential Supreme Court decisions help
listening the.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Rule of law.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
In striking down the excessive use of nationwide injunctions to
interfere with the normal functioning of the executive branch, the
Supreme Court has stopped the presidency itself.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's what they've done.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
And really it's been an amazing.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Period of time.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
This last hour. There are people elated all over the country.
I've seen such happiness and spirit. Sometimes you don't see that,
but this case is very important. I was elected on
a historic mandate. But in recent months we've seen a
handful of radical left judges effectively try to overrule the
rightful powers of the president to stop the American people
(00:57):
from getting the policies.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
That they voted for in record numbers.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
It was a grave threat to democracy, frankly, and instead
of merely ruling on the immediate cases before them, these
judges have attempted to.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Dictate the law for the entire nation.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
In practice, this meant that if any one of the
nearly seven hundred federal judges disagreed with the policy of
a duly elected president of the United States, he or
she could block that policy from going into effect or
at least delay it for many years tied up in
the court system.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
This was a colossal abuse.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Of power which never occurred in American history prior to
recent decades. And we've been hit with more nationwide injunctions
than were issued in the entire twentieth century together. Think
of it more than the entire twentieth century. Me I'm
grateful to the Supreme Court for stepping in and solving
(01:54):
this very, very big and complex problem, and they've made
it very simple.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I want to thank Justice Barrett, who.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Wrote the opinion brilliantly, as well as Chief Justice Roberts
and Justice is Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas great people.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Thanks for this decision.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And thanks to this decision, we can now promptly file
to proceed with numerous policies that have been wrongly enjoined
on a nationwide basis. And some of the cases we're
talking about would be ending birthright citizenship, which now comes
to the fore that was meant for the babies of slaves.
It wasn't meant for people trying to scam the system
(02:36):
and come into the country on a vacation.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
This was, in fact, it.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Was the same date, the exact same date, the end
of the Civil War was meant for the babies of slaves.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
And it is so clean and so obvious.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
But this lets us go there and finally win that
case because hundreds of thousands of people are pouring into
our country under birthright citizenship, and it wasn't meant for
that reason.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It was meant for the babies of slaves.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
So thanks to this decision, we can now properly file
to proceed with these numerous policies and those that have
been wrongly enjoined on a nationwide basis, including birthright citizenship,
ending sanctuary city funding, suspending refugee resettlement, freezing unnecessary funding,
stopping federal taxpayers from paying for transgender surgeries, and numerous
(03:26):
other priorities of the American people. We have so many
of them. I have a whole list. I'm not going
to bore you, and I'm going to have Pam get
up and say a few words, but there's really as
you can talk as long as she wants, because it's
a very important decision. This is a decision that covers
a tremendous amount of territory. But I want to just
thank again the Supreme Court for this ruling.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It's a giant.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
It's a giant, and they should be very proud and
our country should be very proud of the Supreme Court today.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
And with that, i'd like you to.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Listen to the words of Pam Bondish's an incredible attorney general.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
We're very proud of her.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And as you know, Todd Blanche is with us, and
we have so many others that worked on this case
and other cases, and I think they're doing a great job.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Pam, please say a few words.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Thank you, President Trump. Thank you for fighting for all Americans.
Americans are finally getting what they voted for. No longer
will we have rogue judges striking down President Trump's policies
across the entire nation. No longer today. In the six
to three opinion, Justice Barrett correctly holds that the District
(04:41):
Court lacks authority to enter nationwide or universal injunctions. These
lawless injunctions gave relief to everyone in the world instead
of the parties before the court, as the Supreme Court
held today, they turned district courts into the imperial judiciary.
(05:01):
Active liberal justices. Judges have used these injunctions to block
virtually all of President Trump's policies. To put this in perspective,
there are ninety four federal judicial districts. Five of those
districts throughout this country held thirty five of the nationwide injunctions.
(05:25):
Think about that, ninety four districts.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And we're listening to this press conference right now in
the White House briefing room. There is Pambondi, the Attorney General,
talking about this latest round of Supreme Court decisions, and
President Trump himself also speaking specifically about the ruling regarding
birthright citizenship. Now, it didn't the Supreme Court didn't address
the merits of the Fourteenth Amendment itself and whether or
(05:49):
not the birthright citizenship is constitutional, how it's laid out there. Instead,
it addressed the issue of injunctions by lower courts that
the President accused of of radical judges of seeking to
overrule the powers of the president. He called it a
great threat to democracy. What President Trump said about birthright
citizenship him itself, he said that it was meant for
(06:12):
babies of slaves, not meant for people who want to
come into this country. Trump also went on to say
that he can now promptly proceed with other policies that
may have been limited by some of those lower court injunctions.
Let's go ahead and talk to our team here. ABC
Senior White House correspondent Selena Wang is at the White House.
As Selena, I know you've been listening along. Clearly the
(06:34):
White House, President Trump himself, they see this as a
green light to move forward on a number of issues,
even beyond birthright citizenship.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
That's exactly right. Wait, you see President Trump there as
well as the Attorney General really taking a victory lap here.
They're considering this as a major win. They have long
argued that these federal judges have far too much power,
the President saying that it was stopping the presidency itself.
So he sees this as a major win for the
American people and now increasing his ability to enact those
(07:02):
policies that he believes the American people voted for him
to do. So this decision, to your point, this is
not about the merits of birthright citizenship, but it limits
the ability of these federal judges to stop policy nationwide,
known as those injunctions, and that has really been at
the heart of the battle between the Trump administration and
the judaiciary over the last several months. So this could
(07:25):
have sweeping implications far beyond just birthright citizenship, but also
the president's immigration deportation policies, also his efforts to slash
federal funding. But look, I just spoke to one of
the lawyers who actually represents some of those pregnant women
in this case, those undocumented pregnant women, and she said
that while this looks like a loss on its face,
(07:46):
it is not. She believes that ultimately birthright citizenship will
be upheld, and she is relieved that at least this
is providing protection for the undocumented pregnant women who brought
this case forward with.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Selena Wang, thank you, and just a reminder to our
viewers over what's just happened in the last couple of
hours here there was that six to three decision by
the Supreme Court along ideological lines, the liberal justices in
descent saying the three district court judges in these cases,
these are the cases that were brought forward and this
is a quote here by Justice Amy Cony Barrett. They
(08:20):
exceeded their equitable authority by granting injunctions nationwide, but again
not addressing the merits of the birthright order itself. Let's
get to ABC senior Washington reporter Devin Dwyer, who is
at the Supreme Court and covers the court for US.
Devin break this down for us because it is really
complicated and there are a lot of questions about how
(08:41):
things move forward.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Absolutely wit in.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
The bottom line here is this is not the end
of the battle over birthright citizenship. But the Supreme Court
today did significantly limit the ability of those individual judges
from blocking a president's policy, not just this one, but
any policy on a nationwide basis. You know, when you
think back to your Civics class, you remember that courts
are there to adjudicate disputes right between two different people.
(09:05):
You're injured, you come in, you sue your partner. What
the Court said today is that if you're not injured,
if you're not a party to a case, you can't
get relief, you can't be protected. And so they significantly
narrowed the scope of this ruling and a lot of
the other rulings that judges have issued against Donald Trump's
policies only to the people that brought those cases. So
the individual pregnant women that brought this case challenging the
(09:27):
future of their children to get US citizenship, they're protected.
In fact, one of those plaintiffs just told us she'll
give birth in twenty five days, her child will be
a US citizen, even though she is a non citizen.
That is still in place. But the further application of
this remains to be seen, and the legal battle will continue,
quite possibly denying President Trump his ability to see this
(09:50):
long awaited goal.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Take fruition.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Devin Dwyer Force, thank you. Let's bring in ABC's Maria
Via Reale in Dallas and MARAA. I know that you've
been speaking with migrant activists and attorneys who've been representing
some of these families, and when you think about this,
we're talking about some mothers who are literally pregnant right
now asking questions about what this means for their child
in just a matter.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
Of months, you know, you know, we just heard this
from Devin and Selena as well. I mean, obviously this
will not impact the people that are already involved in
this case, but what immigration attorneys and advocates are saying
is they are very concerned with how this will flood
the court system moving forward, because it will force people
to obviously, you know, gain attorneys, make sure they have
(10:34):
representation when it comes to these very hot topic items.
One thing they also mentioned was this was a very
calculated move by the administration. They watched during the first
administration a lot of their policies, specifically with immigration.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Gets shot down.
Speaker 7 (10:47):
And then during the Biden administration, we saw Title forty
two and the remain in Mexico policy, you know, be
affected by these nationwide injunctions.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
So when the.
Speaker 7 (10:56):
Administration brought birthright policies and forward, and they wanted to
make sure that they were focused and not just you know,
you know, going after the merits of the case initially,
but this nationwide injunction first, because then moving forward, that
allows them to have a broader impact on these immigration
policies that they are probably already constructing right now.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Maria Vireal, Devin Dwyer, and Selina Wang for US our
entire team. We appreciate it again, President Trump, calling the
Supreme Court ruling a giant win. Our coverage continues on
ABC news Live and abcnews dot Com. Then I'll be
right back here later this evening for a complete wrap
up on world news. Tonight, we want to return you
now to regularly scheduled programming. I'm with Johnson and New York.
(11:39):
Have a great day. This has been a special report
from ABC News.
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