The Supreme Court just handed Donald Trump one of his biggest losses of the term.
The Left is celebrating, but one very prominent voice on the other side of the political aisle is not going along with the cheering.
And Stephen A. Smith shocked a lot of people when he went on the record about what he really thinks of the birthright citizenship ruling.
The Court Rules, Trump Pushes Back
In late June 2026, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision in Trump v. Barbara, striking down President Donald Trump’s executive order that would have ended automatic birthright citizenship for children born to illegal aliens and temporary visitors. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, concluding that children born to parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States satisfy the requirements of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and are citizens at birth.
Three conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch — dissented. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed the executive order had to go but took a different path, saying it violated federal immigration statutes rather than the Constitution itself. Kavanaugh also noted that Congress could, consistent with the 14th Amendment, pass legislation limiting birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens and temporary residents.
Trump seized on Kavanaugh’s reasoning immediately. He posted on Truth Social: “The Supreme Court upheld Birthright Citizenship, which is too bad for our Country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation, with the support of the President, that has now been determined during this process.”
He added: “No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship. They will have my Complete and Total Support!”
House Speaker Mike Johnson called the ruling “very disappointing” and said Congress would look at its options going forward.
Stephen A. Smith Says What Most Won’t
On his SiriusXM podcast Straight Shooter with Stephen A. Smith, the ESPN personality ran through the Court’s recent rulings and landed somewhere that surprised a lot of people.
Smith said he understood the legal reasoning behind the decision. But he made clear that understanding a ruling and agreeing with it are two different things.
“I’m not sure I agree with that decision,” Smith told his audience. “The Constitution’s the Constitution and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution says what it says so I get that part, but if folks are coming over here unlawfully and illegally, intending to give birth on American soil just to ensure that the child is an American citizen, I don’t have a problem with that being challenged.”
That’s a pretty remarkable thing to say out loud when most of the media class was busy applauding the ruling.
Smith had already been raising these questions before the decision came down. Earlier this year, when Trump made history by becoming the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court oral arguments, Smith went on record defending the move. “When the president walked into the Supreme Court to attend oral arguments, I’m here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t blame him,” Smith said. “He’s been accused of not paying attention to stuff that’s happening on our home soil.”
And Smith put the broader stakes plainly: “You want to do something politically expedient to your benefit. If you’re President Donald Trump, this is the fight you fight, because millions of Americans follow with him on this issue.”
The Argument Smith Is Making
Smith’s concern goes beyond legal theory. He connected the policy directly to the real pressures bearing down on ordinary Americans.
“Do you or do you not have a problem with birthright citizenship? I do … We’re 39 trillion in debt. Our economy is not strong. It’s threatening to unravel before our very eyes,” Smith said. “Unemployment isn’t dissipating. There’s been crime. There’s pestilence and poverty. There’s a lot going on in this country, and there’s a lot of evidence that gives people cause to pause and make them scared of the state of affairs that exist in our nation.”
Smith also made the historical argument that many on the Right have been making for years: the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause was ratified in 1868 to grant freed slaves and their children citizenship — not to hand automatic citizenship to anyone whose mother managed to land on American soil before going into labor.
That argument is not fringe. It’s the same one Trump’s solicitor general made before the Court, and it’s the same one three Supreme Court justices signed onto in dissent.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley has been making a version of it too. Turley told Fox & Friends that “the fact that we are one of the few countries that continues to embrace birthright citizenship is perfectly insane, and it is a great danger to this government and to this republic.”
Justice Alito’s dissent opened with the problem of birth tourism — women who travel to the United States specifically to give birth so their child receives automatic citizenship, then return home. Alito wrote that the ruling “preserves a powerful incentive to enter or remain in this country illegally.”
What Comes Next
The fight is not over. Trump has made clear he intends to pursue the issue through Congress, and Kavanaugh’s concurrence gave Republicans a potential legislative roadmap. But the path is steep. Republicans hold 53 Senate seats, well short of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune has told Trump the votes aren’t there to eliminate the filibuster either.
But the political pressure is building. Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri announced plans to introduce a constitutional amendment framed around Trump’s original executive order. And the fact that four justices — three in outright dissent plus Kavanaugh — found no 14th Amendment barrier to restricting birthright citizenship gives reformers a genuine foothold for future legal challenges.
The 14th Amendment was written after the Civil War to ensure that the children of freed slaves could never be stripped of citizenship by hostile state governments. Nobody in 1868 was thinking about foreign nationals booking flights to American hospitals to game the immigration system. The men who drafted that amendment were solving a specific, brutal injustice — not writing a blank check to the world.
What makes Smith’s comments worth paying attention to is that he’s not a conservative commentator. He’s not a Trump ally. He’s someone who looked at this policy honestly and said out loud that the system is being exploited in ways that cost real Americans something. And he said he has no problem with challenging it.
That’s the kind of honest reckoning the anchor baby scam deserves. The question now is whether Congress has the stomach to deliver it.
Sources: Mediaite; Daily Caller; Fox News; SCOTUSblog; NBC News; ABC News