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Trump plans to attend Wednesday’s Supreme Court hearing on his bid to limit birthright citizenship

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to sit in on Wednesday’s Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship, making him the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation’s highest court.

The Republican president’s official schedule, sent out by the White House, included a stop at the Supreme Court, where justices will hear Trump’s appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down his executive order limiting birthright citizenship.

The order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, declared that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens. It’s an about-face from the long-standing view that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment and federal law since 1940 confer citizenship to everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions.

It’s not the first time Trump has considered showing up for a high court hearing. Last year, Trump said that he badly wanted to attend a hearing on whether he overstepped federal law with his sweeping tariffs, but he decided against it, saying it would have been a distraction.

On Tuesday, however, Trump seemed more sure he’d be in court for Wednesday’s hearing while he spoke with reporters in the Oval Office.

“I’m going,” Trump said, when the upcoming arguments in the birthright citizenship case were mentioned. To a follow-up question clarifying that he planned to go in person, Trump said, “I think so, I do believe.”

Trump went to the Supreme Court in his first term for the swearing-in ceremonies of two justices he appointed, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The ceremony for Trump’s third appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, was delayed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Trump, who was no longer in office, did not attend.

Other presidents have dealt directly with the court, but don’t appear to have done so while in office. Richard Nixon argued a case between his time as vice president and president, and William Howard Taft served as chief justice after his presidency.

Trump, asked to whom he would be listening most closely, went on a lengthy detour Tuesday describing a court he viewed as mostly partisan, between justices appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents.

“I love a few of them,” he said. “I don’t like some others.”

The citizenship restrictions are a part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown, but they have not yet taken effect anywhere in the country after being blocked by several courts.

A definitive ruling from the Supreme Court is expected by early summer.

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This story was first published on March 31, 2026. It was published again on April 1, 2026, to make clear that President Donald Trump attended the swearing-in ceremony for Brett Kavanaugh in addition to the ceremony for Neil Gorsuch.

Supreme Court allows Brian Flores to sue NFL for discriminating against Black coaches

(CNN) — The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to take up an appeal from the National Football League in a class action lawsuit from Brian Flores and other Black coaches who have claimed racial discrimination.By passing on the appeal, the court’s decision leaves in place an appeals court ruling that allowed the lawsuit to go to trial and rejected an effort by the league to force Flores into arbitration.Flores, who is currently the defensive coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings, was previously a coach with the New England Patriots, the Miami Dolphins and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He sued the league in 2022, claiming systematic racism when it came to the hiring and promotion of Black coaches.The NFL sought to force Flores and two other coaches into arbitration, an out-of-court legal process to resolve disputes viewed as less favorable to plaintiffs. But the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in February balked at that effort, allowing Flores to take his claims against the league to court.Justice Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the decision to not hear the case.Flores won in the appeals court because of how the NFL structures its arbitration requirements: It designates the league commissioner, Roger Goodell, as the default arbitrator. The 2nd Circuit said that arrangement provided “for arbitration in name only.”US Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes, nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton, wrote that the NFL’s process “fails to bear even a passing resemblance” of traditional arbitration procedures.“It contractually provides for no independent arbitral forum, no bilateral dispute resolution, and no procedure,” Cabranes wrote. Instead, he said, it “offends basic presumptions of our arbitration jurisprudence” by submitting Flores’ claims to the discretion of one of his opponents in the case, the NFL.“An employer – whether a professional sports league, restaurant, retail store or otherwise – cannot force employees to arbitrate statutory employment discrimination claims before the employer’s own chief executive,” Flores’ attorneys told the Supreme Court.But the NFL told the justices in its appeal that the appeals court ruling would give judges “free-floating discretion” to invalidate arbitration requirements based “solely on their subjective determinations” that some of the procedures are “unfair.” That, the NFL said, “undermines the very predictability and uniformity” that federal arbitration law requires.The conservative Supreme Court has repeatedly beefed up the ability of companies to enforce arbitration agreements.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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