POLITICO Nightly: The quiet blockbuster ahead for the Supreme Court

By Ankush Khardori Presented by the American Heart Association People hold anti-Trump signs in front of the Supreme Court on July 1, 2024. | Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images ROBERTS’ RULES — Next week, the Supreme Court will hold its biggest oral argument of the year so far. It will consider whether to maintain a series of nationwide injunctions that have prevented the administration from enforcing President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship . It’s hard to overstate the importance of this case — it stands to determine whether federal judges can issue court orders that block presidential policies across the entire country. The use of these nationwide injunctions has figured prominently in the legal pushback against Trump’s most controversial actions since the start of his second term. If a majority of the Supreme Court justices adopt the government’s position in its entirety, then the injunctions could be narrowed to apply to just the seven expectant parents who are parties to the case. The Trump administration might then be able to effectively end birthright citizenship throughout the rest of the country, unless and until the Supreme Court weighs in on the underlying legal merits of the president’s executive order itself — which have been roundly rejected by every court that has considered the matter, and by virtually every credible scholar and independent legal analyst — at a later date. Should these practical consequences matter to all of the justices? It is not clear that they will — or even should — at least according to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Roberts sat down for a rare fireside chat in New York this week, and although most of the coverage homed in on Roberts’ reassertion of judicial independence , the more significant exchange occurred when the interviewer asked Roberts whether he considers the “real-life practical consequences” of his rulings when rendering decisions. Roberts rejected the notion. “If you do that,” he said, “you’re kind of putting yourself in the place of a legislator.” The chief justice argued that you could, for instance, look at the court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence and say that the consequences include more people having more guns. “Or,” he said, “you can say the consequence is that more people are armed and therefore they’re in a better position if there’s a foreign invasion, as there was with the British shortly after the Second Amendment.” In pushing back, Roberts offered a fairly standard exposition of textualism and originalism — the prevailing mode of constitutional and statutory interpretation under the current 6-3 conservative supermajority of justices. Of course, many judges, lawyers, scholars and liberal Supreme Court justices reject these approaches — preferring, for instance, to utilize a broader array of interpretive tools when deciding cases, including text, historical and legal context, legislative history and — yes — the “real-life practical consequences” of judicial rulings. If you look closely, you may find that Roberts himself sometimes does this, too. Roberts, for instance, wrote the opinion , joined by the other five Republican appointees on the court, that granted Trump criminal immunity last year. That decision had no grounding either in the text of the constitution or the framers’ expectations when they wrote it, but Roberts argued that criminal immunity was “required to safeguard the independence and effective functioning of the Executive Branch, and to enable the President to carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution.” During oral argument, Trump appointee Justice Neil Gorsuch argued that the court had to look beyond the case against Trump. “We’re writing a rule for the ages,” Gorsuch said, now famously (or infamously, depending on your perspective). Roberts also wrote the decision tossing out the bulk of Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan under the so-called “major questions doctrine.” The doctrine is a relatively new creation of the conservative justices, but it is explicitly premised on the justices’ assessment of the “economic and political significance” of the executive action being challenged — which is another way of accounting for what you might call the “real-life practical consequences” of the court’s decision. Roberts’ comments may seem innocuous, or perhaps par for the course from a justice who entered the political scene arguing that the job of the justices was “to call balls and strikes.” But he and the rest of the justices are entering historically unprecedented territory in the weeks, months and even years ahead as they oversee a seemingly endless stream of high-profile legal challenges to signature administration initiatives. The consequences of those rulings will be considerable , one way or the other, and could, in the extreme case, result in a durable reordering of the country’s constitutional system while also dramatically changing the lives of millions of American citizens and residents both now and in the future. The ruling in next week’s case alone could change the lives of thousands of children that will be born in the country — to both undocumented and temporarily legal immigrants — between now and whenever the Supreme Court issues a final ruling on the merits of the order. Those children could be born stateless in the meantime and exposed to deportation proceedings. The Supreme Court’s oral argument will no doubt be closely watched by legal and political observers across the spectrum. If this ends up being one of the cases in which Roberts and his conservative colleagues opt to ignore the “real-life practical consequences” of their ruling, it could bode poorly for the other challenges to Trump’s aggressive and unprecedented assertion of executive power. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at akhardori@politico.com .   A message from the American Heart Association: Across America, communities are standing up to Big Soda—and winning. By taking action to remove sugary drinks from SNAP, raise sugary drink excise taxes to lower sales and expose soda companies’ predatory marketing tactics, leaders are protecting kids’ health against powerful corporate interests. The American Heart Association remains committed to curbing sugary drink consumption and protecting families' health.   What'd I Miss? ****DESTROYING PUBLIC SAFETY PROTECTIONS & THE STATUTORY INDEPENDENCE OF THE COMMISSION!  BLEACH BLONDE BRAIN DEAD KAROLINE LEAVITT CONTINUES TO CONFIRM HER IGNORANCE! **** — Trump fires three consumer watchdog commissioners as he dismantles agency: The Trump administration is breaking up the Consumer Product Safety Commission , a small but powerful independent watchdog that for five decades has quietly kept dangerous toys, cribs and electronics out of American homes. The administration on Thursday night fired three Biden-appointed commissioners on the five-member CPSC board — Alexander Hoehn-Saric, Mary T. Boyle and Richard Trumka Jr. — just hours after two staffers with the “Department of Government Efficiency” were scheduled to meet with acting Chair Peter Feldman at the agency’s Bethesda headquarters, according to two people familiar with the meeting granted anonymity to avoid retribution. Hoehn-Saric said that while he has received no direct communication from the White House, Feldman has barred him from performing his duties. The three fired commissioners voted to block an attempt by Feldman to officially bring on the pair from DOGE, Trumka Jr. said in a statement. excerpts: The firings come on the heels of the commissioners’ opposition to any DOGE-directed layoffs and the reclassification of more than 70 CPSC employees, including safety engineers, hazard analysts, and outreach staff responsible for educating manufacturers and consumers. Boyle, Hoehn-Saric and Trumka Jr. argued that the agency was already operating below its appropriated staffing levels and that cuts would undercut critical safety work. “These terminations will inevitably result in emergency room visits or deaths that could and should have been avoided,” warned Hoehn-Saric, who was appointed in 2021 and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. The Trump administration is pushing forward with a plan to eliminate the CPSC as an independent agency and absorb its work into the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a proposed budget document obtained by POLITICO. The draft budget creates a new office within HHS, headed by an “Assistant Secretary for Consumer Product Safety,” that would “absorb functions and staff from the [CPSC]” and carry on the commission’s core mission of protecting Americans from unreasonable risks of injury or death from consumer products. The new division would have a proposed annual budget of $135 million, around 10 percent less than its current funding level of $151 million. The plan would require sign off from congressional appropriators and may face a series of other legal challenges as the commission was created by statute. The firings and the broader restructuring have sparked a firestorm from the commissioners, who argue the administration is illegally gutting a life-saving agency. “CPSC was created to be independent of the White House precisely so that decisions about public safety would not be subjected to political whims,” Hoehn-Saric said Boyle, who has spent 15 years at the CPSC as a lawyer and senior official, called her termination an act of retaliation for refusing to “be complicit with the efforts of DOGE to destroy the agency.” “DOGE shows no respect for expertise, no respect for public servants, no respect for the citizens our government serves,” she said in a statement. “Random layoffs with no rationale don’t reform government; they disable it.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back, telling POLITICO: “Is the federal agency within the executive branch? Who is the head of the executive branch? He has the right to fire people within the executive branch.” According to both Boyle and Hoehn-Saric, the firing came just days after the Democratic commissioners voted to advance a proposed safety standard on lithium-ion batteries, which have been linked to more than 20 deadly fires involving e-bikes and e-scooters. The vote directly defied a Trump-era executive order requiring White House review of all regulatory proposals — a directive the commissioners say violates their statutory independence. “We advanced the rule to gather public input, not implement it,” said Boyle. “That’s the process we’ve followed for decades. This administration wants to bury it behind closed doors.” Created in the 1970s, the CPSC has long operated as a low-profile but powerful agency that issues recalls, enforces safety standards and litigates against companies selling unsafe products. Such actions can be a death blow for companies, and the agency has faced legal challenges over the years from businesses like Amazon and conservative legal groups in an effort to reel it in. Last fall, the Supreme Court turned away a petition that sought to undermine the CPSC by arguing that its insulation from the president violated the separation-of-powers clause. ****MAGA GOP ARE PROPOSING TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY THAT WILL EXPLODE THE DEFICITS INTO THE FUTURE, AS WELL AS MASSIVE CUTS, SLASHING PERSONNEL SO GOVERNMENT NO LONGER FUNCTIONS, SLASHING FOOD PROGRAMS & SAFETY NET PROGRAMS - FAILED GOVERNMENT! TRUMP'S BANANA REPUBLIC!*** — U.S. likely to hit debt limit X-date in August, Treasury says: The Treasury Department said today it would likely run out of cash to pay the nation’s bills by August , setting a new, firmer deadline for Congress to act to avoid a catastrophic default on the United States’ more-than $36 trillion debt. That date could also become the new, de facto deadline for congressional Republicans to pass their megabill of tax cuts, border security investments and energy policy, assuming leadership sticks with its plan to approve a $5 trillion debt limit hike as part of that package. ****USPS DESTRUCTION!***** — FedEx board member David Steiner to lead U.S. Postal Service: David Steiner, a member of the FedEx board of directors, has been appointed as the next postmaster general and CEO of the United States Postal Service , the letter carrier’s board of governors announced today. Steiner is set to replace former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who resigned in March, and current acting Postmaster General Doug Tulino. Steiner’s appointment has already faced pushback given his ties to FedEx, a leading private competitor of USPS. Union leaders were quick to denounce Steiner, arguing that his appointment further encourages the privatization of postal services. ****ICE GESTAPO ARRESTED HER ON THE STREET FOR EXERCISING FREE SPEECH RIGHTS PROTECTED UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT!**** — Judge orders immediate release of Tufts student detained by ICE: A federal judge today ordered the immediate release of Rumeysa Ozturk , a Turkish Tufts University Ph.D. student whose video-recorded detention by masked federal agents drew national scrutiny amid a crackdown by the Trump administration. U.S. District Judge William Sessions III ruled that Ozturk had been unlawfully detained in March for little more than authoring an op-ed critical of Israel in her school newspaper. ****U.S. CITIZENS ARE BEING DETAINED & HARASSED AT THE BORDERS BY ICE ZEALOTS...HOW CAN ANYONE BE ASSURED OF ACCESS? ****  — FIFA chief dismisses U.S. border policy fears in private World Cup remarks: FIFA President Gianni Infantino today dismissed concerns that the Trump administration’s tough border policies would wreak havoc with the 2026 World Cup . Speaking to a private meeting of the FIFA Council, Infantino praised President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance for their commitment to the tournament and enthusiasm for welcoming foreign fans, according to an industry official familiar with the remarks. An immigration crackdown at the U.S. border — which has included tourists being detained on arrival on menial grounds — has sparked fears that fans risk not being able to travel safely to the World Cup, the premier sporting event on earth. excerpts:  The remarks underscore that while Infantino has been criticized for his close relationship with Trump — including attending the presidential inauguration in January and promoting a FIFA crypto coin in the White House — he is in lockstep with the U.S. president even while speaking behind closed doors with the world’s most powerful football officials. Infantino noted that he wants to focus on the message he’s hearing from the White House: that fans will indeed be welcome at the 48-team tournament next summer. Vance had attracted scrutiny after he said that “we’ll have visitors probably from close to 100 countries. We want them to come, we want them to celebrate, we want them to watch the games. But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home, otherwise they’ll have to talk to [Homeland Security] Secretary [Kristi] Noem.” The U.S. will host the 2026 Men’s World Cup (along with Canada and Mexico), and will also stage this summer’s expanded Club World Cup.   Policy moves fast—stay ahead with POLITICO’s Policy Intelligence Assistant. Effortlessly search POLITICO's archive of 1M+ news articles, analysis documents, and legislative text. Track legislation, showcase your impact, and generate custom reports in seconds. Designed for POLITICO Pro subscribers, this tool helps you make faster, smarter decisions. Start exploring now .     AROUND THE WORLD Chris LaCivita, an advisor to the Trump campaign, is seen in the spin room at Georgia Institute of Technology's McCamish Pavilion in Atlanta, Ga., June 27, 2024, after former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden met in a debate hosted by CNN in its nearby studios. | Francis Chung/POLITICO ADVENTURES IN ALBANIA — The Republican strategist who guided Donald Trump’s 2024 political resurrection is helping Albania’s main opposition party stage an unlikely revival . Trump’s campaign adviser and Republican election guru Chris LaCivita is now backing the conservative Democratic Party of Albania, whose leader Sali Berisha is hoping for his own political comeback from corruption allegations in Sunday’s high-stakes national election. With LaCivita’s backing, Berisha is trying to topple Edi Rama, the painter-turned-socialist heavyweight who has held Albania in thrall for more than two decades, first as mayor of Tirana and then prime minister. A victory for Berisha would bring an end to 12 years of rule by Rama’s Socialists, which international observers have described as a period marked by increased state capture by a single party. But it would also usher in a political force openly aligned with Trump’s agenda in a region long seen as being strategically vulnerable to Russian and Chinese influence. WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL — Foreign ministers from the EU, U.K. and Ukraine today launched a new tribunal to prosecute Russian officials responsible for war crimes against Ukraine . That sends a grim counterpoint to today’s triumphalist Victory Day parade held by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to celebrate the 80th anniversary of defeating Nazi Germany — and marking a partial end to Russia’s diplomatic isolation. The special tribunal comes amid continued attempts by the West to increase pressure on Putin to accept a ceasefire and work toward a peace deal with Ukraine. It also underlines the long-stated effort by Ukraine and its allies to punish those responsible for launching the unprovoked war. The tribunal is set to be established under the legal framework of the Council of Europe — the non-EU body responsible for human rights in Europe. It will have its own prosecutors and judges. It can begin its work as soon as it is approved by two- thirds of member countries of the Council.   A message from the American Heart Association:     Nightly Number Over 1,000 The number of measles cases now in the United States , a grim milestone that has only been achieved twice in the last 30 years. Three people have died in the outbreak, according to the CDC, including two school-aged children in Texas. RADAR SWEEP A BIG THIRD SPACE — Warehouses and spaces with huge square footage in big cities are now hot properties , allowing companies that lease them to make big bets on indoor experiences like rows of Pickleball courts or immersive museum or art experiences. And tenants in these big spaces can also now diversify, operating businesses in what essentially becomes a mini-mall. So, even as corporate office space hasn’t totally rebounded since COVID, there’s now a real appetite for the big space once again. Adriane Quinlan reports for Curbed. Parting Image On this date in 1959: Members of the British royal family and the Shah of Iran stand during the national anthems in London’s Royal Opera House where they watched a performance of the ballet in honor of the Shah. From left in the front row of the Royal Box are the Shah, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip and Princess Margaret. | AP THE U.S. OVERTHREW DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED MOSSADAGH TO PROTECT THE BRITISH CASH COW, BP & IMPOSED THE BRUTAL SHAH TO DO THEIR BIDDING! Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   A message from the American Heart Association: Kids in the U.S. drink more than 30 gallons of sugary drinks each year on average—enough to fill a bathtub. Sugary drinks help fuel an epidemic of chronic disease, increasing rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. It’s no accident – it’s a business model. The soda industry floods social media, video games, streaming services and schools with ads while it fights against proven solutions to reduce consumption—putting profits over people. Across America, communities are taking action to remove sugary drinks from SNAP, raise sugary drink excise taxes to lower sales and demand accountability for aggressive marketing to kids. This work is hard—soda companies spend millions to block them. But local leaders, parents and health advocates refuse to back down. By advocating for smart policies and urging community action, the American Heart Association is committed to curbing sugary drink consumption and protecting families' health.     Follow us on X Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

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