DOJ Lawyer Face-Plants on Native Americans and Birthright Citizenship

The Trump administration’s lawyer, Solicitor General John Sauer, admitted before the Supreme Court Wednesday that he hadn’t thought too much about one of the big questions in President Donald Trump’s attempt to repeal birthright citizenship: What happens to Native Americans?

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who has carved out a niche for himself by carefully considering Indian law, asked Sauer if Native Americans today would be considered birthright citizens under the Trump administration’s test.

“I think so?” Sauer replied, clearly unsure. “I mean, obviously they’ve been granted citizenship by statute.”

“Put aside the statute; do you think they’re birthright citizens?” Gorsuch said again.

“No, I think the clear understanding that everybody agrees in the congressional debates is that the children of tribal Indians are not birthright.”

“I understand that’s what they said,” Gorsuch said. “But your test is the domicile of the parents, and that would be the test you’d have us apply today, right?”

“Yes, yes,” Sauer said.

“Are tribal Indians born today birthright citizens?” Gorsuch asked yet again.

“Ah, I think so, if they were lawfully domiciled here,” Sauer replied. “I’m not sure—I have to think that through.”

“I’ll take the yes,” Gorsuch said.

The Trump administration clearly hasn’t considered the implications of the executive order Trump signed on his first day in office repealing birthright citizenship. That a DOJ lawyer can’t explain whether Native Americans would be U.S. citizens in Trump’s vision is certainly unsettling.

Donald Trump’s threat to leave NATO has one very big hurdle: approval from Congress.

The president told The Telegraph Wednesday that he is weighing an exit from the 1949 compact, saying it is “beyond reconsideration.” He later clarified to Reuters that he planned to mention his dissatisfaction with NATO countries such as France, Poland, the U.K., and others refusing to join the war in Iran during a live address to the country Wednesday night.

“I’ll be discussing my disgust with NATO,” Trump said. When Reuters asked him if he was considering withdrawing from the organization, he said: “Oh, absolutely, without question. Wouldn’t you do that if you were me?”

“They haven’t been friends when we needed them,” Trump added. “We’ve never asked them for much … it’s a one-way street.”

The U.S. joined NATO in 1949 after the Senate ratified the North Atlantic Treaty, and is considered a core founding member of the organization. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2024 made it harder for a future president to leave NATO, requiring a two-thirds Senate majority or a bill passed by both houses of Congress.

The only way Trump could unilaterally leave NATO is to invoke presidential authority over foreign policy. Republicans in Congress would then probably refrain from challenging Trump’s decision in court, possibly leading to NATO’s downfall without its most powerful member.

“I hope that amid the emotions surrounding the president of ​the United States today, a moment of calm will come,” Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said Wednesday. “And why? Because there is no NATO without the United States, and it is in our interest that this calm comes. But there is ‌also no ⁠American power without NATO.”

On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declined to commit to NATO’s collective defense provision, refusing to say whether the U.S. would defend its allies if they were attacked by another country, such as Russia.

“As far ​as NATO is concerned, that’s a decision that will be left to the president. But I’ll just say a lot has been laid bare,” Hegseth said at a press conference Tuesday. “You don’t have much of an alliance if you have countries that are not willing to stand with you when you need them.”

That would seem to foreshadow doom for NATO, and further unravel America’s long-standing alliances with European countries. Trump may not realize it, but that would make the U.S. a much weaker country.

Donald Trump’s plan for Iran is changing by the minute.

Iran’s newly installed leadership immediately refuted Trump’s claims that the country was open to a ceasefire, informing state media Wednesday morning that the idea was “false and baseless.”

Iran’s revolutionary guard issued a separate statement with regard to the Strait of Hormuz, writing that the oil passageway “is firmly and decisively under the control” of Iranian forces.

“This strait will not be opened to the enemies of this nation through the ridiculous spectacle by the president of the United States,” the revolutionary guard wrote.

The notice came moments after Trump boasted online that Iran had requested a ceasefire, which the U.S. leader insisted would not happen unless the strait opened up to trade.

“Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!” Trump wrote Wednesday morning. “We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”

It is possible that Trump’s morning remarks were in response to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who suggested Tuesday that his country had the “necessary will” to end the war but would first need guarantees that the conflict would not repeat itself. Pezeshkian is not new to his presidential role, nor is he the new Supreme Leader of Iran—that would be Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of previous Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in February by a U.S.-Israeli joint operation. The junior Khamenei is considered even more extreme, and has been described as his father “on steroids.”

The White House’s stance Wednesday was even more bewildering in light of comments that Trump had made the night before. He claimed he was entirely uninterested in the strait and was considering backing out of Iran even while the waterway remains closed, effectively delaying the conflict for a future administration.

“We will be leaving very soon, and if France or some other country wants to get oil or gas, they will go up through the strait, the Hormuz Strait, and will be able to fend for themselves,” Trump said. “But we have nothing to do with that. What happens in the strait—we aren’t going to have anything to do with it.

“There is no reason for us to do it,” he said.

Situated between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, the Strait of Hormuz is the single most important energy transit point in the world, funneling approximately one-fifth of all crude oil shipments. In 2024, the U.S. imported roughly 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day through the strait, accounting for about 7 percent of total U.S. crude imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The price of oil and gas has skyrocketed in the weeks since the war began. On Tuesday, gas prices eclipsed $4 a gallon across the nation, hitting Americans in their wallets.

While the United States inflicts death on Iranian civilians and devastates Cubans with its oil blockade, President Trump is busy trying to classify antifa—a leaderless group that has become an umbrella term for any kind of anti-fascist resistance—as a counterterrorism threat. 

Puck News reported Tuesday that the administration is pushing to add the group to the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, which the intelligence community has used to prioritize its targets—and determine who to spy on—since 9/11. That framework is traditionally made up of groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS. Now a vague group that even law enforcement and counterterrorism “experts” have struggled to define may share equal status to them. “They’re putting antifa on the list and bumping them up in the queue in a way that doesn’t correspond to threats,” a national security official told Puck.

The vagueness seems to be the point. By painting this broad brush, they can cast anyone in their way—regardless of any kind of connection to “antifa”—as a literal domestic terrorist, opening the door to repression of the highest order.  

A “trigger happy” Pete Hegseth has used the conflict in Iran to boost his own position in the Trump administration, CNN reported Tuesday. 

After the Signalgate scandal, Hegseth found himself in the doghouse of Donald Trump’s Cabinet, spiraling about leaks and scrambling to justify missile strikes on foreign boats. But in recent weeks, the secretary has been able to reestablish himself by becoming the number one cheerleader for Trump’s plan to join Israel in launching a military campaign against Iran. 

“Once the president made the decision, [Hegseth] was the no. 1 supporter of it, as he should be,” one senior White House official told CNN. “He’s still responsible for making sure it’s a success.”

Not only did Hegseth validate the president’s idea to strike, he also downplayed the risks of the conflict spiraling out of control, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Weeks later, and the world has watched as Iran has launched a barrage of retaliatory strikes that have shuttered the Strait of Hormuz and upended global trade.

Now Hegseth is the star of press briefings where he waxes poetic about the lethality of warfighters and the fate of the free world. 

“He’s very trigger happy,” one source familiar with Hegseth’s current mindset told CNN. The defense secretary believes that “blowing shit up” is the best way for him to keep his job, the source added.

This sounds like a pretty good strategy for keeping up with a president obsessed with spectacle. Earlier this month, Trump suggested that Hegseth wants to keep the fighting going.  

“You know, the only two people that were quite disappointed, I don’t want to say this, but I have to,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Pete and Gen. Razin’ Caine, I think this thing’s going to be settled very soon.’ They go, ‘Oh, that’s too bad, right?’ Pete didn’t want it to be settled.”

A White House source pushed back on the implication that Hegseth needed to be worried about his job. “The president is very pleased with him, and was before the Iran situation,” the source said.