Expert alarmed as Supreme Court sends Trump a troubling signal: 'A real warning sign'

A legal expert was alarmed on Tuesday after analyzing the recent spate of opinions handed down by the Supreme Court.

Quinta Jurecic, a staff writer at The Atlantic, said in a recent interview with Will Gotsegen, another staff writer at the publication, that the Supreme Court sent a troubling signal to President Donald Trump that it is still willing to let him get away with a lot. That's despite the court ruling against Trump in the birthright citizenship case, which Trump and his allies had staked a lot on.

"What shocked me is that that ruling was, depending on how you count, 6–3 on the question of whether the executive order could stand, or 5–4 on the question of whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires a broad understanding of birthright citizenship. Very few people had thought that it would be anywhere near that close. I certainly did not," Jurecic said.

She also noted that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh gave no indication during oral arguments that they considered birthright citizenship to be outside the plain text of the 14th Amendment. Their opinions read like a sign that "the Court is willing to give Trump a pass" on almost whatever he wants, Jurecic said.

"There is no ambiguity about what the Fourteenth Amendment says, and the fact that the administration seems to have been able to convince four justices that there is some ambiguity there is troubling. It is a real warning sign for the influence of Trump and the far right on the Court," she added.