What did Donald Trump do today?

He forgot that selling American citizenship to the highest bidder was his idea in the first place.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution establishes the principle of birthright citizenship: a person born in the United States (or subject to its laws) is a citizen, full stop. That's not just one interpretation: it's been the unchallenged precedent in case law since U.S. vs. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that it applied to any person born in the United States (with a few very technical exceptions for agents of foreign governments). Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco at a time when his Chinese parents could not legally become citizens, but this ruling upheld his claim to citizenship.

The text of the amendment is even clearer than the rulings enforcing it:

All person born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 

Trump's personal opinion, expressed in a social media post yesterday is that this "long ago legislation" (meaning the Constitution of the United States) only applies to the "BABIES of SLAVES" and that the judges who have been following this 128-year-old Wong Kim Ark precedent are "STUPID."

Trump's theory of the case will be tested by the Supreme Court tomorrow, where it is not likely to prevail, even as he's made noises about sitting in the courtroom itself—the better to stare down the justices he appointed. (Trump generally speaks of those three justices as being his personal functionaries on the court, and has reacted emotionally when they've ruled against him.) 

In another social media post today, Trump tried to make a different argument: that birthright citizenship was a scam for the benefit of "Chinese Billionaires who have 56 kids," which is a direct quote. It's not actually clear if there's even a single such person among the roughly 4 million Americans of all ages and races whose citizenship derives from being born in the United States rather than a parent's citizenship, but  "birth tourism" in the United States is rare for a reason: it doesn't offer much in the way of tangible benefits to foreign parents, other than the opportunity for their child to pay taxes in a country they don't yet live in. So-called "chain migration," where citizen children sponsor their own parents for immigration, is extremely difficult in practice, unless you are a naturalized citizen married to Donald Trump.

Of course, there's a particular irony to Trump railing against foreign "billionaires" buying a ticket into citizenship for their children: he's selling it himself for much cheaper, via the "Trump Gold Card" that is an actual fee-for-visa program he introduced just a few months ago. For $1 million (plus a nonrefundable $15,000 "processing fee") foreigners can purchase the functional equivalent of a permanent residency with an enhanced path to citizenship, and for $5 million they can buy a "platinum" version that brings tax breaks as well. (That provision alone will likely mean that the program costs the federal government more than it can bring in, since extremely wealthy foreigners subject to U.S. taxation would have a financial reason to sign up, but no personal loyalty to a country they wouldn't even necessarily reside in.)

 

This is from an actual U.S. government website, trumpcard.gov.

Four of Trump's five children are from mothers who violated immigration law to stay in the United States long enough to marry Trump and obtain citizenship that way.
 

Why does this matter?

• Donald Trump doesn't get to ignore the Constitution just because it's even older than him. 

• If a president doesn't like the idea of people buying citizenship he should stop selling it.  

What did Donald Trump do today?

He threatened atrocities against Iran and signaled surrender on the same day.

There were two stories out of Trump's disastrous war on Iran today. The first came as he once again threatened to destroy civilian infrastructure, which is a war crime. Specifically, he said he would target critical desalination plants that provide the most populous regions, already dangerously parched, with drinking water. 

This is such a serious crime that famed Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led the liberation of Kuwait during the first Gulf War, moved up his attack on Saddam Hussein's occupying army because of reports Iraq was attacking Kuwait's desalination plant. He described it as an atrocity:

GEN. SCHWARZKOPF: We were worried about the weather. The weather, it turned out, was going to get pretty bad the next day, and we were worried about launching this air assault. And we also started to have a huge number of atrocities, of really the most unspeakable type, committed in downtown Kuwait City, to include reports that the desalination plant had been destroyed. And when we heard that, we were quite concerned about what might be going on.  

But, according to White House staff, Trump is also "bored" with the war and considering simply abandoning the effort, with the Strait of Hormuz under active Iranian blockade.

That would leave the Iranian clerical/military regime in firmer control of its population than ever, with enormous leverage over the entire Middle East and the global economy that it never had before, and a powerful new incentive to acquire a nuclear deterrent. It would also leave the United States with thirteen dead servicemembers, tens of billions of dollars in costs, and a severely depleted stock of missiles and interceptors—to say nothing of vastly diminished status in the world.  

Neither committing atrocities nor effectively surrendering to a vastly less militarily powerful country is a good option. But at this point, Trump is no longer the only one who doesn't know what a good path out of the conflict looks like for the United States.

Why does this matter?

• Even by Trump standards, threatening to condemn millions of civilians to suffering and death is psychotic. 

• There is no way anyone who can't decide between committing atrocities and giving up entirely is mentally fit to handle their own affairs, much less the presidency.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He said the U.S. could easily "take the oil in Iran," among other delusional statements to move the markets.

With stock futures lower and oil futures higher ahead of Monday's opening, Trump once again released a barrage of Sunday-night optimism about the progress in the war he declared over weeks ago. Specifically, he said that he was leaning towards "taking the oil," explaining it this way: "To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran but some stupid people back in the US say: ‘why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people."

Trump's idea of a not-stupid plan would be to seize Kharg Island with ground troops. Kharg Island is the site of Iran's main oil export facilities in the Persian Gulf. But the oil isn't from Kharg: it's pumped there from the mainland, and Iran would turn off the pipeline immediately if it were under threat. Seizing it would hinder Iran's ability to export oil, but at the moment it has a near-monopoly on oil exports from the Persian Gulf anyway.

Putting American forces on Kharg would also require overwhelming Iranian military forces stationed there, and holding it against the inevitable bombardment from Iranian missiles. Both would inevitably lead to American casualties. Trump claimed in an interview with the Financial Times today to be unaware of any military forces on the island, which may be true but means he has forgotten what he knew just weeks ago when he boasted about attacks on those military facilities.

At the same time as he mused about sending Marines to hold a target within range of every Iranian missile, Trump also insisted that peace was right around the corner, claiming (again) that Iran had agreed to allow more ships through the Strait of Hormuz at his request. In reality, these aren't the only ships Iran is letting through, because it's begun successfully charging multi-million dollar tolls, and is selectively striking bargains with China, India, Pakistan, and other non-aligned countries. In fact, it looks like the "twenty ships" Trump claimed he'd gotten through are the twenty ships that Pakistan's government arranged passage for.

Iran also destroyed a functionally irreplaceable AWACS aircraft, leaving only 15 in the U.S. fleet, and causing injuries (including some grave) to more than ten American servicemembers. Trump has not publicly commented on this.

Why does this matter?

• The stability and economic security that actually getting out of the Iran fiasco would bring are more important than one-day stock market moves. 

• No one who speaks this casually about sending American troops to face death is fit to command them.

What did Donald Trump do today?

He had a quiet day, possibly enjoying a little time outdoors.

Trump spent the day at one of his golf courses today, as he does almost every Saturday. It has been quite some time since Trump has been observed actually playing the game, which his fragile health may no longer permit. Pool reporters used to be able to watch Trump heading to and from the course, or observe him from afar on certain holes, but they are now kept far away and sometimes cannot even verify that he was actually at the course.

That said, it was a beautiful day in West Palm Beach, so it's not unreasonable to think Trump at least enjoyed a little sunny weather on a patio.

Relatedly, somewhere between eight and nine million other Americans also got out and enjoyed the day today in roughly 3,000 coordinated "No Kings" protests in places like New York City 

and St. Paul, MN (where they might have caught an impromptu street concert by Bruce Springsteen)

 

and Arlington, VA

 

and Chicago

  

and Boise, ID

 

 and Atlanta

 and The Villages, Florida

 

 and Cheyenne, WY

 

and Honolulu

 and Missoula, MT

 and Omaha, NE

 and Salt Lake City, UT

 and San Diego

 and Olympia, WA

 and Madison, WI

 and Denver, CO

 and Juneau, AK

 and New London, CT

and Philadelphia

and Ithaca, NY

and Phoenix, AZ

and Montpelier, VT

and Reno, NV

and Quartzite, AZ (population 2,413)

and Detroit

and Davenport, IA

and Houston

and Morristown, NJ

and Portland, ME

and San Juan, PR

 and Greenville, SC

 and Miami

 

and Fayetteville, AR

 

 and Nashville

 and San Francisco

 and Louisville, KY

and Boston

 and Denville, NJ

 and Seattle

 and Lexington, VA

 and San Jose, CA

and Cincinnati, OH

 and Oklahoma City

and Seabeck, WA (population 770)

 

and Kansas City, MO

 and Charleston, WV

 and Minneapolis, MN

 and Edmonds, WA

 and Santa Fe, NM

 and Pittsburgh, PA

and Anchorage, AK

and Bakersfield, CA

and Providence, RI

and Gresham, OR

and Las Vegas, NV

and South Elgin, IL

 and Grand Haven, MI

 and Baltimore, MD

 and St. Louis, MO

 and Waimea, HI

 and Portland, OR

 and New Orleans, LA

and Birmingham, AL

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and Sioux Falls, SD

 and Concord, NH

 and even Utqiagvik, AK

Trump kept an unusually low profile on social media today, but the White House did comment briefly on the millions and millions Americans participating in the largest single-day protest in U.S. history spent their day: it called them "deranged."

Why does this matter?

• Americans still have First Amendment rights. 

• No matter how much it upsets him—no matter how desperately he needs people to believe it—no matter how special he thinks he is—Donald Trump is not a king.