The Trump administration should brace for a defeat on one of its signature legal battles. That was the blunt assessment from George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who told a Fox News Sunday panel that the Supreme Court appears poised to rule against the White House on birthright citizenship, even as the administration may score wins on late-arriving mail-in ballots and biological sex in women's sports.
With the Supreme Court's 2025, 2026 term expected to wrap up in late June or early July, the justices are sitting on a stack of consequential decisions. Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream likened the final stretch to the "Super Bowl" of Supreme Court terms, and the birthright citizenship case may be the biggest play of all.
Turley wasn't alone in his prediction. Former principal deputy assistant attorney general Tom Dupree, who served in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, agreed the administration faces long odds. Both men pointed to the same core problem: decades of judicial holdings that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born on American soil.
President Trump signed an executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship on January 20, 2025, the day he began his second term. The order drew immediate legal challenges. In June 2025, Trump won a Supreme Court decision concerning nationwide injunctions against the order, clearing the way for the underlying constitutional question to reach the justices.
On April 1, 2026, Trump attended the Supreme Court's oral arguments in the case, described as the first time a sitting president ever did so. But what he heard from the bench apparently did not inspire confidence among legal observers.
Turley told the Fox News Sunday panel that Chief Justice John Roberts came out swinging with skepticism from the start:
"I think that's true. The oral argument did not give a lot of room for hope, particularly with [Chief Justice John] Roberts coming out right away and expressing skepticism. The question is whether anything happened during conference."
Turley acknowledged that justices sometimes change their minds after oral arguments. He pointed to a well-known example, Roberts himself is widely believed to have switched his vote on the individual mandate in the Obamacare case at the last minute. But Turley did not sound optimistic that history would repeat itself here.
"We've seen cases change after conference in the drafting. Roberts himself is often believed to have switched his vote on the individual mandate in the Obamacare case at the last minute. So it does happen, but most of us are expecting this is probably going to be a loss for the administration."
Turley called the birthright citizenship executive order "a uniquely bad idea", a striking assessment from a legal commentator generally sympathetic to the administration's broader agenda. The Supreme Court has delivered some favorable rulings for the administration this term, but birthright citizenship appears to be a different matter entirely.
Dupree reinforced Turley's grim forecast with a historical argument. Courts at every level, he said, have consistently held that the 14th Amendment settles the question.
"I think the administration knew going into this that this was going to be a heavy lift for them, precisely for that reason. Judges year after year, decade after decade, have said that birthright citizenship is enshrined in our Constitution. I don't think there's going to be a change at the last minute."
Dupree went further, stating that ending birthright citizenship would likely require a constitutional amendment, not an executive order. That is a significant concession from a former senior Justice Department official, and it underscores just how steep the legal climb has been from the beginning.
The broader context of the Court's current term matters. Justice Amy Coney Barrett recently addressed threats against justices while emphasizing judicial independence, a reminder that the Court operates under its own pressures, separate from the political calendar. And as internal divisions on the bench have shown, the justices are not moving in lockstep on any ideological axis.
If birthright citizenship looks like a loss, the administration's prospects appear stronger on two other major cases awaiting decision.
On the question of late-arriving mail-in ballots, Turley predicted the Court would rule that "federal election day" means Election Day, and that ballots must arrive by that deadline. He pointed to what he called a "debacle in California," where extended ballot counting drew national attention and controversy.
"I think, from oral arguments, it seemed to me that they were going to say that 'federal election day' means election day, and having this debacle in California, extending the counting for so long, only sort of reaffirms the logic of that. Now, this is for federal elections. So for dual election, state and federal, it can get a little bit wicked if you want to try to give people extra time. But if the Court rules that 'Election Day' means election day, those ballots have got to be in on that day."
Turley cited the Los Angeles mayoral race as a case in point. Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman pulled ahead of reality star Spencer Pratt on the strength of what were described as "late ballot drops", exactly the kind of outcome that fuels public distrust when counting drags on well past Election Day.
Dupree flagged a potential downstream consequence that could reshape election mechanics nationwide. If the Court rules that "Election Day" means everything must be done on that single day, the logic could extend beyond late ballots to early voting itself, since early ballots arrive before Election Day.
"It definitely would call into question the permissibility of early voting. I think for this case, this decision, it only concerns those late-arriving ballots, so I think this decision is going to be somewhat narrow in that sense. But you're absolutely right that if the Court says 'Election Day' means Election Day, everything's got to be done on this one particular day, arguably it would call into question early voting because those are coming in before Election Day."
That would be a seismic shift. Even a narrow ruling limited to late-arriving ballots would mark a significant win for election integrity advocates who have argued for years that open-ended counting windows invite confusion and erode confidence in results. The Court has not shied away from consequential rulings this term, and a clear "Election Day means Election Day" standard would give states little room to maneuver.
On the third major pending case, involving biological sex and participation in women's sports, Turley predicted a favorable outcome for those who argue biological sex should determine eligibility. He described it as likely to be "a good day" for that position, though he did not elaborate on the specific legal reasoning he expected the Court to adopt.
Shannon Bream's "Super Bowl" comparison is not hyperbole. The three cases pending before the Court touch the most contested fault lines in American politics: citizenship, elections, and the definition of sex. Each one carries implications that will outlast any single administration.
The birthright citizenship case stands apart because it tests the limits of executive power against constitutional text. Even conservatives who share the policy goal of reforming birthright citizenship have long warned that an executive order was the wrong vehicle. Turley and Dupree, neither of whom is hostile to the administration, both said as much on national television. The proper path, Dupree argued, runs through Article V and the amendment process, not the Oval Office.
That does not make the underlying policy concern illegitimate. The question of whether the 14th Amendment was intended to grant automatic citizenship to children of illegal immigrants has been debated by serious legal scholars for decades. But the Court appears ready to say that the text means what courts have long held it means, and that changing it requires changing the Constitution itself.
Meanwhile, the left's frustration with a Court it cannot control will only deepen if the justices hand the administration wins on ballot deadlines and women's sports. Two out of three would still represent a strong close to the term, and would deliver concrete results on issues where public opinion runs heavily in the administration's favor.
The Court's willingness to issue bold rulings this term has already been evident. The final weeks will test whether the justices are prepared to draw bright lines on elections and sex, even as they likely close the door on the executive order approach to birthright citizenship.
If the administration does lose on birthright citizenship, the defeat will not prove the policy wrong. It will prove the method was wrong. Executive orders are powerful tools, but they cannot rewrite the Constitution. The 14th Amendment says what it says until the American people say otherwise.
The wins that may come on ballot deadlines and women's sports will matter more in the near term, because they address problems voters can see and feel. Late ballots that flip races weeks after Election Day corrode public trust. Male-bodied athletes competing against women offend common sense. If the Court acts on both fronts, the administration will have earned something more durable than any executive order: precedent.
Sometimes the biggest victories come from knowing which fights to win, and which ones to lose the right way.
