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Inside Politics

Trump Order on Birthright Citizenship Faces Deep Skepticism Even From Conservative Justices; Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Birthright Citizenship Case; New Executive Order Could Give Feds Power to Decide Who Gets Mail Ballot; Trump Claims Iran Asking for Ceasefire, Iran Say It Hasn't; Trump Says He Won't Consider Ceasefire Unless Iran Opens Strait of Hormuz, Until Then, U.S. Blasting Iran Into Oblivion; CNN Poll Shows 52 Percent of Democrats Think Congressional Dems Don't Have Right Priorities. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired April 01, 2026 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[12:31:35]

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': We are following Breaking News out of the Supreme Court, justices just heard arguments on President Trump's push to end the way birthright citizenship has been understood here in the United States for more than a century.

I'm joined now by Democratic Congressman, Adriano Espaillat of New York. He's the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the first formerly undocumented immigrant to serve in Congress. Congressman, thank you so much for being here with me this afternoon.

I do want to talk to you about the argument that the Justice Department is making that this is aimed at people who entered the country illegally, overstayed a visa, or visiting the United States and that their U.S. born kids have no rights to citizenship under the 14th Amendment. So, why should people here illegally automatically get U.S. citizenship?

REP. ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, (D-NY) CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL HISPANIC CAUCUS: Well, first of all, this has been litigated and re-litigated both constitutionally and legislatively in the U.S. Congress. As you know, the 14th Amendment established a birthright citizenship. It was then taken up in 1898 in the Young Wings Art case, where it was re- established by the U.S. Supreme Court.

And then again in 1940, the U.S. Congress passed the Nationality Act. And again in 1952, the U.S. Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act, establishing birthright citizenship. So this has been litigated back and forth throughout the last hundred years. And here we have it, President Trump going to the U.S. Supreme Court, making a physical unprecedented, trying to push it down their throat.

RAJU: But what about the concerns raised by the administration that people will just fly here to give birth or that U.S. adversaries like the Russians or the Chinese may be seeking to exploit those lax laws, so they can get a foothold in the country, meaning that this could be a national security risk without a limit in the law.

ESPAILLAT: That's rubbish and we cannot hold the Constitution hostage to these whims, to these extreme opinions.

RAJU: You don't think there's a national security risk at all?

ESPAILLAT: I don't think that that's a national security risk. I think that they're taking a situation we have not heard of yet, been proven to be true yet, and they're making it a constitutional case. They should take it back to Congress, if anything, and Congress has already decided twice, both in 1940 and in 1952, that any child born in the United States should be a U.S. citizen.

RAJU: Congressman, let's shift a bit and talk about your party, because a new poll from CNN out today has bad news for Trump, but also bad news for Democrats. Just 25 percent of voters feel congressional Democrats have the right priorities. That's even lower than President Trump, slightly, and that includes actually 52 percent of Democrats.

So my question to you is, is your party -- why is your party failing to convince most Americans that you all know what you're doing?

ESPAILLAT: That's not showing up, Manu, at the ballot box. We see how a Democrat won for the first time in 50 years in Miami, Florida. We saw how another Democrat won in Boca Raton and in Mar-a-Lago.

[12:35:00]

So we see how the numbers went dramatically up in red Texas. So that's -- that feeling that you're talking about, according to this poll, is not showing up at the ballot box.

RAJU: So you don't think you have to do anything differently, Democrats?

ESPAILLAT: Certainly, we'll take a look at things that we need to present our platform to the American people and speak to them about the cost of living and speak to them about inflation and rent. Absolutely. But right now, as we see the results coming in from Texas to Florida to Virginia, we're doing extremely well. I think we've got the momentum and the wind behind our backs.

RAJU: All right. We'll see if that turns out to be the case. Congressman Espaillat, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much for your time.

ESPAILLAT: Thank you.

RAJU: Appreciate it. And I want to bring in CNN's Chief Supreme Court Analyst, Joan Biskupic, who is in the courtroom for the oral arguments.

Joan, first tell us about what you observed about President Trump's attendance. Was he attentive? Did he greet any of the justices, or did any of them acknowledge his presence?

(LAUGH)

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN CHIEF SUPREME COURT ANALYST: It's good to see you, Manu, and I hope you can hear me well because we still have a lot of demonstrators out in front. In the courtroom, it's such a controlled atmosphere that, you know, when some of us knew that he was coming, we thought this could be a real circus.

But you know what? It wasn't. In the end, it wasn't. First of all, to get to your question of whether he could greet the justice or not, no. That man had to come in just like other members of the public, be screened, and sit in the first of the -- he was in the first row of the public section, which put him basically in the middle of the courtroom. Now, he shifted seats a little bit. He and parts of his entourage shifted a bit.

Maybe he could see better when he went to a little bit more of the center rather than the far end of the section he was in. And he stayed, Manu, through the end of John Sauer, the Solicitor General of the United States, make his case, and just a little bit into the lawyer for the challengers, ACLU's Cecilia Wang, who was challenging this birthright citizenship new policy that he's trying to implement here. So, you know, he was -- we were all aware.

People were trying to stand up to see him, and the guards -- the police officers were saying, you have to sit down, you have to sit down. The Secret Service wants you all sitting down. So there were all sorts of new rules there, Manu.

But it did not change, essentially, how it affected him as a visitor. It was as if he were a member of Congress, who you would know well, coming in and sitting in that section. And as far as we could tell, he was attentive.

I should tell you that in the beginning, when he first sat, he had about 10, 12 minutes before the proceedings started. And I saw him looking around, kind of scoping out the place. You know, it's a beautiful setting.

And as far as I know, he had only been there once before, at the time that Neil Gorsuch, his first Supreme Court pick, was chosen and he was there for the investiture. Did it affect the back-and-forth between the justices and the two advocates? I don't think so. I think this was still a very serious Q&A here.

And remember where we start, we start with the weight of history and tradition against the Trump administration. And all told, Manu, I didn't hear much that would conflict with that. There might be one or two justices, or two or three who will vote for the administration. But I just did not see a wave from the majority to go with where President Trump wants this court to go.

RAJU: It clearly seemed as bad for the administration inside the room as it did outside the room. Joan Biskupic, thank you so much for being in there and observing President Trump and his interactions, as he is treated like everybody else, it seems, coming into the Supreme Court.

All right, coming up, the latest CNN poll numbers for President Trump, and they mark a new low, months ahead of the midterms.

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[12:43:37]

RAJU: Americans are not happy with the job performance President Trump is doing. In a new CNN poll out today, he has hit a new low in job approval numbers for his second term. Just 35 percent of Americans approve of the job the President is doing. Not really a change from last month, but down seven points from last summer.

And with an election looming, with the economy as a top issue, where Trump stands on the issues has to be concerning for Republicans. Trump's approval is underwater on all the issues CNN polled on. But the bottom three issues are all economy-focused, including a record- low approval for President Trump on the overall economy at 31 percent.

My excellent panel is back, including David Chalian, who of course knows these numbers better than anyone else. David, the economy was an issue that pulled up Trump in the first term. Second term, totally different story.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yeah, totally pulled him up in the first term because he consistently rated better on his management of the economy in term one than he did on his overall job performance, like it was a strong suit of his. This 31 percent approval on the economy, which is issue number one for voters, far and away, as you noted. This is a real political problem for him and his party, as you know, who are on the ballot this year to try to maintain their majorities in Congress. Not only is it his lowest across both terms, but you're seeing erosion among his partisans.

[12:45:00]

So the -- 71 percent of Republicans approve of his job on the economy right now, obviously that means mostly his party is still with him. But that -- that 71 percent is down from 85 percent approval among Republicans just in January on this issue. So you're seeing slippage in his own house. That's a real concern for the White House.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's exactly what I took away from this. And I think, you know, I've been out on the road a lot. I was out in the fall when he was in Pennsylvania, actually going to give a speech specifically on the economy and the issue of affordability, which they recognized months ago, has been a liability for the president.

And a lot of the Trump supporters that I spoke with said that they were willing to be patient, but to a point. And I think this war, you know, a lot of them voted for him because they thought that he would be focused on domestic issues, focused on what's going on here in America. And I think this war has really started to erode the support and the patience that many of those Trump supporters have had.

RAJU: Yeah, and to that point, just to dive a little bit deeper into the numbers, Trump policies, their impact on the economy, 65 percent of the American public say they have worsened. Trump policies have worsened the economy. That is obviously not a good sign for the president and his party.

And to the point about the Republican, the slippage among Republicans, about his approval of the economy among everybody, it was down from eight points from January until now. Republicans, 85 percent supported his handling of the economy back in January, just now 71 percent.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: Yeah.

RAJU: That is so significant.

MITCHELL: And I think, you know, there is a direct line between Trump's decision to help bomb Iran and gas prices being $4 a gallon. And so in that one, I think people are sitting at home and saying, he made a decision that is costing me more money. And to me, it's like the most stark example.

And it goes back to what we've been saying, is that he promised one thing. People trusted him, particularly those MAGA Republicans trusted him, elected him despite all the other problems that they had possibly with his brand or with the way he governs. They said, but the economy is important, so we're going to give him another chance.

And what they've seen time and time again is it appears he's distracted with foreign wars, with the Nobel Peace Prize, with the Kennedy Center, with the ballroom, with birthright citizenship. All of these things they see the president prioritizing, that to them is taking away from his promise to help them afford groceries and goods and make prices go down.

RAJU: Which is why he's focusing on other things in the midterms, because if look at the -- if you're a Republican running for re- election and you think about whether to run with the president, you look at his standing right now compared to other past presidents, he's just at 35 percent now. That is the lowest of any other president really in modern history, all the way up from Bush in 2002 at 79 percent, he was even worse than --

(CROSSTALK)

RAJU: -- at this point in their term. And now, he's focusing on other things, David, like going after mail-in voting, putting out this executive order last night saying that the Department of Homeland Security would create lists of approved voters for each state, the USPS will only send ballots to people on federal lists, the federal government will track all mail ballots through barcode, the federal government will withhold funds for states that don't comply.

The states are supposed to be running elections in this country.

CHALIAN: Yeah, and it's why you saw a lot of governors from blue states, specifically today, I saw Maura Healey from Massachusetts, Mikie Sherrill from New Jersey, putting out statements basically saying, this is our domain and this is not going to have any legal standing here. But as Alayna knows from covering the president, this is a hobby horse of his.

TREENE: Oh, absolutely.

CHALIAN: He is very adamant about pursuing this destruction of mail- in voting.

TREENE: Absolutely, even though he, we should know, voted by mail last week in a Florida election. Look, part of this too, and just to your point earlier of all the different things -- you as well, Tia -- of all the different things he is doing other than some of, you know, focusing on the economy or the domestic issues that many of his supporters and allies are telling him to focus more on.

So much of this is he is now in the White House able to -- these are things he's been wanting to do for so long and he sees this as his opportunity. And I will say, when we talk about the midterms, even from early on in Trump's second term, you know, early last year, when I was talking to White House officials, they were saying they knew they were trying to get as much done, as many of these priorities that the president had done as quickly as possible, before the midterm elections, knowing, you know, an incumbent president or a president who's in office, normally it's the opposite party that ends up doing better in the midterms.

And so that's also been part of what he's been focused on this entire time.

MITCHELL: Yeah, I think, you know, and you started off by talking about members of Congress, people who are going to be on the ballot. And here's what we know. As bad as Trump's, you know, the polling is showing, as even in the MAGA Republicans, the split, we know he is a game changer for many Republicans on the ballot in the primary and that's the tough position they're in.

[12:50:13]

They need him in a crowded primary a lot of times, but if you're in a state like Georgia or in, you know, most states, it could be a problem in the general election.

RAJU: Yeah.

MITCHELL: So what do you do? Because you can't reject him outright because you don't want him endorsing the other guy.

RAJU: Yeah. But past presidents would be like they'd be OK with if he needed to do that to survive, not Donald Trump who demands loyalty.

CHALIAN: And Susie Wiles said Donald Trump will be on the ballot this year.

RAJU: Yes.

CHALIAN: They want him (inaudible).

RAJU: And Mike Johnson told me, he'll be a boon for Republicans come November, so we'll see who's right.

All right. Coming up, President Trump's primetime national address tonight on the Iran war. Will it provide any clarity on his strategy?

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[12:55:28]

RAJU: And even more Breaking News. This morning, a high-stakes, if somewhat confusing, messaging fight between President Trump and Iran just hours ahead of his primetime address to the nation on the war.

Trump made a huge claim on social media that Iran's president "has just asked the United States of America for a ceasefire." But Iran called the claim untrue. And Iran said the Strait of Hormuz was now decisively and fully under control of Iran's Navy. Yet a short time ago, President Trump told Reuters the U.S. would be "Out of Iran pretty quickly," but then said the U.S. could return for "spot hits."

He once again threatened to leave the NATO alliance as well. I'm joined by my excellent panel. Alayna, you cover the White House. What is going on?

(LAUGH)

RAJU: Why would the president make this declaration saying there's a ceasefire and Iran coming out and saying the opposite?

TREENE: I mean, this has been a lot of what we've seen, honestly, when it's come to messaging with this war from the get-go, and what we've seen repeatedly as well, particularly from the president, but also I would argue from many of his top principals, like the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, is to project optimism, project this idea that the military operations are going successfully, ahead of schedule, that essentially, you know, they expect to declare mission accomplished soon.

And a lot of this, I will say, of course, is because he is hearing in his ear from his advisers, from his allies outside of the White House, that this is what he needs to be doing. He needs to convince the people that they went to Iran for the right reasons, and that also this is not going to be a protracted military engagement, that he is going to be getting out of it soon.

But, of course, I think then you hear the opposite from Iran --

RAJU: Yeah.

TREENE: -- and people are really confused. I think a lot of this is, and we're seeing on the Iranian side too, so much of it is what they're trying to say publicly and what they want to communicate outwardly, and then we know there's other things that are happening behind the scenes. They are still working toward negotiations.

I think the ceasefire, though, was a bet (ph). RAJU: Yeah, I mean, will the president say tonight that we won? I mean, he's been saying we won for a while, but then why is the United States still engaged in this fight, and why are they going to ask $200 billion, potentially, for Congress to approve additional funding to fight this war?

MITCHELL: Yeah, it'll be so interesting to see what he says tonight, because if he says we won, but says, but we still need to be there for a few more weeks, you know, I think there are going to be a lot of confused people. I think, also, we should say that this is probably an address that should have been made to the American public a month ago.

RAJU: Before engagement.

MITCHELL: Before engaging, or at least early in, you know, in the first couple of days of any engagement. And so it's quite confusing, but maybe he'll make it make sense. The fact is the Strait of Hormuz, it seems like Iran is in the driver's seat on that region and what happens there, and just saying it is open, or saying it should be open, is not something that can happen without some cooperation from their side. That doesn't seem like they're in a position to --

RAJU: Yeah.

MITCHELL: -- open it fully right now. So I also wonder what he's going to say about that, because again, there's that direct fault line --

RAJU: Yeah.

MITCHELL: -- from that being under Iranian control, and our gas prices here in America.

RAJU: Exactly. Speaking of gas prices, because the president keeps talking about how this is going to come down immediately, gas prices will, once the war has ended. But, is that what analysts and experts really think?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is the plan to bring them back down?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: All I have to do is leave Iran, and we'll be doing that very soon, and it'll come tumbling down.

PATRICK DE HAAN, HEAD OF PETROLEUM ANALYSIS, GASBUDDY: If the Strait of Hormuz is just going to be left in its current state, that is not very good for clarity, that's not very good for resuming shipping through the Strait. If it's going to be left as a mess, that's not going to bode well for what you and I are paying at the pump this summer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Yeah, so from they'll be tumbling down immediately to it's not going to bode well for what's going to happen in the summer.

CHALIAN: Yeah, and I think Alayna nailed this, that I think tonight, what we should probably expect to hear from the president as he addresses this is a real message to the American people that he doesn't envision this being a protracted forever war, the kind that he ran against, because he understands that the American patience on this is running thin. And he's got to navigate the economics of it and the gas price piece, the diplomacy piece and all that, but mostly his mission, I think, tonight is going to be to convince the American people, huge military success, this won't be forever, stick with me.

RAJU: Yeah, and the question is, he's been saying that in different ways, could he be more clear tonight, will the American public change its perception so far, which is going in the wrong direction, if there's a public opinion for this president, all huge questions amid this war.

All right, thank you so much for joining "Inside Politics" on this very, very busy news day. "CNN News Central" starts now.

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