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Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Birthright Citizenship; Interview With Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI). Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired May 15, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And we continue to follow the hearing at the Supreme Court. Of course, we will bring that back to you shortly.

But we also want to get to other news here in Washington, including the budget battle.

Nearly a dozen House committees have now approved pieces of a massive Republican tax-and-spending cuts package, even as Democrats hammer controversial measures that would slash funding a Medicaid and food benefits.

And with us here to discuss and with -- about that and more as Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

Thank you for coming on.

So, Republicans say their plan to implement work requirements will make Medicaid more efficient and they insist that the most vulnerable will keep their coverage. But you're still concerned. Why?

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): Because it's just not true.

We have done a deep dive into what it could mean to Michigan; 700,000 people will have their health care terminated if this Republican plan comes to fruition. It takes a handful of Republican congresspeople to stand up against this. And that's why we're putting an all-court -- full-court press on our delegation and on Republican congresspeople across the country.

Don't along with this. You're going to hurt the people you represent. One in particular, Congressman John James from Michigan, already voted for the -- in -- on behalf of the markup. He's running for my job. He wants my job next year. But he could stop 700,000 Michiganders from losing their health care if he had the backbone to stand up against this.

And I'm encouraging him to do that. I'm not rooting for him. But if he stood up and did that, it would be a powerful sign to Michiganders that he's going to put them first. And that's what Michiganders expect.

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BROWN: Where are you getting the 700,000 number?

Because I know Michigan commissioned -- you, your office commission of report, but that was before Republicans came out with their latest budget proposal, which does include some, as I said, work requirements and eligibility requirements that are stricter, but also doesn't include some of the more controversial proposals, like withholding federal funding to states.

WHITMER: Yes, supposedly.

But you know what? Here's the thing. They're doing this in such a breakneck speed, and they are not giving people the opportunity to really understand what the ramifications are. And that's why I signed an executive directive telling my Department of Health and Human Services to tell -- do the examination and report what is at risk for Michigan; 700,000 people could see their health care terminated as a result of these changes.

We know that, as I have talked to people in my state, there are a lot of moms who've got children who get their health care through Medicaid. They're worried that they won't be able to take care of their families if they themselves as the parent lose their health care.

I mean, this is going to have profound ramifications, and people will die as a result of this. We will see health systems not survive if Medicaid gets cut in this dramatic fashion. And that's health care for everyone that gets impacted, not just people who get their health care through Medicaid.

BROWN: So you think Republicans are essentially lying then, when they say pregnant women, parents, the elderly will not be impacted by this?

WHITMER: I have heard these stories before, and I have seen the cruelty in the cuts that they are talking about.

One of the things that I'm really proud of in Michigan is that, as a legislator, the Democratic leader in the Senate, I worked with a Republican governor, my predecessor, Rick Snyder, to expand Medicaid. He, as a Republican, saw that, when we provide health care for people, it strengthens our whole health care system, it creates better outcomes, and it helps people get ready to be able to work.

If you're unhealthy, you can't work, and that's the horrible irony in their talking points, is that they're going to make it harder for people to participate in our economy.

BROWN: So what are you doing, then, as governor of Michigan, to prepare for this, and also the Republican plans to cut federal funding for SNAP food benefits? I mean, do you have the means to fill in the gaps with state funds here?

WHITMER: The state can't supplant the federal dollars. That's the problem here. That's part of why we're calling on our legislate -- our congresspeople on both sides of the aisle to fight this.

It means that their constituents will lose their health care or their food assistance. It means that their constituents might not have a hospital to go to when they have a heart attack. It means that their constituents might lose their jobs because they don't have health care or their jobs aren't paid for because of this change at the federal level.

And so that's what we are doing right now. I hope and pray that it doesn't come to us trying to help people who are going to get hurt by this, because the state cannot supplant dollar for dollar from the federal government. No state can. There will be pain in all 50 states to Americans all across this country if Congress goes forward with this.

BROWN: Can you get behind any other provisions in this bill, though, like cutting taxes on tips and overtime earnings? Is that something that you support?

WHITMER: Listen, bills like this, there are always things that might make sense. There's always ways to make government more efficient and root out fraud.

But the wholesale, I think, evisceration of health care benefits for people across this country come at such a great cost that it would be better if they killed the whole bill and started over on issues that make sense, where we can address efficiencies and make government work smarter.

There's always work that can be done there. But throwing millions of people off of health care to pay for tax breaks or new tax policy is cruel. And it is devastating for all of us.

BROWN: All right, I want to move to another topic, and that is my colleague's book with Alex Thompson on President Biden's physical and cognitive decline during his time in the White House.

You were a co-chair of the Biden/Harris campaign. You stuck with Biden until he dropped out of the race. Given your position in the campaign, what signs of decline did you notice?

WHITMER: You know, I have not read the book. I can tell you this, that if, as the book reports, Cabinet members didn't have access, that tells you that, as a governor in a state halfway across the country who was working her tail off 160 stops on a bus tour that I had lined through swing states, I didn't -- I was busy working.

[11:40:01]

I was busy doing the connection and the voter registration. I can't speak to that directly.

BROWN: So, you didn't see signs of decline? So you didn't see any...

WHITMER: I didn't see the president frequently. And I can tell you, I can't speak to that directly. BROWN: Do you think Donald Trump would be president today if Biden

had not run for reelection or dropped out earlier?

WHITMER: Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. And I think that all of this is really -- it's frustrating, because there are such huge issues that we have to tackle right now.

But it does make me question a lot of things that I thought I knew during the -- over the course of the last year-and-a-half.

BROWN: And, of course, your name has been tossed around as the future of the Democratic Party as a candidate in 2028. Can you give us an update on your thinking?

WHITMER: You know, my thinking is trying to do everything I can for Michigan.

I have got a year-and-a-half left as governor of this great state. I love my state. And I'm going to continue to fight to get good things done for Michigan. And I'm going to fight back when people are trying to harm the people of Michigan. And that's the one thing I know and the one thing you can count on.

BROWN: All right, Governor Whitmer, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

WHITMER: Thank you.

BROWN: And I want to go to my colleague Wolf Blitzer now.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, Pamela, thank you very much.

It's very important. I want to get back to the live arguments that are ongoing right now at the U.S. Supreme Court. The nine justices are hearing arguments about presidential authority and whether lower courts here in the United States should be able to restrain that power from a president. We heard from the Trump administration's solicitor general, John Sauer, a while ago.

Now we're hearing from the plaintiffs, including Jeremy Feigenbaum, the solicitor general of New Jersey, who is answering questions from Sonia Sotomayor right now. I want to listen in.

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JEREMY FEIGENBAUM, NEW JERSEY SOLICITOR GENERAL: ... that says, if (INAUDIBLE) gets overruled, this is what we would do. That's fine.

What they can't do is require us to take any steps or issue guidance that requires everyone to start planning for something that is so potently against this court's own settled precedent.

SONIA SOTOMAYOR, U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE: Now, going back to the history question that Justice Thomas started with, you relied on the bill of peace. You relied on the tax injunction of the 19th century, and not so far in the 19th century, 1891, just about the time the 14th Amendment was adopted, OK?

At any rate, there are other cases. One of our amici points out to them, the Pierce v. Society of Sisters case, the West Virginia State Board of Education case. Those were earlier than the 1960s. In the Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the court affirmed a universal injunction that wasn't even sought by the parents, correct?

FEIGENBAUM: That's right.

SOTOMAYOR: And, there, what we said was -- there, states were imposing criminal penalties on parents who sent their children to private school. And just two plaintiff schools sued against that penalty. They sought and won an injunction that categorically restrained the state from enforcing the law.

That was 1925, correct?

FEIGENBAUM: That's right.

SOTOMAYOR: And similarly with West Virginia, saluting the flag by Jehovah Witnesses. The injunction was universal.

So, in answer to Justice Gorsuch's point, we have had universal injunctions in some form, correct, since the founding.

FEIGENBAUM: That's right, if I can make two points on that, Justice Sotomayor.

SOTOMAYOR: In equity, correct?

FEIGENBAUM: Exactly. So there's -- so, I agree with your reading of the equitable history, that it goes back from the English bill of peace through Equity Rule 48, through the tax collection injunctions, through equity Rule X, through the Ex Parte Young period you're referring to, through AARP just a few weeks ago.

So I agree with your read of the history, but I just want to make one quick point.

SOTOMAYOR: Well, let me -- go ahead, make your point, but I want to finish this thought, which is you started earlier by saying universal injunctions should not be the preferred remedy and it should be limited.

You have suggested three ways to limit it. I agree with you, those three, and yours clearly falls within one. That's your claim. But the point that I think my two other colleagues are raising is, how do we ensure district courts are following that?

FEIGENBAUM: So, if I can make a point about the history and then make a point about the guidance, on the history, I understand that the United States at the podium today tries to make the history all about what it calls indivisibility cases, cases where there's just a unitary on/off switch, as it were, and either something happened or it didn't happen, like a redistricting plan needs to be completely redone or a power plant is on or it's off. But if I could give an example that shows it's not quite so limited

and it very much requires looking more broadly at what's practically or legally workable on the ground, I would point to apportionment as an example.

[11:45:06]

So say that there's an executive order that says we're just not going to count minors, people under 18 in apportionment anymore. We're only going to count people who are voting age. And the state of New York files a lawsuit and it wins its lawsuit, and all of its 17-and-under- year-olds get counted for apportionment.

That isn't indivisible in any way. It's not a redistricting plan. It's not a power plant. But it is going to skew apportionment in a way that is totally unfair practically and legally to third parties, because now 17-year-olds are being counted in New York, but they're not being counted in Oklahoma.

And you would end up messing up apportionment between states for that very reason. And that shows, as just a broader insight, that we have always looked to the harms that third parties will suffer as negative externalities of court orders.

And that's our submission here, that to accept what the United States wants as against our injunction and to say that it turns on or off when you cross state lines doesn't just harm the administration of our benefits, doesn't just even harm enrollment in our benefits, also puts chaos on the ground where people's citizenship turns on and off when you cross state lines.

If ICE has initiated a removal proceeding when you live in Philly and you move to Camden, I suppose the ICE removal is supposed to turn off at that point potentially because your citizenship status has changed. I don't know if you lose it if you move back to Philly, whether you were born in New Jersey or born in Philly, moved to Camden and moved back.

It's a very porous part of the country. I don't know if the ICE removal turns back on when you cross state lines again. And that sort of chaos on the ground, those implementation questions we don't know, are serious third-party harms we have always taken into account.

This is North Carolina v. Covington, where courts ask what's workable as an injunction matter. And it's also the Winter factors, where factor three looks at the balance of the equities between the parties and workability and harm to them. And Winter factor four looks at public interest and the negative externalities and workability problems we're imposing on others.

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT: Justice Kagan.

ELENA KAGAN, U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE: General, you have had a chance to talk about your administrative costs and the workability problems that New Jersey would confront, but how about this magnet problem? I mean, it strikes me as completely obvious that, if you have two

states and they have different rules for citizenship, and one benefits babies and the other doesn't, that everybody moves to the state where the more favorable rule exists.

But why is it that preventing that harm from happening should count as providing you with complete relief?

FEIGENBAUM: So I think actually my point is somewhat different. I agree with you that the incentives could potentially factor into the calculus, because we're all experiencing some harm we might not otherwise to our benefits programs. But my point is different.

Even if you just take normal migration, for New Jersey, 6,000 babies born out of state, 8 percent -- or eight million every year traveling across state lines, without worrying about the incentives, we're going to be looking at that problem for how we administer benefits programs.

KAGAN: I got that. Are you saying we shouldn't consider the fact...

FEIGENBAUM: No, I think you can. I think you can, Your Honor. And it's because of the nature of three things together. One is, it's the movement, but it's not just the movement.

Two is, it's the fact that citizenship historically was something you had at birth or didn't have at birth. And so you arrived to our state, in theory, without birthright citizenship, because you would have been told when you're born in the hospital what you have or don't.

And then the third, and this is really important, is the way that citizenship permeates so much, not just for individuals, but for what states are obligated to do, whether it's citizenship verification eligibility, whether it's enrollment in our own programs. Over and over, you see citizenship in Congress' own laws as the on-or-off switch for our own administration of benefits.

And that's actually sort of unique. So I don't think every time people move between states, you automatically need to have a nationwide injunction. What you need is a demonstration about how that's going to contribute to the state's harm. And then, and I think this is really important to colloquies you were having with the United States earlier, a court could, in an appropriate case, say, well sure, state, you might have to keep some of the harm.

We're only going to remedy 90 percent of your harm because it's too disruptive to everyone else. But I don't think you can do that in a case without looking at the merits, because whether we should get to 100 percent of our injuries taken care of or 90 percent of our injuries taken care of will always involve the strength of our merit- showing.

And I don't see how you could have a stronger merit-showing than we have here, 127 years of Supreme Court precedent, over a century of executive practice, and congressional statutes that codified both into law in 1940 and 1952. And given that strength of the merits in the settled precedent,

combined with our nature of harm, I don't think this is a close case for why we need national relief to remedy our injuries.

KAGAN: Thank you.

ROBERTS: Justice Gorsuch? Justice Kavanaugh? Justice Barrett?

AMY CONEY BARRETT, U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE: I have a question about the history.

So, Grupo tells us that we have to look back to 1789 and the High Court of Chancery. So I appreciate that there have been some cases from later, and you were talking about some of those with Justice Sotomayor, from the early 20th century, maybe the late 19th century.

Can you say -- and let's say that I think the bill of peace is more like a representational suit that is a forerunner to the class action. What do you think is your very best example of something that would look at the period that Grupo tells us is relevant that would support something that looks like universal relief?

[11:50:12]

FEIGENBAUM: So I do think from 1789 from English equity, I do think the best example is the bill of peace, and so I understand if we see it differently. It's a fair point.

BARRETT: Right.

FEIGENBAUM: I will just say quickly, on Grupo Mexicano, its own tradition -- and this is sort of the analogical reasoning you talked about in Rahimi -- it looks at that period, but in other times we have also looked at American tradition to see analogically how we have liquidated that tradition or not.

And in American equitable tradition, this is Equity Rule 48, which specifically said nonparties are not bound by certain relief, and even as they may benefit from it. And I think that to be the principal reason my friend on the other side thinks that bills of peace look much more like class actions than they ultimately look like universal injunctions.

And Equity Rule 48 was to the contrary. Tax collection injunctions in American history were to the contrary. So I just have a hard time with that reading, even though I agree with you that you would be starting in the founding trying to do analogical reasoning based on what Grupo Mexicano says, but using American equity to answer some of the unresolved ambiguities in this case.

BARRETT: Oh, I completely agree with you, you need some analogical reasoning. And I don't think that Grupo completely rules that out. And I mean, I think even if you talked about the distinction between a bill of peace and a class action, you would be looking at some of that doesn't have to be called the same thing. I think the problem is when we have such a party-centric history, if

it has to be reasoning that fits within the confines, then I think we have a little bit of trouble.

Let me just ask you one question about relief. So let's say that I think that the states do need something broader in order to have complete relief, even if the universal injunction is too broad and inconsistent with Grupo. That isn't how the court below approached the question because that isn't what the court below thought it had to do because the court below thought it could just enter a universal injunction.

So how would I go about crafting some sort of holding or decreed a language that would take care of you and the fact that you need maybe broader, complete relief than maybe an individual plaintiff would, right? Because the district court didn't go through that analysis, the kind of -- the analysis that you're telling us today.

So tell me practically what that would look like.

FEIGENBAUM: So I think the district court in the Massachusetts case did actually do a very good job of this. It specifically said -- I'm saying New Jersey as a stand-in, 23 attorneys general.

BLITZER: All right, we have been listening to various Supreme Court arguments involving President Trump's decision back on January 20 to ban birthright citizenship in the United States.

We have been hearing whether lower courts that have ruled against what Trump did have the authority to continue to do so. Specifically, could a federal judge halt President Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil?

Our senior legal analyst, Elie Honig, is joining us right now, and our Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck is with us as well.

Elie, let me just ask you. The central issue is the power of district judges, lower court judges, to block the president's executive order banning birthright citizenship in the United States. What struck you most about the arguments from both sides that we have been listening to?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Wolf, a lot of what we have been hearing has been procedural in nature, but this is such an important issue, because this tactic of single district court judges in any of our 94 different districts blocking a nationwide policy, that has become the most powerful and most potent way that challengers have blocked presidential action going back to the Obama administration.

This tactic has been used to block immigration policies, COVID policies, federal funding policies, and it's happening now all the time in the Trump administration. So the stakes here are much bigger and more serious than the procedural matters may suggest.

Now, as to the argument we heard today, I think the key is the plus- two rule. They're -- clearly, the three liberal justices are hard against the Trump administration. Are they going to be able to rally two other justices to their cause? Amy Coney Barrett sounds like she may be there. Is there going to be one more?

BROWN: Yes, she could really be key here.

And, Steve, one of the big focuses today is also, what happens in that window of time? They're not deciding on the merits of birthright citizenship, right? And so a big question today was, well, what do you do in that window, right, between looking at this more -- this other issue of judges and nationwide injunctions and then potentially years from now ruling on the merits of birthright citizenship?

STEVE VLADECK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right.

And, Pamela, that's exactly the problem, which is, we're not talking about, five years from now, is the Supreme Court going to change the rules for birthright citizenship? It's clearly not going to. The question is, with this policy, with every other policy that the Trump administration puts out there, what's going to happen in the first days and weeks that the policy is in effect?

[11:55:00]

Can the policy be blocked on a nationwide basis? Can it only be blocked by individual plaintiffs? And if we just take these cases, birthright citizenship, you only have a handful of named individual plaintiffs. You have one membership organization. Maybe that's 100,000 people.

That leads still upwards of 2.1 million Americans, or at least people who should be entitled to birthright citizenship if they're born in the United States who wouldn't be until and unless they are specifically the beneficiaries of an individual lawsuit.

Pamela, one of the real consequences of the Supreme Court siding with the Trump administration in this case, which it sounds like it might do, is not that we're going to rewrite the 14th Amendment. It's that, on the ground, it's going to be so much harder for every single person to take advantage of it, versus individual plaintiffs. We're going to see a whole lot more lawsuits, much more chaos in the courts, more room for the Trump administration to carry out even patently unlawful policies.

BROWN: All right, thank you both so much for your legal analysis.

And, of course, this will continue, and we will be following this on our next show coming up in the next hour -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Pamela, thank you very much.

And, to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning. We will see you back here tomorrow morning 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

Our live Supreme Court coverage on birthright citizenship will continue on "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" right after a short break.