House Speaker Mike Johnson rolled his eyes and had a brief reaction when reporters told him on Tuesday that the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, striking down president Donald Trump’s executive order.
Johnson was in the middle of giving his weekly press conference while answering a question about the prospective birthright citizenship.
“As a constitutional lawyer, I’ve got lots of opinions on this,” he told reporters while explaining what the Framers of the U.S. Constitution meant as well as the authors of the 14th amendment, which established birthright citizenship. “Understand what the Framers did.”
During Johnson’s explanation, reporters told him that the ruling had just come down.
“I mean, you could say that’s a contextualist originalist view,” Johnson told reporters. “However, I do think that this has been grossly abused in recent years.”