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In a rebuke to Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, the supreme court upheld birthright citizenship, which provides nearly all people born in the United States with citizenship. In a 6-3 opinion, the justices ruled that the Trump administration violated a provision of the 14th amendment, which was affirmed by the supreme court 128 years ago. “Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and are citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause,” the ruling reads. The NAACP, a civil rights group dedicated to advancing the rights of Black people, called the decision a “powerful affirmation of the constitution and the enduring promise of equality it represents”. Voto Latino, a non-profit pushing for Latino voting power, said that “the court drew a permanent line in the sand – defeating a radical attempt to divide our families and strip away any doubt that our community belongs here”.
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The president said the decision was “too bad”, but appeared undeterred in his quest to end birthright citizenship, turning his attention to Congress. Instead of trying to pass a constitutional amendment, Trump is pushing for lawmakers to create new legislation that establishes exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to parents who do not have permanent legal status in the US. “Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship,” he wrote on Truth Social. But that will also be an uphill battle, as any legislation would need to overcome the 60-vote filibuster.
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The supreme court also ruled that schools can determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex, effectively upholding a ban on transgender women and girls from taking part in female sports teams. The ruling centered on the case of Lindsay Hecox, a college student in Idaho, and Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old high school student from West Virginia. The court said that West Virginia and Idaho did not violate Title IX – which bars educational programs that receive federal funding from discriminating based on sex. But the court’s three liberal justices said in a dissenting opinion that the bans do impede on the constitution’s equal protection clause. The far-reaching ruling is likely to pave the way for similar bans throughout the US.
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Also today, the supreme court justices struck down limits on campaign spending in federal elections by political parties. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the court held that the law’s “limits on political parties” coordinated expenditures violate the first amendment.
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The supreme court also declined to consider the legality of laws that restrict people aged 18 to 20 from purchasing or using firearms, but said it will consider whether bans on semiautomatic rifles, often called assault weapons, violate the second amendment.
This concludes our coverage of US politics for the day, thanks for reading. Here are the latest developments:
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The US supreme court upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, affirming that nearly all people born on US soil are American citizens and rejecting a central pillar of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said this order violated the 14th amendment of the US constitution. More here.
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Meanwhile, the court upheld laws in two conservative states excluding transgender girls and women from competing in female sports in a far-reaching ruling likely to pave the way for similar bans throughout the US and handing Trump a key “culture war” victory. More here.
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The supreme court will consider whether bans on AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic firearms are constitutional. The justices said on Tuesday they will hear appeals challenging bans in Connecticut and the Chicago area in the next term. The high court’s announcement comes on the heels of two recent victories for second amendment attorneys and advocates. More here.
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Trump announced that Republicans will stage their first ever national convention ahead of the midterm elections, a move aimed at energizing voters as the party fights to hold its narrow congressional majorities in November. The two-day gathering will take place in Dallas on 9 and 10 September, marking a break from the longstanding tradition of holding national conventions only during presidential election years. More here.
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Trump raked in more than $1bn from his crypto businesses last year, a federal filing released Monday shows, giving a substantial boost to his annual income. Trump’s crypto earnings are in addition to profit from his legal settlements, real estate and royalty deals. More here.
Today, the House approved a resolution that would order the House Ethics Committee to publicly release records related to sexual misconduct settlements paid with taxpayer money.
“The vote was 420-0,” said Republican representative Thomas Massie, who offered the resolution, in a social media post. “Americans deserve to know precisely how their money is spent.”
The measure comes after two high-profile officials stepped down amid sexual misconduct allegations this year. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat and former candidate in California’s governor race, resigned in April amid reports of women accusing him of sexual assault and misconduct. Meanwhile, Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, stepped down the same day after admitting to an affair with a former staff member who later died by suicide.
“This is an important step towards accountability and transparency,” said Democratic representative Ro Khanna in a statement on social media. “At a time when Americans are learning more and more about the abuses of power that leaders can get away with for unconscionable amounts of time, measures like this are vital and just the beginning”.
According to the nonpartisan National Women’s Defense League, as of April, 53 allegations of workplace sexual harassment have been made against at least 30 House and Senate lawmakers over the past two decades.
Donald Trump has been announcing a slate of federal disaster relief funding to several states with Trump-endorsed candidates via the social platform Truth Social.
The move comes as the US president exerts his political influence in various states by backing a slew of Republicans in the 2026 midterm election.
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Of Wisconsin, the US president said: “I just spoke with Congressman Tom Tiffany (who has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Governor!), and informed him that the Great State of Wisconsin has been approved to be given $22.6 Million Dollars in its Disaster Declaration Request, for Severe Storms, Tornadoes, and Flooding”.
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Louisiana: Trump said the state has been approved to receive $8.6m in its disaster declaration request. “Louisiana is truly a special place, with Governor Jeff Landry, Senator John Kennedy, soon to be Senator Julia Letlow, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, and Congressman Clay Higgins“, Trump said.
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Michigan: The state was allocated $32.1m for severe storms, tornadoes, and flooding. Mike Rogers, who is running for US Senate, gubernatorial candidate John James, congressmen Jack Bergman, John Moolenaar, Bill Huizenga, Tim Walberg, Tom Barrett, and Lisa McClain are his favorites in the state.
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Georgia: The state is slated to receive $318.3m, per Trump’s post, in a request related to Hurricane Helene.
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Florida: The sunshine state has been approved to receive $415.9m in disaster relief funding.
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Kansas: The state will receive $5.5m in disaster relief funding related to severe storms in April. “They will soon have a fantastic Governor in Ty Masterson, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement”.
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Mississippi: Disaster relief funds totaling $11m have been approved, according to Trump.
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Idaho: Meanwhile, the gem state has been approved to be given $4.5m in funding for disaster relief.
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Missouri: The state received approval for $27.6m in disaster relief funding.
Reuters is reporting that the department of commerce is expected to lift export controls on Anthropic’s Fable 5 AI model today.
The move comes less than three weeks after the company was ordered to suspend access to its most advanced AI models over national security risks.
The export-control order was received on 12 June, making Anthropic abruptly disable its Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models. Anthropic said the order has been partially reversed, as the US government allowed it to release its Claude Mythos 5 artificial intelligence model to some “trusted” US organizations.
Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said in a social media post that, over the past two weeks, the US government has been working “closely with Anthropic to analyze and approve Fable 5 to ensure alignment across the US Government and strengthen America’s leadership in AI”.
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from implementing a new rule stripping public service workers of eligibility for federal student loan forgiveness if it deems their employers to have a “substantial illegal purpose”.
US district judge Myong Joun in Boston sided with Democratic-led states, cities and non-profits that argued the US Department of Education’s rule would allow it to target groups supporting immigration rights, transgender healthcare and other causes the Trump administration disfavors, by disqualifying them from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.
That program allows borrowers to have their federal student loans forgiven after 10 years working for government or non-profit employers. More than a million borrowers have received debt relief since Congress established it in 2007.
Donald Trump in a March 2025 executive order claimed the program has “misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values”.
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Tom Homan, Donald Trump’s hardline border czar, said enforcement should “step up” amid the supreme court’s ruling against the president’s attempt to end the right to US citizenship for children born in the United States.
“Now, we step up enforcement”, Homan said in an interview on Fox News. “We step up more enforcement, even though we’re doing record amounts of enforcement now”.
“We need to, you know, really buckle down on birth tourism”, he added, referring to pregnant women who travel to the US and give birth so their child can acquire American citizenship (no US agency tracks this). “We have many investigations on birth tourism, but we need to triple, quadruple down on that”.
Donald Trump announced that Republicans will hold their first-ever national convention ahead of the midterm elections in Dallas on 9 and 10 September.
In the announcement on Truth Social, Trump called Dallas “One of my favorite places in the World”.
“It has never been done before, and will be a truly Historic Event”, he added, saying that “Great Entertainment” is to be expected.
The idea of holding the Republican national convention ahead of the midterm elections has been floated before, once a consideration for Democrats before they eventually dropped it.
Choosing Texas for the convention puts a direct spotlight on the state’s high-stakes Senate race between Democratic nominee James Talarico and Republican nominee Ken Paxton.
It also highlights the reverberations of Trump’s mid-decade redistricting push that began in Texas, an effort to secure more seats for Republicans in this fall’s elections.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that he “strongly disagrees” with a federal judge’s decision to block the department of defense from requiring journalists to be accompanied by an official escort in the Pentagon.
“This ruling strips away reasonable security measures and will make it easier for sensitive and classified information to reach our adversaries”, Parnell said in a social media statement.
“Unescorted access to the Pentagon allowed journalists to observe activity patterns and develop relationships that contributed to repeated unauthorized disclosures of operational plans and intelligence”, he added. “The court’s order effectively restores that risky environment at a time when protecting our military’s secrets is more critical than ever”.
Parnell said that the decision will be appealed.
The US Office of Government Ethics released President Donald Trump’s annual financial disclosure report, showing more than $1.4b in income from his family’s crypto ventures in 2025. His earnings stem from digital assets that have profited from his policies.
Trump received over $500m from World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture he and his sons co-founded.
Trump reported another $635m from the sale of his $TRUMP meme coins.
The president also reported over $80m in income from settlements with several media companies and millions in income from his company licensing his name to overseas property developers.
OGE also made available US vice-president JD Vance’s annual financial disclosure. You can view both here.
Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk convicted of participating in a scheme to pursue election conspiracy theories disseminated by Donald Trump, visited the US president at the White House, according to a post on Truth Social.
“‘FREE TINA!’ became the rallying cry of the Republican Party over the past two years”, Trump wrote. “Tina Peters just came to the White House to thank me for getting her released from prison in Colorado”.
Peters, while serving as Mesa county clerk, helped breach the county’s election computer systems in 2021 and allowed an unauthorized person to access voting equipment and election records.
The breach was prompted amid baseless claims that mass voter fraud had caused Trump to lose the White House in the 2020 presidential election. Peters was convicted in 2024 of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty and other crimes by jurors in Mesa county.
Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, commuted Peters’ sentence, after Trump repeatedly urged Polis to pardon her as part of a continued effort to spread false information about the 2020 election, and she was released earlier this month.
“It was an Honor to have lunch with her”, Trump said today. “I was fortunate, my Vote in 2024 was TOO BIG TO RIG, but they tried. There wasn’t a thing they could do about it, but not everyone is in that position”.
A group of House Republicans, led by Florida representative Anna Paulina Luna, joined Democrats to block a procedural rule needed to pass major bills, a move that blocks Speaker Mike Johnson’s efforts to bring legislation to the floor before a recess.
This has been the second week the group of Republicans has blocked the House, refusing to pass a defense bill in an effort to force Senate passage of a voter ID measure pushed by President Donald Trump.
A procedural vote needed to open debate on the National Defense Authorization Act and other legislation failed 224-198 after 14 hardline Trump allies broke with party leadership for failing to allow the SAVE America Act’s voter ID requirements to be attached to the defense bill as an amendment.
Per Reuters, Johnson told reporters that party leaders would spend the next day and a half working to overcome internal differences and move toward passage of the NDAA, an annual bill that sets policy for the Pentagon.
“This is life with a small margin, small majority, and we’ll work through it,” he said.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
