Trump Day One: Suspend the Constitution

Orchestrated chaos reigns

The only things that didn’t go smoothly for Trump #47, Day One were the sound guy’s fault.

Office of Speaker Mike Johnson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Carrie Underwood experienced what every church “special” singer has lived through: the audio began and stopped. She handled it like a pro, waiting an appropriate minute or so, and then invited attendees to sing “America the Beautiful” with her, a cappella. Honestly, that was better than any backing track. The other incident involved Billy Ray Cyrus, at Trump’s Liberty Ball held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Midway through an awful performance of Lil’ Naz’s “Old Town Road,” Cyrus lost his guitar sound to the house. As a long time church tech and sound guy, I believe it was an act of mercy. Billy Ray couldn’t pull it off, and ended up begging the sound guys to fix the problem before giving himself the hook.

These were small glitches that didn’t affect the whole of Trump’s hurricane re-entry into the presidency. Forget the parades and glitz—President Donald got right down to business, signing a stack of executive orders from a desk set up on stage at his inaugural celebration held at Capital One Arena.

I suppose if God saves one’s life for the purpose of Making America Great Again, and initiating a new Golden Age of America, it doesn’t serve anyone to waste even a second. Then again, Trump never did place his hand on the Bible when he took the oath. A little detail, like Truman’s wife’s “crossies” at their wedding in “The Truman Show.” Protect and defend the Constitution? Sure. So help me God? Uhh, yeah, whatever. Don’t bother me with the details, boys, we have work to do.

You can get a basic list of what Trump signed from the White House website. But to save you some time, I had ChatGPT summarize the five pages of published announcements in one convenient list. I’m sure you’ll be able to find your favorite in here, like renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” (get your new Trump globe here), or pardoning 1,500 January 6th rioters.

• Declaring a National Energy Emergency

• Withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement

• Defining Federal Recognition of Sex and Gender

• Ending DEI Programs

• Delaying the TikTok Ban

• Imposing Tariffs on Canada and Mexico

• Pardoning Individuals Related to January 6

• Renaming Geographical Landmarks

• Declaring a National Emergency at the Border

• Withdrawing from the WHO

• Restoring Free Speech and Ending Censorship

• Implementing a Federal Hiring Freeze

• Mandating Return to In-Person Work

• Establishing the Department of Government Efficiency

• Reinstating the Death Penalty

• Protecting Against Invasion

• Unleashing American Energy

• Reforming Federal Hiring Practices

• Designating Cartels as Terrorist Organizations

• Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness

and…

• Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship

This is the one I want to talk about right now. This is the one where Trump suspends the Constitution. The Executive Order quotes the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Then, it notes that our government has been pretty consistent in interpreting that text as written. Then, it trashes all of that.

But the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Consistent with this understanding, the Congress has further specified through legislation that “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is a national and citizen of the United States at birth, 8 U.S.C. 1401, generally mirroring the Fourteenth Amendment’s text.

Logic doesn’t always translate forwards and backwards. Because the text of the 14th Amendment has a clause, set apart by commas, indicating “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” does not automatically mean that people born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof are not citizens. In fact, a plain reading of the text would indicate that anyone born in the United States, or having become a naturalized citizen, is therefore subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Maybe that’s why Congress tended to honor the plain reading.

Trump’s carefully crafted Executive Order suspends the 14th Amendment. It denies the fruit of citizenship to people clearly, plainly, included as citizens of the United States. The Supreme Court will surely take this up. I hope they’ll deal with it unanimously. I am no lawyer, but this should not be an issue of political division. It is not a matter of executive power or privilege. It is a basic tenet of how we run the country.

What strikes me is how little drama attended the large stack of fiat orders. Trump’s 45 presidency was marked by chaos, incompetence, and unpreparedness. Trump 47 is smooth as silk compared to that. Everything has been laid out and exquisitely detailed. From the federal hiring freeze, to the rollback of all President Biden’s efforts, this is a well-planned, clockwork operation.

Trump was not kidding when he said he would need to be a little bit of a dictator on Day One. The riot shields are out on the southern border. Troops are moving to reinforce ICE and Border Patrol. Marco Rubio is Secretary of State, and there’s little reason to believe that Pete Hegseth won’t be Secretary of Defense, and Pam Bondi won’t be Attorney General. Trump is carefully, painstakingly, getting his way, and generally without the rocky drama.

There’s still time for the drama, of course. But I don’t see Trump going back and putting his hand on the Bible any time soon. I also don’t see him deciding to change his mind on the Constitution. The deportations will begin on schedule, and so will the court cases. All the New York Times can do it proclaiming it all “grim.”

I’ll take the good with the bad. Some of Trump’s Day One orders are good, like rolling back DEI. But trashing the 14th Amendment is one of the bad ones, and indeed it’s the worst.

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