Michael Barbaro

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.

This is The Daily.

On Wednesday morning in Washington, the scene outside of the Supreme Court captured the enormous stakes of the case that was about to be argued before its nine justices.

Birthright citizenship has just been a big part of what it means to be American for a very long time, like almost as long as the country.

A case about President Trump's efforts to end birthright citizenship that literally asks who gets to be an American.

And a case so historic that President Trump himself showed up in the courtroom to hear the arguments.

Today.

My colleague, Anne Marimo, takes us inside the room.

It's Thursday, April 2nd.

And you had a pretty coveted seat inside the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning.

And I suspect your eyes quickly fixed themselves on the presence of President Trump.

And what did it look like for him to enter that august room?

Why?

Just far enough away, perhaps, for some of the justices liking.

It feels difficult to overstate the symbolic potency of the head of the executive branch

being in this room, in the heart of the judicial branch.

And as you know well, this is a president known for very keenly understanding power and how you flex it.

And it felt to me anyway, like the president, by showing up for these oral arguments on this case, was basically saying, you all want to sit in judgment of my executive order on birthright citizenship, and therefore I'm going to sit in judgment of you as you do that.

Right.

And above all, that signal was this case is really important to the president and to his second term agenda, especially immigration.