‘Oh It Was Bad!’ CNN Legal Expert Twists Knife on Trump After SCOTUS ‘Blowout’

CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams offered a grave assessment for President Donald Trump after what he called a “blowout” in the Supreme Court over birthright citizenship.

Trump signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship during the first days of his second term, which was promptly blocked by a lower court in a ruling that was upheld by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case — Trump v. Barbara — on Wednesday morning, with Trump in attendance. While it’s tough to forecast based on questioning, things did not seem to be going great for Trump and Sauer with the conservative justices.

On Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s Inside Politics, guest anchor Manu Raju asked Williams if things really went as badly as the questioning would suggest. Williams was emphatic that they did:

CNN’S MANU RAJU: In the room are an excellent group of reporters and our top flight legal analyst, Elliot Williams, who also has been dissecting these arguments.

Was it as, did it really go this bad when you listen to what they argued here, the questions that came out of the justices, was it as bad as it seemed for the administration from what you heard here?

Because sometimes Supreme Court justices will ask questions to make a counterpoint. Was that the case at all here?

CNN LEGAL ANALYST ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Oh, it was bad, Manu!

And let’s be clear, and Paula touched on a very important point here.

Even the mildly skeptical questions you started getting toward the end of the day from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Kavanaugh really, I think, and this was Paula’s point, are about how they’re going to write their opinions, whether they concur with the decision, write something else, or join the majority.

This was a blowout of the sort that we don’t really see that often.

You could see an eight to one decision here even. It’s not out of the question.

Certainly there are five votes that were quite skeptical of the president, and probably more. This was just not good.

A number of the arguments, the basic arguments they had about how we define jurisdiction in the United States, how you define, they just dismissed outright by quite conservative justices.

So it’s just really hard to see how even justices that might have been perhaps somewhat favorable toward the administration’s position, do anything other than rule against them.

CNN’S MANU RAJU: 8-1, if it is 8-one, who’s the one? Thomas or Alito?

CNN LEGAL ANALYST ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Thomas.

CNN’S MANU RAJU: So Thomas.

CNN LEGAL ANALYST ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Again, that I said maybe, but I think, I don’t wanna prognosticate what happens on the Supreme Court. You could see an 8-1 decision here, but it’s probably more like a 6-3 decision.

Watch above via CNN’s Inside Politics.

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