Fox News Immediately Pivots to Birthright Citizenship Mode

The network’s talking heads do not seem interested in understanding the Constitution, because doing so would force them to contradict the president

The midterms are less than a week away and President Trump is trying to stuff as much anti-immigrant rhetoric into the national conversation as possible. On Tuesday, Axios reported that the White House is working up an executive order that would revoke birthright citizenship in the United States, which is protected by the 14th Amendment. Most legal scholars agree that this isn’t something the president can put an end to unilaterally. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) dismissed the idea. “Well, obviously you can’t do that. You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order,” he told a Wisconsin radio station, adding that as a conservative, he is a “believer in following the plain text of the Constitution” and that “in this case the 14th Amendment is pretty clear.”

Whether or not the Trump administration actually believes the president can upend the Constitution with an executive order, the idea is catnip to Fox News, which has never met an anti-immigrant talking point it didn’t like. After Trump reignited the birthright debate Tuesday morning, the network gladly crammed its programming with talking heads defending it from every angle, and even some legal minds to argue that actually, possibly, maybe, Trump could put an end to it by himself.

Tucker Carlson — who in July said that Mexico “packing our electorate” was a greater threat to Democracy than Russian interference — was chomping at the bit. He began last night by noting that no European countries and only two African countries allow birthright citizenship, typical as it is for Carlson to look to Europe and Africa as models for how America should govern itself.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fox-news-birthright-citizenship-749844/