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The Supreme Court’s final opinion day was full of landmark decisions, in a term marked by them.
The justices handed down major rulings that rejected a core facet of President Trump’s immigration agenda, upheld statewide bans on transgender athletes in sports and dismantled a federal law enacted in the wake of the Watergate scandal that capped coordinated political party spending.
And with the court’s work wrapping up from the session that began in October, the justices are already setting the stage for major battles in their next term.
Here are five takeaways.
Roberts, Barrett again reject key piece of Trump’s domestic policy
The court’s 6-3 ruling striking down Trump’s Day 1 executive order ending birthright citizenship was a familiar mathematical split.
But the majority cut across ideological lines, with three of the court’s conservative justices siding with the three liberal justices to rule against the president.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett aligned with their liberal colleagues to find that the president’s order ran afoul of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of automatic citizenship to children born on U.S. soil, barring a few exceptions.
Their reasoning rested heavily on historical interpretation, tracing the origin of the Citizenship Clause from English common law through the aftermath of the Civil War into the late 19th century.
“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community,” Roberts wrote for the majority. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wasn’t ready to go that far.
He disagreed that Trump’s order should be blocked on constitutional grounds, instead arguing that it should not stand because it went beyond what was authorized by a 1940 federal law.
Barrett bore the brunt of criticism from Trump’s base.
Right-wing commentator Matt Walsh slammed the Trump nominee.
“Terrible pick,” he wrote on the social platform X, seemingly directing some frustration toward Trump himself. “When’s the last time we had a Republican president who didn’t put a liberal justice on the court?”
Roberts, who handed down a pair of divided opinions on executive power a day earlier, did not come away unscathed, either.
“John Roberts and Amy Conehead Barrett completely destroyed the entire concept of citizenship,” Sean Evans, the co-founder of The Federalist magazine, wrote on X. “If anyone can unilaterally become a citizen, then citizenship has no meaning.”
Trump’s immigration agenda takes a hit, GOP split on remedy
The Trump administration’s immigration agenda scored wins and took a hit, all in the span of a few days.
Last week, the court upheld the administration’s decision to end temporary protected status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants and a policy allowing federal officers to physically block asylum seekers at the border last week — two decisions condemned by civil rights and immigration advocates.
But those same groups had a different reaction on Tuesday regarding the birthright citizenship ruling, hailing it as a critical victory.
Their celebration may be short-lived, however, as Republicans quickly began eyeing potential workarounds.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that a constitutional amendment wasn’t necessary, suggesting Congress could instead go the legislative route to implement his desired citizenship restrictions.
Some GOP members agreed that was an option. That includes Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has introduced legislation alongside Sens. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) restricting who is eligible for birthright citizenship.
“I will continue to push to fix this major pull factor for birth tourism and illegal immigration into the U.S.,” Graham said in a statement Tuesday.
But other Republicans with legal backgrounds argued that the court’s decision left a constitutional amendment as the only vehicle for future change.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a Harvard Law School alum, noted the court did not rule on procedural grounds but rather made a substantive holding about the 14th Amendment.
“Will need either a constitutional amendment or a future court to overrule this,” he concluded. “Anyway you slice it, the decision is a major defeat.”
Court upholds transgender sports bans in two states, with broader implications
The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold two state bans on transgender athletes competing in women’s and girls’ athletics was met with celebration from the president.
“BIG WIN: The United States Supreme Court just RULED AGAINST MEN PLAYING IN WOMEN’S SPORTS. Wow! That takes that ridiculous situation off the table!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
The high court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines that Idaho and West Virginia can keep their bans on transgender athletes competing in women’s and girls’ sports. Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the majority opinion, while the court’s three liberal justices dissented.
The ruling is expected to have implications for the additional 25 states in the U.S. with similar bans in place.
The attorneys representing these athletes expressed their disappointment in the decision but stressed the decision is far narrower than requested by the states in that it does not issue a broad nationwide mandate.
“Over and over and over again it talks about how this decision may exclude Transgender girls, not that they must, and over and over again that this is a policy question that should be decided by the people in their different communities and their representatives,” said Joshua Block, a senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the West Virginia case.
The Trump administration and Republican lawmakers have sought to roll back protections for transgender people.
The president signed an executive order at the beginning of his second term declaring that the U.S. only recognizes two sexes, and he has removed federal grants from programs that allow transgender girls to compete on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
SCOTUS ruling gives GOP further financial edge
The Supreme Court’s decision to virtually allow candidates and party committees to coordinate and raise unlimited sums of money is a definite boon for the GOP.
Previously, party committees could raise and spend any amount of money in support of a candidate if the spending was an independent expenditure. Campaigns and committees had a cap on how much they could coordinate and spend together.
Coordinated expenditures are more valuable for political groups because the effort offers them a lower rate on advertising than they would receive if the advertising were done through a group like a super PAC.
Republicans quickly lauded the ruling.
“The Supreme Court got this one right,” Trey Trainor, a former Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chairman and partner at the conservative Dhillon Law Group, said in a statement.
“Today’s decision in NRSC v. FEC restores common sense to campaign finance law by recognizing what every political practitioner already knows: a political party cannot corrupt the very candidate it nominates,” he added. “Parties exist to elect candidates, and the First Amendment protects their right to do so.”
On its face, the decision is beneficial to both parties because it means their committees and candidates may coordinate and spend unlimited amounts of money.
But the ruling is certainly more helpful for Republicans right now, who maintain a financial edge against their Democratic counterparts in fundraising. Democrats have also been able to better raise their money through individual candidates, while Republicans have been more inclined to give to outside groups.
The latest campaign report from the Republican National Committee, which spans the month of May, showed the national party ended the month with $125 million cash in the bank. During the same period, the Democratic National Committee reported just shy of $15 million on hand.
The Senate Republicans’ campaign arm reported close to $49 million in the bank by the end of May, while the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm reported close to $39 million on hand.
“We strongly disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision, which needlessly overturns its own precedent to destroy a long-standing pillar of federal campaign finance law,” Elias Law Group Partners Jacquelyn Lopez and Rachel Jacobs said in a statement.
“While we believe this case was wrongly decided, in the long run, Democratic campaigns will benefit from the level playing field this ruling provides,” they added.
Gun cases for 2026 term, putting AR-15 bans on docket
Another major gun rights fight awaits the court when it returns from summer recess.
The justices have agreed to hear arguments in a pair of consolidated cases challenging AR-15 bans in Connecticut and the Chicago area, taking up a long-running dispute over whether the 2nd Amendment protects possession of those weapons and similar semiautomatic rifles.
Gun rights groups had long been urging the justices to weigh in.
“For years, the FPC Grassroots Army has fought hard to bring this question to the Supreme Court, and now the time has come to march forward and reclaim the rights that were immorally taken from us,” the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) said in a statement.
When the court denied the opportunity to take up a similar case involving Maryland’s AR-15 ban last year, Kavanaugh noted there was a “strong argument” such weapons are in “common use” by law-abiding citizens and are constitutionally protected.
He pointed out that other cases pended in the lower courts dealing with the same issue, and he suspected the court may address it “in the next Term or two.”
The petitioners, including FPC, wrote in their request for review that the current case offered the justices a vehicle for “following through” on his recommendation.
The FPC is among those challenging the assault weapons ban in Cook County, Ill., as unconstitutional.
Cook County and Connecticut have defended their restrictions by arguing that the automatic-style rifles at issue don’t qualify as “arms” that people have a right to bear because they are especially dangerous.
Connecticut is one of 11 states that prohibits the purchase and possession — and in some cases, sale and manufacturing — of assault weapons.
The outcome in the Supreme Court stands likely to impact all of those states.
Zach Schonfeld contributed.
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Amy Coney Barrett Brett Kavanaugh Donald Trump John Roberts Katie Britt Lindsey Graham Matt Walsh Ron DeSantis Ted CruzCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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