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WASHINGTON — For Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to end birthright citizenship is more than just a provocative anti-immigrant policy likely to be blocked by courts.

It’s personal.

Tong, 51, a Democrat who has served as the state’s top legal official since 2019, is the son of immigrants who came to the United States from China and Taiwan.

He is the first member of his family to have been born on U.S. soil and is the first Asian American to be elected to statewide office in Connecticut.

“I grew up working side by side with my parents in our family’s Chinese restaurant, and in one generation I’ve gone from that Chinese restaurant kitchen to be the attorney general of the state of Connecticut,” he said in an interview. “That only happens one place in this world, and that’s in America.”

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to take action to end birthright citizenship on day one of his second term in office, a move that would immediately prompt legal challenges.

“I would be the first to sue,” Tong promised.

He is one of 23 Democratic state attorneys general who are likely to be regular opponents of Trump on various issues, ranging from immigration and LGBTQ rights to environmental policy and abortion, just as many were in the first Trump administration.

Likewise, Republican attorneys general routinely sued to block President Joe Biden’s policies, notching up major victories on issues like student loan debt forgiveness and a Covid vaccine-or-test mandate for businesses.

The fight over birthright citizenship might be one that challengers have a good chance of winning, even with a conservative Supreme Court that includes three justices appointed by Trump.

The vast majority of legal scholars think there is no genuine legal dispute over the guarantee of birthright citizenship as enshrined in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” the amendment states.

James Ho, now a Trump-appointed judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who is considered a contender for the Supreme Court if Trump has a vacancy, wrote an article in 2006 rejecting the claim that the children of undocumented immigrants should not be considered citizens.

“Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. That birthright is protected no less for children of undocumented persons than for descendants of Mayflower passengers,” he wrote.

Ho himself was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States with his parents.

Trump has said he will sign an executive order that would ensure children born to parents who do not have legal status in the U.S. will not be considered U.S. citizens.

At least one parent would need to be a citizen or legal resident for a child to receive birthright citizenship, Trump said in a video announcing the plan last year. He indicated the policy would not apply retroactively.

A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about the brewing plans to counter his efforts. The administration could try to implement the policy, thereby kicking off a legal fight, by ordering federal agencies to prevent people from obtaining passports or Social Security numbers.

Supporters of limiting birthright citizenship say the language in the 14th Amendment referring to citizenship being awarded to people “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States does not include the children of undocumented immigrants.

Conservatives have embraced the idea of declaring the act of migrants crossing the southern border as a form of invasion — a move that could have them treated more like enemy combatants than migrants. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has taken that approach, leading to conflicts with the Biden administration.

A declaration along those lines by Trump could be used to defend a policy seeking to end automatic birthright citizenship, an approach Judge Ho outlined in remarks made after the November election that seem to backtrack on his earlier view.

He said that “birthright citizenship obviously doesn’t apply in case of war or invasion.”

Cecillia Wang, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is also gearing up to sue Trump on birthright citizenship and other policies, said calling immigration a form of invasion reflects “a white nationalist view” that is not supported by the facts.

“I don’t think that anyone’s theory about so-called invasion … should fly in the courts,” she added.

From Tong’s perspective, any limitation on birthright citizenship would be a violation of the 14th Amendment.

It is “beyond clear” what the law states, he said, and it will “get real when people’s lives and communities are impacted, or worse, destroyed” if Trump’s plan goes into effect.

He was quick to cite the experience of his parents, who “ran for their lives” before reaching the United States and settling in Connecticut.

“Let’s just cut the crap and acknowledge that we’re Americans. Everybody is as American as anybody else,” Tong added. “I mean, it strikes to the core of our constitutional foundation, the 14th Amendment.”

Lawrence Hurley

Lawrence Hurley is a senior Supreme Court reporter for NBC News.

Republicans have big plans in mind for when they reclaim the White House and both chambers of Congress in January. President-elect Donald Trump’s disruptive agenda spans across immigration, the economy and foreign policy. But Democrats around the country are concerned that the GOP has its sights set even higher: a complete rewrite of the Constitution.

After all, the men who gathered in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787 were not there to draft a new constitution.

At issue is a provision that allows Congress to call for a new convention to propose alterations to the country’s foundational text. But, as The New York Times recently reported, states like California are now racing to rescind their previous calls for a constitutional convention. Their fear is that even a convention called under Trump to deal with a narrow issue, like a balanced budget amendment, would lead to a “runaway convention” where anything and everything is on the table.

It’s not an unfounded worry on Democrats’ part. After all, the men who gathered in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787 were not there to draft a new constitution. The Continental Congress had only tasked the delegates with “the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation,” which only loosely governed the 13 independent American states. Instead, they emerged with a document that not only abolished the articles entirely but provided for a novel form of government.

Crucially, the draft that was presented to the states for ratification was purposefully incomplete. Under the Articles of Confederation, the only method of revision required unanimity from all 13 state legislatures. As you can imagine, this made the chance of amending them exceedingly low. The Constitution offered up two alternatives, both in Article V of the text:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.

The first method has been used to add 27 updates to the Constitution since it was ratified, most notably with the first Congress’ passage of the Bill of Rights. These first 10 amendments were crucial in blocking the near immediate calls for a second convention from the likes of Patrick Henry and other anti-Federalists. Since then, there have been sporadic calls over the years to convene a new gathering to overhaul the Constitution — but as with many reform movements, the politics of altering the status quo have been difficult to overcome.

The amendment process in Congress has languished in the last half-century.

As someone who loves to probe and prod at a juicy hypothetical, I can see why the idea of a new convention has both appeal and detractors. The amendment process in Congress has languished in the last half-century. Proposed amendments that would require a balanced budget, ban flag-burning and abolish the Electoral College have all failed to pass both the House and Senate and be sent to the states for approval. Taking proposals directly to a convention where new deals could be made and different coalitions forged would skirt the thorny issue of which party controls Congress at any given time.

But the convention process isn’t exactly a silver bullet for anyone wanting a constitutional do-over. The bar for calling a convention — two-thirds of state legislatures — is lower than the three-fourths approval required from the states to ratify any proposal. It’s a hurdle that has failed to be met most recently with the push to enshrine equal rights among the sexes in the Constitution. The most recent success was back in 1992.

With Republicans holding only 28 out of 50 state legislatures, there’s little chance of a GOP-dominated convention’s amendments getting rammed through and approved. Ultimately, while I’m not going to tell any state’s Democrats that it’s unwise to rescind their state’s call for a convention, I think it’s best for now to leave the idea of a backdoor reboot to the country solidly in the realm of political fan fiction.

Hayes Brown

Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.

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We Americans are soon embarking on a new era under the newly elected president, Donald J. Trump. I was among those who did not support him and now believe that based on his projected nominations to his cabinet, the Trump administration is revealing its misguided actions. I am thankful for our democracy that, unlike many nations where opposition or criticism of the government is not allowed, we have a long tradition of free speech, free assembly, and a free press where the government may be criticized.

As the new administration begins, it is important for government representatives, the free press, and ordinary people to openly oppose what does not appear right and is dangerous for our nation. We are almost equally divided between those voting for and against Donald Trump for president, only 1.5% of the popular vote was the difference in the election. He certainly does not have a “mandate” to do whatever he wants.

As an initial example of misguided leadership, we only have to look at Trump’s choice to be secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. My problem is not based on his service as a major in the Army National Guard or service in Iraq and Afghanistan. My problem with him is first based on his character involving reports of his treatment of women and his drunkenness. However, as an American who loves our democracy and its diversity, I am especially troubled by Hegseth’s ideology, particularly his Islamophobia combined with his “Christian nationalism.” He carries on his arm the tattoo, “Deus vult,” which means “God wills it.” This is the famous phrase that Pope Urban uttered to promote the Crusades against Islam that began in the 11th century and continued in the 12th and 13th centuries. I am a Christian, but I am not proud of the Crusades and believe that they created animosity in the Middle East toward Christianity that lasted to the present.

More:Opinion: Historical judgment awaits Donald Trump and others influenced by him

It is true that Muslims had made it almost impossible for Christian pilgrims to go to Jerusalem. However, in the bloody Crusades that ensued, the Crusaders killed many people, sacked Constantinople on their way to the Holy Land and then, worst of all, massacred the people of Jerusalem. Despite some initial successes in the effort to reclaim the Holy Land, the Crusades turned out to be a colossal failure. For me, as a Christian, even greater than the ultimate military failure of the Crusades was their failure to truly represent what Christians claimed to represent, namely Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. The Crusaders carried the cross on their chests while they killed people. For people in the Middle East and for many other people, Christianity came to represent political-military power. The colonial era that followed the Crusades after 1500 C.E continued this misrepresentation of Christianity. Hegseth considers himself a Crusader.

Continuing association with white supremacy and Christian nationalism, Hegseth has “Chi-Rho” tattooed on his arm, which represents the first two letters of “Christ.” The fact, of course, is that Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity, made no claim to political power and specifically rejected being an earthly king when people would have made him a king (John 6:15). Jesus claimed “all authority in heaven and on earth was given to me” and then sent out his disciples to make disciples of all “nations.” However, “nations” does not mean what we think of now as nation states, but rather “peoples” or “ethne” in Greek. Jesus clearly did not give a mandate to create political power centers, but rather people who would “obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). Mr. Hegseth’s or anyone else’s promotions of Christian nationalism is a distortion of Christian theology. Legally, it is certainly not within the Constitutional authority of an American government official to justify views on a theological belief or claim the authority of God for views and actions. The attitude of Hegseth and the views and actions he encourages are extremely harmful and dangerous for our nation. Let us hope that the senators of the U.S. Congress will have the courage and wisdom not to approve the appointment of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense.

More:Opinion: Working together to practice democracy that benefits all people, not just wealthy

The Rev. Robert L. Montgomery, Ph.D., lives in Black Mountain.

Washington CNN  — 

When the frequent court foes of Donald Trump’s first administration look back at the early days of his presidency, they recall “building the airplane as we were flying it,” as outgoing Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has described it. That was especially true of the intense and quick-moving court fight over the so-called travel ban, a seminal 2017 lawsuit that set the tone for four more years of legal confrontations.

None of the Democratic state attorneys general who originally took Trump to court over that controversial policy will still be in office when he is inaugurated next month. But their successors won’t be starting from scratch this time around, even amid a different legal landscape and political climate from Trump’s first term in office.

They have been preparing for months, if not years, for what kind of lawsuits they might want to bring against a Trump 2.0 agenda. They’ve done so as the president-elect and his deputies have promised a more sophisticated and less error-prone operation this time.

Democratic officials and their staff have pored over Trump’s campaign promises as well as the proposals outlined in Project 2025, the policy handbook assembled by a conservative think tank that was written by several veterans of the Trump’s first administration, some of them now nominees for his second.

They’re adjusting the legal strategies that were used against Trump during the first go-around to take into account shifts in court precedent since then, while also acknowledging a political reality that gave Trump a more decisive electoral win than in 2016.

“There was a much clearer voice of the people. And one of the jobs I have is to understand what’s behind that,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told CNN. “Insofar as the administration pursues policies that are lawful, that’s their right to pursue lawful policies.”

In some states, the current attorneys general have been serving in the role since the back half of Trump’s first presidency — giving them more than a taste of what litigating against his administration is like. Others have inherited office staff who helped craft the marquee legal challenges of his first term, and four Democratic attorneys general will be serving in states where their governor held that role in the last Trump presidency.

The planning has involved internal briefs laying out different litigative options for challenging certain Trump proposals, as well as analysis of how recent court precedents should weigh on those decisions.

Washington’s attorney general-elect, Nick Brown, has been reading up on how key legal doctrines such as standing have shifted since the first Trump administration. The day after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, California Attorney General Rob Bonta asked his staff to draft potential strategies for how his state could challenge a national abortion ban.

Democrats are anticipating sharp battles over mass deportation, abortion access, the environment and consumer protection, among other issues. Compared to Trump’s 2016 campaign, the president-elect and his allies have been “a little bit more predictable with specifics,” Bonta said.

“We expect him to do what he says,” added Bonta, who was in the California legislature during the first Trump presidency. “We’ve been through this once at 1.0 and understand a lot of the places where he broke the law.”

During the first Trump administration, the number of state-brought legal actions against the federal government totaled in the triple digits, and those court fights made national stars of those officials leading the legal resistance. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was the state’s attorney general in 2017, was on the 2024 Democratic vice presidential short list. The Democratic governors in Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, and, come January, in North Carolina and Washington, are former attorneys general who battled the first Trump administration in court as well.

They bring to the governor’s mansion knowledge and experience of how to duel with Trump in court — experience that will benefit the lawyers serving in their current roles. As governors, they can help secure funding and propose other legislation that will buttress the work of state attorneys general.

Having former Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey in the governorship for the second Trump term is “actually critical,” the commonwealth’s current attorney general, Andrea Joy Campbell, told CNN.

Ferguson, who was elected Washington’s governor, joined his successor, Brown, at a post-election news conference last month at which both Democrats said threats of revenge by Trump would not influence decisions to bring cases. Trump reportedly sat on a Washington request for wildfire disaster aid in 2020 — a request that ultimately fulfilled when President Joe Biden took office.

“If people are being harmed, if the law is being violated, we should enforce that, without fear of retribution,” Brown said.

But that does not mean that Democratic attorneys general plan to fight Trump on every issue. They told CNN that, while they will probably disagree with many of his policies, they’ll only sue when the legal circumstances warrant it.

It’s a needle they will have to thread while trying to work with the Trump administration on other issues that have had bipartisan support, such as addressing the opioid crisis or bringing antitrust actions against social media companies. The day-to-day of law enforcement typically requires coordination between state and federal agencies as well.

“My office has been able to partner at the local level with these agencies, and I want to preserve that, regardless of who’s president,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul told CNN. “I am not going to lash out for the sake of lashing out.”

He and other attorneys general emphasized, however, that when they believe that the incoming president has violated the law in a way that is harming residents of their states, they are committed to taking him to court.

“To the extent that there was a strong mandate here for the administration, it was specifically on cost of living,” said Josh Kaul, the attorney general for Wisconsin, which went for Trump this year. “I don’t think a lot of folks who voted for the Trump administration did so because they wanted people’s rights to be taken away.”

Asked for comment for this story, Trump transition team spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that “President Trump will serve ALL Americans, even those who did not vote for him in the election. He will unify the country through success.”

Shifts in the legal landscape

The relationships that state attorneys general forged among themselves during the first Trump administration continued through the Biden years, and several months ago, those cross-state conversations turned to Trump’s possible return.

Part of those discussions has been understanding which state is best suited to take the lead on a legal challenge, perhaps because of its expertise on the issue, how the policy uniquely affects its residents or where the state sits on the federal circuit court map.

The Democratic Attorneys General Association — an organization that had just a handful of employees at the beginning of the first Trump term but now numbers 40 among its staff — organizes regular Zoom calls and in-person confabs to keep the dialogue going.

The discussions for a potential second Trump term began in earnest at the organization’s February conference in Seattle, DAGA president Sean Rankin told CNN. At a conference in Philadelphia two weeks after the election, the organization carved out time for the current and incoming Democratic attorneys general to speak to one another in private, without the presence of DAGA staff, and another in-person conference is planned for February, weeks after the inauguration.

One issue the attorneys general must confront is how recent changes in law and in the judiciary will weigh on their legal calculus. The Supreme Court is more right-leaning now than it was at the start of Trump’s first term, with his installation of three justices. One of them, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, replaced the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the end of 2020.

Meanwhile, lower court judges, taking cues from the high court, have been more hesitant to issue the sort of nationwide injunctions that blocked Trump policies throughout the country in a single case.

On the flip side, however, is a series of Biden-era Supreme Court rulings that require courts to give more scrutiny to actions taken by executive agencies, including one 2024 ruling that reversed longstanding deference that judges gave to how agencies interpreted vague laws. Democrats say they intend to see those precedents applied fairly, even if they have been critical of how the court’s conservative wing has undermined federal regulatory power.

“They have made their bed, and they’re going to have to lie in it,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong told CNN. “And if there’s no deference to the EPA under Lee Zeldin, or to the Department of Homeland Security under Kristi Noem, then there’s no deference.”

Where the biggest courts fights will play out will likely shift as well. The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the long-favored venue of Democrats that covers the Western swath of the country, is not as nearly liberal as it was at the beginning to the Trump administration after he appointed 10 judges to the court. The First Circuit, covering the upper Northeast, will likely be the safest bet for Democrats, as it currently has no Republican appointees among its active judges after Biden’s judicial overhaul.

Amid all these changes, Democrats are quick to bring up the win rate that their offices had during the first Trump administration, with some states prevailing in 80% or more of the cases they brought against his first-term agenda. That courts so frequently found that Trump had run afoul of the law makes the attorneys general confident that they’ll be successful again in the legal battles they pick with his second administration, even in a different judicial landscape.

“The circuits have changed. The Supreme Court has changed,” New Jesey Attorney General Matthew Platkin told CNN. “But they’ve also sided with the rule of law in many instances, and I predict they will again.”

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to implement the “toughest” anti-U.S. policy, state media reported Sunday, less than a month before Donald Trump takes office as U.S. president.

Trump’s return to the White House raises prospects for high-profile diplomacy with North Korea. During his first term, Trump met Kim three times for talks on the North’s nuclear program. Many experts however say a quick resumption of Kim-Trump summitry is unlikely as Trump would first focus on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. North Korea’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine also poses a challenge to efforts to revive diplomacy, experts say.

During a five-day plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party that ended Friday, Kim called the U.S. “the most reactionary state that regards anti-communism as its invariable state policy.” Kim said that the U.S.-South Korea-Japan security partnership is expanding into “a nuclear military bloc for aggression.”

“This reality clearly shows to which direction we should advance and what we should do and how,” Kim said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

It said Kim’s speech “clarified the strategy for the toughest anti-U.S. counteraction to be launched aggressively” by North Korea for its long-term national interests and security.

KCNA didn’t elaborate on the anti-U.S. strategy. But it said Kim set forth tasks to bolster military capability through defense technology advancements and stressed the need to improve the mental toughness of North Korean soldiers.

The previous meetings between Trump and Kim had not only put an end to their exchanges of fiery rhetoric and threats of destruction, but they developed personal connections. Trump once famously said he and Kim “fell in love.” But their talks eventually collapsed in 2019, as they wrangled over U.S.-led sanctions on the North.

North Korea has since sharply increased the pace of its weapons testing activities to build more reliable nuclear missiles targeting the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. and South Korea have responded by expanding their military bilateral drills and also trilateral ones involving Japan, drawing strong rebukes from the North, which views such U.S.-led exercises as invasion rehearsals.

Further complicating efforts to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons in return for economic and political benefits is its deepening military cooperation with Russia.

According to U.S., Ukrainian and South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops and conventional weapons systems to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine. There are concerns that Russia could give North Korea advanced weapons technology in return, including help to build more powerful nuclear missiles.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that 3,000 North Korean troops have been killed and wounded in the fighting in Russia’s Kursk region. It was the first significant estimate by Ukraine of North Korean casualties since the North Korean troop deployment to Russia began in October.

Russia and China, locked in separate disputes with the U.S., have repeatedly blocked U.S.-led pushes to levy more U.N. sanctions on North Korea despite its repeated missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Last month, Kim said that his past negotiations with the United States only confirmed Washington’s “unchangeable” hostility toward his country and described his nuclear buildup as the only way to counter external threats.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to implement the “toughest” anti-U.S. policy, state media reported Sunday, less than a month before Donald Trump takes office as U.S. president.

Trump’s return to the White House raises prospects for high-profile diplomacy with North Korea. During his first term, Trump met Kim three times for talks on the North’s nuclear program. Many experts however say a quick resumption of Kim-Trump summitry is unlikely as Trump would first focus on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. North Korea’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine also poses a challenge to efforts to revive diplomacy, experts say.

During a five-day plenary meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party that ended Friday, Kim called the U.S. “the most reactionary state that regards anti-communism as its invariable state policy.” Kim said that the U.S.-South Korea-Japan security partnership is expanding into “a nuclear military bloc for aggression.”

“This reality clearly shows to which direction we should advance and what we should do and how,” Kim said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

It said Kim’s speech “clarified the strategy for the toughest anti-U.S. counteraction to be launched aggressively” by North Korea for its long-term national interests and security.

KCNA didn’t elaborate on the anti-U.S. strategy. But it said Kim set forth tasks to bolster military capability through defense technology advancements and stressed the need to improve the mental toughness of North Korean soldiers.

The previous meetings between Trump and Kim had not only put an end to their exchanges of fiery rhetoric and threats of destruction, but they developed personal connections. Trump once famously said he and Kim “fell in love.” But their talks eventually collapsed in 2019, as they wrangled over U.S.-led sanctions on the North.

North Korea has since sharply increased the pace of its weapons testing activities to build more reliable nuclear missiles targeting the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. and South Korea have responded by expanding their military bilateral drills and also trilateral ones involving Japan, drawing strong rebukes from the North, which views such U.S.-led exercises as invasion rehearsals.

Further complicating efforts to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons in return for economic and political benefits is its deepening military cooperation with Russia.

According to U.S., Ukrainian and South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops and conventional weapons systems to support Moscow’s war against Ukraine. There are concerns that Russia could give North Korea advanced weapons technology in return, including help to build more powerful nuclear missiles.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that 3,000 North Korean troops have been killed and wounded in the fighting in Russia’s Kursk region. It was the first significant estimate by Ukraine of North Korean casualties since the North Korean troop deployment to Russia began in October.

Russia and China, locked in separate disputes with the U.S., have repeatedly blocked U.S.-led pushes to levy more U.N. sanctions on North Korea despite its repeated missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Last month, Kim said that his past negotiations with the United States only confirmed Washington’s “unchangeable” hostility toward his country and described his nuclear buildup as the only way to counter external threats.