Trump will likely lose a major Supreme Court case. You helped beat him.

DEFIANCE.org backed the lawsuit against Trump's illegal order to deny citizenship to people born here. Now the high court looks ready to strike it down.

Any day now, the Supreme Court is expected to hand Donald Trump one of the most humiliating defeats of his second term. Get ready to tell friends and family that you helped make it happen.

The justices are poised to rule on his attempt to end birthright citizenship (his executive order declaring that babies born on American soil to undocumented parents are no longer Americans) and as The Washington Post writes this morning, he’s expected to lose. When the case was argued this spring, the court gave Trump’s lawyers an icy reception. Legal scholars across the spectrum now expect the order to be struck down, in a defiant defense of the U.S. Constitution.

The Fourteenth Amendment says what it says, and it has said it for more than a century and a half. The president can’t rewrite it. Even though Trump appointed many members of the current Supreme Court, they’re appearing less eager to become bit characters in his dictator cosplay.

Trump’s MAGA allies have already clocked the Court’s drift. And they’re now engaged in the type of open warfare against the justices that we haven’t seen between a president’s team and the court since Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack it in the 1930s. For instance, Trump operative Mike Davis, the man who helped engineer Justice Neil Gorsuch’s rise, is now publicly trashing the justices, warning that a birthright ruling against Trump will “destroy” the court’s legitimacy. Trump himself has called his own nominees “weak,” “stupid,” and “bad.”

Hear that? These are the sounds of a wannabe strongman, who’s angry that the law won’t warp to his whiny wishes. I expect those sounds to get uglier this week. And whether you remember it or not, you stoked his ire.

Court rulings don’t fall from the sky. The case in question, Trump v. Barbara, was brought by a patriotic coalition of lawyers who’ve spent the past eighteen months doing battle with the most vindictive administration in America’s history. Chief among them is the Democracy Defenders Fund, whose litigators helped build the nationwide class action that has already shielded the citizenship of roughly 250,000 babies from Trump’s order.

And DEFIANCE.org has proudly helped fund their fight. Back in December, on one of our Weekly Mission Briefings, our members voted to go on legal offense, joining DDF’s founder, Norman Eisen, and putting our collective muscle behind DDF as it pressed the fight against Trump’s worst abuses of power, including the suit against Trump’s illegal birthright citizenship ban. (You can watch that briefing here.) That’s the whole idea behind this club. You read about the threats to the rule of law. You get fired up. And you — we — actually do something real about them.

Our defiance is making Trump and his allies angry. On Friday, I wrote a personal story about one of those allies (a man I’m calling “Peter,” for now) who attempted to buy my silence with a six-figure sum and threatened consequences if I declined. Perhaps you won’t be surprised: I declined. These are the types of folks who’ve done Trump’s dirty work for him on the outside by attempting to bribe, threaten, cajole, and/or punish his dissenters. They want to curry the bully’s favor out of a combination of fear and greed. Like the foot soldiers of every fascist movement before them, they would rather carry the bucket than be the one it's emptied over. Better, they’ve decided, to sling the filth than to wear it.

I bring up the story of “Peter” because Trump was counting on folks like that to scare away critics and plaintiffs in a second term. Yet they are failing. The Trumpian foot soldiers are encountering defiance everywhere these days, from the city streets to the courtrooms to the world stage. People are sick of being bullied. Like you. And they’ve banded together in protests and lawsuits to shout, “ENOUGH ALREADY.”

And you all who are reading this have been loud. Very loud, indeed.

This won’t be a clean sweep. The same Supreme Court that looks ready to defend birthright citizenship may yet hand Trump a win or two, perhaps the power to fire the heads of independent agencies, or another quiet victory on its emergency docket. He will crow about whatever he gets. Go ahead and let him.

The larger story here ain’t the cases Trump might squeak out. It’s that Americans decided, together, not to let him steamroll us. We defied Trump and all the Little Trumps — like Peter — the men who did the dirty work and bet their whole future on us staying quiet. Too bad. We organized. We funded the lawyers. We fought. We sued. And very soon, we’re going to get to say what we have said again and again over these long months: We won.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor
P.S. Help spread the defiance by sharing this post.

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THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST

We are tracking these stories today.

1. TRUMP WISHED A MYSTERY WOMAN A HAPPY FATHER’S DAY. On the eve of Father’s Day, Trump posted a photo of a blonde woman on Truth Social captioned “Great daughter. My Honor!!!,” a woman who is plainly neither Ivanka nor Tiffany. Online sleuths identified her as Margo Catsimatidis, wife of billionaire Trump donor John Catsimatidis, in what appears to be a decades-old photo taken at Camp David. Trump never clarified. The president posted a stranger’s picture, called her his daughter, and moved on. This may not be headline news. But we want you to remember it. These last few weeks Trump has truly looked, sounded, and seemed more unwell than ever. Wouldn’t you have checked up on your father if he posted pictures of a stranger on Father’s Day? Just saying.

2. THE WHITE HOUSE THREATENED IRAN WHILE VANCE WAS IN THE ROOM NEGOTIATING WITH IT. As Vice President JD Vance sat across from Iranian officials in Switzerland on Sunday to build out last week’s ceasefire, Trump went on Truth Social to threaten to “hit Iran very hard again... only harder.” A day earlier, Iran had claimed it shut the Strait of Hormuz over Israel’s strikes in Lebanon, a closure U.S. Central Command disputed, saying traffic kept flowing. Tehran’s negotiators called the message “insulting” and briefly recessed; the round still ended with a 60-day roadmap. Vance called it “great progress” and allowed that “these things are always a little bit messy.” One hand negotiates peace, while the other threatens war. They want you to think it’s 3D chess, but in reality, it’s the kind of stupidity that got us into one of the most humiliating conflicts in American history.

3. THE TRUMP ADMIN ARRESTED AN OLYMPIAN FOR TOUCHING A BROKEN POOL. Three-time Olympic canoeist David Hearn stopped at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool during a 52-mile bike ride Friday, noticed a piece of the new liner already peeling off the bottom, reached in to feel it — and was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of destroying government property. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything,” Hearn said. Trump has blamed “vandals” for sabotaging his $14 million pool renovation, even as the new blue coating peels and floats in the water on its own. The pool was already broken. Only in this administration does noticing that get you handcuffs.

4. ACT OF DEFIANCE — MELONI TO TRUMP: MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (once among Trump’s closest allies) unloaded on him after he claimed she’d “begged” him for a photo at the G7 in Évian to boost her poll numbers. Her reply, in English, on Instagram was something to behold. “These constant, unprovoked attacks are senseless. As for my popularity, being your friend certainly has not helped it.” Then the knife: “In any case, my popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.” Afterwards, Italy’s foreign minister scrapped a U.S. trip in protest, and politicians across Italy’s spectrum closed ranks behind her. When even your ideological allies decide they’ve had enough, that’s defiance — from across the Atlantic. We applaud it.

WHAT’S COMING UP

• TONIGHT — DEFIANCE DAILY — Every weeknight @ 5pm ET, you can watch our hour-long podcast LIVE on our DEFIANCE.News page, YouTube, or X — and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Most recent episode below.

• WEDNESDAY — WEEKLY MISSION BRIEFING — This week, we’ll be announcing something we’ve NEVER done before. And it’s something you’ll have a chance to put your name on, literally. By the way, Wednesday’s are the “beating heart of DEFIANCE.org.” Every Wednesday @ 5pm ET we do a special episode of DEFIANCE Daily and announce real actions to combat Trump’s corruption. So tune in. Replays available afterwards.

• FRIDAY — WEEKLY COFFEE — Come one, come all! But only DEFIANCE.org Members can ask questions. This is where Xander and Miles let their short hair down. No question is off limits. We go LIVE on www.DEFIANCE.News and post the video afterwards.

• ADD US TO YOUR CALENDAR — You can access the DEFIANCE.org Google Calendar here. That way, you’ll never miss a meeting, event, or broadcast.

ONE MORE THING

Forward this email to someone who should join the defiance. We are growing the club. I won’t let a wannabe dictator destroy the country I spent my career protecting. That’s why I launched DEFIANCE.org — a club for courageous Americans asking, “WHAT CAN I DO?” Each week, we defy Trump by taking real action to thwart his abuses of power. Become a Member today at DEFIANCE.org/join or here on Substack. 100% of proceeds go to the pro-democracy fight. Or sign up for occasional updates for free below. We publish breaking news and analysis at DEFIANCE.News.