Brett Kavanaugh Flusters Trump Lawyer in Birthright Citizenship Arguments

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh flustered a Trump administration attorney by pressing him for details on how the plan to end birthright citizenship would work.

During Supreme Court oral arguments Thursday, Kavanaugh sought specifics from Solicitor General John Sauer on just how newborns would be dealt with — should they be denied U.S. citizenship upon birth.

“This is just a very practical question, how this is going to work?” Kavanaugh asked. “What do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with the newborn?”

“I don’t think they do anything different,” Sauer replied. “What the executive order says in Section 2 is that federal officials do not accept documents that have the wrong designation of citizenship from people who are subject to the executive order.”

“How are they going to know that?” Kavanaugh asked — following up.

“The states can continue to… the federal officials will have to figure that out,” Sauer replied.

Kavanaugh wanted more.

“How?” The justice asked.

But Sauer didn’t really have an answer.

“So, you can imagine a number of ways that the federal official could—”

“Such as?” Kavanaugh said — interjecting.

“Such as they could require a showing of, you know, documentation showing legal presence in the country,” Sauer said. “For a temporary visitor, for example, they could see whether they’re on a B-1 visa, which would exclude kind of the birthright citizenship in that context.”

The response from the Trump-appointed Kavanaugh suggested deep skepticism.

“For all the newborns?” Kavanaugh asked. “Is that how it’s going to work?”

“Again, we don’t know because the agencies were never given the opportunity to formulate the guidance,” Sauer said.

The Court, in a rare late-term hearing, is considering the arguments being made in the three cases in which lower courts issued injunctions blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship.

Listen above, via MSNBC.