Senate Republicans unveiled their long-awaited version of President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ but its survival is not guaranteed.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., revealed the stitched-together text of the colossal bill late Firday night.

The final product from the upper chamber is the culmination of a roughly month-long sprint to take the House GOP’s version of the bill and mold and change it. The colossal package includes separate pieces and parts from 10 Senate committees. With the introduction of the bill, a simple procedural hurdle must be passed in order to begin the countdown to final passage.

When that comes remains an open question. Senate Republicans left their daily lunch on Friday under the assumption that a vote could be teed up as early as noon on Saturday.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Fox News Digital that he had ‘strongly encouraged’ Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to put the bill on the floor for a vote Saturday afternoon. 

‘If you’re unhappy with that, you’re welcome to fill out a hurt feelings report, and we will review it carefully later,’ Kennedy said. ‘But in the meantime, it’s time to start voting.’

But Senate Republicans’ desire to impose their will on the package and make changes to already divisive policy tweaks in the House GOP’s offering could doom the bill and derail Thune’s ambitious timeline to get it on Trump’s desk by the July 4 deadline.

However, Thune has remained firm that lawmakers would stay on course and deliver the bill to Trump by Independence Day. 

When asked if he had the vote to move the package forward, Thune said ‘we’ll find out tomorrow.’

But it wasn’t just lawmakers who nearly derailed the bill. The Senate parliamentarian, the true final arbiter of the bill, ruled that numerous GOP-authored provisions did not pass muster with Senate rules.

Any item in the ‘big, beautiful bill’ must comport with the Byrd Rule, which governs the budget reconciliation process and allows for a party in power to ram legislation through the Senate while skirting the 60-vote filibuster threshold. 

That sent lawmakers back to the drawing board on a slew of policy tweaks, including the Senate’s changes to the Medicaid provider tax rate, cost-sharing for food benefits and others. 

Republican leaders, the White House and disparate factions within the Senate and House GOP have been meeting to find middle ground on other pain points, like tweaking the caps on state and local tax (SALT) deductions.

While the controversial Medicaid provider tax rate change remained largely the same, a $25 billion rural hospital stabilization fund was included in the bill to help attract possible holdouts that have raised concerns that the rate change would shutter rural hospitals throughout the country. 

On the SALT front, there appeared to be a breakthrough on Friday. A source told Fox News that the White House and House were on board with a new plan that would keep the $40,000 cap from the House’s bill and have it reduced back down to $10,000 after five years. 

But Senate Republicans are the ones that must accept it at this stage. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., has acted as the mediator in those negotiations, and said that he was unsure if any of his colleagues ‘love it.’ 

‘But I think, as I’ve said before, I want to make sure we have enough that people can vote for than to vote against,’ he said. 

Still, a laundry list of other pocket issues and concerns over just how deep spending cuts in the bill go have conservatives and moderates in the House GOP and Senate pounding their chests and vowing to vote against the bill.

Republican leaders remain adamant that they will finish the mammoth package and are gambling that some lawmakers standing against the bill will buckle under the pressure from the White House and the desire to leave Washington for a short break.

Once a motion to proceed is passed, which only requires a simple majority, then begins 20 hours of debate evenly divided between both sides of the aisle.

Democratic lawmakers are expected to spend the entirety of their 10 allotted hours, while Republicans will likely clock in well below their limit. From there starts the ‘vote-a-rama’ process, when lawmakers can submit a near-endless number of amendments to the bill. Democrats will likely try to extract as much pain as possible with messaging amendments that won’t actually pass but will add more and more time to the process.

Once that is complete, lawmakers will move to a final vote. If successful, the ‘big, beautiful bill’ will again make its way back to the House, where House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will again have to corral dissidents to support the legislation. It barely advanced last month, squeaking by on a one-vote margin. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hammered on the importance of passing Trump’s bill on time. He met with Senate Republicans during their closed-door lunch and spread the message that advancing the colossal tax package would go a long way to giving businesses more certainty in the wake of the president’s tariffs. 

‘We need certainty,’ he said. ‘With so much uncertainty, and having the bill on the president’s desk by July 4 will give us great tax certainty, and I believe, accelerate the economy in the third quarter of the year.’ 

A Senate Democrat’s push to put a check on President Donald Trump’s powers and reaffirm the Senate’s war authority was shut down by lawmakers in the upper chamber Thursday.

Sen. Tim Kaine’s war powers resolution, which would have required Congress to debate and vote on whether the president could declare war, or strike Iran, was struck down in the Senate on a largely party-line vote, save for Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., a staunch advocate of Israel who supported Trump’s strike on the Islamic Republic, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has been vocal in his thoughts about congressional war powers in recent days.

Earlier in the week, the Virginia Democrat vowed to move ahead with the resolution despite a fragile ceasefire brokered between Israel and Iran following weekend strikes on the Islamic Republic’s key nuclear facilities that were not given the green-light by Congress.

Kaine argued that the ceasefire gave his resolution more credence and breathing room to properly debate the role that Congress plays when it comes to authorizing both war and attacks abroad.

He said ahead of the vote on the Senate floor that he came to Washington to ensure that the country does not again get into another ‘unnecessary’ war, and invoked the rush to approve war powers for President George W. Bush over two decades ago to engage with Iraq.

‘I think the events of this week have demonstrated that war is too big to consign to the decisions of any one person,’ Kaine said. 

Indeed, his resolution became a focal point for a debate that has raged on Capitol Hill since Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran: whether the strikes like those carried out during Operation Midnight Hammer constituted an act of war that required congressional approval, or if Trump’s decision was under his constitutional authority as commander in chief.  

Senate Republicans have widely argued that Trump was well within his purview, while most Senate Democrats raised constitutional concerns about the president’s ability to carry out a strike without lawmakers weighing in. 

Experts have argued, too, that Trump was within his executive authority to strike Iran. 

The Constitution divides war powers between Congress and the White House, giving lawmakers the sole power to declare war, while the president acts as the commander in chief directing the military. 

And nearly two centuries later, at the height of the Vietnam War, the War Powers Resolution of 1973 was born, which sought to further define those roles.

But the most impact lawmakers could have is through the power of the purse, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, who plays a large role in controlling the purse strings as the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, had a sharp message against Kaine’s resolution. 

McConnell used instances where Democratic presidents over the last three decades have used their authority for limited engagements in Kosovo, Libya, Syria and Yemen, and questioned why ‘isolationists’ would consider the strike on Iran to kneecap its nuclear program a mistake. 

‘I have not heard the frequent flyers on War Powers resolutions reckon seriously with these questions,’ he said. ‘Until they do, efforts like this will remain divorced from both strategic and constitutional reality.’

House Republicans are growing increasingly wary of the self-imposed July 4 deadline to get President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ to the White House, as the president warns that the bill ‘must’ be ready for his signature by then.

‘I think it’s more important to get the bill correct than it is to get it fast,’ Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a former House Freedom Caucus chairman, told Fox News Digital. ‘I’m interested in a great deliverable product, and spending the time and the resources necessary to get that, whatever they may be.’

It’s a thought shared by members outside of the conservative rebel group as well – Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., who represents part of New York City, said Fourth of July is a ‘realistic’ goal, but not one she was married to.

‘I’m not set on getting this done by July 4th. I know that’s a goal, it’s a nice soundbite, doing this on Independence Day and celebrating America,’ Malliotakis said. ‘But at the end of the day, we’ve got to do it right. And I’d rather take a few more days, a few more weeks, to make sure we can deliver a good product for the American people.’

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters on Friday that it was ‘possible’ the deadline could slip, ‘but I don’t want to even accept that as an option right now. We want to try to push this.’

The vast tax and immigration bill is currently in the Senate, where lawmakers are still working through several key issues on Medicaid and state and local tax (SALT) deductions among other details.

An earlier version passed the House by just one vote in late May.

Now, several House Republicans are balking at proposed changes in the Senate – though there’s still no final product – and warning that the bill could lose their support when it returns to the House.

Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., who leads the Doctors Caucus, told Fox News Digital he had issues with the Senate version’s comparably harsher cuts to federal Medicaid funding.

‘There is uniform agreement amongst many, many members in the House – if there’s a change in the [federal Medicaid assistance percentage], we’re not voting for it. It would remove the Medicaid expansion of North Carolina. I won’t stand for that,’ he said.

Asked about the feasibility of a July 4 deadline, Murphy said, ‘I’ve been a surgeon all my life … if I plan things, I’m used to having them given up in case a patient needs me for emergencies and things like that.’

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., a moderate, said ‘there might be some prudence’ in letting go of the July 4 deadline.

Conservative Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, was more optimistic. ‘I think it’s more worth it to get the bill right, but that’s not to say we won’t get it done by then,’ he said.

Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., suggested the timeline will rely heavily on Trump.

The Senate is expected to work through the weekend to pass the bill.

Johnson told House Republicans, meanwhile, to be flexible next week when they’re expected to be home in their districts. Sources have told Fox News Digital that House GOP leaders have offered varying estimations of when lawmakers will have to be back in Washington, from Tuesday through Thursday.

And the House is up against at least one real-world deadline: The U.S. is expected to run out of cash to pay its debts by the summer, according to multiple projections. Republicans have made raising the debt limit a priority in the bill.

Trump, for his part, wrote on Truth Social Friday, ‘The House of Representatives must be ready to send it to my desk before July 4th – We can get it done.’

He said during a press conference earlier in the day, ‘We can go longer, but we’d like to get it done by that time, if possible.’

President Trump has secured commitments for a record-shattering $1.4 billion since Election Day 2024, Fox News Digital has learned, with advisors saying he will be ‘an even more dominant force’ for Republicans in the 2026 midterms. 

The president’s political operation, including the cash-on-hand at the Republican National Committee, has raised a historic $900 million since November, and commitments that will bring the total to more than $1.4 billion.

Fox News Digital has learned that the funds will be used to help Republicans to keep the House and Senate majorities.

Republicans currently control the House with a 220-215 majority, and control the Senate with a 53-47. 

Sources say the funds will also be used for whatever the president deems ‘necessary and appropriate.’

‘After securing a historic victory in his re-election campaign in 2024, President Trump has continued to break records, including fundraising numbers that have positioned him to be an even more dominant force going into the midterms and beyond,’ President Trump’s senior advisor and National Finance Director Meredith O’Rourke told Fox News Digital. 

The president headlined a major donor event in Washington D.C. in April for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which is the House GOP’s campaign arm. That fundraiser hauled in at least $10 million for the NRCC, a source familiar with the event told Fox News.

In March, Vice President JD Vance was tapped to serve as the RNC Finance Chair—the first time in the history of the GOP that a sitting vice president served in the role.

Vance pledged to work to ‘fully enact the MAGA mandate’ and grow the Republican majority in Congress in 2026.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Top House Republicans are warning the Senate to proceed carefully with any possible changes to President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

‘We in the House don’t want to see this changed too much. Of course, they’re going to put their mark on it, and they’re going to shape it and hopefully make it better, But, yeah, it just can’t change materially too much for us to have to thread that needle again,’ said Republican Study Committee (RSC) Chairman August Pfluger, R-Texas.

He hosted House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, on an episode of the RSC’s podcast, ‘Right To The Point,’ an early copy of which was obtained by Fox News Digital.

Arrington told Pfluger, ‘The reality is, we struck a very difficult and very, very delicate balance in the House that could be disrupted on any number of policy fronts, if the Senate were to go too far.’

The RSC is a 189-strong member group in the House GOP that acts as the conference’s de facto conservative think tank.

Arrington’s committee, meanwhile, plays a central role in the budget reconciliation process – which is what Republicans are using to pass Trump’s agenda on tax, immigration, energy, defense, and the national debt in one massive bill.

It’s notable that they used the RSC’s weekly podcast to send a pointed message to their colleagues in the Senate, which comes as lawmakers there wrestle with key issues in the House’s version of the bill.

Senate Republicans still have to deal with unresolved questions on Medicaid and state and local tax (SALT) deductions, among other items. 

Senate GOP leaders have said their changes to the bill are critical in order for it to survive their razor-thin majority of three seats – the same margin as the House holds.

The House passed its version of the bill by just one vote in late May. Now, different House GOP factions are warning that they will not accept the Senate’s proposed changes on a number of key issues.

‘If you and I had the pen, and it was just between two West Texans, I know there are deeper, deeper fiscal reforms that would bend the curve even more dramatically on our spending and debt to GDP. But we have other members that we have to negotiate with,’ Arrington said.

‘So yes, make it as good as you can make in terms of improvements, but there is a point at which you will, instead of bend, you will break the delicate balance, and you will imperil the most important and most consequential bill – with the greatest set of conservative reforms in my lifetime, if not 100 years.’

When reached for comment on Arrington’s remark, Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office pointed Fox News Digital to the South Dakota Republican’s appearance on the Hugh Hewitt show Wednesday.

‘I met with [House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.] yesterday, and we’ve talked several times today already, just checking in on various aspects of the Senate bill and, you know, what the prospects are when it gets to the House,’ Thune said. ‘So there’s been a lot of coordination from the very beginning about this and that, you know, continues to this day, which is why we continue to stay in close contact.’

Johnson, Thune and the White House have been in near-constant communication, hammering out details big and small in the bill.

Pfluger said he was still ‘hopeful,’ however, about Republicans’ self-imposed July 4 deadline.

‘The Senate is wrestling with this bill right now…to make the changes that make it better, but to send it back to us in a fiscally disciplined way, where we know we still garner the savings where we do the right things to put money back into American families pockets,’ Pfluger said.

Johnson told reporters on Friday that it was ‘possible’ that the deadline could slip, but said he ‘doesn’t want to accept that as an option right now.’

Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller contributed to this report

A Florida man was indicted Friday for allegedly threatening to kill Alina Habba in a series of online ’86’ posts against the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Fox News Digital has learned.

The ’86” has been interpreted by law enforcement officials to mean ‘get rid of.’ 

Gregory W. Kehoe, the interim U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, announced the charges Friday. 

According to the indictment reviewed by Fox News Digital, Salvatore Russotto made a threat in May to ‘injure and kill the victim in a series of online posts.’

Fox News Digital has learned that the victim referred to in the indictment is Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey who previously served as counselor to President Donald Trump. 

‘[VICTIM] is a c—,’ Russotto posted. ’86 that b—-.’

He also allegedly posted: ‘A slow painful death for [VICTIM]. 86 that c—.’

Russotto also allegedly posted: ‘Eliminate [VICTIM]. 86 Traitor. Death penalty for all traitors.’

Russotto was charged with transmission of an interstate threat to injure and retaliating against a federal law enforcement officer by threat.

‘This is yet another disturbing example of a dangerous copycat inspired by the reckless behavior of former officials, targeting those who serve our country and threatening the very people working to keep America safe,’ FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News Digital. ‘Our FBI will not tolerate political violence in any form.

‘I’m grateful to our law enforcement partners in Florida for their swift action and steadfast commitment to justice.’ 

The indictment comes after Patel said he has been forced to divert agents to investigate ‘copycats’ of potential threats to Trump as a result of former FBI Director James Comey’s ’86 47′ social media post last month.

‘Do you know how many agents I’ve had to take offline from chasing down child sex predators, fentanyl traffickers, terrorists, because, everywhere across this country, people are popping up on social media and think that a threat to the life of the president of the United States is a joke and they can do it because he did it?’ Patel said last month. 

‘That’s what I’m having to deal with every single day, and that’s what I’m having to pull my agents and analysts off because he thought it was funny to go out there and make a political statement.’ 

An FBI official told Fox News Digital the agency cannot disclose the number of ‘copycat’ incidents due to ongoing investigations but described the number to Fox News Digital as ‘significant.’ 

Comey met with Secret Service officials in Washington this month for an interview about his ’86 47′ Instagram post, two sources briefed on the meeting told Fox News.

Comey is under investigation for the now-deleted Instagram post that showed seashells arranged on a beach to say ’86 47.’

‘Cool shell formation on my beach walk,’ he wrote along with the post. 

Comey offered an explanation for the post after he received backlash on social media. 

‘I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,’ the subsequent post from Comey said. ‘I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.’

The president, in a May interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, didn’t accept Comey’s explanation. 

‘He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant,’ Trump told Baier. ‘If you’re the FBI director, and you don’t know what that meant, that meant ‘assassination,’ and it says it loud and clear.’ 

President Donald Trump said he’s open to conducting additional strikes against Iran, should Tehran pick up its nuclear program again to a level that is concerning to the U.S. 

‘Sure. Without question, absolutely,’ Trump told reporters Friday when asked about the possibility of subsequent strikes. 

Trump has previously issued similar warnings to Iran, and said Wednesday at the NATO Summit in the Netherlands that if Tehran were to seek to repair its nuclear program once more the U.S. wouldn’t hesitate to move forward with additional strikes.

Trump also slammed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who declared victory over Israel on Thursday. Trump countered Khamenei’s claims and said that he had spared Khamenei from death. 

‘I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life,’ Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday. ‘I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!’’ 

‘I wish the leadership of Iran would realize that you often get more with HONEY than you do with VINEGAR. PEACE!!!’ Trump said. 

The U.S. launched strikes late Saturday targeting key Iranian nuclear facilities, which involved more than 125 U.S. aircraft, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine told reporters Sunday.

Following the strikes, Trump said in an address to the nation that the mission left the nuclear sites ‘completely and totally obliterated.’ But days later, a leaked report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, published by CNN and the New York Times, cast doubt on those claims, saying that the strikes had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by several months.

Meanwhile, the U.S., Israel and Iran’s Foreign Ministry have all said that the three nuclear sites that U.S. forces struck have encountered massive damage.

According to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the FBI is conducting an investigation to get to the bottom of the matter and who shared the document with the media.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett had pointed words for her colleague Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, accusing Jackson of taking an ‘extreme’ position on the role of the judiciary branch.

Writing in her Supreme Court opinion on nationwide injunctions on Friday, Barrett said Jackson’s dissent contained ‘rhetoric,’ and she signaled that the liberal justice’s arguments were not worth much attention.

‘We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,’ Barrett wrote. ‘We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.’

The Supreme Court’s decision came as part of an emergency request from the Trump administration asking the high court to put an end to judges issuing universal injunctions, including those that judges have placed on President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship order.

Barrett, who was appointed by Trump, wrote that when judges issue injunctions to block policies, like those the Trump administration is trying to implement, they cannot apply the injunction to more than the parties involved in the case. Barrett said that type of order, often called a ‘nationwide injunction,’ is judicial overreach.

But Barrett’s opinion left open numerous other ways that plaintiffs can seek broad forms of relief from the courts, including by bringing class action lawsuits or statewide lawsuits.

Jackson wrote that nationwide injunctions should be permissible because the courts should not allow the president to ‘violate the Constitution.’ Barrett said that was not based on any existing legal doctrine.

‘She offers a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush,’ Barrett wrote.

Sotomayor, meanwhile, wrote in her own dissenting opinion that the Supreme Court was being ‘complicit’ by allowing the Trump administration to extract a perceived win out of the high court over birthright citizenship.

Sotomayor said that every court that has reviewed Trump’s birthright citizenship plan thus far has blocked Trump from carrying it out. Trump played a ‘different game,’ Sotomayor said, by bringing the case before the Supreme Court without actually asking the justices to analyze the merits of his plan. Trump instead asked the justices to weigh in on the legality of nationwide injunctions in general.

Trump’s birthright citizenship order would eliminate the 150-year-old right under the 14th Amendment that allows babies born in the United States to receive automatic citizenship regardless of their parents’ citizenship status.

The Supreme Court’s decision still allows for the high possibility that judges will continue to widely block Trump’s birthright citizenship order, but with different legal maneuvering on the part of the plaintiffs and the courts.

A provision inside President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ that would have lessened regulations on certain firearms was one of many stripped policies that did not pass muster with Senate rules.

The Senate parliamentarian ruled late Thursday night that policy changes that would delist short-barrel rifles, shotguns and suppressors from the National Firearms Act (NFA) would have to be scrubbed from the Senate Finance Committee’s portion of the mammoth bill.

The provision would have allowed for those particular guns and accessories to no longer be subject to a $200 federal tax. They would also no longer have needed to be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Changes to the NFA were part of the Stop Harassing Owners of Rifles Today (SHORT) Act, a bill pushed by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., in the upper chamber, and Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., in the House.

‘This is a setback, but we are committed to working with the parliamentarian to protect the Second Amendment in any way we can through reconciliation,’ Marshall told Fox News Digital in a statement. ‘‘Shall not be infringed’ is crystal clear and the rights of gun owners must be respected.’

Indeed, lawmakers do have the opportunity to rewrite the provision to comport with the Byrd Rule, which governs the budget reconciliation process and allows either party in power to skirt the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate.

Clyde told Fox News Digital in a statement that he disagreed with the ruling, ‘as the taxation and registration of firearms under the draconian NFA are inextricably linked.’ 

‘I’m working with my Senate Republican colleagues to rewrite the language so we can retain our 2A wins and deliver the best possible outcome for the American people,’ he said. ‘We must seize this rare opportunity to restore our Second Amendment rights.’

Arguments before the parliamentarian, who many Republicans lashed out at on Thursday following rulings that stripped key, yet divisive, Medicaid tweaks from the ‘big, beautiful bill,’ are expected to continue throughout Friday and likely until the last few minutes before the final bill is revealed.

The gun provision was one of many tax-related items stripped from the package. Others included subsidies for private schools and carve-outs for religious colleges from the endowments tax, among others.

There are other provisions still under consideration, including ‘Trump Accounts,’ which would have set aside $1,000 in taxpayer money for newborns, requiring Social Securities numbers for a slew of tax credits, and making tax benefits for those who invest in opportunity zones permanent. 

President Donald Trump celebrated after the Supreme Court moved to block lower courts from issuing universal injunctions, something that had impacted his executive orders.

The president held a news conference just over an hour after the ruling was issued and said the Supreme Court had stopped a ‘colossal abuse of power.’ 

‘I was elected on a historic mandate, but in recent months, we’ve seen a handful of radical left judges effectively try to overrule the rightful powers of the president to stop the American people from getting the policies that they voted for in record numbers,’ Trump said on Friday.

Trump also accused lower court judges of trying to ‘dictate the law for the entire nation’ rather than ruling on the cases before them.

On Friday, Supreme Court Justices ruled 6-3 to allow the lower courts to issue injunctions only in limited instances, though the ruling leaves open the question of how the ruling will apply to the birthright citizenship order at the heart of the case.

The Supreme Court agreed this year to take up a trio of consolidated cases involving so-called universal injunctions handed down by federal district judges in Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington state. Judges in those districts had blocked Trump’s ban on birthright citizenship from taking force nationwide – which the Trump administration argued in their appeal to the Supreme Court was overly broad.

The Supreme Court’s arguments in May focused little on the merits of those universal injunctions – and on Friday, the court made clear that it is not ruling on whether the birthright citizenship orders are constitutional.

‘The applications do not raise – and thus we do not address – the question whether the Executive Order violates the Citizenship Clause or Nationality Act,’ Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, writing for the majority. ‘The issue before us is one of remedy: whether, under the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal courts have equitable authority to issue universal injunctions.’

‘A universal injunction can be justified only as an exercise of equitable authority, yet Congress has granted federal courts no such power,’ she added.

Coney Barrett took a swipe at Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, saying that her argument was ‘ at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: [Jackson] decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.’

In her dissent, Jackson warned that the ruling allowed the president to ‘violate the Constitution’ and presented ‘an existentia threat to the rule of law.’