'Fair Point!' CNN Cheers Claim That Challenging Birthright Citizenship Is ‘Racist’

On Wednesday's CNN This Morning, substitute host Erica Hill teed up a one-sided discussion of the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship case—then openly endorsed a guest’s claim that legal challenges to the 14th Amendment are inherently racist.

Hill introduced Shan Wu as a “defense attorney and former federal prosecutor”—leaving viewers unaware that he served as a prosecutor and adviser to Janet Reno in the Clinton Justice Department.

Wu dismissed arguments advanced by John Eastman as “pretty unsound,” before escalating:

SHAN WU: The very creation of the 14th Amendment was meant to combat racism. And really, implicitly, people who are challenging that clause are really espousing a racist viewpoint. It’s very hard to get around that… just because you have a legal argument doesn’t mean it’s not racist.

Rather than challenge the sweeping accusation, like this argument couldn't apply to children of Caucasian foreigners, Hill endorsed it: "Fair point!"

That moment said it all: a CNN host affirming the claim that a constitutional argument—one currently before the Supreme Court—is not just wrong, but racist.

The segment also leaned heavily on consequences over constitutional analysis. Wu warned that adopting the Trump administration’s position could affect “millions of babies and children” going forward.

For Democrats, that’s not a throwaway line—it’s the point. If birthright citizenship remains automatic for those here illegally, the result is millions of U.S.-born children who become citizens by default. They have no time for arguments like Peter Schweizer is making, that China is using "birth tourism" to have babies become American citizens for their own ends in a long game.

And that’s why this fight matters politically. The left isn’t focused on parsing constitutional text—they’re focused on the outcome. Millions of future citizens—and the political consequences that follow.

Here's the transcript.

CNN This Morning
4/1/26
6:39 am EDT

ERICA HILL: So when we look at what we will likely hear today in court, John Eastman, Trump ally, of course, who tried to devise the plan to help overturn the election in 2020, is the driving force behind this. This is part of what he has said about birthright citizenship. 

JOHN EASTMAN: The 14th Amendment says you got to be born here. That's requirement one. But you got to be subject to the jurisdiction here as well and reside in a state. That means temporary visitors and certainly those who are here illegally are not covered by the automatic citizenship of the citizenship clause. And that was the way we understood it for about a century. And it kind of gradually beginning in the 1950s or 60s, we moved away from that position. 

HILL: How sound is that argument? 

SHAN WU: Pretty unsound. If you were to take his argument, for example, you could extrapolate that children of Confederate soldiers should not be citizens because they were not under the jurisdiction of the U.S.; they're challenging. So it really doesn't make much sense at all what he's saying. The plain meaning of the words are quite obvious. 

The very creation of the 14th Amendment was meant to combat racism. And really, implicitly, people who are challenging that clause are really espousing a racist viewpoint. It's very hard to get around that no matter what sort of legal arguments you want to couch, just because you have a legal argument doesn't mean it's not racist. 

HILL: Fair point! I was also struck by, in a preliminary state hearing, comments from Justice Sotomayor. So she said the administration's theory makes no sense, in her view, in a modern globalized context, noting it would lead to, quote, administrative chaos in every hospital in America. 

How important is the potential burden on, whether it's hospitals or states or whatever it may be, records offices, How much does that come into play? How much do you expect we would hear about that in arguments? 

WU: I think we'll hear a lot about that in arguments. I think you're going to hear even the conservative justices will be very concerned. 

How would you implement this? You're creating a class of perhaps stateless children. Clearly couldn't be retroactive. That would be like completely out of control. 

But going forward, potentially you're affecting millions of babies and children. And I think they'll really zero in on the administration. Nice theory, but how will this actually work?