CNN’s Audie Cornish: Ending Birthright Citizenship Would ‘Piss Off’ New Parents

On Monday's episode of CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish left no doubt where her sympathies lie in the debate over birthright citizenship: squarely with those opposing any limits on the policy.

After airing a clip of Speaker Mike Johnson explaining that the policy has been abused—with people crossing the border illegally simply to have a baby on U.S. soil—Cornish turned to her panel and injected her own perspective as a mother.

“Does anyone on this panel have kids other than me?” Cornish asked. When Michael Scherer of The Atlantic answered "yes," Cornish continued:

“Okay, do you remember being in the hospital, and do you remember thinking to yourself, I really want to fill out citizenship documents right now? Like, why would you piss off a whole bunch of parents before the election?”

How many new parents are asked to fill out citizenship documents? A "whole bunch"? Of parents who vote?

Cornish’s framing casts any effort to restore the original understanding of the 14th Amendment as an immediate inconvenience to ordinary American families fresh from the delivery room. Never mind the current seamless process, or the policy’s goal of removing an incentive for illegal immigration and birth tourism.

She then teamed up with Scherer [who started his career at the far-left Mother Jones] for a pointed parting shot at Johnson and conservatives. When Scherer called it “hilarious” that conservatives once championed the original text of the Constitution rather than a “living and breathing document,” Cornish eagerly finished the thought.

“We need to interpret it based on the now, which the Democrats would love to be hearing as an interpretation. “We’re just going to change what the Constitution means. I mean, originalist means something to someone.”

Cornish’s commentary perfectly encapsulates the left’s approach to this debate. Johnson’s argument—grounded in the Amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” language, historical context, and modern realities of mass illegal immigration—gets reduced to Republican cruelty toward new parents.

You know who ending birthright citizenship would really piss off? Illegal immigrants doing birth tourism, and above all, Democrats seeing a source of new voters being cut off.

Here's the transcript.

CNN This Morning
6/29/26
6:51 am EDT

AUDIE CORNISH: I'm going to turn to the elections in one second, but I want to ask you, Michael, one more thing. This is Mike Johnson talking about why he thinks birthright citizenship should end. I want you guys to hear it. 

MIKE JOHNSON: Like all good things, they can be abused, and birthright citizenship goes back to the root of the country, the history of the tradition. 

You look at the original intent of the Constitution and the founders and what they were doing, of course, They were facing a very different set of circumstances than we're facing now. 

We know that it's been abused in recent years because people have literally just come over the border just to have a baby. 

I don't think it's inconsistent at all. I think we can celebrate immigration, legal immigration. We are a nation of immigrants, as we all recognize. 

CORNISH: So this is, for them, always couching the immigration conversation. Does anyone on this panel have kids other than me? Yes. Okay, do you remember being in the hospital, and do you remember thinking to yourself, I really want to fill out citizenship documents right now? 

Like, why would you piss off a whole bunch of parents before the election? 

MICHAEL SCHERER: The hilarious part about that clip is I'm old enough to remember when conservatives were about the original text of the Constitution. It wasn't a living and breathing document. 

His argument there is basically because we have different people and new ways of travel and people are coming into the U.S. --

CORNISH: -- We need to interpret it based on the now, which the Democrats would love to be hearing as an interpretation. We're just going to change what the Constitution means. I mean, originalist means something to someone. Okay.