President Donald Trump told Breitbart News in an exclusive Oval Office interview that the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Trump v. Slaughter, granting the president sweeping power to fire heads of independent federal agencies, "more than made up" for the same day's 5-4 loss on birthright citizenship. The back-to-back decisions handed Trump a mixed result, but the president made clear he views the agency-removal victory as the more consequential outcome by a wide margin.
The interview, conducted Tuesday evening and first reported by Breitbart News, also revealed Trump's plans to pursue a congressional path to end birthright citizenship, his call to eliminate the Senate filibuster, and a blistering demand that Senate Majority Leader John Thune fire the Senate parliamentarian.
The Slaughter case arose after Trump fired FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause. Slaughter sued, arguing the firing violated the FTC Act, which states that employees of independent agencies may be removed only for "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office." The Supreme Court sided with Trump 6-3, overturning a precedent that had stood since 1935.
That precedent, Humphrey's Executor v. United States, had shielded independent agency officials from presidential removal for more than nine decades. The New York Post reported that Chief Justice John Roberts authored the majority opinion, finding that Article II of the Constitution vests executive power in the presidency and requires that subordinates exercising that power be removable at will.
Roberts wrote in the majority opinion:
"Subordinates who exercise the President's power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people."
The ruling extends well beyond the FTC. AP News reported that the decision applies to multiple agencies including the NLRB, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a sweeping expansion of presidential authority over the administrative state.
Trump framed the victory in historical terms during the interview:
"It was a disappointing decision, but I think it was, from my personal standpoint, more than made up for by the Slaughter decision, because that was one that was going on for almost 100 years where they took power away from FDR and presidents have tried to regain that power for many, many years."
He added that "a lot of people didn't know how that was going to go, and then that one I won at 6 to 3. That was a big one. That was a very big win."
The president's reading of the history is worth noting. He told Breitbart that "Taft had the power, and they took it away during FDR." The Humphrey's Executor decision was handed down in 1935, during the Roosevelt administration, and the Court's new ruling explicitly overturned it, so the broad timeline tracks, even if the details of the Taft-era arrangement are more complicated than a brief interview allows.
The same day brought the 5-4 ruling in Trump v. Barbara, upholding birthright citizenship and dealing Trump a clear defeat on one of his signature executive orders. Trump attended oral arguments in the case in April and made no effort to hide his frustration.
"I'm disappointed about birthright. I think it's ridiculous. We're the only country that does it. It's very expensive, and a lot of bad things can happen."
But rather than dwell on the loss, Trump pivoted to a legislative strategy. He told Breitbart that the Court's reasoning opened a door: "One of the things that came out during this period of time with the Supreme Court is that we can do it through Congress. Some people thought for a while you had to do a Constitutional amendment. That's no longer so."
That interpretation, that Congress can act on birthright citizenship by statute rather than through the arduous amendment process, is significant. Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence in the birthright case has already drawn attention for offering Republicans a potential legislative roadmap on the issue.
Trump said he wants to pass the SAVE America Act first. The legislation would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote, mandate voter ID, and end universal mail-in ballots. Only then, Trump suggested, would the administration push Congress on birthright citizenship.
Getting any of it done, Trump acknowledged, runs straight into the Senate filibuster. And he was blunt about who stands in the way.
"We have four or five Republican senators that make life difficult, and it's a shame. You have Lisa Murkowski; you have probably I could say Senator Tillis; Senator Cassidy, maybe for good reason; you have, I would have to say so far Senator Cornyn has been very good, but you have Susan Collins. You have to do what's right. I don't see her voting for it."
Trump argued that eliminating the filibuster would unlock a generational legislative opportunity: "You could do SAVE America, you could do every single thing you dreamt of, you could do Kate's Law, you could do things that people even haven't thought about."
He went further, warning that Democratic resistance to the filibuster is purely tactical, and temporary. "Remember the Democrats will do it in the first hour," Trump said, predicting that the left would scrap the filibuster the moment it regained power.
Trump has had a mixed record with the Supreme Court this term. He publicly rebuked Justices Gorsuch and Barrett over a tariff ruling earlier in the term, and the Court also blocked his removal of Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook in a separate 5-4 decision. The Fed carve-out in the Slaughter ruling left that question partially unresolved, Cook was allowed to keep her position while her legal challenge continues.
The president did not stop at the filibuster. On Wednesday, Trump posted on Truth Social demanding that Thune fire the Senate parliamentarian, whom he described as a holdover from the Obama era.
"How the Republican Senate is not firing the Parliamentarian, who was appointed by Radical Left Senator Harry Reid, and Barack Hussein Obama, is beyond me! She has been ruling unfairly against Republicans for years, and Majority Leader John Thune has the right to do it, immediately. FIRE THE PARLIAMENTARIAN NOW!"
The post reflects a growing frustration among conservatives with procedural obstacles inside the GOP-controlled Senate. Whether Thune acts on the demand remains to be seen. The majority leader has the authority to replace the parliamentarian, both parties have done so in the past, but such a move would ignite a fierce debate about Senate norms.
None of the senators Trump named, Murkowski, Tillis, Cassidy, Collins, or Cornyn, responded publicly to his characterizations, at least not in any reporting available at the time of the interview.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing in dissent on the Slaughter ruling, warned that the decision concentrates too much authority in the executive branch.
"The president, to be sure, emerges with more power than ever before. That power was given to him by six justices on this court, not the people or the Constitution."
In a separate dissenting statement, Sotomayor wrote: "Today, this Court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of Government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time. Its conclusion is wrong."
Conservatives will read the same facts differently. For nearly a century, unelected bureaucrats at agencies like the FTC, the NLRB, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission operated with a degree of independence that insulated them from the president voters actually chose. The Slaughter ruling restores a basic principle: if you exercise executive power, the elected executive can hold you accountable, including by showing you the door.
Trump celebrated the ruling on Truth Social as well, calling it "Historic and Unprecedented" and writing: "It is such an Honor to be the sitting President who won this Historic and Unprecedented Ruling, one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers."
The open questions are substantial. Will Congress take up birthright citizenship legislation? Will Thune move on the parliamentarian? Will the handful of Republican senators Trump called out fall in line on the filibuster, or dig in? And how will the Federal Reserve carve-out play out in future litigation?
What is not in question is the scope of what the Court did on Tuesday. A 91-year-old wall between the president and the sprawling federal bureaucracy came down. Trump lost on birthright citizenship. But he won something that reshapes the balance of power in Washington for every president who follows him.
The administrative state just lost its favorite shield. Whether the political class in the Senate has the nerve to finish what the Court started is another matter entirely.