On the morning of 30 June, as court-watchers obsessively eyed the internet, the United States Supreme Court sat for the last time to hand down decisions in cases argued during its 2025-26 term.

The justices saved their most spectacular ruling for last: a rejection of President Donald Trump’s attempt to deny US citizenship to children born in the United States to illegal immigrants and visitors.
That ruling on “birthright citizenship” was not the court’s only rebuff for the president. In February, a majority comprising both Republican- and Democratic-appointed justices struck down the “emergency” tariffs that had been the centrepiece of Trump’s economic policy. The day before the citizenship ruling, diverse majorities made it harder for Trump to fire a governor of the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, and upheld the practice of counting some postal ballots received after Election Day, a practice Trump has equated with fraud.

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