Whispers in the Supreme Court as Trump takes a front-row seat for oral arguments

WASHINGTON (AP) — People spoke in whispers and craned their necks Wednesday to watch as President Donald Trump broke with all sitting presidents before him and took a seat in the front row of the chamber's public seating area to hear a Supreme Court argument. He sat there silently with his hands in his lap.

A man accustomed to the camera and the center of attention instead was a mute spectator, and the justices gave no acknowledgment of his presence. Still, it was a previously unheard-of flex of presidential power and prerogative.

He brought with him Attorney General Pam Bondi and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to hear his administration's defense of his executive order to overturn the constitutional and statutory protection of birthright citizenship.

For the next hour and a half, Trump listened as the justices — liberal and conservative — peppered the administration's lawyer with questions. Several of them, including three whom he nominated to the court, cast doubt on his planned restrictions on birthright citizenship.

During the opposing party's arguments, Trump got up and left. And an hour after that, the president posted on social media: “We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow ‘Birthright' Citizenship!”

About three dozen countries guarantee citizenship to children born on their territory. However, the president's post added to the more direct criticism Trump has hurled at the court in general and several justices in particular.

Trump recently said he was ashamed of the six justices who joined the 6-3 majority that ruled that much of Trump’s tariff agenda is illegal, and he questioned their patriotism. He seethed especially over the votes of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, two of his appointees, calling them “an embarrassment to their families.”

Chief Justice John Roberts did not mention Trump by name last month when he said that personal criticism of federal judges is dangerous and “it’s got to stop.”

If, as some legal experts said, Trump was trying to intimidate the justices, the tactic is unlikely to work.

Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at UCLA, said that justices “pride themselves in their independence, even if some agree with much of Trump’s agenda.”

Richard Re, a Harvard Law constitutional law professor, said Trump’s appearance at the oral argument “is somewhat like a reversal of the justices’ frequent appearances at the State of the Union address.”

“I don’t think the justices will be intimidated, no matter what the president does,” Re said.

His attendance added a heightened sense of theater to the otherwise staid setting. The actor Robert DeNiro, a strident Trump critic, was also in the courtroom, seated in the justices' guest box reserved for friends and family.

The two did not speak.

President Donald Trump's motorcade arrives at the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

This courtroom sketch depicts Cecillia Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union legal director, standing center, making arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026 in Washington, as President Donald Trump, right, departs shortly after Wang began her presentation in defense of broad birthright citizenship. (Dana Verkouteren via AP)

This courtroom sketch depicts the Republican administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General D. John Sauer, standing center, make arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. President Donald Trump is seated right. (Dana Verkouteren via AP)

This courtroom sketch depicts Cecillia Wang, the American Civil Liberties Union legal director, standing center, making arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington, as President Donald Trump departs shortly after Wang began her presentation in defense of broad birthright citizenship. (Dana Verkouteren via AP)

This courtroom sketch depicts President Donald Trump seated in the U.S. Supreme Court gallery, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (Dana Verkouteren via AP)

Pro and anti-Trump demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court, before justices hear oral arguments on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court as justices hear oral arguments on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

President Donald Trump leaves the U.S. Supreme Court, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Anthony Peltier)

NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione 's state and federal trials in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson were both postponed on Wednesday, with the state case delayed until September and the federal case pushed back to October.

Judge Gregory Carro rescheduled the state trial from June 8 to Sept. 8, acting hours after the judge in the federal case, Margaret Garnett, moved jury selection in that matter from Sept. 8 to Oct. 5. Opening statements and testimony in the federal case will begin on Oct. 26, Garnett said. Carro did not elaborate on his decision.

At a hearing Wednesday morning, Garnett said her decision was based on Mangione’s state murder trial happening in June, though she acknowledged the schedule could change again if the state trial were to be delayed.

“Whether we like it or not, we’re at the mercy of the state case," Garnett said.

Garnett rejected a request by Mangione's lawyers to postpone the federal case until January or February 2027, but such a delay could be in the offing with the federal case now set to go to trial just 27 days after the state trial commences. The state trial is expected to take four to six weeks.

In seeking to delay the trials, Mangione’s lawyers argued back-to-back prosecutions on a tight timeline would violate his constitutional rights. The state trial delay compresses the calendar further.

Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty. He faces the possibility of life in prison if he’s convicted in either case, which are set to occur two blocks apart in lower Manhattan.

Along with the new date for the federal trial, Garnett compressed preparations for jury selection to give Mangione and his legal team more time to review questionnaires filled out by hundreds of potential jurors. The original schedule, which was set when the death penalty was still on the table, would've overlapped with a state trial held in June.

Federal prosecutors opposed a trial delay, arguing that witnesses are harder to locate and memories fade with the passage of time. At least one witness will be traveling from abroad, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dominic Gentile said.

“The public has a right to a speedy trial as well, especially in a case as significant as this," Gentile said, noting that Mangione’s lawyers have had more than a year to prepare and that both cases involve the same allegations and witnesses.

Carro previously raised the possibility of moving the state trial to September — but only if federal prosecutors appealed Garnett’s decision barring them from seeking the death penalty. They declined to do so.

Carro was undeterred by Garnett's scheduling maneuver. Pushing the state trial until after the federal trial could have raised double jeopardy concerns.

The state’s double jeopardy protections kick in if a jury has been sworn in in a prior prosecution, such as a federal case, or if that prosecution ends in a guilty plea. The cases involve different charges but the same alleged course of conduct.

At a hearing in February, Mangione spoke out against the prospect of two trials, telling Carro: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”

Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind.

Police say the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used by critics to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.

His lawyers have argued that authorities prejudiced him by turning his arrest into a “Marvel movie” spectacle with armed officers parading him up a pier after he was flown to New York and by publicly declaring their desire to seek the death penalty before he was indicted.

In January, Garnett dismissed a federal murder charge — murder through use of a firearm — that had enabled prosecutors to seek capital punishment, finding it legally flawed.

Garnett, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden, also threw out a gun charge but left in place stalking charges that carry a maximum punishment of life in prison.

FILE - Luigi Mangione appears in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, Dec. 16, 2025. (Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP File)

FILE - Luigi Mangione is escorted into Manhattan state court in New York, Sept. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)