How Did Samuel Alito Become This Angry?

Samuel Alito’s inclinations have not been hard to discern lately. At the Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship earlier this month, legal experts identified him without hesitation as the justice likeliest to side with President Trump. “What we’re dealing with here is something that was basically unknown at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, which is illegal immigration,” Alito said. The comment hinted at a desire to sidestep the original understanding of the amendment, which, his fellow justices suggested, was that people born on American soil are U.S. citizens.

Five months earlier, at a hearing on tariffs, even Alito’s erstwhile admirers at the National Review objected when Alito started referencing other statutes, not cited by Trump, as justifications for the president’s orders. The conservative outlet slapped back that “it is not the Court’s job to opine on powers the president has not invoked”—a notable rebuke from a publication that Alito read avidly as a young man.