*By Conor White*
Donald Trump may be looking to score points with his base ahead of midterm elections by turning the conversation back to immigration.
With one week to go before Election Day, Trump proposed ending birthright immigration with an executive order during an interview for "Axios on HBO" [released Tuesday morning](https://www.axios.com/trump-birthright-citizenship-executive-order-0cf4285a-16c6-48f2-a933-bd71fd72ea82.html).
"It was always told to me that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don't," the president claimed in the video.
Birthright citizenship is protected under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and any effort to end it would come under immediate legal challenge. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan broke with Trump to make a firm statement against his proposal shortly after the interview was released.
"You cannot end birthright citizenship with an executive order," he said in an interview with Kentucky radio station WVLK.
Trump's birthright proposal came one day after the Pentagon said it would send more than 5,000 U.S. troops to the southern border to prepare for what Trump has called an "invasion" of asylum-seeking migrants slowly making their way through Mexico.
Some observers see the focus on immigration as politically-motivated.
"One gets the sense that he hasn't thought through the details very strongly," David Graham, staff writer at The Atlantic, said about Trump's birthright proposal in an interview Tuesday on Cheddar. "What he's really concerned with is the rhetoric and how it plays politically."
"He's remembering 2016 and seeing the magic he got talking about immigration," Graham continued, "Hoping he can recreate that and pull a win out."
However, Shannon Vavra, a political reporter at Axios, noted that Trump has long railed against so-called "anchor babies" and other longstanding immigration policies such a "chain migration," which refers to immigrants sponsoring family members to come to the U.S. She said the timing may just be Trump being Trump.
"The timing of it is definitely questionable at this point," she said, "but President Trump tends to do what he wants to do."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/trump-says-hell-end-birthright-citizenship).
Christine Hallquist, the first transgender gubernatorial candidate to be nominated by a major party, faces an uphill battle in Vermont, where she is trying to unseat the popular Republican governor.
Cannabis represents a fourth pillar of Constellation Brands' beer, wine, and spirits strategy, says the CEO Rob Sands. The company, which makes Corona beer, Svedka vodka, and Robert Mondavi wine invested $4 billion in the Canadian marijuana company Canopy Growth ー the largest weed deal by a major publicly traded company.
These are the headlines you Need2Know for Wednesday, Aug. 15.
Constellation Brands, the alcoholic beverage giant, is making a big bet that marijuana will be legalized in the United States by upping its investment in the Canadian cannabis company Canopy Growth. With legal marijuana coming to Canada in the fall, investors are preparing for a potential legal U.S. market to open up soon.
Rep. Tom Reed says he plans to propose a ban on House members serving on corporate boards, a bipartisan proposal designed to eliminate "potential conflict and the appearance of impropriety." The move comes a week after his New York Republican colleague Rep. Chris Collins was indicted on insider trading charges.
These are the headlines you Need2Know on Tuesday, Aug. 14.
A year after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, the country continues to see an upsurge in racism, says Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter. But Cullors also says she sees more people "joining together in this moment to stand up for our rights."
Marc Lotter, former press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence, says Omarosa Manigault Newman's decision to record a conversation with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in the Situation Room was a violation "of every protocol
[and] procedure." He also says allegations in Manigault Newman's book contradict the former "Apprentice" contestant's previous statements about President Trump.
These are the headlines you Need2Know.
Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman" opened nationwide on Friday, on the eve of the anniversary of the Charlottesville riots ー and that's no coincidence. The movie recalls the true story of Ron Stallworth, a black Colorado Springs police officer who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s.
Load More