*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).
Harley Rouda says he was a Republican and an independent before he sought to oust Congressman Dana Rohrabacher in Orange County, Calif., and win back control of Congress for Democrats. "There are a lot of people out there who would like to see this seat flipped," says Rouda, including many Republicans.
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an attack on states like California that set their own standards, says Dan Becker, director at Safe Climate Campaign.
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The Labor Department reported on Friday that the unemployment rate in the U.S. dropped to 3.9 percent and 157,000 new jobs were added in July. But while average hourly earnings rose 2.7 percent, Bankrate's Mark Hamrick points out that when inflation's factored in, workers are taking home less than a percent more in earnings.
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Congressional candidate and former NFL linebacker Colin Allred says he received former President Barack Obama's endorsement in his bid to unseat the Republican incumbent Pete Sessions because he has run an inclusive campaign worthy of the Obama brand.
Mark Kaufman, science reporter at Mashable, discusses President Trump's surprising pick to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, atmospheric scientist Kelvin Droegemeier.
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