*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).
On Between Bells: Talking to kids about gun violence, Dallas Mavericks under fire, restaurant servers fight tip-pooling laws, and more. With Eater, Parents Magazine, and Popular Science.
The way restaurant workers get paid could be changing. The Department of Labor has proposed making tip-pooling legal again.
The Parkland shootings are forcing parents to grapple with how to talk to their children about gun violence. Parents Magazine's Liz Vaccariello joins Cheddar to discuss how to approach these challenging conversations.
Gersh Kuntzman, deputy politics editor at Newsweek, discusses President Trump's request for the Justice Department to ban bump stocks, devices that turn legal guns into machine guns.
In the aftermath of the Parkland mass shooting that left 17 dead and many more wounded, lawmakers are seeking solutions to prevent further tragedies. Cheddar spoke with RNC spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany about how Republicans plan to handle the controversial issue.
The actor and producer's new documentary "Survivors Guide To Prison" looks at the system through the eyes of wrongly-convicted prisoners. Arquette hopes the documentary will inspire change.
Marijuana advocates are awaiting a federal judge's decision on its challenge against federal marijuana laws. Five plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the DEA and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. It challenges the listing of marijuana as a schedule I drug, which classifies the drug as having no medical use and it cannot be legally prescribed. Jose Belen, U.S. Army combat veteran and one of the plaintiffs on this case, and attorney Joseph Bondy explain why they were inspired to fight for this cause.
This Changes Things: Advice for the executives and leaders of tomorrow, brought to you by American Express OPEN. On Between Bells: All the president's tweets, Black Panther's box office record, and more. With The Young Turks, The Daily Caller, Hollywood Life, and Fast Company.
Diversity in America: it's a story of slow progress beginning with the Civil Rights Movement that continues to this day. Two events that set these changes into motion were the protests at San Francisco State and Cornell University in the late sixties. The new documentary "Agents of Change" looks at how the strikes have impacted America 50 years later.
President Trump has signaled that he may be open to improvements to the federal background check system following the Stoneman Douglas shooting. The Young Turks' Emma Vigeland and Daily Caller's Nick Givas discuss the likelihood that things change this time around.
