Spoiler alert: He was not happy.
“Oh dear, what’d they rule?” he asked before rolling his eyes and letting out a groan that seemed to emanate deep from the recesses of his body.
Johnson tried to give a workable sound bite despite, as we noted above, not being happy at all.
“Well, uh, I need to read the opinion, OK?” he said. “But uh, obviously that’s, I mean, you could say that’s a textualist and originalist view,” a reference to the judicial philosophy that interprets the Constitution based on what the original framers supposedly intended.
Johnson continued to insist that birthright citizenship has been “grossly abused in recent years,” and claimed that “it’s a serious problem.”
The House speaker ultimately said the logical response to the ruling is to amend the Constitution to prohibit birthright citizenship, but noted that would be extremely difficult, considering it would require a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate, and be ratified by 75% of the states.
“I will say, I’m very disappointed in that outcome,” Johnson added.
You can see Johnson grimace in the CSPAN clip below.