Today's Poll Question: Should a candidate's mental illness be judged the same as a physical illness?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Get ready to vote on today's daily poll question at smerconish.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:05)
But first, Michael explains it for you right here.

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Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:11)
For Independent Minds.

**Tom Kean Jr.** (0:13)
Hello, hello.

**Michael Smerconish** (0:14)
Today is the 1st of July. Holy smokes. Wednesday, the 1st of July, 2026 We made it. Summer is flying by. Big voting yesterday at smerconish.com.
34,904 votes cast. Do you agree with the Supreme Court that ballots postmarked by election day should count even if they arrive late? 92.53% said yes. 7.47% said no.
That was one of many decisions from the court this week as they concluded their term. The other, of course, birthright citizenship. I almost went back to the well today and said, if you agree with the decision on birthright citizenship, and I thought, people probably overwhelmingly will say, as they said yesterday, that they agree with the postmarked decision. From Amy Howe at SCOTUS blog on the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship, I thought these were two graphs that just summed it up nicely. Writing for the majority, Roberts emphasized that, quote, the children born of parents unlawfully or temporarily present in the United States satisfy both elements of the citizenship clause. Under the Constitution, they are citizens at birth.
And then you've got Samuel Alito in his dissenting opinion calling the ruling both one of the most important decisions in the history of the court and a serious mistake. Careful analysis of the text of the 14th Amendment and the process that led to its adoption, said Alito, shows that it does not degrade the concept of United States citizenship in this way. Instead, he said, the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who at birth owe allegiance solely to this country. I said yesterday, I think there's a legitimate conversation to be had here at home as to the propriety, the benefit, the value of birthright citizenship. And to even raise concerns about it is to be cast as a nativist, and I saw some of that yesterday.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:26)
The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**Michael Smerconish** (2:29)
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**SPEAKER_2** (4:00)
The Daily Poll Question at smerconish.com.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:02)
A non-scientific social political question designed to spark broader discussions about current issues.

**SPEAKER_2** (4:08)
Get ready to cast your ballot and leave a rating and review of this podcast on your favorite podcast app.

**Michael Smerconish** (4:14)
All right. So I said that yesterday we had huge voting. Do you agree with the mail-in ballot Supreme Court decision? I was going to go with, do you agree with the birthright citizenship? But there's another story that I'm fascinated by and it's this. Let me say at the outset, welcome back Congressman Tom Kean Jr. Because more than 100 days ago, he vanished. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey, he's a Republican. Third term, he's seeking, son of the former governor, you know, long line of public servants in Jersey. But in March, he stopped showing up, no votes, no statements of substance, no hallway sightings.
His office said only that he had a medical issue. He'd be back in a couple of weeks, then weeks passed and more weeks, and then silence hardened into a mystery. I remember there was a quote in the New York Times from someone on his staff saying something like, Where he is, there are no cameras. I'm like, oh, okay, well, the guy is hospitalized, and maybe it's a mental health issue. And I wondered that aloud. And some of you said, oh, why would you speculate like that?