Trump admits on "Meet the Press" with Kristen Welker that, despite the oath he has taken twice, he does not know upholding the Constitution is part of his job

Donald Trump and Kristen Welker on "Meet the Press" (NBC)

 

For probably the first time in its history, the United States has a president who does not know it is part of his job to uphold the Constitution. Donald Trump made that admission in an interview that aired yesterday on NBC's Meet the Press. The Daily Beast described Trump's responses as "unreal," noting that they mostly consisted of a repeated refrain: "I don't know."

Meanwhile, The New York Times showed how Trump's intellectual shallowness on due process is helping to undermine his deportation campaign, once considered one of his strongest issues -- although recent polls show the public increasingly thinks Trump has gone too far by sending U.S. residents to far-flung prisons, known for inhumane conditions, such as the CECOT facility in El Salvador. (More on that in a moment.) 

Here is how the Daily Beast described the stunning exchange between host Kristen Welker and the man who holds the highest office in the land. Corbin Bolies writes under the headline "Trump Has Unreal Response to ‘Will You Uphold Constitution?’; Trump complained to 'Meet the Press' that judges were impeding his quest to expel migrants":

Donald Trump has said he doesn’t “know” if it’s his job to uphold the Constitution in an extraordinary interview released Sunday.

After an exchange on the case of wrongfully deported dad Kilmar Abrego Garcia on NBC’s Meet the Press, host Kristen Welker asked Trump whether he agreed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that all people in the U.S.—citizen and migrant alike—are entitled to due process. Trump complained that holding “a million or 2 million or 3 million” trials for migrants was not feasible because they are “murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.”

“But even given those numbers that you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” Welker asked.

“I don’t know,” Trump said. “Again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said. What you said is not what I heard the Supreme Court said. They have a different interpretation.”

Trump also said that he is “not a lawyer” and does not know whether he had to abide by the Fifth Amendment’s due process provisions. “I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” he said.

Perhaps it never has occurred to Trump that courts are enforcing the law, and that is their job. It also does not seem to have reached Trump's cerebral cortex that his interactions with the judiciary might go smoother if he decided to follow the law once in a while. Bolies writes:

The presidential oath of office requires the president to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Trump has taken the oath twice.

Trump’s administration has made a habit of attacking the justice system when court after court has blocked his methods of expelling migrants from the country, some of which include centuries-old wartime laws and rounding up suspected gang members without disclosing evidence of their alleged gang affiliations.

Trump said he would follow Attorney General Pam Bondi’s guidance on whether to seek Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States despite the Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling that the government must “facilitate” his return.

Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March despite a protective order preventing the deportation. The administration has admitted the expulsion was an “administrative error.”

“I have the power to ask for him to come back if I’m instructed by the attorney general that it’s legal to do so,” he said. “But the decision as to whether or not he should come back will be the head of El Salvador. He’s a very capable man.”

Trump is wrong on both counts. The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) already has ordered Trump to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S., so there is no guidance for Pam Bondi to give. The same applies to the president of El Salvador. SCOTUS has ruled that Abrego Garcia must be returned, and President Nayib Bukele can do nothing to change that order, even though the Trump administration has chosen to ignore it so far. Federal courts have a number of tools for dealing with such recalcitrance -- a finding of contempt probably being the most familiar. The Brennan Center for Justice reports:

In the face of noncompliance, a federal court can use the contempt power to either compel the party to take action or punish them for failing to follow an order. The Supreme Court has recognized this power as “essential to . . . the enforcement of the judgments, orders, and writs of the courts,” and thus inherent in courts’ authority. This power dates back to the founding era when it was codified through the Judiciary Act of 1789.

There are two types of contempt proceedings, civil and criminal, both of which can result in sanctions, fines, and in extreme cases, jail time. . . . 

Public officials are well within the scope of the judiciary’s contempt power. Although federal courts have never held a sitting president in contempt of court, they have used the power to compel action by and punish government agencies, officials, and civil servants responsible for carrying out government actions.

The New York Times seemed dumbfounded by Trump's ignorance of Constitutional principles, with Jonathan Swan reporting:

President Trump said in an interview that aired on Sunday that he did not know whether every person on American soil was entitled to due process, despite constitutional guarantees, and complained that adhering to that principle would result in an unmanageable slowdown of his mass deportation program.

The revealing exchange, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” was prompted by the interviewer Kristen Welker asking Mr. Trump if he agreed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that citizens and noncitizens in the United States were entitled to due process.

“I don’t know,” Mr. Trump replied. “I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.”

Ms. Welker reminded the president that the Fifth Amendment says as much.

“I don’t know,” Mr. Trump said again. “It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials.” Left unmentioned was how anyone could be sure these people were undocumented immigrants, let alone criminals, without hearings.

Mr. Trump responded “I don’t know” one more time and referred to his “brilliant lawyers” when Ms. Welker asked whether, as president, he needed to “uphold the Constitution of the United States.”

The comments came amid the many legal challenges to the administration’s agenda, especially Mr. Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign, and as top administration officials have begun to question the president’s obligation to provide due process. Mr. Trump has attacked judges, called for their impeachment and ignored a Supreme Court ruling directing his administration to facilitate the return of a migrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly sent to a prison for terrorists in El Salvador.

Mr. Trump said in the interview that he may seek clarification from the Supreme Court on what it meant by the word “facilitate” when referring to the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia.