Donald Trump says ‘I don’t’ know’ when asked if he must uphold the constitution

Donald Trump said in a television interview he was uncertain whether he was duty bound to uphold the Constitution, adding that it was a question better posed to his lawyers.

Donald Trump walks towards Marine One on the South Lawn. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

President Trump said he was uncertain whether he was duty bound to uphold the Constitution, saying in a television interview aired Sunday that was a question better posed to his lawyers.

Trump was asked whether noncitizens are entitled to due process, which the Fifth Amendment requires before any person within the U.S. may “be deprived of life, liberty, or property.”

“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump told interviewer Kristen Welker on the NBC News program, “Meet the Press.” While the Fifth Amendment “might say that,” Trump said compliance would require “a million or two million or three million trials” before undesirable immigrants could be removed.

“I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it,” Trump said.

“Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?” Welker asked.

“I don’t know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said,” Trump said.

When inaugurated on Jan. 20, Trump took an oath of office swearing, in part, to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Democrats criticised the president’s hesitancy regarding his constitutional duties.

“A president who doubts his most fundamental duty – his sworn oath to the Constitution – is unfit for the office,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.). “Defiance of the law is becoming this administration’s hallmark, threatening irreparable damage.” The Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to deport immigrants have stoked conflict with the federal courts, several of which have found officials failing to fully comply with orders to pause potentially unlawful deportations or, in one case, return a migrant mistakenly sent to a Salvadoran prison.

Last month, the Supreme Court upheld a federal judge’s order that officials facilitate the return of that migrant, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. A Salvadoran citizen who entered the U.S. illegally as a teenager, Abrego Garcia had been living and working for years in Maryland under an immigration court order blocking his repatriation because he faced potential retribution from a local gang in El Salvador.

Federal courts have rejected the administration’s characterisation of the Supreme Court order as requiring it to do virtually nothing to bring Abrego Garcia back. The judge hearing the case, Paula Xinis of U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., gave the government until Monday to comply with discovery orders it has been resisting.

Pressed on the Abrego Garcia case, Trump said in the interview that the administration may seek further guidance from the Supreme Court.

“I’m not involved in the legality or the illegality. I have lawyers to do that, and that’s why I have a great DOJ,” he said. “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. But the decision as to whether or not he should come back will be the head of El Salvador,” Trump said.

Asked if he would seek further clarification from the Supreme Court, Trump said, “we may do that. I was asking about that. We may do that.”

Dow Jones