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.
Like most conversations with Mr. Trump, the interview roamed over broad territory, covering subjects as diverse as recent economic data, his trade war with China, negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, his musings about an unconstitutional third term in office, and possible Republican successors. The interview was taped on Friday.
The president, perhaps frustrated that President Xi Jinping of China has held firm under the pressure of the administration’s 145 percent tariffs on China, reverted to tough trade talk after weeks of signaling that he was eager for a deal.
Mr. Trump said he was not worried about a recession despite some Wall Street analysts predicting one and suggested that it was a good thing for the United States to have gone “cold turkey” on trade with China through the prohibitively high tariffs.
“We were losing hundreds of billions of dollars with China,” he said. “Now we’re essentially not doing business with China. Therefore, we’re saving hundreds of billions of dollars. Very simple.”
Noting that the U.S. economy shrank in the first quarter, Ms. Welker asked Mr. Trump when he would take responsibility for the economy and call it the Trump economy rather than blaming it on former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Mr. Trump’s response encapsulated his lifelong relationship with credit and blame: “I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job.”
Asked about the war in Ukraine and his administration’s efforts to negotiate an end to it, the president said he had come close to walking away from the talks and still might do so.
Mr. Trump claimed during his presidential campaign that he could strike a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office. About 100 days in, he now claims he was being sarcastic. He has been frustrated by the grinding process and lack of progress. And President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has ignored Mr. Trump’s public calls to stop bombing Ukrainian cities.
“Well, there will be a time when I will say, ‘OK, keep going. Keep being stupid and keep fighting,’” Mr. Trump said in the interview.
Mr. Trump was asked about his repeated statements about considering an unconstitutional third term in office. In the interview, he went further than he had previously in saying he did not intend to run again, despite the fact that the Trump Organization’s online store is selling Trump 2028 hats.
“There are many people selling the 2028 hat,” the president said, “but this is not something I’m looking to do. I’m looking to have four great years and turn it over to somebody, ideally a great Republican, a great Republican to carry it forward.”
Then he mentioned two Republicans who might fit the bill as his successor: Mr. Rubio and Vice President JD Vance.
Jonathan Swan is a White House reporter for The Times, covering the administration of Donald J. Trump.
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