Donald Trump said he’s not sure whether it’s his responsibility to uphold the Constitution.
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.
“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 added that he is “not a lawyer” and does not know whether he had to abide by the Fifth Amendment’s due process provisions. He further complained that holding “a million or 2 million or 3 million” trials for migrants, he says, is not feasible because they are “murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.
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 after 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.”
Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele has said the idea that he return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. was “preposterous,” and his regime rejected the Trump administration’s diplomatic note inquiring about Abrego Garcia’s return, according to The New York Times.
Still, Rubio and Bukele have privately spoken about Abrego Garcia’s case, according to CNN.
One constitutional provision Trump said he’d abide by is serving only two terms as president and not seeking a third stint in office, he told Welker, though he called the suggestions “a great compliment.”
“This is not something I’m looking to do,” he said. “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. But I think we’re going to have four years, and I think four years is plenty of time to do something really spectacular.”
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