Politics

Karoline Leavitt alarms internet with just one word in US constitution comments

Alex Wong/Getty Images

After US president Donald Trump appeared on deputy FBI director Dan Bongino’s podcast on Monday and suggested Republicans should “take over the voting in at least 15 states”, his press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked by reporters about the interview the next day – and sparked concern with a single word.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Leavitt said: “The president believes in the United States constitution, however, he believes there has obviously been a lot of fraud and irregularities that have taken place in American elections, and again, voter ID is a highly popular and common sense policy that the president wants to pursue, and he wants to pass legislation to make that happen for all states across the country.”

Except it’s the word “however” which X/Twitter users have pointed out online, given that Trump committed to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” at his inauguration in January last year:

Journalist Molly Jong-Fast wrote: “That however doing some heavy lifting”:

And Massachusetts representative Jim McGovern simply quote tweeted a screenshot of a dictionary definition for ‘however’, which notes it is “used to introduce a statement that contrasts with or seems to contradict something that has been said previously”:

It’s not the first time that the Trump administration has caused concern over its approach to the US constitution, what with the president repeatedly entertaining the idea of an unconstitutional third (or fourth) term, and telling NBC’s Meet the Press in May that he ‘doesn’t know’ if he needs to uphold said constitution as Potus.

Yikes.

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