Donald Trump ‘doesn’t know’ if he needs to uphold the US constitution as president

It was on Tuesday last week that US president Donald Trump marked his first 100 days in office for the second time, but rather worryingly, come Sunday, the Republican seemed unable to recall the oath he made at his inauguration about upholding the constitution during an interview with NBC's Meet the Press.

Turning to the issue of immigration, interviewer Kristen Welker raised the issue of “due process”, asking if Trump agreed with his secretary of state Marco Rubio that every American is entitled to that.

He replied: “I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.”

Welker then pointed to the fifth amendment, before Trump interjected and added: “It may say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million, or two million, or three million trials.

“We have thousands of people. There are some murderers, and some drug dealers, and some of the worst people on earth.

“These people are the worst, most dangerous people on earth, and I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing that.”

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

“I don’t know. I’ll 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 replied.

We’ll help you out here, Donald: yes, you do.

Back in January – and, indeed, the first time around in January 2017 – Trump, along with all other incoming presidents, swore the oath of office required from a Potus.

Per USA.gov, the oath is: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Unsurprisingly, Trump critics were quick to condemn the president’s failure to answer ‘yes’ to Welker’s question, with some calling for the Republican’s impeachment:

One pointed out that it is “literally his one job” as president:

Political strategist and co-presenter of The Five on Fox News, Jessica Tarlov, wrote it “doesn’t take a lawyer to know” that the president has a duty to uphold the constitution:

Elsewhere, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer branded Trump comments “un-American”:

And the Twitter/X account for the Democratic Party itself took the opportunity to remind Trump of the oath he took:

It’s not the first time that Trump has sparked controversy over his comments about the US constitution, as he continues to entertain speculation that he might run for a third or fourth term as president (which isn’t allowed under the 22nd amendment).

He’s also said in the past that “we have to end” the 14th amendment, which concerns birthright citizenship, and back in 2022 - when he was ranting about electoral fraud which didn't happen - he called for the "termination" of parts of the constitution in a Truth Social post.

"A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," he wrote.

Why not read…

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