In an interview this week on NBC’s Meet the Press, Donald Trump was asked about due process, something which is currently in the news amid the many court fights related to the Trump Administration’s deportation plans.
In the context of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments that everyone in the country, citizen or not, deserves due process, NBC host Kristen Welker asked the president, “Do you agree that everyone who is here deserves due process? Citizens and noncitizens?”
Trump’s response?
“I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer, I don’t know.”
Welker followed up by asking, “The Fifth Amendment says as much.. Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution?”
Welker: Do you agree that everyone who is here deserves due process? Citizens and noncitizens?
Trump: I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer.
Welker: The 5th amendment says as much.. Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution?
Trump: I don’t know pic.twitter.com/1y8POREX9S
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 4, 2025
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“It might say that, but if you’re talking about that, we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials.” He added “I was elected to get them the hell out of here.”
When asked again if he has to uphold the Constitution, the president again replied “I don’t know.”
He added that his lawyers “are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.”
There were some pretty shocked reactions to Trump’s statement.
It doesn’t take a lawyer to know. https://t.co/ggyyg79xo2
— Jessica Tarlov (@JessicaTarlov) May 4, 2025
This guy is the most unamerican person to ever hold office and we will be a better country when he is not physically able to govern https://t.co/lTki4xRRTa
— hawkize (@stillnothawkize) May 4, 2025
Elect a felon President…don’t expect him to uphold the law or have any interest in doing so. https://t.co/qUbyzfoze4
— Barbara Comstock (@BarbaraComstock) May 4, 2025
“I’m just a humble unfrozen caveman POTUS. I don’t understand your laws or Constitution.” https://t.co/3PAYr7kwUA
— Jeff Timmer (@jefftimmer) May 4, 2025
Trump is, in fact, a non-lawyer, while more than half of the nation’s presidents have been lawyers or at least held a law degree. In recent decades, Democratic presidents have been more likely to be lawyers than Republicans. Joe Biden was a lawyer but only briefly practiced law before being elected to the U.S. Senate. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton were lawyers, while neither Ronald Reagan nor Bush was a lawyer.
Photo courtesy of X screengrab
