ne of these days a reporter who has some rare time on his or her hands will compile a list of all of the times a president who has claimed “only I can fix it” doesn’t know anything.
He has said, “I don’t know….” so many times that one has to question, “What DOES he know?”
In 2019, USA Today counted eleven people Trump claimed he never met or didn’t know “despite evidence to the contrary.”
One was Jeffrey Epstein, whose sex trafficking of young girls sent him to prison where he committed suicide. Trump called him a “terrific guy” and someone he had known for fifteen years who was “a lot of fun to be with. It is even said he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side” in a 2002 magazine article.
But when the fertilized hit the ventilation system it was a form of “I don’t know” when he said, “I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him…I was not a fan.”
Sooooo….Trump didn’t know him after all?
There have been assorted other people, some who have been close to him, that he suddenly didn’t know after they wrote or spoke about him critically.
The latest “I don’t know” moment came last weekend when he was interviewed on NBC’s Face the Nation and was asked on NBC’s Meet the Press if throwing thousands of immigrants out of the country without recognizing their rights to due process is Constitutional, he indicated that his power is greater than the Constitution.
“I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” he said.
A little more than 100 days ago, he took the oath for the second time that includes “”I will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Given his recent actions, it appears preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution is beyond his ability, a strange attitude for someone who has had previous experience in the office.
We know he doesn’t read so he must not have read the Fifth Amendment that pretty clearly says nobody will be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
It does not say “citizen.” It says “person.” The Supreme Court has ruled that people who are not citizens remain people and have basic rights.
But Trump complained that following the constitution would be a nuisance. “I don’t know,” he 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. We have thousands of people that are—some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth. I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it.
But “some” is unlikely to be as many as three million protected “people.”
He was asked, “Even given those numbers…don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?”
You don’t have to guess at his answer.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I 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.”
He must not have talked to his brilliant lawyers or his brilliant lawyers lack the ability to read at least three recent decisions that protect due process rights for immigrants.
As far as one to three million trials—-
There would be far fewer “trials” if Trump and his minions obeyed court rulings and acted Constitutionally. And if they actually did focus on immigrants with serious criminal records. Many of them have fled from countries where it is a criminal offense to try to exercise OUR constitutional rights—that their country does not recognize.
And there would not be full-blown trials. These folks would go before an immigration judge, such judges being employees of the Justice Department, not part of the constitutional judicial branch.
That would not require full trials, as Trump suggested. What it would require is the chance to appear before an immigration judge. Such judges are not part of the judicial branch; they are employees of the Justice Department. Regardless, Trump’s brilliant lawyers would have to prove that these bad people are in fact members of Venezuelan gangs, a legal nicety Trump chooses to ignore.
That might bring about a definition of “invasion,” which Trump too casually claims to justify round up people under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. It would be inconvenient to have to prove that the chicken plucker, pork processor, roofer, and operator of a restaurant with an international cuisine.
The Supreme Court already has ruled twice that men facing terrorist charges cannot be shipped off to the friendly El Salvador prison without due process, namely a hearing. There has been at least one “administrative error,” but that’s too bad. The victim of it has to say in the Salvadorian lockup. When asked if anybody in his administration is in touch with the Salvadorian government to secure the mistake’s release, Trump said,
“I don’t know.”
“You’d have to ask the attorney general that question.” He said. “I’m relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, who’s very capable, doing a great job.” He then claimed that he is not involved in the legality or illegality of such things.
In other words, we have a president who thinks he is personally above the Constitution and he has no responsibility for illegal acts of his administration.
Moving right along.
He has threatened to take the tax-exempt status away from Harvard University because it refuses to bow to his demands to eliminate DEI on campus. That, he was reminded, flies in the face of federal law that says a resident cannot direct the IRS to rescind the tax-exempt stature of an organization.
This time he did not directly say, “I don’t know.” He’s just following what his lawyers, hired on the basis of loyalty, say. The he blundered through, “They say that we’re allowed to do that, and I’m all for it. But everything I say is subject to the laws being 100% adhered to.”
Uh….what?
If being ignorant on so many things or about so many people makes him a “stable genius,” then by comparison the rest of us should be able to go into the kitchen and mix up a brew of cold fusion.
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