Trump Administration Live Updates: President Casts Doubt on Due Process Rights
Where Things Stand
"Due process: President Trump said in an interview aired on Sunday that he did not know whether it was his job to uphold the Constitution and wavered when asked whether every person on American soil was entitled to due process, even though the Fifth Amendment says as much. “It might say that,” Mr. Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” as he complained about the effect on his mass deportation program, “but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials.” Read more ›
Third term: Mr. Trump, who said in March that he was not joking about the possibility of seeking a third term, also told “Meet the Press” that doing so was “something that, to the best of my knowledge, you’re not allowed to do.” He floated Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as two potential successors. Read more ›
Health research cuts: The Trump administration has scrapped more than $800 million worth of research into the health of L.G.B.T.Q. people, according to an analysis of federal data by The New York Times. Read more ›
President Trump poured cold water on the idea of serving a third term, an idea he has frequently teased but is prohibited by the Constitution, and instead floated Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio as possible successors in an interview aired on Sunday.
Mr. Trump said in the interview, with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” that he was reluctant to be drawn into a debate about who could follow him, but he called Mr. Vance a “fantastic, brilliant guy” and Mr. Rubio “great.” Mr. Trump added that “a lot” of people are great, but said, “certainly you would say that somebody’s the V.P., if that person is outstanding, I guess that person would have an advantage.”
President Trump said in an interview that aired on Sunday that he did not know whether every person on American soil was entitled to due process, despite constitutional guarantees, and complained that adhering to that principle would result in an unmanageable slowdown of his mass deportation program.
The revealing exchange, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” was prompted by the interviewer Kristen Welker asking Mr. Trump if he agreed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that citizens and noncitizens in the United States were entitled to due process.
In the wide-ranging “Meet the Press” interview, Trump said that he will again extend the reprieve on TikTok if a deal isn’t done within the extended time period. The popular app had to make a deal to be separated from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, or face a ban in the United States. Trump also said he won’t support any Republican legislation that makes cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
President Trump, who has repeatedly teased the prospect of trying to serve an unconstitutional third term in office, went further than he had previously gone in saying that he did not intend to do that, despite the fact that the Trump Organization’s online store is selling Trump 2028 hats. “There are many people selling the 2028 hat,” Trump said on “Meet the Press,” “but this is not something I’m looking to do. 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.” Then he mentioned two Republicans who might fit the bill as his successor: Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Asked about Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the Trump administration’s efforts to negotiate an end to it, the president said there had been times when he was close to walking away from the talks and that he still might do so. “Well, there will be a time when I will say, ‘OK, keep going. Keep being stupid and keep fighting,’” Trump told Welker.
Trump said he did not know whether every person on U.S. soil was entitled to due process, even though the Constitution says so, and he complained that adhering to that principle would result in an unmanageable number of “trials” that would slow down his mass deportation program. The revealing exchange was prompted by Kristen Welker asking Trump if he agreed with his Secretary of State Marco Rubio that everyone in America, citizens and non-citizens, deserved due process. “I don’t know,” Trump replied. “I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.” Welker reminded the president that the Fifth Amendment says as much. Trump said: “I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials.”
In the “Meet the Press” interview, Trump said he was not worried about a recession and he said, again, that he did not plan to fire Jerome H. Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, before his term ends next year: “No, no, no. That was a total – why would I do that? I get to replace the person in another short period of time.”
Trump got into a contentious exchange with Welker during the televised interview, angry that she brought up the fact that the price of strollers had been rising after his tariffs.
“Well, I don’t know, when you say strollers are going up, what kind of a thing?” Trump said. “I’m saying that gasoline is going down. Gasoline is thousands of times more important than a stroller or some place?”
Noting that the U.S. economy shrank in the first quarter, Kristen Welker, the host of “Meet the Press,” asked President Trump when he would take responsibility for the economy. She asked when he would call it the Trump economy, rather than blaming President Biden for negative headlines. Trump’s response encapsulated his long relationship with credit and blame: “I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job.”
I’m watching President Trump on “Meet the Press” this morning. Trump has been softening his rhetoric against China and the markets have bounced back in anticipation that he’ll eventually lower tariffs. But in his “Meet the Press” interview, the president reverted to the sort of tough talk that had created widespread financial panic in the first place: Trump said that essentially cutting off trade with China, with his 145 percent tariff wall, “means we’re not losing a trillion dollars when we go cold turkey because we’re not doing business with them right now.”
In Rome on Sunday morning, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York, responded to the image shared on President Trump’s social media accounts yesterday of the president in papal regalia, which appeared to be A.I.-generated. “I hope he didn’t have anything to do with it,” Cardinal Dolan told reporters. “As the Italians say, it was brutta figura,” the cardinal said, meaning that the image had made a bad impression. Many Catholics across the political spectrum saw the image as offensive. “Imagine the incandescent outrage, the swift condemnation, and the individual and joint protests from the US bishops if this had been done by Joe Biden or Barack Obama,” Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The Trump administration has scrapped more than $800 million worth of research into the health of L.G.B.T.Q. people, abandoning studies of cancers and viruses that tend to affect members of sexual minority groups and setting back efforts to defeat a resurgence of sexually transmitted infections, according to an analysis of federal data by The New York Times.
In keeping with its deep opposition to both diversity programs and gender-affirming care for adolescents, the administration has worked aggressively to root out research touching on equity measures and transgender health.
The National Endowment for the Arts withdrew and canceled grant offers to numerous arts organizations around the country on Friday night, sending a round of email notifications out just hours after President Trump proposed eliminating the agency in his next budget.
The move, although not unexpected, was met with disappointment and anger by arts administrators who had counted on the grants to finance ongoing projects.
President Trump on Tuesday had a ready answer when reporters asked who he would like to see become the next supreme pontiff. “I’d like to be pope,” he joked to reporters at the White House. “That would be my number one choice.”
He took the joke a step further on Saturday, sharing on social media what appeared to be an A.I.-generated photo of himself wearing the traditional vestments of the pope. The photo depicts him in a white cassock with a cross around his neck, his face solemn as he raises a pointed finger."
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