By almost any measure, a president openly defying a court order would represent a constitutional crisis, a tectonic event in American history.

And yet when President Trump was asked on Sunday whether he had defied a federal judge's order, he said he wasn't sure.

I don't know. You have to speak to the orders.

The order in question came from a federal judge in Washington, D.C. on Saturday.

He told the administration not to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador.

Trump had just invoked the Alien Enemies Act to remove people he said were members of a gang.

And the judge ordered the government to turn around any planes already in the air.

At a press briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt offered slightly more clarity

on the administration's actions.

All of the planes subject to the written order of this judge departed U.S. soil, U.S. territory,

before the judge's written order.

But what about the verbal order, which, of course, carries the same legal weight as a written

order and said for the planes to turn around if they were in the air?

Well, there's actually questions about whether a verbal order carries the same weight as a written

order, and our lawyers are determined to ask and answer those questions in court.

Here's what's not in dispute.

More than 250 Venezuelans, some of whom the Trump administration says are members of a criminal

gang, were ultimately taken to El Salvador on Saturday.

El Salvador is holding them in the country's terrorism confinement center.

The Salvadoran president posted a headline about the judicial order on

X, with the caption, oopsie, too late, and a laugh-crying emoji. Secretary of State Marco Rubio

retweeted it. That whole episode came after a Brown University physician in the United States on a special

...