May 4th, 2025.

In an interview aired today on NBC News's Meet the Press, reporter Kristen Welker asked President

Donald J. Trump if he agreed that every person in the United States is entitled to due process.

I don't know. I'm not, I'm not a lawyer. I don't know. Trump answered. The U.S. Constitution

guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

Judges across the political spectrum agree that the amendment does not limit due process to citizens.

In his decision of the 1993 case, Reno v. Flores, conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia wrote,

It is well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in deportation

proceedings. In his oath of office, Trump vowed to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

When Welker pointed out that the Constitution guarantees due process, Trump suggested he could ignore it because honoring due process was too slow.

I don't know, he said.

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, he said.

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, he added. Welker tried again. Don't you need to

uphold the Constitution of the United States? Trump replied, I don't know. 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.

Conservative Judge J. Michael Ludig explained to MSNBC's Ali Valshie that far-right scholars have argued that the president does not have to follow the Supreme Court if he doesn't agree with

its decisions. He can interpret the Constitution for himself. Lutig called this constitutional denialism.

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