Welcome to the beat. I am Ari Melbert. We're tracking one big clash with two storylines right now.

The clash is the Trump administration on defense after the court setbacks for those weekend deportations

and then the extreme claims to wartime powers during peace. And the Chief Justice rebutting Trump

in that rare move we saw yesterday,

conservative media warning the president that breaking court orders is just too far,

that it's dangerous, while a Fox News legal expert is rejecting Trump's effort to defy the courts as untenable,

writing in the Conservative National Review.

So the first storyline is President Trump responded to that criticism and the legal setbacks and this growing controversy with a claimed deference.

Trump disavowing any defiance of court orders and pledging not to defy them in the future in this new interview.

Wouldn't in the future?

No, you can't do that.

Now, that's Trump's storyline.

You cannot do that.

He will not be defying court orders, he says.

So this is part one, and I'm going to tell you that in a sense, that is a type of good

thing, low bar, but it reinforces how there are limits,

there are consequences, that Trump knows it is bad to defy court orders and bad to admit it,

and it looks bad, and you don't say you might do it in the future. I'm going to show you a bit

more context on that interview coming up.

I just wanted to give you that key headline of him saying, no, you can't do that.

But none of that means that Donald Trump is telling the whole truth here,

especially if this is a situation where the politician knows the truth looks really bad.

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