About a month ago, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled unambiguously that undocumented immigrants that the government wants to take out of the country must be given due process under the Constitution. Nine to nothing, which is saying something considering that includes Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

They limited that due process to challenges through a writ of habeas corpus, with venue appropriate where they are detained. Which is… not great. It’s due process in principle, but makes that process difficult and onerous.

And the Court was fuzzy around precisely what the trial court judge in the case could order the government to do to get a guy back who DOJ lawyers even admitted on the record was sent out by mistake.1

But the one thing that they made abundantly clear was one thing: due process is a bedrock principle of our legal system and it applies to everyone, not just US citizens.

And that’s for good reason: if we start making exceptions to who gets due process, all the government has to do is say you’re a member of whatever class doesn’t get it and there is no mechanism for you to challenge that. Oh, you’re a citizen? How are you going to prove it? To whom are you going to prove it?

That’s exactly why the Fifth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment specifically and pointedly say all persons. Not citizens. Not men. Persons. All of them.

This is 10th grade high school foundational civics, not advanced law school course material from obscure precedents.

So, it has been really something to hear the guy who is currently supposed to carry out the laws of the country respond in an interview to a reporter’s question about whether or not people should get due process, “I don’t know.”

KRISTEN WELKER: Your Secretary of State says everyone who’s here, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Do you agree, Mr. President?

PRES. DONALD TRUMP: I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.

W: Well, the Fifth Amendment says as much.

T: I don’t know. It seems — it might say that, [editorial note: it does] but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials. We have thousands of people that are some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.

W: But is —

T: Some of the worst, most dangerous people on Earth. And I was elected to get them the hell out of here and the courts are holding me from doing it.

W: But even given those numbers that you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?

T: 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. What you said is not what I heard the Supreme Court said. They have a different interpretation.

His lawyers have a different interpretation of what the Supreme Court said.

There’s a long-running gag on the tv show Psych where when the main character gets something egregiously wrong and called out on it, he just shrugs and responds “I’ve heard it both ways.”

That’s what the President of the United States just did on camera.

These weren’t gotcha questions. Welker spoon fed him the obvious answer in the questions. “Hey, your advisors and the Court and the plain text of the Constitution say you need to do this, are you going to?”

He could have said “of course we’ll follow the Constitution and we may differ on what that means.” He could have said “we’re evaluating our options.” He didn’t say any of that. He yells “I don’t know!” in a “I just work here, go ask the manager!” kind of way.

This “I don’t know!” comment is, obviously, what the press has honed in on. President says “I don’t know” When Asked If He Needs to Uphold the Constitution is, to be fair, pretty splashy, and it is what he said.

But it’s not a great headline, in actuality. It’s not that it’s misleading or out of context; the context is, in fact, much worse.

Because the guy who is supposedly calling the shots and is in his second term on the job fundamentally still does not understand what the Constitution says or requires of him and is openly saying he fully intends to ignore it when it gets in his way.

Oh yes, he did.

Oh, but he said “I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.” Right? That’s what you’re going to tell me, I’m sure.

Look at what Trump says immediately after that: if the Court rules against him, he’ll just pretend they ruled in his favor instead. If any institution tries to constrain him, he’ll simply say they did the opposite.

“But his lawyers told him!”

At best, if he is telling the truth (heh), the DOJ lawyers reporting to him2 are patently lying to him about what the Supreme Court’s decision was and what the Constitution requires. They are either incompetent or criminally negligent in their legal advice and should be fired immediately.

But realistically, there’s no way it’s true. “My lawyers tell me” is always just another “man who says to me ‘Sir’ with tears in his eyes” story.

That’s why “Trump Says He Doesn’t Know If He Has to Uphold the Constitution” is a bad headline here.

It’s because it’s far worse under the surface. My friend Gabe made this observation:

The headline incorrectly implies that he doesn't consider legality. The quote shows him communicating that he does consider legality. That disconnect can very easily cover the more concerning underlying truth, which is that he cares about the law in so far as it benefits him, and will happily break it when he knows the pushback is limited.

He’s totally right.

The headline and Trump’s comment at first blush just makes him look stupid and ignorant. “I don’t know! I’m not a lawyer! Ask the lawyers!” That makes him unqualified for the office, sure. Plenty of people agree on that to varying degrees.

But the truth is precisely what Gabe says: Trump definitely cares about the law when he can use it to enrich himself, get retribution on people he doesn’t like, or avoid punishment for his crimes. Trump spent literally decades using every legal mechanism right on down to patently absurd ones trying - successfully - to run out the clock on his crimes. He is right now directing his Department of Justice to pursue blatantly and openly politically motivated investigations, issuing wildly unconstitutional executive orders targeting law firms and educational institutions, and more.

And he will happily, willfully, and gleefully ignore the law, including the Constitution, when he thinks he can get away with it, right on down to simply pretending it says the opposite of what it actually says.

He is untethered from reality, and no longer has any guardrails left to constrain him.

That makes him not just unfit to carry out the duties of the office, but an active threat to the bedrock principles of the Constitution and the future of the Republic.