In an hour-long interview aired Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, US President Donald Trump questioned whether all individuals in the United States are entitled to constitutional protections, including the right to due process. He complained that allowing immigrants to appear in court would obstruct his plans to deport millions as part of a sweeping crackdown, which includes sending them to foreign gulags.
When NBC’s Kristen Welker asked whether he believed “all people” in the US are entitled to due process, Trump replied, “I don’t know. I’m not—I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.”
Welker retorted, “Well, the Fifth Amendment says as much.”
Trump replied:
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.
As he does in every public appearance, Trump slandered all immigrants as violent criminals. He said:
We have thousands of people that are some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.
Trump argued that he was “elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it.”
Welker then asked:
Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?
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.
The “oath of office,” mandated by Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 of the US Constitution requires the president to state before assuming the office of presidency:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Later on, Trump complained:
If the courts don’t allow us to take people out, if we had to have a court case every single—think of it. Every single person, we have millions of people. If you tried millions of court cases … it would be 300 years.
In fact, Trump is directly defying the courts, including the US Supreme Court, which ordered that the administration “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador.
Asked by Welker if anyone in the administration was in contact with El Salvador about returning Abrego Garcia, Trump again replied, “I don’t know. You’d have to ask the attorney general that question.” Pressed again later on in the interview if he had “the power to bring Abrego Garcia back as the Supreme Court has ordered?” Trump replied:
Well, I have the power to ask for him to come back, if I’m instructed by the attorney general that it’s legal to do so. But the decision as to whether or not he should come back will be the head of El Salvador.
Trump praised the US-backed dictator as “a very capable man.”
Trump’s open repudiation of the Supreme Court, the US Constitution and its core protections is not merely the ranting of an increasingly unhinged reactionary. It is the bluntest expression of the political outlook of the American ruling class. As the World Socialist Web Site has previously explained, Trump’s election marks “the violent realignment of the American political superstructure to correspond with the real social relations that exist in the United States.”
Trump heads a government of the oligarchy, responding to growing opposition with the methods of dictatorship. Democratic rights are incompatible with a society in which the 19 wealthiest families in the United States control $2.6 trillion, while hospitals and school programs that serve tens of thousands of workers and their families are shut down.
This “violent realignment” is further expressed in Trump’s budget request, released last Friday. The administration boasted that the so-called “skinny budget” delivers “unprecedented increases for defense and border security,” while slashing social programs, scientific research and education by an equally “unprecedented” $163 billion.
His proposal calls for increasing the war budget by over 13 percent, from the already astronomical sum of $848.3 billion in 2025 to a $1 trillion. Billions are set to be wasted on F-47 fighter jets and Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system.
The largest percentage increase in Trump’s budget request is reserved for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), whose agents are currently disappearing and deporting immigrants and US citizens without due process.
He has proposed increasing the DHS budget from $65.1 billion in 2025 to $107.4 billion in 2026. These funds would go to expanding the infrastructure of mass deportation and dictatorship, including the hiring of additional Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents and the construction of new detention centers.
The budget calls for sweeping cuts to science, health, education and other vital social programs. It includes a proposed $35 billion reduction to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with $27 billion slashed from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—gutting disease research—and an additional $4 billion in cuts targeting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Trump’s proposal slashes the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by more than 50 percent, cutting it from $9.1 billion to $4.2 billion—$500 million less than its 1980 funding level. The cuts include $254 million from the Superfund program for toxic waste cleanup and $235 million from the Office of Research and Development, which investigates the environmental impact of hazardous chemicals.
NASA’s budget is set to be slashed by nearly 25 percent, amounting to a $6 billion cut. As part of the administration’s broader effort to eliminate the Department of Education (ED), the proposal includes $12 billion in cuts—primarily targeting Title I funding that supports low-income students.
The budget calls for the elimination of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), along with more than 4,000 associated jobs. In 2024, LIHEAP provided energy bill relief to approximately 6.7 million low-income households across the country, including seniors, families with young children and people with disabilities.
Trump’s budget proposal is a declaration of war against the working class. His contempt for democratic rights expresses the ongoing and terminal decay of American democracy. Less than 25 years after the stolen election of 2000, Trump—freely running again after the failed coup of January 6, 2021, thanks to the complicity of the Democratic Party—is now openly declaring his intent to destroy what remains of democratic rights in the United States.
In the same interview with Welker, Trump repeated the “big lie” that the 2020 election was “rigged”:
There’s no question about it. The election was rigged. The facts are in. And it’s still being litigated.
His election lies culminated in the storming of the US Capitol by Trump-aligned militia groups and fascists.
On Saturday, Trump held a fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort, where former Proud Boys leader and government informant Henry “Enrique” Tarrio made an appearance. Tarrio later posted on social media that he had personally thanked Trump for the full and unconditional pardon he received from the president earlier this year, ending Tarrio’s 22-year prison sentence for his role in the January 6 Capitol siege.
Tarrio wrote:
He knew how many times they moved me. And he said he is working on making things right. I thanked him for giving me [my] life back. He replied with … I Love You guys.
Tarrio said that Trump recognized him and other top Proud Boy leaders previously convicted in the seditious conspiracy case, including Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.
A senior administration official confirmed to the New York Times that Trump spoke with the fascist militia leader for about 10 minutes on Saturday.
Trump’s embrace of Tarrio at Mar-a-Lago came one day after the Justice Department announced it had reached an undisclosed settlement with the family of Ashli Babbit, a QAnon supporter shot and killed while storming the Capitol on January 6. The family, along with high-profile conservative activist group Judicial Watch, had filed a $30 million civil suit against the government.