For a vivid example of the dinosaur media’s holistic mendacity, consider President Donald J. Trump’s recent interview with Kristen Welker, host of NBC’s Meet the Press.
According to news stories about this conversation, Trump virtually set the U.S. Constitution ablaze on live TV.
- ABC News announced: “Trump says ‘I don’t know’ if he’s required to uphold Constitution.”
- ABC News Radio reported, “‘Shocking’: Experts question Trump claiming ‘I don’t know’ about upholding Constitution.”
- “Trump, asked if he has to ‘uphold the Constitution,’ says, ‘I don’t know’” NBC News stated.
- “Does a president need to uphold the Constitution?” National Public Radio wondered. “Trump says ‘I don’t know.’”
- USA Today chimed in: “Trump says ‘I don’t know’ when asked if he must uphold the Constitution.”
So, was Trump too busy savoring newsreel footage of Benito Mussolini to brush up on America’s Founding blueprint? While the “Trump = Hitler” crowd would love for Americans to believe this, the transcript of Meet the Press — naturally — tells a totally different story. (RELATED: FCC Pulls a ‘60 Minutes’ on ‘60 Minutes’)
Trump told Welker that in order to grant “due process” to illegal aliens before deporting them, “we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials.” Trump added that these include “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.”
The transcript continues:
KRISTEN WELKER: But even given those numbers that you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: 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.
So, despite the deceitful headlines above, Trump expressed neither total cluelessness nor reckless disregard for his sworn duty to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Instead, Trump said that he was unaware of the technicalities governing the rights, if any, enjoyed by people who broke the law the second that they breached America’s borders. (U.S. Code 8 § 1325 — improper entry by alien.) This issue has fueled incendiary disagreement, even among legal scholars. Ambiguity about this is not a sign of incipient fascism. It’s an accurate description of the status quo.
No surprise, here’s how MSNBC twisted this story:
Trump’s uncertainty about his sworn oath of office leaves little room for debate
For seemingly the first time, a president has expressed doubt about his obligation to uphold the Constitution.
This passage appeared beneath those headlines:
“But the language of the court’s Alien Enemies Act ruling and the Constitution could not be clearer,” wrote Austin Sarat, a Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. “As the Supreme Court observed (in part quoting earlier rulings), it is ‘“well established that the Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law”’ in the context of removal proceedings….So, the detainees are entitled to notice and opportunity to be heard “appropriate to the nature of the case.”
It also could not be clearer how the Court ruled in 1948’s Ludecke v. Watkins decision:
If the President of the United States invokes the Alien Enemies Act to deport hostile foreign citizens, no judge may challenge that action. Indeed, this is the very first item “held” in this 5-4 majority opinion: “1. The Alien Enemy Act precludes judicial review of the removal order.” The decision further states: “These are matters of political judgment for which judges have neither technical competence nor official responsibility.”
Over the last few weeks, judges from district court to the Supreme Court have landed on every side of this remarkably straightforward language. And the ensuing controversy roars on.
Thus, when asked if he must uphold the Constitution under these circumstances, a perfectly reasonable answer, especially from a non-attorney like Trump, could be: “I don’t know.” I’ll ask my lawyers.
As luck would have it, this is exactly what Trump said. So, of course, the Left-wing media repeatedly slammed Trump as if he had declared martial law.
This outrage echoes the “very fine people” hoax perpetrated by what my sainted father, Oscar Murdock, calls “the criminal media.”
In the aftermath of the August 2017 race riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump said that there were “very fine people” on both sides of that mayhem. The media criminals hammered Trump. The Washington Post’s Lisa Rein, for one, bashed Trump for not “singling out the white nationalists and neo-Nazis who rallied there.”
But, mirroring the “I don’t know” case, Rein and other journalistic thugs ignored Trump’s words that, seconds later, disproved their hallucinated racist battle cry. After “very fine people,” Trump continued answering the same query: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”
Oops. End of “pro-KKK” fantasy.
In April 1963, Washington Post co-owner Philip L. Graham described the “inescapably impossible task of providing every week a first rough draft of history…” The children and grandchildren of those who pursued that ideal have devolved into today’s enemies of the truth.
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Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.