As Donald Trump’s second term got underway, and his administration expressed indifference to legal limits, even going so far as to suggest the White House might disregard court rulings, there’s been ample discussion about whether the United States is facing a constitutional crisis. As it turns out, the president and his team are eager to join this public conversation, though they have some unusual thoughts on the matter.
In mid-February, for example, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch,” because several judges had issued rulings the president did not like. While different political scientists define “constitutional crisis” in different ways, Leavitt’s assessment was, by any fair measure, ridiculous.
But another one of Trump’s prominent spokespersons, who ostensibly leads the Justice Department, took this absurdity one step further over the weekend. Politico reported:
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Sunday pushed back on the idea that President Donald Trump might ignore future rulings decided by the Supreme Court, spurring constitutional discord. The real crisis, she argued, is the barrage of lawsuits the White House faces as it tries to move quickly on its agenda.
“Just since January 20th, we’ve had over 170 lawsuits filed against us. That should be the constitutional crisis right there, 50 injunctions,” Bondi said on “Fox News Sunday.” (For those keeping score, this was the attorney general’s 13th appearance on Fox since being sworn in nine weeks ago. She’s still averaging roughly one Fox appearance every four days.)
To be sure, the Republican lawyer makes weird political arguments all the time, but this was more outrageous than most. The White House’s Leavitt argued that it’s a “constitutional crisis” for judges to issue opinions that Trump disagrees with, but the nation’s chief law enforcement official’s claim was just as outlandish, if not more so: Bondi argued that for Americans to take their legal concerns to the courts is itself a “constitutional crisis.”
It reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the American system works. In this country, if you believe the government is abusing its legal authority, you have the right to file a lawsuit and bring your concerns to a judge, who is expected to adjudicate the matter fairly and rule on the legal merits.
To hear the attorney general tell it, however, if Americans exercise their legal rights by filing such lawsuits, they’re necessarily creating a “crisis.”
As for how the administration might deal with such a crisis, Bondi didn’t say. During the same on-air appearance, the Fox host asked whether there might be a future scenario in which Trump defies a court order. The attorney general replied, “The president is going to comply with the law. He was overwhelmingly elected by an overwhelming majority of the United States citizens to be our commander-in-chief.” First, she could’ve said, “Of course the president will comply with court orders,” but Bondi instead answered a question that wasn’t asked. Second, suggesting that Trump will comply with the White House’s interpretation of the law was hardly reassuring. Third, Trump won with less than 50% of the popular vote, which isn’t even close to being “an overwhelming majority.” But stepping back, it’s also worth appreciating the degree to which the line between the attorney general and the White House press office has grown awfully blurry of late. Those who at least pretended to be concerned about the politicization of federal law enforcement in recent years should probably take note.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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