Consti-Hooby-Whatty

Trump can't promise to defend the Constitution, even though it was part of his oath of office

Donald Trump interviewed with Kristen Welker of NBC (shocking), and during a portion about his handling of immigration and deporting migrants to a super-max prison in El Salvador, he was asked, Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?”

This should be an easy lay-up for a president and an easy 2. It should be as easy as tee-ball. It should be as easy as answering the question, “Do you want fries with that?” But Trump’s answer was, “I don’t know.”

When Welker pressed him about whether “everyone who’s here, citizens and noncitizens, deserves due process,” Trump again said, “I don’t know.”

He said, “I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. 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.”

“I’m relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi. Because I’m not involved in the legality or the illegality. I have lawyers to do that … And they’re not viewing the decision the way you said it. They don’t view it that way at all. They think it’s a totally different decision.”

First off, Trump hires shitty lawyers. Pam Bondi is the ass clown of Attorney Generals.

Part of the ruling from a recent Supreme Court decision said 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.’”

The Fifth Amendment says that “no person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Constitution uses the word “person,” not “citizen,” which means it applies to everyone. Nobody, especially a president, even a stupid one like we have now, should have to have that explained to them.

If you’re too dumb to understand that, then you shouldn’t be the nation’s Attorney General…or the president of the United States.

But, Trump probably does know it and just doesn’t care. Maybe he’ll gut the Constitution the same way he’s gutting the military, universities, the federal government, and even the Smithsonian of anything he considers “woke” or “improper ideology.”

Trump went back to his lying campaign rhetoric, saying, “Many people have been killed, maimed, badly hurt by illegal immigrants that came over that are from prisons and from jails and from mental institutions. And they’re hurting our people. And if we don’t get them out, we’re not going to have a country for long.”

Trump is making excuses not to be a president, but to be a ruthless dictator without any oversight. He’s ignoring court orders now.

The oath of office a president is constitutionally required to take (too bad it can’t mandate presidential candidates to understand it) includes a promise to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Unfortunately for us, Trump has taken it twice. Apparently, to Donald Trump, the words are empty and don’t mean anything. To him, they’re probably like marriage vows.

We know the Constitution doesn’t mean anything to our felon president (sic), because laws don’t mean anything to him. His marriage vows don’t mean anything to him. I doubt the guy has ever made a promise he’s ever kept. Hell, he’s cheating on our nation with Putin.

The ironic thing is, Trump and MAGAts love to call themselves constitutionalists, while only being able to recite half a sentence from it. You know, the part about guns, and they can’t even get that one right.

If we let Trump and MAGAts ignore the Constitution and the rule of law, then we’re not going to have a country anymore.

World Press Freedom note:

Photo courtesy of Bruce Guthrie

I got to hang out with Barry Blitt yesterday, as well as Joel Pett, Matt Weurker, and Signe Wilkinson. My friend Kevin Kallaugher was also at the event, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.

This was a celebration of World Press Freedom sponsored by Cartoonists Rights, Committee to Protect Journalists, Freedom Cartoonists, The Herb Block Foundation, and held at Syracuse University’s Institute for Democracy in Washington, DC.

Photo courtesy of Bruce Guthrie. From L to R, Mike Jenkins, Carolyn Belefski, me, Mike Rhode, and Joe Sutliff

After the event was over, I hung out with Joel Pett in the lobby for a while, and we got to catch up. I saw him last October at the convention for the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (with the Canadian association) in Montreal, but we didn’t get much time to talk.

A huge thunderstorm hit during the event, and I had to Lyft to a hotel bar where others were meeting. Everyone ordered food except me, but Barry Blitt’s wife, Angie Silverstein, kept pushing me to have slices of her pizza, and she still managed to get me to eat one, despite that I wasn’t hungry at all. The reason I was not hungry is that I hit Ben’s Chili Bowl before the event.

This could have been a mistake. Why did I get two of these things? I was thinking I would get regular-sized hot dogs, and not these half-smoke monsters.

Back when I did concert reviews, I’d hit Ben’s Chili Bowl every time I saw a show at the 9:30 Club. But I haven’t reviewed anything since I left The Free Lance-Star. But after looking at my Google Map for something to eat after I finished yesterday’s cartoon, I saw that Ben’s was only one train stop from me, so I had to hit it.

Ben’s is a Washington institution. You have not really had the Washington experience until you eat at Ben’s. President Obama ate at Ben’s. In case you’re a MAGAt, be warned that it’s in a mostly Black neighborhood and you will see diversity, so you should probably stay away. The neighborhood has gentrified a lot since the last time I came here. I like the neighborhood. I don’t know why, but lots of beautiful women walk in groups in the neighborhood, roaming the sidewalks. I think I want to move there.

I did manage to eat both those dogs, but those fries went to waste. The dogs came barking at 4 a.m. for some Tums. It’s close to 8 p.m., over 24 hours later, and I’m still not hungry (I did have a thin chicken salad and avocado sandwich at Union Station).

Ann Telnaes: Congrats to my friend and colleague Ann Telnaes on winning the Pulitzer Prize. She is the first cartoonist to win a Pulitzer since 2019. Since then, they changed the category to include other types of art, and it seemed the award committee would always make a cartoonist a finalist just to throw us a bone. But now, Ann has taken away my excuse for why I haven’t won a Pulitzer, which was, “They don’t give them to cartoonists anymore.” Well, Ann got one.

What’s even better is that the award went to The Washington Post, where Ann quit working after the paper rejected one of her cartoons for the first time in her 17-year career there. It was a cartoon criticizing oligarchs bowing to Trump, one of whom was the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos.

Congratulations, Ann.

Facebook trouble: Now this is some bullshit. A lot of Facebook pages will use political cartoons to fill content. They copy and paste the cartoons and often don’t give any credit to the cartoonists, or link back to their websites or Facebook pages. I always ask people to please use the share button because that gives proper credit to the cartoonist, and if the shares are huge from the group page, then it’s reflected back to the cartoonists. But these pages use our cartoons any way they want as if they own them. Everything on the internet is free, right?

I will often comment on the page protesting the way they used my cartoon, and sometimes they’re nice about it, and they start giving credit, and sometimes, gasp, start using the share button. And other times, they’re nasty obnoxious assholes over it. A couple of days ago, a page owner told me that since I signed the cartoon, the copyright was reflected and he could use it any way he wanted. And then he started calling me names. So, I filed a copyright complaint with Facebook, which meant I had to include links. And Facebook agreed with me that there was a copyright violation.

Except they took the cartoon down from my page. They took down the original share, and they penalized me by taking away my monetization. They hit me for violating my own fucking copyright.

To file a correction for this, Facebook wants the link to what they took down, except they took it down, and I do not have the link. But I still have a challenge with it, so let’s hope that clears it up.

Like I said, this is some bullshit.

Creative note: I started this cartoon in my DC hotel this morning, colored it on a train, and wrapped it up back in my tiny studio apartment.

Music note: I listened to REM while finishing this cartoon on the VRE.

Drawn in 30 seconds:

Timelapse:

Support your local cartoonist: If you want to support the cartoonist, please donate through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com, Venmo to clay-jones-87, or snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. All support is appreciated.

Signed prints: Each signed print costs $40.00. Every cartoon at Claytoonz is available. Payment is accepted through PayPal, Venmo (clay-jones-87), or snail mail to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. Add to the note what you’re purchasing.

Tales From The Trumpster Fire: Signed copies of my second book are $50 and available only through me. I currently have four copies in my personal stash. Add to the note what you’re purchasing.

Knee-Deep In Mississippi: There are only seven copies left of my first book, published in 1997. They can be purchased for $40.00. Add to the note what you're purchasing.