\n<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump<\/span> keeps saying he doesn\u2019t know what his own administration is up to.\u00a0<\/p>\n Three times in the last week, Trump responded to questions about his signature policies by expressing ignorance.<\/p>\n Is he truly clueless? Is he fully aware of the answer but using ignorance as a cover? Whatever the case, the White House doesn\u2019t want to talk about it.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. I really don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The first instance came in comments to NBC News\u2019 Kristen Welker<\/a> on May 4. Though Trump has twice placed his hand on a bible and sworn, to the best of his ability, to \u201cpreserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,\u201d he seemed to have forgotten those oaths on \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d Asked whether everyone in the United States is entitled to due process \u2014 the constitutional rights enshrined in both the\u00a0Fifth<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Fourteenth amendments<\/a> \u2014 Trump was foggy.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. I\u2019m not, I\u2019m not a lawyer,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n When reports surfaced May 7 that Trump planned to deport hundreds of immigrants to Libya, a reporter put the question to him: \u201cIs your administration sending migrants to Libya?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Trump replied<\/a>. \u201cYou\u2019ll have to ask the Department of Homeland Security.\u201d<\/p>\n While fielding questions that same day in the Oval Office, Trump\u00a0was asked<\/a>\u00a0whether he agreed with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent\u2019s comments about potential tariff exemptions for products that families rely on, such as baby car seats. Trump, again, appeared vexed. \u201cI don\u2019t know, I\u2019ll think about it,\u201d\u00a0the president said<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t know. I really don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. I\u2019m not, I\u2019m not a lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Trump repeatedly cast his predecessor, President Joe Biden, as senile and inept. \u201cHe can\u2019t do an interview. He\u2019s incompetent,\u201d Trump said of Biden while he was running for president in 2020. \u201cTo be president, you have to be sharp and tough and so many other things.\u201d During last year\u2019s presidential campaign Trump derided Biden<\/a>\u2019s \u201chazy memory<\/a>\u201d and dusted off his \u201cSleepy Joe\u201d dig from the prior election cycle. \u201cI\u2019m not sure that Biden knows what the hell\u2019s going on,\u201d Trump said last year. \u201cI don\u2019t think he knows he\u2019s alive, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2020, Trump bragged about passing a mental competence test. \u201cI aced it,\u201d he said<\/a> of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test<\/a>, noting it was \u201cvery hard,\u201d specifically the last five questions. The test is not, however, supposed to be hard if you aren\u2019t suffering from some form of dementia.\u00a0<\/p>\n During a press gaggle last month, Trump boasted about the results of a more recent test. \u201cI wanted to be a little different than Biden. I took a cognitive test and I don\u2019t know what to tell you other than I got every answer right,\u201d he boasted<\/a>. Asked if it was the same one he had taken in 2020, Trump replied:\u00a0\u201cI think it\u2019s a pretty well-known test. Whatever it is, I got every one.\u201d<\/p>\n A little more than a minute later, Trump was asked about the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador for alleged ties to the MS-13 gang.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
\n