President Trump is trying to delegitimize his opposition, including the Judicial Branch, through Twitter and television, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, charged Monday.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said on MSNBC that Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s statements that the president “will not be questioned” by the courts on national security policy shows a lack of respect for checks and balances. King said the Trump administration’s initial response to any criticism is to try to belittle the institutions making them.
“The thing that really bothers me … what you’re seeing appears to be a somewhat systematic effort to delegitimize any opposition,” King said.
He pointed to Trump’s tweets calling a federal judge who ruled against him a “so-called judge” and other tweets criticizing the intelligence community by putting the word intelligence in quotation marks, indicating sarcasm.
King said the White House is right in one aspect: the president does have a wide range of powers in the foreign policy realm. However, that power doesn’t go unchecked.
“Miller and Trump, I don’t think, have a gut-level understanding of checks and balances, of the Constitution,” King said.
