Trump and Treasury Sec Try and Fail to Explain Their Ignorance of the Constitution

Just Another Day in Trump World

When the acting President and his chief economic flunky the Secretary of the Treasury called for the line item veto, they had to be corrected by Fox News of all people.

"On “Fox News Sunday,” Mnuchin was tasked with defending the president’s signing Friday of a $1.3 trillion spending bill, to the scorn of many on the far right. Asked by host Chris Wallace what the president would do if congressional Republicans sent Trump another spending bill of this size later this year, Mnuchin repeated a suggestion that President Trump made Friday: Congress should give him the power of “line-item veto,” i.e. the ability to veto portions of the bill without vetoing the whole.

The problem? As Wallace pointed out, “that’s been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, sir.”

That the President is an ignoramus is not news. That his Secretary of the Treasury is one is not news. That Fox News would be the revealer of truth is.

"Wallace is correct: The Supreme Court ruled the line-item veto unconstitutional in 1998. But instead of conceding his mistake, Mnuchin dug himself in deeper: “Well, again, Congress could pass a rule, okay, that allows them to do it.” When Wallace pointed out that “No, no, sir, it would be a constitutional amendment,” Mnuchin stammered, “Chris, we don’t need to get into a debate in terms of — there’s different ways of doing this” and moved on."