Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) made it clear on Monday that he was not going to simply step into the trap laid for him by NBC News host Kristen Welker when she asked about a conversation she’d had with President Donald Trump on Sunday’s broadcast of “Meet the Press.”
Welker took an exchange from Sunday’s show regarding whether or not illegal immigrants were entitled to due process simply because they were physically in the United States — a question Trump had said he was not sure about — and asked Donalds how he would respond to the same question. Donalds, instead of answering the question directly, gave a response that exposed the framing of the question as an attempt to force him into suggesting that Trump’s answer had been out of line.
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🚨NEW: Byron Donalds TURNS TABLES on Kristen Welker after she presses him on “due process” for illegal immigrants🚨
DONALDS: “When the framers wrote our Constitution, they never envisioned that there would be an executive that would allow millions of people to come into the… pic.twitter.com/OIUn4VqKto
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) May 5, 2025
Welker read the text of the Fifth Amendment and then pressed Donalds for a response: “The Constitution says any person, not citizen and therein lies the debate and the root of my question. I mean, does ‘any person’ just apply to citizens in your mind or does it apply to citizens and non-citizens? Secretary of State Marco Rubio says it applies to citizens and non-citizens.”
“Let’s be very clear,” Donalds began, taking a jab at former President Joe Biden and his administration’s open borders policies. “First and foremost, when the framers wrote our Constitution, they never envisioned that there would be an executive that would allow millions of people to come into the country illegally.”
“Number two, more importantly, you have a situation right now — is it okay for any administration to not follow the law, abuse border security laws, let millions of people in, and then hide behind a court system to say, ‘Well, now they’re here, so now we have to go through a lengthy process’?” he asked.
