Trump’s America is facing an Andrew Jackson moment – and it’s bad news for the constitution

Statue of Andrew Jackson in Layfayette Square, Washington DC. Flickr

How do you deal with an American president who does not obey the US constitution? The question has arisen because the recent episode where deportation flights carrying Venezuelans were dispatched to El Salvador, despite a court ruling that those flights must not proceed, suggests Donald Trump’s administration has a limited understanding of the separation of powers in the US. A president has no power to defy a court order.

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