Donald Trump looked caught off guard during a White House roundtable when a reporter hit him with a question that included a legal term in Latin. The 79-year-old president was speaking with conservative influencers in the State Dining Room during an event focused on Antifa when things took an awkward turn.
The question came after the Trump administration once again labeled Antifa—a loose network of far-left activists—a domestic terrorist organization. Officials used the event to accuse Antifa of “carrying out a campaign of violence” against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
“Have you given any more thought to possibly suspending habeas corpus to not only deal with these insurrectionists across the nation but also to continue rapidly deporting illegal aliens?” the reporter asked.
Trump looked puzzled. “Suspending who?” he said, as if habeas corpus were a person.
The reporter repeated the term. “Habeas corpus,” they said.
“Oh, oh, I don’t know,” Trump replied, glancing at Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who sat next to him. “I’d rather leave that to Kristi. What do you think?”
Noem looked uncomfortable too. “Sir, I haven’t been a part of any discussions on that,” she answered.
For context, habeas corpus is a Latin phrase meaning “that you have the body.” It refers to a constitutional protection that allows prisoners to challenge their detention in court and ensures the government can’t just lock someone up indefinitely without due process.
Ironically, Noem had her own run-in with the term earlier this year. During a Senate hearing in May, Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan asked her to define habeas corpus.
“Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country,” Noem replied.
“That’s incorrect,” Hassan quickly said. The exchange went viral, and California Governor Gavin Newsom sarcastically commented, “Comforting,” in a clip of the moment shared online.
Back at the White House, the conversation moved on to Trump’s latest push to expand his crackdown on Antifa. He told the room he’d be open to classifying the group as a foreign terrorist organization, following his move last month to brand it a domestic one.
Attorney General Pam Bondi joined in, comparing Antifa to drug cartels. “Fighting crime is more than just getting the bad guy off the streets,” she said. “It’s breaking down the organization brick by brick, just like we did with cartels. We’re going to take the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa, destroy the entire organization, from top to bottom.”
Noem doubled down, calling Antifa “just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA (Tren de Aragua), as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them. They are just as dangerous.”
Between Trump’s confusion over a centuries-old legal term and his administration’s aggressive stance on Antifa, the roundtable became yet another viral moment in a presidency full of them. Whether it’s a slip of the tongue or another sign of his off-the-cuff style, the internet is already having a field day with “suspending who?”