The Supreme Court, for example, acted properly in disregarding President Barack Obama’s statement that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate was “absolutely not a tax increase.” When the case came before the Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia did press the federal government’s lawyer to explain the president’s remarks. But in the end, none of the opinions in the case even mentioned the remarks, presumably because the court concluded they were irrelevant to the constitutional question of Congress’s power to regulate health care. Most presidential speech isn’t legally significant.

Again, there are important exceptions. The Supreme Court has long held that in the context of religious discrimination claims, proof of government purpose is required to establish a constitutional violation. And countless courts have relied on statements by government officials in such cases. In 1993, in a case concerning whether a city ordinance in Florida impeded the free exercise of religion, the Supreme Court held that government purpose could be gleaned from “contemporaneous statements made by members of the decision-making body.”

Giving decisive weight to all presidential statements would be a bad idea. It would unduly empower the president, allowing him to circumvent internal executive-branch processes, and it would also unduly disempower him, preventing him from speaking freely about topics that might have litigation consequences. Each effect would be problematic, whether we’re talking about President Trump or any other president.