Ever since President Trump announced in the Rose Garden Thursday evening that he was dropping the effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the White House has sought to fight the characterization that he was conceding on the matter.
“Anybody else would have given this up a long time ago,” said the president, speaking to reporters on the South Lawn Friday morning. Mr. Trump said he was convinced by the argument that his executive order directing federal agencies to turn over citizenship records would be more accurate than adding the question to the census. “I said, what are we wasting time for….I think that’s actually better.”
An administration official said of the executive order: “That’s him getting both”—printing the census on time and still collecting the information. The administration had spent the two weeks since the Supreme Court effectively blocked the question from being on census forms trying to come up with a way to work around the decision.
For all their attempts to portray the president’s executive order as a win, though, it relies almost wholly on a plan outlined by Census Bureau staff 18 months ago that would require little change in its normal operations at an additional cost of about $2 million.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was “jubilant” that Mr. Trump had backed off his fight to include the census question, though she said Democrats may still move forward to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt next week.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was “jubilant” that Mr. Trump had backed off his fight to include the census question, though she said Democrats may still move forward to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt next week.
“For the basis of the census and the citizenship question, I am glad it’s gone,” she said. “Now, he says has other ways of counting citizens, so we will see.”
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Trump officially issues executive order to tally citizens through the Commerce Department
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