Despite Trump’s own Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross saying the government would proceed with printing the census sans question (that after the Supreme Court ruled they’d need to come up with a better argument), Trump reversed course (by tweet, of course).
Directing his lawyers to “look at every option,” the administration had to meet a Friday afternoon deadline to explain in court what the government plans to do.
So lawyers were at work over the Fourth. “Department of Commerce and the Department of Justice are working very hard on this, even on the 4th of July!” Trump tweeted Thursday.
By Friday morning, Trump offered up some alternate avenues he’s considering to get the question added to the census, including an executive order: “It’s one of the ways — we have four or five ways we can do it,” he said.
Despite the fact that the census is already being printed, Trump said the citizenship question could be added “as an amendment.”
There appears to be no clear or easy resolution to the citizenship question’s place on the 2020 census. Department of Justice lawyers told a federal judge in Maryland on Friday that while they don’t have the specific argument in place YET, they could provide a new rationale for including a citizenship question on the census. The lawyers made no mention of a potential executive order.
The Point: What Trump wants, Trump will work very hard to get.
Below, the week in 23 emails.
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
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