Vice President Mike Pence gave a revised definition for his Administration’s executive order banning immigration on Meet the Press this morning.
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He told NBC’s Chuck Todd that though it is a ban, his administration’s ban applies to “people people coming into this country from countries for which we cannot be confident that they don’t represent a threat.”
Ultimately, according to Pence, the “focus is on the safety and security of the American people,” though he did not address permanent residents and others who were illegitimately shut out of the country after the executive order. Over the weekend, a Federal Appellate Court judge suspended the order once again, pending a hearing on Monday.
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“It was not done hastily,” says Pence, though he concedes that “there may have been some leaders on Capitol Hill that were not informed in the usual niceties of Washington D.C.”
Instead, he credited Trump for being “decisive and action-oriented,” saying that he thought many Americans appreciated it.
The Vice President disagrees that Trump’s promise to prioritize Christian Syrians amounts to a religious test; he told Chuck Todd “It’s not a religious test,” though discriminating and prioritizing refugee applicants by religious identification would seem to establish one.
But Pence pushed forward on the notion that the Trump Administration is operating inside the law, saying “We’re very confident the President’s operating within his authority as president, both under the constitution, and under clear statutory law,” and rejecting the idea that they would withdraw the executive order and pursue action through Congress instead.