White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday afternoon painstakingly insisted that President Donald Trump’s order barring immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries was not a “travel ban.”
But with one tweet on Wednesday morning, Trump undid Spicer’s efforts and said he did not care what term was used to describe his order.
Everybody is arguing whether or not it is a BAN. Call it what you want, it is about keeping bad people (with bad intentions) out of country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 1, 2017
Trump’s tweet follows Spicer’s Tuesday press briefing, during which he made a conscious effort not to call Trump’s order a “ban.”
“This is not a Muslim ban. It’s not a travel ban. It’s a vetting system to keep America safe. That’s it,” he said.
But Spicer’s insistence that the order is not a “ban” came after Trump and Spicer both referred to the order as a ban. Asked about Trump calling the order a ban on Tuesday, Spicer said that the President is “using the words that the media is using.”