President Trump was hesitant on Wednesday to offer his opinion of the ongoing legal battle over the proposed census citizenship questions because it’s a “legal matter.”
Except, not really.
During a pool spray with the Polish president and reporters on Wednesday, President Trump said he thought it was “ridiculous” to not allow the citizenship question on the 2020 census, before dragging Polish President Andrzej Duda into the matter.
“I think when you have a census, and you’re not allowed to talk about whether or not somebody is a citizen or not, that doesn’t sound so good to me. Can you imagine you send out a census and you’re not allowed to say whether or not a person is an American citizen? In Poland, you say either you are Polish or they’re not,” he said. “So I don’t want to get you into this battle, but it is ridiculous.
“I think it’s totally ridiculous that we would have a census without asking,” he continued. “But the Supreme Court is going to be ruling on it soon. I think when a census goes out, you should find out whether or not — and you have the right to ask whether or somebody is a citizen of the United States.”
Trump did not mention his administration’s official line that they added the question to help enforce the Voting Rights Act (though documents uncovered in the court case over the question have suggested otherwise).
The remarks come just after the White House asserted executive privilege over key documents relevant to the administration’s push for a citizenship question on the 2020 census that House Democrats on the Oversight Committee subpoenaed.
Trump thinks it's "ridiculous" to have a census without a citizenship question pic.twitter.com/aYfFxEpMpB
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) June 12, 2019
