Donald Trump insists that his Muslim ban is perfect in every way and just the victim of a bad court decision … but he’ll be issuing a new version of the ban, anyway, rather than trying to defend the fabulous original. A key challenge for Muslim ban 2.0 will be to look like its intent isn’t religious discrimination:
A source familiar with the process said that the new order was still being drafted over the weekend. The source said that it was also likely to address religious discrimination issues by modifying or removing one section of the original order. That section, 5 (b), said that the Secretary of Homeland Security, "is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality."
Of course, Trump and his advisers are on the record repeatedly talking about how they wanted to ban Muslims from entering the country, which still might cause them difficulties in court. Unless they’re going to invent time travel so they can go back and not say those things publicly, the world will know their intent. Meanwhile, the process is filled with the usual disarray of the Trump “fine-tuned machine:”
One sticking point remained whether existing non-immigrant visas would be revoked. A source familiar with the discussions said the Justice Department preferred to not revoke existing non-immigrant visas, while the White House and Department of Homeland Security were considering doing so.
But hey, no worries—it’s not like Jeff Sessions’ Justice Department won’t defend the order, even if its advice is ignored. Also:
… despite a pledge from the White House to consult legislators in crafting policies, multiple Hill sources said they remained out of the loop on the order as of Monday morning.
How surprising. Donald Trump is not playing well with others. Who could possibly have foreseen it?