‘THE BAD, SAD NEWS’
President slams media and ‘judicial overreach’
President Trump slammed a court ruling that blocked his revised travel ban hours before it was to take effect as an “unprecedented judicial overreach” at a packed Tennessee campaign rally last night, where he whipped supporters into a frenzy by vowing to bring jobs back to the United States, build a border wall and replace Obamacare.
“Let me give you the bad, the sad, news,” Trump told the thousands gathered at Municipal Auditorium in Nashville. “Moments ago, I learned that a district judge in Hawaii, part of the much-overturned Ninth Circuit Court ... has just blocked our executive order on travel and refugees coming into our country from certain countries. The order he blocked was a watered-down version of the first order, which was also blocked by another judge — and should have never been blocked to start with.”
Trump told his supporters he’d have to “be nice” or else he’d be “criticized by these people” — motioning to the media covering the rally, whom he referred to as “among the most dishonest people in the world.” Trump then said the revised ban “was tailored to the dictates of the ninth circuit’s, in my opinion, flawed ruling.”
“This is, in the opinion of many, an unprecedented judicial overreach,” Trump said. “The law and the Constitution give the president the power to suspend immigration ... if he or she deems it to be in the national interest of our country.”
Hours before the rally, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson said Hawaii would suffer financially if the executive order — which applied only to new visas from Somalia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Yemen and temporarily shut down the U.S. refugee program — slowed the flow of students and tourists to the state. Watson also concluded that Hawaii was likely to succeed on a claim that the ban violates First Amendment protections against religious discrimination. Trump said his administration would appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The ruling, Trump said, “makes us look weak.”
The raucous rally came a day after Trump scooped Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC’s prime-time reveal of details of his 2005 federal tax return with a pre-emptive release — which allowed Fox News to beat the liberal rival with the news that the president had in fact paid tens of millions in taxes.
The documents Maddow reported ended up actually reinforcing Trump’s image as a successful businessman, showing he had earned $150 million that year. And it robbed progressives of the popular line of attack that Trump doesn’t contribute his fair share of taxes by revealing he had paid $38 million, or 24 percent, to the IRS.
It did not reveal what Maddow and other critics have speculated Trump is hiding in his taxes — business links to foreign interests such as Russia.
After railing against the court ruling that blocked his travel ban, Trump vowed that he would bring lawmakers together and replace the Affordable Care Act.
“I’ve met with so many victims of Obamacare, people who have been so horribly hurt by this horrible legislation,” Trump said, adding, “We’ll get everyone in a room and we will replace Obamacare and make health care better for you and your families.”