In the president’s own words
A sampling of what Trump’s said that could be relevant to the travel ban
Here’s a look at noteworthy statements by Donald Trump and his advisers on his immigration travel ban, from December 2015 to the present:
DEC. 7, 2015 Trump during a news conference: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”
DEC. 8, 2015 Trump on MSNBC: “It’s not unconstitutional keeping people out, frankly, and until we get a hold of what’s going on. And then if you look at Franklin Roosevelt, a respected president, highly respected. Take a look at presidential proclamations back a long time ago ... what he was doing with Germans, Italians and Japanese, because he had to do it. Because, look, we are at war with radical Islam.”
MARCH 9, 2016 Trump on CNN: “I think Islam hates us.”
MARCH 22, 2016 Trump on Fox Business Network: “We’re having problems with the Muslims, and we’re having problems with Muslims coming into the country. You need surveillance. You have to deal with the mosques, whether you like it or not. These attacks are not done by Swedish people.”
JULY 24, 2016 Trump on NBC, answering whether he scaled back his call for a Muslim ban by focusing on countries instead: “I actually don’t think it’s a rollback. In fact, you could say it’s an expansion. I’m looking now at territories. People were so upset when I used the word ‘Muslim.’ Oh, you can’t use the word ‘Muslim.’ Remember this. And I’m OK with that, because I’m talking territory instead of Muslim.”
OCT. 9, 2016 Trump during the second presidential debate in St. Louis: “The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into a(n) extreme vetting from certain areas of the world.”
DEC. 22, 2016 Trump when asked whether violence in Europe affected his plans to ban Muslims: “You know my plans. All along, I’ve been proven to be right, 100% correct. What’s happening is disgraceful.”
JAN. 27, 2017 Trump speaking to the Christian Broadcasting Network, explaining a provision in his first travel ban that would have given immigration preference to religious minorities: “They’ve been horribly treated. Do you know if you were a Christian in Syria, it was impossible, at least very tough, to get into the United States? If you were a Muslim, you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible.”
JAN. 27, 2017 Trump before signing the first travel ban during a ceremony at the Pentagon: “This is the ‘Protection of the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.’ We all know what that means.”
JAN. 28, 2017 Trump adviser and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani on Fox News, when asked how Trump selected the seven countries targeted in the first ban: “So when he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban.’ He called me up. He said, ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.’ What we did was we focused on, instead of religion, danger. It’s based on places where there (is) substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country.”
FEB. 21, 2017 Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller on Fox News after a federal judge blocked the first travel ban: “The president is going to be issuing a new executive action, based off of the judicial ruling, flawed though it may be. Those are mostly minor, technical differences. Fundamentally, you’re still going to have the same basic policy outcome for the country.”
MARCH 6, 2017 White House spokesman Sean Spicer discussing the revised travel ban during his daily news briefing: “The principles of the executive order remain the same.”
MARCH 15, 2017 Trump at a rally in Nashville after a federal judge in Hawaii blocked the revised travel ban: “This is a watered-down version of the first one. And let me tell you something: I think we ought to go back to the first one and go all the way, which is what I wanted to do in the first place.”
JUNE 5, 2017 Trump tweeting after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit maintained a block against the revised travel ban: “The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to (Supreme Court). In any event we are EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S. in order to help keep our country safe. The courts are slow and political.”