The Final Call

Trump Wins On A Partial Immigration Ban But Loses On Health Care, Alleged Voter Fraud

What's your opinion on this article?

WASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump left Washington for the G-20 Summit, shortly after the July 4 Independence Day holiday, with some good news to boast about, and some bad news.

The good news is that the Supreme Court permitted partial implementation of the president’s temporary ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries while the court examines the constitutionality of the order.

The bad news is that support for the president’s signature campaign promise to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) hemorrhaged, right before his eyes, as Republican leaders scrambled to rescue a Senate plan, after nine GOP senators said they could not support their party’s bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell abandoned a push for a vote before the July 4 recess after some party members balked over the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) finding that the Senate bill would cause 22 million Americans to lose their health insurance over the next decade.

Angry protests took place in the offices of individual senators around the country and on Capitol Hill. “It’s going to kill people. It’s not hard to figure out,” one protestor said in the office of Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) according to a broadcast report. “Remove 22 million Americans from their insurance,” added another protestor.

“This bill already has actuarial tables attached to it,” a third protestor continued, “obviously, drafts, that show the only way these numbers come about, through the CBO, is if people die early.” Capitol police arrested 40 people on misdemeanor charges at that demonstration alone. As many as 100 people were detained in a variety of Capitol Hill protests.

The president’s now enforceable travel ban amounts to a major victory for the Trump agenda. Mr. Trump’s executive order calls for a 90-day ban on travelers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and a 120-day ban on all refugees. The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments on the case in October. Three justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch—issued a separate ruling supporting the full implementation of the travel ban.

The travel ban “is very negative in every way,” Dr. Sam Hamod, professor of English at Princeton University and former director of the Islamic Center in Washington, said in an interview, concerning an inadequate response from the Muslim world. “They haven’t reacted to anything”—not to the first cancellation of a White House or State Department Iftar dinner during Ramadan for the first time in 20 years; not to the Muslim travel ban.

“The problem is this,” Dr. Hamod continued. “They are not speaking up. What does it say about them? And what they really are? And what they really think about their own people, these leaders, or what they call themselves, leaders.

“They could have run ads in the papers saying ‘This is wrong,’ the travel ban. But they’re not doing this, which tells you two things: one is, they’re not really, seriously, good Muslims who believe in Allah’s way of punishment and reward; and secondly, they’re probably puppets for the West. Because they don’t want to open their mouths.

“You notice, none of these countries have spoken out. But here, I know people in Detroit (where there is a large Muslim population) have told me they’re afraid. They don’t know when ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is going to come in and grab people.”

Another instance of potential overreach by the Trump administration was the call by his so-called Election Integrity Commission for information about every voter in the country. At least 29 states pushed back or refused to comply with the request for voter registration data.

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, formed by the president to investigate his widely debunked claim that millions of illegal votes cost him winning the majority of the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election, sent letters to the 50 secretaries of state across the country requesting information about voters.

The letter asked for names, addresses, birth dates and party affiliations of registered voters in each state. It also sought felony convictions, military statuses, the last four digits of Social Security numbers and voting records dating back to 2006, according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Hill.

Several secretaries of state out right refused to comply with the request. “I do not intend to release Kentuckians’ sensitive personal data to the federal government,” Kentucky Secretary of State Allison Lundergan Grimes said in a statement.

Mississippi’s Republican Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, said he won’t turn over any information to the panel, telling members of Mr. Trump’s voter fraud commission to “go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.”