President Donald Trump sought to lend his own legal argument for his executive order banning travel from certain Muslim-majority countries on Wednesday, discounting a legal challenge to the order as anti-security.
Contending that a US president has wide powers to control who comes into the United States, Trump read from US law and declared that even a “bad high school student” would rule in his favor.
“This isn’t just me. This is for Obama, for Ronald Reagan, for the President. This was done, very importantly, for security,” Trump said. “It was done for the security of our nation, for the security of our citizens, so people don’t come in who are going to do us harm. That is why is was done. It couldn’t have been written more precisely.”
Trump said his executive order was “written beautifully” and fully within the bounds of US statute.
“We’re in an area that, let’s just say, they’re interpreting things differently than probably 100% of people in this room,” Trump told a group of major city police officers and sheriffs in Washington.
“We want security,” Trump said.
On Tuesday evening, a federal appeals court heard arguments in the legal battle over the travel ban. The California-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will decide soon whether to reinstate the executive order.