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Trump Says He Didn’t Lose on DACA: SCOTUS Punted—’Much Like in a Football Game,’ Where Hopefully They Would Stand for the Flag

 

President Donald Trump still had the Supreme Court on his mind on Friday morning, the day after the high court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the administration’s attempted rescission of Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy ran afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act. The president said that the decision was neither a loss nor a win.

Here’s what Trump said:

The Supreme Court asked us to resubmit on DACA, nothing was lost or won. They “punted”, much like in a football game (where hopefully they would stand for our great American Flag). We will be submitting enhanced papers shortly in order to properly fulfil the Supreme Court’s ruling & request of yesterday. I have wanted to take care of DACA recipients better than the Do Nothing Democrats, but for two years they refused to negotiate – They have abandoned DACA. Based on the decision the Dems can’t make DACA citizens. They gained nothing! @DHSgov

It certainly wasn’t a win when the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully went about repealing DACA. The president appears to have recognized this in a series of Thursday tweets:

But—and it seems this is what Trump is saying—the decision wasn’t exactly a loss because the Supreme Court did not say the words: You can’t rescind DACA. Trump interpreted that as a “punt” on a politically charged issue.

Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion arguably represents a roadmap for the Trump administration on how to successfully end DACA. The president said that his administration “will be submitting enhanced papers shortly in order to properly fulfil [sic] the Supreme Court’s ruling & request of yesterday.”

The question, at this point, is one of time and re-electability.

[Image via Doug Mills/The New York Times]

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Matt Naham is the Senior A.M. Editor of Law&Crime.