First, it was Rudy Giuliani bragging on Fox News that he helped craft Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban” into something that wouldn’t look like a Muslim ban. Now, it seems Trump advisor Stephen Miller has made a similar mistake with his injudicious comments about Muslim Ban 2.0. Both Giuliani and Miller were cited in a federal court's temporary restraining order against the second ban.
You may recall that Giuliani boasted about his role in the Muslim ban on Fox’s Justice with Judge Jeanine show on January 28, 2017:
GIULIANI: I’ll tell you the whole history of it! So, when he [Trump] 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.” I put a commission together with Judge Mukasey with Congressman McCaul, Pete King. Whole group of other very expert lawyers on this. And what we did was, we focused on, instead of religion, danger! The areas of the world that create danger for us - which is a factual basis not a religious basis. Perfectly legal. Perfectly sensible. And that’s what the ban is based on. It’s not based on religion. It’s based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country.
After that ban was blocked in federal court and the block was upheld on appeal, the Trump administration decided to rewrite it.
On February 21, Miller visited Fox’s The First 100 Days show where he crowed that Muslim Ban 2.0 was essentially the same as the original. Media Matters caught the exchange.
MILLER: Well, one of the big differences that you’re going to see in the executive order is that it’s going to be responsive to the judicial ruling, which didn’t exist previously. And so these are mostly minor technical differences. Fundamentally, you’re still going to have the same basic policy outcome for the country, but you’re going to be responsive to a lot of very technical issues that were brought up by the court and those will be addressed. But in terms of protecting the country, those basic policies are still going to be in effect.
The lawsuits against Muslim Ban 2.0 specifically cited the comments of both Miller and Giuliani. As Media Matters noted, the judge’s decision cited them as well, along with other factors, when it issued the TRO:
These plainly-worded statements made in the months leading up to and contemporaneous with the signing of the Executive Order, and, in many cases, made by the Executive himself, betray the Executive Order’s stated secular purpose. Any reasonable, objective observer would conclude, as does the Court for purposes of the instant Motion for TRO, that the stated secular purpose of the Executive Order is, at the very least, “secondary to a religious objective” of temporarily suspending the entry of Muslims.
Watch Miller spill the Muslim-ban beans below, from the February 21, 2017 The First 100 Days, via Media Matters: