Wall Street Journal
By Eli Stokols
August 18, 2017
In a series of tweets in the wake of the Spain attacks, President Donald Trump said U.S. courts should clear the way for his administration to implement its border-security efforts, which he says are needed to keep the country safe but that have drawn fire from critics for focusing on majority Muslim countries.
“Radical Islamic Terrorism must be stopped by whatever means necessary! The courts must give us back our protective rights. Have to be tough!,” he tweeted Friday morning.
The Republican president, who has criticized the courts over the issue several times previously, took a swipe at political opponents: “The Obstructionist Democrats make Security for our country very difficult. They use the courts and associated delay at all times. Must stop!”
Mr. Trump also said that Homeland Security and law enforcement “are on alert & closely watching for any sign of trouble. Our borders are far tougher than ever before!”
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to implement part of his temporary ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries. The court said it would give full consideration to whether the president’s actions were lawful in October.
Mr. Trump’s focus on terrorism comes after a van plowed into a crowd in Barcelona, killing 13 people and injuring dozens more. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack via its official Amaq news agency, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist activity online.
Shortly after the attack, Mr. Trump tweeted his support late Thursday for the victims and the people of Spain. But he followed that with a second tweet that repeated an unsubstantiated legend about U.S. Gen. John Pershing having killed Muslim combatants in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War with bullets dipped in pigs’ blood, as a deterrent to future attackers.
Mr. Trump is headed to the Camp David presidential retreat in Mayland on Friday for a previously scheduled meeting with his National Security Council. The trip wraps up a difficult week for the president, in which he took heavy criticism from Democrats and Republicans over his response to the race-fueled violence in Charlottesville, Va., that left one woman dead. Mr. Trump was slow to the condemn the white supremacists involved in the violence, and later put blame on “both sides”—the white nationalists and counterdemonstrators.
The mother of Heather Heyer, the woman killed in Charlottesville last Saturday when a car plowed into a group of people protesting the white nationalist marchers, said Friday morning in an interview that she “will not” speak with the president, whose initial phone calls she has missed. She cited his remarks Tuesday that blame both sides for the violence that day.
During an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Susan Bro offered Mr. Trump a curt piece of advice: “Think before you speak,” she said.
Write to Eli Stokols at eli.stokols@wsj.com
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