This story turned out to be a bit of a roller-coaster.
Early on Friday morning, Associated Press obtained a memo in which details of Trump mobilizing 100,000 National Guard troops to round up illegal immigrants in eleven states across the country were revealed.
It wasn’t long before Melissa McCarthy Sean Spicer held a press conference and took to Twitter to state the White House’s official stance on the topic:
Not true. 100% false https://t.co/EkTMKzhHPs
— Sean Spicer (@PressSec) February 17, 2017
While the AP report states that the governors of each of the eleven states would technically have to approve of the initiative, Trump could bypass that need by claiming it to be an emergency situation.
The AP also attempted to contact the White House in regard to the memo and received no reply, and while Spicer did deny the action was being implemented, he did not deny the existence of the memo.
Some are already claiming that the delayed response to the story – denying its accuracy after the story broke instead of giving a comment prior to its publication – will allow Trump to further feed into the whole “Fake News” angle he has pushed so heavily in his press conferences of late.
AP says they requested comment from both WH and DHS on their story, why did they wait to deny after it drops? https://t.co/qDSvuayZht
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) February 17, 2017
Because then they can decry the press for reporting “fake news”. White House has used this tactic several times already. https://t.co/e5OqmD63Uy
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) February 17, 2017
Expect more to come on this story once Trump makes an official comment on it, i.e. keep an eye on his Twitter feed.
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