Excerpts of Stephen Miller Interviews on Meet the Press and Fox News Sunday

NBC News – Meet The Press
February 12, 2017

CHUCK TODD:

Let me start with the decision by the ninth circuit and the president himself saying to reporters that a new order may be drafted. Is that what you and others are doing right now, drafting a new order since essentially the ninth circuit seemed to give you a road map of how to draw up something slightly more narrow that would accomplish your goal.

STEPHEN MILLER:

Well we’re considering all of our options right now Chuck. That includes: you can continue the appeal in the ninth. You can seek an emergency stay at the Supreme Court. You can have a trial hearing on the merits at the district level. Or you can take in en banc for the emergency hearing also at the ninth circuit and yes, you could pursue additional executive actions. The bottom line is that we are pursuing every single possible action to keep our country safe from terrorism and I also want to be clear we’ve heard a lot of talk about how all the branches of government are equal. That’s the point. They are equal. There’s no such thing as judicial supremacy. What the judges did, both at the ninth and at the district level was to take power for themselves that belongs squarely in the hands of the president of the United States.

Fox News Sunday
February 12, 2017

WALLACE:  Let’s turn to this week’s big controversy over the travel ban.  Is the Trump administration and you as a key player in it, are you at this moment rewriting the president’s executive order limiting the visitors and the refugees can come into this country?  And will that be released this week?

MILLER:  Right now, we are considering and pursuing all options.  Those options include seeking an emergency stay with the Supreme Court, continuing the appeal with the panel, having an emergency hearing en banc, or going to the trial court in the district level and a trial on the merits.  They also include, as you mentioned, the possibility of new executive actions designed to prevent terrorist infiltration of our country.

But I want to say something very clearly, and this is going to be very disappointing to the people protesting the president and the people in Congress like Senator Schumer who have attacked the president for his lawful and necessary action.  The president’s powers here are beyond question.  The president has the authority under the INA Section 8 U.S.C. 1182F to suspend the entry of aliens into this country.

And he has Article 2 foreign powers to also engage in conducting border control and immigration control into this country.  Those powers are substantial.  They present the very apex of presidential authority.  And so, we are contemplating new and additional actions to ensure that our immigration system does not become a vehicle for admitting people into our country who are hostile to this nation and its values.

WALLACE:  I want to follow up on that, Stephen.  You — that’s an argument you’ve been making this week, that the courts have no place interfering with the president’s constitutional powers over immigration.  But I wanted to take you back to what the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said in its ruling upholding the stay of the president’s executive travel ban.

Here, first of all, is what you had to say this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILLER:  An unelected judge does not have the right to remake the immigration laws and policies for the entire United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE:  But the Ninth Circuit Court disagreed.  “Although courts owe considerable deference to the president’s policies determinations with respect to immigration and national security, it is beyond question that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges of executive action.”

Stephen, the three judges say you are flat wrong.

MILLER:  No, the three judges made a broad overreaching statement about the ability to check the executive power and did not even address what I was talking about which was INA 212F 8 U.S.C. 1182F, the power of the president to exclude aliens in the national interest.

WALLACE:  But they say —

MILLER:  They did not even address that.

WALLACE:  — there is a long history of reviewability here.

MILLER:  No, the Ninth Circuit has a long history of being overturned and Ninth Circuit has a long history of overreaching.  We don’t have judicial supremacy in this country.  We have three coequal branches of government.

The Ninth Circuit cannot confer on to a Yemeni national living in Yemen, with no status in our country a constitutional right to enter our country.  Such a right to exist, Chris, that would mean every time we denied a visa to a foreign national, they can sue an American court for damages for lost benefits in terms of welfare and employment.  That would be ludicrous.

Eighty million people visited this country through airports, land ports, and seaports.  Of course, the president has the authority to impose moderate, necessary and sensible restrictions, including putting in place new vetting procedures to protect this country.  That power was delegated to him explicitly by Congress, and adheres to him under its Article 2 powers under the U.S. Constitution.

This is a judicial usurpation of the power.  It is a violation of judges’ proper roles in litigating disputes.  We will fight it.  And we will make sure that we take action to keep from happening in the future what’s happened in the past.

We’ve had hundreds of individuals enter the country through the immigration system on visas, who’ve gone on to do enormous harm to this country from 9/11, through San Bernardino, to the Boston bombing, in Chattanooga, and on and on and on it goes.