Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf
Page Number: 33.0

28 

TRUMP v. HAWAII 

Opinion of the Court 

EO–1, the  President expressed regret that his prior order 
had  been  “watered  down”  and  called  for  a  “much  tougher 
version” of his “Travel Ban.”  Shortly before the release of
the Proclamation, he stated that the “travel ban . . . should 
be  far  larger,  tougher,  and  more  specific,”  but  “stupidly 
that  would  not  be  politically  correct.”    Id.,  at  132–133. 
More  recently,  on  November  29,  2017,  the  President  re-
tweeted links to three anti-Muslim propaganda videos.  In 
response  to  questions  about  those  videos,  the  President’s 
deputy  press  secretary  denied  that  the  President  thinks
Muslims are a threat to the United States, explaining that 
“the  President  has  been  talking  about  these  security
issues for years now, from the campaign trail to the White 
House”  and  “has  addressed  these  issues  with  the  travel 
order  that  he  issued  earlier  this  year  and  the  companion
proclamation.”  IRAP  v.  Trump,  883  F.  3d  233,  267  (CA4 
2018).

The  President  of  the  United  States  possesses  an  ex-
traordinary  power  to  speak  to  his  fellow  citizens  and  on
their  behalf.  Our  Presidents  have  frequently  used  that
power  to  espouse  the  principles  of  religious  freedom  and 
tolerance  on  which  this  Nation  was  founded.    In  1790 
George Washington reassured the Hebrew Congregation of 
Newport,  Rhode  Island  that  “happily  the  Government  of 
the United States . . . gives to bigotry no sanction, to per-
secution  no  assistance  [and]  requires  only  that  they  who
live  under  its  protection  should  demean  themselves  as
good  citizens.”  6  Papers  of  George  Washington  285  (D.
Twohig ed. 1996).  President Eisenhower, at the opening of 
the  Islamic  Center  of  Washington,  similarly  pledged  to  a 
Muslim  audience  that  “America  would  fight  with  her
whole  strength  for  your  right  to  have  here  your  own
church,”  declaring  that  “[t]his  concept  is  indeed  a  part  of
America.”    Public  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  Dwight  D. 
Eisenhower,  June  28, 1957,  p.  509  (1957).    And  just  days
after the attacks of September 11, 2001, President George