CHUCK TODD: I want to start with timing on the executive order and this
sense of urgency in trying to implement it immediately. Was there any
thought given of creating a 72-hour grace period, a one-week grace
period in order to allow border patrol agents to understand what the
rules are, allow agencies in the federal government to understand what
the rules are? It seems that a lot of the chaos yesterday could have
been avoided had you at least included some sort of timed grace period.
Why was that not included?
REINCE PRIEBUS: Well, I don't think you want to have a grace period, Chuck, because then people that want to do bad things to Americans just move up their travel date two days in order to get into the country before the grace period's over. So I think it's one of these things that, and if you ask a lot of people at the customs and border patrol will just tell you, "You got to rip off the band aid and you have to move forward."
And so it wasn't chaos. I mean, the fact of the matter is 325,000 people from foreign countries came into the United States yesterday. And 109 people were detained for further questioning. Most of those people were moved out. We've got a couple dozen more that remain. And I would suspect as long as they're not awful people that they will move through before another half a day today. And perhaps some of these people should be detained further. And if they're folks that shouldn't be in this country they're going to be detained. And so apologize for nothing here.
REINCE PRIEBUS: Well, I don't think you want to have a grace period, Chuck, because then people that want to do bad things to Americans just move up their travel date two days in order to get into the country before the grace period's over. So I think it's one of these things that, and if you ask a lot of people at the customs and border patrol will just tell you, "You got to rip off the band aid and you have to move forward."
And so it wasn't chaos. I mean, the fact of the matter is 325,000 people from foreign countries came into the United States yesterday. And 109 people were detained for further questioning. Most of those people were moved out. We've got a couple dozen more that remain. And I would suspect as long as they're not awful people that they will move through before another half a day today. And perhaps some of these people should be detained further. And if they're folks that shouldn't be in this country they're going to be detained. And so apologize for nothing here.
