Trump's executive order: Amateur hour inside the White House?
It's merely one week into Donald Trump's presidency, and the man already has his first "heckuva job" moment. For people that don't remember, a direct consequence of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, President George W Bush publicly praised his emergency management head, Michael Brown, for carrying out a "heckuva job" with recovery efforts.
That comment was hung round the president's neck such as an anvil, as flood waters swamped aspects of New Orleans along with the city descended into chaos. It started a public approval volitile manner that triggered sweeping Democratic victories inside the 2006 mid-term elections. History will judge the long-term impact of Mr Trump's Friday afternoon immigration order, but his early praise for the implementation is not going to easily be forgotten.
"It's training very nicely," Mr Trump said within a brief reaction to a question on Saturday afternoon. "You see it within the airports, you notice all over. It's performing exercises very nicely, so we are going to have an extremely, very strict ban, so we are going to have extreme vetting, which we need to have had on this country for several years."
On the bottom at major US airports, things weren't going quite so nicely, however. Immigration officials were creating a difficult time implementing Mr Trump's order after receiving conflicting instructions on who to close from entry into your US - and what to do with them whenever they were held. And as the day progressed, and word spread in the detentions, crowds of protesters at international terminals grew from dozens to hundreds to thousands.
While for the campaign trail, it turned out easy for Mr Trump to roundly decry the US immigration system as broken and create a general require bans and moratoriums. As president, however, his team has experienced to fill from the details - and yes it seems they faced some difficulty translating his pre-election rhetoric into policy.
Mr Trump's Friday afternoon executive order reportedly was crafted without conferring with legal aides and enacted above the objection of homeland security officials, who balked at including permanent US residents inside the ban. This created for an awkward scene Saturday night in a New York courthouse, where government attorneys was required to defend measures that had been creating chaos at airports around the world.
"I think the us government hasn't were built with a full possibility to think about this," said federal judge Ann Donnelly, as she ruled that men and women with valid paperwork on US soil couldn't be deported.
Her temporary ruling - and people like it in other courts - are merely the opening salvo as to what will likely be a protracted legal battle. Trump administration lawyers will really be better prepared later on hearings. The orders could possibly be re-instated following full trials for the merits, with no judge has yet to rule about the fate of folks who hold valid US visas and on foreign soil. In the meantime, however, it is proven to be a very embarrassing episode with what looks like a not-ready-for-primetime White House.
A number of Republicans in Congress attended out with varying numbers of objection on the programme, and however the Republican leadership is playing along at the moment, that can change quickly in the event the political heat increases. The president can have broad powers in setting immigration policy, but Congress can pass legislation that overrules him without notice. Meanwhile, Democrats are scrambling to look at advantage with the political opportunity. "History will judge where America's leaders stood today," Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois said. It was a reminder some of his party's 2020 presidential contenders seemed for taking to heart. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered airport trains to resume intend to JFK Airport, after transit officials had suspended want to prevent protesters from continuing to flood in. Senator Elizabeth Warren spoke to crowds at Boston's Logan Airport, as did Senator Cory Booker at Dulles near Washington, DC. All three are viewed near the top with the Democratic presidential field.
2020 is usually a long way off, certainly. Of more pressing issue is where the Trump administration goes from this point. On Sunday morning, press secretary Sean Spicer, chief of staff Reince Preibus and top aide Kellyanne Conway took on the airwaves to protect the White House policy and explain its implementation. Mr Trump himself fired back on Twitter - although only after first getting a swipe on the "failing" New York Times for your second day in a very row. "Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW," he tweeted. "Look what's happening across Europe and, indeed, the globe - a terrible mess!"
Out of media player. Press enter to go back or tab to remain. While championing US security is commonly a winning issue, protracted detention of children along with the elderly at airport checkpoints is "bad optics", as it were. Watching a five-year-old re-united in reference to his mother and 70-year-olds facing indefinite detention puts a person's face on Mr Trump's immigration programme - plus the results aren't flattering with the White House.
During the presidential primary, many Republican voters backed Mr Trump's necessitates a sweeping ban on Muslims entering the US, therefore, the president's core support may hold firm following this weekend's events. The views inside the American heartland, far taken from major airfields, sometimes differ greatly through the liberal bastions about the coast. At best, however, it becomes an unnecessary distraction for your White House, calling its organisational ability into question. At worst - in the event the majority with the nation turns for the president - Mr Trump will find his power and influence commencing to ebb before his administration even gets fully under way.