victory for the president and it comes of course during a time when his administration is mired in an entirely different kind of immigration question. but on this one, by a ph5-4 rulg with the conservatives in the majority joined by kennedy and the court s liberals upholding the president s travel ban, striki down a lower court order that had blocked the administration from impose egg the travel ban. w, as a practical matter the president has already been enforcing this redirection that was announce the last september. the supreme court in december sort of prefigured today s decision by lifting a stay that had been put in place by a judge after a lawsuit from hawaii and several muslim organizations and muslim individuals who said that it violated religious freedom. so, craig, a big victory for the president. back to you. nbc s pete williams there reporting osi the supreme court.
travel ban, but but we tho that the supreme court looked that the language, ultimately determined it was irrelevant. but bottom line, it has been the most controversial proposal or at least one of them of the president s entire administration. it also comes as the president is increasingly engulfed in the political crisis that you and i have been covering for days surrounding his hardline immigration poll vis that are zero tolerance policy that s prompted all those family celebrati separations. he reversed that but continuestcontinues to be mired in that. we want to make sure we get some reaction, we haven t got it yet but we ll get it to you when we do. pete, i understand you ve been reading through the decision there, the papers in your hand. tell me more about what you re learning as you look through this. reporter: so a couple points i think bear emphasis here. the first is that this ruling technically is a ruling on
the president said abo the intention of why the muslim ban was put into place, which i think is what the majority ss essentially did, then i think you can make a case for a host of things the president is saying. we may be suspending parts of the constitution in the name of giving the president broad authority around security. i worry about the tweets he s been putting out about eliminating due process for immigrants coming over the border. the constitution is very clear on this. and i think taking this out of context, making a decision that says we don t think it was a muslim ban when the president h himself said over and over again that it was a muslim ban, until he realized it was a problem for him legally, that, i think, is a big problem, and i just want to say i think muslims, we ve been getting calls to our office. i have a lot of muslim constituents in my district. americans whose family members are going to be banned from traveling here.
through it seems constitutional muster. i still disagree with the decision and outcome, but we cannot we just cannot walk away from the fact of how this all started, which was a president that said that he wanted to ban muslims from our country. and we re a nation that has had muslims as a part of our facing for entire history. gate scientists and athletes to some of our greatest heroes and this is is a person that wants to use something that our founders rejected which say religious test. there s a moral sauassault, mor vandalism going on and i saw it yesterday on our border and i m going to do everything i can to fight for our values. they are really to me some of the deepest things i love about my country. do you thinth decision would h still you were just looking at senator cory booker, obviously, democratic senator speaking there live in the hallways of the capitol. we are working to get more reaction for you.
decisions that will come down the pike that will help middle class families and working people. is there anything you can do here in congress to kind of address this? this makes it clear that in order for checks and balances to work, we have to have a congress that will service a check serve as a check. we don t have that now. if the public wants us to provide the check and balance to an administration that is very untoward in what they want to do in their discriminatory actions, then we have to have people here elected who will make those kinds of decisions that present or that will be a check to unfettered executive power, and that s where we re heading thanks to this court and this decision. you have been listening to the senator from hawaii talking with our msnbc news producer