Some conservatives,are disappointed in President Donald Trump's decision to end his effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, with one saying it was akin to a "punch in the gut," Axios reports.
The news site spoke with several people in the conservative legal community who expressed dismay over Trump's Thursday announcement that he is ordering federal agencies to use existing databases to count both citizens and non-citizens, rather than continue pursuing the inclusion of inquiring about citizenship status on the census.
"What was the dance ... all about if this was going to be the end result?" a conservative leader noted.
Another told Axios, "A total waste of everyone's time ... It's certainly going to give people pause the next time one has to decide how far to stick one's neck out."
Trump's pullback from adding the question to the census, which came on the heels of a Supreme Court ruling saying the administration could not add the question, was a "punch in the gut," a Republican strategist added.
The White House initially dropped its citizenship question effort following the Supreme Court ruling, but Trump then said the administration was still pursuing it.
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