President Donald Trump was justified in firing Sally Yates, the acting attorney general who refused to defend his executive order banning immigrants from heavily Muslim countries, Ari Fleischer, the former White House spokesman for George W. Bush, tells Newsmax TV.
But Fleischer said he takes issue with what the controversial order which he believes could tarnish the nation's image as a welcoming country.
"She was a holdover from the Obama administration and if she was asked to do something that she just politically or on principle cannot bring herself to do the proper course is to resign," Fleischer, president of Ari Fleischer Sports Communications, said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
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"I thought it was inappropriate and certainly what Donald Trump did is legal with the refuge issue even though I don't like the policy.... I never liked the Muslim ban when he first announced it and I told him that directly the one time I talked to [him] during the campaign.
"I just think we're a stronger nation when we have people who come here and they love this country and they become our biggest advocates back in their homelands for this country. It's been our tradition, it's been our way and I want that way to continue."
Fleischer said he would rather have seen Trump first devise a plan for better vetting and then announce any changes in policy.
"I think he would've had a lot more support," he said. "And I just dream of the day when an Iraqi translator will stand next to Donald Trump and say 'Thank you for protecting me here in my new country the United States from people who are trying to kill me in Iraq, ISIS. Because you let people like me in who served our military. I know I'm safe and I know you're going to keep ISIS out.'"
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