President Donald Trump's press secretary appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday to defend his boss's controversial Muslim immigration ban.
"Three hundred and twenty-five thousand people flew into this country from airports and 109 people were affected and slowed down in their travel. I understand that is an inconvenience but at the end of the day that is a small price to pay as opposed to somebody losing their life because a terrorist attack was admitted," Spicer said to the MSNBC hosts.
Earlier in the interview, he characterized Trump's Muslim immigration ban as being motivated by a desire to "ensure the people of the United States were safe" and asked what would happen if "somebody was killed" because America didn't take this stance.
Finally, when discussing how White House strategist Steve Bannon is participating in the National Security Council, Spicer said that Bannon "brings to the table a much greater scope of the political landscape vis-a-vis the world — the geopolitical and national security affairs."
In addition to being lambasted for its inherent bigotry, President Trump's ban on Muslim immigration has also been criticized for focusing on countries whose citizens have no record of killing Americans on American soil since at least 1975 while leaving on three nations — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — whose citizens have killed roughly 3000 Americans during that same period.
The ban has also been criticized by Republican legislators, including Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for playing into terrorists' hands by allowing them to depict the United States as an enemy of Islam.
.@seanspicer on Trump’s travel ban: We act now to protect the future https://t.co/i3gJjkfYD1
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) January 30, 2017
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