President Donald Trump suffered a humiliating loss when the Supreme Court refused to summarily let him add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. And though he has now overridden the Justice Department's move to abandon the case, he is unlikely to prevail as the litigation continues in lower court, as census forms are already being printed without the question.
But as New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman explained to CNN's Anderson Cooper on Wednesday, it may not matter. Trump's goal in changing the census was not to learn about people's citizenship status, but to intimidate noncitizens out of responding to the census at all, diluting the representation of their communities — and the chaos he is causing with this legal battle might achieve that anyway.
"It's not clear exactly what [Trump's] talking about, but he is determined to find a way ahead," said Haberman. "I did hear from people inside the administration making the very point that ... this is going to serve the same purpose that that question would have," she continued.
"Right, it's going to scare people who are undocumented from participating in the census," said Cooper.
"Correct," said Haberman. "And there are people around the president who are well aware of that."
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