President Donald Trump answered critics of his immigration restrictions from seven high-risk countries in the Middle East, sending a message out on Twitter.
“Only 109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held for questioning,” he wrote. “Big problems at airports were caused by Delta computer outage, protesters and the tears of Senator Schumer.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer teared up during a press conference on Sunday, calling Trump’s executive order “mean spirited and un-American.” On Monday, he stated his intent to ask for a vote in the Senate to repeal Trump’s order.
Trump did not signal any intention of backing down. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, he dismissed Schumer’s tears as “fake.”
“I noticed that Chuck Schumer yesterday with fake tears, I’m going to ask him who is his acting coach, because I know him very well. I don’t see him as a crier,” Trump said. “If he is, he’s different man. There’s about a 5 percent chance that it was real but I think they were fake tears.”
On Twitter, he sent a message that he was pleased with the results of his executive order.
“Secretary Kelly said that all is going well with very few problems,” he wrote. “MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!”
Trump also sent his press secretary Sean Spicer and his senior advisor Stephen Miller to respond to the backlash in TV interviews on Monday morning.
“I think anytime you do anything hugely successful, that challenges a failed orthodoxy, you’re going to see protests,” Miller said on CBS News. “In fact, if nobody is disagreeing with what you are doing, then you’re probably not doing anything that really matters in the scheme of things.”
Trump reminded critics that he campaigned on the idea of extreme vetting for people coming into the country, admitting that at some points it would not be nice.
“There is nothing nice about searching for terrorists before they can enter our country. This was a big part of my campaign,” he wrote on Twitter. “Study the world!”