Ryan: Trump travel ban confusion ‘regrettable’

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Tuesday he only learned about President Trump’s executive order barring most travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries as it was being rolled out, and called the confusion with the announcement “regrettable.”

“I think it’s regrettable that there was some confusion on the rollout with this,” Ryan said at a news conference in the Capitol. “No one wanted to see people with green cards or special immigrant visas like translators get caught up in all of this.

“Regrettably, the rollout was confusing,” he added.

{mosads}Ryan said, however, that he is confident Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly will properly implement the new immigration program.

The Speaker said he had a lengthy conversation with Kelly on Monday to make sure permanent residents with green cards and other special segments of the population would not be restricted by the temporary ban.

Kelly, whose agency is responsible for implementing the travel restrictions, was getting his first White House briefing about it Friday when someone on the call spotted Trump on TV signing the executive order, The New York Times reported.

GOP leaders and rank-and-file lawmakers have expressed frustration that Trump allies on Capitol Hill were not informed of the executive order until Trump signed it Friday on live television.

Asked when exactly he heard about it, the Speaker replied: “Pretty much at the time it was being issued. We were briefed on the contents of it as it was being rolled out.”

In a closed-door GOP conference meeting earlier Tuesday morning, some lawmakers asked whether news reports were true that Judiciary Committee staffers had helped work on Trump’s executive order.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) stood up and replied that he had authorized some of his staffers to assist the Trump transition team on issues of immigration law, something The Hill reported Monday night. But the chairman himself did not directly help shape the final product.

Ryan brushed off a question about whether it was appropriate for Hill staffers to be working on an executive branch order without leadership’s knowledge.

“Congressional staffers help the administration all the time,” said Ryan, who confirmed that Goodlatte had explained his staffers’ involvement. “We weren’t involved in this.”

Other GOP sources said leadership is not pleased that Goodlatte failed to inform them his committee staff was working on the executive order.

But in an interview Tuesday, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) downplayed any friction with the powerful Judiciary chairman.

“There were a lot of our members helping with the transition, which is commonplace for this kind of administration where members of the same party want to help the new team coming in,” Scalise told The Hill.

“Ultimately, we don’t have daily conversations with committee chairmen or staff that are part of that transition. I imagine the chairman of that committee knew what his staff were doing.”