What trump said in the presser is that the official census is not just the census questionnaire, but also includes other data. What he has ordered is that the databases contained in all other departments must now be shared with the census bureau.
Since it’s hard to ensure the census questionnaire is being answered honestly to begin with, this is a reasonable approach, though knowing a little about govt computer systems and data sharing, this approach will have technical challenges. Guess it’s success will depend on how well it’s managed.
This approach is not as confrontational as putting the question directly on the census questionnaire, but given the legal mess, it’s a second best solution. Barr explained the legal logistics of this at the presser.
The war against evil is eternal. This is only one battle. Many battles going on. Trump didn’t surrender. He changed tact. Since the census will only affect elections after 2020, the big battles will probably now be fought in the court over how the census data was arrived at. Since, it appears, the census has historically used more than just the questionnaire in its ‘count’, and how the count is conducted is not delineated in the constitution, seems like this should be a successful plan going forward, and Barr and others think it’s legally defendable.
most of what he does is reasonable. This approach will lose in court and they will use history as precedent; ironically the same thing they should have done to include the question.