Trump claims he didn't 'back down' on the census, he 'backed up'

President Trump is once again denying that he backed down by ditching his plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, this time with a real head-scratcher of an explanation.

Trump spoke to reporters on Friday after announcing his administration would no longer pursue putting a citizenship question on the 2020 census, which came after he said last week that despite an unfavorable Supreme Court ruling, his administration was still "absolutely moving forward" with that plan and that he might sign an executive order to get it done.

"Not only didn't I back down, I backed up," Trump said on Friday.

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Trump went on to argue that his new plan to get the information from federal agencies instead is "actually better" and that it will be "more accurate" this way, declaring that only the "fake news" would object to this characterization. The New York Times had previously reported that Trump's new order does little more than "reiterate plans the Commerce Department announced last year, making it less a new policy than a means of covering Mr. Trump's retreat from the composition of the 2020 census form." Brendan Morrow