FILE PHOTO – U.S. President Donald Trump speaks while participating in a border funding legislation signing ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S. July 1, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday contradicted statements made by his own officials, saying his administration had not dropped its efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
“The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Reporting by Makini Brice and Lawrence Hurley