The Trump administration is confident its travel ban affecting seven predominantly Muslim countries will be reinstated by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, President Donald Trump's deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka told Newsmax TV on Tuesday.
"One can't predict what's going to happen especially in the light of how politicized some judges have become in the last eight years — but we're confident this is a water-tight executive order," Gorka said to Steve Malzberg on "America Talks Live."
"It's the president's prerogative based upon the law in 1952, and also more recently, to control who can come into the country and by what standards they are measured — especially if there is some kind of mass security issue at stake and there is.
"Ironically, the executive order, is based upon a threat assessment from the last administration that highlighted these seven nations as a great concern in terms of immigrants being exploited or jihadist like ISIS and certain individuals into the refugee stream."
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The court is weighing whether to reinstate the ban after U.S. District Court Judge James Robart of Washington blocked it over the weekend — prompting a furious Trump to brand Robart a "so-called judge."
While confident the ban will be reinstated, Gorka said Trump is ready to take the executive order controversy all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court should the 9th Circuit Court not agree with him.
"If we have to we'll take it to the highest court in the land," he said. "This is a preventative measure. Good counterterrorism isn't about dealing with the problems after they occur, it's about preventing the attack."
He also said as Trump escalates his plan to "eradicate" the Islamic State and "we put more and more pressure on them, we know that some of them will escape … [and] come west, will come north and will try to get into the United States. That is a certitude."
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