Sean Spicer Uses San Bernardino Shooting To Justify Banning 220 Million People

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer cited the fatal shooting of 14 people in San Bernardino, California, as a reason that President Donald Trump and his administration felt the need to rush out a chaos-causing executive order that bans travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries.

What happened if we didnt act and someone was killed? Spicer asked the hosts of MSNBC s Morning Joe.

Too many of these cases that have happened, whether youre talking about San Bernardino, Atlanta... we act now to protect the future, Spicer said.

.@seanspicer on Trumps travel ban: We act now to protect the future https://t.co/i3gJjkfYD1

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.@seanspicer on Trumps travel ban: We act now to protect the future https://t.co/i3gJjkfYD1
Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) January 30, 2017

One problem with Spicers explanation is that the San Bernardino attackers werent from any of the seven countries named in Trumps executive order. Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 29, were a married couple with Pakistani roots. Farook was an Illinois-born U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent and his wife was a Pakistani immigrant who had also lived in Saudi Arabia.

Neither Pakistan nor Saudi Arabia are included in the executive order, though Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus said that ban could potentially expand to other countries going forward. Even then, the administrations decision to single out people based on nationality a longstanding method used to ban entire religions or races from the U.S. is a major cause for concern.

Furthermore, Spicers explanation helps feed anti-Muslim hysteria and Islamophobia that has already caused hate crimes against Muslims to surge since Trumps election.

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Along with the constitutional crisis his order has caused, Trump also faces backlash for failing to adequately consult top officials and agencies about his plans. According to The New York Times , Homeland Security Secretary Gen. John F. Kelly was only in the middle of being briefed on the order when Trump signed it.

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