Gidley declined to comment on a report by ABC News that the president was going to back down from his effort to put a question on the 2020, census about respondents' citizenship status, an idea that has been challenged in court by some states and civil rights groups as discriminatory.

"It should come as no surprise ... that the president wants to know who's in this country legally and lawfully and who isn't.

And he's going to do everything within his legal authority to make sure that that information is known, because the American people have a right to know," Gidley told reporters.