Have you ever heard an Attorney General publicly congratulate a President just for issuing an executive order before? As if there was some great skill and achievement involved in signing a paper? That moment during the press conference with Trump, Barr and Ross was awkward and strange. It felt embarrassing for Barr, in particular.
And let's take a closer look at what that executive order will accomplish - absolutely nothing that isn't already being done. The executive order which Trump signed yesterday, instructs federal departments and agencies to provide the Census Bureau with citizenship data from their databases immediately. That order only reiterates plans the Commerce Department announced last year, which makes this order less of a new policy than it is a very transparent attempt by Trump to save face during a high profile defeat over the content of the 2020 Census form. This executive order was redundant and completely unnecessary, except that it gave our AG, Barr, something to stroke Trump's ego with, in order to help mask the fact that Trump had just waved the white flag on an issue that he had recently described as being "very critical" to the country.