For the first time since Donald Trump became president, the White House gave its official blessings to making English the official language of the United States.

“[T]hat’s the position of the White House,” Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told Newsmax on Monday afternoon.

Sanders stopped short of saying the President would issue a new executive order overturning President Clinton’s 19-year-old Executive Order 13166 which requires multiple languages, interpretations. and translations of all federally-funded agencies and contractors.

“I’m not aware of a specific executive order that’s been drafted,” she told us.

Stephen Guschov, executive director of the group known as ProEnglish that is advocating English as the official language, told us that “the last study that was done of 13166, which was under the Bush-43 Administration, said it cost Americans $2 billion a year to meet its requirements.”

Noting that this study was more than fifteen years old, Guschov concluded “we are sitting here in 2019 and that figure is north of $2 billion a year.”

ProEnglish has asked the Trump Administration to sign an executive order repealing 13166 and, Guschov noted, “quite frankly, if he wanted to, President Trump in the same executive order could make English the official language of the U.S. government operations as well.”

Guschov revealed that his organization “has already had meetings with five different aides to President Trump. He reminded us that Trump, as a candidate, said “to have a country, we have to assimilate and to do so, one has to speak English.”

“And Mike Pence, as a U.S. Representative, co-sponsored the English Language Unity Act to make English the official language in five different Congresses,” said Guschov.

Pro-English also has drafted language for an executive order, said Guschov, “and quite frankly, it’s a lot easier to make English the official language through executive order than it is to get legislation through this Congress.”

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.