Washington (CNN) The Trump administration scrapped two major things this week: its latest bid to get a citizenship question on the census -- and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta.

After a flurry of legal action late last week, President Donald Trump again reversed course, this time announcing that the administration would abandon its attempts to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census

Instead, the Trump team is asking government agencies to provide records that could determine a head count of citizens without polling census-takers directly.

Trump made it clear on Thursday that he would not back down from obtaining some sort of count of those living legally -- and illegally -- in the United States, but he did admit the serious legal hurdles his administration needed to clear in order to get that question on the 2020 census.

"We will leave no stone unturned," Trump said