'I Didn't Need to Do This' Sums Up the Entire Trump Presidency

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President Trump on Friday morning signed a national emergency declaration in order to build a wall along America’s southern border. He announced the news during a press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House. “I’m going to be signing a national emergency and it’s been signed many times before,” he said. “It’s rarely been a problem. They sign it. Nobody cares.”

Though Trump claimed indifference to previous national emergency declarations due to the fact that they “weren’t very exciting,” it’s likely because, as Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale pointed out on Twitter, previous declarations didn’t involve the “seizure of money for a controversial initiative Congress refused to fund.” The president went on to cycle through his usual talking points regarding border security, citing false statistics, co-opting the stories of families of people killed by immigrants and describing human trafficking scenarios that have no basis in fact. “We’re talking about an invasion of our country,” Trump said.

Declaring a national emergency in order to build a border wall has been decried as an unprecedented abuse of presidential power that flaunts both the Constitution and power of Congress, which for the better part of two months has been struggling to agree to terms on a spending bill. One finally passed both the House and the Senate on Thursday that will set aside $1.375 billion for 55 miles of border fencing. Though the president is expected to sign that bill, he reportedly is planning on using his executive privilege to cobble together more than $6 billion in additional wall funding that will be drawn from the military’s construction budget, the Defense Department’s drug interdiction program and other sources. Democrats are not happy.

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After the White House announced the news on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) admonished the president while assuring Americans that “we will respond accordingly.” But what can Democrats do to stop the president from hijacking funding already approved by Congress in order to build the wall?

Legislation is one option. Under the National Emergencies Act, the House and the Senate can pass a joint resolution to squash the declaration. On Friday morning, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Joaquin Castro (D-TX) announced they will introduce such a resolution in the House. “@JoaquinCastrotx and I aren’t going to let the President declare a fake national emergency without a fight,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) is on board. “I will fully support the enactment of a joint resolution to terminate the president’s emergency declaration, in accordance with the process described in the National Emergencies Act, and intend to pursue all other available legal options,” he wrote in a statement on Thursday. “The Judiciary Committee will also use its authority to hold the Administration to account and determine the supposed legal basis for the President’s actions.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-national-emergency-details-795290/