A Republican congressman told The Hill on Wednesday that President Trump declaring a national emergency in order to bankroll his border wall “would be a mistake.”
“I do think there’s an emergency, but I would hate to see the President have to declare a national emergency because it would show that Congress is not working,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) told The Hill’s “Rising” Web program. “We’ve got to come together and find a middle ground and do our job in Congress and not leave this for presidential executive order or declaring a national emergency. I think that would be a mistake, it would be wrong, but it would really be a reflection of a Congress not working.”
There was speculation that Trump would declare a national emergency at the border during his primetime address from the Oval Office Tuesday night — he did not — but the White House has made it clear that the option was still “on the table,” as press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders put it Wednesday.
Trump is starting to scare the crap out of republicans,
If only Chuck and Nancy could locate that table they could neutralize that threat!
Seriously, a good response to that particular negotiating tactic is to dare them to use it. An emergency declaration would be a power grab that would make it harder for the administration to accomplish anything legislatively, and the GOP agenda would suffer for it. Frankly, the “Wall” price-tag would be a small price to pay for dependable GOP defections in both houses.
Wasn’t the middle ground the Republican bill that the President, the Senate, and the House already agreed upon last month…until “someone” reneged on it?
Mind you…it’s still a “crisis”
Bacon (R-NE 2) is deadman walking, provided that the democrats don’t run another candidate in 2020 like this year (Eastman, caugh, caugh) who runs on “nationalizing health care” and abolishing ICE in a suburban district where one of the main industries is health care… Expect to see more folks like Bacon try to put distance between Trump and themselves as they see Trump get weaker.
But on the broader point, the lack of senators publicly calling out this as stupid is surprising. I am sure that setting a precedent that a future democratic president can just remake the government, and spend money contrary to congresses (aka the senate’s) wishes is NOT something they want to set. Ditto saying that a state will not get disaster money because the president does not like that state.
Hopefully (and probably) McConnell, and Co. are telling Trump that this will be article 4 in his impeachment if he does it, but if not, they will reap a whirlwind if Trump goes down this road. The public will not stand for it, and it will undermine forever their arguments about limited/smaller government.