In some kind of weird sing-song rant, Donald Trump said during his announcement of his national emergency declaration over a border wall that he knew he would be sued. He hoped that he could win in the Supreme Court, which he’s been intent to pack with conservative judges.
ICYMI: CAAG Xavier Becerra told ABC News after his interview on “This Week” that New Mexico, Oregon, Hawaii and Minnesota will be joining California in the coming lawsuit. https://t.co/6bVvDCy0mQ
— Keith Ellison (@keithellison) February 17, 2019
On Monday, several more states joined in on a lawsuit with California, New Mexico, Minnesota, and Hawaii to stop Trump from going around Congress to acquire emergency funds for his racist vanity wall. New Jersey, Oregon, and Connecticut added their names to the lawsuit.
CBS News reports:
‘According to the attorney general’s office, New Mexico, Oregon, Minnesota, New Jersey, Hawaii and Connecticut are among several states that are joining the lawsuit.’
Trump’s decision to invoke emergency powers to build a border wall already faces legal challenges in Washington, D.C. — and more are expected in the coming days https://t.co/jWt10FTC3x
— POLITICO (@politico) February 18, 2019
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is leading the charge and appeared on CBS’s This Week Sunday for an interview with George Stephanopoulos. He said that he is confident that the states can stop Trump from getting his way on this dictatorial, unprecedented action.
‘We’re confident there are at least 8 billion ways that we can prove harm. And once we are all clear, all the different states are clear, what pots of money that taxpayers sent to D.C. he’s going to raid, which Congress dedicated to different types of services – whether it’s emergency response services or whether it’s fires or mudslides in California or maybe tornadoes and floods in other parts of the country or whether it’s our military men and women and their families who live on military installations that might – that might have money taken away from them, or whether it’s money taken away from drug interdiction efforts in places like California, a number of states, and certainly Americans, will be harmed. And we’re all going to be prepared.’
Since Trump declared a national emergency at the border, he has:
—Golfed twice.
—Attacked the press.
—Pushed conspiracies about Robert Mueller.
—Tweeted about his approval ratings.
—Complained about SNL.
—Promoted a video mocking Democrats in Congress.So much for a crisis.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) February 17, 2019
Becerra discussed the difference between emergency declarations by former presidents like Bush’s the day after September 11, 2001, and Obama’s during the H1N1 virus that became an epidemic. Unlike those, Trump is only interested in fulfilling a campaign promise he’s been unable to deliver before going into the 2020 election cycle.
‘Typically, our presidents have focused on issues where the national interests are clearly at stake. The national interests aren’t at stake here. We have the lowest level of entries into the country by those that don’t have permission than we’ve had in some 20 years. The Department of Homeland Security itself has said to the president that it is more difficult to cross into the U.S. at our land borders than it has been in a long time. And so it’s clear that this isn’t an emergency, it’s clear that in the mind of Donald Trump he needs to do something to try to fulfill a campaign promise.’
Pres. Trump declared a national emergency to fund his border wall — but, true to form, he didn’t stick to the script pic.twitter.com/pWJ5sCsSUr
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) February 18, 2019
The last state to join in on Monday, although other states may still follow suit, is Colorado. In addition to the state governments, the ACLU and Public Citizens, an advocacy group for homeowners in Texas, are also suing Trump. According to KDVR:
‘[Weiser] concluded Colorado would be hurt by this action, with funds being shifted from being spent on military installments in our state.’
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
