“President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action — including a national emergency.”
And so … the legal battle will probably begin.
19 thoughts on “The President begins his end run around Congress …”
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I think it would set a really bad precedent if Trump was permitted to use a declaration of a national emergency to expend money Congress had specifically voted not to authorize. Obama did something similar when he instituted DACA via executive order after Congress had specifically voted against the DREAM Act and Obama had previously stated enacting DACA via executive order would be unconstitutional. Wouldn’t it be something if Trump won that battle in court and the next president ordered a halt to wall construction only to have a court say that the new president didn’t have the power to stop the construction? That would be irony.
I don’t know if Trump will prevail in the courts. He may actually have the law on his side, but I haven’t dived into the research enough to have a legal opinion. But from a public policy standpoint, every time a president is allowed to bypass Congress and enact via executive order laws specifically rejected by Congress, it removes even more incentives for presidents to get what they want via compromise. I am fairly certain that if the Democrats had wanted to protect the Dreamers badly enough they could have traded wall funding for permanent legal status for the Dreamers, possibly even a pathway to citizenship. Unfortunately, it seems it was more important to frustrate Trump than to protect the Dreamers. Compromise may well be the dirtiest word in D.C. these days.
I agree with your premise. The Democrats held all the leverage and could have gained many advantages, like permanent protection for the dreamers, if they had been willing to give Trump 200 miles of wall. In my opinion, that would have been good for the country, even though it would have allowed Trump to do some bragging.
That’s politics.
(And, politics aside, that 200 miles of wall may really be needed. The politics of this issue have prevented the country from having a reasoned, professional discussion about the nature of the existing border. There are stretches where there is nothing to prevent pedestrians from crossing into the USA. )
You guys do realize that Trump rejected that very offer a little over a year ago, don’t you?
“But on Friday afternoon, as the hours ticked away toward a government shutdown, Schumer went to the White House and told Trump he could have his wall. “The president picked a number for the wall, and I accepted it,” Schumer recalled in the midst of the shutdown. He had agreed to a significant sum of money for the wall—reported to be $20 billion, though the Democrat’s office will neither confirm nor deny that figure—in exchange for Trump’s support of permanent protections for the nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants covered under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
The White House ultimately rejected the offer, and later that night, Senate Democrats withheld their votes for a stopgap spending bill, leading to the three-day shutdown. ”
Art of the Deal, indeed.
Yup
He thought he held all the cards then.
As you mention, the great dealmaker has managed to make his share of the deal ever smaller!
He started out with (I think it was) $22 billion on the table if he had agreed to permanent status for the Dreamers (and supposedly he had agreed to that in private).
Then he begged for $5.7 billion
Then he shut down the government when offered only $1.6 billion.
Then he ended up signing the deal for $1.3 billion.
The master of negotiation!
I think he can blame Hannity and his right-wing cronies for persuading him to turn down that $22 billion he could have had about a year ago, but I don’t remember clearly why he backed down from that one. Too much happens too fast to keep up with this guy!
One thing is certain. If he had truly been any good at deal-making, he could have gotten $22 billion for his magic wall and the only thing he would have had to do in exchange was to legitimize the Dreamers, which is an action he supposedly agreed with in the first place. In other words, he had the Democrats exactly where he wanted them, in a deal where he really had to give up nothing he opposed in order to get everything he wanted – and he backed off of it in order to end up eventually with a deal where he got essentially nothing.
Even if his emergency order is successful, he will still end up with only a quarter of what he could have had without any controversial emergency.
From his own perspective, backing off that original deal had to be the single dumbest thing he did in his presidency.
I get the biggest damn kick out of Democrats and Liberals crying bitter tears over Trump’s use of Executive Orders to accomplish his goals when Obama used them extensively to walk around, over and on the Constitution whenever he didn’t get his way. But it was OK back then because it was a Democrat doing it!
Sucks when the shoe is on the other foot, huh, Dems?
What a distorted view you have…
You’re going to sit there and tell me that Obama DIDN’T do that? Were you conscious from 2008 to 2016?
Barack Obama issued fewer executive orders on average per year in office than any president since Grover Cleveland.
Some of us lifelong conservatives and (almost) lifelong Republicans have a basic problem with any President monkeying around with the Constitution. And while Obama played games on the fringes he did nothing like declaring bogus “National Emergencies” or trying to expend monies not authorized by Congress. Power of the purse has always been a fundamentally conservative principle, but I guess the new wave MAGA “conservatives” are willing to ignore it when it inconveniences their beloved Orange Buffoon.
Obama issued 276 EOs, all of them expending money not authorized by the Congress and a good portion of them to protect and serve majority Muslim countries.
Google “Obama Executive Orders” to see the list
As noted elsewhere in this thread, Obama issued executive orders the least frequently of any president in the past 125 years.
It’s kind of sad that you’re apparently unaware of what, exactly, a declaration of a national emergency is. Par for the course, I suppose.
Just remember this moment when a future Democratic president declares a national emergency to enact gun control regulations. I’m sure you’ll be just as supportive.
I get the biggest damn kick out of Trump supporters saying transparently stupid things. You go see how this works on anyone outside of your echo chamber, or on anyone who doesn’t just want you to shut up and go away.
See my reply further up. You must be one of those Demoncrats wearing blinders if you think that Obama didn’t use the EO process to his own advantage.
“anyone who doesn’t just want you to shut up and go away” – See? That’s the problem. If the Demoncrats have their way, this type of exchange will become illegal really fast. The only political discussions that will be allowed will be those that agree with the ‘official’ line.
But then faithful members of the DemocRAT Party will be extremely pleased to see that day come.
Wow. You really are trolling pretty hard. I’ll bite, a bit.
You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about. An executive order has *no* comparable value to an Emergency Declaration. You do realize that the powers granted by an Emergency Declaration (temporarily!) subvert a large portion of the Constitution, right? It’s why the powers were granted — to allow, in the time of emergency, for extreme measures within the law. You know, like marshall law. Or internment camps.
But Trump won’t do those things, you say ?
Let’s see.
Democrats are going to try to thwart Trump’s Emergency Declaration to build a secure border wall and otherillegal immigration measures in the courts, then Republicans will do the same when a Democrat President uses an Emergency Declaration to enact climate change measures, gun control, etc.
The logic works both ways.
Makes no sense. There’s a case here that Trump violates his oath of office with his emergency declaration. The same would be true if a Dem tried an emergency declaration under similar circumstances.
I think we’ve lost count of the number of times Trump has violated either the oath of office or just the whole damn Constitution.
Cool. Since we’re apparently going to normalize declaring national emergencies where clearly none exist, I, looking forward to a forthcoming Democratic president declaring a national emergency for climate change and imposing carbon taxes, etc. by fiat, as well as declaring a national emergency for healthcare and extending Medicare for all by fiat.
I assume Republicans will be on board, right?