Tag: Trump fake national emergency

Using Old Video, Trump Claims ‘Wall Is Under Construction Right Now’

The video is footage of a repair procedure from Sept. 18, 2018. And it isn’t “the wall.”

Trump is pretending that video of a fence being repaired from 5 months ago is evidence of his “wall” being built right now. The lie is the latest humiliation for Trump, who has been repeatedly denied the ability to waste billions in tax dollars on the racist vanity project.

Trump posted video of the fence repair with the caption, “We have just built this powerful Wall in New Mexico. Completed on January 30, 2019 – 47 days ahead of schedule! Many miles more now under construction!”

In a subsequent, lying, all-caps tweet he added, “THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW!”

View the complete February 22 article by Oliver Willis of the American Independent on the National Memo website here.

Dems introduce resolution to overturn Trump’s emergency to build wall

Democrats in the House introduced a resolution on Friday that would block President Trump‘s emergency declaration on the southern border, a step he took to free up as much as $8 billion in funding to build his proposed border wall.

The resolution sponsored by Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) had 222 co-sponsors.

The measure is expected to pass the Democratic-held House but will need to win GOP support to get through the Senate.

View the complete February 22 article by Niv Elis on The Hill website here.

Dems face challenges to beating Trump in court

The Democratic states fighting President Trump’s emergency declaration face a rough road as they try to convince the courts that his order was unlawful.

But experts say the lawsuit won’t be a slam dunk for the president either.

“This is a hard case,” said Michael McConnell, director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. “It’s going to be a hard case for California to win and a hard case for Trump to defend.”

California is leading the coalition of 16 states suing Trump over an emergency declaration they argue was manufactured by a president who didn’t get what he wanted from Congress.

View the complete February 21 article by Lydia Wheeler on The Hill website here.

After contentious border moves, stakes only get higher for Trump

Credit: Evan Vucci, AP

‘The real rough water for President Trump still lies ahead,’ GOP insider says

ANALYSIS — “Stay tuned” is a common refrain from White House aides when asked about the many cliffhangers created by President Donald Trump. But remarkably, even after three topsy-turvy months that culminated Friday in a wild Rose Garden appearance, that West Wing mantra will apply doubly over the next few weeks.

Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency at the southern border to unlock Pentagon funds for his proposed border wall came wrapped in an announcement press conference during which he veered from topic to topic, undercut his own legal position, often appeared dispassionate when discussing the emergency declaration, and made more baseless claims. That matter is already embroiled in court fights, putting perhaps his biggest campaign promise in legal limbo, and has appeared to created new distance between him and some Senate Republicans.

The president himself chose to plunge his border wall promise to his conservative base into question just as he is kicking off his re-election campaign, telling reporters, “I didn’t have to do this” right now. The domestic stakes are huge for Trump, should the courts reject the argument that he has the authority to spend dollars Congress allocated for other matters on the border barrier — not least of which is the risk of his base becoming frustrated.

View the complete February 20 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here. 

‘Answer my question’: Fox anchor grills defiant Stephen Miller on Trump’s national emergency

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller. Credit: Evan Vucci, AP

Unstoppable rhetoric collided with immovable facts on “Fox News Sunday,” as White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller defended President Trump’s national emergency declaration and invoked the potential for a veto if Congress disapproves in an interview with Chris Wallace.

The segment focused on the limits of presidential powers to circumvent Congress and procure funds to build 230 miles of barriers along the southern border. Miller described an onslaught of drugs and migrants flowing over the border as justification for the emergency declaration.

Yet, like a small army of fact-checkers have noted before, Wallace told Miller the vast majority of hard drugs seized by Customs and Border Protection are captured at points of entry, not between them, and unlawful migration over the border has fallen 90 percent since 2000.

View the complete February 17 article by Alex Horton on The Washington Post website here.

In declaring a national emergency, Trump reminds Republicans: It’s all about him

Though he expects loyalty from Republicans, President Trump has never demonstrated much fidelity to the party that he leads, and on Friday he proved it again. In declaring a national emergency to fund his border wall, the president reminded Republican lawmakers that he feels free to trample on them whenever it suits him.

Trump was a solitary, and unscripted, figure when he spoke on Friday in the Rose Garden. His presentation was rambling and unfocused. He talked about trade with China and Great Britain, negotiations with North Korea, and the economy and the stock market before getting to the prime topic. Though he cast many of those things in upbeat terms, it was not a performance by a president who believes he is winning.

This was, however, a more authentic Trump than the politician the nation saw two weeks ago, when he gave his State of the Union address. In that setting, Trump’s speech was laced with appeals for bipartisanship, tributes to genuine American heroes and initiatives that seemed unusual to this president and designed to attract voters outside his core coalition who aren’t with him but might be needed for his reelection campaign.

View the complete February 16 article by Dan Balz on The Washington Post website here.

White House, GOP defend Trump emergency declaration

President Trump’s allies in the GOP and one of his top advisers defended on Sunday his decision to declare a national emergency to secure funding for his long-desired border wall, a move that triggered a flurry of lawsuits and bipartisan reservations.

The White House, seeking to quell political and legal questions about the president’s declaration, sent hard-line immigration advocate and senior adviser Stephen Miller to push the administration’s message in a rare Sunday show appearance.

“This is a deep intellectual problem that is plaguing [Washington, D.C.], which is that we’ve had thousands of Americans die year after year after year because of threats crossing our southern border,” Miller said on “Fox News Sunday.”

View the complete February 17 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Stocking shelves and clearing brush, guardsmen serve on border amid political heat

National Guardsmen clear brush near the Colorado River outside Yuma, Ariz. Credit: Caitlin O’Hara, The Washington Post

YUMA, Ariz. — Staff Sgt. Chris Cazares is panting to catch his breath after slicing down a salt cedar on the banks of the Colorado River with one of those orange-handled saws commonly used in school shop class.

A supervisor at a nursing home, the longtime soldier in the Army National Guard was previously deployed twice to Iraq, where he specialized in neutralizing chemical attacks. Now he is deployed to his hometown on Arizona’s border with Mexico. Here, he is neutralizing trees.

Cazares is one of roughly 600 guardsmen serving on the border in Arizona since President Trump dispatched the National Guard last April in support of Customs and Border Protection. Numbering about 2,200 as of early this month, the guardsmen Trump supplied from across the nation answer to the governor of the state in which they are deployed. The active-duty troops the president sent to the border last fall now number about 4,350; they report to U.S. Northern Command.

View the complete February 16 article by Paul Sonne was posted on The Washington Post website here.

Dems ready aggressive response to Trump emergency order, as GOP splinters

House Democrats are vowing an aggressive response to President Trump‘s emergency declaration at the southern border, mulling ways to block his go-it-alone approach with legislation, legal action, or both.

Yet party leaders are in no immediate rush to show their hand, instead hoping to keep the focus on growing GOP divisions while pressuring more Republicans to oppose the president’s unilateral power play.

Heading into the weeklong Presidents Day recess, the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is distributing a spreadsheet to members logging a host of wide-ranging local projects potentially threatened by Trump’s effort to shift funds from military construction coffers to the border wall.

The list — nearly 400 projects long — features a number of ventures in GOP districts. It includes maintenance facilities for F-35 stealth fighters at Eielson Air Force Base outside Fairbanks, Alaska; the operation of a middle school at Fort Campbell, Ky.; and funds to replace a training maze at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Fact-checking Trump’s announcement of a national emergency

President Trump declared a national emergency to secure funding for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. (Video: Joy Yi/Photo: Oliver Contreras/The Washington Post)

Where to begin with President Trump’s rambling news conference to announce he was invoking a national emergency to build a border wall? It was chock-full of false and misleading claims, many of which we’ve previously highlighted, either in our database of Trump claims or our list of Bottomless Pinocchios. Here’s a summary of 14 of the most noteworthy claims, starting with immigration ones first.

“So I’m going to be signing a national emergency. And it’s been signed many times before. It’s been signed by other presidents. From 1977 or so, it gave the presidents the power. There’s rarely been a problem. They sign it — nobody cares. I guess they weren’t very exciting. But nobody cares. They sign it for far less important things in some cases — in many cases.” Continue reading “Fact-checking Trump’s announcement of a national emergency”