Nothing is ever as simplistic as it seems, especially with Donald Trump. So what’s up with his sudden change of heart? Yesterday he was most likely, probably, maybe going to declare a national emergency to fund his wall. Today? He sounds like he’s backing off, but not ruling it out, probably.
Reporter: 24 hours ago you said you were probably going to declare a national emergency.
Trump: No I said could do it, but I’ll tell you what. It’s the easy way out, but Congress should do this. This is too simple. It’s too basic. Congress should do this. If they can’t do it…I will declare a national emergency. I have the absolute right to do it.
So what’s going on here? His own party is pushing back. From Time:
“President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to declare a national emergency in order to build a border wall have led to an unusually high amount of pushback from Republicans concerned about executive overreach.
“[T]he suggestion to use emergency powers ruffled the feathers of conservative members of Congress who frequently criticized Barack Obama for what they considered an overreach of executive powers and raised concerns among lawmakers who expect to serve under a Democratic president again eventually.”
https://twitter.com/lucchaoui/status/1083846501158318080
In the meantime, a lot of hard-working Americans are working for free. The shutdown, now in its 21st day, is tied for the longest in history. Since the Senate has gone home for the weekend that means tomorrow it will enter new territory, breaking the record for the longest shutdown ever. And the pain got a lot worse today as 800,000 workers as payday came and went with no money.
As thousands of federal workers face their first skipped pay cycle since the partial government shutdown began three weeks ago, there doesn’t seem to be much urgency in D.C. to get things back up and running: Congress is taking the weekend off https://t.co/U8pbK3bbD0
— VICE News (@VICENews) January 11, 2019