Fallout begins after emergency declaration

Lawsuits filed, Congress divided, threat of veto

WASHINGTON — The White House on Sunday defended President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the southern border and tried to clarify contradictory comments the president had made, marking the beginning of an uphill battle to preserve the designation from Democrats, some Republicans and a slew of legal challenges.

Trump’s announcement — an attempt to circumvent Congress and redirect taxpayer money to fund 230 miles of barriers along the U.S.Mexico border — has already been hit with several lawsuits. On Sunday, the attorney general of California reiterated that he was working with several other states and would be filing suit against the White House “imminently.”

The national emergency declaration also has divided Americans, triggering at least one protest in New York, with various groups promising to hold more across the

“I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.” President Donald Trump

country on Presidents’ Day.

In Washington, lawmakers are divided as to whether the emergency declaration is legitimate or constitutes a power grab that must be stopped. Democratic members of Congress are preparing a joint resolution to repeal the national emergency in the coming weeks, and are expecting some Republicans will cross the aisle to pass it.

“Frankly, the president is trying to take the power of the purse away from the legislative branch,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., said on ABC News’ “This Week.” “We are coequal branches of government, and he is trying to do a type of executive overreach, and it’s just really uncalled for.”

Trump made his case for the action Friday during a Rose Garden speech, claiming the United States is dealing with “an invasion of drugs, invasion of gangs, invasion of people” and that a wall was absolutely necessary.

“I could do the wall over a longer period of time,” Trump said. “I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”

Democrats and other critics have seized on those comments in particular as proof that Trump didn’t need to declare a national emergency and, in doing so, was overreaching his executive authority.

However, in an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller defended Trump’s move, arguing that “this would not be even an issue if the president was invoking that statute to support some foreign adventure overseas.”

When host Chris Wallace pressed him on Trump’s own words, Miller insisted that there was an emergency at the southern border, saying there was an “increasing number of people crossing” and “a huge increase in drug deaths” since George W. Bush was president.

When Wallace countered with government statistics that showed attempted border crossings were actually at the lowest levels they had been in nearly four decades and that the overwhelming majority of drugs were caught at ports of entry, Miller demurred.

“You don’t know what you don’t know, and you don’t catch what you don’t catch,” Miller said. “But as a matter of national security, you cannot have uncontrolled, unsecured areas of the border where people can pour in undetected.”

Even if Congress passes a joint resolution to repeal the national emergency, Trump would likely veto it, Miller suggested Sunday.

“He’s going to protect his national emergency declaration, guaranteed,” Miller said.

Miller said that by September 2020, “hundreds of miles” of new barriers will have been built along the border.

“If the president can’t defend this country, then he cannot fulfill his constitutional oath of office,” Miller said.

Duckworth said it was unclear whether there would be enough members of Congress to override a presidential veto on such a resolution but said there were many senators alarmed at the emergency declaration. She added that, even if one agreed with Trump that there is an emergency at the southern border, a wall would not be the most effective way to address it.

“If he wants to appropriate more money to put folks — more agents at the border to put more people at the ports of entry ... we can have those conversations,” Duckworth told “This Week” host Martha Raddatz. “But to take money away from (the Department of Defense) in order to build this wall that is essentially a campaign promise, I think, is really wrong priorities and I think it’s very harmful to the country.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., pointed to Trump’s own comments that he didn’t need to do declare a national emergency.

“He’s pretty much daring the court to strike this down,” Schiff said. “It is going to be a real test for my GOP colleagues in Congress and their devotion to the institution. If we surrender the power of the purse, there will be little check and no balance left. It will not be a separation of power anymore — it will be a separation of parties.”

The promise of legal challenges to Trump’s emergency declaration came almost immediately.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, said Sunday that he was working with “sister state partners” to bring forward a lawsuit against the White House, hinting that it could be filed early next week.

“We are prepared. We knew something like this might happen,” he said.

When asked whether California would have standing to challenge the declaration, because Trump appears to be focused on building a wall in Texas, Becerra said, “We’re confident there are at least 8 billion ways that we can prove harm,” referring to the number of taxpayer dollars Trump is looking to divert.

“It’s become clear that this is not an emergency, not only because no one believes it is, but because Donald Trump himself has said it’s not,” Becerra said. “But there is enough evidence to show that this is not the 9⁄11 crisis that we faced back in 2001; it’s not the Iran hostage crisis we faced in 1979.”