Donald Trump opens his mouth and destroys the legal argument for his own national emergency
Part of Donald Trump’s problem right now is that he’s in a no-win situation where he’s convinced his racist base that a border wall will magically turn America into Disneyland, so he has to make the wall happen, even though no one involved is going to let him waste the money and resources on it. The other part of Trump’s problem right now is that he has no control over his own blabbering mouth, and he just made his own situation even worse.
Before the ink is dry on Trump’s national emergency declaration, House Democrats and others will move for an immediate injunction in court. It’s already essentially a given that they’ll win, he’ll lose, and he still won’t get his wall. But just in case Trump wanted to stack the odds even more against him, he blurted out something in the Rose Garden on Friday that’ll guarantee a loss in court.
Donald Trump said these words about his national emergency declaration: “I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.” He just flat out admitted that the declaration isn’t necessary, that there is no emergency, and that he’s merely abusing the system in the hope of circumventing the rules.
We’ve seen federal judges cite Donald Trump’s words and tweets as reasons for striking him down before. We’re about to see it happen again. In the court of public opinion, Trump’s rambling and narcissistic press conference changed zero minds. But if the courts were inclined to give him even the slightest bit of benefit of the doubt this time, his press conference certainly just changed their minds.
