Donald Trump just bet the last of his few remaining chips on a “national emergency” and he’s guaranteed to lose

| 3:52 pm EST February 14, 2019
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Donald Trump has lost, and now he’s admitting as much. His government shutdown failed to get him a single dollar for his imaginary border wall. After he caved by reopening the government, his subsequent negotiations have netted him less money for fencing than had originally been in the budget, and zero money for his wall. So now he’s declaring a “national emergency” after all. Thank God.

This is the move I’ve been hoping Donald Trump would end up making, because it’ll significantly speed up his ouster. First of all, declaring a “national emergency” won’t gain him one dollar, or one inch of land, for his wall. Sure, he’ll try to illegally shift money around, but he’ll get immediately dragged into court over it. Even if he were to win the court battle, which he won’t, it would take him years.

As far as getting his wall built goes, this “national emergency” nonsense is a complete non-starter. He knows it too, because while he doesn’t understand how the law works, it’s surely been explained to him by the people around him. This is Trump’s desperate way of fully caving on the wall, once and for all, while screaming “Hey look, I’m doing something big and bold” as a way of trying to distract his base from the fact that he caved. Even some of them won’t be stupid enough to fall for it.

But the real problem for Donald Trump is that he’s doing something overreaching, illegal, and fruitless just to try to appease his base as he caves. In fact his “national emergency” declaration – which won’t get one inch of his wall built – will make it far easier to impeach him, because the polls say the vast majority of Americans don’t want him trying to build this wall. Trump just bet the last of his few remaining chips on a hand he’s already lost. Bring it on.