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U.S. President Donald Trump during a Rose Garden press event at the White House February 15, 2019 in Washington, DC. Trump said he would declare a national emergency to free up federal funding to build a wall along the southern border. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Amid the bizarre calvacade of lies, false assertions, exploitive tropes, and sing-song explanations of the likely legal battle to come over his national emergency declaration on Friday morning at the White House, President Donald Trump let one little thing--obvious to many--slip.
"I didn't need to do this," Trump declared - a central admission in which he further explained that he just wanted his wall, which Congress has repeatedly and in a bipartisan manner refused to fund, "faster" than the legislative process will allow. A very strange thing to say about an emergency.
Watch:
\u201cWatch Trump admit that this is a fake national emergency: "I didn't need to do this"\u201d— Public Citizen (@Public Citizen) 1550248190
As Aaron Blake at the Washington Post wrote in response: "If it's truly an emergency, how can you say you didn't need to declare an emergency? Trump basically admitted that this was a choice for him -- a matter of expediency, quite literally -- and not something required by events on the ground."
Meanwhile, what the president's many critics have argued is that the president has created a #FakeNationalEmergency in order to grab by fiat something he could not achieve through constitutional or legal means.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) noted:
\u201c\u201cI didn\u2019t need to do this\u201d is admitting this isn\u2019t an emergency at all.\n\n\u201cI didn\u2019t need to do this\u201d means he\u2019s faking a crisis.\u201d— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) 1550250071
It was a comment, several journalists noted, "that you can bet is going to be cited in lawsuits against this national emergency."
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Amid the bizarre calvacade of lies, false assertions, exploitive tropes, and sing-song explanations of the likely legal battle to come over his national emergency declaration on Friday morning at the White House, President Donald Trump let one little thing--obvious to many--slip.
"I didn't need to do this," Trump declared - a central admission in which he further explained that he just wanted his wall, which Congress has repeatedly and in a bipartisan manner refused to fund, "faster" than the legislative process will allow. A very strange thing to say about an emergency.
Watch:
\u201cWatch Trump admit that this is a fake national emergency: "I didn't need to do this"\u201d— Public Citizen (@Public Citizen) 1550248190
As Aaron Blake at the Washington Post wrote in response: "If it's truly an emergency, how can you say you didn't need to declare an emergency? Trump basically admitted that this was a choice for him -- a matter of expediency, quite literally -- and not something required by events on the ground."
Meanwhile, what the president's many critics have argued is that the president has created a #FakeNationalEmergency in order to grab by fiat something he could not achieve through constitutional or legal means.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) noted:
\u201c\u201cI didn\u2019t need to do this\u201d is admitting this isn\u2019t an emergency at all.\n\n\u201cI didn\u2019t need to do this\u201d means he\u2019s faking a crisis.\u201d— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) 1550250071
It was a comment, several journalists noted, "that you can bet is going to be cited in lawsuits against this national emergency."
Amid the bizarre calvacade of lies, false assertions, exploitive tropes, and sing-song explanations of the likely legal battle to come over his national emergency declaration on Friday morning at the White House, President Donald Trump let one little thing--obvious to many--slip.
"I didn't need to do this," Trump declared - a central admission in which he further explained that he just wanted his wall, which Congress has repeatedly and in a bipartisan manner refused to fund, "faster" than the legislative process will allow. A very strange thing to say about an emergency.
Watch:
\u201cWatch Trump admit that this is a fake national emergency: "I didn't need to do this"\u201d— Public Citizen (@Public Citizen) 1550248190
As Aaron Blake at the Washington Post wrote in response: "If it's truly an emergency, how can you say you didn't need to declare an emergency? Trump basically admitted that this was a choice for him -- a matter of expediency, quite literally -- and not something required by events on the ground."
Meanwhile, what the president's many critics have argued is that the president has created a #FakeNationalEmergency in order to grab by fiat something he could not achieve through constitutional or legal means.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) noted:
\u201c\u201cI didn\u2019t need to do this\u201d is admitting this isn\u2019t an emergency at all.\n\n\u201cI didn\u2019t need to do this\u201d means he\u2019s faking a crisis.\u201d— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) 1550250071
It was a comment, several journalists noted, "that you can bet is going to be cited in lawsuits against this national emergency."