Chris Wallace Grills Dem on Obama’s Executive Actions: Where’s His Authority?

With the threat of a lawsuit by House Republicans against President Obama, the president’s use of executive action is back in the spotlight. And on Fox News Sunday today, Chris Wallace put Democrat Xavier Becerra on the hot seat over Obama taking unilateral action on big policy issues. Wallace repeatedly grilled him on where Obama finds the legal authority to take such action in apparent defiance of the law of the land.

Becerra argued that Obama’s basically taking actions on issues that are very popular with the American people. Wallace shot back, “The Constitution does not say, ‘Hey, if it’s popular, you can exceed your authority.'” Becerra insisted that Obama’s just enforcing certain laws through executive action, but Wallace charged that Obama appears to be “rewriting the law.”

Wallace brought up the unanimous Supreme Court ruling against Obama last week over recess appointments. Becerra blamed Republican “shutdown politics” for blunting Obama’s ability to govern but Wallace called him out for changing the subject.

Watch the full segment below, via Fox:

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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