Maddow Spotlights GOPers Opposed to Emergency Declaration: What Are They Going to Say Now?
On MSNBC on Thursday night, host Rachel Maddow covered the big news about President Trump‘s apparent intent to sign the bill keeping the government open, and to use an emergency declaration to obtain funds for building the wall on the southern border. And she singled out Republican politicians who previously stated their opposition to such a plan.
Maddow noted the plan was outlined but asked, “honestly, is that actually going to happen?”
“The White House says it’s going to happen,” she said. “But in this presidency, is anything really done and dusted before Fox & Friends says it’s done and dusted? I mean, we never know exactly what the president is going to do, whether or not the White House has announced some purported plan.”
“But of course just the prospect, just the threat of President Trump trying to do this wall thing with a declaration of emergency powers, just that threat in recent weeks has led, as you might expect, to, frankly, rabidly partisan immediate attacks from all these far-left Democrats and liberals,” said Maddow to introduce the clip.
Instead of rabid liberals, however, Maddow’s montage was all Republicans, each stating their opposition to the idea of using emergency powers for funding. “Those are not wackadoo liberals and Democrats,” she said. “Those are all Republican U.S. Senators.”
“Before the White House announced today that the president does plan to declare an emergency to justify raiding U.S. military funds and maybe disaster funds to build his wall, lots of Republican senators, including conservative Republican senators, were willing to go on the record saying that would be a terrible idea, that would, in fact, be an unconstitutional idea, and one they might very well might fight him on.”
“So what are those Republican senators going to say about that now?” she asked.
Maddow went through a long explanation of the options the congress has under the law with regard to stopping or contesting the President using emergency powers, and pointed out that GOP cooperation could be critical.
“If they put their money where their mouth is, they could stop this president from doing it,” she said.
One of the Senators in the montage, Sen. Marco Rubio, for his part has already renewed his opposition after the news broke that the President plans to go through with his plan.
Maddow said in the clip it “would only take a couple” of GOP Senators to make it happen. On Twitter, MSNBC colleague Joy Reid still had her doubts.
Raise your hand if you think any of the Republican Senators @maddow just played sound of, calling the declaration of a national emergency a terrible idea, will actually vote to overturn that declaration.
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) February 15, 2019
Watch the clip above, courtesy of MSNBC.
[Featured image via screengrab]
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