Republican Justin Amash Slams Trump: ‘The President is Violating our Constitutional System’

Trump faced a stiff rebuke from within his own party Sunday when GOP Congressman Justin Amash told CNN that “the president is violating our constitutional system” by declaring a national emergency to secure funding for the border wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for, and for which Mexico has not paid.

On Sunday morning’s edition of CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper asked Amash “Do you think that Republicans who are supporting this national emergency are abdicating their responsibilities to the Constitution?”

“I think so, yes,” Amash replied, but added “I don’t think that they are all intending to do that. I think many of them are making arguments. They’re trying to make legal arguments. They say, well, Congress has passed legislation giving the president this power. So I don’t think that they are thinking to themselves, oh, I just want the president to violate the Constitution.”

“But I think the president is violating our constitutional system,” Amash continued. “And I don’t think Congress can grant legislative powers to the president by statute. You can’t just pass a statute that says, the president now has appropriations power and bypass Congress.”

He went on to say that “the best check on the president’s action is Congress, and that Congress has to “protect our own power. And that’s what I’m doing. And I’m hopeful many Republican senators will agree.”

Amash has shown a willingness to speak out against Trump and his fellow Republicans in the past, and Trump’s emergency declaration has resulted in a relative handful of other GOP defections.

Watch the clip above, from CNN.

[Image via screengrab]