Scaramucci cautions Trump against declaring national emergency: It’s not right to do

Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci cautioned President Trump on Friday against declaring a national emergency amid the ongoing partial government shutdown.

In an interview with CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” Scaramucci said it was “obviously” not right to declare a national emergency on the issue, and warned that future Democratic presidents could use the precedent set by Trump’s example as cover to take drastic action on issues such as climate change.

{mosads}”It’s obviously not right to do it, I would caution him not to do it,” Scaramucci told CNN. “I hope he has people inside the room with him who are saying, ‘hey, don’t do this.’ This is a domino effect.”

Declaring a national emergency, Scaramucci added, would be “moving into a precedent-breaking standard for future presidents. So, you can be sitting there with a Democratic president that decides to ban all handguns or assault weapons and says, ‘hey, it’s a national emergency.’ ”

Scaramucci’s comments came hours after the president said he will hold off on declaring a national emergency to circumvent Congress and begin building his long-promised border wall.

“It’s the easy way out, but Congress should do this,” Trump told reporters on Friday, adding that any declaration would likely face months of court challenges from Democrats.

“We want Congress to do its job,” the president added. “What we’re not looking to do right now is national emergency.”

The partial government shutdown entered its 22nd day on Saturday, officially breaking the record for the longest shutdown of the federal government in modern history. The government entered a partial shutdown on Dec. 22 amid an impasse between the president and lawmakers over Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion in funding for his long-desired U.S.–Mexico border wall.

Roughly 800,000 federal workers who have been furloughed or forced to work without pay during the shutdown missed their first paychecks on Friday.