Schumer urges GOP to reject Trump’s ‘destructive’ national emergency

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) implored Republicans to oppose President Trump’s emergency declaration to build a border wall hours ahead of a vote in the House.

Schumer, speaking from the Senate floor, warned Republicans against letting a president declare national emergencies “willy-nilly” and just “because they want to get something done.”

“When the president tries to take these powers away, which clearly he’s doing in this case; he called for an emergency when he couldn’t get his way in Congress, not because some facts come on the scene. It’s a change in the fundamental, necessary … and often exquisite balance of power,” Schumer said.

Schumer added that Trump is throwing a “temper tantrum” and warned Republicans against being “short-sighted.”

The House later Tuesday is expected to pass a resolution blocking Trump’s national emergency declaration, kicking the fight to the GOP-controlled Senate. Democrats will need to flip four Republican senators to send the resolution to Trump’s desk, where he’s pledged to veto it.

Three Republican senators are viewed as likely “yes” votes: Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and Thom Tillis (N.C.).

Several others, including GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), have voiced concerns but have yet to say how they will vote.

Schumer said on Tuesday that many Republicans “understand” the Constitution’s balance of power and urged them not to “look the other way” just because the president is a member of their own party.

“He’s doing it for personal political gain, to accomplish something Congress rejected and the American people opposed. … We are democracy, President Trump, so it’s hard to imagine a more senseless and destructive use of emergency powers than what the president has proposed. So let us, Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate, rise to the occasion,” Schumer said.

He added that if the Senate passes the resolution of disapproval, “when the Founding Fathers look down on this chamber after the vote occurs, they’ll smile.”

Republicans have raised several concerns about Trump’s actions, warning, for example, that they could allow a future Democratic president to declare a national emergency to implement a policy they oppose.

Schumer leaned into those fears on Tuesday, asking what “would stop any future president from proclaiming an emergency every week, doing what they wanted, a total subversion of powers.”