President Donald Trump seemed oblivious that he was standing before live cameras on national television declaring a national emergency – one of the most serious acts he can take as president – as he wailed and whined about the court battles that are about to ensue.
Late Friday morning, for close to an hour, the President addressed the nation from the White House Rose Garden, in a rambling and at times incoherent speech that seemed unencumbered by TelePrompTers or even a written script.
At one point, the President complained that he would be taken to court over his national emergency to build his wall on the Southern border – which he officially declared and signed reportedly just before he went on camera.
“We will have a national emergency and we will then be sued, and they will sue us in the 9th Circuit, even though it shouldn’t be there,” Trump declared, “and we will possibly get a bad ruling, and then we’ll get another bad ruling, and then we’ll end up in the Supreme Court, and hopefully we’ll get a fair shake, and then we’ll win in the Supreme Court, just like the ban,” he said, in sing-song fashion, referring to his Muslim ban.
“They sued us in the 9th Circuit, we lost, and then we lost in the appellate division, and then we went to the Supreme Court, and then we won,” he said, still as if he were singing.
(Trump repeatedly attacks the 9th Circuit, and falsely suggests that lawsuits can be filed anywhere in the country. But jurisdiction matters. For example, a case involving the Texas border cannot be filed and heard in the, say, the 1st Circuit, which covers Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.)
Many believe Trump’s national emergency declaration is unconstitutional, and wrongly takes power away from Congress.
Discussing his Muslim ban, and neglecting to mention that it had to be rewritten many times before it could pass muster in the courts, Trump then announced that “the probably easiest” case “to win, is on declaring a national emergency,” he claimed.
The President may be misinformed. There is no question that he will be taken to court over declaring a national emergency when facts prove there is not one, and when President Trump admitted during his rambling speech, “I didn’t need to” declare a national emergency.
Watch:
UPDATE:
As NCRM surmised, there was no TelePrompTer, according to a Washington Post reporter: