Before we get to the conversation about the wall and the president's declaration of a national emergency, let's briefly tackle what's going on with the Democrats and specifically the Amazon deal with New York City. Part of what Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) said was true that Amazon executives made an arbitrary decision to pull out of their plans to build in Long Island City, and it is not acceptable that corporations can push around and dictate terms to municipalities like they do. However, it's also accurate to say that some New York City politicians created a difficult political atmosphere that Amazon didn't want to contend with.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal proposal, as this column has stated, is a good idea in its aspiration, however it is not ready for prime time to become a bill. The greenest part of this 'New Deal' is the congressperson who introduced it and her advocating for and celebrating Amazon's pull-out is misguided. Not to mention what Politico's Eliana Johnson explained inasmuch as a majority of Ms. Ocasio Cortez's constituents wanted Amazon in Long Island City in Queens. The National Review's Jonah Goldberg was absolutely correct when he said that Ms. Ocasio Cortez didn't do her homework. And if the figures that Mr. de Blasio outlined are correct and that $27 billion in revenue would have been brought to the city and state along with 27,000 jobs for $3 billion in tax incentives once the revenue and jobs are there then that's a deal you take. That $3 billion is NOT residing else where; it only exists with the revenue that the Amazon deal would have brought. The only point that New York City should have insisted on was that Amazon contribute to the renovation of the subway through Queens. But now none of it is happening and it's a loss for New York and it's created conflict among Democrats.
That aside, the conflict within the Democratic party is largely created by the media nitpicking the differences of candidates' positions and proposals very early in the election cycle. For perspective, DNC Chair Tom Perez framed it more reasonably that despite these differences, all the candidates believe in a set of core principles such as climate change being real, Americans should have more affordable healthcare and more access to it, and that capitalism should work better for the vast majorities of the people.
The other commonality among Democrats is their desire to stop a president that is becoming increasingly autocratic. This is their political emergency but it's also a political emergency for conservatives. The question is will they rise to the challenge or will they fold abdicating their Constitutional power and obligations? If the rest of the Republican caucus follows Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-KY) then they've already bent over and we've received our answer.
By his own admission, President Trump's declaration of a national emergency is not in fact an emergency as he stated on Friday in the White House Rose Garden that he didn't have to do it.
When questioned by Mr. Todd, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said that the president does have the Constitutional authority to declare a national emergency but that he also has concerns about this type of extension of presidential power. In other words, Senator Johnson doesn't agree with the action taken by the president, but he's also unwilling to stand up to him. He also said that Congress needs to assert its Constitutional power but in fact Republicans have been abdicating it since Mr. Trump took office. Mr. Todd explained that since the emergency declaration act came to be in 1976 no president has used it in the fashion where Congress has reached a funding compromise and then the president circumvents it, taking control of funds through the National Emergency Declaration Act, to satisfy a political goal.
And that is what this is, a politically manufactured crisis on the part of President Trump, who is not a conservative, certainly when it comes to limited governmental power, deficits and Constitutional norms and laws. This declaration will go through the courts but to answer Eliana Johnson's question as to whether the courts will become involved in the question of what is and what is not an emergency, the answer is 'no, they will not.' And as Amy Walter explained, this declaration is all about the 2020 election and Mr. Trump maintaining his base. He's certainly not trying to expand it.
What was extraordinary was that you saw the most liberal member of the panel (Eddie Glaude, Jr.) and the most conservative member (Jonah Goldberg) using similar terminology to describe the president's action. Mr. Glaude said that this was the imperial presidency run amok and Mr. Goldberg described the action as monarchical. Mr. Goldberg also said that this end around Congress was next level abuse of presidential power.
Mr. Glaude explained that this emergency declaration is built on a lie that there is a crisis on the southern border, which in terms of illegal crossings there is not. Government statistics indicate that illegal crossings are down 76% since 2000. In terms of a humanitarian crisis, there is one manufactured by the Administration with its separation of families zero-tolerance policy.
The emergency is one for Republicans in Congress, a test at a tipping point for our Constitutional democracy.
Panel: Amy Walter, the Cook Political Report; Eliana Johnson, Politico; Eddie Glaude, Jr., Princeton University; Jonah Goldberg, The National Review
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