Public Citizen: Frightening Prospect If an Authoritarian Like Trump Declares State of Emergency
by mail@democracynow.org (Democracy Now!) from Democracy Now! on (#46PTR)
President Trump says that he will likely declare a national emergency over the border wall if negotiations over the government shutdown continue. We speak with Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. "The Congress has given the president quite a bit of authority to declare emergencies with terms that are almost unbounded," Weissman says. "Congress has always expected, and society has always expected, that presidents wouldn't abuse that authority recklessly, declaring emergencies just because they want to. We obviously have a president now who has no such constraints."