Only time for one lecture this morning, as I'm in day three of a partial technological shutdown here at veritable pastiche. In advance, I thank you for your patience and for sticking around until all issues are resolved.Today's classroom? This Week with George Stephanopoulos, with co-host Martha Raddatz handling the interviews. I chose this one primarily for William Weld, who says he will primary president Trump for the 2020 Republican nomination. But first, a couple of highlights from the other guests.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra told Raddatz that his state would "definitely and imminently" be filing a lawsuit challenging the president's declaration of a national emergency, noting it was not a surprise. Raddatz wondered about any harm being done to California, since Trump's focus was on Texas. She asked (without irony) if Becerra was
...confident your state has concrete standing to challenge this? What harm is he doing to California with this declaration?Becerra's response?
We're confident there are at least 8 billion ways that we can prove harm. And once... all the different states are clear, what pots of money that taxpayers sent to DC he's going to raid, which Congress dedicated to different types of services; whether it's emergency response services or whether it's fire or mudslides in California or maybe tornadoes and floods in other parts of the country, or whether it's our military men and women and their families who live on military installations that might - that might have money taken away from them, or whether it's money taken away from drug interdiction efforts in places like California, a number of states, and certainly Americans will be harmed. And we're all going to be prepared.Becerra talked about how strong the border is, in the words of DHS, and that entries "by those that don't have permission" are lower than in 20 years or so, therefore
...it's clear this isn't an emergency, it's clear that in the mind of Donald Trump he needs to do something to try to fulfill a campaign promise. That doesn't necessarily constitute a national emergency that would require us to essentially stand down on all sorts of federal laws and also violate the US Constitution.
