Ex-Bush speechwriter calls Trump's national emergency great 'for future President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez'

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the real winner of Trump's national emergency?
(Image credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images)

There's clearly a conservative legal case to be made against President Trump sidestepping the purse-strings-holding co-equal legislative branch by declaring a capricious national "emergency" to build a border wall that Congress won't fund. But there's also a conservative political case.

"Every one of you 'conservatives' gushing about the abuse of emergency powers owns it when a Democratic president declares a national emergency on Day 1," Republican strategist Rick Wilson tweeted Thursday, be it over "guns or abortion or climate or LGBT issues" or to build "the Dr. Atheist Von Clinton Celebrity Abortion Center and Vegan Advocacy Farm." At Politico, Matt Latimer, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, took a specific contemporary example, arguing half-seriously that Trump's national emergency "is great news for future President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez," as it likely "just made a Green New Deal inevitable in 2021."

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.