CNN's Jake Tapper tells Stephen Colbert why Trump's emergency declaration is different, more troubling
President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border on Friday, and Stephen Colbert asked CNN's Jake Tapper what that actually meant on Monday's Late Show. "I think it just means that he couldn't get the money for his border wall so he's trying to figure out another way to get money for his border wall, and he's doing it in a way that has never been attempted before," Tapper said. "Presidents have declared national emergencies before, but not for this reason. Usually they do it, they're taking an act that Congress actually wants them to do," usually sanctions-related.
Out of some 60 declared national emergencies, Tapper added, "I don't think it's ever been done that a president fails to get Congress to pass something and then he just decides, 'Okay, well I'm just going to declare an emergency so I can have the money do what I want it to do.'" "It seems imperial," Colbert said, and Tapper allowed "it's certainly not what the law was intended to do." This will now go to the courts, but "I don't know that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule against this," he added, and Colbert pointed to Trump's singsong prediction that the Supreme Court will side with him. "You have to appreciate that he auto-tuned his own press conference," Tapper joked.
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Tapper also suggested the White House doesn't have a lot of authority to call former FBI official Andrew McCabe an unreliable liar and parsed Rod Rosenstein's non-denials. Watch below. Peter Weber
