Transcript for Trump continues to float the idea of an emergency declaration
Want to bring in now from Texas ABC news chief political analyst Matthew dowd. Back with us once again. It’s another weekend. It’s a new year. We’re still talking about this shutdown. So we appreciate your insight here. President trump continues to float this idea of an emergency declaration potentially diverting disaster relief money to build his wall. There is bipartisan opposition to this, but now senator Lindsey graham from South Carolina, the Republican, is urging him to do citing, build that wall now. At this point in the stalemate, Matt, is this the only way forward? Well, good morning, whit. I think that for the American public’s sake, it’s not. The American public right now, and as you know, I live here in Texas, the longest part on this border, the border of Mexico where most of the wall would be bit, the vast majority of the country is against it. The vast majority of the country blames the president for this. I don’t think the national emergency — declaring a national emergency is the way to go. I think the president can still figure out a compromise and do it with the Democrats and the Republicans. He’s got a problem both now with Republicans and Democrats but declaring a national emergency I think is a political — huge political problem for the president if he went that way. And I want to ask you more about that. Speaking of the Republicans specifically, some are expressing concern with this emergency declaration, worried about the precedent that it could set for a future democratic president. What if a Democrat decides to declare a national emergency on climate change or gun control or something like that. What could those political ramifications be if president trump follows through with this threat? That’s what’s really surprising about senator Lindsey graham advocating that the president do this, and Lindsey graham was one of the people front and center criticizing president Obama for overreach as president and signing executive orders that he thought was way beyond where he should go. I think that if the president does this and the Republicans go along with this, it sets up an unbelievable precedent for when a Democrat takes the office, what they could do. They could do it on any number of things, gun control, on health care, on climate change, they could do it on a lot of things, so the president, if they go along with it is awful if a Democrat wins the next race to the white house. Matthew dowd, thank you so much. We truly appreciate it. Day 22 and can’t be lost in all of this the 800,000 employees who this Friday did not get a paycheck or got a stub that literally said zero dollars having a huge impact on a lot of people. For so many families that’s just not something they can handle. Absolutely. Let’s go to a silver lining
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
