Trump's Eviction Moratorium Opens the Door for Medicare for All by Executive Order

Donald Trump declares a coronavirus national emergency on March 13, 2020 (source)

by Thomas Neuburger

On September 1, the Trump administration announced a nationwide moratorium on evictions to last until December 31, a full four months. The reason for the moratorium, according to a White House spokesman, was to make sure that people "struggling to pay rent due to the coronavirus will not have to worry about being evicted and risk the further spreading of, or exposure to, the disease."

The moratorium applies only to people "who would otherwise be eligible for federal stimulus funds in the previous CARES Act, which went only to people with certain tax income levels and citizenship status." The ban also requires that renters "self-certify" to become eligible. As Politico put it:

"The new ban covers tenants who certify that they have lost “substantial” income; that they expect to make no more than $99,000 in 2020 or received a stimulus check; and that they are making their “best efforts” to pay as much of their rent as they can. Tenants must also certify that an eviction would likely make them homeless or push them to double up with others in close quarters."

It should be noted that the ban does not cancel rental obligations; it just delays payment. Also, as the order itself states, "Nothing in this Order precludes the charging or collecting of fees, penalties, or interest as a result of the failure to pay rent or other housing payment on a timely basis, under the terms of any applicable contract."

As a solution, it's better than nothing, but it only defers the pain.

About Half of All Landlords Will Suffer Too

The order provides no funds for relief to landlords. For the many landlords who are, in fact, millionaires, billionaires, and large, well-funded corporations and venture capital firms, this may look to many like just desserts. For the other half of the landlord population, however, especially the minority who own just one or two rental properties, this could spell financial disaster as great as the disaster their tenants are facing.

It's hard to get figures for the breakdown of the wealth among landlords, but the industry-friendly article in Politico quoted above implies that the wealthy landlord group, while "a fraction of the market," is in fact almost half — which technically qualify as "a fraction," but a sizable one. The article states that "a little over half the rental housing in the country" consists of small properties with between one and four units per building — which means that a little under half of the market consists of large buildings.

The Politico article, clearly industry-sourced, then focuses on the suffering of a percentage of the percentage of small owners, ignoring completely the mega-owners, just as it ignores the suffering of the renters themselves, except to emphasize how many of them pose an economic danger to landlords. Still, small owners are left in the cold by the administration's ban, and their distress will be real.

What Makes This Declaration Legal?

The authority for this action comes from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Surgeon General, who reports to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — not from the Housing or the Treasury departments — and it's based on the stated need to prevent the spread of disease in a crisis.

The applicable language states (emphasis added):

[Title 42 U.S.C.] §264. Regulations to control communicable diseases
(a) Promulgation and enforcement by Surgeon General

The Surgeon General, with the approval of the Secretary, is authorized to make and enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession. For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the Surgeon General may provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary.

This declaration and the unusual legal authority on which it is based has many important ramifications. For one, it opens the door for Medicare for All by executive order.

Ramifications of Trump's Moratorium

We can discuss Trump's action in several ways, each of which could become an essay on its own.

1. Clearly the primary reason for Trump's action is political. He wants people to feel like they are getting relief from him that they're not getting from Congress. In that, he's right. They are getting relief from him that they're not getting from Congress.

But in doing so, he's just kicked the can down the road until after the election, solving none of the underlying problems in doing so. Renters will still owe rent that they can't pay from income they don't have, and those small landlords with mortgages are still on the hook to their own creditors regardless of having been forced to keep non-paying tenants.

2. A much more reasonable action would be the obvious, socialist one — let government write checks to landlords on behalf of renters, then work out repayment (or debt forgiveness) schemes later.

Or better, let government cover the payrolls of businesses that are suffering or going under, then forgive what's owed later. After all, the root cause of the economic downturn is lost payrolls. As for repayment, this is an emergency after all, and FEMA doesn't send bills to those whose hardship it relieves. The money spent is just the cost of the crisis.

But that's a socialist, Sanders-like solution, and neither party wants any part of it. Thus the hesitation to act, the labyrinthine schemes, and the means-tested requirements and restrictions.

3. This action places Trump to the left of national Democrats on Covid relief. If he's smart (he's not), he'll stay to their left and offer all sorts of "socialist" (Sanders-like) solutions to the economic crisis — see below for a major one. After all, Trump ran the 2016 election on a Sanders-like platform — against NAFTA, against free trade, for infrastructure-as-stimulus, against the forever war, and so on.

If he's smart, he'll restart that campaign. But he's not smart.

4. The biggest thing Trump could do — and it would be a game-changer — is to use the authority he's has under "Title 42 U.S. Code § 1395rr–1 - Medicare coverage for individuals exposed to environmental health hazards" to provide Medicare coverage for everyone in the United States "exposed to environmental health hazards." Which in these Covid times ... is everyone.

He could do this tomorrow using executive authority, the same executive authority that underlies his eviction moratorium.

The applicable section of Title 42 allows for a "Pilot program for care of certain individuals residing in emergency declaration areas." That care can be defined as "access to all of Medicare":

(b) Pilot program for care of certain individuals residing in emergency declaration areas
(1) Program; purpose
(A) Primary pilot program

The Secretary shall establish a pilot program in accordance with this subsection to provide innovative approaches to furnishing comprehensive, coordinated, and cost-effective care under this subchapter to individuals described in paragraph (2)(A).

The Secretary of HHS could even use this law to create "optional pilot programs" to supplement regular (and in many ways, inefficient) Medicare:

(B) Optional pilot programs

The Secretary may establish a separate pilot program, in accordance with this subsection, with respect to each geographic area subject to an emergency declaration (other than the declaration of June 17, 2009), in order to furnish such comprehensive, coordinated and cost-effective care to individuals described in subparagraph (2)(B) who reside in each such area.

For this to work, an emergency declaration must have been declared, which it has.

Eligible individuals must meet the following criteria:

(A) In general An individual described in this paragraph is any individual who—
(i) is diagnosed with 1 or more conditions described in subparagraph (B);
(ii) as demonstrated in such manner as the Secretary determines appropriate, has been present for an aggregate total of 6 months in the geographic area subject to an emergency declaration specified in subsection (b)(2)(A)..."

While subsection (3)(B) applies to individuals with named diseases — asbestosis, mesothelioma, and the like — subsection (3)(C) allows this law to apply to an individual who "is diagnosed with a medical condition caused by the exposure of the individual to a public health hazard to which an emergency declaration applies, based on such medical conditions, diagnostic standards, and other criteria as the Secretary specifies."

In short:  

Trump could guarantee himself a second term if he applied this law in this way, to give the nation Medicare For All under executive order.

5. Finally, while I think it unlikely that Trump would take this avenue to gain an electoral victory, I nonetheless hope he does, for these three reasons.

First, it would give Medicare for All ... to all. That would be a huge progressive win in and of itself, a win we're not going to get under a Biden presidency without monster effort, and win we've been unable to achieve since the Truman administration.

Second, it would force Biden to match him or admit defeat on ideological grounds. That's a problem I would love for Biden to face.

An added benefit: Trump's support of Medicare for All takes all the burden of moving Biden left off of progressives and places it onto the Republicans, who would be playing an Ace if Biden doesn't play an Ace of his own. Let Republicans do the heavy threatening. This frees progressives to happily and genuinely support a compliant Biden (for a change).

Finally, for Biden to match Trump's offer of Medicare for All with his own would ensure a Biden victory, perhaps by a landslide. After all, Biden today is running, and possibly winning, on a single platform — not being Trump. Imagine his margin of victory if he ran on Medicare for All as well as not being Trump.

Trump wouldn't have a chance if Biden did that, and Biden would be hailed by history as the literal savior of this generation. That's a whole lot better than than the legacy he's now on track for — being the not-Trump slower-paced sinker of it.
  

Bernie Sanders' GND Plan Will Nationalize Power Generation in the U.S.

"You can't nibble around the edges any more," says Sanders in explaining his plan to essentially nationalize electricity production in the U.S. The full interview is here.

by Thomas Neuburger

Bernie Sanders recently released his plan for implementing the Green New Deal. These include such comprehensive goals as transitioning to 100% renewable energy for electricity and transportation by 2030 and decarbonizing the entire economy by 2050 (full details here).

To get there, Sanders plans a number of ambitious projects, including massive and job-creating infrastucture spending and "declaring climate change a national emergency." The implications of the latter are not entirely spelled out. A number of candidates have proposals that "declare a national emergency" regarding climate change, but not in the same sense that George W. Bush, for example, may have meant had he declared the 9/11 attacks a national emergency (he didn't, but he could have).

That kind of national emergency, a Bush-Cheney kind, implies an exercise of presidential power that approaches martial law, something that most pro-climate Democrats don't contemplate. Does the Sanders plan contemplate a stronger-than-rhetorical response to climate change? It's not clear yet from Sanders camp messaging.

Nevertheless, the subject of emergency federal power does come up because of the breadth of the Sanders plan, and in particular, because of one key component:

• Build enough renewable energy generation capacity for the nation’s growing needs. Currently, four federal Power Marketing Administrations (PMAs) and the Tennessee Valley Authority generate and transmit power to distribution utilities in 33 states.We will create one more PMA to cover the remaining states and territories and expand the existing PMAs to build more than enough wind, solar, energy storage and geothermal power plants. We will spend $1.52 trillion on renewable energy and $852 billion to build energy storage capacity. Together, with an EPA federal renewable energy standard, this will fully drive out non-sustainable generation sources.
  
  
• We will end greed in our energy system. The renewable energy generated by the Green New Deal will be publicly owned, managed by the Federal Power Marketing Administrations, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Tennessee Valley Authority and sold to distribution utilities with a preference for public power districts, municipally- and cooperatively-owned utilities with democratic, public ownership, and other existing utilities that demonstrate a commitment to the public interest. The Department of Energy will provide technical assistance to states and municipalities that would like to establish publicly owned distribution utilities or community choice aggregation programs in their communities. Electricity will be sold at current rates to keep the cost of electricity stable during this transition.

The whole plan (again, I urge everyone to read it) has been called by some a "new Manhattan Project" and compared to FDR's reshaping of U.S. industrial policy and capacity during World War II. As Juan Cole writes, "Sanders intends to push [fossil fuel] corporations aside and institute a Federal industrial policy that can make things happen. The analogy is what Franklin Delano Roosevelt accomplished during World War II, when US industrial capacity vastly expanded and 16 million men were mobilized and Social Security was implemented."

The plan has rightly been called a nationalization of electric power generation. Chris Hayes noted this fact in his recent interview with Sanders, calling it "a federal takeover of the whole thing," to which Sanders essentially agrees (see video at the top). Other writers have said the same. For example, In These Times, under the headline "Bernie Sanders Calls To Seize the Means of Electricity Production" accurately describes the plan as "moving toward 100% public ownership of power."

So there really is no doubt. Sanders, if he's elected, plans to nationalize electricity generation in the U.S. 

What are the implications of this proposal? A few thoughts:

1. Bernie Sanders is serious about addressing climate change. Simply speaking, Sanders is right. It's long past time for tinkering around the edges of the problem. This chart shows CO2 emissions per capita per country:

Yes, the rest of the world bears responsibility as well, but you have to start with what you can directly control, and the U.S. government can directly control U.S. carbon emissions, if it chooses to. (Dealing with the need for global response is also addressed in Sanders' Green New Deal plan. I'll take a separate look at how Sanders plans to globalize the U.S. initiative.)

Are the other candidates as serious about addressing and mitigating climate change at the fastest possible rate? I think several other candidates are sincere in wanting to, but I don't see any of them willing to act as forcefully, at least not so far in the campaign. This plan, therefore, lays down a marker for other pro-climate Democrats.

2. The institutional Democratic Party will respond to Sanders' plan with fear and derision. In addition, their criticism will get widespread and supportive media coverage.

Sanders' Green New Deal plan allows institutional Democrats to take the charge that Sanders is a "socialist" and part of the "hard left" to eleven, and they will not miss the opportunity to go all out. "Socialism" already smacks of communism, though the connection is usually made in Democratic and mainstream media circles by implication. (This incident, engineered by the producers of the early CNN Town Hall, is a rare counter-example.)

But a planned and federally directed "U.S. industrial policy" can be made to sound very much like a Stalinist "five-year economic plan," and it wouldn't be surprising if this comparison is made. It will be especially interesting to hear Elizabeth Warren's response, since she's made a point of saying "I'm a capitalist"; I'm almost certain she'll be asked to give one.

3. The response on the Right will be "government takeover!" I've seen hints already that those who set the agenda for frightened and agitated right-wing base voters are positioning the Green New Deal as a backdoor, left-wing plan for "government takeover" of the economy. In this, their language exactly parallels the language that markets Second Amendment fears to frighten right-wing voters.

The cry on the right will also be cranked up to eleven, including by that master of marketing, Donald Trump, who has already started with the "we're not socialist" rhetoric. Note that the clip at the top is sourced to a YouTube channel called "GOP War Room." Expect a lot more of the same from sites with "liberty," "freedom" and "Fox" in the name.

4. Finally, this is a conversation that absolutely must be had. Before the U.S. can begin to address climate change meaningfully, we must be open about what's actually needed so voters can consider those courses of action, even if they end up rejecting them. Calling any discussion of the breadth of needed reform off-limits — whether done perniciously or with good intention — is like hiding a small elephant under a rug, then throwing a cocktail party using the lump as a drinks table; the thing you're avoiding adds fuel to your blindness.

Put simply, American voters must be allowed to choose whether or not to address climate change meaningfully, regardless of the possibility that they may choose not to address it at all. An honest conversation is the least we owe voters whose descendants will ultimately thank them or hate them for what they finally decide. Letting voters choose for themselves is called democracy.

Despite the fears of many though, there are reasons for optimism. If voters are given a realistic discussion of the alternatives and a realistic presentation of the way to get there, they could easily choose well. They certainly chose well under FDR, when war raged in Europe and the Imperial Japanese wolf was at the door. It's at least even odds they would choose as wisely again, when all of nature seems poised to cause their demise.
 

Señor Trumpanzee Is Also Comander-In-Chief Trumpanzee

Yesterday, with far too few Republicans in Congress willing to stand up to Trump's assault on the Constitution, Pelosi attempted, futilely, to override his veto of Congress' bipartisan decision to prevent him from stealing legally appropriated money from the military budget to build 57 more miles of his vanity-wall on the southern border. As commander-in-chief, he ordered the Pentagon to take billions of dollars from military personnel accounts for his medieval wall. The override failed 248 to 181, 14 Republicans joining all the Democrats. When the bill was originally passed, 13 Republicans were on board-- Justin Amash (MI), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Mike Gallagher (WI), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), Will Hurd (TX), Dusty Johnson (SD), Tom Massie (KY), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Tom Rooney (FL), Jim Sensenbrenner (WI), Elise Stefanik (NY), Fred Upton (MI) and Greg Walden (OR). This time they were joined by John Katko (NY) who was absent for the first vote and who represents a blue-leaning district centered on Syracuse, NY.

Yesterday, House Armed Services Committee chair Adam Smith (D-WA) said the move would likely compel Congress to strip the Pentagon of the authority to "reprogram" funds that have been appropriated for specific purposes and programs. He said that "Whatever one feels about the border wall, to look at the Pentagon as sort of a piggybank-slash-slush fund, where you can simply go in and grab money for something when you need it, really undermines the credibility of the entire DoD budget. Funding a border wall out of the Department of Defense is also unbelievably irresponsible." Ranking member Mac Thornberry (R-TX) also said he opposes using defense funding for other purposes, but like virtually all the Republicans in the House, he's afraid to cross Trump.

That authority is currently provided only in cases where the Pentagon consults with Congress before acting. But in this case, Smith noted, the Defense Department did not ask permission.

"Given a legal order from the commander in chief, we are executing on that order," Shanahan replied. He added that the Pentagon was aware that there were "downsides, which will hamper us"-- including likely losing what he called the privilege of reprogramming funds.

Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) said that while the committee's members might disagree on border and immigration policies, "We have bipartisan support for the fact that our military budget should not be cannibalized for our border security needs."

...The money nearly doubles the $1.3 billion Congress authorized for border wall funding. Trump had requested $5.7 billion.

Shanahan is testifying one day after informing Congress that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will begin using up to $1 billion to support border security operations by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Patrol. The president cleared the way for that process in February, when Trump took the rare step of declaring a national emergency to get more border security funding than Congress would allow.

Objecting to the Pentagon's plan, Democratic senators sent a letter to Shanahan stating that by transferring money without the appropriate congressional committees, the Defense Department had violated the defense appropriations bill.

"As a result, we have serious concerns that the Department has allowed political interference and pet projects to come ahead of many near-term, critical readiness issues facing our military," the senators wrote.

Next stop: the courts.

McTurtle-- Going Down With The Ship?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McTurtle by Nancy Ohanian

By now it's a truism to note, as Republican strategist and pollster Frank Luntz did Sunday on PBS' News Hour, that "If you are a Republican today, you are a strong supporter of Donald Trump. He has a greater degree of support within his party than any Republican president has ever had since they started polling... This is a party that used to care about the federal debt and the debts much bigger now than it was. This is a party that believed in open free trade and now it's a party that has come to support tariffs."

Every poll-- not almost every poll-- shows the same thing: as Republicans have coalesced around Trump's authoritarianism, normal Americans have been repulsed by it. Democrats and increasing numbers of independents disapprove of him and his policies and his regime-- and profoundly so. He is the most hated president in my lifetime. Polls show that every Democratic contender would beat him, not just Bernie and Biden, but even relatively weak candidates like Klobuchar and Beto. Polling shows Trump and disparity continuing to sink:

Current polling averages

That said, congressional Republicans have attached themselves to him at the hip, particularly a very uncomfortable McTurtle, who seems to understand on some level that he's taking the Senate GOP down with the ship but that he can't do anything about it. Trump's fake emergency declaration is widely hated by the public-- outside of Trump die-hards-- and Senate Republicans would like to vote against it. The House defeated it, 245-182-- with every single Democrat and 13 Republicans voting against Trump.

Republicans are going down to the wire as they try to find a way out of their showdown with President Trump over his national emergency to build a wall on the Mexican border.

Republicans have just days to find a more palatable solution than the House-passed resolution blocking Trump's actions, which is expected to come up for a vote by Friday.

They are looking for ways that Trump could win more wall funding without using the emergency declaration, a controversial move that has caused angst on Capitol Hill.

“I think we’re universally for what the president wants to do, but there’s significant concern about using the emergency in this new way that sets a precedent likely in court that future presidents could use,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of GOP leadership.

Without an off ramp, the resolution of disapproval has enough votes to pass the Senate, and as many as 15 Republicans could vote for it. That would be an embarrassingly high number for the White House, even if a Trump veto cannot be overridden.

Republicans have yet to find a plan that unites the caucus and passes procedural muster with the parliamentarian.

“My sense was we were kind of down to Plan Z. Started with Plan A and found that none of those worked,” Blunt said.

Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the No. 2 Senate Republican, said “the marketplace of ideas is percolating,” while Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told CNN that there were “great ideas but no conclusions.”

The talks have ranged from amending the resolution to passing a separate standalone measure. Leadership staffers have been deputized to scour the chamber’s rules for help.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who is undecided on the vote, said the parliamentarian has given them an initial determination that the House-passed resolution could be amended.

“That is the debate right now, what the amendment should look like, if we should have one,” he said. “All the options are out there on the table.”

He added that senators are also talking about alternative side-by-side proposals. “There’s not a resolution on this for us,” he said.

The emergency declaration fight presents a multi-pronged problem for Republicans, who need to agree on alternative language that both supports Trump on border security and expresses their constitutional concerns about his actions.

Asked about making changes to the House-passed resolution, a GOP aide said that the Senate “can amend whatever it wants,” but added that the parliamentarian has said there should be limits on amendments for the resolution to keep its privileged status.

But Republicans also expect Democrats to force a vote every six months on Trump’s emergency declaration, prolonging the political and legal headache.

Trump has sent multiple warning shots to Republicans, urging them to “stay united.”

He appeared confident on Friday that he would ultimately prevail, telling reporters at the White House that “we're doing fine in Congress. They understand it's an emergency.”

Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), one of the four Republican senators voting for the resolution, predicted that more of her colleagues would come out against Trump, though she declined to speculate on how many.

“I can tell you from talking with my colleagues that many are troubled, even those who are the strongest supporters of the president and his views on border security,” Collins said during an interview with CNN.

Though some GOP senators estimate that the number of Republican votes in favor of the resolution disapproving the emergency declaration could hit double digits, undecided senators have remained on the fence since Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) offered his support more than a week ago.

Asked how he would vote, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) demurred, noting he didn’t yet know the text of the resolution that will be before the Senate.

“We have to see that before we can say for certain how we’re going to vote,” he said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who is retiring at the end of the current Congress, publicly urged Trump to withdraw the emergency declaration, but has not heard back from the White House about his idea.

One possible option under discussion would to get Trump roughly $5.7 billion for the wall, which Republicans support, but also block his emergency declaration. Republicans are also weighing changes to the National Emergency Act, including requiring that Congress affirmatively vote to continue the emergency declaration after a certain amount of time.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) said during a conference call with Ohio reporters that he was trying to find an “alternative way” to get Trump funding, including expanding the amount of money he can take from the Pentagon’s counter-drug funds. Trump is expected to take roughly $2.5 billion from that pot, though Republicans have floated expanding that to $4 billion.

Republicans argue that Trump could access nearly $6 billion in funding without needing to declare a national emergency-- significantly more than lawmakers think he can use before the end of September, which marks the end of the fiscal year.

“There’s an overwhelming sense in the conference that the president needs to be able to build a barrier,” Lankford said. “It’s just a question of how those funds are used.”

The most vulnerable Republican senators up for reelection in 2020 include Susan Collins (ME), Cory Gardner (CO), Martha McSally (AZ), Joni Ernst (IA), Thom Tillis (NC), David Perdue (GA) and the 2 top GOP leaders, McTurtle (KY) and Cornyn (TX). Not easy... not impossible. Notice that Collins and Tillis have already announced they're voting against the national emergency bullshit.

Rand Paul And Justin Amash-- Sticking It To Trump?

Rand Paul frequently makes constitutional arguments against Trump's behavior and huffs and puffs about voting against them... but in the end, he's a pretty dependable Trump enabler. Murkowski and Collins have bigger balls than he does. Yesterday the Bowling Green Daily News in his home state that reported that Paul announced at the Southern Kentucky Lincoln Day Dinner that he "can’t vote to give extra-Constitutional powers to the president."

In a speech that started off praising Trump's supposed accomplishments to the crowd of nearly 200 Republican officeholders and supporters, Paul surprised the room by interjecting his opinion that Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the Mexican border is a dangerous precedent. He said "I can’t vote to give the president the power to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress. We may want more money for border security, but Congress didn’t authorize it. If we take away those checks and balances, it’s a dangerous thing."

Since Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) have already announced they're voting for the Resolution of Disapproval, Paul's vote would pass it-- as long as Schumer can force Arizona Democratic Trump ally Kyrsten Sinema to vote with the Democrats for a change.

Justin Amash (R-MI) already voted for the same bill in the House, one of just 13 Republicans who did:

• Justin Amash (R-MI)
• Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
• Mike Gallagher (R-WI)
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA)
• Will Hurd (R-TX)
• Dusty Johnson (R-SD)
• Tom Massie (R-KY)
• Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA)
• Tom Rooney (R-FL)
• Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
• Elise Stefanik (R-NY)
• Fred Upton (R-MI)
• Greg Walden (R-OR)

Amash is a pretty strict constitutionalist. On State of the Union, Jake Tapper asked him if there's a national security crisis on the border, which is what Trump is claiming.

Amash: I think there's a fair debate that there are big problems on the border. Some people would call it a crisis.

But that has to go through Congress. So, we have a legislative branch, Congress, that handles these issues. And the president doesn't get to decide that he can override Congress simply because Congress doesn't do what he wants.

I know that there are a lot of people in the country who agree with the president, and that's why we have Congress, so we can debate these issues. And if there were an emergency in the sense that the president is describing, there would be a lot more consensus.

When a house is on fire, nobody is debating whether they should go into save people or whether they should put out the fire. Everyone understands that's an emergency.

The fact that there's a debate going on here, and there is not consensus, indicates it's not an emergency in the sense that the president is describing, and he can't just go around Congress.

Tapper: You tweeted this week-- quote-- "If you think my job is to support the president 100 percent, then you don't understand what it means to be a representative in Congress. My job is to support the Constitution 100 percent" -- unquote.

Do you think that Republicans who are supporting this national emergency are abdicating their responsibilities to the Constitution?

Amash: I think so, yes.

I don't think that they are all intending to do that. I think many of them are making arguments. They're trying to make legal arguments. They say, well, Congress has passed legislation giving the president this power. So I don't think that they are thinking to themselves, oh, I just want the president to violate the Constitution.

But I think the president is violating our constitutional system. And I don't think Congress can grant legislative powers to the president by statute. You can't just pass a statute that says, the president now has appropriations power and bypass Congress.

I don't think that's-- that's allowed under our constitutional system. And the best check on the president's action is Congress. It's not the courts. Our system is not designed so that the courts are going to resolve these disputes all the time between the legislative branch the executive branch.

We have to protect our own power. And that's what I'm doing. And I'm hopeful many Republican senators will agree.

Lamar Alexander (R-TN) Could Pass The Resolution Of Disapprove-- Unless Kyrsten Sinema Moves To Save Trump

Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), the furthest right Democrat in the Senate, has, according to ProgressivePunch, been voting far less progressively than any other Democrat in the Senate and less progressively than Kentucky and Louisiana Republicans Rand Paul and John Kennedy! He crucial vote score is exactly the same as Susan Collins' (R-ME), Mike Lee's (R-UT) and Ted Cruz's (R-TX). She tends to never disappoint Trump. But say for a moment that when McTurtle brings up the Resolution of Disapproval, she can somehow be forced to vote for it with the Democrats. In that case, only 4 Republicans will be needed to pass it. At this point, that looks like it's in the bag. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) have all said they are yes votes.

Any number of Republicans may provide that 4th vote but by the end of the week Politico was reporting that Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican who is retiring next year, i willing o cast the deciding vote if he can't get Trump to back down and withdraw the phony state of emergency. Burgess Everett reported on Thursday that he's one of the senior Republicans offering Trump a choice: Withdraw your national emergency declaration at the border or face a potential rebellion from the GOP.

In a much-anticipated floor speech, the retiring senator declined to state whether he will become the deciding vote to block the president’s maneuver. But he signaled broad opposition to the emergency declaration and sought to convince Trump that he has other ways to collect $5.7 billion for the border wall-- the precise amount of money he demanded during the government shutdown fight.

“He’s got sufficient funding without a national emergency, he can build a wall and avoid a dangerous precedent,” Alexander told reporters afterward, referring to billions from a drug forfeiture fund and anti-drug smuggling money at the Defense Department. “That would change the voting situation if he we were to agree to do that.”

...[Trump] told Sean Hannity that Republicans who oppose him “put themselves at great jeopardy” and said it’s “very dangerous” to vote against border security. Some GOP senators shrugged off that sentiment.

“I always do what I think is the right thing to do,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), who is undecided. “As long as I’m satisfied with myself, that’s the person I’m going to satisfy.”

Republicans spent all week debating how to deal with the political headache of seeing a president from their party use some of the same unilateral tactics they panned under President Barack Obama.

After introducing her own resolution of disapproval directly on the Senate floor Thursday, Collins said her “Republican colleagues are very uneasy about the precedent.”

“I don’t think emergencies are a good way to run the government. And the president needs permission from Congress to get money,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Thursday. Despite those words, he hasn’t made a “final decision” on his vote.

...Despite his clear opposition to Trump’s national emergency declaration, Alexander deemed the looming vote on disapproval a hypothetical, since Trump could withdraw it or the House-passed resolution could be amended. Under current law, the House measure will come up by mid-March, and Alexander left little doubt that he’s just one of a large bloc of Republicans who could defy the president.

Trump’s national emergency declaration for border wall funding is “unnecessary, unwise and inconsistent with the Constitution,” Alexander told reporters. “And many Republican senators who can speak for themselves share that view.”

“We’ve never had a case where the president has asked for money, been refused the money by Congress, then used the national emergency powers to spend it anyway,” he added. “To me that’s a dangerous precedent.”

Collusion by Nancy Ohanian

Beating Down Trump's Phony National Emergency

Yesterday, the House voted, 245-182 to void Trump's absurd declaration of a national emergency on the southern border. Every single Democrat voted for it-- as did 13 Republicans:

• Justin Amash (MI)
• Brian Fitzpatrick (PA)
• Mike Gallagher (WI)
• Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA)
• Will Hurd (TX)
• Dusty Johnson (SD)
• Tom Massie (KY)
• Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA)
• Tom Rooney (FL)
• James Sensenbrenner (WI)
• Elise Stefanik (NY)
• Fred Upton (MI)
• Greg Walden (OR)

Is your Republican congressman on that list? No? Why not? Nate McMurray is running for a western New York seat occupied by one of the Republicans who refused to vote to uphold the Constitution, Chris Collins, a zombie-like Trump enabler. Nate told us that Collins "has proven again and again to be unwilling to do anything that might conflict with the will of the President. His chief value is not conservatism; it’s obedience. Look at the record. He has shown that he will defend the President no matter how base, strange, or unjust the act committed. We can only speculate why, but what is certain is that Collins is denying the true emergencies that too many of the people of this region face-- lack healthcare, jobs, opportunity."

Don Bacon is another one who talks about patriotism but has always and will always put Trump before country. His Democratic opponent, Kara Eastman, told us that Bacon "clearly said that an end-run around Congress is 'not healthy.' Of course, he did not support the executive actions of Obama. Yet he then voted in favor of this manufactured 'national emergency' yesterday, despite the fact that we know border crossings and apprehensions were much higher under the George W. Bush administration."

Mike Siegel is running for a Texas seat occupied by Trump crony Michael McCaul, who was chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and was the congressional architect of Trump's family separation agenda and babies-in-cages policy. "No surprise, but McCaul would rather pass Trump's loyalty test than honor the United States Constitution," said Mike this morning. "This is a guy who fashions himself a 'security expert,' who three years ago gave public interviews saying a Border Wall is 'not the answer' to addressing cartel activity, but who now would give Congress' most fundamental power, the power of the purse, to an authoritarian megalomaniac."

Burgess Everett reported after the House vote that Senate Republicans unloaded their angst on Pence for many of the same reasons we just read from Mike Siegel, Kara Eastman and Nate McMurray. At a GOP lunch, he "faced a wall of resistance" as he begged pissed off Republican senators to stick with Trump. Pence’s robot-like pitch "did little to move wavering GOP senators."

As many as 10 Senate Republicans could support a resolution of disapproval if a vote were held today, according to four GOP senators who attended the lunch and heard Republican senators' complaints. That’s far more than the four needed to pass the legislation on a simple majority and force Trump to issue the first veto of his presidency. Currently there are three public “yes” votes in the Senate GOP conference.

...Trump’s supporters are confident that at least there aren’t 20 Republicans who will join 47 Senate Democrats to muster a veto-proof majority. Still, a rebuke by a large bloc of GOP senators would be an embarrassing result for the White House, and Tuesday’s meeting with Pence underscored the tensions lingering between the White House and Senate Republicans.

As the vice president stumped for Trump’s national emergency maneuver, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky argued to Pence that his party would be ceding the high ground on the issue, one of about a half-dozen Republicans to raise questions about the move during the lunch.

“The vice president pushed back,” said a source familiar with the exchange. Pence “gave the explanation that this diverges from DACA,” the source said, referring to an Obama administration action protecting some undocumented immigrants. “We would characterize it as a very productive discussion.”

"Sen. Paul had a friendly discussion with the vice president, that if we do go down this path it will damage our ability to be considered the party of rule of law," said a Paul spokesman.

...Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who previously warned the president against declaring the emergency, acknowledged Tuesday that there was a “fulsome discussion” at the lunch between GOP senators and Pence and Justice Department officials.

And the Kentucky Republican said he himself is not sure about the legality of the national emergency declaration, though he has previously vowed to support the president in a floor vote.

“The [DOJ] lawyer was there to make his arguments. There were some counter arguments. I haven’t reached a total conclusion,” McConnell told reporters. “I personally couldn’t handicap the outcome at this point … but we will certainly be voting on it.”

More than a half-dozen Republican senators are mulling voting for the resolution, though they are hesitant to become the deciding vote to defy Trump and make an announcement before they know exactly what they are voting on and how it might affect military projects back home.

..."I am very worried prudentially about the slippery slope that could occur, emboldening future democratic presidents to implement radical policies contrary to law and contrary to the constitution," added Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who is undecided and has privately voiced skepticism of Trump's declaration.

And it was clear that Trump was doing little to convince the rank and file, despite a tweet Monday urging the party to hang together.

“I’m getting to the bottom of some stuff. But I don’t know yet,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) of his stance. He spoke to Trump over the weekend about disaster relief for his state and said the border emergency never came up.

Trump's Phony National Emergency-- And His Vulnerability In 13 States He Won In 2016

A new national Gallup poll shows Trump underwater in every single state he lost in 2016 but also underwater in 13 states he won in 2016! His job approval is between 49 and 40% in Arizona (43%), Texas (41%), Louisiana (49%), Florida (43%), Georgia (44%), North Carolina (45%), Pennsylvania, Ohio (48%), Indiana (48%), Michigan (42%), Wisconsin (42%), Iowa (45%) and Nebraska (49%). Two other states have Trump at a 50% approval rating, which says to me that if Bernie runs an effective campaign based on Medicare-For-All and the other key points in his platform, Democrats could see flips in South Carolina and Kansas to boot, with Montana, Idaho and Oklahoma (each at 51%) worth going after as well.

Yesterday Anita Kumar and Maggie Severns reported for Politico about the realization among Republican donors that Trump is more than likely to lose in 2020, regardless of who the Democrats nominate. They worry that there's no strategy to win reelection and wonder how he intends to prevail again in the Rust Belt states that voted for him in 2016, but where Democrats performed strongly in last year's midterms. But there are also concerns about whether the president's fundraising apparatus is up to the task, and whether Trump will trample on any strategy or message the campaign does develop, as he frequently does...Trump’s strategy in the midterms was mostly confined to rallying his base at raucous rallies in states that backed him for president, while largely ignoring moderates and independents."

By now, you've probably heard that 58 former national security officials-- from both parties-- released a declaration that challenges Trump’s national emergency proclamation to spend billions of dollars Congress hasn't appropriated to build his vanity wall. There are even some former Trump Regime officials, including former ambassadors to Mexico and Panama, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, and Assistant Secretary for International Engagement at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They wrote that they "support the President’s power to mobilize the Executive Branch to respond quickly in genuine national emergencies" but state that "under no plausible assessment of the evidence is there a national emergency today that entitles the President to tap into funds appropriated for other purposes to build a wall at the southern border."

• Illegal border crossings are at near forty-year lows;
• There is no documented terrorist or national security emergency at the southern border;
• There is no emergency related to violent crime at the southern border;
• There is no human or drug trafficking emergency that can be addressed by a wall at the southern border;
• This proclamation will only exacerbate the humanitarian concerns that do exist at the southern border;
• Redirecting funds for the claimed “national emergency” will undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy interests;
• There is no basis for circumventing the appropriations process with a declaration of a national emergency at the southern border; and
• The situation at the border does not require the use of the armed forces, and a wall is unnecessary to support the use of the armed forces.

Meanwhile 23 Republican former senators and congressmembers signed an open letter to current Republican members of Congress, urging them to to honor their pledges to protect and defend the Constitution by voting against Trump's Nazi-tinged fake national emergency. "It has always been," they wrote, "a Republican fundamental principle that no matter how strong our policy preferences, no matter how deep our loyalties to presidents or party leaders, in order to remain a constitutional republic we must act within the borders of the Constitution. Our oath is to put the country and its Constitution above everything, including party politics or loyalty to a president."

We offer two arguments against allowing a president-- any president, regardless of party-- to circumvent congressional authority. One is the constitutional placing of all lawmaking power in the hands of the people’s representatives. Article 1 of the Constitution, which vests the legislative branch with specific powers, states in section 9: “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” The power of the purse rests with Congress because it is comprised of 535 representatives of the taxpayer and is the most direct connection between those being governed and those governing. If you allow a president to ignore Congress, it will be not your authority but that of your constituents that is deprived of the protections of true representative government.

The second argument goes directly to the question each of you must face: how much are you willing to undermine both the Constitution and the Congress in order to advance a policy outcome that by all other legitimate means is not achievable? The current issue-- a wall on our southern border-- has gone through the process put in place by the Constitution. It has been proposed by the President, it has been debated by Congress, and the representatives of the people allocated funding at a level deemed appropriate by Congress. We understand that there are many Members of Congress who disagree with the final funding compromise reached by a bipartisan group of legislators. To you, we ask this question: what will you do when a president of another party uses the precedent you are establishing to impose policies to which you are unalterably opposed? There is no way around this difficulty: what powers are ceded to a president whose policies you support may also be used by presidents whose policies you abhor.

Ro Khanna (D-CA) went quite a bit further than any of these Republicans would ever go. He cautioned the Pentagon to be careful about following Trump down an un-Constitutional rabbit hole. In a statement yesterday, Khanna said that he "strongly cautions Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford against violating the clear terms of the national emergency statute (10 U.S. Code § 2808 ) in the 1976 National Emergencies Act (PL 94-412). This administration would violate this statute if the proposed $3.6 billion were diverted for an expansion of the border wall. The national emergency statute only authorizes the Department of Defense (DoD) to divert funds for usage in the U.S. for the purpose of enhancing the use of military facilities on property owned by DoD. It does not authorize the diversion of funds to property owned by other branches of the U.S. government, which in this instance, would be the case. Additionally, the construction of the wall requires seizure of property owned by private citizens and Native American tribes. As made clear by the Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus, this statute prohibits the president from using the military to enforce domestic law. The Congress, which is given the “power of the purse” by our Founding Fathers, appropriated these funds solely for military construction and family housing funding-- not a border wall. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of Rep. Joaquin Castro’s House Joint Resolution 46, and I will strongly support and vote for it to terminate the President’s manufactured 'national emergency' and prevent our Defense Department’s money from illegally being spent on an unnecessary and ineffective border wall."

The House is slated to vote today and McTurtle will stall for a couple weeks before allowing a vote. In an editorial at The Bulwark, a right-wing, anti-Trump neoCon website, assert that "this should not be a difficult vote for Republicans, especially those who (1) were outraged by President Obama’s use of his executive powers, (2) care about the Constitution’s system of checks and balances, (3) wish to protect Congress’s Article I powers, and (4) recognize the dangerous precedent that the declaration of emergency creates for future presidents...Trump will veto the congressional action, but even if the votes to override aren’t there, it is right and proper to put our elected officials on record at this moment of truth. They will have to choose whether they are willing to cross this red line for a fictional emergency and an imaginary wall. We hope that this will be the moment when senators such as Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Marco Rubio, and Ron Johnson put their constitutional obligations ahead of their party loyalties. But all members of Congress take the same oath of office (see Title 5, Section 3331 of the United States Code):

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

"This is their moment," wrote the editors, "to live up to that oath." My personal favorite scenario would have Martha McSally (R-AZ) crossing the aisle to vote for the Constitution, while Kyrsten Sinema, the most useless Trump-Dem in the Senate crossing in the other direction to vote with McTurtle. She should also announce she's switching parties at that moment, which won't cause Schumer to give a second thought about recruiting far right-wing Democrats, but will at least give activists a weapon to clobber Schumer with for the rest of his miserable career.

UPDATE: Green New Deal

Finally there's an official list of co-sponsors for AOC's Green New Deal Resolution. There's an interesting ideological contrast. The progressives like Ro Khanna, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, Ted Lieu, Joe Neguse, Barbara Lee, Ayanna Pressley, Jamie Raskin, Mike Levin, Ilhan Omar, Debra Haaland are all on board-- but so are a surprising number of New Dems and Blue Dogs like Seth Moulton, Sean Patrick Maloney, Adam Schiff, Juan Vargas. Still now Republicans though. Here's the whole list, 90 members.

Who Will Vote With Trump Today To Shred The Constitution?

On Wednesday, Pelosi indicated that Joaquin Castro's Joint Resolution of Disapproval will be debated and, presumably, voted on, today. [I was just told the vote will probably be Tuesday, not today.] The resolution is short and sweet:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, pursuant to section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622), the national emergency declared by the finding of the President on February 15, 2019, in Proclamation 9844 (84 Fed. Reg. 4949) is hereby terminated. 


Pelosi: "I write to invite all Members of Congress to cosponsor Congressman Joaquin Castro’s privileged resolution to terminate this emergency declaration... The President’s decision to go outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process violates the Constitution and must be terminated." The first co-sponsor was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and there were already 100 co-sponsors by the time Pelosi's "Dear Colleague" letter circulated to all Democrats and Republicans. There was some question whether even Republicans who agree with the Constitution that Trump is shredding the separation of powers with the implications of his fake state of emergency would even vote for Castro's resolution, let alone co-sponsor it.

Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is a member of the Judiciary Committee and this is exactly the kind of powerful and crucial moment in history he takes more seriously than almost anyone. Yesterday he told us that "It may be tempting to dismiss Donald Trump’s declaration of a state of emergency as a laughable attempt to distract everyone from his failure to get either Mexico or the United States Congress to pay for his $35 billion medieval  fantasy border Wall, but the stakes are actually enormous. The hallmark of a Banana Republic is that the Executive unilaterally declares national security and military emergencies and spends the people’s money on his pet projects without legislative consent. If Trump gets away with overriding the clear will of Congress by spending federal money that we have explicitly refused to spend, he puts America squarely in the Banana Republic camp. The House of Representatives must act forcefully to reject this plain violation of the separation of powers and usurpation of our power to appropriate federal funds. It’s a big test to see whether there are any Republicans left who really believe in the Constitution."

Long Island Congressman Tom Suozzi comes to a similar conclusion. "This is not about Donald Trump, the border wall or any other topic of the day," he just told us. "This is about the United States of America, the Constitution, the separate branches of government, and our system of checks and balances. Any Republican who is not concerned about this, should be concerned about a future Democratic President who would potentially try and use this precedent to use executive power to overrule an unwilling Congress. Everyone should wake up."

Republican columnist George Will seems to be blowing a gasket over their reticence. On Wednesday he wrote that Republicans who back Trump on this "should be expelled." It's more likely that the Republicans who refuse to back Trump would be the ones facing expulsion. He is worried that "a majority of congressional Republicans seem poised to support Trump’s evisceration of the Constitution’s architecture of checks and balances. By opposing a binding resolution disapproving the president’s declaration of an emergency, they would approve Congress’ acquiescence in the loss of its core power, that of controlling spending. These Republicans raise two questions: Why is there a Congress? And why are such Republicans receiving salaries? Every Republican who supports the president in this trashing of the Constitution, whose creation began here, thereby violates his or her sworn oath to defend it and to 'bear true faith and allegiance' to it. Voters should expel all of them from public life."

GOP leadership, predictably, is sticking with Trump. How many Republican members will break with them and cross the aisle? Will be a tiny handful-- say Justin Amash (MI), Tom Massie (KY), Brian Fitzpatrick (NY) and a couple for random "gypsy moths?" Or will there be significant numbers of Republicans who take this as an opportunity to stand up for democracy? And among Democrats... can Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn hold onto the Blue Dogs whose instincts are to keep their heads down and vote with Trump on something this controversial, especially the real cowardly career types like Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Joe Cunningham (SC), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Elaine Luria (VA), Kendra Horn (OK), Ben McAdams (UT), Max Rose and Tom O'Halleran (AZ) who are always more into the calculus of how to preserve their jobs than to do their jobs.

Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) looks forward to debating Trump one-on-one after the primaries. For now, she told me last night that his "action declaring a 'national emergency' is unconstitutional and usurps Congressional authority to authorize and appropriate funds to serve the needs of the American people. This blatant power grab sets a dangerous precedent that threatens our democracy. Both Democrats and Republicans alike must put our country and our constitution first and take action to terminate this emergency declaration immediately."

Shahid Buttar is a constitutional attorney who has written about this very topic for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where he's the director of grassroots outreach. You may remember him from the 2018 campaign when he made a courageous run against Pelosi in his San Francisco district. (Many people are trying to persuade him to try again in 2020.) Yesterday I asked him about Castro's joint resolution and he told me that Trump's "assertion of emergency powers lacks any basis either in statute or the constitution. In fact, our constitutional system of checks and balances is gravely threatened by baseless claims of emergency powers, which Congress and the courts must resist to restrain the executive branch. Given the right wing’s success at co-opting our federal courts, Congress must be especially assertive here not only to avoid the misappropriation of federal funds, but also to prevent executive power from expanding beyond its already untenable inflation."

You already know Ted Lieu, although do keep in mind that, like Jamie Raskin, he's one of the most activist members of the Judiciary Committee. Here's what he told us last night (and sent along the accompanying cool video): "Republicans had complete control of government for two years and they didn't fund Trump's vanity wall. So now the President is trying to circumvent Congress and our Constitutional system of government to fulfill a nonsensical campaign promise. Putting aside for a moment that there is a mountain of objective evidence showing there is no crisis on our southern border; putting aside that Trump's wall is a stupid idea to begin with; and putting aside that he promised Mexico would pay for it-- Trump's national emergency declaration is a dangerous power grab by the Executive Branch. For decades consecutive congresses have ceded the war-making power, which has had disastrous results for our national security. With this emergency declaration, Trump threatens to do the same with the power of the purse. Congressional Republicans must stand with Democrats against this blatant unconstitutional power grab."