In the wake of pronounced calls for a boycott of President Donald Trump’s primetime immigration address Tuesday night—which every major corporate television network agreed to air despite widespread pushback—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) delivered a response to Trump’s Oval Office speech that was streamed live on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.
“We do not need to waste billions on an unneeded wall so that Trump can appease right-wing extremists,” Sanders wrote on Twitter ahead of Trump’s speech, which—as critics predicted—contained a slew of fact-free, xenophobic claims about the necessity of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
During his post-address response, Sanders denounced the president’s litany of lies and dehumanizing rhetoric while slamming Trump and the Republicans for allowing the shutdown to occur.
“Let me be as clear as I can be,” Sanders declared: “This shutdown should never have happened.”
He added, “Sadly, what President Trump is trying to do is to create fear and hatred in our country. Instead of trying to bring us together as a people, he is trying to divide us up. And, in the process, divert our attention away from the real crises facing the working families of this nation.”
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Accusing Trump of manufacturing “artificial crises” with his xenophobic fear-mongering and policies, Sanders called attention to “the real crises facing the working families of this nation,” from human-caused climate change to America’s disastrous for-profit healthcare system.
“President Trump, you want to talk about crises. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, tens of millions of workers in our country are earning starvation wages and are unable to adequately provide for their families,” Sanders said. “You want a national emergency? 30 million Americans have no health insurance and many more are under-insured.”
“And maybe, here’s the biggest crisis of all,” the Vermont senator added. “The scientific community has made it very clear in telling us that climate change is real and is causing devastating harm to our country and the entire planet. And they have told us that if we do not transform our energy system away from fossil fuel the nation and planet we will be leaving our kids and grandchildren may well be unhealthy and even uninhabitable.”
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Read Sanders’ full remarks, as prepared for delivery, below:
Thank you very much for joining me.
President Trump has stated tonight, and, over and over again in recent weeks, that this country faces a national emergency. Well, he’s right. But it’s an emergency and a crisis that he himself has created.
As we speak, some 800,000 federal employees, people who are our neighbors, friends, and family members are going without pay. As working people, many of them are wondering how they will pay their mortgages, how they will feed their kids, and how they’ll be able to go to the doctor. These are people in the FBI, in the TSA, in the State Department, in the Treasury Department and other agencies who have, in some cases, worked for the government for years.
Let me just quote what one federal employee has said: “I’m a single mom and a federal employee. I have $100 to last me – and my vehicle payments will not be made this month. I live paycheck to paycheck and I can’t get a side job because I still have to go to my unpaid federal job.”
Our federal employees deserve to be treated with respect, not held hostage as political pawns.
Further, if this government shutdown continues, and Trump has indicated that he is prepared to shut it down for months, if not years, millions of Americans including the disabled, the children, and the elderly may not be able to get the Food Stamps they need to eat.
Pregnant mothers and their babies may go without the nutrition assistance they need to stay healthy as the WIC program is on the verge of running out of money.
Small businesses and farmers will not be able to receive the financial assistance they need – and some may go out of business.
Security at our nation’s airports could be threatened if TSA employees and air traffic controllers are not getting paid.
People who are buying or selling their homes may see significant delays because the Federal Housing Administration is unable to process and approve mortgage applications.
Let me be as clear as I can be: This shutdown should never have happened.
As many of you will recall, on December 19th, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to keep the government open. Unanimously. No Democrat or Republican opposed the bill that passed the Senate.
It was widely expected that the following morning, December 20th, the House would do the same – and the government would remain open.
Unfortunately, President Trump, who started receiving criticism from an assortment of right-wing ideologues, changed his mind about the agreement and said that he would not sign any bill unless it included $5.7 billion for a wall on the southern border. And, by the way, the total cost of that wall could run as high as $70 billion.
In terms of this shutdown, President Trump has made it very clear who is responsible. As you will all recall in a very public meeting he held in the oval office he said and I quote “I am proud to shut down the government … I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you (Chuck Schumer) for it.”
On January 3rd, 2019, on their first day in the majority, the Democrats in the House passed legislation to re-open the government. This was exactly the same bill unanimously passed by the Senate.
Tonight, I urge Senate Majority Leader McConnell to allow that bill to come to the floor to get a vote. This is the same bill that he supported when it was unanimously passed in the Senate.
Senator McConnell: let’s vote to end this shutdown now in a bipartisan way.
President Trump tonight has told us why he believes we need the wall. It gives me no pleasure to tell you what most of you already know. President Trump lies all of the time – and in his remarks tonight, and in recent weeks regarding immigration and the wall, he continues to lie.
Just a few examples. Trump has told the American people several hundred times that Mexico would pay for the wall. That is a lie. If this wall were to be built, Mexico would not pay for it. American taxpayers would.
Trump said that thousands upon thousands of terrorists are entering the U.S. from the southern border. That is a lie.
According to a State Department report released in September, “At year’s end there was no credible evidence indicating that international terrorist groups have … sent operatives via Mexico into the United States.”
That is not Bernie Sanders opinion. That is a direct quote from Trump’s own State Department.
Trump recently said that some ex-presidents told him that they should have built a wall. That is a lie. All 4 living ex-presidents have stated clearly that they never talked to Trump about their desire to build a wall.
Trump said that we need a wall to prevent heroin, fentanyl and other illegal drugs from coming into the country. Another lie.
According to Donald Trump’s own Drug Enforcement Administration, the most common method Mexican cartels use to transport illegal drugs over the Southwest border is through legal ports of entry using passenger vehicles.
And on and on it goes.
In terms of immigration in this country, what we need to do is not to waste billions of dollars on a wall, but to finally address the need for comprehensive immigration reform – including improved border security. It is inhumane that tiny children at the border have been torn away from their parents. It is disgraceful that 1.8 million young people, raised in the United States, and who know no other country but the United States, have lost their legal protection under the DACA program because of Trump’s actions. It is heartbreaking that almost 11 million undocumented people living in this country, the overwhelming majority of whom are hard-working and law-abiding, worry every day about being deported and separated from their loved ones.
Sadly, what President Trump is trying to do is to create fear and hatred in our country. Instead of trying to bring us together as a people, he is trying to divide us up. And, in the process, divert our attention away from the real crises facing the working families of this nation.
President Trump, you want to talk about crises. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, tens of millions of workers in our country are earning starvation wages and are unable to adequately provide for their families.
You want a national emergency? 30 million Americans have no health insurance and many more are under-insured. Thousands die each year because they don’t go to a doctor when they should and our life expectancy is actually in decline. While the pharmaceutical industry makes tens of billions a year in profit, 1 in 5 Americans can’t afford the medicine they need. Now, that’s a crisis we should be working on right now.
And here’s another crisis. Too many of our seniors are living in desperate poverty, and about half of older Americans have no retirement savings. Hundreds of thousands of kids cannot afford to go to college and over 40 million are trying to deal with outrageous levels of student debt. What are we going to do about those crises?
And maybe, here’s the biggest crisis of all. The scientific community has made it very clear in telling us that climate change is real and is causing devastating harm to our country and the entire planet. And they have told us that if we do not transform our energy system away from fossil fuel the nation and planet we will be leaving our kids and grandchildren may well be unhealthy and even uninhabitable.
Mr. President, we don’t need to create artificial crises. We have enough real ones. Let us end this shutdown and bring the American people together around an agenda that will improve life for all of our people.
Sanders’ remarks will come immediately after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) deliver the Democratic Party’s official response to Trump.
After they demanded “equal time” to counter Trump’s “malice and misinformation,” major television networks agreed on Tuesday to carry the Democratic leaders’ rebuttal.
“The facts are clear: President Trump has the power to stop hurting the country by re-opening the government and ending the Trump shutdown,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement Monday night.
Trump will deliver his address Tuesday night as the government shutdown over his demand for over $5 billion in border wall funding continues into its third week.
As Common Dreams reported, Trump on multiple occasions has floated the possibility of declaring a “national emergency” to bypass Congress if his demand for wall funding isn’t met. According to some legal experts, such a move would be an unconstitutional abuse of power.
Responding to Trump’s insistence that there is a “crisis” on the southern border, Sanders declared in a tweet on Tuesday, “There is no border crisis.”
“The real crisis,” the Vermont senator concluded, “is that 800,000 people don’t know how they’ll pay their mortgages, pay student loans, put gas in their cars, or put food on the table because of Donald Trump’s government shutdown.”
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A new international report on the health challenges of migrants and refugees upends the popular belief that people who travel to industrialized countries in Europe and elsewhere pose a public health risk for their host countries—confirming that in fact, the opposite is true.
“As migrants and refugees become more vulnerable than the host population to the risk of developing both noncommunicable and communicable diseases, it is necessary that they receive timely access to quality health services, as everyone else.” —Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO
In the first report of its kind, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday revealed that refugees are likely to be in good overall health when they leave their home countries, but are put at risk for infectious and chronic diseases in their new homes—where quality and affordable healthcare is often unavailable to them.
Host countries must work “to protect” migrants from the heath risks they encounter after traveling to their new homes, the report said.
“Refugees and migrants are potentially at greater risk of developing infectious diseases because of their exposure to infections, lack of access to health care, interrupted care, and poor living conditions during the migration process,” WHO reported.
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As refugees and migrants arrive in Western countries, they enter societies in which they’re subject to a new form of inequality—where some of the world’s strongest healthcare is offered to the local population but is often kept out of reach for newcomers.
Living in conditions of poverty for long periods of time, becoming less physically active, and consuming less healthy food than that which was available to them in their home countries all puts migrants at greater risk for heart disease, stroke, and cancer after they’ve arrived in their host countries, according to WHO.
Meanwhile, the organization said, “despite the widespread assumption to the contrary, there is only a very low risk of refugees and migrants transmitting communicable diseases to their host population.”
WHO also reported that a “significant proportion” of refugees who are HIV+ became infected with the virus after entering their new countries, that migrants are far more likely to suffer work-related injuries than non-migrant workers, and that depression and anxiety is prevalent in newly-arrived refugee and migrant communities.
The report called on governments in the U.K., Germany, and other countries with high refugee populations to ensure that quality healthcare is affordable and linguistically accessible to refugees.
“As migrants and refugees become more vulnerable than the host population to the risk of developing both noncommunicable and communicable diseases, it is necessary that they receive timely access to quality health services, as everyone else,” said Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab, the organization’s regional director for Europe. “This is the best way to save lives and cut treatment costs, as well as protect the health of the resident citizens.”
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More than seven years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, prosecutors in Japan on Wednesday demanded that three former executives from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) each face five years behind bars for failing to ensure the safety of the power plant.
“It was easy to safeguard the plant against tsunami, but they kept operating the plant heedlessly. That led to the deaths of many people.” —prosecutors
In March of 2011, the most powerful earthquake to ever strike Japan triggered a tsunami that caused three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex to melt down, forcing hundreds of thousands of nearby residents to evacuate. In court on Wednesday, the prosecution accused TEPCO’s leadership of “postponing” safety measures designed to protect the plant from powerful tsunamis.
“It was easy to safeguard the plant against tsunami, but they kept operating the plant heedlessly,” prosecutors said at the trial at the Tokyo District Court, according to The Asahi Shimbum, a Japanese newspaper. “That led to the deaths of many people.”
While the prosecution claims at least 44 people died in connection with the incident, other estimates have put the number around 1,600. Prosecutors called for the five-year sentences, the maximum punishment allowed for the charges, during closing arguments on Wednesday.
The three executives standing trial for negligence resulting in death and injury are former TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 78, as well as former vice presidents Sakae Muto, 68, and Ichiro Takekuro, 72. They all pleaded not guilty.
“The case has taken a twisting journey to arrive at this point,” NPR noted. “In two instances, public prosecutors opted not to seek indictments against the three TEPCO executives.”
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A panel of randomly selected citizens, however, disagreed, which led to the ongoing trial. As Japan’s NHK News reported:
An attorney for victims’ families was slated to speak on Thursday, but defense lawyers aren’t scheduled to deliver their closing arguments until March of 2019.
The executives’ trial follows a class-action suit decided late last year, when a federal court ordered TEPCO and the Japanese government to pay a total of 500 million yen ($4.4 million USD) to thousands of plaintiffs—who received, at most, a few thousand U.S. dollars each. Meanwhile, in the region around the nuclear facility, public health concerns persist.
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The Extinction Rebellion movement kicked off a week of marches, demonstrations, and peaceful civil disobedience across the U.S. and around the world on Monday to demand “systemic changes to stop global warming while there’s still time left.”
“Those who are most vulnerable and least responsible for this crisis are the ones who are suffering the most. People are dying. Species are disappearing. Everything is at stake.” —Bea Ruiz, Extinction Rebellion U.S.
In Scotland, climate campaigners plan to shut down Edinburgh’s North Bridge to get their government’s attention. Similar disruptions are planned in dozens of cities across the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
According to Extinction Rebellion—which several climate activists in the U.K. launched last year—tens of thousands are expected to take to the streets in nearly 40 countries across six continents.
As the Guardian reported Sunday, American activists “hope the arrival of Extinction Rebellion will be a watershed moment for the U.S. environmental movement, shifting it from what they see as a tepid response to the cavalcade of disasters threatening the livability of the planet.”
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“Governments have failed us,” Bea Ruiz, national coordinator for Extinction Rebellion U.S., said in a statement. “Those who are most vulnerable and least responsible for this crisis are the ones who are suffering the most. People are dying. Species are disappearing. Everything is at stake.”
“It’s time to do what’s never been done before in the fight against climate change—a collective and coordinated international rebellion that will continue to escalate until our demands are met,” Ruiz added.
The international movement issued a set of straightforward demands to political leaders around the world: Declare “a climate and ecological emergency” and act immediately to “halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.”
“It’s time to declare a climate and ecological emergency,” Miriam Robinson of Extinction Rebellion Melbourne said in a statement. “We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, but the government has been pouring billions of dollars into fossil fuel infrastructure—more gas hubs, ports, coal mines and roads, while sadly neglecting and degrading the natural world.”
Petitions, phone calls, and letters to government officials are no longer sufficient to confront the scale of the global climate crisis, Extinction Rebellion organizers said. Only civil disobedience on a massive scale, they argued, can force governments to act.
“Governments prioritize the short-term interests of the economic elites, so to get their attention, we have to disrupt the economy. They have left us with no other option,” organizers said in a statement. “This moment demands action that is proportionate to the threat we face.”
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Your avatar can now wear Gucci. And Louis Vuitton. And a myriad of other brands. As the world of fashion, gaming and virtual reality cross over, luxury brands are designing items normally reserved for the runway and adapting them for video games. The cost of such an item is from no alternative universe, and payments are made in hard currency.
According to Fast Company, someone recently spend 2,400 dollars on a pair of virtual sneakers on a mobile game called Aglet, and another spent 9,500 dollars on a digital dress that only exists on Instagram.
Gucci this month will launch a platform to let users design virtual sneakers and then put them on their feet using augmented reality. While these items may inspire consumers to buy Gucci products across its other channels, they also have value as digital goods.
“The virtual world is creating its own economy,” CMO Robert Triefus told Fast Company. “Virtual items have value because of their own scarcity, and because they can be sold and shared.”
For now, digital clothing is a concept suited for those with online personas, be it gamers, social media influencers, or anyone with a digital presence. The world of video has been a testing ground for luxury companies, who are creating branded goods, albeit digitally: a Louis Vuitton hoodie, a Gucci dress, all so that avatars can wear designer outfits in a video game.
It may not make sense to everyone, as digital luxury is not a tangible concept. Buying an outfit for an avatar means buying clothes that can’t been seen or touched and that only exist virtually. Still, there is a growing market for fashion and luxury as digital products. It is already a space companies like Gucci and Louis Vuitton are experimenting with.
Two Republicans in Minnesota said they have been physically attacked in the past few days by assailants who were angry about their politics.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that state Rep. Sarah Anderson (R) was attacked Sunday by an unidentified male who she says she confronted after finding him kicking down several of her yard signs.
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Anderson told the AP that police have a tentative identification of the man who allegedly punched her in the arm during the confrontation, and that they plan to interview him.
Another Republican, Minnesota House District 15b candidate Shane Mekeland, told the Star Tribune he was attacked Friday during a campaign event at a bar by a “much bigger person” who left him with a concussion.
Mekeland said his attacker made a statement, while not specifically aligned with either party, that indicated he was angry at Mekeland for supposedly abandoning the middle class.
“It was a typical politically charged statement — not necessarily one way or the other, just a statement in general,” Mekeland told the Star Tribune. “But it was in reference to politicians not caring about the middle class.”
Mekeland called for civility in American politics.
“Stay calm, be civil, it’s OK,” Mekeland told the newspaper. “My parents were on the opposite side for their entire marriage and it was 53 years. I grew up in it; they never fought over it.”
Some Democrats, including Rep. Maxine WatersMaxine Moore WatersMcCarthy yanks endorsement of California candidate over social media posts Top bank regulator announces abrupt resignation GOP pulls support from California House candidate over ‘unacceptable’ social media posts MORE (Calif.) and former Attorney General Eric HolderEric Himpton HolderTrump official criticizes ex-Clinton spokesman over defunding police tweet Obama to speak about George Floyd in virtual town hall GOP group launches redistricting site MORE, have faced criticism in recent months for calls to protest GOP candidates and lawmakers, with some Republicans saying those calls are akin to promoting violence.
Holder, who served under former President Obama, fired back on Twitter last week.
“OK, stop the fake outrage,” he tweeted. “I’m obviously not advocating violence. (In fact, when I was AG violent crime in the US was historically low.)”
He went on to say that “Republicans are undermining our democracy and Democrats need to be tough, proud and stand up for the values we believe in – the end.”
Democrat Andrew Gillum holds a 6-point lead over Republican Ron DeSantisRonald Dion DeSantisGOP tentatively decides on Jacksonville for site of convention DeSantis pushing to host Republican National Convention in Florida Florida bars and theaters to reopen starting Friday, DeSantis says MORE in Florida’s gubernatorial race, according to a new poll.
Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, has the support of 52 percent of likely voters, while 46 percent support DeSantis, a former U.S. congressman, in the Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday.
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Gillum’s lead slipped from his 9-point advantage in a similar survey in September.
He is bolstered by support from women and minority voters, with 99 percent of black voters, 59 percent of Hispanic voters and 59 percent of women backing him.
Gillum also has the support of 57 percent of independent voters, pollsters found.
“Looking inside the numbers of the governor’s race between Mayor Andrew Gillum and former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, we see shining examples of the problems Republicans face this year, not just in Florida, but around the country,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a statement.
“The GOP has faced strong opposition from women and other anti-Trump voters. These defections have hurt GOP candidates around the country and made it difficult to attract the numbers of independent voters that are often major players in successful campaigns,” Brown added.
The poll’s results were based on surveys of 1,161 likely voters from Oct. 17 to 21. They have a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
Gillum has a lead of roughly 4.5 points in a RealClearPolitics average of recent polling.
Brad Parscale, campaign manager for President TrumpDonald John TrumpSenate advances public lands bill in late-night vote Warren, Democrats urge Trump to back down from veto threat over changing Confederate-named bases Esper orders ‘After Action Review’ of National Guard’s role in protests MORE’s 2020 reelection bid, reportedly floated the idea of bringing Roseanne Barr to a campaign rally on the same day she was fired from her ABC show.
The New York Times reported Sunday that Parscale often thinks about headline-making guests for Trump rallies and pitched the idea of bringing Barr to a May 29 rally in Nashville, Tenn.
Barr earlier that day had been fired by ABC when the network canceled the reboot of her “Roseanne” sitcom following her racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, an ex-aide to former President Obama.
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Other advisers reportedly rejected Parscale’s idea quickly.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Barr, a 65-year-old comedian and staunch Trump defender, had written that Jarrett was the child of the Islamist organization Muslim Brotherhood and the movie “Planet of the Apes.”
She apologized and deleted the tweet, but ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey said the network would end her politically tinged show.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” Dungey said in a statement.
Trump, who publicly cheered the show’s “unbelievable” ratings, later defended her and accused the network of having a double standard.
“Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that ‘ABC does not tolerate comments like those’ made by Roseanne Barr. Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn’t get the call?” Trump tweeted.
Barr said later that she wasn’t fired because of her Twitter post but because she “voted for Donald Trump, and that’s not allowed in Hollywood.”
Her character was killed off the show earlier this month by an opioid overdose.
A BBC correspondent shared on social media a video of his colleague being attacked at President Donald Trump’s rally in El Paso, Texas Monday night, laying blame with the increasingly anti-press rhetoric the president spouts at his public appearances, including at this one.
Around the time Trump told the crowd that a wall at the southern U.S. border would cut down on violent crime in the U.S., cameraman Ron Skeans was violently shoved by a Trump supporter wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. The attacker was filmed shouting, “Fuck the media!” as he stormed the press area.
Correspondent Gary O’Donoghue shared footage of the attack, saying it followed Trump’s “goading” of the crowd against journalists and others he considers opponents.
BBC producer Eleanor Montague described the crowd as having been “whipped into a frenzy” by Trump and other speakers, with the president slamming the media as “dishonest” and leading a chant of “CNN sucks!”
The rhetoric was a continuation of Trump’s repeated attacks on the press, which he has denounced as the “enemy of the people” and whose right to report on his administration he has threatened to try to revoke.
Following the attack, the crowd began chanting, “Let him go!” as the man who assaulted Skeans was restrained and led away.
On Twitter, BBC Americas bureau chief Paul Danahar condemned the attack on Skeans, warning that the aggressive shoving of a cameraman could be a preview of far more dangerous assaults at Trump rallies if the president doesn’t loudly and unequivocally denounce the violence.
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President Donald Trump on Friday told reporters in the White House there’s a “good chance” he will end up declaring a national emergency as a way to make an end run around Congressional funding authority even though legal experts have warned such an attempt would be constitutionally dubious.
“I think there’s a good chance we’ll have to do that,” said of the emergency declaration. Regarding ongoing negotiations in Congress to avoid another costly government shutdown, with a deadline in two weeks, Trump said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “should be ashamed” for refusing to give the Republicans the funding for the wall he has demanded.
Trump additionally claimed that many Democrats agree with him on the need for a wall and are “dying” to say so, but just “can’t say it” out loud because of fear.
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Trump, without citing the evidence, added that he was “already building the wall,” but that he could do it a lot faster if Congress would either approve the funds or after the national emergency was declared. As Bloomberg reports:
When Trump first threaten to declare a national emergency as a way to get the wall last month, Common Dreams reported on legal scholars who warned that “the American constitution does not contemplate such presidential unilateralism.”
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