- President Trump issued the first veto of his administration Friday, blocking a congressional resolution that rejected his national emergency declaration. The move came a day after twelve Republicans joined every Senate Democrat to send the resolution to his desk. “Congress has the freedom to pass this resolution and I have the duty to veto it,” Trump said at an Oval Office ceremony.
- Speaker Pelosi announced the House would vote to overturn the President’s veto on March 26. “House Republicans will have to choose between their partisan hypocrisy and their sacred oath to support and defend the Constitution,” Pelosi said in a statement. The vote will almost certainly fall short of the two-thirds margin needed, however, Democrats will be allowed to force Republicans to vote again in six months.
- Meanwhile, the protracted series of legal fights and constitutional challenges goes on. Five lawsuits involving sixteen states, the ACLU, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, the County of El Paso, Texas, and three landowners along the border have been filed, in courts from California to DC. The first hearings begin on May 21.
- Meanwhile, more than 76,000 migrants were apprehended crossing the southern border last month, the highest February in more than 10 years and the highest month of the Trump administration.
- One Republican Senator who voted with the President yesterday was freshman Cory Gardner, helped in no small part five years ago, in his race against incumbent “Mark Uterus,” by The Denver Post. The editorial board put it plainly Friday morning: “Our endorsement of Cory Gardner was a mistake…Put simply this is a constitutional crisis and one of Colorado’s two senators has failed the test.”
- Three Republican Attorneys General strongly defended the President Friday morning. “In declaring a state of emergency,” wrote Ken Paxton of Texas, Curtis Hill of Indiana, and Jeff Landry of Louisiana, “President Trump is using pre-existing statutory authority to address a legitimate crisis created by lawless conduct at and beyond our southern border.”
“VETO!” President Trump Rejects Congressional Emergency Resolution
